Kenting, Take 2

Last weekend, Gered and I went on another trip to Kenting with Gered's host cousin, Ken, Ken's girlfriend, Yufen, and his other friend, Xiaobai. Xiaobai is an important friend because he has a (really sweet) car, so we all drove down there together. Once in Kenting, we got some lunch, which Ken and Xiaobai ordered. Much to the dismay of us Americans, this meant things like a big plate of intestines, or fried fish-egg patties. Mmmm, pass me some more of that delicious rice!

Post-lunch, we went to this place where you can buy coupons to get a discount on the myriad activities available in Kenting, mostly different kinds of water/boaty things. Ken and Xiaobai were running the show, so we just sat around and let them figure it out. I asked Ken what we were going to do that day, expecting that it would involve boats. He told me something that I didn't understand, but Xiaobai helpfully stepped in to explain in English, "we're going to the sexy man show!" Whatttttt. It turns out that apparently one of the big things to do in Kenting is go see performances by transvestites? Hm.

Anyway, it did end up that we were going to do some water sports in addition to the sexy man show, so that afternoon we got all suited up and headed down to the beach. I wasn't sure what was appropriate beachwear for Taiwan, but Yufen told me that she was just going to wear a bikini with shorts and a tank top over it. It turns out that this is pretty much the ladies' beach uniform of Taiwan. Almost every girl at the beach was wearing approximately this outfit (or more, like jeans and a T-shirt), and only a scandalous few were -gasp!- not wearing a tank top over their bathing suits. NOBODY was going without the shorts part of the outfit, however. Why have a cute bikini when nobody is going to see it? Most girls solved this in part by wearing white tank tops so at least you could see the color of their bathing suit, but still. Taiwan is randomly conservative about dress...girls will go out wearing the teeniest little shorts, but if you put your collarbone and shoulders on display? Scandal!

Anyway, my well-clothed self got to do several exciting water activities that day, all involving being pulled by a jetski on some large inflatable boat-thing. (In addition to life jackets, they give you helmets! That is how you know it's going to be fun) We did one that was just like tubing for a lot of people at once, where the boat had sides but not a front or back. Gered and I were on the back, so we were constantly hanging on for dear life and trying desperately not to slip off into the water. Then we did the banana boat, where they bring you out on a giant banana-shaped inflatable thing and then suddenly turn so it flips over. The last one was the roughest - it was another boat, one with a back and not too prone to tipping, but also extremely prone to bounciness, so if you didn't hold on to the handles with all your power, you would bounce right off into the ocean. By the time we were all finished, my arms were so completely drained of strength that they felt like giant wet noodles. Perfect time to play some volleyball against random beach dudes, aka totally get our butts kicked at volleyball!

After a little time to collapse at the hotel, we headed back out on the town, getting food on a stick for dinner and going to the sexy man show. Now, I can appreciate the humor of men dressed in women's clothing as much as the next person, but the sexy man show was just awkward. We felt quite relieved to be sitting in the back row, where we could not be embarrassingly danced on or pulled up as audience volunteers. Also, some mo-rons brought their children along, which was extra awkward. Does your 10-year-old really need to see men dancing around in lingerie? I think not. Anyway, it was a Kenting Experience. Kenting seems to have a lot of Thai influence, so I suppose ladyboys are just one more aspect of that.

In contrast with the activities of Saturday night, I spent Sunday morning going to church! Once I realized that our Kenting trip coincided with Easter weekend, I got the pastor at Kaohsiung's bilingual church to help me find a church to go to in Kenting. Kenting doesn't have any English-speaking churches, so the one I went to was a teeny little all-Chinese church in Hengchun (setting of Cape No. 7, the biggest movie in Taiwan!). I wrote my name and information down on the registration card, and so during the service they called my name by surprise. I guess I must have looked confused, because the pastor started asking this young guy to translate for me, and there was a lot of confusion, and then finally I piped up in Chinese, "I can speak Chinese!" and everyone clapped! It was cute. I understood the service pretty well, so it was good. I have been picking up a lot of Chinese vocab going to Taiwanese churches, like how to say things like "resurrection." The best part was when the pastor made us, in addition to clapping along to the song, raise our fists and go "huh!" after each phrase. Everybody was having a lot of fun.

We spent the rest of the day driving around and stopping to look at pretty places in Kenting, of which there are many. I was pretty wiped out from all of the boat stuff the day before, so I spent almost all of the time sleeping in the car, only to be prodded out when we arrived at some new scenic spot. We also went to see this natural flame, where a vent of natural gas had been lit, providing a constant small fire in the ground. Apparently people go there to make popcorn, but unfortunately we hadn't brought any.

I was pretty glad to go home at the end because I was soooo tired (my arms were not fully functional for several days), but in general I would count this trip to Kenting as a pretty good one, considering that it did not end with extreme sickness and hospitalization. Yay!