I will apologize in advance that there are no pictures to go with this post, but I was not expecting such an entertaining morning.  Here’s a quick summary:

5:20am: get picked up by Jane and Teacher for some early morning qi gong at the largest lake in Kaohsiung

5:23am: Change of plans….qi gong on the beach as the sun rises

5:45am: Arrive at the beach.  (Apparently if you get there before 6am, you don’t have to pay an entrance fee.  Otherwise you have to pay the rest of the day).  The beach is SWARMING with full-body swimsuits and a couple of full-fledged face masks (think bank robbers, not scuba divers), I believe to ward off the sun that really hasn’t even risen yet.

5:46am: Headstands and a FULL 25 minutes of splits (OUCH!) commence.  Along with this comes large groups of people gawking at Teacher’s awesome moves.

7:00am: Leave the beach and head up the nearby mountain to a spot overlooking the ocean and eat fresh fruit.

7:30am: Head back down the mountain, but stop long enough to feed peanuts to the local monkeys. LOTS of local monkeys

8:00am: Get breakfast at a breakfast stand in the city.  This consists of fish soup, rice, cucumber-like vegetables, boiled cabbage and tofu for Teacher and Jane, and an over-easy egg in a bag for me (again with the bags…)

8:45am: Go to the peak of yet another mountain where we look at the view, take a walk around a traditional building, comment on the amount of Japanese tourists, and take a nap.

9:45am: Teacher lets me drive his car a ways down the mountain, but since my international drivers’ license is non-existent, I had to give up the wheel before getting back in town.

10:30am: Go visit one of Teacher’s friends who owns an awesome antique shop, and who also ended up giving me presents! (more stuff for a traditional tea party!)  This was supposed to be a 10 minute stop, but it turned into a lunch invitation.

11:30am: Lunch, which consisted of drinking and CONSTANTLY toasting white wine.  I swear anytime anyone wanted a sip of wine, it turned into a ‘thank-you’ toast (for what, who knows) and everyone had to drink.  I think we went through at least 2 bottles of wine for 6 people.  This might not sound impressive to some of you, but I want to remind you that I’m in Taiwan, and the average Taiwanese can’t really consume that much liquor.  Aka. there were a lot of red faces mid-way through lunch.

12:30pm: Beer chugging contests with some new Taiwanese acquaintances (NOT including Jane and Teacher).

1:30pm: Go to school for afternoon classes.