Back "home" and Internet-less

So here's the thing: my apartment no longer has Internet. As I write this, I'm sitting in Brunch across the street, one eye on my battery meter as it drops closer and closer to the point where it will automatically shut down.

The pros of this situation:

• Harder to distract myself while packing;
• Much more likely to spend fewer than 8 hours a day on the computer;
• New time requirements for my blog will mean less late-night typing

The cons of this situation:

• I have no Internet in my apartment. That pretty much sums it up, but if you want more, here:
• I have to buy a coffee/tea whenever I want to check my email;
• I have infinitely fewer opportunities to get in contact with people (internationally and nationally; my phone's almost out of funds, too);
• When I start forcing myself back onto a US time schedule (which I'm thinking of doing starting maybe Monday or Tuesday), I'll be up all night with nothing to do;
• Updates and photos will take longer getting posted.

And that's still the short list. Anyway, since I have yet to finish editing my Australia photos (and my computer's battery is running low), here is, at least, my just-updated "final days in Taiwan" (sniffsniff) album.

As for today, it consisted almost entirely in travel. I was up and out of my hostel by 6am; one local train, one express train, one flight, two buses, an MRT ride and a walk later, at 5:30pm, I arrived back home in Kaohsiung. Along the way, much ado was made about various forms of cash--I was carrying three (AUD, NTD, Japanese yen)--and trying to keep the coolest coins from each. I ended up making a small purchase specifically so I could get more Japanese change--some of their coins, the value of which I haven't been able to determine, have holes in them!

Another, erm, interesting moment came with the appointment of a sign at the entrance of my Osaka-Taipei flight telling me to "enjoy your "safe" and "comfortable" flight"--hardly encouraging.

AND--and if I had more time/wasn't feeling quite so lazy I would have led with this and made it a post of its own--I realized that hearing spoken Chinese and seeing Chinese signs is a comforting, homelike thing for me now. Being in Japan, even for a very short time, made me remember how awkward it is to not know a single word of the language being spoken around you (especially disorienting was the fact that Japan uses some Chinese characters, though mostly of the simplified variety, in its writing), and it let me see how far I've come in this year in Taiwan. The trilingual announcements at the airport (Japanese/Chinese/English) were great for showing me that I can now safely say I'd probably be alright if they had cut out the English--and that was a wonderful realization.

Well, it's about time I pack up and head back to my Internet-free home--and then get to work packing for my return to my other home.

Unemployed Fulbright Alum

As of today, I am no longer a Fulbright grantee. I am, instead, an unemployed Fulbright alumnus. And, well--so far so good.

I am in Australia now, discovering just how much English I've forgotten over the year (example from 10 minutes ago: "doved?" "diven?" *pause to think* WOW okay "dived"), and meeting scads of people from everywhere from the Netherlands to Germany to Belgium to Sweden to the UK...pretty much getting a full-on European tour just by staying in my hostel and talking to people, really. And, so far, my experiment in solo travel has been absolutely lovely--wonderful roommates, wonderful dive class, wonderful blessings coming my way, ranging from having simply wonderful dorm-mates and a great hostel to getting an AMAZING deal on a dive class/trip--I was given a 300-dollar full-day upgrade for free.

One unfortunate downside of blogging, I've come to realize, is that when I write everything that happens to me, I have no new stories to tell people when they ask me how (insert place/event/"life" here) has been. So that, combined with the fact that I don't have a converter to charge my computer here, and that I'll soon be on a dive boat with no Internet access anyway, means I won't be posting every detail of my trip. Besides, my grant is over! I don't remember when I made the decision to post daily, and I definitely never said when that little experiment in prolific writing will end; it would seem logical to be done now that my grant is. But I think I'll keep pegging away at it, probably, until I come home. And I'll be home soon enough (whether "home" in this instance means Taiwan or USA, both are true), and when you ask me now I'll have fresh tales to tell!

In the meantime, this is more of an explanatory post than anything else. I'm going to try to set up postings for the next few days which will publish at a pre-determined time, so I can stick to this one-a-day format until I'm back in the States, but don't expect too much from them. Or from me--after all, I'm now just an unemployed hostel rat chilling out in Australia.

Cinderella

...but not really. "Cinderella" just happens to be the most imaginative way I could think of to describe how I spent my day today--essentially, with housework.

And well, that's not entirely true, either, unless you count sitting on my bed and editing  as "housework," and even by that definition I doubt you'd consider the prolonged breaks I took to talk to friends and read articles online as "work."

(Also, as I did my housework without the help of magical mice and of my own volition, sans the orders of an evil stepmother, and as it's past midnight now and I haven't had any magical transformations or lost any shoes, let alone found a Prince Charming, I really can't claim the title.)

So...I should have called this post "Cinderella and lies," apparently.

But on the plus side, I did complete all but one of the items on my to-do list today! The final item is choosing the hostels for my trip this summer: one where I'll spend the bulk of my time, in Cairns, Australia, and one in Osaka, Japan, which I'm flying through at night on my way home. (Special considerations for the Japanese hostel: how can I squeeze as much out of Japan as possible in a single night, while still making my flight the next morning?) So, if anyone knows of a good place to stay in Cairns or Osaka...hit me up!

Side Notes with "Th":
(because they are not enough to write a lot about, but I feel like sharing)

Thunder. It has woken me up two mornings in a row, now, and this morning did so so loudly that I practically shot out of bed, my subconscious evidently under the impression that I would be murdered if I stayed where I was. Thunder itself isn't too odd, I guess, but what is is that, by the time I've gotten up for real, both yesterday and today, it was not only no longer stormy, it was not even raining, and, apart from the water on the roads, I would never have guessed the thunder was anything other than a particularly vivid part of my dream. We'll see if the pattern holds tomorrow; hopefully not, for my subconscious paranoia's sake...

Things I will miss about Taiwan. The following is an exchange I had with the sweet, motherly woman who works downstairs at the local 7-11:

Me: (give her the money for the eggs and bread I'm buying)

Her: 謝謝.

*I smile. A pause.*

Her: “很漂亮” “so beautiful” 是不是?

Me: 對!

Her: (to me) So beautiful!

 Me: Aww, 謝謝!

It absolutely made my night! (Even though I answered incorrectly...oh well, the point was served. :) )

Krabi retrospective

Today is actually Feb. 2. However, on January 27th I was settling into a new hostel which, so far as I knew then, had no Internet. I later discovered this was wrong, but also discovered the baht-per-minute charge and snail-like pacing, so blogging took a backseat.

Also, here's us waiting for the bus at Patong beach, just because I like these pictures and want to post them:

Besides, by waiting and posting retrospectively, you now have the benefit of more than mere words on my blog! See, our first day in Krabi (after the insanely long bus-and-minibus journey from Patong beach to Phuket Town, and then Phuket Town to Krabi Town, and then the involved negotiation for a cab from Krabi Town to our hostel, a good 25 minutes outside town), was glorious.

First off, here's what the hostel looks like:

(food/internet/hammocks to the right; ocean straight ahead; huts behind)

 

The rooms. :)

Then there's the part where we got there just in time for dinner (DELICIOUS curry and fresh coconut for me):

And, after dinner, the sunset. And I really can't even begin to post all the amazing pictures we took there on here. I'll just throw up a few, and a few videos; give me a few days, and I'll put the link to my Facebook album on here. We must have taken over 200 pictures just in that one evening...absolutely GORGEOUS!

Okay, a few more than a couple. Can't help myself. Anyway, here is the more experiential version of the evening, via video:

So now the lost day is fully exposed, and, I feel (and you you agree), well worth the wait.

Relax....then go to Phuket

As I write this, it's almost 2am and we're in Phuket Town, here in the south of Thailand. Outside, life is still going on like crazy; Jack Johnson songs are drifting upward from the downstairs restaurant/bar area of our hostel. It's cool for a single night, but I'm glad we're headed to the more remote islands tomorrow, away from what I've mentally classified as the Las Vegas of Thailand.

Today was relaxation. We slept in, had a leisurely breakfast, strolled around Mel and Mar's house and watered their flowers, then packed our stuff and went to the mall to sample more Thai food, buy me some flipflops for the beach, get a Thai foot massage (Mar and I), and meet with Mel and Mar's friends from growing up, Maxine and Grace. Being with Melanie and Marissa in their home town felt like being home again and, in addition to the dry heat and leisurely pace, it was truly paradise. We were sorry to go.

But we did, and now we're in Phuket! Tomorrow we're off to Krabi, where we'll hopefully be roughing it a bit more; that is, there won't be a bar and internet cafe on every corner. Hopefully, there won't be corners, just more trees and rocks.

Wow, that last line sounds like Pride and Prejudice: "What are men compared to rocks and mountains?"

It's late, and Karina's beside me yelling at the malfunctioning hostel computer she's using, so I'd best get off and let her have a chance with a computer that works.