Saturday, October 25, 2008

Green Island
End of our trip: We finally made it to Green Island Saturday night. The Ferry ride over was HORRIBLE!!! I usually NEVER get sea sick, but I was really sick. Every one around me was throwing up. It was gross. We made it to the island, got our scooters and then checked in to our "hotel". We went to fill up our scooters with gas at 6:00 pm. and guess what? The one and only gas station was already closed! We spent our time on Green Island looking through the shops and driving around. It was so beautiful!



This is my favorite picture of the whole trip! We all look exactly like what we are thinking.
They gave us these leaves to rub on our goggles and we couldn't quite figure out what they were for. Most of us were slightly confused- especially me. Pay close attention to Shannon's hair, it is awesom. Love ya Shannon!


We really didn't want to get sick again on the way home so we took this great
"NO SICK"medicine and I really think it helped :)

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Green Island

My Hualian and Green Island Trip
We finally got a day off for 10-10 (October 10th). This is a National Holiday in Taiwan and to be truthfully honest, I don't really know what it is for because they are still part of the Republic Of China. I will research that one. Anyway, we had Friday off which means we had a long weekend and we wanted to travel. We planed to go to Green Island (an Island off the South East Coast of Taiwan) so we booked our hotels and got on a train. We left early Friday morning (getting up at 4:30 am to be exact) and rode the train up through Taipei and then aournd the east coast. I was so excited to actually see the ocean and remember that I live on an Island!



We arrived in Hailien and got our own private taxi drivers that took us where ever we wanted to go all day. We had so much fun driving along the coast and playing on the beach and looking at the gorgeous scenery.

These are the lovely teachers that I work and live with... I love them all! Shannon, Emily, Fenny, Connie, Lindsey, Me and MeganI was so excited to actually see the ocean! I was SO pretty and warm!


After butting on our swimming suits and playing in the warm water for a good two hours, we hopped back into our taxis and went to a bat cave. And guess what? There were LOTS of big bats! It was kind of kreepy, but quite cool. I don't think I have ever seen such large bats before. It was a very interesting experience floating in a little boat into a very dark cave and then hearing all these screeches above you!

This is us going into the Bat Cave

That night we stayed in a hostle that was REALLY nice considering we are in Taiwan! We felt very lucky and crashed on the on the long bed because we were so exhausted from the day. We got up the next morning and went RIVER RAFTING! I think this one one of the most amusign experience I have ever had in the water. Just imagine 200 Asians and 10 White Americans charging to their rafts after watching a video ( that we couldn't understand) and with NO guides on the boat. The Asians were all wearing jeans and sweaters- what is this we are rafting, shouldn't one be wearing a swimming suit??? Well we jump in and head out and basically is is a 4hr long water fight. Seriously, the whole time people were throwing water at us- it was insane!! This made me laugh.. so you know how I said we didn't have a guide, well to send us in the write direction they had about 10 motor boats that would just come up and run into you to turn your raft around or the make you go the right way. It was so bazerre. THey didn't even care if they ran straight into a person ( I think my leg almost got taken off more then once) and they thought it was so funny! Weird. Unfortuantely I was not able to get a video of this :(. So we did really well the whole way down and then they made us hook up to 4 other boats to make a chain (we still don't know why) and we got swung into a wall and tipped over. The 10 Americans were sent frlying and it was a huge ordeal getting every one out of the water. My friends thought I was dead because I got put on a different boat with some very nice Asian friends that didn't speak any english- but they found me and I survived.Look forward to part two of my blog coming soon!

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Big Buddha, Big Buddha



On Sunday, September 20th Lindsey and I took a little trip to Chunghua after church. Our great friends are wonderful and showed us around their city. Here in Chunghua, they have a HUGE Buddha. This Buddha weighs 300 tons. You could actually go inside him, it was cool!

Behind Buddha is a Confucius Temple. It is one of Taiwan's oldest temples. It was BEAUTIFUL! Inside they have many different Buddhas and this huge sward that we could try and pick up.... I think I made it move a little bit, I swear!











After exploring Buddha and the Temple, we walked around the grounds. We saw a cute old man meditating and he welcomed us to Taiwan. So nice. We got a little crazy, but hey, we love these pictures. Can you just feel the action?