Taipei, day two

Day two was a big day in Taipei...

Boba - cheap and disturbingly filling

Lunch at a place with neither pictures nor English on the menu (and no entrails in the bowl), courtesy of Eric's amazing language skills.

The ominous and vile durian.

And my first real-life dragonfruit outside of a Vitamin Water - stunning and delicious

Night market

Dinner - an incredible mom-and-pop-type soup dumpling place

Hello to my new friend, the miraculous soup dumpling. Thank you for being so delicious and strange.

True story

One example of amazing night market stall food: the shaved peanut brittle, ice cream, fresh-herd crepe burrito

And this, at last, is not San Miguel

Taipei, day one

At long last, a working Internet connection and pictures of our fist day in Taipei:

Breakfast from 7/11. The beginning of a beloved week-long tradition that began with Kate and I realizing we couldn't eat anywhere that didn't have pictures on the menu (until we met Eric and began shamelessly abusing his linguistic prowess).

Longshan Temple

Anyone care to guess what this might be?

Perfection in the botanical gardens

The wall of our hostel, covered with notes from adoring guests

Any Montanans care to comment on this? Of course, Kate and I had to eat here - though Kate gets the credit for that because I nearly let the conveyor belt intimidate me right out the door.

Good thing she's traveled around Asia before and is the master of such things, because conveyor-belt sushi is basically the best thing ever.

The best temperature to serve coffee is:

Unless of course you're getting an iced sea salt coffee, which you are. Ladies and Gentlemen, and Mother in particular - I found it. Or rather it found me, because this is actually an 85 C we stumbled on onr way to a farther one I had researched and marked on our map.

Kate and I managed to, almost accidentally, have a wonderfully successful first day in Taipei, and the day is by no means over. It's half past four and we're just back at the hostel recuperating a bit. This morning we decided that walking around our neighborhood was a good way of orienting ourselves, so we set out in the general direction of the 85 C marked on our map, and along the way we ate breakfast from a 7/11 (a whoooole different experience in Asia - I had milk tea and a sushi roll), stopped at the famous and breathtaking Longshan Temple (next to which we found the sea salt coffee we were searching for), and afterward passed through a whole street of jade bead stores and a whole street of exotic (and not so exotic - hello common house finch) bird shops to find ourselves in the vast, oxygen rich haven that is the Taipei botanical gardens. In this way, with no real plan, we found ourselves having a perfectly lovely day.

Needless to say, I am already in love. This city (so far) is incredible, and somehow feels a world away from the Philippines. English signs are hard to find, senselessly lovely designs adorn perfectly common sidewalks or power boxes, and there is so, so, so much to look at. Plus, with all the food and flowers and temples, this city actually smells good.

And amazingly, Kate and I have both noticed how comfortable we are here. We've been in Taiwan less than 24 hours and even with the newness of it all, we're finding ourselves at ease. No one stares or gapes or hassles us when we are merely looking through a shop, and if you stand on the street staring at your map for just a second too long, someone will attempt to help you. This is a big, busy, and very densely populated city, yet it somehow doesn't feel crowded. The streets, though well-used, are free from horns and other unnecessary noise. It's just...calm.

I could go on. And I will, later. For now, the only pictures I can put up are those I email to this blog straight from my iPhone, typing the words later on a hostel computer. So, one picture at a time for now, and I'll bore you with billions once the trip is over. Which I hope it never is.

Three more days...

Here we go - just three more days until Kate and I make our great (temporary) escape.

This has me thinking about tea houses, night markets and temples. About fast public transportation and bars that serve more than room (and it's a hot room)-temperature San Miguel. About ten months in one place, and five days out of it. And, most importantly, about iced sea salt coffees and the mini road trips taken to get them. And how those mini road trips - my mama and I heading up to Irvine and back all before 10am on the most delicious whims - are for me, merging into a pilgrimage.

We bought these tickets ages ago, back when we both desperately needed more things to look forward to. Then, very suddenly, it is upon us. That old restlessness emerges, the kind punctuated by the dull thudding sound of a passport being stamped. Let's GO!

April! May! Wow!

What a month!

Nearly four weeks ago, I rolled out of Lila on a jeepney bound for Tagbilaran with a suitcase and backpack stuffed to threat of explosion. It was Wednesday afternoon, the day before Muandy Thursday, and I wouldn't be seeing Lila again for some time. I spent Thursday with Kate, shamelessly internetting in our favorite coffee shop before venturing out into the city with the hopes of catching a movie, only to discover that, in true Philippine Holy week fashion, everything was closed. Huh. So we went home to an evening of random fridge snacks and True Blood season 1. The next day Kate left early for Manila, and I did my best to distract myself from a the growing gnaw of nerves spreading out from my stomach. Several hours and many podcasts later, it was finally time. After a very short airplane ride and several games of UNO with my young seat-mates, there I was, landing for the second time ever in Manila, with only a few hours to kill before I would be receiving my first set of visitors from the homeland.

This being near the end of a month that had started with language camp in the wondrous city of Dumaguete, I had managed to render the contents of my PC bank account down to a measly 200 pesos (about 4.60 dollars), so my determination to find the free Marriott shuttle was fierce. Finally, huffing and puffing a bit, there it was, hulking and yellow and entirely empty. A moment later a man rushed up to me, "Miss Kuhn? Miss Kuhn??" he cried. Bewildered, I replied with an entirely eloquent, "Um, yeah?". In my hurry to find the shuttle, I had managed to brush right past this man, holding one of those lovely and coveted signs at the airport where your name is written in Expo marker, the whole thing denoting some kind of purpose and importance. Still bewildered, I was ushered into a waiting town car where a driver introduced himself as Rick and asked if I was comfortable with the temperature. Then silence. But wait, aren't you supposed to ask me now if I'm married and where my boyfriend is and why I don't have a Filipino boyfriend and how I learned Visayan? Where are all the glances in the rear-view mirror and why, oh why sir, are you staying in your lane and driving withing the posted speed limit??! Okay Dad, what are you up to here?

A few minutes later I stumbled out of Rick's perfectly climate-controlled town car and into the shimmering lobby of the Manila Marriott, and, using my very best posture to carry myself to the reception desk, was promptly and politely told that on account of the Gold Member status of the reservation I ought to be checking in up on the 8th floor, where a complementary cocktail hour was currently underway. Upon being ushered to said floor, presented with a key and a glass of wine, and having removed myself to the giant, immaculate room corresponding to the number on my key, I fairly collapsed onto the floor, unable to bring myself to spoil to perfectly stretched bedspread of that appeared to be the size of my living room. It had all happened in a bit of a rush, and I was suddenly aware of a lump in my throat born purely from the overwhelming jolt of it all. Surely, this world could not exist a mere one hour flight from the crowing roosters and burning trash heaps of Bohol. Right?

A couple hours later, Kate and I were at the airport again, and two fair-haired heads were bobbing towards us from inside the international arrivals terminal.

My experience at the Marriott was just a taste of what turned out to be my dad's one-man-mission to make his vacation to the Philippines my vacation from it. From Manila, and Corregidor, we flew down to Bohol and then ferried over to Negors, where we watched the royal wedding from an infinity pool. The next day, in a splendid trip to Apo Island and a sea full of sea turtles and banded sea snakes, I entered my mid-twenties. Just magic. For anyone interested in pure escapism and killer food in Negros, may I recommended Atmosphere. I mean wow.

Back on Bohol, I said goodbye and did nothing to fight back grumpy tears as I watched them pull away in a trike, airport-bound. Then my suitcase and I headed straight for the pier, and I bought the very last ticket to Cebu. Thankfully, and I mean, really thankfully, our two weeks of Peace Corps trainings started the next day, and distractions abounded. I was reunited with my beloved Barkada, and in the familiar session rooms of the Sugarland Hotel in Bacolod, worked closely with my supervisor to put together a project plan for creating a marine sanctuary here in Lila. Then, in a CRM-only training in Sagay City, I got to know my fellow CRM volunteers from other parts of the country a little better, got caught in a wild lightening storm, drank some tap-water (!!) in desperation to stave off a hangover, and learned some incredibly fascinating "coral gardening" techniques that I only wish had application here at site.

Next, browned and salty and happy (but mildly paranoid about amoebas), it was time to leave Sagay for a much-promised return to beloved Zamboanguita for their annual fiesta. Andrea and Mindy and I spent an afternoon visiting with our former host families and reveling in the sense of familiarity that came with it all. Here was a place we had lived for three months during training, where people really seemed to care for us, and most bizarre of all, a place that both felt familiar and homey, and was, gasp, in the Philippines. The sense of returning for a place that we hadn't been for half a year - and having that place be in this country - impressed upon all of us that we're not the newbies here anymore. No, we've been here for a while.

Back in Lila the feeling persists. This just doesn't feel like a foreign country anymore. And in a few days, batch 269 will have been here for 9 months, meaning we're exactly a third though our service.

In the meantime, when are you coming to visit?

Marriott bar

Katers

Snacks, a far cry from that mayo and jell-o sandwich several months ago

A new friend I made at Bee Farm

Tarsier!

Alona Beach, Panglao, Bohol

The very best birthday present

Urchin city

The common Seakristin

The solitary Seaplate

The rare Seawalter

Some of the magic that is Atmosphere

And now on to Volunteers in Environmental Governance (VEG) training:

It's the calm before another storm. (Photo courtesy of Mindy)

The lovely Mindy - taking refuge from the rain

Our charming young guides at the Sagay children's museum

Bucket o' frags

Placing a finished tray - me on the right

Transporting a finished tray

Sabs and I after a long day in the water

Like Smoke

Last weekend, the Boholano-Americans took a little trip to the coastal community of Maribojoc to see where Todd works and visit the nearby town of Antequera and the waterfalls for which it is know.

"Mag-aso", in Cebuano, means "like smoke". The mist rising from the falls is what gives them their smokey name, and they are a great spot for picnicking, swimming, cliff jumping, and spying tiny native frogs.

Hello beautiful

Killing time waiting for a ride

Rice fields in Antequera

New friend!

Someone call the department of environment and natural resources...

The road to Mag-Aso

Mag-Aso Falls

PB&J on whole wheat. Oh yes we did!

Todd's latest care package makes a lunchtime appearance

I spy Jessica and Kate...

Sweet little frog who let me get very, very close to take a picture

After jumping and playing and picnicking, Todd and I explored the river above the falls

In all its jungle beauty