Always an Adventure...

Last week was one of my school's 70th anniversary. They have an annual "Garden Party" or school fair, but this one was especially big, since it was 70 years. I spend much of Sunday afternoon there talking with students and eating a lot! You see, each class sets up a stand and sells 2-4 products, which you purchase with tickets you buy when you arrive. I ended up spending about NT$300 dollars there since I have 10 regular classes at the school. It was fun to see the students' creative designs, costumes, and sales tactics! Some of the classes also sold products designed by them, like buttons or little mirrors or notebooks with drawings by students. They also had a school-wide talent show which went on all day, so there were a variety of performers singing or dancing on a main central stage. Each class also designed its own t-shirt, I wonder if I can get any? hmmm Here are some students from one of my favorite classes. (I know you're not supposed to have favorites, b...

Well I managed to get through the rest of the week without any other scary things happening, but that doesn't mean it was uneventful.... but things are rarely uneventful when there's wedding involved. Not MY wedding of course, but one of the girls I stay (stayed) with in Taipei got married this past Saturday! It was a lovely day, and I got some nice pictures of the happy couple. (See below) But today's blog entry is about the night BEFORE the wedding! Here's what happened: One of the bridesmaids was staying at our house for the night since it was a morning wedding and hair appointments started at 6am. For some reason unknown to man she had gotten some dental work done earlier that day, and arrived at our house really late, and not a little uncomfortable. Our other roommate (also a bridesmaid) gave her some medication for the pain. The bride took a sleeping pill so she'd be fresh for the big day. I came home from doing my nails at another friend's house and go...

On Monday night I was having some dinner and watching TV. My English Bible study started at 7:30 and my ride was going to come at 7. It was around 6:30 and I still had half an hour when I heard my doorbell ring. It was a little odd for 2 reasons: First, it was the doorbell outside my door, not the downstairs buzzer. Second, I wasn't expecting anyone for another half an hour. The best I could guess was that it was my ride here early? The moment I opened the door my stomach clenched in terror because the first thing I felt was a strong shove towards me from the other side. I saw that it was not one person, but two men standing there. All I could think was that this was a home invasion. I slammed the door shut and leaned against it as I struggled to lock it. I looked out the grate that faces out to the courtyard and elevators and saw the guys heading back toward the elevators, I yelled to them "Who are you?" and threatened to call the police. They said "Sorry" as ...

My good friend Naomi and I had a lovely weekend getaway that started very, very early on Friday morning. We went to Penghu, which is a set of islands off the west coast of Taiwan. It takes about 45 minutes to get there by plane from Taipei. Because of available flight times we went at 6:30am on Friday morning and came back at 7:45am on Sunday. Two days was not enough to see all the islands had to offer, but we did get a great sampling! The first day we were able to rent scooters, which we'd been a little doubtful about. Here's how the conversation went: "Do you have Taiwanese drivers' licenses?" "No." "How about an International Driving license?" "No." "Oh... well do you have a drivers' license in Canada?" "No." (neither of us do by the way! I've found a kindred spirit!) "Ok.. well just give us your passport number and we'll get those scooters ready for you." We drove over 30km from one end o...

I just got back from a fun weekend get-away in a place called PengHu with my friend Naomi. I've got fun stories and pictures to share soon!