I'm not really sure if it's called The Strait of China or even how to spell Strait. But I saw it, whatever it's called, I saw the ocean between Taiwan and China.

Sunday I woke up a little earlier than usual, relieved that I had been able to wake up on time, to my cell phone's alarm clock, the alarm clock of choice for many people that I know. I stuffed a pair of quick drying shorts into my little bag, a bag that you might call a "Man Purse" if you were being a jerk. I checked to make sure I had a fresh battery in my camera, and a fresh back-up battery in my little bag. I grabbed my jumbo sized bottle of water, thinking at the time that the brothers and sisters would surely comment on the size of my water bottle. I was not wrong. But I was also sure that I would finish it long before the day was over.

Morning looks different than day, that is to say, everything looks different in the morning, when you get up at a actual real morning hour like 7:00am. I think it has something to do with the angle of the sun being different. Maybe it's just me. I quickly decided that it would be quickest to walk the whole way to Tai Power Building Station. I figured there would probably be a lot of people riding the MRT at 7:40 in the morning. There is not normally much difference in the time it takes to ride the MRT one stop than to just walk it. I actually arrived early, in front of Mos Burger, our designated meeting place, there were only 3 other people there of our group of 30 so far. I even had time to order some fries at Mos Burger

But before long, and before I finished my fries, I found myself sitting next to Sammy Pu in the second from the back row of the bus we had chartered for the day. The back row, in case you don't know, is where the cool people sit. But we weren't so arrogant as to go all the way back, but just the second from the back row. I think in a way, that makes us cooler than those who sat in the very back row. I might have to start going for seats in the third from the back row if sitting the second from the back row gets too cool for me. I think it might already be going to my head.

I tried a few times to ask where we were going, they either gave me an answer I didn't understand or didn't understand my question. This is life here for me. I knew I was going to see the sea. And I did, after trying to sleep and watching something boring on the various TVs spread throughout the bus, after an hour and a half or so, we arrived in front of a big faded circular blue building that said in English: "Ocean World." I could hear a bored sounding voice describing some aquatic event over a loudspeaker from the other side of the big blue building that seemed to have a stadium in the middle of it. We never went into the stadium, if that's what you'd call it when it has a big pool in the middle, but I did hear really loud dolphin noises coming from that stadium.

Like a child I found myself following the group I was with in another direction, it didn't look like we were going to see the dolphins. We assembled outside some sort of Information booth with a tourist center and gift shop and whatever attached to it. Tim Wen, the guy in charge of the excursion, told me that we had to wait ten minutes. I didn't know what we were waiting ten minutes for, but I figured that would be enough time to buy a hat. The sun was impossibly bright, I could already feel the skin of my scalp starting to burn, I just cut my hair a few days before to a quarter inch, which exposes my scalp. I got back late from my hat buying, I bought a soft cotton hat with a brown flower print on it, I think it's a woman's hat, but I didn't have time to be picky.

The rest of my group had already taken seats in a mini theater and were watching a video about the beach we were next to. The beach, or the shore, or whatever it's called when it's made from rock, is covered with bizarre rock formations, including one that looks like Queen Cleopatra. It also has a few little fossils embedded in it, tide-pools, more rocks, waves... boring boring boring. I wondered, as I was leaning against the wall to the side, why we were watching a video of what we were about to go see in person in just a few minutes. I guess it was a video describing what we were about to see, like what it actually was, or how it came to be that way, how many thousands of years old it was or something. Maybe I have a bad attitude, but I think it came to be that way from water and lava from the looks of it, and I wasn't sure why it took so long to explain that. Yes I have the mind and attention span of a small child.

The rest of the morning was spent roaming the pathways built for us tourists and listening to very annoying tour guides, including our own, who had little megaphones to enhance their annoyingness (my spell checker doesn't like annoyingness). I'd also like to mention that there was a P.A. system installed through the whole half a mile or so of beach and rock, so at regular intervals anyone and everyone could be annoyed if they had lost their tour guide or wandered from their group. I imagined, in my childish mind, that the voices where saying things like "The funny rocks are beautiful, because they are round, they are from nature. Nature is beautiful. You are in nature right now experiencing nature, even though a prerecorded voice is telling you this, this is as close as you'll ever get to nature, enjoy this natural beauty and be thankful you have a voice like me telling you how naturally beautiful this place is."

And so it went for the next few hours, looking at rock formations, goofing around with the others, taking pictures, climbing a little tree covered hill, staying out of the sun. Sammy Pu and I both made the same mistake of wearing black t-shirts that day, and we both felt it, we were hot. Thank goodness for my new hat.

After a whole bunch of walking I eventually noticed that the group was pointed back towards the bus, we went the back way, or a different way than we had come back into the parking lot, through the one way gates that protect the natural site from nonpaying customers (or more likely vendors selling sausage and umbrellas). I heard rumors that we were going to go get lunch! We did have to wait a bit for the entire group to reassemble though, during that period I discovered a soft serve ice cream vendor in the big blue building that emitted dolphin noises. (The building emitted dolphin noises, not the ice cream) I chose a mix of chocolate and plain ice cream (plain does not seem to be vanilla here, just plain). I don't think I've ever had a better ice cream cone.

After a short bus ride our group found itself disembarking in front of a police station and a huge ornate temple, opening into a crowded street market. And when I say crowded I mean I was wondering during that time if I could pick the pocket of the guy in front of me without being detected. I think I could have. If he detected it I could just claim that I thought it was my pocket. I also checked my own wallet, I think it was my wallet... We waded through the crowded street market in about 20 minutes, only to come out the other side even hungrier than we were before. Several people had squeezed past me crossing the narrow street with huge plates of delicious looking food in their hands.

I couldn't help but laugh to myself thinking that we could have just walked around the street market instead of through it and saved ourselves 20 minutes of empty belly feelings. But I didn't have to suffer long, somehow the guys I was with, about 12 of us, walked another block, away from the street market and found a restaurant with an upstairs dining room available for our large group. They warned us that it wasn't air conditioned, which wasn't that big a deal to hungry people who had already been outside in the heat all day anyway, the room was very large, and appeared to be used as a storage room. So we took our lunch meal in a storage room with a loud creaky fan that someone had found blowing on us. The food was great, my appetite was more than satisfied.

But wait, there's more! The beach. This part I didn't really anticipate, I did bring shorts, but I didn't think I'd ever want to actually use them. I didn't want to carry around a heavy bag all day with a towel and swim suit in it, so I just crammed a pair of shorts in my little bag. I never wore them though because I knew I didn't have a towel and I didn't want to ride home wet on the bus. The sister who hosts our book study called me old-man-grandpa for not going into the water with the other young ones. But I told her I was 32 and indeed an old-man-grandpa. But the weather was perfect, the sun was now hidden behind a cloud cover, no longer so intense, there was a delightful breeze. I lied back on the sand, with my new hat keeping the sand out of my hair (all 0.25 inches of it) and relaxed. I could have spent the night there, right where I lied. There is nothing quite like the sound of a crashing surf and a warm breeze blowing on you.

But we didn't spend the night there. Eventually I found myself hoping we'd arrive home before my song came up on the KTV [Karaoke TV] machine. (I'm always "finding myself" doing things aren't I?) KTV, as they call Karaoke here, is popular here, everyone one on the bus seemed to enjoy it. I didn't really recognize any of the songs, nor could I read the Chinese that appeared on the screens, but my friends made sure I picked out an English song from the huge 4 inch thick binder of songs, of which only a page or two had English songs, half of which I didn't recognize, and the other half were at least as old as I am. I ended up trying to sing "Hello" by Lionel Richie. I don't know the song, other than the "Hello, is it me you're looking for" part. But I made sure to add a little comedy to it to make up for my inability to follow the song, or sing. After about 30 songs, I was the only one who thought of strolling the bus aisle while singing. You'd think that would be the natural thing to do while singing sappy love songs. But it's not, the bus sways a lot so it's not that easy to do.

So there you have it. My day away from Taipei. I have a sun burn on the back of my neck to prove it all, but my face was protected by my hat and a whole lot of sun screen. I think there might be a little sand in the bathroom drain too.