Yangming Mountain School Hike!

Friday November 2^nd, 2012

Whoo! Andrea feels uber worn out!

Oh! Never mind! After a full-blown title and two sentences, Andrea fled to her bed for a short shut-eye. Now she has an adequate amount of strength to go on! Let’s try to do this!

The main and only highlight of today was the school field trip to hike at Yangming Mountain. So no school classes, just hiking. SCORE! Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with the school classes. It’s just I was really excited to try hiking in Taiwan as well as getting some beloved exercise inserted into my day. ^_^

Preparation for the hike was basically getting food and water beforehand as well as bringing along the usual essentials (umbrella, wallet, camera, etc.). Water was easily obtainable by just using the water machine at school to fill an empty bottle I had from a previous day. Whoo! I just saved 20NT! ;P Redy told me that we needed to bring our own lunch for hiking so I went to 7-Eleven for that. At first getting a sandwich came across my mind but they are very expensive at 7-Eleven. Instead, I chose to go with an apple, a can of pineapple slices and a dash of being Taiwanese with an Asian style lunchbox. In this wrapped paper container included rice, egg, meat of some sort, green veggies, corn and hints of carrots. All this is good and dandy but the lunchbox is supposed to be eaten hot, which 7-Eleven can microwave up for you. But since it would be at least five hours until I could eat it, heating it up would be pointless. Oh well.

Arriving at the MTR station near by high school, I spotted Rike and Marilu (two exchange students at Tatung). Walking together, they went down a different path than I usually do, which gave a new freshness to the morning walk. Both chicas wanted to buy food for the hiking trip so they stopped by a “FamilyMart,” a convenient store just like 7-Eleven. As a result of all students needing to be at school at 7:30 for the hiking trip, my breakfast sit down at the teahouse was cancelled. Sadness. To compromise around this, I purchased a box of two sushi rolls at FamilyMart as a quick breakfast I could munch on while waiting in class.

Fast forwarding to sitting in my classroom seat, the sushi rolls were both good. They were made of a lot more rice than I’ve had in a usual sushi roll but the sauce inside was very tasty and gave it an enjoyable flavor. Sorry I don’t have pictures of it. My mentally at that point was ‘eat quick. They might leave any second when your still stuffing your mouth.’ XD In reality I had more time than I thought. Another ‘oh well’ moment. ;)

Soon we filed out of the classroom and across the campus to the basketball courts. The entire hiking group had to gather here. I can’t really give an estimate with how many there were but there were hundreds of students. Maybe over four or five hundred? I really don’t know. We had to wait a good while until we were finally called over to the tour buses, our transportation to the mountains. The drive wasn’t long at all in comparison to my Hua-Lien trip but something happened throughout the time since it was a tour bus.

KTV. This thing just keeps popping up in my life! XD At first it gets really difficult because they blast the speakers but eventually your ears adjust or they turn down the volume. But then you have a fun time hearing your classmates happily singing. It is also entertaining to read the Chinese characters on screen and see how many I know. Even if I know what some characters are, there’s no guarantee that I know what they’re saying because it could have a total different context meaning than from what I originally thought. For example, I know “天氣” as ‘weather’ in Chinese. But when I see just “氣” on screen, I have no flipping idea what that means. XD At least I can pronounce it! ;P

Breakfast part two was had on the bus with the pineapple slices I purchased the same morning. Not long after, we arrived at our destination. Wow! That was a lot quicker than I thought!

Lemme see if I can report the hiking experience fairly quickly. Time is slipping away from me right now. The distance and height of the hike is unknown to me but I think it was at least over 6.6km. At the start of the hike the scenery was a fairly dense forest weaving up the mountain. The path was paved with rocks that were coated with a thin layer of moss. So caution was in order but not too much when going up. We passed by very small flows of water, some barely big enough to be called a stream. There were some wooden stairs a couple of places to aid in climbing up the path but most all of the trail was just rock.

Many students were having a difficult time scaling the mountain and got really tired. Quite a few just had to squeeze to the side of the thin trail for a break. Some others would just stand still for a few seconds, holding up the people behind and then continue climbing. It tugged at my heartstrings when I would hear heavy panting around me. I wanted to help them but there’s really no way to do so other than cheer “good luck!” in Chinese or say “小心” (Be careful). Funny enough, the characters for ‘be careful’ directly translate to “small heart.” Interesting. Interesting indeed.

During the hike up the mountain I had to laugh at the fact that the student closest to me was my desk buddy! Hey there man! Not only are we next to each other in class but also while hiking! Cool! But he’s a quiet dude so not much conversation was exchanged other than me asking things like “do you like this (hiking),” “are you tired,” “are you hot,” etc. It was adorable when he was behind me and my foot would just slightly slip (nothing that would cause death). I would hear a small “uh!” that from what I can tell was his way of gasping ‘be careful’ or just being concerned about me. How sweet and cute!

While in the forest part of the hike, I took a good number of pictures but they didn’t turn out so hot as a result of moving in a non-well lit place. But I would multi-task by taking shots with my camera and climbing up the mountain at the same time. Nothing really dangerous or risky since I photographed with great caution to where my feet were being placed. Even so I didn’t have many clear pictures. Darn it.

At one point we were directed out of the forest into an open part of the trail where the surrounding mountains could be viewed. In this area there were even more stone stairs than before. They made many a student exhausted to the point where they had to take a break on the side of the trail. It surprised me with how many did so with looking utterly fatigued. But I’m glad that the trail got big enough for them to do so. As for me, I really wasn’t tired at all until the last stretch of stairs. After climbing hundreds of stone steps at a fair pace, you start to run out of breath. Thankfully it wasn’t anything as serious as making my lungs feel on fire but I nonetheless had to pant just a wee bit.

It was only several minutes after beginning to feel weary that I reached the destination. Banzai! After that invigorating hike, I worked up an appetite! Sitting down on the ground with some classmates, we enjoyed some lunch together. When I brought out my 7-Eleven lunchbox from my schoolbag, it caught the attention of several classmates. It basically was because (as I’ve said before) these meals are meant to be eaten hot but that obviously would not happen on this trip. So they just kind of commented on it and continued other chat.

Other food I devoured was the apple I bought, my water and something I don’t know how to call in English. I can barely pronounce it in Chinese! It’s one of those rice things in a pyramid shape with a few beans and meat on one side, wrapped in leaves. (There will be a picture later) Perhaps these were provided by the school or my teacher, but they were being passed around my class. They were somewhat warm and quite tasty. The rice was moist and a little oily but were clumped together in a dense yet soft meal. Good stuff!

Desiring one more thing to finish off the lunch, I found a vending machine and hopped up for a drink. While waiting in line I spotted coffee which interested me but once it was my turn, something caught my eye and demanded to be bought. Root beer! Or should I say, Taiwanese root beer. I just had to try it and see if there was any difference from the root beer back in America. A Taiwanese student who went on an exchange to Texas in the past found me at that moment and became interested to see what I thought of the root beer. She liked both the root beer in Taiwan and Texas but was curious to see what a true Texas thought. The result? Meh, good but not A&W root beer. Taiwanese root beer is distinctly different from root beer back in Texas but I couldn’t quite pinpoint why. Perhaps more caramel flavor? Either way, it was a fun experience to try Taiwanese root beer. :)

Oh dear, I’m reeeeeeally running out of time to write this. Speed writing, GO!

Our lunch break ended and we had to head back a different trail for half the hike down but then the last half intersected with the trail we already went up. Along the new part of the trail, there were many a cow patty that lay on the ground. This lead me to constantly hear “小心!” and the Chinese word for “poo.” Lovely, right? XD Other than that, this trail was quite enjoyable as it was very open and had a pleasant view of the mountains. We could see white steam rising from one part of the mountains nearby, which a classmate told me that it was a hot spring. Cool stuff.

Going down the forest part of the trail (where we’ve already been going up), you could hear “小心!!!” constantly because many people kept slipping when going down. The thin layer of moss on the rocks and some mud now and then were not too safe but nothing really dangerous as long as you were cautious. I’m happy to report that I didn’t slip so I’m alive and not hurt. ;)

The hiking trip overall was SO MUCH FUN! I LOVE HIKING! Can I pleeeeeeease do this more often? Can I pleeeeeeease live in the mountains? Something. Anything! This kind of activity is just way too pleasurable and soothing with exercise on the side! 我喜歡！(I like!)

Here’s an explosion of pictures, which I’ll hopefully comment on later if time permits ;)

A mob of Tatung high school students!

Doggie pile time! They actually had a pile of five guys at once but I just love this picture the most. The second level guy is laughing up a storm while the third level guy is just lounging around happily as he watches the other guy's cringe under pressure. XD

There was a small temple by our rest stop. The roofs never fail to make me stare in adoring amazement.

Two of my classmates and I...

Whatever the heck this pose is for, it looks cool!

Two other classmates and I. ;)

These stone steps that paved the mountain are just beautiful to me!

*sings* Hi-Ho! Hi-Ho! It's down the hill we go! (Snow White and the 7 Dwarves tune)

The pyramid rice meal thing of yumminess and I on the bus going back to Tatung.

So here’s why my time is short tonight. I am currently busy with the task of packing. My first host family is going abroad, which leaves me to stay with a temporary host family for about eleven days until they come back. It’s a little short notice but no biggie. At least I just need to pack enough clothing and stuff for eleven days. If I needed to pack everything up, as if actually switching from my first to second host families, I would be having a heart attack right now. Thankfully that’s not the case!

The house I will temporary be living at is owned by the president of my Rotary club, Uncle Eric. I am very indebted to him and his generous family to allow me to stay with them because they are currently very busy with a new bundle of joy they just were blessed with. Uncle Eric just became a grandpa! (FYI, male Rotarians like to be called “Uncle___” as a title and term of endearment) So I’ll have a new experience both with a new family, new house, and the bonus of seeing the beginning days of a baby coming into this world, something I haven’t seen up front and close.

So there’s no telling how my schedule will be like these upcoming days. I still plan on writing my Taffys if time permits me to. But thanks again for reading! I’ll see you next time after moving in to Uncle Eric’s house! Take care! :D