I want to dress like a little girl again. This morning at the coffee shop a little girl popped right up behind me and grabbed some sugar. She smiled at me and went back to sitting by her mother. As I watched her walk back I saw her wonderful outfit. She had a headband with a big bright pink flower on it. A long sleeve black shirt under a bright teal t-shirt with a butterfly rhinestone design on it and of course, a soft pink ballerina tutu. She had little sneakers that were painted many colors, that lit up blue as she walked and they even had curlicue laces (very 80′s style). None of it matched, but you could tell that she dressed herself and was pleased with her style.

I’m sure I did this as a child, but I can’t really remember. I know I played dress up a lot, but those clothes weren’t allowed out of the house. I would love to go into my closet and put on all my funnest clothes, not worrying if they match or not, and just go out and have a fun day. Maybe I’ll wear a skirt over pants with big colorful rain boots (Although I don’t own any yet), and of course I’ll need sunglasses and a hat for attitude.

P.S. I tried desperately to find a picture befitting of this post. You would be amazing at how hard it is to find pictures of little girls dressed how ever they like. I’ve seen both my nieces do it, but don’t have any pictures of them. If any of you would like to donate a picture that would be awesome.

Some of you may know that one of my best friends just moved to Australia. She is best describe as a beautiful disaster. I love tagging along with her for what is always a great/interesting night that makes for a funny story later. (It helps that she’s also just a good story teller.) I often strive to be more like her for many reason, but the main one being that she is always, unequivocally, herself. I envy her ability to not give a shit what other people think. When I’m with her I feel brave. I can be loud, funny, quirky, or anything else I feel like being in that moment. (It may help that large amounts of alcohol are usually involved.)

The question is, how do I get rid of that fear of judgment? How do I learn to not care about the funny looks I get when dancing to bad karaoke at a dive bar? It’s easy when my friends are right there with me. But can I do it when there not? I desperately want to be that person who just is, all the time. How do I live up to Nina and become my own beautiful disaster?

I know I’m not in Taiwan anymore but I felt like sharing a great new year that I had a few years ago. Luckily for me this blog has already been written by my friend Nina. Enjoy!
Nina’s Travel rule #6: If you’re going to be a disaster it’ll be safer in Taiwan
I’ve added a few extra pictures just for fun.

Clearly we were trying to write out 2010

Nina

Nina, Debby and I. On the train home we sat in between cars because apparently we were too loud. (The Taiwanese really like to have quite trains. I was shushed many times for simply talking)

I know you have all been anxiously awaiting my posts on China. Your long wait is finally over. It was really a whirlwind trip that went by too quickly, leaving me little time to process or write about my experience. It’s already a distant memory and I can hardly believe that I actually stood upon the Great Wall and saw the terra-cotta warriors. I left the trip wanting more, particularly the Great Wall, but I’ll get to that later. As I usually like things chronologically I’ll start at the beginning in Hong Kong.

I left Taiwan behind on August 2nd with a fairwell lunch with my friends. We had all talked about leaving for so long that it hardly seemed like the actual moment had finally arrived. My friend Theresa took me to the train station to begin my day of waiting. Sometimes I dislike traveling because you spend a whole day waiting, waiting for the train, waiting to check in bags, waiting to go through security, waiting to board, waiting to exit the plane, waiting in the custom line. Thankfully this is when my day picked up. In the customs line I started talking to 2 people, one from New Zeeland named Craig, and another from Bali named Itha. Itha had been to Hong Kong many times and she was extremely kind and helpful. She helped Craig and I get into the city and suggested a hostel for us to stay at. She also agreed to meet me the next afternoon to help me get my visa and train ticket into China.

We parted ways as Craig and I went off to find our hostel. All I will say in thank goodness I had a big burley man with me, cause it was scary. We went to Chung King Mansion, the biggest hostel area in Hong Kong. It’s a 20 story or more high rise and has 2-3 different hostels on each floor. Craig and I tried to find the one that Itha suggested but we finally just asked a place that had rooms. We agreed to share a room with two beds instead of a dorm with 10 or more beds. We had the smallest bathroom I’ve ever seen with a shower curtain door. It was only large enough for a toilet with a very small sink next to it, which meant you had to lean while on the toilet, cause the sink was in the way. We also had a shower in the bathroom and I had to stand on the toilet to take my shower.

Craig and I decided to venture out and find some good food. We had both heard that they had excellent Indian food in Hong Kong so we went to find some. We got a little lost and about two hours later we finally came upon a night market area. I was so hungry that I practically begged Craig to abandon his idea of Indian food and just stop and eat at one of the hundreds of Chinese restaurants we kept passing. He could not be deterred and we finally found an excellent Indian food restaurant.

As we walked back I was scoping out new hostel areas cause I was not keen on the idea of staying in Chung King Mansion another night. I was glad I had already decided to change locations when we got back. The place was swarming with police and I wondered where the yellow tape and chalk drawing where, but I didn’t see any. We later figured out what all the commotion was about when we got a knock on our door at 2am and we were asked to present our passports. I guess it’s a common place for illegal immigrants to stay and they try to catch them late at night.

The next morning I packed up my things and found a nice little guest house back by the night market from the night before. I then went and meet Itha. She was so nice and helpful. First she took me to get my passport to main land China. It was supper easy. We just went to a little travel agent office where I filled out some paperwork and presented my passport and photos and told them I needed it in 3 days. I tried to book a train ticket at the same time but they didn’t have any for 8 more days. This should have been my first clue to book all my train tickets ahead of time. Luckily Itha said she knew of another place we could go.

Itha was from Indonesia and was an executive assistant to a big business man. She traveled a lot and had been to Hong Kong many times. She jabbered away telling me about her job, boyfriend, and Bali continually insisting that if I ever go there that I look her up and she will help me out. I love the kindness of strangers and a strange instant bond that occurs amongst travelers. We went to subway for lunch and she was completely thrilled about it. Apparently there aren’t any in Indonesia and she gets it every time she comes to Hong Kong. After subway she helped me book my train ticket to Guilin and I got the second to last seat on the train.

I was so grateful for Itha’s help but she had to go and I had all of Hong Kong to explore. It was an absolute gorgeous day in Hong Kong because all the smog had blown out of the city. I went up the peak tram and had the most amazing view. You could see the entire city and far out into the ocean. Before I went I had a few friends warn me that I wouldn’t get any view, but sometimes it seems like the sun is shining just for you, and that was how I felt.

The geologist’s life list
It has been said that the best geologist is the one who’s seen the most rocks. I came upon this list of what geologists should try and see in their lifetimes. So I thought I would see what I’ve done on the list and then strive for the other things.

The idea is to bold the ones you have done (and add comments and details in parentheses).

1. See an erupting volcano
2. See a glacier (I saw lots of glaciers in the Canadian Rockies, my favorite being the Athabasca glacier, just cause it’s fun to say)
3. See an active geyser such as those in Yellowstone, New Zealand or the type locality of Iceland (Yellowstone)
4. Visit the Cretaceous/Tertiary (KT) Boundary. Possible locations include Gubbio, Italy, Stevns Klint, Denmark, the Red Deer River Valley near Drumheller, Alberta. (I’ve seen it in both Montana on field camp and in LaPopa Mexico)
5. Observe (from a safe distance) a river whose discharge is above bankful stage (After Hurricane Ike in Houston)
6. Explore a limestone cave. (I’ve been in lots of caves Alpina MI, Bedford IN, Wind Cave, SD Desoto Caverns, AL, Carlsbad, NM, Water Cave in Yangshuo China)
7. Tour an open pit mine, such as those in Butte, Montana, Bingham Canyon, Utah, Summitville, Colorado, Globe or Morenci, Arizona, or Chuquicamata, Chile.
8. Explore a subsurface mine (Went into a Galena Mine in Indian on a Undergrad trip)
9. See an ophiolite, such as the ophiolite complex in Oman or the Troodos complex on the Island Cyprus (Saw them in California, but I can’t remember exactly where we were)
10. An anorthosite complex, such as those in Labrador, the Adirondacks, and Niger
11. A slot canyon.
12. Varves, whether you see the type section in Sweden or examples elsewhere. (I feel like I’ve seen these, but I’m not positive, it’s been a while since I’ve been on some of these field trips.)
13. An exfoliation dome, such as those in the Sierra Nevada (Yosemite, CA,  Enchanted Rock, TX)
14. A layered igneous intrusion, such as the Stillwater complex in Montana or the Skaergaard Complex in Eastern Greenland.
15. Coastlines along the leading and trailing edge of a tectonic plate (California, East cost of Taiwan)
16. A gingko tree, which is the lone survivor of an ancient group of softwoods that covered much of the Northern Hemisphere in the Mesozoic. (On Undergrad Campus, but more fun in Taiwan and China. I’m still not quite sure why this is on the list)
17. Living and fossilized stromatolites (I like stromatolites. The best I ever saw were in the Canadian Rockies, but I see them all over here along Lake Michigan)
18. A field of glacial erratics (I’ve seen lots of these)
19. A caldera (Somewhere in NM, I don’t really remember the name of it)
20. A sand dune more than 200 feet high (Sleeping Bear Dunes, MI, The great sand dunes, CO)
21. A fjord (Sadly not, but I want to)
22. A recently formed fault scarp (I’m not really sure the San Andreas really Counts, but I’ll count it just in case)
23. A megabreccia (Saw one on field camp, not exactly sure where but I think around the Yellowstone area.)
24. An actively accreting river delta
25. A natural bridge (I saw the  largest natural bridge in AL)
26. A large sinkhole (Not sure how to define “large,” but I’ve seen quite a few in Northern MI)
27. A glacial outwash plain (I saw lots in the Canadian Rockies, I think they are pretty impressive.)
28. A sea stack (Ireland at the Cliffs of Mohr, or better known as the Cliffs of Insanity on the movie Pricess Bride.)
29. A house-sized glacial erratic (Nope, I haven’t seen any that big)
30. An underground lake or river (I went spelunking in one in the UP, it even had a waterfall in it.)
31. The continental divide (I’ve crossed them lots of times out west. I like how they are always marked.)
32. Fluorescent and phosphorescent minerals (I collected some in Bancroft Canada.)
33. Petrified trees (I’ve seen them in Yellowstone)
34. Lava tubes (Not yet, but I really want to)
35. The Grand Canyon. All the way down. And back. (This is also on my list)
36. Meteor Crater, Arizona, also known as the Barringer Crater, to see an impact crater on a scale that is comprehensible
37. The Great Barrier Reef, northeastern Australia, to see the largest coral reef in the world. (Another that is on my list)
38. The Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, Canada, to see the highest tides in the world (up to 16m)
39. The Waterpocket Fold, Utah, to see well exposed folds on a massive scale.
40. The Banded Iron Formation, Michigan, to better appreciate the air you breathe. (I sure have, I’ve also seen them out west.)
41. The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. (This is not fair, not we are getting specific)
42. Lake Baikal, Siberia, to see the deepest lake in the world (1,620 m) with 20 percent of the Earth’s fresh water.
43. Ayers Rock (known now by the Aboriginal name of Uluru), Australia. This inselberg of nearly vertical Precambrian strata is about 2.5 kilometers long and more than 350 meters high.
44. Devil’s Tower, northeastern Wyoming, to see a classic example of columnar jointing (Been there a few times)
45. The Alps (not yet, but on the list)
46. Telescope Peak, in Death Valley National Park. From this spectacular summit you can look down onto the floor of Death Valley – 11,330 feet below. (I’m not 100 % sure we were on this particular peak but we did see all of Death Valley from our vantage point.)
47. The Li River, China, to see the fantastic tower karst that appears in much Chinese art (Yup, I even road a boat across it. The Karst really is pretty awesome.)
48. The Dalmation Coast of Croatia, to see the original Karst.
49. The Gorge of Bhagirathi, one of the sacred headwaters of the Ganges, in the Indian Himalayas, where the river flows from an ice tunnel beneath the Gangatori Glacier into a deep gorge.
50. The Goosenecks of the San Juan River, Utah, an impressive series of entrenched meanders.
52. Land’s End, Cornwall, Great Britain, for fractured granites that have feldspar crystals bigger than your fist.
53. Tierra del Fuego, Chile and Argentina, to see the Straights of Magellan and the southernmost tip of South America.
54. Mount St. Helens, Washington, to see the results of recent explosive volcanism. (Not yet, but it’s on my list)
55. The Giant’s Causeway and the Antrim Plateau, Northern Ireland, to see polygonally fractured basaltic flows. (On my list)
56. The Great Rift Valley in Africa.
57. The Matterhorn, along the Swiss/Italian border
58. The Carolina Bays, along the Carolinian and Georgian coastal plain (I saw them before I knew much about geology)
59. The Mima Mounds near Olympia, Washington
60. Siccar Point, Berwickshire, Scotland, where James Hutton observed the classic unconformity 61. The moving rocks of Racetrack Playa in Death Valley
62. Yosemite Valley
63. Landscape Arch (or Delicate Arch) in Utah (Also on my list)
64. The Burgess Shale in British Columbia (Yes I did, on my geology trip to the Canadian Rockies)
65. The Channeled Scablands of central Washington
66. Bryce Canyon
67. Grand Prismatic Spring at Yellowstone (This is really an amazing spring.)
68. Monument Valley
69. The San Andreas fault (Yup)
70. The dinosaur footprints in La Rioja, Spain
71. The volcanic landscapes of the Canary Islands
72. The Pyrennees Mountains
73. The Lime Caves at Karamea on the West Coast of New Zealand
74. Denali
75. A catastrophic mass wasting event (The Frank Slide in Alberta, Canada.)
76. The giant crossbeds visible at Zion National Park
77. The black or green sand beaches in Hawaii
78. Barton Springs in Texas (I went swimming in them during ACL)
79. Hells Canyon in Idaho
80. The Black Canyon of the Gunnison in Colorado
81. The Tunguska Impact site in Siberia
82. Feel an earthquake with a magnitude greater than 5.0. (6.4 in Taiwan)
83. Find dinosaur footprints in situ
84. Find a trilobite (Canadian Rockies, we tried to dig it out, but we couldn’t)
85. Find gold, however small the flake (When I was a kid we went gold mining in SD, I still have the flake)
86. Find a meteorite fragment (I’ve never found one, but I have one my brother bought me)
87. Experience a volcanic ashfall
88. Experience a sandstorm (Their was a big sandstorm in Death Valley when we where there)
89. See a tsunami
90. Witness a total solar eclipse (I saw one as a kid, I remember making special things so we could look at the sun during the eclipse)
91. Witness a tornado firsthand (that has nothing to do with rocks)
92. Witness a meteor storm (Many times, but the best where in the Canadian Rockies and this year while sleeping on the Great Wall)
93. View Saturn and its moons through a respectable telescope. (I’ve seen Jupiter and it’s 4 main moons. Does that count?)
94. See the Aurora borealis, otherwise known as the northern lights. (Saw them about 8 years back in MI)
95. View a great naked-eye comet  (Halley Comet when I was a kid)
96. See a lunar eclipse (many times)
97. View a distant galaxy through a large telescope (Saw them in my Astronomy class, we got to use the big telescope)
98. Experience a hurricane (Hurricane Ike in Houston Tx and to some extent Katrina, although I was farther inland in Tuscaloosa, AL.)
99. See noctilucent clouds (again this has nothing to do with rocks)
100. See the green flash

That’s a total of 47/100. Not bad for less than 10 years of traveling around.

The last few weeks in Taiwan were crazy between teaching, packing, planning for China, saying goodbye to friends, and trying squeeze out every bit that Taiwan had to offer me. It was so much fun that I thought I would share some photos with you.

Of course their were the kids to say goodbye to.

Big Buddah

Birthdays

KTV  (karaoke)

Amusement Parks

And of course goodbye parties

For my friends Ellen and Marie. I promised them this post a long time ago, it was my way to keep them reading my blog

Taiwanese weddings are big and extravagant in a very different way than weddings in America are. They mostly involve food, tons and tons of food. Oh, and lots of dresses for the bride. I was fortunate enough to attend 2 wedding in Taiwan, my coworker Ellen and my friend Marie.

My coworker, Ellen, go married last October. I had just moved to Taiwan and didn’t really know her at the time but I decided that it might be my only chance to experience a Taiwanese wedding, so I got up the nerve and invited myself. I did receive a small box of cookies, so it wasn’t completely inappropriate to invite myself along.

What do cookies have to do with weddings? I’m glad you asked. A formal invitation to a wedding in Taiwan is done with a box of cookies. My roommate, Nick, got a full box while I got a small box of cookies, well, more like questionable crackers. They have a very different idea of what a cookie is here. Cookies here are more like slightly sweet crackers that often contain nuts, seeds, or other healthy things I’m unable to identify. Which is probably why we still had some left weeks after the wedding.

At a Taiwanese wedding you don’t give cards or presents you simply give a red envelope with money in it. This money goes to cover the cost of the wedding. They money in the red envelope has to be an even number and can’t have the number 4 in it, because 4 is an unlucky number in Taiwan. I gave 1600 (about 40 US) at both Ellen and Marie’s wedding. I was told that I could give less because I won’t get the money back. It is customary that you give the same amount back to someone at their wedding that they gave you.

As you enter the hall to the wedding there is usually a table full of wedding photos. They are taken prior to the wedding with lots of outfit changes and cool romantic spots around Taiwan. The couples always look like models and are absolutely beautiful. They also usually provide some sort of picture that you can take with you. At Ellen’s wedding she had bookmarks that you could take. At Morris and Marie’s wedding I got a wallet size photo of the couple. If I ever get married I might get pictures taken like this. I also know that this tradition extends into China as well, because when we were hiking the great wall there were three couples getting their pictures taken there.

Wedding in Taiwan are very elaborate. The bride wears three different dresses through the course of the wedding and you have about a 10 course meal. Their is a small ceremony, if you can actually call it that. To be legally married in Taiwan you have to get married at the court house first. Ellen was married to her husband for 3 months before they had the actual wedding.

The bride wears three different dresses throughout the wedding. The first one is to get “married” in. After the ceremony the bride slips away and puts on the next dress. She uses this dress to say great to all of her guests. The bride and groom and their parents go around to each table to introduce everyone to their guests. After introducing everyone around the table there is a small toast and they proceed to the next table. The third dress is to say goodbye and thank everyone who came by handing out small party favors. All the dresses are rented and traditionally one of the three dresses should be red for good luck, although some brides don’t follow this tradition anymore.

A small wedding in Taiwan would have at least 300 guest but most weddings have 500 or more. They invite everyone to their weddings, and I mean everyone they’ve ever had contact with. Weddings are usually in the afternoon. Guest sit around a large table that usually holds 10-12 people with a large lazy susan in the middle to help pass around the food. You literally have about a 10 course meal and many of the dishes have a symbolic meaning, so you usually see the same foods at weddings. The first dish is usually a traditional chicken soup (which I don’t like). This dish is to symbolize that you are going to make a home together because the word for chicken soup in Taiwanese (not mandarine) sounds like the word for home. They always serve some type of fish, because it symbolizes wealthy. It is customary to not eat the entire fish, showing that you are not greedy and welcome wealth into your life. They are also required to serves some sort of expensive food like lobster or a special type of fish, because the couple doesn’t want people to think that they are stingy. The dessert is always a traditional Taiwanese desert, like sweat peas, jello, sticky rice balls, or red beans (I know you are just dying to try some of those). The dessert means that the couple will live happily ever after and symbolizes them living sweetly together.

Ellen’s Wedding Food

Morris and Marie’s Wedding Food

The dinner usually last 3 to 4 hours and guest slowly file out. As you leave the bride and groom say goodbye and give you a small party favor of candy or something. At Marie and Morris’s wedding they also gave pink carnations to all the women because it was also mother’s day.

I thought I would take a moment to say a quick hello to my 5 faithful readers. Although I have left Taiwan it does not mean that my blogging days are over. I will probably try to keep this mostly a travel blog, but seeing as I’m not doing a lot of traveling at the moment some of my everyday experiences may pop up from time to time, or there will be large absences in my writing (just like this last one).

Now do not fear, just because I have left Taiwan doesn’t mean that I still don’t have a few things to say about it. I have plenty of blogs in my queue just waiting to go as soon as I finish writing them up. I also have my whole China experience to share with you as well. Also, if you have any questions about Taiwan please feel free to post a comment and I’ll try to answer them.

I’m the closest I’ll ever be to celebrityhood here in Taiwan. Taiwan is not at all like America, where even in the most remote corners we are exposed to a variety of people. We grow up with Asians, Caucasians, and African American’s as our friends. We don’t think twice about the diversity we see in our culture. We have light skinned people, dark skinned people, hair and eyes of all colors. Everyone is as different as we are the same. We wouldn’t even know if someone was a foreigner unless they told us.

Now, when a white person comes to Asia it’s a bit different. Without question you stand out. Here everyone has roughly the same color hair, skin, and eyes. You can’t hide or blend in even if you wanted to. Because of this feature I was instantly a bit of a celebrity when I got. People stare at me and stalk me and are often too shy to ask me questions. Children point and say 外國人wai4guo2ren2 (foreigner) to their parents. Many people are very friendly and say hi or ask me funny questions and they usually try to use as much of their English on me as possible. I’ve gotten very use to it by now but when I say I’m famous I actually mean it.

First off The English school I work at has just put an advertising out for our school all over Chiayi. If you go through a car wash you can see our smiling faces at the end through your nice clean windshield. You can see us on the side of our school van as it drives around town. If you come into the school to inquire there’s a nice big picture of all of us photoshopped into some place in Europe. Yes, that’s right my smiling face is plastered all over Chiayi.

If that’s not enough, you can also have a nice big burger with me. Their is an American burger joint called The Freen here. The food is good and the owner is very nice and speaks decent English. He wanted to promote his place and invited the foreigners in Chiayi to come and have a free burger while someone took our picture. If I had known what the pictures would be I may have thought twice about it, but free food is always good. So now if you go to The Freen you can have a nice meal with me and 9 of my friends and we can all enjoy our hamburgers together.

Now that I’m writing my own blog detailing my life experience I’ve started searching other peoples blogs when I’m bored. I came upon this one a few months ago called 1000 Awesome Things. I really like visiting this blog when I’m a little down on life or feeling overwhelmed because it helps remind me of the simple, everyday events that make this life truly amazing. It reminds me to be thankful for all the wonderful things I have in life and helps me remember that everything always works out and I should just relax and enjoy the simple things in life. I felt that some of you might enjoy this as well.

What’s on your awesome list? I’d love to hear.