Lost and Replaced...Passport and trip to Taiwan

Have you ever lost something? I used to lose things all the time and it was never a big deal until it was something really important. Always mostly I lose my keys and I find them after searching frantically. This story is about losing my passport. This was one of the worst moments of my life as a traveler.


So I have trouble thinking of ways to start writing and I promised myself I was going to do this thing, and by thing I mean blog. To come up with ideas I found this website with 80 journal prompts. The question I read today was: Have you ever lost something that couldn't be replaced?


This question prompted me to remember the time that I went to Taiwan with my best friends at the time: Maisie and Clio. This story takes place in March 2008. We were all working together in Korea at a place called "English Village" at the time in Korea teaching English. We had a three day weekend, so we figured we had to go out of the country. We literally made up our minds to go somewhere a couple of days before we went, picked the cheapest plane ticket to anywhere that all of us had never been, purchased the tickets, and packed to go. 


A month before we took our trip was Chinese New Year and two of the guys I worked with had been to Taiwan at that time and they told us we should check out this place at the bottom called "Green Island." I was just happy to be going to another country, so I let Clio plan everything. 


On our way to the airport, Maisie realized that she forgot her passport and her underwear, so we had to call our good friend, Micah, and have him go into her apartment and pick out some underwear for her. (Which I'm sure, he didn't mind at all) and get her passport and meet us at the gate. We were afraid we weren't going to get to the airport on time after that, so we were really stressed. Missing planes was nothing new for Maisie and I since the month before I messed up the time and and we missed our flight to the Philippines. Don't worry, we still made it there. 

On the way there it was nice to bond. Clio and I had a very deep conversation. I was telling her all about my very Christian college life and how I wouldn’t even kiss a guy and only give them side hugs. She was amazed and astonished.  I remember telling her I didn’t think I was a Christian anymore, because I wasn’t a virgin anymore and she thought that was absolutely ridiculous. For me I was involved in a kind of Christian culture that you couldn’t be lukewarm. You were either hot or cold. So sex before marriage to me was a very horrid sin that automatically took away your Christianity. 

When we got to Taipai, I remember us talking about how it looked so much like Korea. There were Neon signs everywhere and it was a big city. The only difference was everything was in Chinese instead of Korean. I remember getting there pretty late and the girls and I were alternating between singing Beyonce's "Irreplaceable" and Britney Spear's "You want a piece of me". I remember laughing at Maisie because she didn't know the words and made up her own. 


We went to a internet cafe first to send a few emails. In Korea these centers where you go to pay to use a computer are called PC Bangs. Then we decided to stay at the YMCA. We decided we had a little time to see a couple more things before the night was over so we went to the 101 building by subway and took a cab there. For those of you that don't know, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taipei_101 this link can tell you all about the 101 building. It was basically the tallest building in the world until 2010 when they built a taller one in Dubai. So we take a cab there and we notice the taxi driver is chewing this tobacco. It is red, so it looks like his mouth is bleeding. 


When we get to the building, we realize it is closed so we get the taxi driver to take a picture of us in front of it. This guy did not speak English, so just by getting him to realize we wanted him to take a picture, we were doing good, but when we looked at the picture later, we discovered no one would even be able to tell where we were because he only got a picture of our faces. So that was great.


That night after going to the building, we went to check out the huge night market on the street. I bought this nice looking, really shiny, cute bag for $10. I was very excited about. It looked expensive, but about a week later the thing fell apart. You get what you pay for, I guess. 


We went to a street restaurant and had some delicious "steak."? I hope that's what we were eating...I know in China, they eat monkey brains and cats and everything, but I'm not sure about Taiwan. It was pretty good, whatever it was. Although, that night I had food poisoning, but the other two girls were fine. 

In the morning we were going to the train station to take a train from the top of Taiwan to the bottom and take a train to “Green Island.” The train ride was 6 hours long. I finished my book, “My Horizontal Life” by Chelsea Handler.  Thank goodness Clio brought another book : “Something Borrowed” by  Emily Giffin. So we switched. Clio read the Chelsea one and said, “This girl is such a whore, but it’s funny.” Both books were great. Any time we had left on the train we were of course gossiping about all the people we worked and lived with at English Village.

When we got to the loading dock of the ferry. We bought our tickets and then we were hungry and then we loaded ourselves up on “Taiwanese snacks” chips, candy and soda.  I had never ridden on this kind of ferry. Clio told me she was probably going to be sick and I hadn't even thought about being sick. But when we started moving I got green really fast. The ships was like that ship ride at the fair. It swooshed steeply from one side to the other constantly. Thankfully they had throw-up bags everywhere and I definitely used a couple and had to lie down. I hated myself for filling myself full of the snacks.  Clio was really sick as well but she was handling it way better than me. Maisie, on the other hand, was in the seat in front of us reading a freaking book about Benjamin Franklin. Unbelievable!

I was trying to get over my sickness on our way to the hotel. We were anxious to get to the beach. The thing about “Green Island” is that everyone that lives there looks like they have been punched in the mouth and gotten all their teeth knocked out. They chew this tobacco that stains their mouths red. I think it’s called Areca nut, but don’t quote me on that.  We quickly realized that not coming during “tourist season” meant that we were pretty much alone on the island except for the natives and of course, my debit card did not work there, so I wound up having to borrow money from Clio.

First, we got set up in our hotel. They gave us scooters, and tried to teach us how to drive them without speaking any English, but on my first try I got the brake and the gas mixed up somehow. I ran into a bush, went flying into the air and broke the mirror. Clio and Maisie were just laughing at me. So we decided to not do the scooters. We instead rented a car for later. We asked the front desk person where the beach was and she said we could walk there. On our way to the beach, there was a huge cow in the road. Clio is afraid of animals anyway so she started freaking out and I was afraid she was going to freak the cow out. Somehow, we made it past. Then we passed a prison very close to our hotel.  That’s not scary at all!!  Then when we got to the beach, we realized it was not white and sandy. No, this “beach” was molten volcanic rock. Our hopes of tanning and swimming  were out.

We went back and took the car to the only restaurant on the island. It was the best tuna sashimi ever, though. We were the only ones there. We wrote our names on the wall. The tuna that we ate was caught by the owner about ten minutes before we got there. It was sliced in front of us and absolutely delicious.  After dinner, we decided to drive around the island, but didn’t get very far at all and our car broke down. We had to wait for the hotel owners to come and fix the car.

When they had fixed our car, we took the car to the other side of the island to the natural hot springs and it was really nice to be the only ones there. The springs felt like a hot tub. I loved it. We all talked about our experiences with men and I remember saying I would never date a guy unless he were pretty. Clio and Maisie said they had dated their fair share of ugly men. Maisie joked that she liked her men big and dumb.  Then we went back to gossiping about the crazy people at English Village.  We found out it took about 30 minutes to drive around the whole island.

The next day, we went snorkeling. The guy at the hotel took us to put on our wet suits first. Then we got our snorkels on and Clio was telling us a story of her crazy, at that time boyfriend, Micah, who made her swim with the sharks and people could see them in the tank. Clio was just swimming slowly out of her mind, while Micah was doing all kind of acrobatic type movements in a shark tank.

When we first got into the water, the guide gave us food to feed the fish. Clio about freaked out because hoards of fish just attack you. But once we got going, it was one of the most beautiful and amazing experiences of my life. The fish were gorgeous and exotic.  I would have snorkeled all day if I could. Then we drove around the island in the daytime and talked of how any of us could live in such a secluded place. Maisie said she could, but Clio and I said we needed more people and more excitement and amenities. It was a truly beautiful island. We shopped a  bit. That night we saw a Karaoke bar, so we decided to go. The people that owned the bar were some of the most unfortunate-looking  people, with their missing teeth and red mouths, but their children were so adorable.

We sang any English song that was on the menu and we drank beer with the natives. It was all very surreal.

We we left, I bought Dramamine for the ferry and was fine on the way back. The train ride wasn't so long with us talking a lot. When we got back to Taipei, we saw an amazing street play with Chinese characters and the story was all in Chinese, but  we felt really lucky to get to see it. We couldn't stay very long. We had to make our way back to the airport. I’ll always remember that trip as a time when the three of us became closer friends. We are still close friends today. 

Here's where the passport part comes in: When we got back to Korea, we almost didn't make the bus back to English Village, so we took the bus from the airport and and then we took a taxi to the bus to EV. Well, I guess pulling out my wallet I must have pulled out my passport and I was in such a hurry, When I tried to put it back in my purse, it must have fallen back out. 

I was so depressed that I had lost my passport, mostly because I had stamps in there from Brazil, Spain, Italy, Japan, the Philippines, and Taiwan. The worst part was the taxi driver called and said he was going to send it back to me, and he never did. After a couple of weeks of depression and realizing I wasn't getting it back, I finally had to suck it up and go get another passport.