Japan, Taiwan, Korea!

It's been too long since my last update. As I am starting to write this I find it difficult to begin--there is too much to say. Here is my best shot:

For two months I lived 15 minutes outside Taiwan's southernmost town known as Kending:

This town is among one of the most popular places to visit for families and students interested in taking advantage of the many beautiful beaches and sunsets (or sunrises if one can wake up at 5AM). On the weekends I was able to visit the town and walk along the famous night market that lines a main street. The night market has plenty of great food (...touristy/over priced gifts) and fun games to keep busy for quite some time. The stars in Kending are amazing. I wish I could take their picture, but alas, my photo skills are not that good--and neither is my camera for that matter.

The weekends were my time to travel; and so, besides visiting Kending in the 2.5 days of free time I also caught rides from friends to other cities. I got the opportunity to hit the pool and swim some laps while visiting Pingtung City's University. Pingtung is located at the base of a long mountain range and the University’s picturesque campus easily left me feeling in awe:

I was supposed go mountain climbing here but that was cancelled due to weather and potential land slides.

Pingtung also had an amazing wildlife rescue center. It is well known for taking in monkeys that people illegally buy. It was honestly the most inspiring place I have been to. This rescue center has a very tight budget (it is funded by the government). The pay is low for the employees so they must really love their job. The rescue center is famous world wide and it was even featured on Animal Planet. Besides the native and nonnative monkeys there are also orangutan, bears, tigers, turtles, birds, an alligator, and various small mammals (in the rodent family). I would love to have the opportunity to work in this place. It is impressive how well maintained the facility is because the amount of work that must get done to look after 1,000+ animals for the ~35 care takers must be nearly overwhelming. (We had to wear face masks during the tour prevent disease transfer between us and the animals or vise versa...but I think it was just for show because none of the staff wore them...):

For 2.5 days each week I explored the southern areas of Taiwan--so...What was I up to during the weekdays!?!?
I was collecting data of course; all the while catching snakes, seeing the world's largest species of moth (and as far as I have seen, the most beautiful), watching endangered deer species spring through the forest, watching monkeys (who also were keen to watch me back from high in the tree canopy or from the edge of a rock terrace), the list goes on and on. I can tell you more in person, I promise that will be more interesting than reading about it. I collected data from six different tree species--wish me luck with writing the paper please. ;^)

Each week people came and went from the dorm I lived in. Many students from universities around Taiwan came to the Kending National Forest Preserve to do research of their own. The only people who were permanently around were those who worked in the forest doing a tree census (sounds fun huh...?). That little project has almost reached two years in length. The staff from the National Forest Preserve welcomed me with open arms and they were my main source of transportation on the weekends. They helped me practice my Chinese--and I often helped them practice English when my brain would not switch into Chinese mode. They had a BBQ as a welcoming for me and as a send off to one of their staff members who was going on maternity leave (I think the BBQ was more for her though, ha-ha). It was a lot of fun and the food was endless. Just as a BBQ should be:

During my last week of research things were wrapping up nicely in the field. Also, I had some extra time so I was fortunate enough to see my close friend, Christine Hicks' family that lives here in Taiwan. I met with her cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. It was one of my favorite things I have gotten to do since arriving in Taiwan. The entire family made me feel very much like I was at home. It was refreshing and much appreciated. I hope to see them all again soon!

Well, that about sums up my journey thus far. Currently I am sitting in a lab at Gaohsiung Medical University. The professor I am working with here is moving to a new university in a few days so she has been really busy running around packing. A typhoon is supposed to hit Taiwan so I am getting out my rain jacket and getting ready to sit inside until the wind and rain passes. Soon I will be traveling to the east side of Taiwan. Everyone I have talked with says the east side is the most beautiful because of the mountain range that runs along the ocean--the views are supposedly spectacular. Soon I will be riding the first rail out of town; right after the last drop of rain falls I suppose......

Here are all of my photos so far. I will be going to an animal sactuary this weekend so next week I will be puting up new photos. Late next week I am going hiking up the tallest mountain in southern Taiwan (over 3,000 meters), so the next blog update should be pretty interesting.

Here are my photos. By the way, the links found on the websites are wrong. You have to use the links listed here (below) to view the photos.

http://www.ewebpage.com/erik/japan/

http://www.ewebpage.com/erik/japan1/

http://www.ewebpage.com/erik/taiwan/

The photos from Taiwan are mostly from the graduation ceremony.

Enjoy!

~Erik

Arrival in Taiwan took only a couple of hours from Japan. I have gotten pretty good now at finding where to go for passport check-in and customs at the airport. My friend Wayne picked me up from the airport and after dropping my luggage off at his house we drove to one of Taiwan's "night markets." These are very well known in Taiwan and they are popular places to go when you want to hang out with friends and eat a lot of food (for a great price!). The night market has every kind of Taiwanese dish and drink. There is fresh fruit juice squeezed right in front of you, milk tea, every kind of meat and tofu. There are also different carnival-type games to play too. One dish I tried is very famous in Taiwan. It's called stinky tofu. It smells like a toilet, sort of. This is one food that does NOT taste how it smells. It actually is good if you can just get past the smell. It's pretty spicey too! I also ate something that was basically an American corndog. To drink I had some juice milk tea (the consistencey was like a fruit smoothy, but it tasted COMPLETELY differnt from a smoothy)---it was great!! Milk tea is really popular here--every restaurant seems to have it! Also, I had 'bubble tea.' This is just tea with these chewy tapioca balls at the bottom. It was not bad at all. After this I was pretty much full but I wanted to try one last thing, so I got this fried dough ball that had a piece of squid in the center. The toppings on this was what made it so good. There was some wasabe (so I think this was more of a Japanese dish than Taiwanese) horse raddish-mayo and a hefty sprinkling of dried salmon on top (or some other kind of fish--I am not sure exactly). So, after being in Taiwan for about three hours I got a small sampling of the tastey food I have been hearing so much about. Many of my friends (from both China and Taiwan) told me how much I would enjoy Taiwan's food--they were right!

I took a train from my friend's house in the northern part of Taiwan (near the capital of Taipei) to the southern part in a city called Gaoxiong. At the train station Dr. Yiching Lin picked me up and we drove to the Gaoxiong Medical University where I stayed for one week in a dorm. Dr. Lin has been doing a lot to prepare for my arrival. For the first week I was learning how to use the equipment for my research project, creating a plan, all the while meeting the people in Dr. Lin's lab. I got to see some of the sights in Gaoxiong by riding around on a motorbike/scooter (wearing a helmet, don't worry, haha). Gaoxiong is along the western coast of Taiwan, so I got a ride to a beach at the base of this big mountain where I watched the sunset. The weather was perfect and the scenery was beautiful.

One morning I woke up around 6:30AM to go hiking with some of my new friends. We hiked for about 2 or 3 hours up this mountain which was part of a forest preserve adjacent to the city. This was when I had the first of many monkey sigthings. They just walked right past us like it was nothing. The hike was really refreshing.

The night market in Gaoxiong was a lot of fun. I played a few of the games and I won a bottle of apple soda! I tried all kinds of food and different kinds of teas. I ate fish and pork and various kinds of bird eggs, aswell as sticky rice, tofu, ice cream, and some sweet, fried bread filled with sugary bean paste--I was STUFFED. On one of my final nights before leaving Gaoxiong (to go start my research) I went to eat a certain style of dish called 'hot pot.' This is basically a big pot, which is divided in the middle. In each half of the pot is a soup broth. One broth was spicey (because I told my my friends how much I love spicey food) and the other broth was a regular non-spicey broth. This all heats up on a hot plate sitting on the table. Next the waitress brought out dishes of various meat, fish, clams, vegetables and dumplings. I ate pretty much whatever my they brought out. I even had some pig intestine and coagulated duck blood (which just tasted like especially squishy tofu). It was all really good. I enjoyed eating the different kinds of vegetables too. There are a lot that we don't have in the US---there was something similar to a raddish that was traslated as a 'white carrot' and some other kinds that I can't really explain. The 'white carrot' is nothing like the raddish we have in the US. This one actually does look like a carrot, as the name implies.

So as you can tell I have been doing a lot of eating---besides that though, I have been doing a lot of work for my project. There is a lot of preparation that I needed to do. Everyone here has been running around to help me get supplies.

I feel like I will never be able to say "Thank you" enough to everyone here because they ALL have been extremely kind to me, especially Dr. Lin!! People insisted on giving me rides to different places, taking me with them to eat (and translating the menu when I could not understand it--which was most of the time), and helping with any question or problem I had. They really do SO much to make sure everything is going fine.

After a week of meeting new people and getting to try a variety of food I headed off to the city of Kending with Dr. Lin and a senior student named Xiami. We drove about 2.5 hours until we reached the place where I am doing research. The forest I am working in is part of a national forest preserve and park. Kending is a beautiful area of Taiwan that attracts a lot of tourists (including Taiwanese vacationers). I am living in the staff dorm here in the preserve. I get my own room and bathroom which is nice. The staff comes and goes from the building all day because there is a big living room area and a kitchen (so people sometimes come to eat and watch TV when they have the time) . I am cooking my own meals which is consisting of heating frozen dumplings, rice, pasta, sandwhiches and other similar quick foods. I have also been eating a lot of Guava--which I am thinking is one of my new favorite fruit.

In the mornings I wake up around 5:45AM to get ready for a day of trecking through the forest. This forest is like nothing I have ever been in. Aside from the many monkeys, spiders, and lizards, there are huge jagged rocks everywhere. Thousands of years ago Taiwan used to be a huge coral reef, so the forest is now lime stone with trees growing out from the rocks. There are big rock structures everywhere so steep than you can't climb up. The trees and undergrowth is really thick (with plenty of thorny bushes) so walking around was quite a trip during the first few days. After the first week (with map and compass in hand) I finally have steady feet while hiking and a sense of where to go. So far the weather has been rainy everyday when I go to the forest. I mean VERY RAINY! As in you can't hear the person talking next to you because the rain is so loud. Additionally, the cicada get really loud when it starts to rain for some reason. I practically had to yell when speaking to Dr. Lin to say anything. The rain storms were fun though all in all.

Now I am in Gaoxiong for the weekend to see the graduation ceremony. It'll be interesting to see how it is compared to the US ceremony.

(I will put up photos of everything soon)

Day Two:

So, after waking up in the middle of the night ONLY one time I was feeling charged and ready to start my day of exploration in the historical city of Kamakura. This city is most known for its many Budda statues that are scattered around. One in particular is the largest outdoor Budda in the region--it's qute an attraction because not only is it huge, but you can also go inside.
(to be continued...)

Early in the morning hours I received my send off at Ohare Airport. Being in the airport at 4am was a little rough, though not bad after I found my way to the nearest Starbucks. Oh Caffeine!

Wandering around O’hare for a few minutes too long in confusion did not give me the best confidence boost as I started off. Eventually I found that if you just read the signs, generally it helps! Check in was easy enough. Time flew by after take off-- a couple of scattered hours of sleep and a few movies later I was putting on my seatbelt for landing in Narita Airport in Japan (the closest airport to Tokyo). The world is really catered to English speakers. Numerous times people throw around the words "English opens new doors" or something similar---I think you can't really understand that until you go out from the USA. Knowing where to get your luggage from after getting of the plane in the giant Narita airport is enough to make you smile. Trust me.

Nao Murakami is my roommate and close friend that I met while at U of I. He graduated from U of I this May and he has an impressive job with a top banking company in Japan already lined up for the fall. He took me around Japan during my visit and I stayed in his home for about 4 days (3 nights).

We took a bus from the Airport for about 3 hours to Nao's home town called Kamakura. There we transferred to a local train to get closer to his house. Kamakura is a beautiful city along the Ocean. It used to be the capital of Japan over 1,000 years ago.

It was around dinner time when we arrived at his house. His mom prepared a nice home made meal for me. It was really good! All of the food I had while in Japan was fantastic. For dinner we had strips of beef on a skewer, dumplings, some cartilage on a skewer (Aunt Lou would love this I’m pretty sure), a mix of vegetables in a liquid clear potato gel, and green tea (REAL green tea--it tasted SO good), a little Saki, a little wine, and then coffee after the meal. We had a few other things, but I was tired and so I can't recall very well what else was there.

While eating dinner Nao's mom and aunt sat and talked with us. Even though Nao's mom doesn't speak or study English she knew quite a bit. Nao's aunt teaches Japanese to all kinds of foreign workers, so she has picked up quite a bit of English over the years. It was a fun, tasty dinner and a great way to start the trip!

Before heading to my room to sleep I took a shower.

While in Japan I often showered two times per day, but the morning shower and night shower are different. I loved the bathroom and restrooms there!! Once I get my own house it will have a Japanese style bathroom! One shower you just take like in the States. No real differences. The other shower is a bit different. The Murakami's provided Shampoo, conditioner, soap, and a really nice face wash for me to use. I was sort of surprised by this just because I had my own stuff, but they really insisted that I use theirs (it was way better...but ANYWAYS...). While showering you are in a room that looks like any other shower, but the bath tub is next to you (in the shower). After using soap you should rinse off. Then, you just step into the tub and enjoy it like you would a Jacuzzi. It's so relaxing! Often I showered before eating dinner. I am not sure if that is just how Nao's family does it, or if that's the typical time to shower. Oh, and before you shower you are supposed to wash your hands in the bathroom sink. Everything is kept clean whenever possible.

I would say cleanliness in Japan out does the US hands down.