Day 7 - Week's End...

What was the best weekend of your life?

I would say almost every weekend I was in Taiwan was the best weekend of my life. One that comes to mind was in October 2009 during typhoon season in Southeast Asia. A warning was issued to the entire island for people to stay indoors as much as possible, and to avoid the beach areas. So being the adventurous, not-going-to-take-no-as-an-answer type of person, I made plans with a handful or so friends to go to Fulong Beach in Northern Taiwan.

It was hot in late September, so really we thought we were safe from any unexpected rainy weather. Taiwan is right above the Philippines for those of you who are geographically challenged, and so we thought it would always be hot and muggy there.

Boy were we wrong. The typhoon hit the Philippines and sort of dissipated into a tropical storm. It rained and rained the entire week leading up to our beach day, but we were all determined to get one trip in during the year to get our tan on.

When we arrived that Saturday morning by train, it was pouring and the wind was blowing cows and pigs. The resorts issued warnings to stay away from the shores, but didn't officially close down the beaches. My friends and I took that as a green light to test our luck. The following pictures illustrate what a bad, bad, bad idea that was.

We woke up really early to take this trip. We purchased our train tickets and there was no going back.

My close group of friends that dared to have a beach day even though it was raining outside.

The train ride was great. We got to see parts of Taiwan that we wouldn't otherwise get the opportunity to locked away studying in a university in Central Taipei. However, the view from the train made us anxious. This pic below doesn't do the weather justice. It was raining and the rivers were overflowing.

Rainy day, schmainy day. We were on a mission.

And when we got there, we all huddled under umbrellas and pushed toward the water. Who cares if there were signs warning danger? Who cares that there was absolutely NO ONE on the beach doing something crazy like us? We even made it to the edge of the water and dipped our feet in, before some surly security guard ran up to us and threatened to kick us off the beach if we didn't leave voluntarily. 

We pushed and pushed against the wind. I think a few umbrellas broke.

We actually expected to have a nice quiet picnic on the beach. Yeah, that wasn't going to happen. It was raining so bad, that umbrellas were useless.

Yet, in the end this was the best, maybe most memorable, weekend I can think of. It was spent with friends in a foreign country and it was one of the first adventures I had that brought me closer to the below group of friends you see here.