Three days of Evynation (part 3)

Previously on 'Three days of Evynation'... Evy came to Taiwan to visit me, our plan was to spend the weekend in Hualien and get there by train. We missed it. We were a bit desperate but at the same time so cheerful. A man called 'Angelo' came to rescue us and took it a little bit too far. Eventually we will never know what his intentions really were. We got on the next train: slept and changed places times three and arrived in that part of Taiwan, the most formosa of the Formosa Island..

As promised part three in a picture story....

So the first thing we did when we arrived was sleeping because it was 3 o'clock at night! Waking up at 9 was hell and even more hell for Evy since she did not sleep the night before (she is such a smarty pants!). We went down and apparently we needed to go and get our breakfast at the McDo...ok no problem. We ate a breakfast burger and drank awful coffee. It was time to meet Gabriel for the first time... (and his friend Moshi who was our driver for day one, how sweet!)

Did I mentioned that it was raining? 

Afterwards we went together to a temple where we found this weird Chinese game and a sweet little Taiwanese boy. I think his mother was looking a bit strange at me, but hey! At least I think he's cute! She should be happy.

We went up in the mountains and took some pictures of the view..in the rain.

Well, this is the dog that we met at a huge beautiful lake. From the moment he saw us walking there, he became our friend. He was limping a bit because his right paw is missing. We gave him some of our Papaya milk and the result of that? Well I guess you all know..we couldn't get rid of him anymore haha. But we liked him so we decided to take the dog for a walk along the lake, the more the merrier! 

The thing with the leg, it is something that you see a lot with these dogs in Taiwan. I do not know if it is because of the traffic that is so dangerous or is it a disease, I have no idea...

Here you can see Evy and I, at one of the most beautiful sea sides of Taiwan. It was pouring but we were brave and took some pretty amazing shots anyway! <3 you Evy!

After all the visiting in the rain, we both just needed a nice hot coffee with some homemade cookies! We needed to recharge our batteries for....

a night out in Hualien! We went to a cosy small bar where a rock band was playing some Taiwanese and English songs...and It got a little bit out of hand...

We started to use some Brazilian offensive gestures and used them like they meant 'I Love You' of 'Well done!'. We were also constantly yelling between two songs 'Wo ai niiiii!' which means 'I love you'!!! I think he loved us back! Hmm not really sure in fact!

Unfortunately I cannot post the uncensored pictures at the request of the participants.... Our day one ended at 2h30 but for the Brazilians.....well, I could ask them but I really do not care. Why? You will read it right away..

The next day we woke up early because we were going to meet the Brazilians to take the 9 o'clock bus to the Taroko park. We were waiting and waiting and then we received a call .. the Brazilians... they could not make it on time so we just woke up that early for nothing! We were pissed as hell because we were so tired but still kept our promise to wake up and meet each other at our hotel.

When we saw them eventually an hour later, the tension was certainly there. They even did not apologize, nothing! I was disgusted! I wanted to punch them in the face and learn them some manners (See the paradox in that?). Eventually Gabriel apologized because he is in fact a good guy. But his two other friends...they just simply aren't. 

Taroko was amazing but again so wet, up to the point where we were walking through a cave wherein the water was pouring from the rocks above our heads so that it felt like taking a shower. We did not care anymore! We survived the Taroko park and maybe we will go back some day, when the sun shines bright and the sky is blue and the Brazilians...well.. are in Brazil! ;)

Kanbeeeeeee my friends! This was the Evy-story. XOXO

Three days of Evynation (part 2)

Previously on Evynation... Evy came to Taiwan, I showed her the good stuff in Taipei, we took the wrong train to Hualien, we needed information but we don't speak Chinese so a kind man 'Angel...o' (I am going to call him Angelo from now on) helped us out, we needed to wait an hour for the next train without tickets for a seat...

While we were laughing with our stupidity, we were walking to the platform where we could sit and wait for our train. We found a bench, sat down, and before we could take a breath and let the event settle, Angelo was standing there in front of us with two bottles of Coke Zero.

Angelo: "Hi, this is for you."

Evy and I, we were looking at each other and we were thinking exactly the same things like ‘What’s the meaning of that move?’, 'Why is he buying us a drink?', 'Will he follow us to Hualien and rape us there?', 'Is he trying to seduce us with a Coke?' and we were trying to keep our laughter!

Evy and I: "Oh you shouldn't have bought that for us! That is so kind of you!

Me: "OMG, you even bought the one that I always drink!"

Evy and I: "Thank you so much!"

Aaaaaand yes of course, there it happened! He was looking at us with these strange eyes and he just wanted to sit next to us. Evy and I began to drink our Coke Zero, looked at each other and again I almost did not manage to swallow the Coke because I couldn’t hold my laughter, this was the weirdest situation ever!

So we were sitting there, three in a row. And since he was awfully quiet and staring at us without glancing. We started to ask him some questions: where do you come from? (I don't remember), where are you going? (Don't remember either), Where do you work? (That I remember! It had something to do with water recycling, he was an environmental engineer or so..). The diesel finally warmed up and started asking about our lives too, why we are in Taiwan, what we think of Taiwan, but still.. he could not stop staring at us! There were not a lot of emotions visible on his face, we really did not know what he was thinking. It was kinda creepy!

The conversation was over and I was thinking how fun it would be to share our train-event with the world! So I was trying wifi to share the train-event but there was none. I said that out loud and Angelo told me that I could use his notebook. Carolyn: "But there is no wifi here.." Angelo: "Not here on the platform, but there is wifi downstairs.... OK we went down (we had plenty of time!) and of course Angelo followed us like a duck. Angelo opened his notebook and start watching porn! ........... Ok the story isn't THAT exciting! I didn't know what he was doing on his notebook, but I noticed on my shitty BB that the wifi wasn’t free.  So we did not have free wifi, no train, no seats on the next train BUT HEY we had Angelo and a Coke ZERO. The hell with all the rest right!

We went all back to the platform and just talked a little bit more before our train arrived, finally. We said goodbye to Angelo after he was explaining to us that we needed to get off in Hualien after the stop before Hualian..... Ooow DO WE??? HAD NO IDEA. We took our train and changed places 3 times or so - always funny when you see people walking towards you in the aisle and thinking 'No you are not sitting here, NOT here, OOOOH DAMN is this really your seat?' Eventually we arrived in rainyrainy Hualien. 

Hey you know what! I am going to tell you the end of the story with pictures and comments, that will do! But before I do that, I am wondering. What was Angelo's intention exactly? Was he just overfriendly and did he had a staring-disease of was he just so fascinated by us, Western people, that he just couldn't take his eyes of us. But the thing is, he did not have any expression on his face whatsoever so you never knew how he was feeling or what he was thinking... Well, I guess we will never know but If you ever take the wrong train in Taiwan, let the people that want to help you just help you and take that into gratitude because eventually he bought us a Coke, a Zero one. 

Cheers! X

Three days of Evynation (part 1)

Don't you all just love coincidence or do you call it fate?? Well, a good friend of mine, called Evy, decided during our last year of Commercial Engineering to participate in a one-year-master program where she would study at three different locations: Prague, Belgium and yes indeed China...and more specifically at the University of Xiamen and she would start her program there in September.

When she got the news that she was accepted we interrogated here about China (because that was the most interesting thing about the program of course) and she told us it would be in Xiamen. We were like X-i-a-men?? Where is that place? WELL NOW I KNOW, it's the closest Chinese city to Taiwan. Evy could have swim to Taipei to meet me in a manner of speaking!!

Anyway, by the time we received her good news, I was still nowhere with my internship. So eventually when I got accepted for the internship in Taiwan in August, I started to wonder...How far would Evy be located from me because we were there around the same period of the year!?

I looked it up on google maps and there it was: two points A and B indicated on the map and the solution from google: "Sorry my dear, but I am afraid I don't have a route for you, you will have to swim!" So I talked to Evy about it and we were already dreaming about watching the sunset together on a bridge with a bottle of wine. Well, it happened SLIGHTLY different...

In the beginning we were both so occupied! We did not hear from each other much. I was busy with having the time of my life, she was busy with...well a bit the same only with more (and free! grrrrr) boose! But eventually we found a weekend to see each other, my last weekend she would come over.

I told Evy that we would go to Hualien (the most beautiful place of Taiwan..they said all the time) and after a short hesitation she was OK with it. Blablabla a lot of arranging stuff and we were ready to go!

The plan was to go by train, sitting (because we had sitting tickets, thank god!) and we were meeting there three Brazilian guys, one of them I knew ("I knew" in the meaning of: he was also an AIESECer and he worked in Hualien but we never met before and the two others were his friends).

On Friday I met Evy in the early evening in the Taipei main station. It was so great to see here AND SO STRANGE to talk Dutch after 6 weeks! We had three hours to kill so I decided to let her have a taste of the Taiwanese gastronomy....food from the night market! We took a train to Shongshan and we killed that time like a pro. It was in the Shongshan station that we could take our train so we were waiting, on time, on the right platform.

Then it all went really fast E: "Our train is there, see?!" C: "Are you sure it's this one?" E: "Yes it is written there in English" C: "OK, I guess you are right, let's take it'. We sat down in our seats and I had a bad feeling in my stomach.. C: "Evy, are you sure about the train, I don't know, is it the right one?" E: "I hope so!" C:" You know, maybe I just ask the two Taiwanese guys that are sitting behind us?" E: "Yes do that!" C: "Hi, excuse me, are we sitting on the right train (I showed my ticket to them)" The guys: " Yes it's OK! (While pointing at the label of the seat)" C: "NO! I MEAN are. we. on. the. right. TRAAAAIN? (I know I am sitting on the right seat you idiot!)" E: (giggling) The guys: "Oh, yes it is the good one!" C: "Thank you!" E: "Carolyn, you haven't changed a bit, that's how I know you!" C&E: (LOLOL) "Well hello! What an answer was that HAHAHAHA!"

15 minutes later: Train-lady-voice: "Ladies and Gentlemen, may we kindly request you to leave the train in a few moments, we are approaching our end station." E&C: HUH WAH? (Looking at each other with confused faces) E&C: Oeeee??? (Looking at the Taiwanese guys behind us) The guys: "Yeeees, we took the wrong train too!" C: "OH MY GOD, are you kiddin' me!?" E: "It's OK, I am used to it" C: " Evy, I managed well for 6 weeks to find my way around Taipei and one evening you join me AND WE TAKE THE WRONG TRAIN?" Evy was laughing and me too because I wasn't angry of course, it was another adventure to add to my list!

We got off the train and searched asap for a person in a uniform. Ok! We found one! We explained our situation but he understood nothing really but then suddenly a man came interrupting our "conversation" and asked us "What is the problem?" We explained it again and he translated and asked the man in the uniform. The man that translated (I will call him Angel from now on because he was kind off our angel in distress), told us that we could not catch up with our train, so we needed to wait till the next one arrived in about...one hour. E&C: "Ohneeeee, Ok sniks, alles komt goed! (and we were laughing with our own misery) C:" Evy, you know we lost our seats now right?" E: "I guess" C: "Thank you Evy, you suddenly made my stay in Taiwan a lot more fun! (Sarcasticly laughing)"

Do you like the story already? 'Cause it's just about to really begin!!! Let's divided into peaces like Twilight, only my second (and maybe third) part will not s*ck.

See you later for the sequellll! Byebye!!!

Ps: Almost forgot, Owwww Yeaaah It's my birthday, we gonna party like it's my Birthday...NOT. Reality check: my thesis, right! Well I guess writing a bit on my blog was kinda the peaks of my day :) ! (I'm 23 now, btw) OK..

BYEEE foriell.