So, I Was Climbing a Mountain in Jioufen...

Today, David and I went to Jioufen with the rest of the Wright State group (engineers). Jioufen is a mountain town with an interesting little market. I got a lot of souvenirs today for people back home, and had a great time visiting with our engineers (whom I haven't seen since Monday). We all had a great time (except when we ate sweet soup for lunch...it was nasty).

After going to the market, we went to the Gold Ecological Park (still in Jioufen). Here, eight of us decided it would be a good idea to climb to the top of one of the peaks of Mount Jade. This was a terrible fucking decision. Phil and I are in worse shape than the other six, and it took a lot out of us to get up that mountain. I climbed about 1450 meters straight up, while Phil did 1600 meters and the rest of the group did 2000. I'm not disappointed in my decision to stop, because the six that went 2000 meters said they couldn't see anything from up there because the weeds/trees had grown so high. I made a good decision.

By the time I reached my limit, my body was shaking really badly, so I knew it was time to stop. We thought it was going to be an easier climb based on the steps at the bottom of the mountain, so none of us really brought any water (horrible decision). The steps at the bottom were cement, and even. From about 250-900 meters, the steps were a mixture of crumbling stone, dirt, grass, and plants. The last 500 meters I did were comprised of the steepest stone steps I've ever seen (there were about 4 spots where the steps shifted to a meter-long incline).



After our 35 minute-power climb, we had to walk back down. This journey was extremely hard on everyone's joints. Even the guys who were in great shape and Angie felt the pain of the climb on the way down. We were all glad we went up there, but the climb sucked. It was crazy difficult. When I climbed the Great Wall of China back in 2008, said it was the hardest thing I'd ever done; that title now belongs to Mount Jade. I would climb the Great Wall 3 times before climbing Mount Jade again.

One of the WSU engineers is named Jade. So, as you can imagine, we made many jokes about mounting Jade (Mount Jade). Even our advisor, Angie, got in on the action. I may or may not have made the best comment (according to Zach) by saying "That was hard work! I spent 35 minutes mounting Jade, and didn't even finish!"

After our descent, we panned for gold (completely pointless waste of time, but it was air-conditioned) and saw the world's largest bar of gold (worth about 274 million NTD or $8.7 million). I actually got to touch it! Then, we headed to the night-market in Keelung! I thought it was pretty boring, but we only had 45 minutes there. Angie, Cassie, and I got some delicious fresh fruit though!

One of our engineers just arrived today due to a family emergency, and we decided to take him out to dinner tonight and show him around Chung-li. His name is Adam. He had to fly from Dayton to Houston, Houston to Honolulu, Honolulu to Guam (with a 13 hour layover in Guam), Guam to Tokyo, and Tokyo to Taipei. Needless to say, he was really tired. After dinner, I headed back to the dorm early with Phil and David so I could get my laundry done! Now, I'll have clean clothes for tomorrow!