Buddhism/meditation, ice skating and hiking around Taipei

A few posts ago I mentioned that I had been to a meditation class, where a guy told me about a German Buddhist nun around Taipei that I could met up with if I would be interested to learn more about Buddhism.
So two weeks ago I managed to do just that:
After getting in touch via email with "Simplicity", she invited me to the monastery where she's living, up in the mountains around Taipei. It took quite a while to get there - including a good hike where I got to see some nice nature. There, as all Buddhist nuns shave their head, to be honest it was a bit weird for me at first to talk to a woman with a bald head. But she was very nice and told me a lot about the general philosophy of Buddhism and answered my questions. I was also invited for lunch and got a book about Buddhism from her and finally she also invited me to some other upcoming events at that monastery that are free for visitors - a meditation class and a meditation retreat.
So I decided to sign up for the meditation class, where I've been last Sunday. Together with about 100 other people we meditated together and then heard a lecture by the abbess about Buddhism. All in all it was a very interesting experience - only the abbess 2h lecture was a bit lenghty ;-)
So after these experiences and also some reading in the book, I came to some conclusions about Buddhism for me. As you can take Buddhism as something between a life philosophy and a religion, I'd say that I definitely find some of the philosophical ideas very appealing, for instance that you are not your ego, that most cravings ultimately lead to suffering and the practice of learning to control your mind through meditation. However some of the religious elements seem quite bizarre to me, like the rebirth cycle (including ghosts, gods and heaven/hell) and some other elements that seem to me a bit dogmatic.
I will definitely read and think some more about Buddhism and will probably also visit Simplicity again in the next time but it seems I'll have to stay an Agnostic-Atheist ;-)

And besides the Buddhism aspect, some of you might wonder, why I've actually started getting into meditation after all...
So for a good while I'm following a bunch of interesting/inspiring blogs and websites (namely this, this, this and this) and by the time beeing, all of them have brought forward the practice of meditation as a means to cultivate well-being, health, self-awareness and mindfulness (like this post). So I came to think I should give it a try sometime. As I'm still a beginner I find it hard to write about my experiences so far, but I might write about this in upcoming posts. So far the crosslegged sitting fucks me up - I'm horribly unstretched...

However after that meditation event, as I had already been in the mountains, I thought I should go for some hiking there. And there I saw a snake! First I've ever seen in wildlife - and to spice it up, the snake had a big frog in its mouth! :D

there's a snake hidden somewhere in this picture! Unfortunately even I can't find it now -.-

Unfortunately this was the queue for the bus I needed to get back to Taipei. I had to wait for more than an hour -.-

On Sunday I did some more sightseeing with a Taiwanese friend. We went hiking on the Elephant Mountain which is close to the city center and offers a nice view over the city. Later together with an other friend we drove to a cool place at the coast. Here are some pictures:

Taipei - babam!

These cute girls are actually praying for finding a boyfriend/partner. That temple is famous for this matter :D

Chinese tourist group. And yes, they are following a guy in a suit carrying a Spongebob :D
#Spongebobrulz

Cape Yehliu!

my Taiwanese friends that took me around

this "queen" is a very famous sight

Whatsmore on Thursday I went Ice-skating with Jiaxiasha and some of his friends which was really fun! I haven't been for years...
Later that day, Sascha and me went to the bar/club Brass Monkey. We had been warned that there would only be old western guys looking for Taiwanese girls but thought that it could not be that bad. However, when we arrived there were in total only about 5 girls and around 30 old (and probably horny) guys. After first thinking about leaving right away we decided to stay a bit longer and luckily, as it was ladies night, the male/female ratio improved gradually and after all it was quite a fun night there.
By now I've already been to three clubs here in only about 2 months - I'm such a party beast!^^

Ice-Skating with Sascha, full-geared :D

Lihong demonstrating his grace!

Asian style desert: green-tea-ice with beans on crushed ice (yes, beans is a thing for desert here)

Brotzeit! I'd call this a feast! :D

lots of sushi! mjumjumjum! And surprisingly the choice of vegetarian stuff was very satisfying.

Some last things:
Yesterday I somehow managed to not notice a major earthquake -.- (here's a news post about it). I'd been in a park and when I got back to the dorms, everyone was excited about the earthquake that I had somehow missed -.- I hope another one is coming soon ;-) wanna see how it feels like.

My Chinese is getting better and better. Had Chinese midterms this week and it went quite well.

During the last weeks I had become addicted to the tablet mini game of candy crush on Ankers Tablet and last week I've successfully managed to overcome my addiction by fixing 2000NT$ (~50€) on my wall and telling Anker those are his if I'd ever play that game again :D
(I was a bit inspired by this)