You say hello, I say Bye Bye

Guilted by Alan's accusation that I haven't updated my blog in eons, (justifiably, because he's likely the only one who reads it anyway) I have decided to try and cram my last five months in Taiwan into as few words as possible and am committing the next few days of my glorious unemployment to this task, or at least the next few minutes. I arrived back in Canada about three days ago and am currently experiencing symptoms of introspection, detoxification, and severe reverse culture shock. 

The Taiwan era has ended, as short-lived as it was. I decided that rather than spend my last weekend at the bar, I would fit in one last adventure, so on Friday night Rachel, Roisin, Durgham, Scott and I boarded a ferry at 11 pm en route to the Penghu Islands. We had third class outdoor seating, but like on the Titanic, us commoners have more fun anyway. At around 3 am we realized that we had misunderstood our tickets and actually had reclining seats in the air-conditioned indoor cabins, so Roisin and Rachel headed there, and the boys and I tried to find unoccupied berths in the people-who-like-to-pay-more-s0-they-can-lie-down section. Durgham found one and peaced out right away, and Scott and I found a room with two beds but were informed via hand signals that one of them was taken by a boozehound who was still out consuming pijo, so being the gentleman that I am, I let Scott take the bed and went to find the girls, only to not find them at all, or my seat. I found an empty seat and dozed off with people eating chicken feet all around me. I woke up about 40 minutes later to discover that the girls had slept on the floor on the deck outside, it was 6 am, and we still weren't there. 

Upon arrival in Penghu we wandered the streets until we found breakfast, a hotel, and a scooter rental shop that would rent us scooters without licenses. Penghu is a chain of islands connected by the Great Penghu Bridge, not to be confused with the Not-So-Spectacular Penghu Bridge, and we spent the rest of the weekend zipping along, finding new beaches to swim at, jellyfish to sting us, and children to throw mud at. As I sat on the back of Scott's scooter with the wind blowing through my hair and Scott's back sweat spreading onto the front of my shirt, I took in the skittle-green hills and the blue-raspberry-gatorade-colored waters and started to wonder if I was going to regret leaving...

It was a nice send-off; I have incredible friends. I probably will.