Thursday, November 27, 2008

Kenting (Long Entry w/ Pics!)

So last weekend was the crazy trip down to the most southern part of Taiwan, Kenting. I planned this group trip all by myself with some help from a couple of friends. I must admit that I was super nervous at first because I was not confident in myself. I mean me...planning and booking stuff in Taiwan? I have to speak Chinese? Crap! LoL. But everything worked out fine. So thank goodness for that. And I wasn't super stressed about it all so was able to slip in some fun time for myself.

So Friday night we (13 people) took the overnight train down from Taipei to Kaohsiung. Left at 11pm. Arrived at 5:30am. Unfortunately, the seats in the train were not very comfortable so I only managed to get like 1 hour of sleep during the ride. Some people didn't get any sleep at all while others managed to sleep the whole ride down.

Mr. Paul here is the only one who managed to sleep the whole train ride down. Lucky dude.

Once we arrived in Kaohsiung, we got picked up from the train station and then driven to our 民宿. A little 12 person van with 13 people in it. Originally we were all going to sleep on the van until we discovered that this van has KTV on it. So I guess you can guess what the ride was like...LoL. Felt sorry for the poor driver

死了都要愛~~~~ LoL. 這麼早還飆歌...
Arrived at our place. Freshened up. Left our luggage lying around and then talked about what to do during our time here. I had only planned the essentials (transportation, living, etc) but didn't make any plans for activities since I figured we would all want to do different things. So in the end we decided to pay the driver and have him bring us around for the day. So off to tour Kenting we went!

Went to a lot of scenic places that I've actually been to with my family before. Like this lighthouse place. And went near the water. And we also went go-karting too.


This would be the 12 person van that drove us around all day.

The famous lighthouse

go-karting

By the time we got back to our place, it was like dinner time. And lucky for us, the place I found just happened to be located at the end of 墾丁大街夜市 (night market) so we explored the night market.

Kenting Nightmarket
Did some gift shopping. Had some nasty American dinner. The night market was small. Shilin still beats it by a bajillion. But the souvenirs they sell are probably only found there. So yep.

The boys had bought some sparklers and fireworks earlier during our tour so around midnight-ish we decided to set those off. Quite fun. Can't wait til New Years when we get to go all out. xP

(Left) setting up the big stuff. (Right) playing with sparklers.

The next day was beach day. Lucky for us again, our place was really close to a beach. So we all headed off to the beach. The weather was beautiful, very sunny out. And the sand on the beach was super smooth and the water was pretty awesome.



After we got tired of the beach we went back to Kenting big street. We ate a late lunch. Did some more last minute shopping. And then got back in the van and headed back to Kaohsiung. Took the Kaohsiung MRT to the High Speed Rail station in 左營. First time on the Kaohsiung MRT. Quite different looking than Taipei's.


On the Kaohsiung MRT
Took the HSR back up to Taipei. Only a 1.5 hour ride. Not enough time to sleep and I got bored so I took pics of myself (like a true FOB. xP). Here's one.

Arrived in Taipei at 11pm. And we all headed back to the dorms. The end. It was a fun and tiring weekend. And very successful.

And here is the one group picture that I have on my (well...my bro's camera):

All 13 of us

And now it is Thanksgiving break for us ICLP kids. No class today and tomorrow. Most everyone has gone off somewhere (HK, Japan, Korea, etc..). Unfortunately my Thanksgiving trip to Hong Kong got canceled. But I will take this time to relax and catch up on work that I've been putting off for a while. And there's always that Saturday concert to look forward too...=)

2 comments:

. s h e r r y * said...

Wow. You are blogging SO much more than me.


Way to be speedy. Poo. I'm just starting my entry now (about 墾丁)

Ecila said...

yey you guys went to Kaohsiung!! :D