Kaohsiung

First, a note about pronunciation- especially with place names, things in Taiwan were not as I thought they were. Much of this suprirse was due to my severe ignorance but I'll include you in my understanding.

Chinese has a standardized Romanization style of writing, pinyin. This uses set syllables to capture words of many tones in Chinese. Similar to the International Phonetic Alphabet, there are a range of sounds and they each clearly correspond to a consonant and or vowel pair. For examle, "x" pin yin is always going to say "sh." As a non-Chinese speaking student of Chinese medicine, I consider myself pretty good at pronouncing pinyin by following the rules of the sound symbols. HOWEVER, Taiwan's Engish translaterations sometimes use pinyin but often use an older style of English transliteration called Wade-Giles which is a bit less standarized, and also does not the same letter-sounds as pinyin. This first started to become clear to me as I started to say "Kaohsiung" over and over when discussing my travel plans. It's pronouched "GOW-shung," the K is just Wade-Giles being weird. I noticed W-G transliterations all over Taiwan (of course, as it is official and traditional), but I saw an extra lot of it in Kaohsiung and I'll try to point that out when I have pictures or examples of it.

I rolled into Kaohsiung on the train from Yuli around 2:30pm. Te main train station was less chaotic than the gigantic one in Taipei, and the metro had announcements in Mandarin, English and Japanese! This is to cater to Japanese visitors in the area but I wonder if there is more going on here- I saw a few reddit posts where people mentioned that areas in Kaohsiung had been changed from their Mandarin name back to the name used in the Japanese colonial period. This is just one example of the complexity in naming, language and the deeper concepts of property/ownership that are constantly at play in Taiwan, as it has had so many different occupiers and sets of government.

Through my time in this place, I stayed at three different hotels, as the first place I was staying at didn't have any rooms available once the weekend hit. This makes me laugh at myself because I was so hesitant to book accomodations for all the days I'd be staying there and "not get the best deal" but I ended up having to move my stuff around 3 times and actaully spent a bunch of money at the middle place (I'll share all the luxx details here).

My first location was EatzZz hostel. I chose this place because it was near transit, my CEU course and near Aodihzi, a "Forest Park." I got off the train and rented a YouBike to haul my stuff through the park...which turned out to be a mostly empty plaza with some playgrounds and palm trees, with some giant inflatables getting set up for a Halloween park event.

The hostel was quiet, clean, cozy, and I got a top floor room with a view of the street in photos 3 and 4- bright lights but quiet once night fell. It was also next to a plant nursery with a sly cat int it, see pics below.

That evening I desparately needed to do laundry because my sink-laundry event in Yuli the night before had left my clothing even stinkier than before. I dropped off my clothing at a coin laundry place (an unmanned storefront open to the street but with lots of cameras and signs swearing their fidelity), assured the door was locked for 32 minutes of wash cycle, and ran down the street go get beef noodles at a place that provided self-serve picked radish and boba milk tea. These are two of my favorite accompaniments to anything so I definitely took advantage. This was a delicious meal.

On my way to the first day of my CEU class I mailed my ballot (adorable mailbo above), and enjoyed the morning sunshine. My hotel provided free breakfast but I needed to leave the hotel before they started services so they gave me coupons worth NTD $300 (a little less than USD $10) to go to restaurant down the street. Origianll they offered coupons for Starbucks and I asked if they had any for Taiwanese restaurants partially because I hate Starbucks and knew my money would go much less far there. They were kind of surprised but gave me coupons to MyWarmDay, a local chain where I had eaten my first danbing of the trip after the Elephant Mountain adventure. This place was legit and I got a danbing and an hashbrown omlette for my first breakfast.

In classic Dyslexic Dana form, I messed up arrival to the class. I had written down that the address was 320 XinYing Rd, when infact it was 230 XinYing Rd. I was at the door of 320, a pediactric medical practice at 8:40, using google translate to ask a nurse where the classroom was, as she was trying to assertain if I needed a medical appointment. Crying-laughing emoji was needed as she pointed out my error as I showed her the address I had printed out in front of me was NOT the building that I was trying to enter.

EVENTUALLY I found the correct address, a physical therapy and pilates space next to this hot pot restaurant with a distinctive statue out front that made it very easy to recognize for the following days of class.

For the next several days the ~30 of us students spent time learning theory, diagnosis and treatment for applying visceral manipulation to the organs of the pelvic region. This was definitely the best Visceral Manipulation class I've taken, due to a combination of circumstances. Firstly, I have a passion for disorders of urogenital, exretory and lumbar origin. I feel like they are so prevalent and underdiagnosed and undertreated, due to shame, ignorance, and lack of options. Secondly, I was READY for this class. The previous classes, I've been commuting from my house to downtown Baltimore, and was just taking a little time off from my normal life- one of the classes I saw patients until 8pmm the day before the class started, the other class I went back to clinical work the day after the class ended. This was super hard, especially considering the first two classes were all about the upper digestive system and tended to provoke nausea and malaise for me and my sensitive intestines. And the content for those classes was really big- a lot of different discrete organs, a lot of new anatomy applied very speficically for the level of knowledge I was at. Both of my previous teachers were engaging, interesting, and helpful, but I just was not fully ready to take it all in.

In contrast, I showed up at VM 3 in Kaohsiung happy, chill and ready to learn. Our teacher, Rita Benamore ian osteopath with years of treatment experience and a great, conversational teaching style. Each day was filled with slide-based lecture on anatomy, then Rita demonstrating the techniques, then letting us work in pairs to practice among ourselves with TA and teacher support. I'd like to say that these photos were taken for nostaliga purposes only, are not meant to teach or share knowledge from the course nd that I don't intend to share any of what I learned in the proprietary class through audio, visual, or other types of communication.

In the class I made a friend! Just like in VM 1 when I sat down next to Traci and we ended up becoming buds, I ran in the class at 9:01 and took the only open seat in the first row. This turned out to be amazing because I was seated next to Wendy! She is a physiotherapist, my same age, and will feature in the days coming up! She was motivated to spend time with me beacuse, in addition to my magnetic personality, she was going to take the VM 4 class in Australia at the end of this month and needed to practice her English.

At the middle of the day we had a lunch break and she asked me to eat with her. She had a braised chicken place in mind but that was closed so we went to the pho restaurant next door. I got chicken pho. It was super different than what I've had in the states- much less herbal and sour flavor, as the main garnishes were fried shallots and lettuce as well as bean sprouts. The soup had a bunch of meat on bones in it which gave it a wonderful deep flavor, but I was realizing at that point how poor my meat-with-out-a-knife skills were so I was struggling once it wasn't just easy to manage noodles and sippable broth and felt embarassed!

Day 1 off the class ended and I went off on a YouBike for a little bit of exploring. I had hoped to go to the Lotus pond by the Dragon and Tiger Pavillions, a big tourist attraction in the city, but got kinda off track. Firstly, I stopped at this big, garish Buddhist temple with lots of photo opps set up in their parking area. I also stopped at a smaller shrine near it with an adorable cat and some stadium seating. I rode past a large mall and arena, which are both apprently great but in those areas I was suddently in a ton of traffic and noise.

I think I have photos of the lotus pond area but I didn't really enjoy it. At 6pm it was already completely dark outside, and the path wasn't quite well lit and smooth for me to try to ride around it. The pavillions themselves are closed for repairs and there were not lotus flowers due to it being fall....it just wasn't going to be a great experience. I also do want to say that pretty much none of my calculation was about safety about me being alone/woman/foreign/at niight. That was just not something that I percieved any risk for.

As usual after a big first day, I wasn't hungry for dinner so I stopped at this fruit market and got passion fruits, then at a grocery store and got yogurt, some cookies, and a trail mix kinda thing with freeze dried cheese cubes. I was totally unhinged in my snack making deciisons and burped all night.

Day 2 of my class started off my with first hotel transition! I packed up my backpack, said goodbye to the cute kitchen at EatzZz (with a special note on these kitchen elements, which I think Scooth and Alondra would especialy appreciate, due to the pisco and the Zen statements about cooking). At MyWarmDay I got a ton of food with my NTD $300- a tea, a salad, and chicken katsu omurice. This is something I was totally excited to weeb out over- it's a very "viral" as well as classic Japanese dish, consisting of a breaded chicken cutlet, thick sweet curry sauce, and omurice, omlet over a lump of rice. I ate this in the sunshine at 640am as was greateful for my life.

Then, I got into a taxi (was going to bike, but it was getting too unwieldly with my backpack, day bag, and the extra containers from the carry out.) and went to my second hotel. To make the decision for this hotel, I was just looking for where I could use my Chase credit card points and a lot of places within close distance to my class were booked up for the weekend- there was a big concert in town and as I had discovered we were close to the main arena. So, I settled on the Marriott because it was a brand name I knew, it had a pool and bathtub and it was close by. It cost about $110 a night which was above my regular budget, but still not as expensive as many places I'd seen listed, and Iw as only going to stay two nights. I basically dropped my bag with the valet in front and ran off to class, stopping to take pictures of the Costco next door and the ~urban contrast~ as I walked along the multi lane road leading from the hotel near the River of Love Park to my class.

For lunch on day 2, I ate with the teacher and TAs, having my salad, some yogurt, and other snacks provided by our wonderful host Evelyn.I did have a tea on our afternoon break from a very kawaii store with Sanrio branding all over it ("Ryan" tea was great!). After the class ended, I stopped at a store where Wendy had eaten lunch and reocmmended the tomato beef noodle soup. I got that and walked back to my hotel via a covered market, half wishing that I had gotten food there and could have eaten in ~the ambiance~

Back at the hotel, I was kicked in the neck by the luxury. Firstly, it was next to this gigantic mall with lots of designer stores. The lobby was gigantic, with a huge chandelier and other fancy stuff. There were multiple restaurants and ball rooms on various floors- check out the bridal boutique and photo-worthy hallway below.

My room (upgraded from what I origianlly booked through no request from me) was gigantic, with a giant bathroom, king sized bed, and huge window all in one visual line- so I was giving the city a great view as I bathed, as well, haha.

I set down my stuff, had my soup, rested a bit and then went down to the pool. I was expecting like a dinky hotel pool originally, but this ended up being, essentially hot springs # 4- there was a 25 meter swimming pool, and 10+ hot tubs, warm tubs, plunge pools and waterfall/jet areas. The hot tub area was in the middle of the hotel with the atrium of the building rising above it, so there was 10+ stories of height above me as I laid in a hot pool, looking upward.

I didn't have my glasses on and was also totally overwhelmed/ignorant by Taiwanese high class stranger culture, so I just hoped no one was trying to make eye contact with me and went into solo mode....verrrrrrry relaxing. I slept pretty great in my giant stone room.

I woke up in the fancy schmancy Marriot and went down to the nicest gym ever to do some cardio and weights so that I could sit still at the class. On my walk into work I also saw the Underarmour store, a little taste of Baltimore in Kaohsiung. I still hate it!

On this day, Wendy and I had an awesome lunch- dry noodles with spicy sesame paste and pork, tofu with dressing (I'd had this before and loved it, highly recommend this easy dish to everybody who can tolerate tofu) and preserved egg! This was another egg preparation I'd been wanting to try and it was a little nauseating but mostly delicious. The egg yolk was translucent and grey, with a darkened, soft yolk. The whole thing had a sweet and chewy taste/texture to it. It was a new experience! Wendy also got a liter of a traditional type of tea for the foreign teacher and I to try. I think that it was made of sea moss but I'm honestly not sure and should look it up. It was a colloidal texture- loose jello lumps that dissolved into a liquid when in wamth or not under pressure. It had a sweet, herbal flavor to it and was honestly so good as well as entertaining.

On my way home from the class, I admired some strange eye catching signage, including "Dollars" and this foot statue. I also went into a huge stationalry store, became overwhelmed, spilled my drink on the ground, and ran out without buying anything. CLASSY.

At the fancy hotel, I continued to be overwhlemed and unable to decide what to do with my time and energy. I knew I wanted to stay in because I was exhausted and it was raining. I wanted to try to go to the arial yoga class they had in the gym (yes, really), but I figured that would be in Chinese and that my hip flexors shouldn't actually be flipped upside down at this time. I was debating going to one of the restaurants in the hotel but I decided not to due to cost, the would have been at least $50USD. I instead ordered room service and had the WORST food of my trip- this salty, bland fried rice and caesar salad swimming in sour dressing. Wish I had gotten to gawk at a buffet instead. I fell asleep in my bed feeling like Mr. Burns.

In class the next day, I tried red dragon fruit (pretty but ultimately not very interesting) and guava, and wnedy and I got braised pork over rice, as well as cabbage and tofu side dishes. I got this pineapple tea that was too sweet but I defintiely enjoyed. We wrapped up the class and took lots of pictures! Below you will see us all making the "3" gesture because we completed VM class #3.

I feel like there's so much to say about the actual learning that went on during these days but I can just reflect briefly on my own experience:

-I loved having a translated class! Hearing the course content spoken in English and then repeted in Mandarin gave me time to take in and understand what was being said, keep up with my notes, and take little micro-attention breaks. The slower pace of the content delivery meaant that the teacher was judicious and careful with how she presented information and that kept things effecient.

-Working with different language speakers was great for my social anxiety that I get during class activities. When someone was speaking English ,I knew they wanted to talk to me. When they weren't, I didn't concern myself with it too much. This let me tune out side converstaions in a way I generally struggle with.

-Most people's touch with very light, cultiivated, specific, and boundried. I was less eneergetically exhausted than I've ever been after a VM or other touch skills class. Good work, classmates.

-The course was presented in a way that was very sex-positive and, while not explicitly discussing, trans and queer friendly, especially in how Rita presented it. I was grateful for that and it gave me a lot more confidence for my application of it. That said, there were some things that got lost/did not go well in translation, leading to things like this being written on the whiteboard after a small lecture section resulted in a lot of confused faces:

After the class ended, I hoofed it over to my next hotel, a local chain called HUB hotel. I found out it was a chain because I originally went to the incorrect location, where I had not made a reservation. It was on the train line and I saw the most classy couple on the train with me, as well as these statues outside the station.

I got to the location, which was one floor of a building comprised of many single-story businesses (picture 4). The hotel was decorated for Halloween in the cutesy aesthetic I had seen all over the place and the receptionists were super nice to me and helped me understand that I was in the wrong place and where I needed to go. I had also chosen this hotel partially because they offered snacks, coffee, and ice cream in the dining area 24/7, so I had some ice cream (green mango and taro, 10/10), a mocha from the automated espresso machine, and spent some time reconnecting with Google Maps.

As I had suspected, the new hotel was not far "as the crow flies" but taking transit would not be effecient- I'd walk 1.5 k to a train, ride it for one stop, then walk another kilometer. So, I decided to do my hard but effecient option, riding a YouBike with my hiking backpack (weighted about 17kg) on my back and my carry-on/daily use backpack wedged in the front basket of the bike. This method actually worked fine while I was riding the bike, it was starting and stopping where I was filled with a fear of falling off balance and had to (or CHOSE TO) tense my neck and shoulders to keep myself upright. On my ride I saw my home country, "ENGLISH WORLD" and this incredible tree that had grown alongside this building corner.

Soon enough I made it to my correct HUB Hotel where I had some more ice cream (I tried the "lactic acid" which was like a sour yogurt flavor. I ended up putting it into my second mocha :) and got settled in my room, as well as had a giggle about the motivational signage all over the hotel's common areas.

This hotel had a night market very close to it so I decided to continue to carnival-food feast and head over there. This one was more touristic than the one SJ took me to. There were 3 blocks of stalls, in front of storefronts of hotels, shops, betting and game parlors and tattoo and other salons. I snuck into a crowed in front of a shop selling live turtles, some of which were crawling around on the floor.

I waited in a long line for another rendition of the sausage-in-a-stick-rice bun, but I found it super garlicky and couldn't get very far. I ordered 12 tiny quail eggs, fried in a little slotted mold and dressed with a spicy katsup kind of sauce. I got some fruit (papaya and guava with plum powder) to enjoy later. And the piece de resistance was a scallion pancake. This was just so good- greasy to the point of cripsiness, so chewey from that wonderful glutenous four, with a combo of pepper, salt, sugar and MSG sprinkled over it, then slashed into bite sized pieces and served with a toothpick for easy skewering. This was 50NTD, 1.5USD for half of a gigantic pancake.I ate it all and was extremely full.

While there, I realized I was near the "Boulevard of Light," one of my to-see spots in Kaohsiung. This place had been billed as an incredible immersive experience and I was thinking that going at 9pm was a good strategy because it is located in a train station and I thought it would not be as rushed as other times of day. This was smart but when I got there I realized the exhibit was basically a (very artistically and well designed) skylight for metro station. I was still glad I went to check it out!

I enjoyed the quiet walk home with some great sites including a sweetie street dog. I had a meeting at 1am (1pm EST did not seem like such a horrible idea when I agreed to attend), so I watched some TV, dozed off, and set an alarm for 12:45.

This entry is getting so long and I want to publish it, so I'll save my final day in Kaohsiung for a future post.