Kaohsiung and Kenting Beach!

The trip to Kenting Beach couldn't come soon enough! I only had classes Monday-Wednesday, so my week was pretty easy. Thursday morning started the weekend trip to Kaohsiung and Kenting Beach and prior to that, I was actually invited to an English Department meeting.

Tuesday, November 1st 

They tried telling me I didn't have to go again but I was like...no I'll be there. Wenli and I had attended a workshop a few weeks earlier where an experienced efl teacher and his co-teacher used zero Chinese during the whole class! Shortly after, Wenli and I discussed that we should encourage our teachers to use less Chinese and I told her that I have several classes where the students don't even acknowledge me and go straight to the Chinese teacher for help. Most of them won't listen to my directions because they know the Co teacher will translate right after. I want to tell the teachers to use more English because that would be setting a good example for the students. On a side note, the thing that really put me over the edge one week was when the older Co teacher (the one who speaks a ton of Chinese) literally took over my class. We didn't use my worksheets or notes, and she went with some idea and ran with it. I stood in the corner silent while she spoke Chinese for 85% of the class period. Wenli was aware of this incident because I had told her, so she told me to stress the no Chinese thing at the meeting. She wanted me to confront the teacher because she said that her and this lady have a history and she doesn't want to start up anymore fights between them. It would be best if I told her myself (which I agree with, but wasn't excited about)

Wenli was unable to come to the meeting, which made me kind of nervous. She's not the head of the department, but somehow she's higher up than the other teachers and it would help to have her support. The meeting was good and bad. Started good, ended bad. I can't help but blame a lot of issues with the program on the fact that the teachers do not work collaboratively together. Everyone's in it for themselves and trying to be this independent teacher with their decisions and suggestions for me, but I learned the hard way that none of them were aware of each others decisions and suggestions for me. No one's on the same page..(actually, some of them don't even knows each others name..there's only 10 of us..) Nothing was much different when it came to the meeting. You can just sense that none of them are friends or that there's some sort of tension in the room... No one smiles at each other when they walk in. They started out with my concerns and asked me how the translation is, is there too much translation, and how the management is. I told them about the workshop and how they didn't use ANY Chinese and the class ran smooth. I also said this would be a little extreme and unrealistic for our students because that teacher and his co-teacher built their relationship over 6 years of teaching together, but I do think the kids use their Chinese as a crutch and they depend on the co-teacher for too much of the actual instruction. I also told them that I think THEY should speak more English in the class. If the students see and hear their Chinese teacher try and use English, that would be more encouraging then just hearing me all of the time. Repeat my directions in English and then use Chinese as a last resort type of thing. Anita-the head of the department who's English isn't very good- agrees with my suggestions. I then brought up the issue with the magazines..again..Everyone is always agreeing with the difficulty and the high level of the magazines, but for some reason they don't just get rid of them. I know it's probably because it's a waste of money but lately, I've started to hear the moans and groans when I ask the students to take out their magazine..(like its a math book or something.) I asked for their suggestions and opinions. Miranda says- I think you're doing a great job with what you have, this magazine is very difficult, I didn't learn some of these words until I was in senior high and college. I think you should continue to do your own material. Beryl says- I like how you connect the magazine with something that they can use and can say. During the Green Lantern unit, you did a lesson about movies and I thought that was creative. Sabrina and Miranda say- If you need ideas for lessons, the 8th graders are able to create their own dialogue and conversations and can present those. They may act like they can't, but they do know how to, so challenge them to do that. THEN, old strict Chinese speaking teacher (whose name I STILL don't know, and no one knows) chimes in and says- I think that when you stand up front and teach the vocabulary words, it can be quite boring for the students. Sometimes they are bored in your class, maybe don't explain every vocabulary word...a lot of the teachers were in shock, Anita-the head of the department- right away disagreed and said that her students find my teaching very entertaining and she thinks it's important to explain the vocabulary before you read it in the text so they can associate the word to the reading. Sylvie said that she looks forward to coming to my classes because she thinks they are funny and the students enjoy my lessons. Miranda also agreed that this vocabulary is tough and they need explanation and in no way does she find my teaching boring..but at this point I'm already shocked to the point where I get choked up about what the one lady said. It's like that phrase, it takes 10 compliments to take away 1 insult or something like that.. MY teachings boring?? Your students perform like robots every week and give the same answers and if you took over every week and had it your way, they wouldn't move from their seats or talk out of turn for an entire 45 minutes. I was livid. I could see in the other teacher's faces that they thought her comment was unnecessary but I think they wanted my portion of the meeting to end and get me out of there. They told me to enjoy my weekend in Kenting and told me its beautiful yadda yadda whatever,  I scurried out of there as fast as I could, jumped on my scooter, cried a little, rode to the juice stand, and got a papaya milk...what I really wanted was to go to a local bar get a giant blue moon, but that's just not possible because it's the middle of the work day ..and blue moon doesn't exist in Taiwan. That was the first time I ever wanted to call someone the B word here. If Wenli was there, she'd probably crack some skulls. She asked about the meeting later on in the day and I told her what happened and she was shocked. She was like "SHE called YOU boring?? But but but..She's boring!!" and she got a little flustered and then told me that she can't say much about that teacher because they already have their own issues but she wanted me to know that the faculty and students are lucky to have me because I bring new ideas to the school and the students are excited to come to my class and she hopes that I don't let what this teacher said, get to me.

Wednesday, November 3rd

English club went fine. The first period we did an ABC scavenger hunt where they got to walk around the school and find things that begin with each letter. Beryl mentioned that Chiao told her that we should try doing some popular English games or activities that students or kids play in America and I was like..omg, great idea, lets do that next period! (honestly, I didn't really have a plan prior to that..) So we played musical chairs and heads up 7 up..yep..that was English club. Scavenger hunt and childish games..the students liked it though so I'm fine with it!

That night, I stayed up late packing for the trip. I didn't want to look like that girl with an excessive amount of bags for a 3 day trip..so I tried to stick to one smaller suitcase and one carry on. I crammed a ton of shit in there. I knew it'd be hot and there'd be some walking, possibly no time for the beach, so I just packed casual and cute clothes. I had all of my chargers packed and my neck pillow ready to go (finally I'd get some use out of that thing) and sureee enough, I decided last minute to put something into my suitcase and left my neck pillow behind. Wenli was at my door bright and early to take me to the school where everyone was meeting. When we got to the school, we were given a little informational book for the weekend and a big purple name tag that we were to wear at all times (Crampin my style.) The informational book had info on where we'd be sleeping, who we had to sit with for each meal, who our roommate was, and what to PACK for the trip..this all would've been great information had it been given prior to the trip... There were two big buses and I was on a bus with Jeff, Caron, Joe, James, Dylan, and Ian and then a newer girl, Tina, from Arizona, and Parker, who did two of the workshops I've been to. We also had all of their co-teachers on board. Shija, Lien, and Jim, and some of the other Dewey teachers, were put on the other bus with their co-teachers.

Wenli and I sat up at the front of the bus. Normally this would be fine for me, but the entire trip, we were assigned a chaperone (literally a chaperone to watch our every move) and she also acted as a tour guide with a microphone on our long rides into each town and her seat was right next to ours. SO every time our tour guide, Corey, asked some meaningless question like, "Why do you tink tat Kaohsiung is called Kaohsiung..anyone? anyone? what is the famous dish in Kaohsiung..anyone? anyone?" and no one would answer because they were all busy talking to each other, but since me and Wenli were right smack dab in front, we couldn't avoid the question. It was like we had an automatic raised hand without raising our hand. I was like..um..ya I'm not sure, I've only lived in Taiwan for 3 months..nope..still don't know any answers..hmm ya I don't know what country conquered that part of Taiwan..there were even times where I'd have my headphones in and she would still ask questions and stare at me, and even though I could slightly hear Corey, I played it off as I was dozing off and couldn't hear her. She meant well, she was very nice, I just wanted this trip to be the furthest thing from work as possible. The bus trip to Kaohsiung was 4 hours. We stopped twice on the way there and we also got to watch an English movie on the way there..King Kong..the new one..The movie was absolutely ridiculous..almost as bad as fictional giant animal movie could be.. Joe on the other hand..he loved it.. That man just loves life..the way he talks reminds me of my Uncle Jim or cousin Shane. Some stupid thing would happen in the movie like Naomi Watts silently gazing into a giant gorilla's eyes, insinuating she's falling in love with the thing, and before I could even squeak a chuckle out about how dumb this movie is, Joe would pop his head up in the seat behind me and be like "Diane...man..how cool is this movie..it's just awesome man.." I couldn't burst his bubble, so I played along for the entire movie which was a total of 3 and half hours..a 3 and a half hour movie about a giant gorilla, dinosaurs, giant spiders and centipedes, and then a tribe of aboriginal cannibals with red and white eyes attacking everyone in the forest..but Joe loveddd it. Every 30 minutes, "This is just the coolest..aint it Diane? I wonder how they shot this scene.." ..What is he seeing that I'm not..I can't help but think, "what is he on..I want that.."

Only Disc #1 of 3

First Pit Stop

Our first stop was a quick stop by some old temples and trees which was a cool little area, but Corey, our chaperone was freakingggg out about how much time we had left. She'd be like, ok 9 minutes and 15 seconds left, then everyone back on the bus, and literally 9 minutes later she was like "come on, let's go, nope no time to look over there, let's go let's go." In a matter of minutes we were back on the bus watching King Kong (disc 2 out of 3) Our next stop was to the "English Village" in Kaohsiung. We stopped in another area for lunch, and again, the structure of it was very strange. We had to sit at our assigned tables which kind sucked because Wenli had to go sit with the other Chinese teachers and she just wanted to stay with the foreign teachers. We were kind of crammed at our one table so one person tried to change to the others and the chaperones would get all flustered and nervous..they might lose their jobs if we change seats on them it seemed. The place was strange. It was family style so we were given a giant portion of some fish soup, fish balls, oyster omelet, coffin cake (which normally has organs in it, but this one had normal chicken in it) and some other sort of meat concoction ball...if it wasn't for that deep friend coffin cake with the chicken, I would've starved that day.

Shrimp soup on the left, fish ball soup on the right

Oyster Omelet..famous but gross

Coffin cake. Tasted like a market day french toast stick crossed with a chicken pot pie

We made it out to the English Village which was just a normal looking elementary school with classrooms set aside for the "English Village." I'm not sure what I was expecting..they kept talking about going to an English Village and I just pictured a town with English all over it.. and foreign teachers everywhere..and a Starbucks on every corner instead of  711's haha. I don't know..or I at least pictured something kind of like Glendale Heights' "Safety Town." We pull up and when we get out, we were greeted by an elementary school band that played some songs for us. Then we watched this group of boys do this awesome dance thing with these swinging cups. I have no idea how to explain what I'm talking about. Please refer to the photo/video below..

After them, we had to listen to a power point about the English Village and then we finally get to see and walk through the English Village, aka 10 different classrooms..the presentation was done entirely in Chinese..at the English village..all of the co-teachers are intently listening to this presentation and all of the foreigner teachers (whom this trip was planned for mind you) we're confused and bored. Wenli was also very bored..she kept saying that she wanted to sleep and I kept asking her, "what are they saying??" sometimes she was listening but most of the time she was just as bored as us. When they ended their power point in the fluorescent lit room (why are we always sitting in these damn fluorescent lit rooms? It's always sunny outside..I feel like I'm around a bunch of vampires.. can no one be exposed to natural sunlight ever?) So our chaperone was on our asses the whole time, like ok this is the post office room, ok next, this is the fast food room, ok next, this is the pet shop, next! At one point, the themed classrooms were getting crowded and hot, so Wenli and me decided to stand outside of the classroom and Corey just about had a heart attack. She's like.."where are you going, you can't leave, it's not over yet, please take your shoes off and come into the room.." I finally just said, "Corey, it's ok.. It's too hot in there, I don't want to stand in there." I stood outside by the railing and took pictures of the track field because students were playing soccer. I get the jist of the whole fake English village, it's cool, but I don't need to see all 10 rooms in detail if I don't want to.

English Village Airlines

English Village KFC

English Village Theatre- Me and Joe!

I just wanted to end this English village thing because our last stop of the day was the famous "Dream Mall." Caron, Tina, Wenli, and me were all veryyy excited about this mall and it consumed most of our thoughts on our bus ride. We only had a set amount of time there though, about an hour and a half. By the time the English village tour ended and they put us back in to the fluorescent lit room for more Chinese conversation, our set amount of time was lowered to 30 minutes at the huge mall!! please can you alter your trip a little and take us to the mall for an hour at least?? That's the one place that all the girls and even the guys wanted to stop at. For god sake, the mall has a ferris wheel on the top of it.. it will take me 30 minutes just to get up there to see it. Sure enough, we get to the beautiful mall and we separated from chaperones immediately just so we could "accidentally" get lost and score about 10 more minutes at the mall. Wenli, Shija, and I went up to the ferris wheel at the top. It was huge and you could view the sunset in Kaohsiung from there. We get on the thing and it moves at the pace of a snail, literally. It was moving so slow..and I'm like.."Wenli, when will this thing speed up?" and she's like "Hmm? Speed up? You want it to go fast?" and then me and Shija explain that in America, our ferris wheels aren't fast, but they go around in a circle at least 4 times..and she's like.."oh no then how would you enjoy the view?? This only goes around once.." So there goes our 30 minutes at the mall.

I was extremely nervous for the hotel..after the strange lunch and weird scheduling, I had very low expectations, but we pulled up to the hotel and it was beautiful! It was just built in the past few years and it was like a 4 star hotel. So Wenli and I found our room and put our stuff down and then headed down to the buffet dinner in the hotel. That was good. It was a good mix of Western and Eastern food so it was funny to see all of the foreigner teachers plates and then their co-teachers' plates. I grab cream of chicken soup, you grab pig blood soup, I grab carved ham, you grab dumplings, I grab coke, you grab nothing..because you don't drink with your meals. I was so glad they had normal food. After dinner, everyone met up in the lobby to go walk around town. The night market was a possible choice, but me and a few others wanted to go to the Love River. (You see one night market, you've seen them all.) We all planned on stopping at 711 to grab some beers for our walk. I asked Wenli if it was ok if I drank and she's like "Yes of course, I like beer, I'll get one too. I had a beer last night to relax." YESS Wenli you're awesome. We all got a beer or two and walked along the love river which was so pretty. James and his co-teacher bought a small handle of whiskey that a few of us took swigs from. As bad as this sounds, I was excited that people were actually trying to get drunk. I was on board with that! A big group of us stopped at this outdoor patio/bar next to the river and ordered more beers. Shija, Lien, James, and Jeff decided to walk around the river and come back and the rest of us stuck around the patio and drank and waited for them. Wenli's original plan was to have just one beer, but Parker convinced her to have another and bought her a big draft beer. I got to know Tina a little bit better, she's really nice. Caron and I were having a good time joking around and just talking about anything and everything. When Jeff and Shija returned from their walk, they joined our group. We all had a long day and we're tired. Jeff decided to go up to bed, Tina and Wenli followed shortly after. Even though, Me, Shija, and Caron were tired, we decided to stick around for the long haul with the other guys. Parker, Ian, Matt, Dylan, Greg, and Jim. We walked around the river and grabbed more beers at another 711. I ended up making at least 3 trips for more beers at this 711. We all told funny stories and I my stomach hurt from laughing so much. It was good to be happy and drunk. I actually was forgetting bits and pieces of the night. We finally walked back to the hotel around 1 or 2? Not sure, but a few of us stopped at McDonald's and grabbed food. That was only my 3rd time having McDonald's since I've been in Taiwan and it was amazing..I want to eat it more often and I know I shouldn't. When I came back to the hotel, Wenli was sleeping and I didn't want to wake her up..so I ate my McDonald's in the bathroom (not my proudest moment..but that was a nice bathroom..) I'm obsessed with the bed I slept in that night. Giant fluffiest mattress ever..I didn't think they existed in this country..

Parker and Wenli

Love River #1

Helps to remember new people's names!

Jim, Shija, and Parker

Wenli and Jeff

Hmm? Making a new hand symbol for the Taiwanese?

Greg's cool outfit that night!

Matt, Ian, and Dylan

Love River #2

Friday, November 4th- On our way to Kenting Beach!

 We had brunch at the same buffet the next morning which was delicious. Wenli told me that she doesn't sleep well in mattress's that soft, and I'm like..well that's because your country thinks a mattress is a piece of memory foam.. I was a little hungover but I think I was better off than some of the others. To see everyone else after that night was hilarious. Everyone was dragging. I definitely wanted to sleep on the bus ride to Kenting. The ride was about 2 hours. Wenli kept saying how much she enjoyed hanging out with all of us last night and how fun it was. I told her I'd invite her out next time we get together. Chaperone Corey put on disc 3 of King Kong..Joe was pretty excited for this. "Diane..do you think they're going to let king kong live??" I told him I hope so..but I think he dies at the end..This movie is outrageous.. Giant disgusting bugs, dinosaurs (don't ever recall those in the original) and complete chaos. (I had to close my eyes a few times, Wenli was just stone faced watching it..) and then where does our bus pull up? Next to a giant dark forest that we need to hike through for the next 2 hours..But the good news is we finally made it to Kenting. I was unaware of this hiking that was happening on the trip, and that's probably because the informational packet we were given that said we should bring gym shoes, was handed to us the morning of the trip...but good thing we had our name tags on at all times! It was a bright and hot day that day and Corey must've reminded everyone on the bus 13 times to apply sunscreen and put on your hats..you should've seen some of these co-teachers..they came prepared for that sun..they had big safari hats that covered their ears and neck, these long gloves that cover their entire arm, and they had jackets..they're nuts, it was blazing hot..Me, on the other hand, I wanted that sun beating on my skin for as long as possible. I. miss. tanning. I was wearing a sleeveless short comfy dress and I was ready for that tan or burn. I'll take what I can get. Corey was so worried about me, she said I could borrow her umbrella or sunscreen and I said, "get that stuff away from me, Corey, I'm gettin a tan today.." The hike wasn't too bad. Once you get through the tree's it's an absolutely awesome view. It was windy so that helped out with the heat too. We were at the very most southern tip of Taiwan.

last pit stop on our way to Kenting

Before the hike

After our hike, we were all sweaty and gross and exhausted, but we went straight to the next English Village in Kenting. We all met together in a room at the school and of course the coordinators were speaking Chinese, and then they said that all of the foreign teachers had to go to a different room and the co-teachers would be staying in that room listening to more presentations. Wenli did not want to stay with the co-teachers, she wanted to come along with us. She said their presentations are too boring, so we brought Wenli along. She blends in just fine. There's two other foreigner teachers that are Asian so who says that Wenli isn't one..Everyone was happy to have her join our group. I was too, I get along real well with her. She's very funny. (She invited me to go to the SHINee concert with her on November 20th because she's like a superfan...they're front row seats and there's going to be 3 boy bands and 1 girl band. I'm super excited for this.) The room we went to was this school's "English village" and I kind of liked this set up better...or maybe I just liked the people there better. They actually had their foreigner teachers talk to us unlike the last school. Two guys, one from New York and one from California. Very nice, and we just had a group discussion about our concerns with teaching and what not. The room was almost like a big day care center with each of it's stations rather than the previous school which had different rooms. It was a very laid back, all English, conversation...and Wenli didn't get caught for being at the wrong presentation. It went well.

We headed over to our next hotel after the English Village. This one was right by a beach. The quality of the hotel was no where near as nice as last nights, but it was still clean and 1,000 times better than the place they put me in the first night in Taiwan...I like to compare things to that horrible hotel before I complain about where I'm staying. The chaperones wanted to get us back to the hotel, drop off our stuff, and then come back downstairs and get back on the bus to go to dinner at a very "famous" seafood place. More seafood..we just had seafood for lunch and for yesterday's lunch. When we pulled up to the hotel, Parker asked the chaperone if we could please get an extra half hour or hour until dinner so we can watch the sunset and walk on the beach (because we wouldn't be able to tomorrow) but of course this would throw off the entire trip..meeting at 6:30 instead of 5:30 ahhhhhhh. Corey's first reaction was, "no I'm sorry, I have to follow my supervisor's directions, 5:30 we need to meet." But Parker did some good convincing, he should be a lawyer. He was hopping from bus to bus talking to chaperones and supervisors and getting people on the bus to raise their hand and vote like we were little kids, but it worked. He successfully changed the schedule. He didn't even give the supervisors a chance to argue it, he was like "this is what we are going to do..we all are going down to the beach for an hour to watch the sunset, then we will meet for dinner." It also helps that he speaks pretty good Chinese (he's married to a Taiwanese woman) Parker is like a twin to my cousin Shane. They look identical, it's crazy. If he had Joe's personality I'd be convinced that Shane is on this trip with me..

So some people chose to go down to the beach with their free time, take a "rest," or walk around the hotel. Shija, Caron, Wenli, and I walked around the mall and looks at the mall shops. Caron got a real cute purse, I kind of wanted the mustard yellow one..surprisingly, I've only purchased one purse in Taiwan. We walked down to the beach and it was very pretty but I got bit up so bad! These mosquitoes are invisible. One bit my arm and my whole forearm swelled up.  We met up for dinner and got on our designated buses and went off to the "famous" seafood place and it was another buffet style meal. I was actually happy that it was all seafood like they made it out to be. The buffet had some random things like potato salad and what not. It was fine! After dinner the bus was going to drop us off at the night market that is down the street from our hotel . I guess Kenting beach is known for its night market because it's kind of crazy and has drag queens on the street dancing and has pubs with drag shows haha. So Wenli, Shija, and Jim pretty much stuck together for the night.The night market was cool. It didn't seem as crowded as the other ones I've been to because the road wasn't small. So everyone could fit and cars could actually drive down the street. Jim bought us all gelato which was good. After looking through all the shops, we decided to finally stop at one of the pubs. There was about 3 with drag queens outside trying to get us to come in and dancing on some platform outside of the bar, so WE decided to go to a bar that didn't have drag queens for Wenli and Jim's sake..(they're older and would be uncomfortable..) But this "normal" pub was the most raunchy establishment I've ever been too..and I've never been to a strip club..(well actually yes I have, for Courtney's bachelorette party, but we were too drunk to remember what it was like) but this was a close contender to what a strip club would be like. We assumed it was karaoke night because some dj was talking and invited some boy up to the stage, but that boy was not about to sing at all!! This young young boy (seriously maybe in high school or barely college) was put on stage by his group of guy friends, and this girl (stripper girl) starts taking off his clothes in front of everyone! Wenli and Jim were mortified..next thing you know, the boy is completely naked but he has a heneiken box covering his midsection and I'm not even going to say some of the other stuff..Shija and I were laughing at first but then it got to the point where it was very uncomfortable. Wenli had her face buried in her hands so she wouldn't even look at what was happening, and Jim was completely turned around so he was just facing the wall haha. After this boy was publicly humiliated, the girl on stage made him make out with some random girl in the audience and in the end, he one a free Minnesota basketball jersey..we finally decided to sit outside in the front of the place (which we probably could've done about 20 minutes earlier now that I think about it.) After the night market, Wenli went back to the hotel, Jim, Shija, and I went by the beach were they had a bar that overlooked the ocean. That was cool. I had some stellas. Mmm.

I got in trouble for taking pictures

Good thing he won that sweet jersey..

Escaped out front

Beach at Night

Saturday, November 5th

Breakfast buffet at the hotel was pretty good. They had a little pancake station but they don't have maple syrup in Taiwan. They either have honey, chocolate, or some other sweet sauce to go with. It's just not the same with out syrup! Wenli said that today's walk would be much easier than yesterdays so I decided to wear a maxi dress and flip flops. Once again, we were misinformed because this was a legit hike up a mountain. The previous day's was just a walk through a forest and to the coast. I was a bit miserable but there's nothing you can do. You can't back out of anything, numerous people have tried by this point. Parker and Dylan tried leaving the night before, Greg left the night before because he had a wedding, Joe wanted to sit out of the hike because he was sick, Tina was going to stay on the bus instead of the hike. It caused way too much confusion for the chaperones so everyone had to come to everything. Corey was flipping out about everything as usual, we were walking onto the bus to slow, getting off too slow, going to the bathroom to slow, looking at things for too long. So I got annoyed again but I found out that if her group is late to anything or someone is missing from the group, her pay gets docked for the whole day! Crazy. I couldn't stand Corey at first because of her annoying rules and pushiness, but after I learned that I decided to talk to her and see if I could get her to chill out a little. She ended up being pretty cool and she mentioned on the bus that she is a big "foodie" and loves to try restaurants all over Taiwan so I told her I'm a kind of a "foodie" too and she was so excited and said she wants to show me good restaurants.We had to fill out a survey about the trip and do a little write up before our hike, so I told Corey that I put nice things down for her and gave her a good review and she was like "Oh thank you thank you Diana, you know what, I like you, you are very kind."

The hike was difficult. Jagged rocks, narrow pathways, caves, and steep hills. All that good stuff. Me and Caron were not dressed properly for this hike because we didn't expect it. Right away we saw a sign that said to watch overhead for monkeys because sometimes you can hear and see them. Caron, Jeff, Shija, Ian, and I all decided to fall behind from the group for a bit (sorry Corey) and try and see some monkeys! We started to hear a few and then looked up into the trees for any movement. We finally saw one, and then two, and then one two three walk across this big branch in the air! It was awesome!! I've never seen monkeys outside of a zoo. I think they were about the size of Charlie. After the super long and hard hike, we finally made it to this real pretty spot where you could view the ocean and then after that we were done!

1 of the many butterflies, hard to photograph, they're fast!

Chaperones in orange..keeping us in line!

My hiking outfit for the day..great choice Diana..

Look up and see monkeys, or rocks falling on your head..

MONKEY!! :)

Yayy we did it!!

What we get for finishing the hike

After our morning, we had lunch at once again, a "famous" seafood restaurant..so many "famous" places out here..We had a long ride back to Taichung, about 5 and half-6 hours. Corey let me pick out the next movie..thank god! There wasn't much of a selection, so I chose "She's the Man.." I always got a few laughs out of that movie..it's the soccer movie where Amanda Beins dresses as a boy..pretty cheesy movie but Wenli loved it haha. Overall, it was a good trip to Kenting Beach. Not much of a "workshop" but we were around good company and I think everyone had a great time! (Not bad for a free trip and two days off of work)