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Published: December 21st 2005
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Bad Grammar
Chinglish like this is everywhere in Taichung. You can generally get the gist of what they're saying though. NOTE: It's a little embarassing that it has taken me this long to put up this journal. I've been home for about a month and a half, working and catching up with people. On the 5th of Januray I'll be heading over to Finland to live for a while. I'm doing National Service
(like in the military, I have Finnish citizenship and it's compulsory - should be interesting) for at least the first 6 months. I may or may not be there for a while, we'll see how things go. I'm also adding a few journals filling in South America and a bunch of photos about the Inca Trail. Sorry about all the emails, they're sent automatically.
So anyway, I'm finally back home in Cairns after leaving camp and tripping around the US and stopping in Taiwan for a week on the way home. It's great to see everyone here again, but like you can imagine, I would prefer to be overseas travelling still.
After camp, I went down to Toronto to spend a couple of days hanging out in and around the city. From there it was down to Dutton for Thanksgiving at Wray's place. I think I
Taxi on fire
This was quite bizarre. It was the first night out of camp that I had in Toronto and right down town was this taxi with flames pouring out of the engine bay. ate more meat over 2 days than my stomach was built to handle. After Dutton I headed down to Indianapolis to meet up with Phil and spend a few days at Indiana University. It was awesome to see a real US college town, we even managed to get taped for announcing nominees at an MTV music awards show. I doubt they'll use Phil and my parts, but you never know. I also managed to get to a lecture on the music of Jimi Hendrix, well worth the effort.
From there I caught the Greyhound bus up to Minneapolis to see my Uncle and Aunt again. They had had a new daughter since I was there last Christmas, so seeing all of them was great. I wasn't prepared to get the Greyhound back to Toronto, so I got a cheap plane ticket and flew into Buffalo, NY, right near the Niagara Falls. I was heading to stay with Rob (from camp) who lives in St Catherines and happened to run into him and Phil while on the way there. They were coming back from a day trip to the falls, when they got on the same bus - quite a
Jimi Hendrix lecture
I was a little worried the whole time that the lecturer would expect me to answer a question. Just trying to keep a low profile. bizarre coincidence. Anyway, I went to the falls the next day, which were impressive. Where the Iguazu Falls in South America were just massive and all over the place, these seemed very neat and orderly, almost man made in a way. They just seemed very American.
After seeing the falls, I headed back up to St. Catherines and then the next day to Toronto to catch my plane to London, and then Taiwan. I dropped into the camp office to pick up some stuff I had left there and also managed to get my last bit of Tim Horton's before leaving Canada. Large, Double Double and a Chocolate Dip of course. I also got to have a chat and catch up with Pete, one of the Camp directors, before getting a taxi out to the airport.
The flights to Taipei were as good as you could expect, Heathrow SUCKS to have to spend 5 or 6 hours in, but Hong Kong has to be the most comfortable and well laid out international airport I have ever seen - with free internet access to boot. Such a contrast to London. But then maybe I just don't like the English.
Visualisation
At the beginning of the lecture he played Purple Haze (I think) and threw this visual up on the screen, kind of cool. Sorry Phil, Owen, you guys are ok.
I got into Taichung at about noon on the Saturday. Wray and his mates there were at a cafe feeling a little worse for wear from the previous night. I was feeling pretty worn out as well from the Toronto-London-Hong Kong-Taipei-Taichung trip, but that night (with an afternoon siesta) we all managed to get ourselves motivated and go out for the Halloween parties that were on around the place.
Over the next few days I went and checked out a few of the sights in the area. We went to this cool swimming spot up in the mountains, about an hour out of the city by suicide scooter. It had a huge cliff jump into a deep pool and a waterfall that would have been quite spectacular if there was more water going over. We visited some of the major art galleries but didn't get to any historical museums, which was disappointing. You could easily spend a month tripping around the rest of the island, but I think I was starting to be a little over constantly moving, so I was happy to stay in Taichung and see the city properly.
Niagra Falls
It was freezing and wet, perfect day to go sight seeing. Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, next. I also went with Wray to one of his private lessons, he has these 2 young kids that he teaches English to. We read some books, played some games to do with learning countries and I played a game I chess with one of them. I got soundly beaten and I was trying! But then again I don't really understand any tactics and they were pretty good at it. We also went a couple of times to these awesome night markets that were right outside Fengchia University (where Wray plays rugby) which had so many awesome shops. I bought a couple of nice shirts and I would have loved to get heaps more, but I already had way too much stuff as it was.
I spent a bit over a week there all up, and headed back to Taipei and then Brisbane via Hong Kong. I got back in time for my Cousin's wedding on the Sunshine Coast and on Sunday 13th of November, exactly 12 months to the day, got back into Cairns. Ah yes. Home, sweet home.
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AndrewsWHERE
Andrew Wharton
Just in time to see your fav lil sister :D