Pictures!!!!!!

I finally put up pictures of Ali Mountain. Let me know if it doesn't work.

~Smiles:-)

5G X 1D = 3B

That would be Five Graduations X One Day = Be There, Be Seen, Be Gone.

Andrew and I left the dorm at about 8:00. We walked to XianAn. We went to about an hour of the graduation. We rode to the port. We took the 9:30 boat to Little Kinmen. We went took the bus to ZhuoHuan. We spent about an hour at their graduation. We took the bus to ShangQi. We went to about an hour of their graduation. We tried to leave, but ended up staying for lunch. After lunch, we rode back to the port. We took the 1:30 boat back to Big Kinmen. We took the bus to the bus station. I went to the church. I talked with the Pastor's wife, Joy, for 5 minutes, then went and played one song on the piano. I went back to the bus station, where I met up with Andrew again. We took bus number 6 at 2:25 to GuCheng. We spent about an hour and a half at GuCheng for their graduation. They gave me flowers! We caught the number 6 bus again at 4:45. We rode it back to the bus station. We got off number 6 and got on number 7. We rode number 7 to our dorm. Back at the dorm, I arranged the flowers I had received, and tried to relax a bit. But my day wasn't quite over yet. At five till 6:00, I met Andrew at the bus stop. We rode the number 7 bus to the port and took the 7:30 boat back to Little Kinmen. We then took the bus to XiKou. We enjoyed the graduation there until about 8:15 when we had to leave in order to catch the last boat back to Big Kinmen. We took the 8:30 boat back to Kinmen along with 5 or 6 inebriated strangers. God was merciful and brought us to port safely. Since the buses had already stopped running for the evening, we caught a ride with a friend. We finally made it back to the dorm at about 9:00. I grabbed some supper, and now am about to hit the sack. I am so tired!

Tomorrow, I plan to go back to Little Kinmen where I will teach about 3 periods. Why am I going to school on Saturday? Because, there was a holiday on Tuesday so they gave us Monday off as well. But we have to make Monday up on Saturday. Does that make since? Probably not. Oh well, Good night.

~Smiles

Ali Shan

Okay...now that all my other teammates have posted about our trip, I will. :-) I had my reasons for waiting...because now, I can write whatever I want without stealing someone else's thunder. (I haven't actually read anyone else's description of our trip. So if I am repetitive, it is not my fault. I didn't do it on purpose.) (But after I finish writing this out, I plan on catching up on some blog reading.)

So, on to our trip...Just to make sure everyone is on the same page, the entire Kinmen team attempted to go to Taiwan on May 24-27. However, after sitting in the airport for a total about 5 hours, waiting for an available flight, we decided that the fog which had enshrouded the airport, was not going to let up. We went back to the dorm. With our plans temporarily defenestrated, we had a relaxing weekend of doing practically nothing in Kinmen. (btw, if you were watching the Kinmen news that week, and saw any weird foreigners, that was us. The TV people were pretty excited about the large group wai guo rens trying to get out of Kinmen.)

The next week flew by and before we knew it we were looking at another weekend. We packed our bags once more and decided to brave the Kinmen airport again. We prayed that the fog would not be a problem. It wasn't and we made it all the way to Chiayi. Upon disembarking from the plane, we boarded a bus and drove for about 5 minutes to the "baggage claim." Baggage Claim consisted of a pick-up truck from which they tossed your bag to the ground. You went up and claimed your bag and left. the nine of us piled into two taxis and headed for the train station.

After arriving at the train station and meeting up with Sandy (our former boss from KingCar), we discovered that we had missed the train we were going to take. But no worries, there is always the bus. We made our way to the bus station. Once we got there, we discovered another option. We could hire a van. Our choices were now...(1) take the bus (spend less money, but very possibly be crowded and might not even have a seat for a three hour trip) or, (2) hire a van (spend a little more money, be a little crowded, but always have a seat, and be able to stop whenever we needed to.) We chose the van. So, the nine of us, plus Sandy, plus the driver, plus all of our luggage, piled into the eleven passenger van. :-) Yeah it was a little crowded, but not too terribly. We had a marvelous time bonding as a team.

First stop was....MacDonald's, of course! After getting the grub, we headed out. Okay. Time to speed things up a bit. So... we are just going hit the fast forward button....aslfjoiwelfjeogwrfoiugowerf...Lauren! Don't fall out the window, a picture isn't that important!... slfoiwaogfj... iewoagjwifigt... hwoeruf... Is it possible for this team to be quite for just 5 minutes straight... asdofiuwt... giwflmoigtwoej... foijgtowerfiogt... oiwefmoigh..... No..... aowerigoif... I have to go to the bathroom!.... afoweifjowfm... owgijwlfewf.... Wo men dao le mai?.... wpfjwogiuweojf.... Wo men dao le mai?... awefjig;wefjwefwoijgoi.... souvenirs!!!!.... amoeiuogjwelfm.... lwegiwuelmvlhow.... ojvcfnbkhg;ojfmeg.... hg;haw;eofvjw... ofjgiawef....STOP!!!!!

Okay so we finally got to the hotel. Just as we arrived at the hotel, we realized that the sun would soon set. So we dumped our bags in our room and high tailed it up the mountain. Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, we went to Ali (ah-lee) Mountain. After about 5-10 minutes of stair climbing, walking, and running, we made it just in time. The sun cast it's orange and pink rays upon our faces, giving it's last farewell before sinking beneath the mountainous horizen...ok...that was kinda sappy...

We came back down and fell into our beds completely exhausted. But sleep wasn't on our to do list for the weekend. So, up we were at 3:45 AM. In the van by 4 and off to see the sunrise. Well, we saw it rise...as we were riding in the van to the spot...When we finally got there, we were able to catch the last few colors and watch the sun come up over the mountains. It was still beautiful, just not what we were expecting. Despite any disappointment we might have had for the sunrise, the return trip made up for it.

On the way back, we stopped and looked at a giant tree. We went down the steps and looked up at the big tree. Then we took some pictures of us and the big tree. Then we climbed back up the steps. Then we got back in the van. But that was not the highlight of the morning. We kept going. We stopped again at two more trees. These were dead. I think it is a Taiwan thing to take pictures of large dead trees. According to tradition, girls would go to the one right, you would have a boyfriend for every time you touched it. Boys went and touched the one on the left and got a girlfriend for every touch. I didn't touch it at all. And if I end up an old maid, that is perfectly fine by me. But still, that was not the highlight of the morning...

We kept going. Finally, we got out and looked at some bushes. We looked in the trees and on the side of the mountain. What in the world were we looking for? Monkeys of course. There were four or five monkeys. They came down the side of the mountain, crossed the street, and walked all around us and climbed up into the tree. They were so cute. One even had a baby with her. The people around us kept saying "Bao Bao! hao chi!" (Baby! Yummy!) Apparently, baby monkey is a specialty in that area of Taiwan. Things got even more exciting when the lead monkey started attacking tourists. Rumor has it that he attacked the week before and even broke a guy's finger. We left very soon after. :-)

We stopped, and ate a interesting breakfast of watery rice, corn, rolls, green tea, and some other things which I wasn't in the mood for right then. We then crashed in our hotel room and tried to catch up on some sleep. I called my sister and wished her a happy birthday. :-)

After a short nap, we packed up our bags and checked out of our hotel rooms. We stored our bags at the front desk and hiked to the train station and took it up the mountain. We rode it to the end of the line and got off. Then we took a trail of steps that went up and down the side of the mountain. It went by about 36 different giant trees. It was a lot of steps. But it was good exercise and believe it or not, I did enjoy it.

We hiked all the way back to the hotel. Then we picked up our bags, and took the train down the mountain to the ChiaYi train station. We then boarded another train and road into Taichung. Then we got on a bus and took the bus into Nantou. Then, because we were tired, we hired a taxi for our luggage, and walked to Ying Pan Elementary School. (I got to ride in the taxi with the luggage. :-). Upon arriving at Ying Pan, we had a great time hanging out with the Nantou team, fighting over showers, and simply having fun. By one o'clock, I finally decided to scrape myself onto the mat that was to be my bed for the night. We woke up bright and early at about seven thirty-ish. Packed our bags once more and set out. We walked for about 20 minutes, and then ran for the last 2 to catch our bus. After successfully catching our bus, we rode all the way back to Taichung where we boarded our plane and safely made our way back to Kinmen.

Now, you are probably wondering, where are my pictures? Well, I did take pictures...Like 142 of them or so. And I was going to post them as well, but my internet is being difficult and not letting me. I have tried at least three different times. Therefore, I will either do it some other time when the internet isn't quite so ornery, or you will have to just come visit me and then I can show them to you. Either is fine with me. :-)

It was an exhilarating trip...and way to go for all you who had to read all this...If you want more information, or maybe a different perspective or want to look at someone else's pictures, you can look here...or how about here...and then there is also here....enjoy!

~Smiles :-)

School

Today went pretty well. I played games in all my classes this morning. I give God glory and thank Him for going before me and preparing the way.

In 6th grade, I played a game where you put the flashcards up on the black board and without letting the kids see, you write a point behind the card. When the kid says the card correctly, they are allowed to remove the card and their team gets whatever is written on the board. I have played this game before and it has gone pretty well. They seem to enjoy it. This time I changed it up a little and drew a camera behind one of the cards. When the kids picked the card, I got to take their picture. Yay for me!

In 5th grade I played the same game. At first the kids were a little bored but once they realized there were other things besides just numbers behind the cards, they got a little more into it. This class is one of my more difficult classes. Perhaps even my most difficult class. But for the last two or three weeks, God has given me an extra amount of creativity and grace to go in there. I pray that He will continue and that He would let His love shine through me to them.

In 4th grade I played fruit basket upset. This is where you divide the class into about 4 teams and name each team one of the flash cards. Then, one person is "it" and calls out a flash card. The team with that card must all get up and switch seats. "It" must quickly find a seat. This went well. They really enjoyed the game. We also played with one flashcard being the wild card. If the child said it, then the entire class had to switch seats. Sometimes it is not good to have a wild card if you have a lot of students in the classroom, but for this class, I only had about 13 kids so it wasn't too bad.

In 3rd grade I played fruit basket upset again. This is, by far, the favorite game of this class. However, they have a tendency to argue. So, with about 10 minutes left on the clock, I had to stop the game because they weren't getting along. We ended up spending the last few minutes playing a guessing game where they had to guess which card I was holding. Despite the arguments, 3rd grade went well also. After class, I had fun taking pictures of the kids and playing "paper, scissors, stone!" with them. That is the ultimate problem solver in Taiwan.

At my afternoon school, my teacher asked me to read a children's book in the class. The book was called "You Guai Shou! You Guai Shou!" "Have a Monster! Have a Monster." It was basically about someone asking if different shadows were the monster. But when you turned over the flap, it wasn't a monster, it was just a little kid dressed up as a cowboy, or an astronaut or a princess, or a mouse, or a cat. They had fun guessing what the shadows really were.

So I read the book twice to my 3rd and 4th graders. It went really well, and at the end, he gave them some worksheets for them to do. They had to draw a picture of a monster and tell how many eyes, hands, legs, mouths, noses, etc. it had.

After all my classes were over, a couple of my 5th and 6th graders came up to me and asked me if I wanted to play a game. I said sure. So, they linked their arms in mine and we walked down the hall. I tried to get them to tell me what game we were going to play but they wouldn't. I was starting to get a little nervous...perhaps they were taking me somewhere where they could play a trick on me...I have had some students do that and it wasn't fun. But I had no reason to fear. For I soon saw that we were headed to the ping pong tables. I am not particularly good at ping pong, but it was nice to know that I wasn't that much worse than my kids. We spent the next 10 minutes letting the ball fly back and forth. Then the bell rang and they had to go to class.

Later this evening, I had Chinese class. I am, by far, not the smartest one in the class, but I do enjoy it. After class, Jarita and I went to the nearby Gym and played some more ping pong. We played three games and she won three times. I told you I was bad at it. It was still a lot of fun and I hope to have a rematch sometime within the next 17 days before she goes home. I am gonna miss her and Dominique so much!

Well, I am going to quite this post before it starts getting sappy...I know it was pretty boring, but I just felt like typing and this was the first thing that came to mind to do. Now, I am going to bed because I have to get up at six tomorrow morning to go back to Little Kinmen and teach 6 more classes.

~Smiles :o)