Mountain trips and more!

So, as I mentioned before our hosts take us on a field trip once a week. This time we climbed Shoushan (壽山). I'm not writing "Mt. Shoushan" because I would repeat the word "mountain" two times; shan means "mountain" in Chinese. Just like in Japanese, you really can't say Mt. Fuji-san (san also being a "mountain" in this case. But it's tricky because in Japan you can only call Fuji san. All the other mountains are yama) So I guess you could say Mt. Shou...

But enough with the translation musings! Adventure awaits us! Or maybe monkeys throwing their own poo at unsuspecting tourists...

Shoushan was called the Ape Mountain by the Dutch who came to Formosa (old name for Taiwan which basically means "a beautiful island") in the 17th century and it REALLY is the Ape Mountain. We hiked for about 45 minutes and we encountered a few packs of them. Some were totally ignoring us, some were mildly interested, one young one even tried to touch on of my roommates. The locals warned us not to touch them, give them food or irritate them in any way; they may be small, but in a group they can take down a grown person. So we just took photos.
When we reached the viewing terrace, we could drink some tea and admire the view. I was brought up in a cold-ish climate, and mountains are far away from the sea in Poland, so the view was quite exotic to me. We could look down on a thick jungle which met with the ocean at one point, so for me that was something.

Speaking of climate, you just feel like you're swimming in a hot soup all the time. Except when you are indoors, then there's air conditioning, which is also quite nasty, because suddenly you go from 40C to 23C in seconds. Plus the AC makes the air dry, so I cough and my eyes are constantly dry. Also, the locals like to set their AC really low. So in our room we have 27C, but the classrooms are way colder, so for class we have to dress in long jeans and long-sleeved shirts. Some people didn't even bring long pants, so they try to sneak to the AC remote controller and change the settings. Unfortunately some teacher always notices and stops them before they can change anything.

Our hosts are really cute, nice and helpfull, but sometimes they are clueless. A good example is that last weekend some of the girls in our dorm who are our assigned "bodyguards" took me for a trip in the city and got lost. Fortunately on our way we found an abandoned district which is now a street art gallery (the government wants to tear it down, but the locals like it very much). We went around the barricades made of old furniture and we found ourselves in an abandoned neighbourhood with some really cool art pieces. After that I managed to set us on the right track again and we could return home...

The street art "gallery", near the Lotus Pond and Old City of Zuoying:

 Mini art that really surprised me: those are Pokemon figurines on Mahjong stones. Hard to notice, but really cool.

Shoushan hike: humans and monkeys coexisting.

 A monkey chillin' on the tourist trail, totally ignoring us: