Aside from suffering from a disease known as chronic procrastinates, I also have been a little busy as of late.
Just this past Sunday, I returned from a marvelous 5 day weekend/vacation. I spent said vacation in southern tip of the Isle of Formosa (aka Taiwan). I went there with three other girls from my Kinmen team and about 17 other people on the whole Taiwan team.
It started out by me catching the 8:50 bus here in Kinmen, and taking it to the airport all by my lonesome. I arrived at the airport, went inside, and realized I had no idea with which airline I had booked my flight. Whoops. I promptly called our efficient school guard who had booked the tickets and asked him. After receiving the desired information, I obtained my boarding pass, checked in my baggage, and waited for the departure time. While waiting, I was summoned to a back room where through various aerobics and gestures with smatterings of Chinglish, I was able to deduce that the airport security had a question about my bag and desired me to open it for them. I did so, and after they rummaged around for a few seconds, they were apparently satisfied that I was not a terrorist and let me go. I boarded my plane and an hour later, found myself on the main island of Taiwan.
I disembarked, picked up some lunch, and made myself at home with my book and MP3 player in the waiting area. People passed by me as I read. Flights came and went. And I waited. For 6 hours I waited. Finally, my other 3 travelling buddies showed up. (there were only 3 flights in the afternoon, so I drew the short straw and got to travel that morning.) We then took the bus to the train station where we hung out for another 3 hours or so waiting on the rest of our group to come. After we all arrived, we made it to our hotel and promptly fell asleep.
We awoke the next morning to a beautiful day. We climbed aboard a bus and traveled for 2 1/2 to 3 hours to Kenting. Once we got there, we pretty much chilled in our hotel room until that evening when we went to Smokey Joe's for supper. The Tex/Mex restaurant was fairly good. However, the portions were nothing like what you would get in the states. But the company was excellent. We went to bed and the next morning got up bright and early and went to check out the Kenting Aquarium. It was pretty good all things considered. The exhibits were fairly decent, thought the "Ancient Oceans" wing was sadly lacking. (I wonder why?) Supposedly it was to show what the ocean was like 56 bazillion years ago. They only had one tank in the whole exhibit and it was empty except for water and sand. There were lots of huge screened animated 3D movies that showed what animals were like way back then.
Well, enough of that. We made our way back to the hotel. Later that afternoon, I and three other people decided to go swimming at the beach. However, everyone in Taiwan had decided to come to Kenting that weekend for a music festival which was to be held there. As you can imagine, the beaches were all packed. However, we were able to find this one spot near some corral where there wasn't anybody. I later discovered why nobody was swimming there when a wave knocked me off my feet and scrapped me up over the corral. By the grace of God, I came out only slightly damaged. I ended up with about a two inch cut on the bottom of my right foot, a scraped up knee, and a minor abrasion, on the back of the heel of my left foot. Only my knee bled any but as I didn't have my camera out at the time, I am sorry but there will be no pictures. (I know, y'all are all so disappointed.)
For supper, we went to a Thai restaurant. It was absolutely delicious! However, if you are not particularly fond of spicy food, I would recommend that you choose your selections with care.
On Saturday, our group travelled down to the southern most tip of Taiwan. We climbed around on the corral for a couple hours, took pictures, pestered sea urchins, minnows, starfish, and other aquatic life, and had an all around marvelous time. Then we went to the bluffs which are on the South-East side of the Island. That is where the mountains plunge right into the ocean. It was a breathtaking sight. It made me think of the new Pride and Prejudice when Lizzy is standing on the edge of the cliff and the wind is blowing through her hair.
After wandering around there and taking many more pictures, I along with 4 other people decided to go further up the East coast. We traveled, and simply enjoyed the sights. We stopped and had lunch in some little town. I had a bottle of water and a sweet potato.
After several hours of traveling we decided we should head back. We almost got lost, but were able navigate our way back the way we had come.
Later that evening we went out for Thai food again.
Early the next morning, Resurrection Day, I and the other Kinmenites packed our bags, caught the bus, rode for 2 1/2 hours, caught our plane, and went back to Kinmen. Sadly, we missed both the Easter service held by our friends we had just left, and the service here in Kinmen. But the all-knowing, all-wise, and living God knew that and provided each of us with our own personal service in honor of the day. Mine came in the form of reading my Bible on the long bus ride and coming home to find an email from a friend giving special insight into the meaning of the day.
All in all, as I hope you can clearly tell, it was a fantastic trip. I arrived home very tired, and with just enough sunburn to say that I had been to the beach.
Arg! Once again, I have written a long post. I can honestly say, I had not intended for it to be this long. But at least it wasn't as long as the last long post. Maybe if I posted more frequently, they wouldn't get this long. hmmmm, Something to think about.
~Smiles :o)
