"The Hike"

Yesterday, I went on a hike with my doorman, Mr. Pong. Where to begin...well at the beginning I suppose. I met him in front of McDonald's at 6:45, after he got off his graveyard shift at my building. He picked me up in a Nissan SUV, playing music by Dion and the Belmonts. There is a strange fascination here with American music. You can hear it playing pretty much everywhere even though no one knows the words. The best moments are when you're in a store and they're playing rap music with a lot of swear words and there are kids everywhere tapping their toes, completely oblivious to the lyrics. Anyway, Mr. Pong proceeded to drive us to his friend's house...Mr. Wang. Then we drove to the Guanyin Mountain trailhead. Apparently there are like five Guanyin mountains around Taipei, so we went to the one in Linkou I think but I'm not really sure where we were. We walked down a road for about 5 minutes and then the climbing started. I knew it was going to be an interesting hike when about 10 minutes in or so, Mr. Pong told me that his lungs hurt because he smokes too much. I told him that maybe he should stop and he said he wouldn't.
The hiking trails here are generally straight up. There are no such things as switchbacks. It's typically pretty difficult but my company made things a little more leisurely. Throughout the hike, I kept on hearing yelps in the distance. Like every five minutes I'd hear someone make a loud cat call or something. I assumed it was part of some meditation or something but I have no idea. When we got to the top, we could see the ocean! I was so excited because this was my first time to see the ocean since I've arrived, so that was definitely a highlight. At the top, there were probably about 20 people already there at 8 AM, so they must've gotten up very early. There were a bunch of old men in workout pants doing different exercises, like swinging their arms in circles or hitting their backs with their hands. Also, they were swinging their hips around in circles. I didn't read into it too much, it's part of the culture.
On the descent, Mr. Pong kept saying that his arms hurt so he fell farther and farther behind (or is it further? I'm only an English teacher...). On the way back, Mr. Wang really hit his stride. On the way up, he was not doing too well and sweating and breathing a lot, but downhill he was a force. He went way ahead and Mr. Pong's arms hurt so I was stuck in the middle taking pictures. Check Flickr for those!
After the hike, I told Mr. Pong I wanted an authentic Chinese breakfast. I didn't think about that too much when I said it so the first thing we got...noodle soup with mystery meat and a tea egg in it. It was pretty gnarly stuff that I'd had before at school and I didn't like it then. Luckily, it was boiling hot so I ate slowly and somehow Pong and Wang devoured theirs in no time. After picking around the "meat" and egg, I told them I wasn't hungry and I'd take the rest home. Then we went to another restaurant. Suddenly I was hungry again! This time we ate dumplings and drank Chinese milk, which Mr. Pong said is made out of a yellow bean. It didn't quite taste like soymilk but something similar. It was actually pretty good.
Just when I thought the festivities were done, Mr. Pong asked me if I wanted to go to a spa. I was hesitant at first because my first encounter was during a hash run when we ran through a spa full of older, completely naked men. But I thought to myself "I'm here to try new things" so I complied. Lucky for me, it was a co-ed spa so clothing was required. The spa had a large outdoor lap pool, as well as an indoor bath house full of a bunch of different showers and jets and tubs and such. The funniest things they had were the high-powered jets that felt like being sprayed with a fire hose. They were very powerful. They had one version of it that I did not get to try because a lady was hogging it. It had a spigot about two feet wide, just pouring water out. You were supposed to lay underneath the downpour as it pummeled you. I think all of the water was fresh too. I didn't notice any chlorine. The catch with that, which I may be noticing the effects now, is that it was probably infested with bacteria. I started feeling sick yesterday a few hours after the spa and haven't felt right since.
So that pretty much sums everything up. Mr. Pong paid for everything which was very nice of him! I'm sure we'll do something like this again. Hopefully his arms don't hurt as much during round two.

Two quick "fun facts" for you about Taiwan. Number one: there are basically no trash cans on the street anywhere. It is generally a pain in the neck throwing something away. Even at school, there are hardly any trash cans. Number two: I have not seen a speed limit sign on any road anywhere.