Epic fail roadtrip to Taitung, pleasantly surprised by humongous Judo hall.

The roadtrip to Taitung was like fail pearls on a fail string. Everything seemed to go wrong. We thought we would drop off a microwave oven in a city on the way. And by on the way, I mean it resulted in a 7 hour detour around the island, since there was suddenly a mountain in the way we couldn’t cross. Only music in the radio was chinese love songs. We got to stay one night in Kaohsiung, a random city in the middle of nowhere. The hotel had spongebob teddybears. We tried to get into a nightclub with slippers, that failed. Then we bought black socks and put them over the slippers to simulate shoes. That failed too. After giving up on discussing with the bouncers in chinese, we eventually found a small bar, probably the weirdest we’ve ever been to. The owner was super excited to have visitors from abroad. He was a huge fan of Bon Jovi and WWE, and his daughter worked in the bar, dressed as a nurse. He told stories and served us japanese whiskey all night. Strangest night out in a long time.

Today, we drove the last part of the road to Taitung. We had been driving through mountain roads, small villages and fishing industrial areas, so we had no idea what to expect. What we found though, was the number one biggest and most impressive gym I have ever been in in my life. It was a HUGE judo gym, seriously, seriously awesome. About 20 people showed up for my class, including some really impressive judo players. We were surprised, to say the least, to find a gym like that in what seemed like the middle of nowhere.

We trained for two hours, then rolled for an hour before lifting weights a little bit. I might go back there and train with the judo team one of the days.

After training we went to an aboriginal restaurant (had no idea there were aboriginals here) and had some very interesting food with the guys from the gym.

Tomorrow it is time for surfing!!