Gabby Really Ventures South. Really. (TO TAIWAN)

Hey there!
Here is your promised continuation from my last post. When I really get to the southern sunshine and warmth.

But first! You need to know what day it is.
No, not what day of the week (It's Tuesday if you're curious) but what day is it on the great Gabby in Korea counter clock. Today is DAY 200!! It's been 200 days since I landed in Seoul and began my adventures last summer. Wow. Let's celebrate.

Great.

Now that that's over and done with...

Back to me! In an airport! Travelling from Shanghai to Taiwan! Woohoo!

Oh. Sorry. One more thing.
Guess what I got for Christmas from my host family?

It's a selca pole! 셀카봉!

I actually don't really know how to use these... So I experimented a bit in the hotel:

Okay~ now let's leave the hotel and get back to the travels!
Finally!

I arrived in Taipei and took the really awesome high speed rail to Tainan. It was pretty straightforward. I did arrive at a different airport than I thought I would, and so I had to figure out how to take the subway to the main Taipei station to get the high speed rail train, but, hey! I've made it through Boston, New York, Tokyo, Seoul, and Busan subways, and they are all basically the same... so Taipei was no sweat.

I arrived at Tainan station to these befuddling signs...

What does it mean? I wondered. Is this where really cheap taxi drivers pull up, you give them a kiss and then you're free to go wherever you need?

I did have a while before my friend, Brenda would arrive (lots of traffic) so I walked around the station a bit. There wasn't much to see. A convenience store, a burger place, and a coffee shop with questionable messages.

Outside were trees and lotus plants and, most importantly, THE SUN. Oh that sun felt so good.
That was the first time I felt the wonderful warmth from the sun in months. I stood still for a while just soaking it in and feeling great. It got cloudy shortly after that, much to my dismay, but I still stayed outside for the next hour or so, taking about a hundred photos of dead lotus plants (and the occasional survivor).

Since I really only had a half a day of travel, I wasn't too exhausted, so when Brenda and I were reunited we quickly set to the most important task to accomplish during my less than 5 days in Taiwan: EAT ALL THE FOOOOOOOOD.

We went to a night market that evening and ate so many yummy things I didn't even take photos of them. Here are some Google images of the market and what I ate to make your mouth water:

 These oyster pancakes were delicious!

Bubble tea essentials

Can't forget scalp cakes (sorrry, "scallion pancakes")

The market also had tons of different games and prizes like the county fair in Hillsboro... but we were too busy eating. Ain't nobody got time for dat.

The next day we went on an adventure to monkey mountain. A mountain with monkeys, surprise.

Before we arrived, everyone was telling me how crazy and dangerous the monkeys are. They flood out and crowd around you and steal all your stuff. They come in the hundreds. There is no escape. 

It made me slightly apprehensive but in no way deterred me from this hike. It's a mountain! A hike! I love hikes and nature and trees, and if some monkeys are there, great! More friends for me.

We set off, following monkey signs, talked to one man who looked like he just ran up and down the mountain but he said there weren't many monkeys out today. We still started our hike with hopeful hearts and minds full of monkeys. 

And... there were no monkeys. For a good while. It was a nice hike. And there was tons of monkey poop everywhere. (Brenda's mom kept shouting, "POO!" every time we came across some)

Then we saw one! She was just kinda hanging out on the side of the trail. We were just excited to finally find one and took a bunch of photos.

Yaaay monkey

We continued our little hike (it was really short, just over a half an hour up) dodging monkey excrement and stopping every time we heard a rustle in the bushes, hoping to see another. We did come across a couple more hanging out in trees overhanging the pathway and calling out to each other (which we OF COURSE mimicked ourselves to try and communicate with them). 

We reached the top and had a nice view of the nearby city. Took some photos. Lovely lovely lovely.

On the way back down we came across a bunch of them. They were all laying about wherever there was sun, and we we went to hang out with them, they were totally fine, as long as we didn't block their sunshine. They were grooming, lazing, and two of them even got busy for less than a minute. Many photos were taken. It was wonderful. 

We made our decent. And that was the epic day on monkey mountain. 

Applause.

Thunderous applause

That night we ate a feast of shrimp. Seriously all the shrimp. I have never been so happy or so full of shrimp.

Do you see those little yellowish cubes? Those are shrimp cakes, my friend. Those are the most wonderful, warm, soft, yummy food ever.

The next day we went fishing and in the afternoon when there was more wind we went sailing! I have always wanted to go sailing. I was fascinated with the "Pirates of the Caribbean" films, and adventure novels as a kid, and to this day dream of sailing around the world on a tall ship. Our ship was not a tall ship. It was a boat. A keel boat to be exact or keeler if I've any Kiwis reading. It is designed to keel over very far and is thus VERY fun to sail. Here are some more google images for you because I did not want to risk my phone being lost in the ocean to take photos.

Our morning of fishing was completely fruitless. In fact I lost some food instead of gaining any. Yes, I am shamed to admit that the hours of sitting still and rocking in the ocean made me sea sick for the first time in my life. It was not very pleasant, but neither was it as terrible as it seems in movies and stories of people heaving over the edge of the ship. I merely felt nauseous a bit and did my business. 끝.

After that I thought to myself, "there's a first time for everything". Though I hope to not have that experience too often in the future.

We had more oyster pancakes and then sailed that afternoon with 10-14 knot winds and no more sea sickness.

This photo is stolen from Brenda's Instragram. It is not from the day we went sailing. But it is the same people on the same boat. And I don't have other pictures so DEAL WITH IT.

To speed things along (sorry this post is quite a bit longer than I usually keep things, but let's soldier on shall we?) let's go to my final (full) day in Taiwan.

Brenda's family and I went back up to the northern end of the island for New Year's Eve. We ate some very delicious soup dumplings at a famous restaurant (so famous we had to wait an hour and a half to get in). Then we went to the big Taipei 101 building party for the main event.

Complete with necessary Taiwanese flag tattoo 

There was a big concert of Taiwanese pop stars for the four or so hours leading up to midnight, then the fireworks show. I have seen lots of fireworks from Disney to Boston, usually very long and very entertaining. The Taipei 101 fireworks show was only a few minutes long. But it was amazing. 

Here is a small taste for you all. 

I really wish I could share more with you. It was the best fireworks I've seen in a while, particularly because it was so DIFFERENT from most fireworks shows. 

The next day, the first day of 2015 I went back to the airport and flew to Guangzhou, China, where I had another overnight layover (I'm all about the cheap flights). The awesome thing about Guangzhou is that THEY GIVE YOU A FREE HOTEL. Check out this happy girl:

More selca pole practice~

Whew! We made it!

Thanks for reading~ next we will move further south to Thailand! Stay tuned!

Wahoo~

Gabby Ventures South

HELLOOOOOOOOO
HELLOOOOOOO
HELLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I have returned! I am back! It's the return of the Gabby!
It's Day 196 and it's the year 2015! Happy New Year~

Since I've last written, I've said goodbye to my fourth graders, traveled to four different countries (and lived to tell the tale), and as of today, finished a week long English camp (that sucked the life out of me but was super fun).

Now I finally have time to share some stories and SWEETIE, HAVE I GOT SOME FOR YA.
I have pages, no, chapters of writing that I thought out very thoroughly while I was travelling, and I really wish I could just upload my brain and PPPPHHFFSHGRAP! Dump all my stories here at once~ The most recent adventures are itching to come out, but I should start from where we left off so neither of us get lost here.

The final weeks of the school year were both easy and difficult at the same time. Yup, December was the end of the school year for us. Korean school year begins in February/March, so the next time I see my munchkins they will be a grade higher in elementary school.
I kept a point system to reward the best behaved class with a party at the end of the year. So our final class was a party and since we finished our textbook early, we had an extra day to watch "Jumanji", a movie I could watch a thousand more times, so seven times repeatedly was no biggie. Though my eyes were hurting from hours of computer screen staring. Yay migraines.

The kids loved this part.

I also made a shocking discovery that child Gabby never did know: IN JUMANJI THE HUNTER AND ALAN PARRISH'S DAD ARE THE SAME DUDE!!!!

Mind. Blown.

Anyways, I just have few more things to say about the end of the school year.

I was pretty composed for the most part as I said my goodbyes. I am an emotional fool who cries very often and not subtly, though I might try to seem like I'm not the type (I'm very good at containing emotion until one moment when it explodes.. like when I left my Japanese host family I was totally convincing as a cool, unfeeling young adult until the moment I left my family for good at airport security and I started sobbing uncontrollably... ahem). This time I convinced myself it's not really goodbye with the 3rd graders because I will still teach them as fourth graders. And even if I don't have the fourth graders in class anymore, I'll still see them around school. No biggie. I'm cool. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm cool. ... Until one of the special needs assistant teachers told me that this one angel-of-a-child is moving and won't be in Hwacheon this spring. This little boy is the sweetest, most diligent, adorable 3rd grader (now 4th) who made me smile just seeing him. The instant the teacher told me this I started tearing up, much to her surprise and discomfort.

Oh. Don't mind me, I'm fine.

There are a few things also that, dare I say, make me proud. One fourth-grade class solemnly asked if Sunny teacher and I could teach them as fifth graders next year. Another fourth-grade class, that Sunny originally warned me of back in August as the "problem class", ended up winning the best behavior competition and got a pizza party. One boy in particular from that class, he told Sunny that he used to hate English, but now (after this semester of personal success and fun) he wants to become an English teacher when he grows up. Maybe I'm not a terrible teacher after all.

Bring on next semester!

Now we better get on with it. To the good part. The part where I leave the freezing lands of Hwacheon for a warmer, mosquito-ridden atmosphere. As you may be wondering from the title of this very post, shouldn't I be gettin' on with the Southern travels?

Well, yes, I should.


I left Korea on the Saturday after Christmas and spent the night at a layover hotel in Shanghai. It was a nice hotel but I remember being really angry about something. So much has happened since then I don't remember what exactly that was... something to do with exchanging money and paying for the hotel I think. And no chocolate on my pillow.

Ah, yes. Such a terrible struggle, Gabby. You must be so tormented by all that. 

A toast for Gabby's misfortunes.

The next day I got up bright and early for my flight to Taiwan~


Yup.







And so kids, tune in next time for Gabby Really Ventures South. Really. This one won't be misleading and full of lies like that last blog. Full of lies we are, yes, Precioussssss

Buh-bye!

Gaberonie