At this very moment, there is classical music playing over the speakers in the dorms. Not sure why, as that's never happened before. Students have confused looks on their faces. It reminds me of the scene in Shawnshank Redemption. Maybe someone sneaked into the supervisor's office to put the music on and liven this place up, and is being taken to solitary confinement as a punishment as I'm typing this. Other than the standard and obligatory stuff, we were planning to go see a baseball game on Tuesday with my friend Nick, but the game was cancelled due to one of the teams sweeping the series early. I started mapping out the apartment rental options. January 7th received a whole new meaning. I bought a guitar and immediately realized that it's pretty difficult to play it. However, my room is so small that I can't get it out of my sight - which will keep me from giving up learning. I just hope my practicing won't cause the next international dispute. I can imagine an online discussion about the cacophony coming out of the foreigner's room springing up soon. I quit the billiard club and started going to judo twice a week instead. The club was rather strange, there was hardly any teaching and we were asked to "practice" for the whole 2 hours - meaning: just chase the balls around the table, with no rules in place. The Taiwanese also strongly objected the idea of actually playing.
I went to Wulai on Monday. Wulai is a small town about 40 minutes outside Taipei. It is a popular destination on the weekends, but dead the rest of the week. It is notable for great scenery, a waterfall with a cable car directly above, hot springs, aboriginal population (The indigenous population of Taiwan is related to Malay and Polynesians, and settled the island about 4000 years ago. The Han Chinese people from Chinese mainland are said to start coming to Taiwan and settling down from 13th century. At this time, about 2% of the population of Taiwan are aborigines). In the case of Wulai, the "aboriginality" is used mainly as tourist attraction, with shopkeepers wearing the traditional costumes, an occasional dance performance, and related statues and design all over the town. Naturally, Wulai also has a shopping lane.
Pictures follow:
Wulai town
Waterfall
Scenery
Public hot springs (the little pool people are sitting in; it really is hot)
Making a good use of the aboriginal tradition
How to increase the taxi business? The Falls Area is 1.6 Km away. But if the 1. mysteriously disappears, it appears to be 6 km. That's pretty far to walk, isn't it. Fortunately, there are 5 taxis standing around this sign.
The shopping lane is surprisingly empty on a Monday afternoon..
How awesome would it be to put that old man statue in my dorm room? Of course there would be no more space to live, but I'm sure my roommate wouldn't mind.
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