Don't go diving in Australia, there are sharks

Apologies first for not keeping up with this blog very well.  I feel as though this is the first weekend I have had to sit down and wrap my head around the events in my life.  These past couple of weeks have been filled with school work, grad school work, volleyball tournaments, and scuba certification classes.  While I am thrilled I have accomplished so much in such a short time, I need a break!  ASAP!

School here is moving along as usual.  In celebration of Halloween (and we are probably one of the only schools in Taiwan who celebrate it because we are an American school) the Student Council sponsored a scary movie night.  I never thought I would be in charge of/chaperone a night where over 100 teenagers get together at school, turn all the lights off and watch The Ring and Paranormal Activity, but I did.  The whole time I was thinking "This would never fly in the states," and "I hope I don't scream out loud!" :)  Other than that event, school has been just like school everywhere else...too much work and not enough time to complete it all.

Last weekend I took my Volleyball girls to our tournament at another American school just on the outskirts of Kaohsiung.  I am proud to say my 6th graders got a solid 4th place out of 4 teams.  They are amazing, I know...they were more worried with having time to play on the playground than hitting the ball.  Just imagine orange cones with arms...that would be 75% of my team.  Oh well...my competitive spirit had to be suppressed.  Softball is coming up next, these girls, from what I have been told are natural athletes, which will be a welcome change.

Keith and Zach at the dive center

The Hostel

Now on to the good stuff.  Over the past 3 weekends I have been going down to Kenting getting my scuba certification.  I am now officially open water certified!  I can go diving anywhere in the world, but as my mother told me, "Don't go diving in Australia right now, they are having problems with sharks."  It took 3 LONG days to accomplish this.  I completed the course with Zach and Keith, no one else wanted to come along, I don't understand why this was the coolest thing I have done so far in my life.  We started the first day diving in the pool at the center.  There we just got comfortable with the equipment, skills, strategies and survival techniques incase something were to go wrong.

The Scuba site

We spent the night in a hostel at the dive center, which was my first hostel experience.  Different yet, tons of fun.  The next day we took our first dive in the ocean.  It was amazing.  There is a whole new world (thanks Little Mermaid) down there.  The reefs and fish were mind blowing.  I knew this is something I wanted to do for the rest of my life.  After cleaning the equipment, we headed back to Kaohsiung on a diving high ready to get our last dives in the next weekend.  The last dives went flawlessly, our instructor even told us we were his best students!  Now I have my PADI card and can go diving wherever I want (except Australia because mom says so) .  While it was a lot of work, it was such a great accomplishment.

All the equipment 

Now I am about to put on my swim suit and my flippy floppies and head to the beach.  It is a beautiful, sunny day that can simply not be wasted.

Spending the holiday in "style"

The beautiful Island

This weekend was 10/10, the Taiwanese independence day.  Since I am sure you can all assume I love a good independence day, after all the fireworks are for me, I was super excited for my extra day off school and weekend trip to Green Island.  From the time we planned this trip, all I heard from others who had been was how great this place was, how beautiful and relaxing this trip was going to be and what a good time we are going to have.  I can agree to 1.5 out of the 3 statements.  We had a good time and I think it is beautiful but this weekend could be considered a disaster!

The infamous boat

To start off, I totally overslept, missed the train with everyone and was forced to, on my own, make my way to the east side of the island by train and boat.  The train was full and the only seat I could get was standing room only...so I stood by the bathroom for 2+ hours to get to Taitung.  Once in Taitung I had to get to the boat to take me to Green Island.  The only issue was I had to get to the boat from the train station in 15 minutes or I would miss the last boat out for the night...Jennifer in her wonderful Chinese told the cab driver this and I was off for the scariest cab ride of my life!  My life was literally flashing before my eyes, but I made it!  The boat ride was interesting to say the least...they have barf bags at every chair and many people (like half the boat) needed to use it.  Gross!  I just put in my iPod and went to sleep hoping not to catch the bug.

John, Jennifer and I

Once I arrived to Green Island, I was greeted by my wonderful friends on scooters, we were so Taiwanese and had to ride with 3 on a scooter ;)  Not to mention the fact that I brought the rain with me.  From the time I got there until the time I left it was a downpour.  We were not going to let that stop us though!  We rode around the island getting pelted with rain, soaking wet, trying to do everything.

For dinner Saturday night we had a traditional Taiwanese barbecue...don't get your hopes up, this was complete with chicken heart, pigs blood, fish pancakes, and numerous other things which I don't even know what they are.  I stuck with the chicken (I think).  Later that night we went to these natural hot springs Saturday night expecting to have a perfect relaxing time, it was FREEZING and of course we picked the only hot spring that was not hot.  Our clothes were soaking wet by the time we left we were miserable.  We ended up in a pool by ourselves...at first we thought no one wanted to be around the Americans...but it turns out that was the only hot spring that was lukewarm...we were the stupid ones who did not put two and two together and move to the ones where everyone else was.

Hotsprings

After leaving the hotspring, we rode home in the downpour on the scooters, jumped in hot showers and went to sleep on the brick hard mattresses.  Upon waking up in the morning, we unanimously decided over breakfast to cut the trip short and head back to Kaohsiung.  After rearranging all of the tickets, we rode around on the island in the scooters trying to see as much as we could, after all at this point my hands had been pruned for about 24 hours so what was a little more water?  The island really was as beautiful as people said.  Absolutely breathtaking in some places.  I really can not wait to visit in nicer conditions.

7 hours later, 1 boat ride (where no one got sick, score), a train ride (where we all got seats) we made it back safe and sound!  Despite everything, I had a great time.  The people I was with made it all worth it.  They are incredible, positive, up-beat and just a ton of fun to be around.  I am so blessed.