I am 26...

for 10 more minutes....
How can I be this old?! ;)

A Little Piece of Heaven! (Green Island)

Green Island is a little piece of heaven on earth! Karyn, Kailey and I caught a train to Kaohsiung on Friday night and spent the night at the same hostel we stayed at before there. Then early Saturday morning, we met up with Tricia and we got on a train to Taitung, where we waited for the ferry to take us to Green Island!

This is on the ferry to Green Island! That is the main island of Taiwan in the background. It took us about an hour to get from the main land of Taiwan to Green Island. The seas were a bit rough on the way there, but not nearly as rough on the way back (which I will tell you about in my next post).

Tricia booked a package deal for us before we left which included scooter rentals, a hotel for a night, snorkeling and a night tour. We picked up our scooters and waited for about 20 minutes to get gas (because there was only one gas station on the island and many people from our ferry also had scooters which they had to fill up.)

We dropped our stuff off at the hotel and then headed back to get ready for snorkeling! Yes I went snorkeling :) I was scared at first, but I did it! Once we got into the water, I was so glad I did! It was beautiful!

There were so many fish. They were so many different colors! There were purple, white, red, orange, green, blue, and black fish. Some were vibrant colors and some dull, but still beautiful nonetheless :) Some had long noses; some were big, some were small.

The coral was amazing! We even saw a huge 400-year old mushroom-shaped coral.

This was after the snorkeling expedition! I did not get any pictures with my camera with all of the gear we had on, but some of my roommates got pictures. It was quite the sight to see.

We wore full body wet suits, water shoes, life jackets, and snorkel goggles. And when we were on the water, they had a rope with a bunch of life rings on them which we had to hold on to and put our feet behind us while a worker pulled us out to the sea. Honestly, it was amazing and I think it was the best way for me to go snorkeling for the first time :)

After snorkeling we got a little snack and ate outside and saw this plane coming in for a landing! I like this picture!

Read the sign. It made me laugh when I read them, particularly the third one down :) Apparently they've had a problem with that or something.

Some beautiful clouds and light!

This is under the bridge in the picture above! Look at that green against the black hill!

After we went snorkeling, we went for a little drive and stopped at the place with the bridge in the two pictures above. We explored a bit and then went back to where we were earlier to witness this beautiful sunset!

Look at how amazing the clouds and colors are!

This picture and the next two pictures are a panoramic view! I wanted to show the difference in the clouds and colors depending on where you looked.

Isn't it beautiful?! I loved it!

When I see things like this, it just confirms to me that there is a God, who loves us and knows us and carefully created this earth for us.

Trying to get a picture of all of us and the sunset. It was a little hard to take a self-portrait like this, but it kind of worked ;)

We were pretty hungry after snorkeling and the sunset. The owner of the hotel we were staying at suggested we go to this barbecue buffet place for dinner and so we did! It was pretty awesome! I've never been to a place like this before.

Each table had its own barbecue grill in the middle. No kidding. Live coals and fire. It was buffet style, so we went and chose the meat and vegetables we wanted to grill and grilled them ourselves at our table. You could eat as much or as little as you wanted. It was quite the experience!

Notice that there is a cat under our table ;)

I tried some new foods like some sort of fish, which I kind of liked. I tried rice soaked in pig's blood (which is not as gross as it sounds). Maybe that was it for the exotic foods for me that night, but it was good for me to broaden my food horizons :)

As we were at the restaurant it started pouring. I tell you this because when you are on scooters, it's not so fun to drive in the rain. So we waited it out a bit there. The rain slowed down, which gave us a chance to get back to our hotel which was about 15- 20 minutes away.

But it had rained so hard that it left standing water on the road , which means almost hydroplaning (even though we were going pretty slow) and it started pouring again on our way back. Let's just say that it is hard to see when the rain is pounding into your face. (I wasn't driving at the time, but I was scared, because I couldn't see and I was behind Tricia, so I couldn't imagine how Tricia could see.) Let's just say I was saying a little prayer on that scooter ride back to the hotel. That's all.

Well since it was raining we were not able to go on the night tour that night. But we did go back outside and look at the pet deer near our hotel (seriously, a pet deer). Then we just stayed inside after that. Overall it was a lovely day! I have a lot more pictures to post. Stay tuned for more pictures of a little piece of heaven...

I am Grateful For...

-the internet (allowing me to watch general conference during the week)
-laughter
-the sense-of-humor of my 5As
-rock music (while walking around the track)
-John Lenon's birthday (Karyn made a birthday cake to celebrate) :)
-being able to watch Sunday sessions of general conference at the church
-a living prophet and apostles on the earth
-Luke and Linda speaking more in my 5A class
-the power of prayer
-the fact that many students in my university class are willing to talk :)

These are some things I've written down in my gratitude journal for the past couple of weeks! This is not all, but some of them. Life is good! It is challenging at times, but good!

Attitude is the Key!

Some of these are just paraphrases, but here are some of my favorite thoughts or quotes from Saturday sessions of General Conference.

-Elder David M. McConkie said that what matters most in learning is attitude and what matters most in teaching is attitude! I thought this was especially applicable to me now as I am a teacher in a few different capacities (elementary school, university, and church.) Having a good attitude is so important in teaching and really in anything in life :)

-President Dieter F. Uchtdorf said to remember the basic or fundamental principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They are the key to living in harmony with God and man. They are the key to opening the windows of heaven to pour out blessings. Let us simplify our lives!

-Elder Neil L. Andersen said that, "The road to discipleship is not for the spiritual faint of heart." He asked how do we remain true to the Savior? We should become as a little child. Be believing as a little child. Be humble, patient, full of love, and willing to submit to all things which the Lord doth see fit to put upon us.
Don't get offended. Don't be ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Keep the commandments of the Lord. As we choose to not be offended or ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we will feel the love and approval of the Lord in our lives. Then he quoted "How Firm a Foundation," The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose I will not, I cannot desert to his foes...I'll never, no never... forsake.

-Elder Richard G. Scott said "be grateful that God lets you struggle for a looong time before that answer comes because that wait causes your faith to increase and your character to grow." "Even in your strongest faith, God will not always reward you immediately according to your desires, rather God will respond with what is in His eternal plan best for you."

I've loved all of conference that I have seen so far! I could write about all of the talks, but that would take a long time. I love the peace and comfort I feel when the prophet and apostles speak to us. I know that they are inspired to talk about certain topics. I know that we have a living prophet on the earth today and his name is President Thomas S. Monson. I know that he was called of God and that he receives revelations from the Lord to help us stay on the straight and narrow path back to our Heavenly Father.

Wanggong!

Once again we went on a little adventure this weekend! We went to a small town on the west coast called Wanggong. I loved it! It was beautiful! It was different than anything I've seen so far and I really liked it! Karyn, Kailey, Liz, Amy and I went on this little journey together :)

Welcome to Wanggong, my friends!

We had to walk a ways from the bus stop to the shore. But I loved it! This was the trail we walked on. Every once and a while, they had these cool walkways that you see pictured here. They weren't bridges, but they were just coverings.

They were a little shelter from the sun. It was nice, because there was nothing else around to shade us.

I really liked this cool, modern bridge we had to cross to get to the shore.

I thought Dad would like the lighthouse in this picture and Nate would like the wind mills :)

I liked these boats and those vehicles you see on the road behind the boats also went into the water.

Another awesome bridge!

Me and the lighthouse! We couldn't go inside, but it was still awesomeness!

I liked all of the textures in this picture. The grass and the plant and the logs and the rocks and the cement blocks and the sand and the water.

My feet in the Taiwan Strait!

The water was really shallow and you could go really far out there, walking or in the vehicles. Those are the vehicles we saw on the road in the few pictures above. Literally the water barely covered my feet in certain areas and you could go far out there.

Wind-blown hair and the beach! Those are people behind me on the left. They were far out there!

I loved this place! Isn't it beautiful?! We walked along the beach for a while and just hung out there watching the people and the boats and the crabs and the water. I enjoyed playing in the sand and looking for shells!

I loved the texture of the sand and the lighthouse in the background!

The windmills were close to the water!

Look at those little crabs! There were so many of them. But if you got anywhere near them, they would immediately and quickly run into their holes in the sand. I got this picture with the zoom on my camera.

I liked the sun shine, the bridge and the boats!

This was on our way back to the bus stop!

We didn't get to stay in Wanggong very long, but I highly enjoyed it! Like I said earlier, it's different than anything I've seen here. But I really liked it!

P.S. Sorry I'm not very descriptive in my writing. I have a hard time describing things with words sometimes and I think that might be why I take pictures so much. But I must say too that a lot of times, it's really hard to actually capture in a picture what I see with my eyes. If that makes any sense.

It's just not quite what I see with my eyes or it's not the whole picture, but it's close. I think also part of visiting a place is the feeling that you get while you are there and that is definitely something you cannot capture or even explain sometimes. Any way, I just wanted to tell you that.

P.P.S I love beaches! But I think I will save that for another post on another week!

Happy Buddha!

On Wednesday, we had school off because it was Moon Festival Day! YAY! No school in the middle of the week! It was a lovely day!

Liz, Kailey, Karyn and I went to Taichung and found this awesome temple that Liz and I had seen from a bus window, but did not get out and look at it. So we decided to go and check it out on Wednesday.

I think it's beautiful and it's different than other Buddhist temples. It's made of concrete and there's a bigger temple built over a smaller one.

It's not the best shot. But I like that the incense is sticking up and you can see the temple through the hole in the cauldron (I don't know what the thing is called that the incense is in.)

Here's a closer up look at the little temple inside the big temple. It's beautiful! I think it's a fairly new temple or at least it was recently renovated, because it was really nice!

Me in front of the temple!

This huge, happy Buddha happened to be next to the temple! This was actually the main reason we came here, but the temple was an added bonus! I loved the shot with the lady in the hat working in front of the Buddha!

Kissing the Buddha in Taichung, Taiwan! What can I say?! (September 2010)


I like big men :) Kissing the Sphinx in Cairo, Egypt! (September 2007)

Me with the Buddha! This thing is huge and so cute!

Wednesday was an awesome day! Moon Festival day celebrates the full moon and the beginning of fall each year. It's a big deal here that there's no school and people get off of work.

People often have barbecues with their families and friends. They set off fireworks and watch the moon.

We went up on the hill near our house and looked over the city on Wednesday evening and we saw hundreds of fireworks (literally) all over the city. It was beautiful! We also watched the moon for a bit too. It was shining so bright and it lit our way down the mountain. It was lovely!

Moon Festival BBQ!

Yesterday, Karyn, Liz, Kailey and I were invited to a student's house for a BBQ. What was the BBQ for, you ask?! Well it was for Moon Festival! Today is actually Moon Festival, but I think they kind of celebrate it the whole week. Moon Festival is celebrating the full moon tonight, which is also the first day of fall!

Karyn and I got to their house at around 4 PM and we did not leave until 11:30 PM. When we first got there we played Wii Fit and an intense game of tic-tac-toe on this big wooden board and where you have to get 5 in a row and Blokus! Some of the kids were playing a cooking game on the Wii.

Danny is on the left and Tim is on the right! They're brothers. Tim is one of my students in my 2A class! I wrote a little about him here. Their family is good friends with the family whose house we had the BBQ at.

This is Mimi! She is in Basic Reading. She is not actually my student. She is Karyn's student, but we were at her house for this BBQ! She's a little quiet, but so cute!

This is Ivy. She also is Karyn's student in 4A. She is Mimi's sister! They have the cutest family! Their parents are so kind and generous!

This is our indoor BBQ! They totally cooked all of the meat on this mini-stove/grill in the living room! I know you want to know what kind of meat they had... well they had shrimp, pork sausage, squid balls, rice sausage (literally rice in a casing like sausage), pork wrapped in lettuce, some sort of fish... and I think that might have been all (at least in the meat department.)

But it was funny because they would cook them and each time they would get finished with one, they would hand Karyn and I a piece of it to eat. And yes I did try all of them. I may not have eaten all of it (particularly the squid ball), but I did try all of them ;)

We had corn and shrimp and mushroom & vegetable soup and nectarines and chips (but they weren't just regular chips. They were chips with the texture of cinnamon toast crunch, but a peppery and a little spicy taste:) and all of the meat. There was so much food and we ate a lot! (It's hard to resist sometimes when they offer it to you rather than you just trying what you want.)

Kailey and Liz came later in the evening. They had classes later than Karyn and I did, so they came at around 7:30 PM.

After we ate and were stuffed to the gills, we went outside and played with sparklers and fireworks! It was so much fun!

Liz, me and Karyn with our sparklers!

Sparkler!

A little firework/sparkler!

Overall the BBQ was lovely! We really were immersed in the Taiwanese culture yesterday! They love parties with their family and friends on the holidays! They do BBQ s inside because most people do not have yards. They eat exotic foods (at least to us, they're exotic). They like to play Wii and card games. And they love fireworks and sparklers! Although the Taiwanese people have a different culture, they like the same things we do!

I will write more at a later time about our day today and about the Moon Festival!