Always an Adventure...

We sang this song last week, and it was the first time I'd heard it. In general though, anything by Tim Hughes is great! I'm thankful to have friends and coworkers who are up on new songs since I often feel a little "out of the loop." It makes me miss college days, that's for sure! Speaking of college, my application is officially in the mail.... I'll have news in 4-6 weeks :P

I love how Taiwan is a country that can feel like a small town! It's easy to find out about local events, and everyone seems to know all about any local stars and what they're doing. This week there is a film festival going on in Taipei and I'll be going tonight and tomorrow night. The festival is called Women Make Waves , and it features films directed by women from all around the world. I know that it really does betray my small town almost-the-middle-of-nowhere upbringing , but I still think it's really cool that I get to go to an international film festival, I certainly wouldn't have had that opportunity back home, and certainly not for less than $4.00 per ticket!

This week I celebrated Thanksgiving, though in a slightly unconventional way. On Friday a Canadian contingent from our office went to a delightful western-style restaurant in our very own neighborhood and feasted on turkey reubens, which were served with cranberry sauce (that may have been raspberry jam). They were quite tasty, and celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving, as always, reminds me of my arrival in Taiwan, which is now 5 years ago! Although I was originally supposed to come much earlier, it didn't end up working out for me to get here until mid-October. The weekend before I left to go to Taiwan was Thanksgiving, and I remember having a dinner in our old house in Castlegar with my family and grandparents, and even great-grandma! At that time, I had no idea that I wouldn't be sitting with them over Thanksgiving dinner again for a very long time, so far five years! I still remember getting on the plane in Castlegar, the following day nervously applying for my visa in Vancouv...

This past week I helped with 2 day-long camps here in Yilan. In the afternoon we sent the students to different stations, and I was manning the "clothing" station, which included students making outfits using only toilet paper. We had lots of bikinis, a few brides, and I noticed that most of the guy teams made their "models" into mummies. Good times. It's a great activity for a variety of ages, and don't forget to do a fashion show at the end. Outfits can be judged by creativity and whether or not they make it down the runway without falling apart!

Here is the picture I took the next morning of how flooded the tunnel was! There are two typhoons in the area now, so we've had a LOT of rain this week! There was also a pretty big earthquake last night! Asia is not faring well this fall.