Girl blowing bubbles on Sun Moon Lake

Alright, so the past two weeks have been quite action packed so this journal will cover both of them. The trip to Matsu was great in the beginning, but then it became very humid and so all the mountains appeared in a white haze as the sun shined down. This happens a lot on this side of the world, but I wonder if it also happens a lot in other places. All I know is that it makes for terrible photos. The first day was also good because everyone got along better. We took a taxi around Dongyin and saw all of the most beautiful sites in Matsu. The second and third days we got mopeds and rode around other islands taking photos of military propaganda posted everywhere, tunnels, memorials and old villages. Shingo's roommate was cool, but when he started to leave me out on important information such as when to get up to make it in time for the boats to take us to the other islands, I became a bit frustrated with him. Also in the end Shingo and his roommate were always clung together and I was the one in the back trailing behind them. Communication is very important no matter what language you speak. The norms of communication for each race seem so different in Asia. Japanese will agree when they don't wish to in order to avoid conflict and Taiwanese will be bluntly clear.

Overall the trip was good because I got to take lots of photos and test out my camera. However I am not happy with the mediocre quality that came out with them. I must obtain better lenses and I got three of them in mind. The following week we had our "Cultural Richman" workshop in which I was representing America. It was like a monopoly game where a classroom represents a country and the participants went around and learned things about those countries. Dave and I introduced them to American popular music, and for the most part the participants enjoyed it. Some groups had Americans in them, which made it easy for them to pick out groups and artists in our game such as Quiet Riot and Aaliyah. They had to look at each photo we put and tell us who that person was, but in general Quiet Riot and Aaliyah gave the most problems.

Finally, the trip to Sun Moon Lake that came soon after was good because it was with closer friends, however, because of the unpredictable weather and the illness that came over me that weekend, it had its down times. The cost of going to Sun Moon Lake couldn't possibly rival Matsu, but it was still expensive. It took 3,000 NT to get there and back. Food was kind of pricey too but it still couldn't compare to Matsu. Final consensus would be go to Sun Moon Lake, not Matsu! If you are rich enough to get in the tallest hotel on the island then you will get to see the sunrise and sun set nicely. If not then you can just go on the lake and hope that there is no fog. I wish I could have gone out on the lake, but at 5 A.M. I found out that the hotel literally barricades us in! Still we biked around the beautiful lake and took quite a few photos. Sunday was the best because we got to see the beautiful pagoda that stood tall over most of the lake. You could get very good photos from up there if the weather cooperates and its not too humid.

The trip back home was tiring because of my sickness. I had to spend a good 5 hours on trains and buses with no real way of sleeping. When we finally got back to Taipei, the humidity returned, but that night I slept like a baby.