Taiwan was my pick for spending this past holiday, Lunar New Year. In many Asian countries, people celebrate the calendar based on the moon rather than the sun. This is true of Korea as well as China. Thus, I was privileged to have 3 weekdays off from work, which also happened to be next to a weekend! Woot woot! Consequently, with 5 days off, I had to go somewhere, right!?!

My friend, Meagan and I decided Taiwan would be a good choice, with its warmer climate, island feel, and close proximity to Korea, it seemed an ideal choice.  Since Taiwan is considered to be a Chinese territory, they too would be celebrating the new year. Meagan and I had never traveled together before, but given how well we meshed as friends and after conversations about our traveling styles, we decided to give it a go.

We began EARLY in the morning on the 2nd…. 4:30am wake up. Because my apartment is in an awkward location, it was impossible to arrange for a cab to pick us up. SO, we decided to walk the approx. quarter mile to the nearest subway station. Fortunately for us, an available taxi picked us up after about 1 block! WOW~ that never happens in this area!! Thus began the montra for the trip:           THE UNIVERSE FULLY SUPPORTS US!

Neither Meagan nor I had ever flown anything other than economy class before. There was only a $60 difference in ticket prices (yes, round-trip) so we decided to go for business class. WHAT A FANTASTIC CHOICE!!  There was leg room, delicious meals, and large seats that laid down!! WOW~ I got spoiled.

Timing was perfect and we made the journey from the capital city, Taipae, to the southern city of Kenting. All in all that day we: walked, took a taxi, flew on a plane, rode a high-speed train, and took a 40 minute private cab ride to get to our hostel, The Surf Pad. I’ll let the pictures speak for itself.

We wanted to mostly relax this vacation and that we did. We hit three different beaches, snorkeled a bit, went to an aquarium, saw natural fire deposits coming up from the ground, socialized with new friends, ate flavorful food, and shopped in the night markets.

Click to view slideshow.

Taiwan has a great island vibe. Hitch hiking is completely acceptable and common there. Yes, we did it… that was fun.  The highlight of trip, for me, was Day 3– at the beach. It would seem that that day would be the least likely candidate for the highlight title, however, because I went through two faulty snorkel masks, cut my feet in 6 different places, got sunburned and my camera broke! Well, temporarily broke. Apparently, it got sand lodged in a couple parts and it stopped working. Once I embraced the fact that it was “not my day” to snorkel, I found a great place to sit along the edge of the water and enjoyed people watching, meditating, watching Meagan snorkel, and feeling the splashes of water bless me in the warm sun! 

Sometimes we think we should be doing one thing, but it’s really our destiny to do another. When we surrender to that, we realize how fabulous our destiny really is!! So thankful for that lesson/reminder on day 3!!

The destination home was an adventure as well… timing couldn’t have been more perfect! We literally arrived at the train station with only 4 minutes to spare! What a great trip!! So happy to have found another wonderful travel buddy as well!! Meagan and I plan to visit Japan together this coming summer… stay tuned!