haven't blogged for a while! i could say that it's been difficult getting connected to the internet, but that's a lie. really, it's more just that i've been completely exhausted and just don't feel like writing. which would be a mistake since now i can barely remember what's been happening. let's go backwards!

today we went to hehuang mountain and hiked a bunch, then went to a farm and watched sheep shearing! that was cool, 'cause it was interesting to see something i had to do for class in ANS1 xD we've totally learned how to catch/flip/age/shear/manage sheep, and it was even part of my final for the class, so seeing those techniques actually used live was pretty cool. the australian/new zealander guy doing the hosting had a crazy-strong accent while he attempted to speak chinese to the crowd.. but i was impressed that he at least knew how to speak at all. wonder how long he's been doing this show.. anyway, afterwards we just had dinner, lecture, video, and now here. and tomorrow we're going out at 6 to go birdwatching so that'll be cool! but early.. but cool.

speaking of cool, i love the weather here. it's pretty much just like the bay, dry and cool and misty. a lot of the mainlanders/taiwanese are cold ^^; but to me it's normal weather! shorts and tshirts yaaaay <3 and maybe the occasional jacket.

yesterday... we arrived here at meifong farm hotel, and it's NICE. man, i love these rooms! didn't do much of anything except a video at night, and hung out in the guys' room. tried to fix dominique's computer but that turned out terribly.. it keeps rebooting to system restore, and can't seem to locate any of the drives. i dug deeper via command prompt but seriously, all it sees is the X: drive. sad... wish i could help, but seems like either a hardware issue or a need for a fresh install for all drivers. but yeah, we spent most of the day in the bus going back around the west side of taiwan since the path from taroko -> meifong was rendered dangerous from the typhoon.

the day before that, we were at taroko gorge! hiked a trail and ended up at this SWWEEEEEETTTT rocky lake/river sanctuary. climbed up a shitload of rocks. i personally enjoy rocks, no idea why. they're just so fun to climb and run up/down. i'm not really afraid of heights, so that helps! but yeah, reckless. ivy's like my mother hahaha. and then we headed back to taipei and watched "ted"... or so we thought. was sold out, so we went and watched abraham lincoln: vampire hunter instead. it wasn't as terrible as i predicted it to be, though the slo-mo was pretty much ridiculous. i thought they did a great job of linking history to fiction, though.

also lately i've been hanging out with ivy and shu chi much more! i like it, they're both very fun to be around ^^

let's see.. the night before we were in *forgot name of village*! stayed in a nice hotel, all i really remember is that we went out that night to explore the night market after getting mochi OMG MOCHI SO GOOD aw shit i just remembered i left two in my room back in the dorm.. sigh. what a waste. anyway, it was super amazing mochi, and then night market! got food, was stuffed, headed to starbucks to sit for a while and eat, and decided to watch a movie lolol. we taxi'd our way over (stuffing 6 people in the cab, i love taiwan and its lack of rules.. LOL or at least a lack of following them) to the theater and watched spiderman *___* ANDREW GARFIELD, damnit. in love with his acting, haha, though i think the movie was less enjoyable to those who were only really reading the chinese subtitles :/ anyway it was super cute and augh why does he play such an adorable high schooler?

okay, so the night before THAT we went to a different village and stayed at this traveler's lodge that had crazy nice japanese-styled rooms, and ate a nice dinner and lit lanterns! weining was my partner for the lantern drawing and we were the last ones to finish pretty much, because he took so long on the first side! T___T i didn't have time to draw a proper dragon D: but i just wrote "no regrets" in chinese and yeah. we lit it up with the help of the restaurant owner and watched it fly off :D carolina and ivy's flew into a power line and promptly exploded. it was awesome. so much cooler than seeing it disappear, haha. but yeah so we went back to the lodge and we had the ENTIRE building! so cool, the owner just left us the keys.. we sang karaoke (k-ge) in the dining room because it transformed! i tell ya, it was awesoooooome.

the day before that, i thiiiink it was tidepool day? collected crabs and stuff :D so fun but no pictures because i was too busy playing xD and then at night i went out with weining and yang fan to eat shabu shabu at the taipei main station despite having to pack for the trip away. got back at like 11:30 super tired and didn't pack until that morning sigh. i don't remember what we did before that...

and monday night was dumpling night! DUMPLINGS ARE DELICIOUS, hands down. went out with dominic, shuchi, yangfan, and weining (minus dominic who just went home) to taipei 101 which is pretty unimpressive since it was just a tower... but fun with friends, like anything else of course.

and sunday was danshui! our one and only free day, definitely well spent. began with being super late due to diane taking me out to eat dimsum which was delicious but i honestly felt sick after being pretty much forced to eat a crapton of food... but got the ATM card back! then 40 min mrt ride to tamshui station where EVERYONE WAITED FOR ME ;-; i'm so thankful that they're such good people. i told them to go ahead but yeah it didn't happen! i'm glad though. but yeah so then we went and walked along the streets, with food of course, and checked out san antonio's fort thing, and kept walking to the end to the wharf/dock/bridge where we watched the sunset! it was pretty fast 0__0 took lots of pictures, and walked back via the waterfront. ate at a seafood place, which was great if you love seafood, but just okay to me xD oh well. played this damn shooting game with what i think was a colt .45 modded to a BB gun, shot all 10 targets in a row, and got a stupid cell phone holder. i should've asked for the prizes beforehand... ah well. i'll know better next time! i wanna practice shooting more, can't wait to use those range tickets when i'm back in davis.

anyway that was, again, a long and exhausting day. and so it is right now. so goodnight!