Guess what!
I had a birthday.
[:
It was pretty exciting,
mainly because I got to spend it
partying with some of my favorite people -
my students!
See,
we (ok I...) even put it on the class calendar...
And we made Dr. Seuss hats...
After my morning class
my wonderful roommate Rayne sent me on a birthday treasure hunt!
And my other wonderful roommate Kendra took me to lunch at A-Bao,
and gave me this dog lounging on a pillow...
Ok, not really about the dog,
but really about the lunch!
And then I had another Dr. Seuss party with my older class...
And immediately after that,
I joined a party for my student from last semester, Jason,
who's birthday was the day after mine.
And after that,
I spent a long while making cheesecake cupcakes for my apartment-mates.
As if all of that weren't good enough,
as soon as Kendra got out of class,
we hightailed it up to Taipei!
The first thing we did was eat dinner
at this awesome place called
NY Bagels.
It was food from home!
For the rest of our Friday night all we did was
walk around
trying to find our hostel.
We made it, finally, thank goodness!
The next morning,
we set out for untold adventures
that I will now tell to you!
But only after a hearty 7-11 breakfast...
First there was Baisha Bay...
There were what I'm sure was hundreds of dead puffer fish...
It was a bit tragical, really...
We decided to try to walk to our next stop,
A "nearby" lighthouse,
because we could see it from a lookout along the Bay.
It turned out to be farther than we thought,
so we stopped at this bus station,
where there was what looked like giant cigarettes in with the incense.
And then we found out that we were closer than we thought,
because when we got on the bus,
the driver tried to tell us where to walk.
Of course, we couldn't understand and so we didn't get off.
So, he proceeded to drive us to the very next bus stop
where he then kicked us off,
pointed us in the right direction
AND didn't make us pay.
What a nice bus driver.
This is the northernmost point in Taiwan!
What is really cool about this
is that on the weekend just before this,
we were in Kenting,
or very close to the southernmost point of Taiwan.
We made it a point to make it here,
just for those bragging rights.
From the bottom to the top in one week!
There was dirt!
This might have been the first time
I'd seen actually dirt,
let alone mud,
in Taiwan.
What a perfect birthday present.
Apparently we were in the seafood capitol,
because this was only the first of many shops like this
where the food they are going to feed you
is swimming out front
basically right until you eat it.
 |
| A tree growing through the roof of a house... with an umbrella --> |
These were at the end of The Birthday Treasure Hunt.
And they were SO yummy.
A perfect bus stop snack.
Just notice the "No Scribbling"
This is the home of YehLiu,
site of the Queen's Head.
Unfortunately,
this is as close as we actually got to the Queen's Head,
because by the time we found the entrance,
it was closed for the day.
We were late by about... 15 minutes.
But look!
We still got a picture with it!
A hearty dinner from 7-11...
It may be a bit hard to tell from these pictures,
but it drizzled and rained all day long,
so by the time we made it home we were pretty wet and cold.
Luckily for us,
we stopped at a grocery store that had hot chocolate,
and that delicious concoction helped immensely
with the whole warming up process.
Waiting for the bus home...
we were pretty much pooped...
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| Our bus tickets were pink! They're usually blue. I felt special. |
It was a marvelous way to celebrate
my twenty-first year.
The past year of my life has been pretty much
unbelievable
as far as remarkable happenings go...
So here's hoping that year 2 of my own Roaring Twenties will measure up!
