Track and Field (NCUE)!

Two weeks ago today, instead of teaching our university classes, we were invited to track and field events that our students were participating in!  When Karyn and I first got there we watched the long jump event.  Unfortunately I did not get any pictures of that.

Then we moved to another part of the field and watched the high jumpers!  They were jumping high! Look how high that bar is and he made it over that bar without it falling. Dang!

 

These are two of my students.  Turtle is on the left and Emily on the right!   

So Karyn, Kailey, Liz and I were relaxing on the stands when Grace, an awesome graduate student at the university (who speaks English very well), asked us if we wanted to present some awards during the awards ceremony to the student athletes who had received medals.  We said no thanks.  We don't need to do that. But she insisted and went and asked the athletic director, Kenny, if we could and he said yes. It was a bit embarrassing, but quite the experience at the same time.

First, we stood in front of the athletes and saluted them. Then one of the girls (in the skirts and holding the red pillows) brought the first medal to me on the red pillow and I put it around the athletes neck. I proceeded to do that with the other two.  Then I stood in front of them again and saluted them and then walked away as they applauded the athletes.  What the experience!  Like I said, a bit embarrassing, but funny at the same time.

Thanks to Karyn for this picture!  

So I totally presented some medals to the top three student high jumpers that night! That is something I've never done before and will probably never do again.

Karyn also took this picture of me!

This is my student, Turtle, who ran in the huge relay race they had.  Do you see all of those people on the field?! Of course you do.  Well they are all part of the huge relay race :)  They are waiting for their turn to run.

They also had a tug-of-war.  Man, was that an intense game of tug-of-war.  They played for a long time and then of course the two best teams had to battle each other. It was awesome! 

P.S. I may or may not think that one of the boys in this picture pulling the rope is very cute :) 

And what would the night be like without an awesome picture with some of the students!  I love this university, National Changhua University of Education!  The students are so friendly and funny!

Breathtaking Alishan! Day 2

Karyn and I woke up at 5 AM on Sunday morning to catch the train up the mountain to watch the sunrise.  Here's the train.  I'm not much of a Harry Potter fan, but Karyn says it looks similar to the Hogwarts Express :) I liked the train!

What the sky looked like when we arrived at the top!

The following pictures are a succession of the way the sky looked before and during the sunrise!

"How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains!"  ~John Muir

I love the rays of the sun! 

I love this picture because as we were waiting for the sun to rise, we noticed people wearing these white paper glasses. We thought it was so funny and had to take a picture! I didn't want to make it completely noticeable that I was taking a picture of them, so I had Karyn pose and this is what happened.

Aren't those glasses awesome?!  

Look at the crowd waiting for the sun to rise! 

We couldn't resist buying some of those awesome glasses for ourselves! Just in case you didn't know the sun is really bright :)

P.S. While waiting in line to get our tickets for the train for the sunrise, some Taiwanese man attached himself to Karyn and I.  Literally.  He insisted on following us around, speaking to us in Chinese and saying the few words he knew in English.  He even had a friend with him who, thankfully, did not follow us around.  He took a lot of pictures of us too.  He followed us for the whole hour we were up on top.  We tried many ways to politely get him to leave, but he insisted on staying with us.  Finally we just said bye-bye and ran away.   Let's just say we were grateful that we had a one-way ticket for the train that morning!

As we started our descent down the mountain, this group of students wanted a picture with Karyn and I. It was quite humorous! They were so excited to get a picture with us!  I gave them my camera to take a picture too.  I want to remember this time and the many other times that we have had people ask to take pictures with us :) 

The Hogwarts Express as it descended the mountain! Isn't the train and the scenery beautiful?!

Look at that view the riders had and us walkers too!

Walking on the railroad track because we can!

We had no idea where this trail led to, but we decided to take it!

 This is the view that greeted us!  Breathtaking! 

Sun rays, mountain silhouettes, flowers, trees!

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.  ~Lao Tzu

 

The trail that we came from is on the right and the view from the pictures above is on the left! This place was so quiet and peaceful!

We decided to have a little devotional here!  We sang a lot of hymns, prayed, and then shared scriptures and thoughts! 

Looking the other direction from the picture above!

At the place we had our little devotional!

Hugging a tree!  Yay for huggable trees!

Beautifulness!

Looking up a moss covered tree!

Contemplation :) 

Plum Garden!  We sat here for awhile to enjoy the beautiful garden and contemplate!

I love this picture!

Sun rays in the forest!

The Alishan Train Station where we caught the train for the sunrise in the morning!   This was after we came down the mountain! 

This was the sunset on our way home from Alishan on the train from Chiayi to Changhua!   I loved Alishan! I found it magnificent, beautiful, majestic, magical, marvelous!   

Breathtaking Alishan! Day 1

Alishan!  Alishan!  How beautiful thou art!

On Saturday morning, Karyn and I caught a train to Chiayi and then got on a bus to Alishan.  (The bus which we had all to ourselves.)  (We would have caught a train to Alishan, as it is a very famous and beautiful train ride, but as you can tell from this picture the train ride up was unavailable;)  It took a little over two hours on the bus to get from Chiayi to Alishan.  We went up and up and up on windy mountain roads.  It was so beautiful!  
 

When we arrived at our destination, we got a map and planned out where we wanted to go.  We found the hostel we had booked a few days before and unpacked a few of our things and then went exploring!  It was beautiful, peaceful and the air was so clean! 

Look at this awesome stump!

“In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they're still beautiful.”  Alice Walker

 

Beautifulness!

This is Giant Tree #28. (Yes that was its name).  It is huge and it's over 2000 years old!  If this cypress tree could talk I wonder what kind of story it could tell us about its life and observations. 

“Reading about nature is fine, but if a person walks in the woods and listens carefully, he can learn more than what is in books, for they speak with the voice of God.” George Washington Carver

One of the many trails in the forest!  This was on the Giant Trees Trail!

I couldn't resist lying on the train track at the end of the line.

 I look dead in this picture ;) 

Divine Tree! Look at the picture below to learn more about this tree!  It's hard to tell from this picture, but this tree is quite ginormous lying on the ground! 

Divine Tree description!

It's a little hard to tell but I'm standing inside of the tree!

Another trail though the forest!  Aren't the trees beautiful?! 

Tree Spirit Pagoda!

So I was taking a picture of Karyn with the Tree Spirit Pagoda and this big tour group came up behind us.  They saw Karyn up there getting her picture taken and the whole group precedes to have their picture taken with her and the Pagoda! They were more excited about getting a picture with her than with the Pagoda.  It was so funny!  We were laughing about that one for awhile!  A few of them got a picture with me too!

Just pondering in the forest inside of an old tree stump! 

“I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in.”  George Washington Carver

 

Red and orange leaves!

A cemetery in the forest!  The picture above was the view from the cemetery! 

Karyn and I near the cemetery in the above picture!

Do you see the elephant trunk and eye?! 

This is the other side of the elephant tree!

This is inside the elephant tree looking up!

Read the description about the Three Generation Tree!  It was pretty awesome!

Three Generation Tree! Sadly I didn't get any really good pictures of the tree, but here I am in front of it! 
The first generation is the log underneath.  The second is the part that makes the arch.  The third is on the top that looks like a normal tree.

I love this shot with the old tree stump and the sun shining through the trees!

Forever One Heart!  These two trees grew together in the shape of a heart!  How beautiful is that?!

Happiness From Golden Pig!  I hope you see the pig :)

Sister Ponds!  This is Elder Sister Pond. There's a legend about these ponds, which you can read about in a couple of pictures down. 

I love this place!  Karyn and I sat and contemplated on that pavilion you see in the picture!  It was so peaceful and lovely! 

Elder Sister Pond!

 Younger Sister Pond, which was not quite as nice as Elder Sister Pond, but still lovely in its own way!   

The story!

Four Sisters!  I like these trees called four sisters, since there are four sisters in my family, including myself.

This is what the sign said about the Four Sisters: "On top of one big stump of cypress trees after its falling, four natural seeds of the same species happened to be air-delivered there and grow into four rather closely gathered trees reminding people of four end endearing sisters."

Our hostel!  We stayed at a Catholic hostel near the entrance of the Alishan Recreation Area!  The price was good.  The beds were soft and the blankets were warm. 

It was a marvelous first day on top of the world in the majestic and magnificent mountains and forest of Alishan!