Highlights of Taiwan

One of the best things about my trip to Taiwan was that I was able to spend time with my family and Monica, one of my closest friends. I hadn't realised, but spending so much time away from my family, from my old friends in a place that was foreign to me until a few years ago was having a really alienating effect. It's hard to explain the feeling because it's not homesickness, and it's not like I'm not integrating into society here, but sometimes I feel like I'm moving at half a beat behind every else. There are things that everyone takes for granted that I have to get used to, whether I like it or not. (Photo: lunch with the family in Tainan)

By mid-March, just before leaving for Taiwan, I felt exhausted by so many children (some of them truly monsters), so much cold weather and grey skies that I was really beginning to hate being here.

In Taiwan I got to see three of my aunties and Álvaro got to meet them as well. I also got to see my grandpa, who prepared fabulous breakfasts for us, and spend time with my cousin Leanne.

We climbed three mountains in total (one of them swarming with monkeys), visited Little Liuchiu Island, karaoke-d, went up the 101 Tower in Taipei and ate an embarrassing amount of fantastic food. (Photo: my aunt being inspected for fleas on Monkey Mountain)

But the best part was being able to spend two weeks with my parents uninterrupted by work and other committments. This has been one of my all-time favourite trips, and it wasn't too sad saying goodbye to my parents this time because I already have at the back of my mind that we're going back to Australia in October. (Photo: our penultimate onigiri at Taipei Airport)

Jade Mountain, Taiwan

I'm back from my two week Easter holiday to Taiwan and back to work. The return trip felt like it would never end- we caught the plane from Taipei to Beijing at 1 pm on Saturday (Taiwan time), spent 7.5 hours wandering Beijing airport, (which by the way feels like a ghost airport. It's huge but only has about one departing flight an hour), caught the plane at midnight, arrived in Madrid at 6.30 am Sunday (Spain time), rushed to the bus station and caught a bus to Logrono at 8 am.

The only good thing about being back was that the sun was shining so we bought 2 litres of beer and sat on the sofa in our patio.

One of the best parts of the trip was climbing Jade Mountain, the highest mountain in Taiwan, with my parents and Alvaro. We went with a group from my dad's university. The first day we climbed about 1000 metres in height, to 3400 metres. It wasn't so bad at first, but Alvaro and I were carrying backpacks of around 12 kg and the higher up you get, the more you notice the lack of oxygen and every kilo gets exponentially heavier. (Photo: the main peak of Jade Mountain, hidden in the clouds)

The next morning, we woke up at 1.30 am to have breakfast and climb to the 4000 metre peak in time to see the sunrise. Unfortunately, it was cloudy so we didn't see the sun, but it was still amazing. At some parts, the track was one person wide, with a dizzying drop that you couldn't see the bottom of because of the clouds and fog. At the beginning of March, a guy slipped and fell. He died.

Towards the summit, my gloves were soaking wet, it was freezing, my head torch was running low and there were no longer any trees, just rocks and scree. It was a practically vertical climb, hauling myself up from rock to rock.

I can't say the view was amazing because there was no view, no vegetation, just clouds, but the feeling of being so removed from the rest of the world is really indescribable.

One of my dad's students almost got hypothermia on the summit. She was crouched on the ground, freezing and said she didn't want to go down, just wanted to sleep. Another student didn't climb up because he had altitude sickness- his heart was pounding about 120 beats a minute and he said he felt nauseous.

On the climb down, I nearly slipped a few times and I had nightmares of Alvaro falling down the abyss and me having to tell his mother in Spain that I'd killed her youngest child.

When we got the the place where we spent the night, we had 'lunch', at 9 am, then headed back down the mountain. I can honestly say it was the earliest I'd ever eaten lunch.