When we were packed we went to the main house to use the internet and figure out where we wanted to go. After a recommendation from Diane (Hsien's daughter), we decided on Tainan. I sent a bunch of Couchsurfing requests and they invited us to lunch! Two of Diane’s friends were there cooking, Kate and Julia. Kate had made a quiche for the first time and they had lots of food, so we got a free lunch! The people were super nice and I’m really glad we got a chance to stay there…Diane was fun to chat with and Hsien was funny because he always tried to compare Portuguese and Spanish. But despite the language barrier, we had a great time. Kate and Julia were heading to Taichung and we needed to go there to get ... read more

This morning we packed, left our bags downstairs, and caught the 10:25 bus to Cingjing. We made one 10-minute stop a little after 11 and after that we started seeing hotels and businesses. We asked the bus driver about Cingjing farm/Green Green Grassland, and he let us know when we were there, about 30 minutes after our earlier stop. We bought our tickets for Green Green Grassland and along with it came some coupons we couldn't read. I think this place would have been nice to visit on some other day. Today was foggy and rainy and cold. We couldn’t see very far and the sheep weren’t grazing. There were some pens where the sheep were kept and they have shearing shows twice a day, but we weren’t near those hours. You can buy all sorts ... read more

We bought some absolutely delicious bread at Mr. Beard Bakery and started walking towards Taipei 101. Along the way we found a noodle shop and got one to share for a nice 55 dollars. It took around 15-20 minutes to get to the 101 and when we went up to the 5th floor to buy tickets we decided not to go. 400 dollars is a lot of money to pay for going up to the top, we thought, especially on a cloudy day. We decided it would sort of be like throwing our money away, so when we come back to Taipei in a week or so we'll see how much money we have and whether or not it'd be worth it! We walked to the nearest metro and hopped a train bound for the CKS ... read more

...and we had a wonderful Ikea bed to sleep on and slept till noon. But I'll back up. We got into the airport a little after midnight and first had to pass through immigration. We had to look up our hostel's name and write it in for the guy to let us pass and as we were going down the escalator to the baggage claim we met Pablo, a guy from Spain. He's been living in Taipei for a while and offered to share a cab with us. The bus that would take us to Taipei Main Station was running, but we didn't know how much a taxi was supposed to be from there to the hostel, and we knew from their website that from the airport to there should be around 1,300 NT so we ... read more

This morning around 11:15 I went back to the dive center to ask about their dives for the day and who would be the dive masters. I settle on a dive leaving at noon for Camia's Reef, a wreck dive nearby. This dive went much better and I went with Jade and a German girl doing her Advanced certification and they were both respectful and mindful of their surroundings. We saw a lot of cool things there but it was a short dive so I’d like to get my nitrox cert I think. This was about 29 meters so we could only stay 35 minutes without the nitrox. I talked with Jade about Oliver from yesterday because he’s the head of the diving center and he said he’d talk to him about it, but again didn’t ... read more