miltownkid.com

The Trip to Penghu was good. We didn’t stay on the main island. We took a plane from Taipei’s domestic airport to Penghu and then a boat to a small island off of the main island.

This was an interesting little island (name JiDong I think). I guess at it’s biggest it had a population of 3,000 people, but that has since dwindled to 20 something (so I was told). There was an old hospital and school house left over from the island’s peak time. We lived in the old school for 2 nights.

The first thing I got a taste of was mountain climbing. I don’t mean the kind with the ropes and hooks, I mean the free hand climbing people do that looks really dangerous. It always seemed a little too dangerous for my taste, but there was a little cliff on this island that I couldn’t seem to stop climbing. Next I knew I was half way up this thing and coming down was a whole new ball game.

I now have a desire to do more free hand mountain climbing. There’s something about knowing that mistakes are NOT acceptable that makes it really fun.

Another thing I did was snorkel. Well, at first I just goggled. I thought snorkeling looked stupid on TV, so I just held my breath, swam down by the coral for a while and came up (repeat). That got me tired really quickly, so I decided to try the snorkeling thing. Turns out it’s really cool. You just kind of chill on top of the water, enjoying the fish and coral. A taste of that has me craving more (and craving getting certified or whatever for scuba diving).

After our stay on the smaller island we went to a bigger one (AnWang I think). I didn’t do much there but watch TV and enjoy the aircon.

The trip was really nice though. It was with a bunch of I-Ping’s friends, coworkers and their kids. So I just played with the kids the whole time, increasing my Chinese skill and had fun.

I think this trip was also the beginning of me actually enjoying vacations. I mean, I’ve enjoyed them in the past, but usually felt like I should be home or something. I never really “wanted” to go (even those trips to Bali). I feel that changing really soon.

Hopefully that photogallery is coming soon so pictures will once again flow. (Oh yeah, my camera died there, so it’s time to get a replacement and at the some time).

[Here's Penghu on Google Maps]

I’m off to Penghu in the morning. I stayed up late putting finishing touches on Andy’s website. I thought I wasn’t going to finish it (because I didn’t get my hands on the domain), but instead of giving up I bought www.taiwanbjj.info (for $2,88) and put the site there. It’s not the domain he wants (that’s caught up in transit), but it’s better than nothing I think.

I was investigating Photo Blog and Image Gallery software today and will probably go with something soon. I have a bunch of pictures I want to scan in and pictures on the computer to share. I think what I’ll do is have a section of the site for photos and media. That way when I blog, I’ll just focus on writing. Normally I spend a bunch of time getting pictures setup for uploading and all that crap.

My site will probably be going through some major revision soon too. Uh, yeah. If I happen to get on the Intraweb while I’m gone I’ll post again, otherwise you’ll hear from me again Monday.

Toodles.

miltownK