I went on a weekend trip to Kenting (墾丁), an area even more south than Kaohsiung (where I live), last weekend with my host family and a group of faculty/staff from Taiping Elementary School.  My host mom, Liu Ming, used to work at Taiping Elementary School and still has very close friends there, so they travel a lot together.  Kenting is now very famous in Taiwan because it is where Cape No. 7, the movie that is sweeping Taiwan right now, is filmed. 

We visited all the sites where the movie was filmed, which meant a lot of beach scenes because Kenting is also known for its beaches.  And now I know why.  They are so incredibly beautiful and inviting.  If it weren't for the weather, I would have totally jumped into the water.  I'm turning into such a wimp; it is only 61 degrees in Taiwan right now and I'm wearing sweaters and jackets. For some odd reason, 61 degrees feel awfully like 40 degrees here.

Besides visiting the sites, we also did a lot of others things as well, like eating a whole lotta seafood.  I mean, we were by the ocean.  Almost every meal consisted of seafood, but luckily, good seafood.

We also went to a hot springs!  It's basically a place with many mini jacuzzis that massage different parts of your body.  Also, the water is supposedly from the mountain and is not chlorinated (which is troublesome, but I try not to think about it and focus on the positive).  The hot springs we went to had this really cool jacuzzi just for your feet, and in it, there were many schools of fish.  The fish would nibble at your feet and eat away the dead skin.  I felt a little discomfort at first, but I got use to it and learned to endure the pain.  And apparently, I have a lot of dead skin on my feet because whenever I put my feet in the waters, it would attract many schools of fish away from the other people in the jacuzzi. 

I had a great time with my host family and everyone from Taiping Elementary, and I'm thankful that they invited me to go to Kenting with them.  I have such an amazingly cute 2 year old host brother, whom I gave an English name to during this weekend getaway.  His English name is now Gunther!  And if you ever meet him, you'll think that it's an appropriate name for him as well.  He loves to play with race cars and ask the same question repeatedly until he receives an answer. 

For more pictures from Kenting, please click here.

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