Ready, Steady, Go!

Today's Taiwan fun fact: You can buy "hip-hop" flavored Doritos here.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, today is my last day in Taipei and it's been a crazy last week. Lots of lunches, dinners, and get togethers with people I may not see again. But I also managed to get out and check out some more of what Taiwan has to offer including watching hippies dance in the mud and going surfing for the first time. Let's start with the hippies...

On Saturday I headed to Taoyuan county to attend Peace Fest. It's a three day music festival set in the mountainous Kun Lun Herb Garden. After traveling by bus, taxi, and a treacherous shuttle ride up the mountain on a tiny road, we arrived at the main stage area on the festival. Normally the area in front of the stage would be sparse grass, but thanks to the rain it had turned into a sea of mud, requiring the removal of all footwear and the rolling up of all pant legs. There was a wide variety of continuous live music all day, food vendors, fire performers, and lots of people dancing in the mud. And of course, there had to be a peace circle - a giant circle of people holding hands and dancing in the rain and mud. Good times.

Sunday morning I got up at 4 am to go surfing in the town of Yilan with a group of friends. I've never been surfing before and while I wasn't able to stand up on my own on the board, it was still a lot of fun. We were on a black sand beach, the weather was great, and the water was warm. Could I ask for a better way to spend my last day in Taiwan?

While I'm exicted to head home and see my friends, I will really miss some of the friends I've made in Taiwan. Taiwanese are some of the warmest and friendliest people you will ever meet and this has been a fantastic place to spend 5 months of my life.