Rotary Eastern Trip: Day 2!!

Friday February 1^st, 2013

Day two of Eastern Rotary Culture Tour Trip! It began with an unpleasant misunderstanding. My roommates and I were told the night before to be packed, dressed and in the lobby by a certain time. We did just that but not a single Rotary person nor exchange student was there, only one employee who hadn’t even turned on the rooms lights yet. Something was definitely wrong. In a way it felt like last night and the “ghost hunt” thing because no one else was there but if no Rotarians were there, something was 100% wrong. It turned out that time was the wake up time told to us and not the call time. Crap. So we patiently waited for the proper time to roll around, which meant breakfast buffet time.

Again as tasty as last night’s dinner. A peculiar dish as titled “recycled tea leaves bun.” It is so hard to explain the shape and taste but whatever it was, I went for seconds. XD Also the same as last night’s dinner was Asian themed food. So no pancakes, sausages, etc. like an American breakfast but various Asian breakfast stuffs. Still good though. :)

Rotary advised us to eat up at breakfast because we would need the strength today. Why? Well because our next stop was to go rafting. The sound of this excited me because I was looking forward to real rafting and not a water fight on boats slowly inching forward like last time. Upon arrival I sure got a smack in the face. Expecting a rapid new river, we went to the exact same facility as my last rafting experience (a.k.a. not even close to real rapids). Well shucks that’s irony for ya! XD

Since we were in winter, each exchange student was given a wetsuit. Mmm, sexy…not. XD Here’s my peeps, Group 1, all in our top-designer outfits fit for kings and queens. Oh my gosh why do I look so freakishly short next to our French friend, Gregoire? Apparently I didn’t drink enough milk as a child for the calcium to make bones grow. :P Other than the wetsuits, everything else was pretty much the same as last time in the preparation department.

The actual rafting was refreshingly different from my previous visit. For one, my boat members worked as a team in paddling so there was substantial forward movement despite most of the river being fairly standstill. Our drive was to be in front which was first place in our eyes and fitting since we were the revered group 1! Not really but it was still fun trying to row our way to an imaginary victory. :P

A bit of water fights broke out now and then but not nearly as much as the water war I’m a veteran of. The large scoop in each boat I recall from the water war had the original purpose of shoveling out water that snuck in the boat but was used improperly as a water missile launcher. That scooper was not among our provided equipment this time around, which was probably a good thing. XD Though getting invading water out of the boat was a bit problematic. :P Another difference between rafting experiences was that we didn’t take a half-way break to eat lunch. We lunch the whole way through without stopping. In my opinion that was better because after getting soaked from the cold waters fired from enemy boats and stepping on land where an even colder wind blows while you sit inactive, you slowly form into an ice cube. Therefore propelling all the way through was more comfortable to me.

On this river (Xiuguluan River) the waters are very calm expect for a few short spots that rock your boat a bit but nothing difficult to handle if everyone works together as a team. Though it’s not rare for a boat to flip nor is it hard to remedy, one boat flipped and trapped an exchange student underneath for a bit. She did get out safe and sound but the incident frightened her tears refusing to continue rafting. My boat pulled her out of the water and flagged down the safe, calm motorboat holding our tour guides taking pictures along the way so she could board. Other than that, the trip was quite fun.

Group 1 is proud to say our boat didn’t flip even a single time. Some of its members were still drenched with water. That would be because they abandoned ship just for the short pleasure of being in the water. They wanted to fall off but since the boat failed to buck them off, neeeeeeeeeeer. That would be the sound effect of them willingly and on purpose sliding into the cold waters. After a minute or two of floating (thanks to the lifejacket) alongside the boat, they eventually climbed back in and joined the team rowing. One German boy named Antony tumbled into the water over five times, all most likely not accidental. XD Silly but all in good humor.

Speaking of humor, a guy from Florida named Grant was in my group. (Grant will be the fifth person from the left in the above wetsuit picture and Antony being the fourth from the left in case you wanted a picture reference) Grant is very much an outgoing comedian clown of the exchange students. This personality was greatly shown as he became our tour guide throughout the river. So many things came out of that witty mouth of his such as, “If you look to your right you will see the esteemed cliff used by the aboriginals. All the males had to dive from this high cliff into the shallow waters of this very river. If you survived, you became a man. If you didn’t…well…” XD He had that kind of amusing imagination but also sharp eyes as he spotted actual monkeys in the mountain’s trees. A tad difficult to see but nonetheless caused a riot of “MONKEYS! I SEE MONKEYS!” that rippled down the line of rafts causing the other exchange students to have matching reactions. XD

The employees who piloted motorboats down the river with us were as playful as ever. Their job was to guide us as smoothly down the river as possible, alerting us of any trouble spots and sometimes pulling chains of linked rafts together through certain areas. But when free, they did a favorite impish deed of theirs just like last time. Accelerate their boats toward an unsuspecting raft and then sharply turn causing a large spray of water to attack the rafters. They did this quite frequently. We managed to get our revenge on one motorboat, splashing water at him when he came within range. He didn’t pick a fight though. Nope, he was too busy smoking a cigarette to do so. I can just imagine what those employees say to people who ask them what they did today. “Oh I just terrorized some foreigners all morning with water.” XD

Overall, I enjoyed this rafting a bunch more than the last. Knowing all your fellow rafters helps to make even more pleasurable. And even though it was winter, I didn’t feel nearly as cold as last time. Thanks sexy *cough* wetsuit!

Once on shore again, it was off to the facility’s showers. Nothing exciting there right? Think again. Bloody-murder was being screamed in the girl’s showers that spread down the stalls like the plague. That so-called plague would be a toad. Really? A toad caused all that fuss? Now I understand not wanting it to touch you but one girl who I believe was in the stall in to mine shrieked so loudly it made my ears ring painfully. Owie. No I didn’t see the toad but I could hear where it moved based on the exclamations. XD

Lunch was a biandang (Chinese lunchbox) inside the tour bus on our way to Chao Feng Ranch & Resort. During the drive, Ice Age 4 played on the TV screens. With not having yet seen it, I was keen on watching the movie instead of sleeping. It was an ok movie but what caused a few protests was with three minutes left of the movie, it was turned off as we were pulling into our destination. A “nooooooo” moment echoed through the bus. XD (We were able to see the last several minutes the next day thankfully just to ease our minds)

This place was more countryside styled with buildings that looked like wee little barns. Cute. ^_^ Checking in and placing our things inside our rooms, we encouraged to go and visit the hot spring located not too far from our barns. Most everyone went except but Shania didn’t. It turns out that bathing in hot springs are against the Native American culture and takes numerous ceremonies to remedy. Don’t ask me how or why, that’s just what she told me and I respect that.

Among who did go, here’s our experience. Beforehand we were told that there were dressed and undressed hot springs, so naturally I think there’ll be four springs each assigned to different genders and clothing requirement plus I’ve known traditional hot springs to separate the sexes. So Mariko, Mika and I go together to the building, showed the employees are wristband pass for the hot springs, strip to our bathing suits in the locker room and head outside. As we emerged I felt like someone smacked me in the face. The first thing I saw were dudes. Clothed dudes mind you but dudes nonetheless. My mind red flagged the possibility of going into the wrong room and retreated back into the locker room. It turned out that my original thoughts concerning room separation were wrong. The hot springs did have swimsuit and non-swimsuit options for hot springs. What the difference was that the swimsuit required one was for everyone and the bare-skin was only for women who wanted to go in. I did go in the right area after all, despite there being guys. XD

The hot springs were not at all how I pictured them. I thought we would experience a traditional hot spring in all of its natural glory. I haven’t had the pleasure of such a thing yet and therefore was excited for it. But no, it was rather four small separated man-made pools that were just hot tubs engineered to look like natural rocks. *sigh* No traditional natural hot spring for me yet. Don’t get me wrong, the ones today were nice but just not meeting my high expectations. It did have a bonus of a sauna though, which was good.

Heading back to our barn suit, all three of us crashed on the bed for a rest, joining Shania who was already in la-la-land. We awoke when the time came to meet up with the rest of Rotary to take a bus to dinner.

Here we are waiting and strangely enough were among the first ones to arrive. That makes the third time this trip! From left to right we have: Mika, yours truly, Mariko and a tour guide.

Once all piled on the buses, the exchange students were astonished at the amount of time it took to get to dinner. That is, no time at all. We contemplated why we took buses to a place that only took a five-minute walk. And they say America is lazy! XD

The meal comprised of Asian styled food in the rotating table form. A part of the night had performers on stage, a singer and some aboriginal dancers.

I’ll let you guess which one of the two this guy is. XD He first came on stage just in black clothing but later appeared with the tassel and pom-pom purse strapped across his chest. As to why, it baffles me up to this day.

Now I don’t know if these our genuine aboriginals, the same goes for the dancing, but nonetheless was enjoyable to view. It brought fond memories from the previous day up and a hankering for learning some moves.

Something came up that did upset the mood. About a week ago I had requested to Rotary (both Texas and Taiwan) if I could return to American either on May 26^th or 27^th because of the desire to attend my sister’s college graduation. Texas Rotary was fine with it, encouraged it even but I found out tonight a problem Taiwan Rotary had with it. A lady told me Rotary was “discussing my case” as to whether or not my exchange would be considered an early leave. She said if I left too early, Taiwan Rotary would label my exchange as incomplete and therefore not give me a certificate proving my exchange, giving college credit, etc. According to her another boy who was leaving earlier than me in order to attend his desired college is going through this as well. It was…a sudden and harsh impact of information to take in. That’s all I’ll say.

For the finale of the night, Rotary had an evening party in a small clubhouse-like room. Evening party should be properly called ‘Each Rotary group entertaining everyone with games.’ We were told to prepare games or activities and between the six groups, some good ones were thought of.

First up were these guys who explained a Mad-Lib kind of game. You ask the person next to you any question and they answer accordingly. This action is passed around the circle and everyone needs to remember what question they asked and what their answer was to whatever question was asked to them. Afterwards everyone scrambles around, mixing up the circle so you’re standing next to new people. The chain begins with asking your original question but the person next to you has to use their answer from last time. Things can get quite interesting like that! I quite liked my chunk of the circle. Here’s how it went:

Person to the left of me: How would you kill someone?

Me: The Lord of the Rings.

Me: What is your greatest fear?

Person to the right of me: French fries.

FANTASTIC ACCIDENTAL HUMOR! XD

My group taught everyone the telephone game. Remember that? How much it was played in elementary school and how hilarious it was? That’s the feeling of what we were hoping to capture. With the ingredients of fifty exchange students, many who are not native English speakers and have accents combined with people not wanting to pass on what they heard because it didn’t make sense, it somewhat subdued the game’s comedy. But heck we all had fun anyway.

Other games were musical chairs, charades and impressions. The impressions were basically imitating other exchange students and seeing if you could figure out who it was. Do you recall our tall French friend Gregoire? He did a fine job on his assigned person-to-impersonate. First he began gracefully air combing his short hair, then worked his way down to his shoulders…then back...then lower. Figured out who it is yet? :P While taking a video from the beginning, the camera started shaking in my hands from laughing at the realization. XD My laughter was so coarse and deep as result of the ever-present cold I so conveniently caught before the trip, if you remember. That’s right I was still a sicky. Fun.

I did get assigned one impression to do and I was not very enthusiastic about it. XD My person was Braden, the Pennsylvanian guy who rotated host families with me. He’s a very, very outgoing soul that gets too crazy. I was told to imitate him by dancing around sexy and if I had an undershirt (which I didn’t) to teasingly lift up my shirt while dancing. Umm…there were Rotarians watching. You know, the people who hold my exchange in their hands? Yet I had to go out a dance, shaking buttocks and all. My shirt stayed as a shirt should and lifted up only a bit while miming the rest through. It was really hard to get people to guess correctly because everything I was doing also matched another boy named Grant. Yeah, the same Grant from Florida mentioned earlier. Grant and Braden are like long lost twins in my eyes so everything I did was understandably accused of being Grant. It just made it hard for me to provoke the correct answer out.

Once all the groups had gone, cranked up music played and the lights turned off save for a flashlight that produced moving disco light shapes. I think the second song was the Macarena. By the end of it only Maxime (Belgium dude) and I remained dancing in the building. Everyone just up and left, which I find totally strange. Regardless of being the only two partyers, we danced away as several Rotary members who coordinated the party stayed. In my opinion they went through the trouble of organizing a dance party just for the exchange students and the least we can do is make use of it. That and I just wanted to dance. ;) Kicking off my chunky flip-flops, I proceeded to prance and shake around the room while Maxime joined the free-style festivity.

We danced our hearts out. I gained great satisfaction and a good work out all in one energetic bundle! We pulled two lady tour guides in their late 20’s onto the dance floor and got them dancing as well. A blast was had between us all. Amazing how the act of dancing can create bonds without words.

Eventually the lights did come back on and the music ceased. Grabbing my flip-flops I looked at the bottom of my feet. Oh…my…goodness. What once was a flesh colored foot was now caked in black grim. Oh good sweet Lordie, ew! So nasty! Other than the golf-cart ride to our barn suites, I walked home barefoot. XD Opening the door to our barn, I crawled on my hands and knees, feet sticking up in the air, and inched my way straight to the shower where the black returned to being it’s proper pink color. It just goes to show how hard I partied…or how dirty the floor was. XD

With an iPod free night, I slept soundly and peacefully. I hope y’all do the same. Peace out!