tired beyond tiredness

Well, this isn't going to be long because I am sitting here possibly wearing my Thai pants wrong, sweating like crazy, and probably smelling a little bit as well. I was going to try to download some pictures of me and my new tiger friends, but the camera doesn't seem to agree with what I want to do... or the computer doesn't agree... which ever one, I don't have the patience.

Yesterday, I finally got my Taiwan Visa back (and my passport), so that's finally finished. We shopped for the rest of the day... I bouught some things that now fit very badly, and I'm wondering what it was that possessed me.

Last night on our way home (about 11pm maybe), we decided we weren't quite ready to call it a night even though we had to be in our lobby by 7am to meet our minivan that was taking us on our trip. We went to one of the many local restaurants/pubs in the area, and finally met some friendly people. We were talking to some English blokes, when I decided to check out what the time was. Mark's answer was "4:30am". Time seems to move pretty quickly, we were still in the pub, and Katie and I decided from there that maybe it would be easier to just not go to bed at all, therefore saving ourselves from having to get up in the morning. It worked out okay, after leaving the pub we headed to a different restaurant on Kosan Road that served breakfast.

Once again we lost track of time, and by the time we got home, neither of us had time to do any sort of preparing for the rest of the day before the van came. I had time for a two second shower and to change, which was more than Katie had time for, and we brought absolutely nothing with us except for money and my camera. I had been wearing my contacts for over 24 hours by this time.

We drove in the van, and were constantly referred to as "The Canadian girls," as in: "How are the Canadian Girl's doing?" "Are you ever going to behave?" (Umm, the last comment came in a boat when the driver poked me with her paddle because I wasn't perfectly centered in the middle of the boat.

Anyway, we went to the Floating Markets, which were pretty cool, we had a traffic/boat jam in the middle of the market (which is when I was paddle poked). It was pricey there, so we didn't actually buy anything, but it was an experience that you have to do I think. (Although we saw the miniature one at Ancient World, and thought it was just as nice).

From there, we got back into the extremely uncomfortable van and headed for lunch. Blah blah blah, we ended up at the Tiger Temple, which essentially was a Nature Temple of sorts, and the monks took in a homeless little baby tiger, and from there took in more. They had them all on one spot where people could be lead around by the hand by a volunteer and have our picture taken with each of the tigers. They were beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time, and while I think it's sad that they are being used as 'circus animals', I can't really judge seeing as I got in there and posed with the tigers. We were told that they were not drugged, it's just because they have grown up around humans, that they were so calm. I'm not sure. They didn't really seem drugged to me, but the idea, as I said, left me feeling sad and guilty for partaking.

Erin