Day One Kenting

Hi everyone! its a been a while since weve had any real stories to tell and we apologize to those who check the site regularly. we havent really been doing much aside of working. however, this past weekend we were able to scrape together some vacation time and go on our first out of town taiwan adventure. we went to kenting, a cool little beach down in a tropical climate and probably the biggest vacation spot in the country. we didnt do as much as we couldve but we did enough and still enjoyed the time we spent there. even though it took a lot longer than expected, the trip to get there was a pretty decent way to start the trip off. we made our way south via the Taiwan high speed rail. it travels at some insane speed and got us pretty far south in under two hours. when i first heard about the train i was under the impression that it extended the whole way through the country. this is not the case. it actually only takes you most of the way there, only to leave you to fend for yourself the rest of the way. luckily outside of the train station cabbies and bus drivers hover around like vultures and aggressively come at you spittin out prices and travel estimates giving you a numer of options. we opted for the bus which i might have regretted due to the time had the driver not hooked us up.

what happened was, when we decided to make the trip, i figured we didnt need to make any reservations anywhere and we"d be able to stroll on through and walk into a hotel or B&B and buy a room for a few nights, which under normal everyday circumstances wouldnt be a problem. however my, laid back, just wing it, no-plan, adventurous travleing character almost had us sleeping on the beach with hermit crabs and skin-ripping sand storms (more on those later). we decided to travel to the biggest vacation spot in the country on what is the equivalent to Taiwans independence day. needless to say we werent the only ones to wanted to catch some R&R on the beach that weekend...

the bus driver asked me where we were satying and after hearing our plans, or lack there of, he told me he'd take us to a spot that was decent and pretty cheap. cool! so he dropped us off at a scooter rental shop.

the thing about kenting is that every business on the main strip is a store front property with apartments above, which of course the owners rent out to visitors. and this is exactly what we had. it wasnt bad though, a double room for about $1500 ($50 U.S.) with a little tea nook and a large flat screen television. good deal.

after checking into the room we decided to catch a glimpse of the night market scene in the vacation spot and get some dinner at a local restaurant. with many choices ranging from westernized to thai restaurants we chose the latter. neither of us had ever eaten thai food but ive heard it was really good so what the hell. the we saw the menus which were nothing short of what i expected; spicy meats, vegetables and strange cultural blends. we ordered a couple of chicken dishes but what would this story be without a weird food experience? because i wanted to keep our viewers entertained, i decided to order some fried frog legs as an appetizer. not too big a deal since im sure we can find'em back home if really wanted them. i wont lie they werent bad. tasted like chicken, a little different considering it spent its life in a swamp, but bland chicken. after dinner we walked around for a little bit and retired to our room for the night.

the next morning we woke up with all intentions of doing nothing but beach loungin all day. kenting has a few different beaches to see, but in order to get to them you need a scooter. to get a scooter, you need an international drivers license (at least this was the case for this holiday weekend), which of course i dont have. which left me in a rutt and desperate to get any kind of motorized transportation for the two of us. so after rejection from our inn-keper, and denial at another shop, i finally found some wheels. rollin down the street on some tens, we were ridin' diirty on a battery powered, pedal-option mo-ped that only went 30 km/h and needed a new battery charge 3x a day. i was so bad ass tough it was silly. with our new hot-wheels and a tiny bottle of sunblock (sp f20) we were on our way to settin the scene for the next Corona billboard.

we spent the day burning skin on a couple of the beaches and doin a little salt-water swimming until dark. it was a good day aside from the sand blasts mentioned earlier. i felt like paint on the side of a house when the wind kicked up. the wind blows sand against your skin so harshly itll make you curse the gods. come to think of it, im not so sure if i got sunburned or the sand just blasted the top layer of skin off my body...

after the beach we ventured out to the streets for a little bit again. this time the holiday crowd had made its presence known in the little beach town. the streets were swarmed with all kinds; taiwanese, american, canadian, and whoever else might inhabit this little pacific island. We had a good first day.