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081 Hualien, Taiwan and Beyond · bit of a Rambler

0:00
Speaker 1: Hello. My name is Kai and I'm a bit of
0:02
Speaker 1: a rambler. I like to travel, learn and tell stories.
0:07
Speaker 1: And I want to keep telling the story about urban
0:10
Speaker 1: camping in Taiwan, which has turned into much more of
0:14
Speaker 1: a rant than I thought it was, or a ramble.
0:17
Speaker 1: I should say, I forgot I had this many stories.
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Speaker 1: So anyway, we left off with Missus Robinson, you whoing
0:27
Speaker 1: at my hammock at nine in the morning and I
0:31
Speaker 1: woke up to Hello, Hi, Hello, And Missus Robinson wasn't
0:37
Speaker 1: her real name, obviously, she is Taiwanese, but her name fits.
0:42
Speaker 1: And I woke up to someone talking to me and
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Speaker 1: I was like, oh, no, they're going to kick me
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Speaker 1: off the beach. And I just looked out at whoever
0:51
Speaker 1: it was outside my hammock because I can see through
0:54
Speaker 1: the hammock, and I tried to outwait them, but they
0:57
Speaker 1: weren't moving. They were just staying there. Hello. And I
1:03
Speaker 1: opened and came out and said good morning, popped my
1:06
Speaker 1: head out of the hammock and she said, Hi, I've
1:10
Speaker 1: noticed you sleeping here. Are you sleeping on the beach
1:15
Speaker 1: And I was like, yeah, it's yeah, ice camp here
1:19
Speaker 1: like every day. She was like, oh, that's fantastic. I
1:23
Speaker 1: love camping. It's so much fun, isn't it. And I
1:26
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, yeah, it is really fun, like I'm
1:28
Speaker 1: having a great time. And we just had a nice
1:31
Speaker 1: conversation and at the end of it it was kind
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Speaker 1: of extended for me. She was older, i'll say fifty
1:41
Speaker 1: five sixty something like that, and she told me about
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Speaker 1: her She always did yoga on the beach and then
1:51
Speaker 1: rode her bike. She had like those fat tire bikes.
1:54
Speaker 1: She had one of those. So she told me about
1:56
Speaker 1: her morning routine rode her bike around. But she'd seen
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Speaker 1: me on the beach for the past couple weeks and
2:02
Speaker 1: finally decided to ask who I was and like what
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Speaker 1: I was doing. And so after our morning salutations, she said,
2:10
Speaker 1: and if you ever want to come by and get
2:12
Speaker 1: some tea, you can come by and have tea with me.
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Speaker 1: I think it would be nice. And she said it
2:18
Speaker 1: innocently enough, but there was just something about the way
2:24
Speaker 1: she was looking at me, and the fact that she
2:26
Speaker 1: was inviting a stranger man into her home. It just
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Speaker 1: seemed like there were some undercurrent of attraction or utilitarian action.
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Speaker 1: I don't know how to say it correctly. Because it
2:47
Speaker 1: wasn't romance. It just seemed like she was interested in
2:51
Speaker 1: having a man in her house. But she said it
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Speaker 1: innocently enough, and I was like, Eh, it's not too
3:02
Speaker 1: weird and she's not going to like attack me, so whatever,
3:07
Speaker 1: And I told her yes, and she it like insisted
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Speaker 1: on giving me her address and told me I could
3:14
Speaker 1: come by it too, or something like that, and gave
3:16
Speaker 1: me a time and everything. And in hindsight, it was
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Speaker 1: much more Missus Robinson a situation, but at the time
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Speaker 1: it all happened in this blur, I was like, that's weird.
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Speaker 1: Is she hitting on me? Or does she just want
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Speaker 1: to have tea? And I'm still in the middle of
3:36
Speaker 1: my first urban camping adventure. There's just a lot going
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Speaker 1: on in my mind, so I'm not clocking things as
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Speaker 1: you do with the benefit of hindsight. And she wasn't unattractive,
3:48
Speaker 1: but she was much older than me, double my age,
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Speaker 1: and I wasn't a spring chicken myself, so I like
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Speaker 1: the fact that she said yoga and she exercised every day,
4:01
Speaker 1: but I just didn't know if I was up for
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Speaker 1: senior afternoon delight. But I spent that day just thinking
4:10
Speaker 1: about it. And I walked around playing Pokemon Go, rechargeing
4:13
Speaker 1: my phone, probably having one of those great breakfast burritos,
4:18
Speaker 1: and then I was like, what the heck, just go
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Speaker 1: say hello, just see what it is, which is how
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Speaker 1: I deal with most situations. I just wanted, yeah, I
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Speaker 1: want to find out what the outcome of this situation
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Speaker 1: would be. So I walked in the direction of her
4:34
Speaker 1: neighborhood and then I found her Hutong and then I
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Speaker 1: was there and there was her building and that was
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Speaker 1: the number that she gave me painted on it, her address.
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Speaker 1: So I rang the bell and she answered and I said, Hey,
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Speaker 1: it's Kai from the beach Hammock and she was, oh, hello, Hello,
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Speaker 1: come in please. Oh it's so nice to see you.
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Speaker 1: And she was very excited. And I went inside and
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Speaker 1: she had a very nice home. It was very well
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Speaker 1: apportioned glass tile floors, but not fancy, just like comfortable tile,
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Speaker 1: and there was a Guys, you know, looking back on this,
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Speaker 1: it's really funny. I was so unsure of whether or
5:17
Speaker 1: not she was looking for afternoon to light, because now
5:21
Speaker 1: it really seems like that's what she was going for,
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Speaker 1: because there was a coffee table set up and a
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Speaker 1: love seat in front of the coffee table, and there
5:33
Speaker 1: were chairs and stuff in other parts of the room,
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Speaker 1: but she must have moved them because the main entry hall,
5:41
Speaker 1: the entry room, which was most of the house, was
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Speaker 1: completely everything was near the walls except for this one
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Speaker 1: coffee table and one love seat she put in front
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Speaker 1: of the coffee table. It was very casually arranged, again,
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Speaker 1: just like her tone, very usual. But it just all
6:03
Speaker 1: pointed toward afternoon delight, and she was courteous. She didn't
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Speaker 1: try and make out with me right away or anything,
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Speaker 1: and we just started talking about my travels and all
6:17
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff, and she sat down right next
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Speaker 1: to me, very close. I thought, for if this was
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Speaker 1: a non afternoon delight scenario, then that would be sitting
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Speaker 1: pretty close. But if this was afternoon delight, then why
6:34
Speaker 1: what's happening? Is just what I kept thinking. I kept
6:37
Speaker 1: going back and forth. I was like, is this or
6:39
Speaker 1: And in hindsight, I believe yes, she was trying to
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Speaker 1: get a man in her house for some fun. But
6:45
Speaker 1: I just couldn't resolve things in my mind. And I'm
6:50
Speaker 1: on my first backpacking adventure, so there's too many things
6:53
Speaker 1: I think going on for me to resolve but she
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Speaker 1: asked if I wanted some tea, and I was like, yeah, yeah,
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Speaker 1: that would be great, because what are we doing here.
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Speaker 1: She brought out some tea. I think she asked if
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Speaker 1: I want to eat something. Maybe she had some like
7:12
Speaker 1: biscuits or crackers or whatever, and I was like, wow,
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Speaker 1: these are good crackers. And she gave the tea, and
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Speaker 1: the tea was really tasty. I was like, holy cow,
7:22
Speaker 1: this is like and it was a very deep blue color,
7:26
Speaker 1: which I had never seen before. It was a bright blue,
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Speaker 1: a bright deep blue. It was a very interesting color.
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Speaker 1: And I was like, man, this is really good tea.
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Speaker 1: Like I don't actually drink that much tea, but this
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Speaker 1: is great. She was like, oh, it's so and so tea.
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Speaker 1: It's really great. It's very healthy. It makes you strong.
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Speaker 1: And I think she said it was special or something
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Speaker 1: like that. And I don't know if the blue tea
7:55
Speaker 1: has already given you the hint, but if you know
7:59
Speaker 1: of other medicine that's blue, what is that? What is
8:03
Speaker 1: that famous medicine called viagra, the blue pill medicine. I
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Speaker 1: didn't even make that connection at the time, but I
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Speaker 1: didn't need to because the blue tea she gave me
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Speaker 1: had that stimulating effect, and I was like, what is happening?
8:26
Speaker 1: And I even looked at her to like gauge her countenance.
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Speaker 1: But like I said, she acted very casual, and I
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Speaker 1: believe now she was waiting for me to make a
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Speaker 1: move and I wanted to, but I'm very suspicious of impulses.
8:45
Speaker 1: Even though I follow most of my impulses even after,
8:48
Speaker 1: I'm suspicious of them. When I was so suddenly excited
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Speaker 1: about this lady right after I had this blue tea,
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Speaker 1: I like looked at the tea and I'm thinking about
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Speaker 1: how I felt, and I was like, this is crazy.
9:07
Speaker 1: And I went in the bathroom and I was like, yeah,
9:11
Speaker 1: this is like a medical situation, Like this isn't a
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Speaker 1: natural occurring interest, and I decided not to pursue it.
9:22
Speaker 1: But I almost couldn't help myself with this blue tea
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Speaker 1: coursing through my veins. And I didn't even make the
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Speaker 1: connection between the blue tea and the little blue pill viagra.
9:33
Speaker 1: Later on, what is the act of ingredient in that?
9:36
Speaker 1: Hang on? A second? Sidentaphil citraate, Okay, it's a synthetic compound.
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Speaker 1: This was definitely from a blue flower that she told
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Speaker 1: me about at the time, but I didn't remember a
9:47
Speaker 1: lot of it because there was a lot going on
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Speaker 1: in the situation was so bizarre anyway, I was like,
9:56
Speaker 1: seriously considering doing that. That's how crazy my brain had
10:02
Speaker 1: been taken over by I assumed the tea because I've
10:05
Speaker 1: never been that rearing to go for no reason with
10:11
Speaker 1: someone I wasn't particularly physically attracted to. She wasn't physically unattractive,
10:15
Speaker 1: but I wasn't crazy about her right out of the gate.
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Speaker 1: But I kept my mind at my pants on and
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Speaker 1: I walked out and just kept talking to her, and
10:27
Speaker 1: she showed me a photo album with her children in it,
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Speaker 1: like her grown children, And I was like, well, wait,
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Speaker 1: that's her grown son. Why would she be trying to
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Speaker 1: hit on me and drug me with aphrodisiac tea if
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Speaker 1: she's gonna show me family pictures of her son. But
10:50
Speaker 1: my interest continued for hours. After I left her apartment
10:57
Speaker 1: and walked around, I was like, what the heck is
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Speaker 1: going on? And I looked up every tea in the world.
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Speaker 1: I just I it ended with me not making a
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Speaker 1: move on her and her not making a move on me.
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Speaker 1: I think maybe she was like hoping for some kind
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Speaker 1: of organic move making. But I was just too put
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Speaker 1: off by the indirectness of the situation and the many
11:27
Speaker 1: factors that I couldn't explained the unexplainable nature of the
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Speaker 1: situation as well. So after we had afternoon tea for
11:36
Speaker 1: a couple hours, I thanked her and I left awkwardly,
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Speaker 1: and she casually but not naturally casually. I feel like,
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Speaker 1: said goodbye and I should come by for tea again.
11:53
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, but I can't remember if I did.
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Speaker 1: I think I was only in town for another few
11:59
Speaker 1: days after after that, and I may not have. I
12:03
Speaker 1: definitely talked to her on the beach again. She stopped
12:05
Speaker 1: by every other day just to say hello in the
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Speaker 1: morning and see how I was doing and ask if
12:10
Speaker 1: I wanted to come by for tea again. But I
12:13
Speaker 1: was there for another week and then I left town
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Speaker 1: and I didn't see her again. So I almost got
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Speaker 1: missus Robinson. I'm pretty sure, and I'm pretty sure she
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Speaker 1: drugged me with I don't think it was a sit
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Speaker 1: that a call. I just think she knew like this
12:32
Speaker 1: is the tea that gets guys interested, and she was right.
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Speaker 1: That tea was amazing, and I looked I wish I
12:41
Speaker 1: could remember the name of it, or I had written
12:43
Speaker 1: it down or something, but I looked up every tea
12:48
Speaker 1: and I finally came across this one, deep bright, but
12:53
Speaker 1: deeply blue colored tea made from butterfly pea pea, not
13:02
Speaker 1: urine like snapped cousin, the butterfly pee, the vegetable, and
13:08
Speaker 1: it comes out as a bright blue. It's made from
13:11
Speaker 1: butterfly pee flowers. And one of the pages I was
13:16
Speaker 1: reading mentioned something about increasing blood flow and maybe it
13:21
Speaker 1: is used as an afrodisiac, and I was like, is
13:24
Speaker 1: that that's it? And I'm still not sure if it was,
13:28
Speaker 1: but it looks just like if you look up butterfly
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Speaker 1: p flower tea, you'll see this bright blue tea that
13:37
Speaker 1: I couldn't help but connect there must have been It
13:39
Speaker 1: was either in that. It had to be in that,
13:41
Speaker 1: because that was the only thing I drank, and I
13:44
Speaker 1: was interested, vigorously interested in her a minute after I
13:50
Speaker 1: drank the tea, in stark contrast to a minute before
13:53
Speaker 1: I drank the tea. That was a bizarre encounter that
13:57
Speaker 1: I look back on with fond and still and I
14:03
Speaker 1: always think, what if, what if? Can't go wrong with yoga,
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Speaker 1: I always say. So that was one of my last
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Speaker 1: experiences in that town. I might have even gone back
14:19
Speaker 1: for tea again, because I was so curious about the
14:22
Speaker 1: entire encounter. I'm still curious about it ten years later.
14:27
Speaker 1: And I didn't because I was exploring a new part
14:32
Speaker 1: of the town and there was a pizza place, like
14:36
Speaker 1: a western pizza place, and the owner proprietor was sitting outside.
14:43
Speaker 1: So I introduced myself to the guy and asked him
14:47
Speaker 1: how the pizza was, and he was like, it's great.
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Speaker 1: I own this place. And I was like, oh, okay,
14:51
Speaker 1: and I did get a pizza, and he was right.
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Speaker 1: It was really great. It was like it tasted very Italian.
14:57
Speaker 1: I think he had been to Italy or something there.
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Speaker 1: He had something in his history where he worked with
15:03
Speaker 1: pizza before. I can't remember exactly what it was, and
15:05
Speaker 1: I took zero notes of everything during this time, but
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Speaker 1: it was great pizza. And I told him about my
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Speaker 1: travels and what I was doing and how I was
15:15
Speaker 1: urban camping for the first time and maybe I would
15:17
Speaker 1: just keep traveling, and he was like, that's so cool,
15:20
Speaker 1: let's talk more. And we kept talking. I think he
15:24
Speaker 1: had beer there also, so I had great pizza a beer,
15:29
Speaker 1: and then I said I was gonna get it because
15:31
Speaker 1: I had to explore this next neighborhood. And he said, well,
15:34
Speaker 1: come by after I closed down. We just hang out
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Speaker 1: and have a beer, and I did. I went over
15:41
Speaker 1: to his pizza place after the beer and talked with
15:45
Speaker 1: him a little bit and it was very fine. And
15:49
Speaker 1: then his friend showed up and they were both going
15:51
Speaker 1: out to somewhere, but I wasn't interested in going with them,
15:55
Speaker 1: like I was carrying a rucksack. I think they were
15:56
Speaker 1: going to a club, and I was just like, Nah,
16:00
Speaker 1: of fun and I'll see you guys later. And I
16:02
Speaker 1: had a couple more pizzas I think that week at
16:04
Speaker 1: that guy's restaurant because it was so good the first time.
16:08
Speaker 1: But what I was pretty excited about was that I
16:11
Speaker 1: found a little shirt chong market, one of those outdoor markets.
16:17
Speaker 1: In China, they'll usually have like a big open courtyard
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Speaker 1: space and there's just one hundred stalls, like in a
16:25
Speaker 1: big circle or square in a courtyard, And in Taiwan
16:28
Speaker 1: they usually had them down alleys, so one of the
16:31
Speaker 1: who tongs would be completely taken up, or multiple who
16:35
Speaker 1: tongs could be a kilometer long by folding tables and
16:39
Speaker 1: chairs and stalls and all these kind of things, and
16:43
Speaker 1: I loved walking through them, and I was always looking
16:46
Speaker 1: for something new, and I always found something new. I
16:48
Speaker 1: mean they had. I found one that was just selling
16:52
Speaker 1: cookwar sets like the ones I had, and I was like, Ooh,
16:54
Speaker 1: is that one better? Ooh should I buy it? I
16:56
Speaker 1: don't know, and the folding chopsticks, little packs and all
17:01
Speaker 1: these kind of things. And then I found these little
17:06
Speaker 1: crispy sugar cookies with sugar frosting. Okay, well, I just
17:13
Speaker 1: spent an obscene amount of time looking for the cookies
17:16
Speaker 1: that I cannot find, so I don't know the name now,
17:19
Speaker 1: and it's going to bug me for weeks. But they're small,
17:22
Speaker 1: centimeter to centimeter into half puffy sugar cookies that are
17:26
Speaker 1: crunchy with a little drop of multicolored frosting sugar frosting
17:31
Speaker 1: confection or sugar frosting, and they're like white or pink
17:34
Speaker 1: or green or yellow, and it's my favorite cookie still,
17:39
Speaker 1: and every market has them in Taiwan. I've seen them
17:42
Speaker 1: around parts of Thailand also, so I think they're across Asia,
17:46
Speaker 1: and I think i've seen them in Japan, but in
17:49
Speaker 1: Taiwan you can get a bag of one hundred or
17:53
Speaker 1: two hundred of them, and sometimes I would just buy
17:56
Speaker 1: a bag of those cookies and munch them down. Oh
17:59
Speaker 1: my gosh, there's looked for them again. I I don't
18:01
Speaker 1: know what they're called. I knew what they were called before,
18:03
Speaker 1: but now it's been too long. I did find the
18:05
Speaker 1: name of that Taiwanese egg dish, which is just dan
18:08
Speaker 1: being very tasty, fluffy crape. So I found my favorite
18:15
Speaker 1: cookies in the world. And that was a very satisfying development.
18:20
Speaker 1: And then I continued walking around the town for the
18:25
Speaker 1: next few days, made excuses as why not to go
18:29
Speaker 1: visit Missus Robinson again, trying to few the local sandwiches
18:35
Speaker 1: cooked around town. I remember that. And then I decided
18:38
Speaker 1: to leave Hualien because I had been living there for
18:41
Speaker 1: close to two months. And while I loved the vegetarian
18:45
Speaker 1: Buddhist restaurant and these are my favorite cookies, and all
18:48
Speaker 1: the mountains, oh, they didn't mention the mountains. So the
18:51
Speaker 1: spot I was in and Juayan is so great because
18:54
Speaker 1: it's right next to a really nice beach, but behind
18:57
Speaker 1: it less than a mile away are really sloping, forested,
19:01
Speaker 1: beautiful mountains, and I spent a lot of time back
19:06
Speaker 1: there in those mountains. They maybe took an hour to
19:09
Speaker 1: backpack too, because they were in the middle of nowhere
19:11
Speaker 1: and there's switchbacks to get up there and all that.
19:14
Speaker 1: But I really liked the towns, so when I got
19:17
Speaker 1: board hanging around in town or by the beach, I
19:20
Speaker 1: would just walk an hour outside of town up into
19:22
Speaker 1: the mountains and walk to all the different little towns
19:25
Speaker 1: up there. And I didn't find anything remarkable, but there
19:28
Speaker 1: was always some kids playing basketball and these enormous pavilions
19:34
Speaker 1: that I have no idea why they were up there,
19:36
Speaker 1: because there was no population centers, just a few mountain
19:39
Speaker 1: towns and then giant concrete like with electricity and outlets,
19:46
Speaker 1: stages and courtyards with basketball courts and stuff. I never
19:50
Speaker 1: saw anything other than a few grandparents with their grandchildren
19:55
Speaker 1: and some teenagers shooting hoops though, so I think I
19:59
Speaker 1: only went up there three or four times. But the
20:01
Speaker 1: mountains were really nice, And then there were closer mountains
20:03
Speaker 1: around the city itself that there were hiking trails, and
20:08
Speaker 1: they were a little more frequented by joggers and hikers
20:11
Speaker 1: and stuff, and I climbed all of those also, But
20:14
Speaker 1: I had seen pretty much everything I had on my
20:17
Speaker 1: map that I had planned to check out, and then
20:22
Speaker 1: all of the new stuff I had seen all that too.
20:25
Speaker 1: Like there were a few of my favorite spots. There
20:27
Speaker 1: was a little little market with taco like Tako balls,
20:34
Speaker 1: those little fried balls of dough with octopus inside that
20:42
Speaker 1: are pretty great, just like a little half arts and
20:46
Speaker 1: crafts and half local Taiwanese snacks. Maybe ten vendors, but
20:52
Speaker 1: they always showed up every day and went there a
20:54
Speaker 1: few times. There was just a few spots that I
20:56
Speaker 1: like to hang out at. There's this huge overpass that
21:01
Speaker 1: was disused or something, and it covered this river I
21:06
Speaker 1: liked to go on. There were a lot of rivers
21:07
Speaker 1: in that town. Oh wait. The last thing I did
21:12
Speaker 1: was cook on a basketball court. I was so hungry,
21:15
Speaker 1: or a tennis court, I think it was, yeah, And
21:18
Speaker 1: I was trying to find a place to eat dinner,
21:21
Speaker 1: and I decided to just cook curry because I was starving,
21:24
Speaker 1: and I had curry and noodles and everything in my
21:25
Speaker 1: back and I couldn't find anywhere to cook, so I
21:28
Speaker 1: just set up my little stove on the corner of
21:32
Speaker 1: a tennis court as soon as it got dark, dark
21:35
Speaker 1: enough that most people wouldn't see me, but everyone saw
21:39
Speaker 1: me because it was right next to a school that
21:41
Speaker 1: I didn't realize was there, so students kept walking by
21:44
Speaker 1: while I was cooking my curry and no one cared
21:47
Speaker 1: like it was fine. But it was just funny because
21:49
Speaker 1: I thought I was being sneaky by doing it in
21:52
Speaker 1: the corner of like an old, abandoned park. But I
21:54
Speaker 1: must have just arrived for the five minutes that no
21:56
Speaker 1: one was there, because for the ten minutes I was cooking,
22:00
Speaker 1: there was people constantly walking by. And then I had
22:03
Speaker 1: my greade dinner. Okay, So I moved on from Hualien
22:08
Speaker 1: after that, and I was sad to go. I missed
22:11
Speaker 1: my familiar alleyways that I walked every day. I was
22:14
Speaker 1: walking easily twenty miles a day most days, because I'd
22:19
Speaker 1: walk from one end of the city to the other,
22:22
Speaker 1: like my little town ended, and then the city center
22:25
Speaker 1: and I would just walk through the whole thing, and
22:26
Speaker 1: then i'd walk all the way back when I needed
22:28
Speaker 1: to charge my phone back in the town. And eight
22:32
Speaker 1: hours a day walking easy. Sure, that makes total sense
22:36
Speaker 1: to me probably more A lot of the days I
22:38
Speaker 1: was really into Pokemon Go. I got to the maximum level,
22:42
Speaker 1: I got to like the maximum used to be forty,
22:45
Speaker 1: so I got to thirty nine and a half. And
22:47
Speaker 1: then they started instituting all these pay for playthings and
22:50
Speaker 1: I was like, well, I'm not gonna even get the
22:53
Speaker 1: top score now. Then Pokemon Go, he said, accusingly. I
22:59
Speaker 1: bought my new phone there that I said, charged super fast.
23:02
Speaker 1: That was how I found out about OPO, that brand,
23:05
Speaker 1: the Taiwanese brand that was acquired by a Chinese company,
23:09
Speaker 1: really interesting company for a little while there. Oh and
23:12
Speaker 1: that was ten years ago, that phone, and that's how
23:14
Speaker 1: I discovered how far ahead Asia was. Like I was
23:18
Speaker 1: using the HTC and I got that in the States,
23:21
Speaker 1: But that was a pretty standard in terms of the
23:24
Speaker 1: internal hardware flagship phone at the time, whereas the OPO
23:30
Speaker 1: had the fastest charging on the market basically, and it
23:34
Speaker 1: wasn't even USBC based. It was a proprietary micro USB
23:39
Speaker 1: technology developed by OPO. It had eight gigabytes of RAM.
23:43
Speaker 1: That was at the time Apple phone still had two
23:47
Speaker 1: or four gigabytes of RAM. It had an included five
23:50
Speaker 1: hundred twelve gigabytes of memory with expandable SDXC microSD card
23:58
Speaker 1: up to four terabytes, which is crazy. It just had
24:05
Speaker 1: all modern features of today, but it had them ten
24:08
Speaker 1: years ago. OPA was ahead of the game with their phones. Now,
24:13
Speaker 1: all their new phones are not great, they're not bad,
24:16
Speaker 1: they're whatever, They're fine, but they're in line with everybody
24:19
Speaker 1: else now. Ten years ago they were ahead of the
24:23
Speaker 1: game like HTC was, but like moderately, the OPA was
24:27
Speaker 1: a huge hardware acceleration. The only problem was their operating
24:31
Speaker 1: system was terrible, just bloated and a real pain in
24:38
Speaker 1: the butt. However, that didn't bother me too much because
24:41
Speaker 1: I played with my HTC ten I think in the
24:45
Speaker 1: rain so much that it died after a while. It
24:50
Speaker 1: spontaneously died, and I'm assuming it's because I was walking
24:54
Speaker 1: around in the Taiwanese rain playing Pokemon Go twelve hours
24:57
Speaker 1: a day and then running back to the and recharging
25:01
Speaker 1: it as it went down, and then you know, goes
25:04
Speaker 1: down to ten, I recharge it to one hundred, I
25:06
Speaker 1: walk around play for another four hours, and then go
25:08
Speaker 1: back and recharge it. And I did that for like
25:10
Speaker 1: a month. So I think the hardware just failed, especially
25:14
Speaker 1: walking around in that super humid, salty ocean rainy air.
25:21
Speaker 1: But because of that, I went to the phone store
25:23
Speaker 1: and asked them which one was good, and the guy
25:26
Speaker 1: was like, that one, and he pointed at the OPO
25:29
Speaker 1: and he told me about the charging and how fast
25:31
Speaker 1: it was, and I was like, what, I've never heard
25:34
Speaker 1: of a phone that fast. And he turned it on
25:36
Speaker 1: and he was like here and it said like sixty eight.
25:40
Speaker 1: So he plugged it in. He said just watch it,
25:42
Speaker 1: and it bipped to sixty nine and then bipped to seventy.
25:46
Speaker 1: And I was like, what the heck? And I pulled
25:47
Speaker 1: out my stopwatch and timed it. Yeah, and it was
25:50
Speaker 1: going up more than one percent a minute, and I
25:53
Speaker 1: was like, okay, that is pretty fast. Like it looked
25:57
Speaker 1: about two percent per minute. I was like, okay, yeah, sold,
26:00
Speaker 1: you sold me. That's good. So I checked out all
26:02
Speaker 1: the other features and I mean it worked, everything worked
26:06
Speaker 1: on it. He told me that it had eight gigabytes
26:08
Speaker 1: a RAM and the five twelve gigabytes included with the
26:11
Speaker 1: expandable storage, and I was just like, yep, okay, I
26:14
Speaker 1: need a phone. Mine is completely dead. And so I
26:17
Speaker 1: went to the bank, took out some monies and bought
26:20
Speaker 1: that phone, and it lasted a good long time, although
26:24
Speaker 1: the charging port eventually started to die, and then it
26:28
Speaker 1: did die, and that's just how things go. So I
26:31
Speaker 1: had my new phone. I still want to play Pokemon Go,
26:34
Speaker 1: and now I could do that around the entire island,
26:37
Speaker 1: and I walked the usual way I do across the
26:40
Speaker 1: whole city. Oh no, I didn't because my suburb was
26:45
Speaker 1: on the south end. But that was the last thing
26:48
Speaker 1: I did. The next thing I did was start walking south.
26:51
Speaker 1: I was going to go clockwise around Taiwan. That was
26:55
Speaker 1: my plan. It should take me a couple of weeks,
26:57
Speaker 1: and I was like, well, I've been walking every day,
27:00
Speaker 1: almost a marathon or more a day with this rucksack,
27:03
Speaker 1: so I should be able to make it all the
27:05
Speaker 1: way back up to Taipei and get my flat out
27:07
Speaker 1: of here by the time my visa expires. Oh and
27:11
Speaker 1: while I wanted to start urban camping outside of Hualian
27:15
Speaker 1: just because I had spent so much time in this
27:17
Speaker 1: one town of the island, part of it was just
27:21
Speaker 1: to see more, but a larger part of it was
27:24
Speaker 1: because the Pilgrimage of Madzu was happening around that time.
27:28
Speaker 1: In that season where every year the people of Taiwan
27:35
Speaker 1: load the statue of Mazu, a water goddess, onto a palanquin,
27:40
Speaker 1: and carry her around the island for like a week
27:44
Speaker 1: long pilgrimage or two weeks something like that. And I
27:48
Speaker 1: thought that was so cool, and I wanted to walk
27:50
Speaker 1: around anyway, So that was my initial plan walking around
27:54
Speaker 1: the entire island in a clockwise fashion. Didn't work like
28:00
Speaker 1: that because I get distracted and interested in too many
28:04
Speaker 1: side roots. But that is a cool thing that Taiwanese
28:07
Speaker 1: people do every year carry their goddess of the Sea
28:11
Speaker 1: Madzu around the island on a pilgrimage. And so I
28:14
Speaker 1: started walking. But I love exploring too much and I
28:22
Speaker 1: didn't keep to my schedule. And I found these little
28:24
Speaker 1: towns and everything was great. There was good food. I
28:28
Speaker 1: liked talking to people. I found such a good noodle
28:31
Speaker 1: shop and they had gienjiao the fried potstickers and even
28:36
Speaker 1: the steamed potstickers are still delicious. So I lived there
28:40
Speaker 1: a couple days because there was a huge, huge park
28:44
Speaker 1: with a water park actually inside this park that people
28:50
Speaker 1: walked at every day, and during the day I would
28:54
Speaker 1: get the dan being that great egg omelet with the
28:57
Speaker 1: syrup I love. And then I would go walk around
29:00
Speaker 1: the park all day playing Pokemon Go, and everyone around
29:05
Speaker 1: me was also playing Pokemon Go, and I would see
29:08
Speaker 1: them flicking at their phones and I'd look at them
29:10
Speaker 1: as I passed, and we were doing the exact same thing.
29:12
Speaker 1: So there was maybe like fifty other people in this
29:16
Speaker 1: pretty big park. It was set away from a lot
29:20
Speaker 1: of towns, so there weren't a ton of people in
29:23
Speaker 1: the park, but families came by, and people came by
29:27
Speaker 1: at different times. There was always, yeah, fifty even seems low,
29:30
Speaker 1: maybe one hundred people at the park at any time,
29:33
Speaker 1: and everyone was just walking around on all the paths
29:36
Speaker 1: catching all of these Pokemon and I was too, And
29:39
Speaker 1: sometimes I even left my rucksack like behind a tree
29:42
Speaker 1: in this really nice little hidden place, so I wasn't
29:45
Speaker 1: really worried about anyone stumbling upon it or taking it,
29:48
Speaker 1: and I would just walk around myself. And one day
29:50
Speaker 1: I was walking around and a Taiwanese girl asked me
29:55
Speaker 1: if I was playing Pokemon Go, and I was like, yeah,
29:58
Speaker 1: you yeah, and we started talking and we exchanged Pokemon
30:02
Speaker 1: Go information and we might have exchanged weed chat as well.
30:07
Speaker 1: I don't think we did no. I think we just
30:09
Speaker 1: exchanged Pokemon Go information and you can send each other gifts,
30:14
Speaker 1: and we did that for months, even after I left Taiwan,
30:17
Speaker 1: sent each other daily gifts, and it was nice having
30:21
Speaker 1: that connection with someone that I met. We just talked
30:23
Speaker 1: about regular stuff. Told her I was a teacher, she
30:25
Speaker 1: told me she was a business person something somewhere in
30:30
Speaker 1: a company. And it was great having that connection. But
30:35
Speaker 1: you can't send messages of any kind on Pokemon Go,
30:38
Speaker 1: or at least you couldn't at the time. So after
30:41
Speaker 1: a while our friendship kind of petered out, and every
30:43
Speaker 1: it would go down to a gift every two days,
30:46
Speaker 1: and then three days, and then a week and then
30:48
Speaker 1: and then I stopped playing Pokemon Go entirely. But it
30:52
Speaker 1: was pretty cool just making these connections with Pokemon Go
30:55
Speaker 1: that I always always heard about, and I was like, ooh,
30:58
Speaker 1: girls started talking me because of my Pokemon video games.
31:03
Speaker 1: But that wasn't the coolest thing about this park. Well,
31:07
Speaker 1: the free bathrooms were pretty nice, and of course there's
31:10
Speaker 1: free water everywhere, but the water park at the center
31:13
Speaker 1: of the park. I was staying longer and longer in
31:16
Speaker 1: the park until sunset because there was a place I
31:20
Speaker 1: could There's a couple trees, like a small park outside
31:23
Speaker 1: this giant park, because they locked these gates at night
31:26
Speaker 1: of this big park that everyone was in, I guess
31:29
Speaker 1: because the water park set up inside, And so I
31:33
Speaker 1: would leave when they were locking the gates, go eat dinner,
31:37
Speaker 1: buy a couple snacks, maybe a couple of beers, and
31:40
Speaker 1: then find the smaller park that was outside of this
31:44
Speaker 1: bigger park, and I would set up my hammock there sleep,
31:46
Speaker 1: and then i'd go back in the morning and keep
31:49
Speaker 1: walking around playing Pokemon Go or whatever the heck I
31:51
Speaker 1: was doing until one night or one day, rather near
31:56
Speaker 1: the end of the day, at the end of the afternoon,
31:59
Speaker 1: I came upon the water park portion. And it's not
32:02
Speaker 1: a huge water park, but there's a few structures and
32:06
Speaker 1: one of the gates was open, and so I walked
32:09
Speaker 1: up onto the second floor, and except for an entryway
32:13
Speaker 1: into a water slide, it was just a flat floor
32:15
Speaker 1: with a little cabinet, and inside the cabinet was a
32:21
Speaker 1: power strip and I could plug into it and it
32:24
Speaker 1: had power, so I didn't have to walk to the
32:27
Speaker 1: restaurant to charge my phone and eat food, I could
32:32
Speaker 1: just charge my phone right there. And then I realized
32:34
Speaker 1: I had been carrying my laptop around with me this
32:37
Speaker 1: whole time, and I was like, oh, I can do
32:39
Speaker 1: stuff on my laptop. What should I do now that
32:41
Speaker 1: I can use my laptop for something? And I decided
32:45
Speaker 1: that I should get my TEFOL certificate Teaching English as
32:48
Speaker 1: a Foreign Language Certificate, which is offer so many advantages.
32:53
Speaker 1: There's a TEFOL episode, but basically you spend thirty seven dollars.
32:59
Speaker 1: There's this perpetual group on for TEFL full Circle, and
33:02
Speaker 1: that's an internationally accredited certificate. So when you get it,
33:05
Speaker 1: all countries accept it. And once you have that certificate,
33:09
Speaker 1: you can always you can teach it any school for
33:13
Speaker 1: English teachers. At that point, you can always ask for
33:15
Speaker 1: the highest part of the pay scale because that's the
33:18
Speaker 1: main requirement. It's just the best bargaining chip for anything
33:23
Speaker 1: having to do with English teaching, and it's lifetime, so
33:27
Speaker 1: it's once you get it, you just have it. It
33:31
Speaker 1: just there's so many benefits to having the TEFL certificate.
33:35
Speaker 1: And I taught English at the time, I was still
33:37
Speaker 1: teaching it online to those people who called me up,
33:40
Speaker 1: so I'm playing Pokemon going around and if someone calls
33:42
Speaker 1: me up, I'll talk them for twenty or thirty minutes,
33:46
Speaker 1: still playing Pokemon Go, the whole time tying to them
33:49
Speaker 1: on my bluetooth had set, and then I'd be like, okay, bye.
33:52
Speaker 1: And during that thirty minutes of you know, Pokemon, I
33:55
Speaker 1: made five or six bucks and it was just pretty
33:58
Speaker 1: great making twenty dollars a day play in Pokemon Go,
34:02
Speaker 1: meeting people, fun, just social interaction and a fun video
34:07
Speaker 1: game while getting exercise all day. So I decided to
34:10
Speaker 1: get the TEFIL certificate because if I ever did go
34:13
Speaker 1: back to teaching, it would just be nice to have
34:16
Speaker 1: the certificate. Even though I had all the experience, it
34:18
Speaker 1: wouldn't really matter, because experience is just as important in
34:23
Speaker 1: terms of job requirements as a TEFOL certificate is, I
34:27
Speaker 1: would argue more important, but it would be nice to
34:30
Speaker 1: have it just to be like, yep, here it is
34:32
Speaker 1: and just point to it on my resume, you know it.
34:36
Speaker 1: I actually just remembered that's not why I got the
34:39
Speaker 1: TEFL certificate. The online platform I was teaching on, Palfish,
34:44
Speaker 1: because of a new government requirement, required that all of
34:47
Speaker 1: their teachers had TEFL certificates, and I was initially going
34:51
Speaker 1: to just stop teaching online. But then I found this
34:55
Speaker 1: course for only thirty seven bucks, and considering my current
34:59
Speaker 1: prof and professional experience and all of those other benefits
35:05
Speaker 1: I just mentioned, plus a lifetime accreditation, I figured, yeah,
35:09
Speaker 1: why not, might as well get it. That's why I
35:12
Speaker 1: got the TEFL certificate eventually. So I decided to get
35:15
Speaker 1: my TEFL certificate and I went online. I found the
35:19
Speaker 1: one I mentioned, TEFL Full Circle. I looked at a
35:21
Speaker 1: bunch of companies, but TEFL Full Circle is fully online,
35:25
Speaker 1: offers up to two hundred hour courses. You can choose
35:28
Speaker 1: different levels of expertise. I think I got the one
35:31
Speaker 1: hundred sixty dollars one at the time because it was
35:34
Speaker 1: just the higher the number of hours the certificate says
35:38
Speaker 1: you learned, you know the better. If you only learn
35:41
Speaker 1: for twenty hours, then you don't know as much as
35:43
Speaker 1: the person who learned teaching English as a Foreign language
35:46
Speaker 1: for one hundred hours. So I got the one hundred
35:49
Speaker 1: twenty or one hundred and sixty or whatever it was,
35:51
Speaker 1: and I started studying. So I would play Pokemon go
35:56
Speaker 1: earn a couple of bucks from teaching English online. Or
35:59
Speaker 1: just having casual conversations online. And then in the evening,
36:04
Speaker 1: maybe at like four thirty pm five pm, I would
36:08
Speaker 1: walk up when no one was around, to the second
36:11
Speaker 1: floor of this water park, and they usually closed the gates,
36:14
Speaker 1: but I just hopped the gates of the stairs and
36:17
Speaker 1: walked up the stairs to the second floor, and then
36:20
Speaker 1: I would lie down and play on my phone until
36:23
Speaker 1: they did lock the gates and the whole park was closed.
36:26
Speaker 1: And then I had the park to myself, and I
36:28
Speaker 1: would plug in my laptop and I would do maybe
36:31
Speaker 1: one or two hours of PDF tests. Sometimes I would
36:37
Speaker 1: actually study if it was a difficult, like the grammatical
36:41
Speaker 1: portion took me the longest. I actually had to study
36:43
Speaker 1: all my grammar again, but I did, and then I
36:46
Speaker 1: took the tests and I did that for ten days
36:48
Speaker 1: or something, and then the PDF course was finished and
36:52
Speaker 1: all the check marks were filled on the tefol Full
36:55
Speaker 1: Circle website, so that means I fulfilled the tefil certificate
37:00
Speaker 1: and they emailed me my certificate, and now I was
37:03
Speaker 1: a certified English teacher, having already done it for seven
37:07
Speaker 1: years whatever, but now I was certified, So that was
37:10
Speaker 1: pretty cool, and it was nice having electricity right there,
37:14
Speaker 1: and there was also showers at the water park. It
37:18
Speaker 1: was cold water, but that really didn't bother me that much.
37:22
Speaker 1: It wasn't particularly cold. I think I was there during summer,
37:27
Speaker 1: and I took a shower whenever I felt dirty, and
37:30
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, it had showers and electricity and a
37:33
Speaker 1: private park to sleep in every night. And I think
37:36
Speaker 1: one day I was like, I'm not even going to
37:40
Speaker 1: climb up there. I'll just stay in my hammock here.
37:42
Speaker 1: They probably won't even notice me. And they didn't notice
37:46
Speaker 1: me because I was like in a hammock in public,
37:50
Speaker 1: and yeah, of course, so they were like, sorry, we
37:52
Speaker 1: got to kick you out. The park closes at six
37:55
Speaker 1: or whatever it was, and I said okay, and I
37:57
Speaker 1: walked out and they locked everything up and then left.
38:02
Speaker 1: And after they left, I walked around the entire compound
38:05
Speaker 1: and one of the gates was large enough that I
38:07
Speaker 1: could slip through, so I put my backpack through and
38:10
Speaker 1: then I slipped through, and then I walked back to
38:12
Speaker 1: my second floor area and yeah, finished doing the tefl test.
38:19
Speaker 1: I remember in the middle of the course, like after
38:21
Speaker 1: a few days. I had been staying in that area
38:24
Speaker 1: for a week or so, and I went to that
38:26
Speaker 1: same great noodle restaurant every day, but there was no
38:30
Speaker 1: town nearby, and they were asking me just normal questions
38:34
Speaker 1: the first few days, and then after several days, the
38:37
Speaker 1: owner was like, so, are you staying here, like in
38:41
Speaker 1: a hotel or something, and I was like, no, honestly,
38:44
Speaker 1: I'm just living in that park. I've been backpacking around
38:48
Speaker 1: and so right now, I just backpack in the park.
38:51
Speaker 1: And she's like, isn't it closed at night? And I
38:53
Speaker 1: was like, it is, but I'm just setting up a
38:56
Speaker 1: hammock and going to sleep, and then yeah, it's just comfortable.
38:59
Speaker 1: I'm not I clean up all my trash and everything.
39:02
Speaker 1: She was like, oh, that sounds pretty convenient, and I
39:05
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, it's really nice because I don't have
39:07
Speaker 1: anything to do right now. I'm just traveling, so yeah,
39:11
Speaker 1: it's a good setup. And then she was like cool
39:14
Speaker 1: and it was fine. So she was the only one
39:17
Speaker 1: I let in on my secret, and she was pretty
39:20
Speaker 1: cool about it, and she was more friendly to me
39:23
Speaker 1: after that day. Actually, I think she was like just curious.
39:27
Speaker 1: So it felt like I was keeping her at a distance,
39:30
Speaker 1: which I guess technically I was because I didn't want
39:32
Speaker 1: to say I was illegally sleeping in this park or whatever.
39:36
Speaker 1: But after I told her I was sleeping in the
39:38
Speaker 1: park and I just came to her place for dinner
39:40
Speaker 1: every night, she seemed into the whole Yeah, the whole arrangement.
39:45
Speaker 1: She was like, hey, I'm very excited whenever I came
39:47
Speaker 1: in for my meal. But that was my water park adventure.
39:52
Speaker 1: I got to live in a water park in the
39:54
Speaker 1: middle of a very nice, regular walking park with like
39:59
Speaker 1: flowers everywhere in really nice trees, and they had walking
40:02
Speaker 1: paths of all sorts, and they had exercise equipment. It
40:06
Speaker 1: was a great little vacation within my backpacking where I
40:10
Speaker 1: wasn't walking to a new place every day. I kind
40:13
Speaker 1: of let my brain calm down from all the new
40:17
Speaker 1: explorations every day. But after a while, I think I
40:21
Speaker 1: had been there a couple weeks, and I was like, oh, geez,
40:23
Speaker 1: I only have like two weeks left on my visa
40:25
Speaker 1: because I spent a couple of weeks here getting my
40:28
Speaker 1: tefl certificate. So I quite mournfully said goodbye to my
40:33
Speaker 1: water park, and I went to the noodle shop and
40:36
Speaker 1: I got more dishes than regular and told her, this
40:40
Speaker 1: is my last day. I'm moving on tomorrow morning, so
40:44
Speaker 1: I just wanted to say goodbye, and it's been really
40:46
Speaker 1: nice talking to you. And I think she gave me
40:48
Speaker 1: a little packet of Taiwanese cookies or something and said
40:51
Speaker 1: thanks for coming to our noodle shop. And then I
40:56
Speaker 1: went back to the park, slept, woke up at nine
40:59
Speaker 1: or ten the crack of ten am, and I started
41:05
Speaker 1: walking south or west again something I don't really know,
41:08
Speaker 1: but I ended up at the beach, so I guess
41:11
Speaker 1: I must have walked east. And there was a huge,
41:17
Speaker 1: huge hiking trail, miles tens of miles of hiking trails
41:22
Speaker 1: in this just giant national park. I wonder if what
41:25
Speaker 1: was the national park to the north maybe, and I
41:30
Speaker 1: walked like some of it, and then I got tired
41:35
Speaker 1: and I slept near the reception building and there was
41:40
Speaker 1: this blonde girl waiting there and she looked so confused,
41:49
Speaker 1: and I looked like the hoboest, most comfortable person you'd
41:55
Speaker 1: ever So I was just slouched, you know, tired from
41:59
Speaker 1: my walk, but happy, I had some food and just
42:03
Speaker 1: like just arresting. Just looked so comfortable in that area,
42:08
Speaker 1: and she looked so uncomfortable, and I asked if she
42:11
Speaker 1: needed any help getting anywhere, and she said she was
42:14
Speaker 1: trying to get to this tulip field, but she didn't
42:17
Speaker 1: know really where she was or trying to figure out anything.
42:20
Speaker 1: And I showed her my offline maps and she was like,
42:23
Speaker 1: oh my god, I have no signal right now. How
42:26
Speaker 1: what does that end? And I showed her where a
42:28
Speaker 1: Wi Fi hotspot was that was a few minutes away
42:31
Speaker 1: and got her the same offline maps I was using.
42:34
Speaker 1: And she was from Germany. Spoke very good English though,
42:38
Speaker 1: and we started talking and hanging out, and she said, well,
42:40
Speaker 1: I'm going to go to this tulip field. Do you
42:42
Speaker 1: want to go with me? And I was like, yeah, sure,
42:45
Speaker 1: And we walked along the miles of trails and we
42:51
Speaker 1: just talked the whole time. It was really fun. She
42:52
Speaker 1: was on a backpacking trip. She was a psychology or
42:56
Speaker 1: psychiatry major something like that. And we like rounded this corner,
43:01
Speaker 1: which I don't know how it happens because you're on
43:03
Speaker 1: a trail, but we didn't see anything. I mean, it
43:07
Speaker 1: was an open air trail. We're on a mountain. But
43:11
Speaker 1: all of a sudden we turned a corner on one
43:12
Speaker 1: of the trails we were walking and it was a
43:15
Speaker 1: mountain side of I wrote down tulips here, so I'm
43:19
Speaker 1: guessing they were tulips, but they might have been cosmos,
43:22
Speaker 1: those really fluffy ones. But I think they were tulips
43:24
Speaker 1: because they were pretty tall flowers. And there was just
43:29
Speaker 1: twenty or thirty rows of red ones, twenty or thirty
43:31
Speaker 1: rows of yellow ones, twenty thirty rows of white ones,
43:34
Speaker 1: twenty twenty or thirty rows wide, but thousands of rows deep,
43:41
Speaker 1: like the whole meadow, and planes leading up to the mountain.
43:46
Speaker 1: Then up the mountain were all this flower and it
43:50
Speaker 1: was pretty inspiring. There were windmills, if I'm remembering correctly,
43:56
Speaker 1: like Swiss looking windmill reconstructions, I think, just for the aesthetic.
44:03
Speaker 1: And she was like, well, this is exactly this is
44:06
Speaker 1: what I was looking for. This is the best thing ever.
44:09
Speaker 1: And I was like, yeah, this is a lot of flowers.
44:11
Speaker 1: And we kept walking and she admired the flowers, and
44:18
Speaker 1: she asked me if I was getting tired, because I
44:19
Speaker 1: was carrying my big rucksack, and I was like, no,
44:22
Speaker 1: this is such a great day. Pretty flowers, great hike,
44:27
Speaker 1: get to talk to a pretty girl, hang out with
44:28
Speaker 1: you all day. It's been very fun, and she was like,
44:32
Speaker 1: I'm not pretty and got all bashful, and then she
44:35
Speaker 1: stared at me real serious, and so I kissed her
44:38
Speaker 1: and I was so happy. It was such a fulfilling,
44:44
Speaker 1: little romantic, pretty moment. And there was no one around
44:48
Speaker 1: because we were a little past the tulips at that point.
44:51
Speaker 1: There was like we had just finished all the tulips.
44:55
Speaker 1: When that happened. There was a little tree with a
44:58
Speaker 1: bench we could sit by, but we didn't sit down.
45:02
Speaker 1: We just made out under this tree for a while.
45:05
Speaker 1: And then she was leaving that evening, and if she
45:07
Speaker 1: wanted to get to her train, we had to leave
45:11
Speaker 1: after that. And so after we had some fun, we
45:15
Speaker 1: strapped on our packs and held hands and walked happily
45:20
Speaker 1: toward the train station, which was a couple hours away.
45:24
Speaker 1: And that's just what she was doing. She was going
45:26
Speaker 1: to spend all day in this tulip garden and then
45:30
Speaker 1: get back to the train and go back to Germany
45:32
Speaker 1: and continue studying psychiatry. And she asked to trade Facebook information,
45:40
Speaker 1: but it's like she caught herself and she was like, oh,
45:42
Speaker 1: but I don't use it a lot, so we might
45:44
Speaker 1: not talk a lot. And I think she was just
45:47
Speaker 1: letting me know that we weren't starting some kind of
45:50
Speaker 1: long distance relationship, and I was like, yep, that's fine.
45:55
Speaker 1: And we talked a couple times on Facebook. We made
45:57
Speaker 1: it to her train, like ten minutes before the train
46:01
Speaker 1: was leaving, and we use my offline maps because I
46:05
Speaker 1: had download you have to download different sections and she
46:07
Speaker 1: hadn't download sex she needed, but I had it on mine,
46:10
Speaker 1: and so we just made to the subway station. We
46:13
Speaker 1: ambled up to the ticket counter and she said, I'll
46:15
Speaker 1: just check when my train leaves, then we can hang out.
46:18
Speaker 1: And then she saw this big boar and she was like, oh,
46:21
Speaker 1: it's gone ten Okay, I have to go. I have
46:23
Speaker 1: to go. It was so nice meeting you so and
46:26
Speaker 1: we kissed and she ran off and she turned around
46:28
Speaker 1: and waved before she went through the turnstile or whatever,
46:33
Speaker 1: and I never saw her again. And we talked a
46:35
Speaker 1: couple times on Facebook and it was nice and she
46:39
Speaker 1: was doing fine. And then, yeah, that was my short
46:46
Speaker 1: lived spontaneous tulip tryst. I think that was the last
46:51
Speaker 1: big thing I did. And I just spent the last
46:54
Speaker 1: week walking north towards Taipei. But I knew I wasn't
46:59
Speaker 1: gonna make Oh you know what, No, I guess. The
47:01
Speaker 1: last big thing that happened was I got picked up
47:06
Speaker 1: while I was hiking. Yes, because I would have made it.
47:09
Speaker 1: I start hiking north because I was like, well, now
47:11
Speaker 1: I can't go clockwise. I'm never gonna make it all
47:13
Speaker 1: the way around the island. But if I start walking
47:15
Speaker 1: north and go pass through Hauleien, pass through the whole city,
47:19
Speaker 1: I should be able to get counterclockwise around the island
47:23
Speaker 1: to Taipei in time to leave in time to catch
47:27
Speaker 1: my flight. And so I walked, and I was walking
47:30
Speaker 1: on the highway for a day and a half maybe
47:33
Speaker 1: before a guy pulled over in a truck or I'm
47:36
Speaker 1: thinking a van actually, and he just said, hey, where
47:40
Speaker 1: are you going Taypei? Do you want to ride there? Yeah? Sure, okay, thanks.
47:45
Speaker 1: That reminds me that's how I got to Hualien. I
47:48
Speaker 1: hitchhiked because one of the weaky Voyage articles mentioned that
47:52
Speaker 1: Taiwanese people still hitchhike a lot, and they're very friendly
47:55
Speaker 1: toward hitchhikers. Yeah. So I waited at a turn off
48:02
Speaker 1: somewhere and some guy told me to wait somewhere else
48:06
Speaker 1: for a ride, and then when I wait at the
48:08
Speaker 1: place he told me to wait, someone in a sedan
48:11
Speaker 1: picked me up immediately and drove me all the way
48:13
Speaker 1: to Haualyen from Taypei. And then yeah, on my way back,
48:19
Speaker 1: some guy in a truck picked me up on the
48:21
Speaker 1: way back from hauayan to Typeey and he started talking
48:25
Speaker 1: with me and told me I should start a YouTube
48:27
Speaker 1: video channel. And I was like, man, that's a lot
48:31
Speaker 1: of work. I really don't want to take that much
48:35
Speaker 1: time out of my day cause i'd have to edit stuff.
48:39
Speaker 1: And he was like, no, no, but I would love
48:40
Speaker 1: to watch it and you can make money from it.
48:43
Speaker 1: And I was like, I don't know. I don't really
48:45
Speaker 1: need any more money right now, and like just traveling
48:50
Speaker 1: is such a valuable experience for me, Like I enjoy
48:53
Speaker 1: doing that more than any day I've ever made any
48:57
Speaker 1: amount of money. And he was like, yeah, but you
48:59
Speaker 1: can share it with other people. You should do it,
49:01
Speaker 1: You should do it. And I had to keep being like, no,
49:04
Speaker 1: I appreciate it, but I'm probably not going to start one.
49:08
Speaker 1: But it would be such a good idea, and he
49:10
Speaker 1: really pushed it for a long time, like twenty minutes,
49:12
Speaker 1: which is a long time of demurring from starting up
49:18
Speaker 1: a channel and doing a whole bunch of work I
49:19
Speaker 1: didn't really want to do. If I had known about podcasts,
49:24
Speaker 1: who knows, maybe I would have started back then. But
49:27
Speaker 1: I had tried to start a podcast and it didn't
49:30
Speaker 1: just feel right before. It feels right now to be
49:33
Speaker 1: telling these stories and permanently archiving them for as long
49:38
Speaker 1: as the Internet lasts. So I never did start up
49:42
Speaker 1: a video channel. But other than that awkward situation where
49:46
Speaker 1: I had to keep being like, great idea, but I
49:48
Speaker 1: don't want to do that, I really don't want to
49:50
Speaker 1: do that. No, I don't. It was just a nice conversation.
49:54
Speaker 1: He asked me where I had been to, what I visited,
49:57
Speaker 1: all the like, what I had done, and I asked
49:59
Speaker 1: him his life, which I can't help but think it
50:03
Speaker 1: was something with newspapers or something I like, I said,
50:06
Speaker 1: I took very little notes from any of this. Early
50:10
Speaker 1: on in my travels, I just wasn't recording anything, so
50:13
Speaker 1: I can't really remember. I was just Keno's journeying from
50:17
Speaker 1: one place to the next. But it was still a
50:20
Speaker 1: pleasant talk, as all talks are when you're traveling, and
50:24
Speaker 1: every social interaction is just a fun chat with someone else,
50:29
Speaker 1: and always deeper than you think it's going to be.
50:32
Speaker 1: It always comes down to life motivations. When someone talks
50:37
Speaker 1: to me anyway, as a traveler, my motivations are on
50:41
Speaker 1: my sleeve. I'm like, this is the best way that
50:44
Speaker 1: I know how to live life. And then the other
50:46
Speaker 1: person will say something like, wow, I don't know if
50:51
Speaker 1: I know my best way to live life. And you know,
50:54
Speaker 1: they'll figure it out, and I tell them so. But
50:57
Speaker 1: they'll figure it out if they look for their better
51:00
Speaker 1: way to live life, like if they live true to
51:02
Speaker 1: their own values. And some of them are. Some love
51:05
Speaker 1: being newspaper men or psychiatrists or whatever it is, and
51:09
Speaker 1: I love walking in homemade sandals with a rucksack on
51:12
Speaker 1: my back, or right now talking into a microphone sharing
51:16
Speaker 1: stories with people. I am a traveler by nature. As
51:23
Speaker 1: a few closing notes that I didn't mention before, there
51:27
Speaker 1: were a lot of jets flying over Taiwan at pretty
51:32
Speaker 1: much all hours of the day, several times a day,
51:35
Speaker 1: and I was wondering why there were low flying jets
51:39
Speaker 1: over Taiwan all the time. It seems like pretty low
51:42
Speaker 1: for the government to do. That, and then I found
51:44
Speaker 1: out that they were Chinese jets. All the locals I
51:48
Speaker 1: asked explained they were Chinese jets intimidating Taiwan basically by
51:53
Speaker 1: flying over into illegal airspace pretty regularly. That was the
51:59
Speaker 1: last little I forgot to enter in earlier. So thank
52:03
Speaker 1: you very much for listening. Have a great rest of
52:06
Speaker 1: your day. You can contact me at a bit of
52:08
Speaker 1: a rambler at gmail dot com or all of the
52:10
Speaker 1: socials and I will talk to you soon