Life in Dulan

I wrote this whole blog before and my computer lost it, so hopefully I have the patience to do it twice. I'm on a train with not much else to do, so why not.
To start, I've been living in Dulan, a small beach town/artist colony on the east coast of Taiwan, north of Taitung. The town is a great mixture of Chinese and indigenous Taiwanese cultures, as well as the international beach culture that seems to manifest wherever weather is warm and beaches are close. I came here on the advice of my Malaysian friend TC who I met in Luye. I originally ignored this farm as I was looking for full Chinese immersion and the farm is owned by a multilingual Dutchman named Barry. Thanks to helpful and talkative friends, Chinese practice has ended up not being a problem afterall.
Barry is trying to establish a really neat permaculture/acuaculture farming project on his land north of Dulan. He's even building a large bamboo dome as a home on the land. The whole project is very ambitious, but moving along quickly with many opportunities to learn new skills. So far I've gathered and lain the stone for a raised path around a pond, tended to the crops, and am currently constructing the wooden frame for another large building on the property.
Barry and his wife Sonia, Taiwanese from Taipei, bought and manage a very comfortable hostel, or min su, in the center of Dulan, which has the additional benefit of giving them a place to house volunteers like myself. As friends, guests, and volunteers move in and out of the hostel, it consistenty provea a great means of satisfying my need to make cool new acquaintances. In addition to me and TC volunteering we currently have a Taiwanese girl, ShaoWen, who I've already become good friends with, two Hong Kong girls newly arrived, and apparently a whole slew of others on their way in the next couple weeks. This in addition to people visiting from other parts of Taiwan, who I have had a lot of fun getting to know.
As I mentioned Dulan is a bit of an Artists' colony, and I basically stumbled into its center. The town's unofficial center would seem to be the old sugar factory, now a cafe and art gallery, which hosts live music on Saturdays and attracts a good showing of different characters. Through Barry and Sonia I've been introduced to a great, and very-tight, community of artsy intelligent foreigners and often their equally talented and interesting Taiwanese significant others. There's Romain the French baker and handyman, Tim the British poet/painter, Alvaro the Spanish painter and musician, Roman the Canadian outdoorsman, Patrick the Mexican musician and cook, and many others. The whole group is extremely well-travelled and very easy going. Meals are often communal and delicious thanks to the culinary magic of especially Sonia, but also others. Barry is also a talented musician and it's rare that get-togethers don't quickly slide into jam sessions. I get the chance to converse in 4 languages, but with Chinese wreaking havoc on my Spanish and French. As is not always the case, everyone seems very appreciative of the chance to speak their mother tongue.
Life here is good fun punctuated by hours of hard work and the long stretch of useless time when the intense midday heat prevents most human activity. The schedule is odd, if also oddly comfortable. We'll work from 6-9 am and from 3-6 after noon to avoid the worst heat. Though an early schedule, I've managed to throw into the very early morning or evening kung fu/parkour training sessions on the roof alternating with surf sessions up the coast by way of scooter. So much to the benefit of my mental well-being I get decent amounts of my favorite activities. Sundays and the random occasional other day are free, and are easily spent on these activities or hikes, or when I can, scooter rides to Taitung City for parkour and gymnastics gym time. Luckily during my couple of days there a few weeks ago I became friends with Coach Lee, who actually visited Albuquerque 25 years ago and is happy to let me train for free in the University's gym.
For my birthday I treated myself with a trip to the much bigger Kaohsiung City to explore and see some movies, on the train back from which I find myself now. Well, plenty more adventures on the horizon I'm sure, and I'll try to keep you all informed. I miss and love all you guys.
P.S. Forecast of amazing waves this Sunday, cross your fingers for me that they actually make it here and that I'm good enough to make the most of them. Peace.

PPS. Added next day... So after again running out of gas on the way back from the train station in Taitung (the fuel gauge doesn't work) at midnight, I resolved to walking the bike up the coast, but after a mile or two someone on a motorcycle offered to push me and he ended up pushing me to a late night gas station he knew. People can be awesome. I got back to find my hostelmates threw me a surprise bday party. They had all stayed up and gotten the next morning off of work. So we all ate cake, talked and hung out until the wee hours of the morning. A great birthday.