I wear my sunglasses at night.

Kenting, November 2007.

We work 6 days a week. This might sound horrifying, but in all essence, it's not that bad, save for the fact that it makes exploring Taiwan a wee bit difficult. For the most part, one needs a few days to really make a little trip worth it - the word "express" in "express bus" is often deceiving.

This being the case, we decided anyway to head to Kenting (pronounced KenDING) after work last weekend. At 6:05 we were out the door of Kojen and headed to the bus station. At 6:20 we had boarded what we were assured was the express bus and eagerly anticipating a solid 24 hours of beachy goodness. We had several Taiwan beers in our bags and were just about to crack them in celebration of a day off work when we discovered that the bathroom on the bus was indeed locked and therefore this might not be the greatest idea. Almost three hours later it didn't matter if we had have consumed those beers or not...as the bus jolted to a stop every ten feet to let one or two people on or off, I was sure I was going to pee all over myself, or perhaps Rachel.

The bladder control project was worth it though - Kenting is Taiwan's resort town, on the southernmost tip of the island, and it is beautiful. We arrived at around 930 pm and headed straight to meet the rest of our friends at our hostel, otherwise known as the Kenting Dive Center, and then for dinner and drinks. We took a brief break from glorious overconsumption of all goods to purchase silly sunglasses, which we wore all night - from the restaurant, to the German owned pub where we were served by the cute Taiwanese surfer dude who played his Roxette CD for us to our hearts' contents, to the beach, where we sat until the wee hours of the morning singing girly campfire songs designed to accompany our illicit campfire. I don't think we were supposed to be on the beach period, and we were especially not supposed to be lighting fires next to flammable nature, but we feigned ignorance when the floral-shirt-clad security guard came to tell us to move our fire closer to the water. ("No Chinese," we insisted, even though we had Alfie and Lars, two of our Taiwanese friends, with us.)

Sara and Rachel

Lyndsey and Me - his dog wore shades too.

After hitting the hay around 5 am, I was abruptly awakened at 630 am by my friend's puppy eating my face, but fell quickly back into my peaceful slumber. We woke up later and lazily wandered down to South Bay Beach after a traditional American breakfast of toast, eggs, and daiquiris, and spent the day making new friends, exploring, and being pelted by sand. After the most delicious Thai meal I'd ever had, we reluctantly got back on the bus to head back to reality and back to Kaohsiung. I like Kaohsiung, don't get me wrong, but it is nothing compared to the turquoise waters and fresh air and kitschy tourism of Kenting. I can't wait to go back.

Nanwan.