Location: Mackay Memorial Hospital, Danshui
Weather: 26C, cloudy
It is the end of June and according to my original plans I'm suppose to be somewhere in Central China right now. But instead I'm still in Taiwan, who would have known that the tail end of my Asian journey would be bout in the hospital. On June 12, one day before I was due to leave Taiwan, I had a bike accident riding on the outskirts of Danshui which resulted in a broken jaw in two spots. It was a combination of downhill and braking too hard but it wasn't like I haven't gone down millions of roads like that before. In the end I think the culprit is simply fatigue, lack of sleep and rest in the days compounded with days of pushing myself to cover as much of Taiwan as possible. I have this problem where I don't really let myself admit that I'm tired, and perhaps this time life needed to show me. Fortunately I was with Flora, and I can't thank her and her friend Vin and my cousin enough for arranging everything in those critical hours at the hospital when I needed the most help. The second day at the hospital, 11 people came to visit and I just about bawled because I couldn't believe I had such good friends, some of which I've literally known for days. Since then I've had my suspected C-spine injury cleared for negative and jaw surgery, where they put my mandible back in place and then wired my mouth shut to stabilize the bone, subsisting on a liquid diet and very little talking. Yesterday I finally had the wires removed and real food has never tasted so good. By the look of things, I'm going to be on the plane home tonight. I would be lying if I said I wasn't ever bitter, but given the circumstances, it's good to have a break and I'm very glad to be home again to stuff myself with sushi and peanut butter (maybe nibble is more appropriate), wake up to the the North Shore Mountains, and stroll on the seawall.
Switching to a lighter note, backtracking to the days before the accident:
I had a few items left to do after coming back from the Philippines during what I thought were my last few days in Taiwan. The first few days of return I caught up on some last-minute dragon boat on-the-water training sessions. Dragon boat is not something I talked about in the previous posts but it's something I've been involved in since April, although my training attendance has not been the most consistent. Being a sport that I've always wanted to try, I jumped right up when my friend Flora told me about the opportunity ro join this Russian expat team. The first few times were dry land sessions at a city-maintained water tank at the most elusive location under a bridge, where I learned quickly that dragon boat is done entirely with the core and back and actually has little to do with the arms. It's great to see that Taipei, or in our case New Taipei City, really supports this sport as it even assigns practice slots for teams to use the city's boats for free. Although we were far from being the winners during the Dragon Boat Festival competitions, I loved the energy of the race atmosphere and our team's unity. Mostly I loved the opportunity to partake in this during the traditional cultural festival and when I go back home, I'm seriously going to look for a way to continue rowing.
On June 4 I set off for a last trip into Taiwan's beautiful mountains, first a two day hike along the Shakadang trail up into Dali, an Aboriginal village in the mountains of my favourite national park Taroko Gorge, capping off with a ride up Wuling, at 3275m the highest point accessible by road in Taiwan. Special thanks to my friend Nick, who not only lent me his touring bike but accompanied me the entire way, so that I could realize my dream of biking through Taroko Gorge and Hehuanshan, a seed that was planted right from the first time I visited here. I had my heart set on riding in from the east direction regardless of how many people tried to dissuade me from doing so, and in all honesty, it was the best decision I could have made when I saw how trafficked the west side was. It really wasn't that bad save for the last 8km of switchbacks with some inclines that might have made you cry. Since we went nice and slow, spending 3 days along the Central Cross Highway in total, I also managed to check off 5 more mountains over 3000m, albeit some of which are 10min hikes from the highway.
The last two weeks at the hospital, which I've stayed in mainly because I no longer have a place to live and the hospital is the most medically convenient, has been a lot of much needed sleep and considerations about everything that's happened. This is not how I should have left Asia, but not everything always goes according to should have, and it's all part of the experiential of life. The last year or so I've really come to believe that few things in life are truly bad, most of the time unhappiness arise out of how we choose to react to things. So the next few weeks will be a bit of mouth opening and learning to chew again, taking life at a slower pace after a most fulfilled 10 months away. I won't get to go to all the places I wanted to this time around, but Asia will always be here and Vancouver at this time of year is simply stunning, and frankly I'm excited for some habitable temperatures 😃
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