This is definitely going on the Blog

The title of this entry is a very common phrase during this trip. Everything here is so cool and different that I just want to blog it all! Sadly, I cannot. But let me try to get you all up to date.

We are WAY too cool for you!

Breakfast. The stuff that looks like soup with meat is the
Stinky Tofu and Duck's Blood

Yesterday (Sunday), after the amazing breakfast that I wrote about, Eric's parents drove us to the train station in Taipei and we took the Bullet Train to Taichung. The Bullet Train can go up to 350 km/hr, but do to all of the stops, we only got up to 210 km/hr (which is still very fast). While you are in the train you don't even realize how fast you're going until you look out the window and see Taiwan blaze past you. It was a really cool experience.

We arrived in Taichung, which is a lot like Taipei, and were greeted by Eric's cousin Mark and friend Marvin. Mark is a junior high social economics teacher. I'm not sure about Marvin, but he was a cool guy. We started off by driving for a little over an hour until we got to Sun Moon Lake. It is the biggest lake in Taichung and super beautiful. The town at the lake reminds me of Mexico. There are a lot of people and they all want your business. We started walking around and decided that we were going to take a boat tour around the lake, but not until after we had a huge lunch, of course. We have a man go and find a good restaurant for us and we go in. Mark and Marvin order the lunch and we sit there helplessly as they catch up in Chinese. The food kept coming. They would bring a couple dishes that looked like plenty of food for the 5 of us and then they would bring more! And then more. We had so much food. The cool thing is that the food is very cheap and, for instance, we had a great breakfast this morning that fed all three of us and it was only a little more than $3.00. Why can't America be this cheap? Oh well, at least we don't eat Duck's Blood (no offense Eric).

Sophia is learning how to eat the "right way"

During the lunch it started to rain really hard. I mean REALLY HARD! It was so random. We stayed in the restaurant until the rain died down and went to the boats. They had a really cool system. You paid like $200 (TW), $6 (US), and got to go on a boat that took you to the first stop. You go as long as you want at the first stop and then go back and another boat will take you to the second stop. You take as long as you want, go back and take another boat back to the town. The first stop was at one of the holiest temples in Taiwan. You arrive at the bottom of a hill that when you walk up, you get to the temple (funny how that works). It was a beautiful temple and there were a lot of people bowing to the god or godess, I couldn't tell, and burning incense. After the temple tour we got back on the boat and we were taken to another small town. It was super cool and I was able to get some presents for this Doula I know ;). The whole tour was so much fun and so beautiful.

We have done so much and I will post more as it goes. I have posted a bunch of photos on my facebook, www.facebook.com/jackfreakinwilkins, and made it public so that even if you're not my friend, you can see it.

I love you all and thanks for reading!

Eric, Mark, Sophie and I are super awesome