Double Take

We awoke this morning to the sound of birds chirping and ocean waves crashing outside our room. We opened our eyes, ready for what must surely be a blissfully blue-sky day—and were greeted with an interminable cloud bank.

“Well, that’s not so bad,” I told myself. “At least it’s still warm outside!”

We stumbled downstairs to breakfast (scrumptious Western-style mini pastries with butter and jam, a hot boiled egg, and our choice of coffee, tea, or milk—guess what I chose) and learned that, in fact, it was warm—ish. A light sweatshirt still didn’t feel amiss with my shorts.

Oh well. Melanie and Alex soon joined Rachel and I in the breakfast room, and we had a nice long chat while we ate, then changed, checked out, and headed out to the tidal pools off the beach below. After a cursory view of the standard path (which was, in typical Taiwanese fashion, a true path, of rocks innovatively held together by rubber meshing), we ventured further afield, to the rock outcropping against which the blue-green waves were breaking.

As we wandered further down the shore, we happened upon a strange sight: a couple we’d met in Kinmen! Yes, that’s right, an American couple from Kaohsiung who happened to be staying at our homestay in Kinmen also happened to be visiting the same beach as we were in Taitung, and at the same time. The irony of this, of course, is that we’ve never actually seen them in the city where we all live—but we do seem to have similar instincts when it comes to breaks!

12:30 found us at the ferry terminal a full hour early, thanks to our overeager taxi driver. But the upside of that was that we were among the first people on board, and so had our pick of seats in the stabler middle back of the “Barf Barge” I’d braved before. The weather outside was worse than last time we took the ferry, which made me nervous (though mutely so—couldn’t help anything!), but as it turned out that, wind and choppy appearance aside, the seas were deceptively calm, and the hour-long ride was uneventful for all of us, even with three of us attempting it sans medicine. We weren’t exactly ready for a 10-course meal when we stepped on shore, but you can’t have everything.

A very short shuttle ride later, we arrived at our hostel/homestay/hotel—don’t really know what to call it—and about an hour later they gave us the keys to our price-included scooters. We made a nice little loop of the island, stopping off at key points I’d seen with Mom like the Civil Liberties Memorial (which I had no idea was called that until several hours later when we saw it on a postcard; we just stopped for the view), the Sleeping Beauty rock, and the beautiful Scottish-looking fen-covered point by the hot spring where we saw some (very annoyed) wild goats.

For dinner, we twisted Alex’s arm into agreeing to Taiwanese stir fry, which was so so good: Green Island’s signature venison, beef and veggies, kung pao chicken, fried noodles, empty heart vegetable, rice. I’d been craving food like that for a while, and it did not disappoint. A quick Family Mart and tea shop stop later, we returned to our rooms to “take a rest,” as the Taiwanese have it, before our night tour.

And the night tour, oh, the night tour. It was SUCH the experience! I was wishing my mom and I had been able to make it, as we stopped to observe the local wildlife in every ecosystem the island has to offer, along with Ray and Elba, two of our fellow homestay-ers from Shanghai who speak fantastic English, and two other random guys who joined up with us somewhere along the way, but who I don’t think are actually staying here. We saw all the local flora and fauna, shared some lovely moments talking about the appropriateness of our footwear, and then set out, at around 10pm, for the Zhaori Hot Springs.

There followed an hour and a half of warm saltwater bliss.

And now we’re back, and Internet-less—I’m typing this in a Word document, despite Ray’s wireless connection showing up on my list—and need to get our rest, given that it’s almost 1am and breakfast is at 7, followed by snorkeling at 8.

So ends my second attempt at Green Island—still not a tropical wonderland, but now sickness- and driving rain-free, filled instead with good food, good friends, and good fun (to borrow the cliché). Now to close my eyes and pray once again for a fresh start that involves a blue sky…

I survived the Green Island ferry!

This morning, my mom and I boarded the "barf barge." That's not its real name, of course--but it fits. After our night in Taitung last night, we were headed across the strait to Green Island (綠島), over a stretch of ocean which, as numerous people on numerous occasions warned us, has the nasty habit of making even those not prone to motion-sickness wish they hadn't eaten breakfast.


Unfortunately, it lived up to its reputation.


For me (and, based on their reactions, for a good-sized group of people on the ferry), the first 10 minutes or so were fun--as I kept telling myself, it's just like a bonus roller coaster ride thrown in with our journey! The swells were huge, but they were also pretty gentle, and their deep clear teal color was enough to keep me focused on their beauty, rather than their motion. After that, though, the water got choppier and my stomach decided it wasn't a fan of a roller coaster that goes on for an hour. From about the half hour mark onward, I spent my time fixated on a solitary dot on the front wall of the ferry (I named it Harvey, since I had to stare at it and I had no other way of entertaining myself without getting sick), telling myself that I could make it to the island without getting sick and trying to ignore the people around me taking regular advantage of the strings of clear plastic bags hanging from every other seat back.


This was not an easy task, given that my mom was one of them. Yep, though she's never been motion sick before in her life, and she (unlike me) did the responsible thing and took her Dramamine a half hour before we boarded, there was nothing for it: the ocean won.


Let's be clear here: these are not small waves we are talking about. Though we were pretty far offshore--it's an hour ferry ride from the mainland to the island--we never hit the theoretical calm I'd heard exists after you get past the breakers. No, what we got was closer to what you'd see on an old pirate film, or a rendition of Moby Dick or some such ocean adventure story: what almost made me sick several times was not so much the motion of the boat, but the fact that, if you glanced out the window on the other side of the boat, you could watch the sky disappear entirely behind a 40 foot wall of green water, only to reemerge in a few seconds as your side of the boat sunk down. And that's when you could see out the windows at all, when they weren't thoroughly covered in seething white foam.

Though I have full faith in modern ships (I'm here to write about it, after all), the experience certainly left me with new empathy for ancient travelers, and a certain awe for those who venture out on this particular stretch of sea in the many much smaller boats we saw docked on either end.


Having survived the tumultuous journey (and having sat for a moment to let our stomachs settle), my mom and I ventured out onto the island to discover that we were in the midst of a full-out wind-and-rain storm. After quickly procuring some ponchos from a nearby bakery (yes, odd to me too, but I wasn't asking questions!) and less quickly procuring a scooter, we took off around the island.


The next four hours (It's a short gap between ferries!) we spent circumnavigating the island on the crappy, rusty scooter the guys at the scooter shop rented us for a mere $200NT, stopping at several pull-outs to admire the view, missing several other attractions (we could not, for the life of us, find where to pull off for the lighthouse, for instance), discovering that most of the island was shut down for the off season, and getting pelted in the face by tiny ice-daggers of rain that made it almost impossible to see half the time.


The chief exception to this stinging, windy stress (on my part) was our stop at Zhaori Saltwater Hot Springs, one of only three natural salt water hot springs in the world. In better weather, you can go down on the beach and sit in pools at sea level; as it was, we watched from the safety of some more elevated springs as the pools below got slammed with wave after wave. The hot water felt so good after a day of getting whipped around by rain and wind.


And then it was time to cautiously eat a light meal (half a cup of hot milk tea and half a bagel for me), take our Dramamine (WELL in advance this time) and board the ferry again. Fortunately, either because the weather was better, the boat was lighter, or we picked better seats (back-middle, as opposed to front-side), this time we weren't puking or trying not to: I took a nap, and my mom was able to read. Much more pleasant when you're not counting down the minutes every minute for an hour.


Back in Taitung, we wandered around for a bit and eventually made our way to the train station, way too early, just because we had run out of things to do. It took a bit of creative work on my part (my final solution involved my known vocabulary, old notes from my Chinese class, a borrowed Chinese-English dictionary and a bit of sign language), but eventually I convinced the man at the information desk that I had already purchased my tickets online and needed only to pick them up, and he was able to retrieve them for me.


And now we're in Hualien, at a lovely little B & B called Roseland/Rose House, depending on what sign you look at, which is absolutely adorable and was a pretty good price, too. Tomorrow, we head out for Taroko gorge, via bus and taxi, based on what the man who picked us up at the train station was able to tell us.


Today has been an adventure, to be sure, but we're surviving! Can't wait to see what tomorrow holds--on dry land.