Monday is already a few days ago. But Monday was a pretty good day. It was the first day of my new term, and the first day of December, and Khyree and I planned to go to Beitou hot springs.

Actually Khyree invited me to the hot springs on Saturday, I was surprised to find out that they were not the same hot springs that I had gone too several months ago with Chris, they were a little ways upstream. He gave me clear directions, they all sounded familiar: go the left of the park, up the hill, hot springs on the right. I paid my $1.30USD, went in, and did not see him anywhere. After a few cell phone text messages and conversations, and walking back down the hill, then back up again, "How come I don't see you, I'm standing right in the road?", "I don't know I'm right by the divider." What would we do without cell phones?

After about 15 minutes I found him, he was further up the hill, he said it was the first hot springs on the right. Well it was the first free hot springs on the right, I went into the one where you pay. And the hot springs he was at, with a bunch of people from his congregation, was pretty much just a river that was hot, whereas the one I went to had showers and pools of varying hotness that you sat in. When I found him he was fully dressed other than his jeans being rolled up to his knees.

There were at least 50 people in this area, sitting on rocks and the rocky banks of this little steaming stream. But there was plenty of room for more, and one of Khyree's friends even moved from her spot so I could sit by Khyree. But we were only there another 45 minutes at most, he was already there when he invited me to come and it took me an hour to get there. While everyone was getting ready to go I talked Khyree into going further up stream with me, barefoot, trying to avoid sharp rocks, mud, and any ickyness in between. As we suspected: the water was even hotter upstream, it was very nice, but we only got to soak our feet in it for 30 seconds. Khyree was quite pleased with it, you could say: he loved it. I began to tell Khyree of the "other hot springs," the one just down the hill. It was even hotter I said, "so hot you couldn't even stand it," I said. "And it's only 45 NTD!" ($1.30USD), "There are different pools, even a cold one so you can go cold-hot-cold-hot!" His eyes grew big with desire, I could tell he wanted to soak in the pools. But we had other plans with his friends, we were all going to a market to eat. Khyree and I wasted no time in planning to come back for the hot pools on Monday.

I think Khyree enjoyed the pools. When we got there it was very full, I wondered if we would find a place to sit in the crowded pools. We even contemplated coming back later in the evening when there might be less crowd. But we had already eaten dinner and had not much else to do so we braved the crowded pools.

First we went into the lowest pool, it was the least crowded and the least warm, but it was much warmer than I remembered, it was exquisite. As we were changing our clothes and packing our stuff into a little locker a group of Westerners showed up, last time Chris and I were the only Westerners. Three of them were beautiful young girls, I think they were from some Eastern European country like Russia, I couldn't identify their language. I exerted a lot of energy not looking at them when they came into our pool, I can describe the surrounding scenery in great detail, the whole place is outside and built on a hillside. Khyree was lucky he didn't have to exercise such self control because he couldn't see much without his glasses. But after ten minutes or so we moved into a hotter pool anyway.

I was not surprised that Khyree wanted to go into a hotter pool, I knew that the warm pool was plenty hot for me, the next pool was hot enough where I had to get out and sit on the edge every few minutes to cool off. Khyree even went two pools hotter all the way to the hottest pool. I never even bothered with the hottest, but I did find I was able to sit in the second hottest pool all the way down for a few minutes at a time. My feet would burn when I got out though, there was hot water flowing from the hotter one near the steps to get out. After you do a hot one you can go down into the cold ones, there are two and they are just plain cold water, it actually feels good after the hot. So we spent a couple hours going from hot to cold and back again as is customary to do, eventually your skin feels really weird and you feel a little light headed when you stand up.

A little before we left we met an old 70ish little Chinese guy who spoke English to us and Chinese at the same time, asking us where were from. When he found that we were American he told us that he had been in the States fifty years ago, in the southern part. Some of what he said we couldn't understand, but he had been told to "Get out" of somewhere, a pool I assumed. He said if any Americans came to China he'd tell them to "Get Out." China was becoming strong and America "The beautiful land" as he called it in English which is what America's name means in Chinese, is "becoming weak" he said. Neither of us were quite sure how to take all of this, the young Taiwanese kid sitting near by listening to him looked kind of worried, so we just nodded our heads in understanding, he had been kicked out of somewhere fifty years ago in America, this much we understood. And he seemed to be gloating over China's new power and America's diminished influence and damaged economy, but we weren't quite sure because he didn't respond to or seem to understand anything we said. Not that there was much to say.

Later after we left, we were almost the very last people to leave after they closed the pools, we passed him shuffling down the hill with his little cane, we said hello but he didn't seem to hear us then either. Which is entirely possible, he may not have heard us. So that's really the first negative experience I've had in Taiwan being a foreigner, and it wasn't really that bad, he just excitedly told us his story and then ignored us. I'm sure there are many similar stories that could be told.

As we walked down the sidewalk we talked about how our skin still felt hot from the spas and how relaxed we felt. Then we went to McDonalds and got strawberry sundaes and hot french fries. I think I might look back on that day with fondness, and I will probably enjoy strawberry sundaes more now. I might go back again next Monday night. I bet Khyree will willingly go with me.