The kids' school (Acton Academy) planned a 3-day camping trip for the entire school. The excursion was to Camp Taiwan in Wanli. Camp Taiwan is an 80 acre kids campsite in a remote area in the lush mountains east of Taipei. Trae and I got to join as parent volunteers. The camp was so green - jungle like, with lots of forrest noises and a caution to always wear close-toed shoes and walk with a buddy (with vague reference to watching where you walk). We were pleasantly surprised with running water, including toilets, showers, and sinks, although one morning a very long snake skin shed over the entrance to our showers, freaking us all out a bit. Looking up, you could see huge webs with hand-sized spiders that left you alone unless you disturbed their webs. A huge open-air cafeteria hosted our meals, games, and songs - as the kids ran around playing tag and throwing frisbees. Our days were very full - with activity after activity after activity and eventually crashing onto our cots.
Camp Taiwan had a giant climbing wall. I jumped in line first and chose to climb the hardest route. At first, I thought it would be easy, but once I hopped up there, all the hand holds were really difficult. Once I got about half way up, it was really hard to go over the two.triangle humps. The one really good hold was broken. I squeezed through the middle and reached for this hold that was high for me - I could barely reach it! I had to take a break to check out my route to the top. Up at the top, the holds were really hot, baking in the sun, but I made it! Grayson brags that he is the only one in all of our school camp to climb over the triangle humps. It is true.
We also got to hike up to a giant swing made of ropes. After being clipped in, the other kids pulled and pulled the rope to lift me up higher and higher. I went all the way to the top! Then you pull these 2 tiny strings at your chest. Eventually they release the clip and you take a huge swing backwards. It is extra scary. You can look all around and see the ocean and the tops of the mountains. It was really fun. -- Poppy (with Mom's help)
"Zoooooooooooom!" I was zipping down the zip line what felt like I was going 50 miles per hour! And then whoph I flipped around and started going the other way until I realized that I was caught by the counselor, at one point I was just floating there like I was flying but not moving when she caught me! Wait one second lets back up a little bit bluburbororblur "back in time"
"Hello, I'm here for the zip line. Is this it?" I had asked
"Yes. I'm one of your counselors." She replied
"Well Let's get started now that everybody is here." she told everyone loudly. Before she started I asked " How many times will we be able to go on it?"
"about 1-2"She whispered to me.
She told us to put on our harnesses - one foot in a C shape and then the other and attached it all together by tightening it. We put our helmets on then checked for safety.
We climbed one by one. I was third to go. I started climbing up the post. I thought about how much fun this was going to be. I climbed slowly. The platform was very small at the top. I jumped. It felt so weird because it felt like I was going to step on to something but I just fell. It was weird but fun at the same time. My harness caught me and I went really fast down the line. --POPPY
About two weeks before the camping trip, the Director of the school asked if Kim or I would volunteer to help take the kids river tracing. How it was presented, it sounded like it was only going to be the one adult. I got voluntold that I would do it. It did seem like a cool thing to do, but I was a little concerned if I needed to lead a bunch of kids on this outing, especially since I didn't even know what river tracing was. The one positive I could come up with was that I felt like I couldn't get us all too lost since there's only two ways to go on a river, so there was that comfort.
A few day before we left for camping, Kim and I ran into our neighbors Gil and Judith. They are in Taipei temporarily as well. Originally from Israel, they have been long time residents of New Hampshire where Gil is a professor of Chinese religion at Dartmouth. We were discussing fun things to do in Taiwan and they brought up river tracing. We told them we were going in just a few days and happy to hear it's a fun thing to do. They helped explain that river tracing is simply walking the river going in and out of the water and that it is very fun. There's the opportunity to see waterfalls and swim and even do some cliff diving. Then Judith dropped this bomb. She said, "...the only part of river tracing that was a bit freaky is that there are a lot of snakes. They will lay out to sun themselves on the rocks and they tend to fall in the water. Lots of times you'll be walking and a snake will just float by you. You aren't afraid of snakes are you?" In my head, I immediately thought, did Judith just search the depths of my mind, find what my biggest nightmare in life would be, and then say it was absolutely possible to happen for this activity that I volunteered for?
At the end of the day, there were no snakes seen during river tracing to my relief. There was a shed snake skin that appeared overnight above one of the showers which is horrifying, but at least he did not drop in on anyone in the shower. I will say, for the next 2 days, I have never looked up more at shower and bathroom ceilings just to make sure nothing we lurking up in the rafters. --Trae
During our school camping trip we had several awesome activities, one of them included a big river tracing hike! At the beginning, after getting our equipment, like special water grip shoes, helmets, and life jackets, we set off up a big pavement hill to get to the start of the hike. After we started the actual hike we got to the fun part. It was a little muddy, wet and very, very green. We walked for probably 30 minutes on our way to the stopping point, with a couple falls from some of the girls, but they were okay. At that stopping point we got to go swimming in the river, and some people dunked their heads (like me). Then after we left the so called swimming area we went climbing! The tour guides set up a rope to go up this steep, slippery, waterfall hill, and we held onto the rope while inclining up. We did not see a lot of animals on our hike but there was a really cool big beetle that landed on me after I got up the waterfall hill. After another 30 minutes or so of hiking we arrived at the best part, the rock jump! To make sure the water was deep enough, Jay, one of our tour guides jumped off the rock to see if he would hit the bottom. If you think about it though, it is not a very good idea to jump off the rock to check. After he confirmed it was deep enough, I finished my snack as fast as possible and was the first to jump off. At the top of the rock the other instructor, Jojo, told me to jump as far as possible off the rock because it could be a little more shallow close to the big rock. The jump was super fun, and I did not hit the bottom. After another 3 jumps from me, my dad went, and he did a cannonball, and it was massive! It smashed over me while I was standing on top of the rock! Jojo said the water went so high that she saw a rainbow and she started chanting "I want to see another rainbow!" so he had to do it again. After a couple more jumps we left the big rock and started to head back. Overall, it was awesome and probably my favorite hike because I got to hop from rock to rock, kind of like American Ninja Warrior, if only I got to swing off vines.
-Grayson
One of the best parts of camp was getting to know other families, kids and teachers better. The other families are from all around the world - Australia, Japan, Taiwan, HongKong, the US. Many were state department families, others owned businesses, most had some connection to Taiwan - often older grandparents. Families seemed to be comfortable with moving from country to country, unsure of how long they would stay or what the next step would be - very flexible compared to our intricate planning! Grayson's buddy, Elijah (age 7) is from Seattle but moved to Taiwan to be near his grandfather; he loves sitting by Grayson at meals and following Grayson with his tiny handheld fan to keep him cool in rest times. Tomo (age 11) is from Japan, speaks 4 languages and loves sports nearly as much as Grayson; he is willing to endlessly kick and throw a ball to Grayson at all times. Anayah (age 11) is one of Poppy's buddies. They play tag, cards, and make nicknames for each other. The kids all seem to get along unusually well - in a school of only 30, they know each other well. They ask A LOT of questions and want to try everything. --Kim
We returned home completely exhausted - looking forward to sleeping spider and viper free in our comfy beds!
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