Bats, Bats, and More Bats

I'm back in Taiwan...already. First of all, I can't believe how amazing Australia was, and second, I can't believe that the trip is already over! But hey, at least I got to go so I shouldn't really be complaining after all. So yeah, Australia was awesome! I'm not sure what I expected to see, but I was pleasantly surprised. The fam and Kelly and I spent the first few days in Brisbane. We got to see Emily's school campus, which was huge and very beautiful. We made sure to have Emily take us to all of her classes to make sure that she was actually going to school. We also saw a few different art museums and ate a lot of great food. That was one of the highlights for me: the food. It was all very, very good, but also very expensive. A lady at the airport told me that wages in Australia are typically pretty high though to help offset the high price of food. She said a job that might pay around $8 an hour (like a retail job) in the US would actually pay about $15 USD per hour in Australia. It seemed like every meal we had cost like $100. It was a nice break from the Taiwanese food though.

The weather was pretty much perfect the whole time we were in Brisbane, except for a few rain showers. The city of Brisbane was very nice. It was very clean, modern, and filled with lots of friendly people with very entertaining accents. The roads in Brisbane are a lot like San Francisco because of all the hills. The next part of the trip was definitely the biggest treat of the vacation: North Stradbroke Island, or Straddie to the locals. This is an island just a few miles off the coast of Brisbane. It almost felt like I was in Hawaii, but it's far less developed which I really liked. There were no high-rise buildings. And not many people for that matter. Because it's winter in Australia, it's kind of their slow season (what a rough winter huh? 75 degrees as the high). We stayed in a very funky hotel that was set back into the woods off the main road. It took about 2 minutes to walk to the beach. We did a lot of lounging on the beach, some hiking, and again, lots of eating. One thing that was pretty crazy to see was the bats, aka Flying Foxes. One night, we witnessed a mass migration of at least 1,000 bats flying down the coast. I would say these bats have at least a 2 foot wingspan...they were big. I had never seen bats this big before, and definitely not this many at once. My mom and I were also lucky enough to see 2 kangaroos in the wild. Needless to say, the rest of our party was quite jealous. I'll be posting some pictures shortly because they're gonna do a much better job showing you what Australia was all about. All I'm trying to say is that I'd highly recommend a visit!

Today was my second day back to school and I'm definitely having a hard time adjusting and getting back into the groove. I'm missing everyone now but luckily the kids keep you busy enough that you can't think about it too much. I have one highlight from today that was pretty memorable. It was the third field trip of the year today. We drove south into Taoyuan to the National Taiwan Sports University campus. We attended some sort of Firefighters' Benefit or something. It started with 8 guys dressed as women in bikinis, lifeguards, and people who looked like they belonged to a bomb squad. They were wearing one piece, white plastic suits. They must've been very hot. It was around 80 degrees today and very humid. They did some sort of dance combined with a life-saving demonstration. It was very odd. Again, a video or picture would better describe it. Once they did this, more guys came out with sheets to make ocean waves and the guys in the plastic suits put on monster masks. Then another life-saving demonstration ensued, followed by a 3 song dance sequence which included "Thriller" by Michael Jackson. Then the monster people ran around a chased and scared all the kids.

After this were the boat races. They had 3 boats with 4 firefighters in each racing across a pond. This was fairly anti-climactic because one team won convincingly. The capper for the day was when all of the kids were allowed to catch baby catfish out of a baby pool. There must've been at least 500 catfish in this pool. It was pretty gross but a lot of fun too. I caught 5 and now I have them in a bowl in my room. Of course the next challenge will be trying to find fish food somewhere near my house. Luckily, I have that little "language barrier" I have to contend with. After we got back to school, I had two science classes in a row where we experimented with different kinds of paper and how they reacted to water. One of the students thought it'd be a good idea to put the pieces of paper on their face and of course, their fellow students followed suit. Before I knew it, I had 15 kids roaming around the classroom with 6 pieces of paper stuck to their faces. They all looked like Uncle Sam.

To sum this rambling up, I'd like to thank my parents for an awesome trip to Australia, thank Emily for being our great tour guide, and thank Kelly for being there with me to experience it all. Now my mind is spinning trying to gather my thoughts and also try and sort through the hundreds of pictures I took so I can post them on flickr for the many blog fans I have to enjoy. 'Nuff said!