"Just Chill"

The other day, in the MRT on the way to Zuoying to catch the HSR to Taipei, I looked up at one of the ubiquitous flat-screened TVs to find one of AIT's English language lessons. (We had been invited to take part of these short snippets of American lingo back in August, but we couldn't because of our orientation schedule.) The word of the day was "chill," and the clip featured two women talking about how much they wanted to "just chill" on a beach somewhere.

I bring this up now for two reasons. First, because what I did today was largely just chill. I Skyped with my mom, ate a chocolate waffle (yes, that IS worth mentioning--delicious), watched An Affair to Remember, which after a days-long search I finally found (on iTunes), and had a fantastic dinner with friends.

This last one was undoubtedly the highlight; Brittany and Rachel cooked up a fabulous meal with two varieties of chicken (barbeque and fried), two varieties  of macaroni and cheese (pepper jack and regular), scrumptious pasta salad, yummy cabbage, and delicious salmon. Chialing, Fonda, Samia, Emily, and Lydia all came, and provided us with dessert and drinks--homemade cookies, sesame treats, oranges, two types of tea, and Coke.

It was great; very fun and relaxing to sit around, eat and chat with friends. I always seem to exhaust my supply of positive adjectives in posts these days, but still, it was a great night of "just chilling."

And then I started Skyping with Karina, and the second variety of "chilling"--that involving relaxing on a beach--came to my mind. We're making plans for Chinese New Year break (we're thinking Thailand and possibly somewhere else like India), and as I plotted out my allotted out-of-country days (Fulbright allows us 14 over the course of the year; I burned through 3 on my trip home for Alex's wedding), I just had to start searching the places I'm thinking of going.

So I started looking into Japan. I've always wanted to go there, and have settled on Kyoto as my short-trip destination--and, as I simply can't avoid the cliche, I'm going to try to aim it so I hit cherry blossom season during the week after school starts up, so as to hopefully avoid some of the crowds without sacrificing the view.

You know, THIS view.

As an added bonus, Kyoto holds Gion, the famous geisha district upon which the book/film "Memoirs of a Geisha"--which happens to be one of my favorites--was based. I'm getting more than a little excited at the prospect of exploring Kyoto.

And there's nothing like researching a trip that won't happen until April to make you realize all the glorious possibilities available to discover things about closer trips--to Thailand, for instance. I will definitely be going to Chiang Mai in the north, where my wonderful friends Melanie and Marissa live, but I'm also thinking we should hit the beaches while we're there...but there's so many to choose from! There's Krabi, which looks gorgeous and more remote, and has rock climbing, or Khao Lak with its scuba, or maybe Phi Phi or Koh Chang or Hua Hin...who knows. I'll need to do more research, and see which, if any, of these places will be recovered from the terrible flooding that struck Thailand not long ago. I pray they have a fast recovery and that tourists are not scared off, so that the people in these regions at least don't have to suffer the double-whammy of physical and economical devastation. I'll be glad to contribute, in any case!

No matter where we end up, all this research has me dreaming of just chilling on a beach somewhere...and fulfill the AIT actors' fantasies as well as my own.