2016 in Review

I was so tickled pink with how my 2015 Year in Review infographic turned out, that there were no hesitations to creating a 2016 year in Review to follow up with! {If you missed my 2015 year in review you can check it out HERE}

Oooh buddy, if I thought 2015 was a crazy year full of changes, I clearly had ZERO foresight as to what 2016 was going to bring my way! I started off the year with some of the most amazing fireworks I may ever see in my life, followed by Caitlin's visit and then my amazing 2 week trek through Cambodia and Thailand that was surely a trip of a lifetime. Later in the year I was visited by Mason and my mom along with competing in my first ever Dragon Boat Races! I capped off my Asian adventures with a week in each Japan and China and checked off a huge bucket list item by camping on the Great Wall of China {I still can't believe those pictures are really me up there!}

I made the difficult decision early in the summer that I was going to say goodbye to Taiwan and move back to the United States. This started my marathon application process to schools across the state of Ohio complete with 3am skype interviews and the ever revolving door of questions as to why I wanted to move back home {truthfully, I miss it more and more each day I'm home}. I eventually found myself a wonderful 2nd grade teaching position back here in Ohio and phase 2 of "welcome home" stated as I frantically began to look for a home and vehicle {sadly my scooter was unshippable!} to adjust back to life in America.

It's been one heck of a crazy year 2016, but I thank you for all you have given to me!

Taking on Tainan

April 1 - 5, 2016

If you missed the post for the first half of this weekend you can check in out here, but I also know everyone is crazy busy and a 14 page long blog post is just not going to get read...so chop it in half I did!

Sunday morning we woke up late at Ariel's aunt's house and had a wonderful home cooked seafood lunch before heading to Kaohsiung, the county before Tainan, for the day. We didn't arrive to Kaohsiung until mid afternoon, but we quickly headed towards our destination {the one thing I had actually planned for our weekend lol}The Lotus Pond and its famous pagodas and pavilions. 

Before moving to Taiwan I associated dragons with Asian culture, but wasn't quite sure if that was how things really were or if it was just a stereotype that many of us place on the Asian art and cultures. Needless to say, I know the answer now for sure, that dragons are very much a part of Asian and Taiwanese culture as noted in the dragon and tiger pagodas that we went to see in Kaohsiung. These 7 story tall pagodas each have a statue in front of them; on the left a dragon and the right a tiger, as well as a winding walkway to reach their entrance. It is believed that if you enter the pagoda through the dragon you will gain good luck while exiting through the tiger will rid you of bad luck...I'm not a superstitious person, but who am I to say no to the possibility of good luck!!

Afterwards we went next door {with tea in hand!} to the spring and autumn pavilions where we spent more time checking the area out {I'm honestly amazed we spent nearly 3 hours at Lotus Pond!}. When we had finished Ariel's cousin picked us up and the 4 of us along with his girlfriend and her friend went out for a delicious Taiwanese dinner and ice cream before heading back to Tainan for the night. Once in Tainan we headed to a small local bar where we were able to relax and unwind from the week while playing a few rousing rounds of heads up!

Monday brought along a whole new set of adventures and beautiful blooms. We slept in again (OK, I can't lie...actually everyone else slept in and my lovely internal alarm clock had me up at the crack of dawn :/ ) and had a popular roast duck dish for lunch at Ariel's aunt house before heading out for the day. Afterwards we stopped at a local park to check out the trees that were in bloom and they were B-E-A-utiful!! Later we went to another abandoned warehouse that has since been taken over by Banyan tree {the same ones from the temples in Cambodia!} known as the Anping Tree House and checked out all the cool growth and the small history museum they had on site. Later in the day we stopped by Anping Fort and the giant local night market before settling in for the night with some Chinese Mahjong lessons. {I'm feeling more and more Taiwanese everyday haha!}

Tuesday brought with it even more food (you'd think I'd look like an elephant by now!), Fort Provintia, gourd tea, and a long train ride back home to a well deserved good nights sleep! Until next time Tainan!

Back to Bangkok!

Sunday, February 7th 

If you aren't quite caught up on Tina and I'd whirlwind adventure through Thailand and Cambodia, you can check out some of my previous posts if you'd like!

We flew back into Bangkok late (like super late!) Saturday night, barely found our hostel, and then awkwardly helped ourselves to 2 empty beds (the man in charge of the hostel wasn't there anymore and so a guy staying there told us where he knew of 2 empty beds...thanks buddy lol).

Sunday morning was a lazy start for us. By this time in our trip we had been like the Energizer Bunny on caffeine high for a little over a week and coupled with the lovely limp I had recently acquired due to my fall, we weren't in a HUGE hurry to be out the door before 6am ;) {ok maybe it was almost noon by the time we got our tushies moving...a girls gotta sleep you know!}

Our goal for the day was to go see the reclining Buddha in the Wat Pho temple in Bangkok, but silly us, why would we have thought that any plan we had would work out THAT easily! We decided to walk the 1+ish miles to where Wat Pho was, only to get there and have a guard inform us that they would be taking a break for and hour or two and we should just come back at 3...okey dokie...now what. (Us: 0 Day: 1) Let's drag our tired selves and my swelling knee to the nearest floating market just under a mile from where Wat Pho was...perfect idea! {OK, stop reading if you get as squeamish as I do! But, in hindsight, if I would have known how infected my knee had become that morning, I'm not sure I would have left the hostel at all....but hey, I lived to at least type this post right?!}

So we start walking towards the market, it's about this time our joint data plan decides to run out though...bye bye Google Maps...so we resort to asking just about every other person on the street for assistance. Sadly, our luck allowed only about 5% of those people to actually understand our English; we were praying we were going in the right direction. On our way to the floating market we passed the huge flower market that I had read about before hand. I was a little giddy inside since it had sounded cool but I wasn't sure if it warranted a trip of its own...score for the day! (Us: 1 Day: 1) Well, long story short, we were glad we got to see the flower market, because the floating market we were told was already closed for the day...bummer (Us: 1 Day: 2) But seriously, the piles of orchids, yellow carnations, and flower buds they had was unreal!

 

Hey look, it's 3pm...back to Wat Pho we go! We get in line, buy our tickets, check out the maps, and realize instantly that this place is HUGE! You see all the pictures of the reclining golden Buddha, but you never really realize how many other buildings are also within the temple grounds besides the famous Buddha himself! We walked around for a while trying our best to hit each of the smaller temples {shoes off, shoes on, shoes off, shoes on lol} and then happened upon a small Chinese New Year celebration that they were holding. We sat down for a bit to rest our legs and watched a little of the musicians and lion dancers in the meantime. 

Then it was time, you didn't even have to look on a map to find the Reclining Buddha, it was the only building at the temple with a line! I'm not 100% sure what I was expecting, but guys, this Buddha was huge GINORMOUS! Like you couldn't even begin to get his whole face in a single picture let alone his whole body type of ginormous! While laying down, at the tallest point he measures 49 ft tall and from head to toe he is 151 ft long and apparently he's not even the biggest Buddha statue in Thailand?!?! We walked around Wat Pho for about 2 hours total checking out the smaller "temples" including a court yard containing over 400 Buddha statues {when I say we saw a lot of Buddhas in 2 weeks I wasn't lying!}

By the time our stomachs started growling  and we remembered we had a good 20 to 30 minute walk back to the hostel, we decided that we were "templed out" for the day and the smells of pad Thai were quickly pulling us in! With our bellies full and happy we could think of nothing better than a nap! Waking up later from our naps Tina and I both agreed that after all of the days walking we had more than earned ourselves a 30 minute Thai massage {and kudos to my masseuse, her eyes about bulged out of her head when she saw my knee, but she did great and never once touched it! haha}

After we were nice and relaxed, we spent the rest of the evening exploring Khao San Road. This lively street is packed with young local, tourists of all ages, all the Thai foods you could ever wish for, enough beer to drown a fish, and enough oddities to keep you scratching your head long after your night ends! Some snacks, some shopping, and lots of sight seeing were complete before we climbed into our beds like a pair of exhausted street dogs.

Bangkok, it was great seeing you again!

Until We Meet Again Chiang Mai!

I promise I haven't forgotten about Chiang Mai! Life here keeps on trecking by and I'm working on these posts little by little!  If you're afraid that you may have missed some though {or you just loved them so much you want to read them again! ;) } you can check out my Cambodia trip here and my Thailand trip posts here!

Saturday, February 6

Today was our last day in Chiang Mai, and although we wanted to relax a bit after our amazing elephant adventures, I also wanted to see as much of this amazing town that I possibly could! Tina decided she needed a day to sleep in, but the Energizer Bunny inside me wanted to go, go go! So, I was up early and out the door by 8:30 in the morning in hopes of finding the perfect seat for the annual Chiang Mai flower festival parade (I figured I might as well watch it, we were staying so close you could hear EVERYTHING going on anyways haha). Lucky for me, walking a little funky and with a nasty gash on my leg from my fall, people eagerly let me sit on the curb in front of them...prime seats! We waited much longer for the parade to start than I think many of us had anticipated, but it surly didn't disappoint once it did!

Floats COVERED with flowers, traditional Thai dancing, local musicians, beauty contest contestants, and floral dragons lined the streets as we hung our mouths open with awe and what all they had created. The parade was not quite finished when I snuck away shortly after noon, 2 hours worth of parade and a grumbly tummy was enough to put me in search for food!

Afterwards I went back to hotel quick to grab Tina, and we were headed (gimpy and all) towards a market that my dear friend "Lonely Planet" had recommended for food and sightseeing alike! Lucky for us not only was Warorot Market massive, but it also connected to the smaller more local market Ton Lam Yai .... 2 markets for the price of one...yes please! Within the market someplace I grabbed a bite to eat and having no idea what I was eating {story of my life in Asia!} it was rather good; some type of broth with noodles & pork! {I'm not sure if I've shared my market wisdom with you yet! When I enter a market, I instantly look for the longest lines of local looking people, do a quick check to the stall (to be sure they are selling cat burritos or snake eyes lol) and then hope in line as well. When I get to the front I smile and hold up 1 finger, and low and behold my friends, that is how you order 1 of whatever their best selling item is!}

Around the outskirts of this market were dozens of people selling items made from handwoven fabrics, oh my word, if my growling stomach hadn't been so disrupted I could have stayed there drooling over their handmade goods all day!

After sufficiently filling our bellies and stocking up on market souvenirs we hit up a couple local temples including Wat Buppharam before heading to the Saturday Walking street (Wualai Walking Street Market) south of the city. Holy moley, I don't know if I've ever been to a market this before, this baby was huge! Food and hand made crafts lined both sides of the streets, and every couple of minutes there would be roads jutting off to the left or right with more goodies for you to check out. After more than 2 hours of perusing we decided that we couldn't possibly eat anymore, we didn't have a need for anymore hand carved elephant items, and we had more than covered gifts for everyone that we knew (plus some!)  and that we had better leave while we still had a couple bucks to our name. We grabbed our bags, hailed a cab, and headed back to the airport (crash free this time!)....until next time Chiang Mai; until next time!

Tuesday's Taiwan-ism {Thailand Video}

Today's Tuesday Taiwan-ism is coming at you from a little different angle because I just finished something and I'm so darn excited to share it with you I just couldn't wait! As you know, I just got back from an amazing whirlwind adventure in Thailand & Cambodia. And  of course, if you know me at all, I took about a gazillion and 2 pictures with my beloved Nikon D40 while I was gone and with the help of my new action camera, I got some pretty great video footage while I was traveling as well!

Well, long story short, you can have the most amazing  pictures and  videos in the world, but if you don't do anything with them then they are useless. So, I put on my thinking cap and went to work creating my first ever travel movie {ok let's be honest, my first movie of any kind!} and I am so stinkin' excited with how it turned out!

So without further ado, I present to you...my Thailand Travels!

Slowly Falling in Love With Chiang Mai

Wednesday, February 3

Tuesday night Tina and I flew from Siem Reap, Cambodia to Bangkok, Thailand in just under an hour's time. We landed, grabbed the first cab we found, headed straight for our hotel (conveniently booked less than 2 miles away) showered off our Cambodia dirt and fell fast asleep...ok I say all this like we were lazy...it was past 1am by the time we were in bed!

The next morning we woke up, ate a quick breakfast in the hotel lobby, and jumped on the 10am shuttle ride to the airport...we were headed to Chiang Mai at the northern tip of Thailand! Another puddle jumper, up and down in 50 minutes {as opposed to the overnight, 12 hour, sleeper buses everyone thought we should have taken??} and we were in Chiang Mai!  We found our little hostel (another room to ourselves...score!) grabbed my lonely planet, and we were off; the city was ours to explore for the afternoon!

Although our Lonely Planet walking tour of Bangkok did not go as smoothly as planned, we decided we were in a fresh city and we'd take a fresh start! Armed with a walking map of Chiang Mai we started off on our route and spent the afternoon checking out the unique temples, cafes, and side shops that Chiang Mai had to offer.

[ Side note: having never stepped foot into ANY sort of temple before this past August, I've been on a quest to learn what I can about them while I am here. They may not be of my personal religion or belief system, but the artwork and details that go into these buildings is truly a beautiful work of art. Likewise, I have been shocked to see just how truly different the temples are from country to country and region to region. It was also interesting to note {and maybe someone more knowledgeable than me can help me out here} that it appears that different customs and traditions are practiced in the Buddhist temples in Thailand in comparison to those in Taiwan as well as having VERY different images of Buddha displayed in the 2 countries temples. ]

Our temple hoping included, but was not limited to, visits to Wat Chedi Luang, Wat Phan Tao, (which had a distinctive Japanese feel to the temple), Si Phum, Wat Pra Sing, & Wat Pad Thai....ok maybe Pad Thai isn't a temple, but we sure had our fill of the delicious Thai noodles! During one of our temple visits we also stumbled upon a group of young boy monks in school. I asked one of their superiors and was told that once a week their classes pertained to some form of temple art and that currently they were working on making tin lanterns and symbols for the temple. It was fun to watch them for a while and get to know a little bit more about what they were doing in those mysterious orange robes we saw all over the country! 

As the afternoon came to a close we found ourselves once again hungry, seriously what's new lol, and about that time stumbled upon a night market outside a large shopping mall...SCORE! Tina and I split some type of Thai noodle soup that looked good as well as a hearty portion of mango sticky rice followed by a Thai crepe of sorts...what I said we were hungry! The market was right up my ally! Filled with hand crafted Thai souvenirs, crafts, and handmade clothes...this girl could have spent hours there! Of course, I was in Thailand, so I had to snag some elephant themed goodies before we left. 

Before calling it a night {as our most anticipated day of our 2 week trip was just around the corner!} we found a rooftop bar to relax in for a while while soaking up the amazing city views...I have to say, Chiang Mai can so quickly steal your heart!

PS - Ok, I can't leave out the funnies, our night didn't end on such a romantic sounding note. The hotel we stayed at came with directions to get to it saying to show the taxi driver the name of a boxing ring and have them drop you off there "near the hotel". We thought "near the hotel" meant it was probably on the same block. Or...about 3 yards from the door of our hostel room haha. So naturally, I stood outside with all the cooks from the restaurant and watched some of the boxing match before going to bed (Mother Goose had a rhyme along those lines right?!?!) I can't say I know anything about boxing, but watching 2 scrawny Asian guys go at it pretty hysterical if you ask me!

Let's Fly!

Monday, February 1

Monday was Tina's birthday and we decided we were bound and determined that we were going to make it one to remember {as if being in Cambodia for your birthday isn't amazing enough! lol}

Sadly breakfast for her birthday wasn't really an option as we were up and out the door, waiting on our ride from Flight of the Gibbon at 7:00am. We piled into a van along with several other groggy eyed tourists and headed for...well we weren't exactly sure where yet.  We arrived to "I don't know where" (ok base camp!) maybe 40 minutes later and spilled out of the van. We were quickly given wavers to sign {you know, we wouldn't sue them if we lost an arm, both eyes, and my favorite pinkie toe type of thing} harnessed up, given our hard hat helmets and sent to our first briefing...ready or not, ZIP LINING HERE WE COME! We had 10 or 15 minutes of quick directions, don't do anything stupid type of deal, loaded back in the van, and we were ready to go!!

To say that the next 2 hours hours were exhilarating would be a lie; they were beyond exhilarating! Throughout the course of the next 2 hours we zipped {not sure what verb would be appropriate here lol} over 10 separate zip lines; with the longest totaling 310 meters (340ish yards), walked across 3 suspension bridges, 21 different platforms (most way above the tree tops!) and rappelled down the last one  to finally meet the ground again...talk about amazing! To make matters even better, our 2 guides were amazing, corny jokes & all! ;)

As zip lining grudgingly came to an end we were informed that our ticket for the day also included lunch at a local restaurant....umm can you say score?!?! We sat down and enjoyed lunch with our new group of Australian friends before climbing back in the car to the hotel {ok I can't lie here...we all passed out hardcore in the van, we were exhausted!}. We got back to the hotel a little after 1 and we all agreed as the birthday girl declared it nap time!!

Rebecca and  Tory apparently required a little more R&R than Tina and I, so when the 2 of us were ready we snuck out to treat ourselves to some birthday mani/pedis and fruit smoothies. When the bears woke up...oh I mean Rebecca & Tory! :P...we met up in town and Tina and I had booked dinner for the 4 of us at a local restaurant serving traditional Cambodia food {delicious!} as well as offering traditional Cambodian dance performances while you ate...umm amazing! Needless to say dinner was delicious & the dances were beyond mesmerizing to watch!

After dinner we walked around the markets for a while, indulged in yet another foot massage (who can seriously say no to 30 minute foot massages on the side of the street)  and slowly {but oh so happily} made our way back to our hostel.

Cambodia...you truly are amazing!

Didn't have a chance to read about our previous day in Cambodia? Check it out here!

Good Morning Cambodia

Sunday, January 31

Ahh, traveling is amazing! Learning about new cultures, meeting new people, trying new foods, and making the most amazing memories; nothing can ever top it!

Tina and I got to Cambodia late  Saturday evening (January 30th) and while Tina crashed early for the night I went out and explored the large night market about half a mile from our hostel. Ok, to be honest about everything was half a mile from our hostel as we were literally on a dirt road...I loved it!  Coming back late from the market, I met up with Tory and Rebecca who had arrived in Cambodia earlier that morning...the 4 of us were finally together and we were ready to party...or at this point in the night go to sleep lol. {side note: we scored with this hostel as it was for 4 "random" people and we booked all 4 beds for $4.70 a night and had the room to ourselves!}

Sunday morning was our first day together. We let ourselves sleep in a little bit, and then it was temple time!! We left our hostel in search of breakfast, and stumbled upon a place with the most amazing coconut curry, a popular Cambodian food, and a "Dr. Fish" pond. As we waited for our food to come we sat by the pond where I was able to stick my feet in the water and have the fishes nibble the dead skin off my feet...talk about ticklish!!

After breakfast we found a tuk-tuk driver willing to take us for the day and we headed out for Angkor Wat {a natural first choice!}. Angkor Wat was AMAZING!!! It reminded me so much of the feeling of seeing the pyramids in Egypt for the first time; it's so surreal you get goosebumps. If you would have told me 6 months ago I'd be with 3 people I didn't know at the time standing in Cambodia staring at Angkor Wat I would have told you that you were crazy...but there I was, and it was beyond incredible! We saw ancient temples and cities over 900 years old still standing (or restored) to much of its former glory...it was truly spectacular!

We walked around with our jaws dragging on the ground for a good 2 hours before finding our tul-tuk driver and heading to the next temple. Our driver proceeded to drive us around the "temple circuit" (a cluster of temples remotely close to each other {fun fact: there are over 300 temples in the town of Siem Reap alone!!}) for the remainder of the day stopping for us to explore Angkor Thom, Bayon, Ta Prohm, and Banteay Kdei. The last of these, Banteay Kdei, was very much unlike the first 5 we stopped at for several reasons, first, it did not appear that much, if any, money had been put into its restoration over the years, and secondly, there were hardly any tourists there. This temple in particular was amazing to explore. It had this calm sense about it and being able to walk through the old door ways and the rubble piles really let your imagination run wild as to what this place might have truly looked like almost 1,000 years ago!

Leaving the temples we were beyond exhausted and head out driver drop us off at a restaurant for dinner on the way to our hostel. After dinner we checked out the market for a bit, relaxed with some nice cheap foot massages on the side of the road and headed back to the hostel for an early{ish} night in!

Go With the Flow!

Saturday, January 30

We started off with a terrific plan! My Thailand Lonely Planet book (aka my travel bible!) had a 2.5 mile walking tour of Bangkok that hit several of the highlights that are on our to do list yet allowed us to keep our own pace so we thought it was a win-win deal! We chatted with some people at our hostel and figured out the best way to get to our starting point, and then we were off! We had 7 hours before our 8pm flight to Cambodia, my Lonely Plant book, and our walking shoes...nothing was going to stop us!

We got to our starting point, Victory Monument, and we sat down so I could read us some information on what we were looking at (thanks Google!) and I got no more than 3 sentences into the description when a middle aged man stopped near us and started to chat. Next thing we know he was handing us a list of "must see"/non-touristy destinations to hit, flagging us down a tuk-tuk driver and waving us goodbye with the most happy of smiles plastered across his face...so our plans were off to a rough start, but when opportunity knocks, I can't say no!

Our first stop was a teeny temple with zero tourists around making it a nice quiet place to explore. As soon as we arrived a man working there begin speaking to us in English and showed us an apparently 1000-year-old Buddha statue that the temple was famous for and told us if we touched it, it would bring us good luck (I'm still waiting on the call from Jackpot Lottery!) 

After a visit with the baby temple, we headed to a more famous spot in Bangkok, the Marble Temple. This temple is constructed from white marble imported from Italy and is beautiful! The outer courtyard is like a ring or a donut around the temple in the middle and features 52 different Buddha statues in varying positions. My personal favorite was popcorn Buddha (ok not really, but I swear his hands were out like for an offering and someone had filled them with popcorn...and guess what, I didn't even borrow any from him!) It was interesting as each Buddha had a little explanation about what their pose or position meant. Within the Buddha donut (can you tell its snack time here yet?!) was the actual temple which housed a large golden Buddha and motifs painted on the wall from the different provinces around Thailand. 

After leaving the temple our tuk-tuk driver drove us to a suit tailor. We had no intentions of actually purchasing a suit but it was on our list of things to do and we thought why not check it out! Apparently the guys who own the shop could sense this as well, after showing us the books and asking us to look around next thing we know they said OK five minutes goodbye have a nice day and showed us the door. So much for hospitality!

Later, after the suit and then gem shop (if we looked for 10 minutes our tuk-tuk driver got a coupon for 5 free liters of gas...sure we'll help you out buddy!) we asked our driver to take us to the Bowan Temple. We paid him a whopping 40 Thai Bot ($1.14 USD total for several stops) and said our goodbyes. We checked out the Bowan Temple for all of 5 minutes before we decided that food was a must before more temple exploration. We found some amazing Thai street noodles filled our bellies, then went back to work on Bowan Temple! Like many of the temples in Thailand the Bowan Temple had a large golden Buddha at the center of the temple. Unlike most of the temples though, there was a second building on the grounds that was used for monks' meditation. Each floor of the 6 floor building was laid out in a simple grid pattern with basic instructions as to guide you through your walking, standing, and sitting meditation phases. The top floor was entitled nirvana and was an open roof with spectacular views of the city below!

Leaving Bowan Temple we decided to take the river boat back to our hostel (one of Bangkok's several forms of public transportation) and enjoyed much different, yet equally spectacular, views of the city from the river. Quickly grabbing our belongings from the hostel we found our bus and headed for the airport; Cambodia {and Tory and Rebecca} were waiting!!

It's Travel Time

So I would start this post with an apology for the lack of posts lately, but life sometimes grabs hold of you and next thing you know it's 5 months later...ok maybe only a week lol.

The semester came to an end.
School is out.
Exams are graded
Mandatory orientation is finished.
Planes are booked.
Hostels are ready.

AND I LEAVE IN 2 HOURS!

Guys, I'm leaving to Thailand in 2 hours!!!!

I'll be in Thailand for 2 weeks including a quick trip to Cambodia for 4 days, and I couldn't possibly be any more excited {peeing my pants with excitement is the phrase that comes to mind lol}  I'm not sure I'll be able to really post anything but you can check back just in case! But, if you click on the pictures tab those should be updating while I'm out and about!

Wish me luck, send your prayers, and adios Taiwan!

Rainbow Village

Ok, back in Taichung to finish off my weekend with Miss Tina. If you missed the previous post about the Flower Carpet Festival you can catch you and read about that here!

We woke up early Sunday morning and we actually had a plan! I couldn't believe it {we never have a plan!} now granted we walked 10 feet out of the hotel and then realized we forgot to ask the hotel about the bus schedule for this said "plan" but a little extra exercise won't kill us! We enjoyed a breakfast buffet at the hotel {and by enjoy I mean I found something that remotely resembled food I wanted (I was not feeling the Taiwanese breakfast that morning!) and by breakfast I mean noodles and rice}...there will be a post on this later! And headed out the door for Rainbow Village.

This blog post  has some great information about the village if you want to read more than what I have here.

The Rainbow Village is actually a military dependents village set up in the 1940's when the Chinese Nationalist Party fled China and moved to Taiwan. Many of the military men that came to Taiwan brought with them their families and thus the military dependents villages were set up throughout the country as temporary housing. Well, like many things go, "temporary" lasted longer than intended and temporary for some turned into permanent.

Fast forward 60 years to the 1990's and the government decided it was time to begin tearing down most of these cramped and poorly built villages & cluster of homes to make room for new and larger buildings to be built. Though protests were made most of the homes were torn down and very few remain, other than that of Mr. Huang Yong-Fu, also known as "Rainbow Grandfather", who created a more peaceful protest by painting his entire village with bright rainbow designs, animals, and characters.

His village still stands, and is occupied by several families, today and is known to tourists and Taiwanese locals alike as "Rainbow Village"

The 'famous' Rainbow Iron man that takes pictures at the village

After our time at Rainbow Village, we caught a bus back into Taichung and began to look for lunch..boy was that an experience! We ended up at a “mall” called ‘little SE Asia’ hosting stores, restaurants, strange people, and dead animals from Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, etc. Hands down this was the dirtiest mall, shopping center, whatever you’d like to call it that I had ever been in! We were looking for something to eat and Tina leans over and asks “do you think this is safe to eat!?” Well, we ate lunch and we are still kicking, so it must have been ok! The Vietnamese food was amazing, the karaoke was loud, and our server Rolley Wang {I can’t make this stuff up} was a little too touchy; but dang it, we found lunch!

After lunch we ran into a group of guys we had met Saturday night and they convinced us to explore the remaining floors of this ½ abandoned mall with them including (but not limited to) finding a rundown bowling all, making friends with a dead ½ eaten lizard, climbing multiple sets of broken escalators, and finally going to a bar just in time for their weekly ARC checks {just to make sure we were legal && documented}.

ARC's out people, ARC's out!

You’d think we would have called it a day after that lol, but we weren’t quite finished with our to-do list for the day, so before boarding the train home we hopped in a cab to check out Paochueh Temple boasting one of the largest laughing Buddha statues in Taiwan && it did not disappoint!

And that's a wrap!

Suggestions, SUGGESTIONS, Read All About It!

Ok friends, I need some help!

Poor me has only about 3 weeks off of school for Chinese New Year {school goes until the very beginning of July so don't even start on "it's not fair!" lol} and I plan on making the most out of each of these days in the only way that seems logical to me....TRAVELING!

Shoot me your thoughts, personal experiences, & opinions! 

I'm leaning towards Thailand, but Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam are also great contenders as well {ok let's be honest...any country that I've never explored is new to me...right?!?!}

Also, since I'm most likely traveling solo I'm leaning towards some type of slightly organized trip. Like I don't need someone spoon-feeding (or chop-stick feeding me for that matter) and holding my hand as I cross the street, but having English speaking friends and a loose guideline of what way's up would be greatly appreciated for my first time there!

Sooo, do you have any suggestions of travel companies you've  used or heard of?!
Any first hand experiences to share with traveling in Asia that might be helpful?!
or...Do you just want to fly on over and join me and we can ditch the whole tour deal altogether!?!?!