Toroko/Hualian vacation

During spring break we rented a car and drove south of Taipei for a few hours to Toroko Gorge, and a town called Hualian. Along the way we drove through the world's longest tunnel...

We saw some beautiful scenery...

...and we all got carsick on the windy road!

For the most part, Evan was happy drawing in his sketchbook, then when he got bored with that he turned every single page into a paper airplane. They all came spilling out of the car when we opened the door.

And this is what Ashton did to pass the time....poor guy hasn't been in a carseat for almost a year.

Evan's favorite part of the vacation was going for a bike ride along the coast.

Hualian is known for it's marble, and the beaches are full of marble rocks, so Evan came home with quite a few 'treasures' from the beach.

We spent a day at 'Ocean Park' amusement park. Every time Ashton saw one of these characters walking around, he had to go give him a hug and tell him how NOT scary he was, and then show him how well he can dance. It was quite hilarious, and I wish I had my video camera!

Nate and Evan went on the log ride and got soaked. Nate wasn't so happy about it because as soon as you go into the cave, it showers on you so you have no choice but to get wet...

I learned from his experience, and bought a poncho. Evan was already wet, so I only bought one. But as you come out of the ride, you have to exit through the store where I had purchased my poncho, and when the sales lady saw me nice and dry in my new poncho, with Evan completely soaked, she literally gasped in horror, and looked at me like I was the worst mom in the world, jabbering at me in chinese. I tried to explain that he was already wet, but she didn't didn't speak any english. She just shook her head in disapproval and muttered some more chinese.

At the visitors center in Toroko they have aboriginal people weaving fabric and selling thier homemade things.

Everywhere we go in Taiwan, the kids always get mobbed by crowds of squealing girls saying how cute they are and wanting to take pictures of them. (don't ask me why they want pictures with strange random children but they all do) It's as if they were movie stars or something. It makes Evan a little uncomfortable, but Ashton loves it. He's even learned to flash the peace sign that they all do. One lady was trying to take a picture of Evan while we were in the gift shop, and he kept running away from her, so she chased him around until her tour bus finally left. Another elderly lady came running up to Ashton with her arms out like she was going to pick him up, and we all started backing up, and I put my body in front of Ashton, but she was very determined to hold him, and elbowed me right out of the way. So Nate picked him up, and she still kept reaching for him, and they almost spun in a complete circle before she finally pried him out of Nate's arms. She held him for about a second before he dove out of her arms back to Nate, thank goodness. Sheesh!

We went on a 2 kilometer hike to a waterfall. (as we came upon this cave, Ashton said "Uuuum, I don't wuv dis cave") It was a very exciting hike... Just like Indiana Jones! We walked through dark caves...

Over rickety bridges...

Jumped across the river on stones...

And got showered on by a waterfall!

And on the way back we ran into some missionaries. We took a group shot for Terry and Melba. (Nate's parents are coming here to be their new mission president in July)

Ann's visit

Ann came to see me in March. We packed a lot of sight-seeing into a week...

Nate made her eat plenty of disgusting things. That's duck brain she's digging out of the scull

That is a whole fish, stuffed with eggs and fried up in batter. Ashton loves them.

Ann....not so much.

I have to give her credit for getting one bite down because I've never even tried it. On the other hand, I can appreciate a good chicken foot! As you can tell, this challenge almost broke her.

But she did it! Some other tasty morsels of the evening...

That's a duck tongue, quail egg, chicken foot, and chicken butt. That's right, she ate chicken butt! Who was it that said you are what you eat? Love ya, Ann!

Hong Kong

Okay, so I've kinda been ignoring my blog ever since I discovered facebook, but now that facebook has changed and I don't like it as much, I decided to start blogging again. Yay!

So in March I took a trip to Hong Kong with some friends from church to attend the 2nd annual Asia Women's Conference. We had some extra time to go sight-seeing, and shopping of course. I don't think we slept for 4 days straight.

This is the view of the light show from across the harbor

This is the view from Sister perkin's house where we stayed the first 3 nights

We went to see the 'Big Buddah'

High-5ing the Buddah (what-up dogg?)

This is the whole group that came from Taiwan

This is the church building in Hong Kong

I met up with my friend Hannah, she is married to one of Nate's old mission companions and they live in China.

Julie, Carrie, and I visited the Hong Kong temple. You can't see it very well in the background, but it is there!

That's Bruce Lee, for those of you non-kung-fu fans

Those were the best Galattos ever!

Kay and Lydia and I decided to stay an extra night to do more sight-seeing. Check out our luxurious hotel room! It's so big I could almost walk between the beds without turning sideways (almost!)

And the sink made it hard to brush your teeth because your head barely fit into that space. But even thought it was small, the beds were comfy and it was clean and we didn't see a single cockroach, so it gets at least 3 stars from me!

The world's most dangerous fireworks

We just happened to be at the Shih Lin night market the other day, and got stuck in the middle of the scariest fireworks ever!

All of those red things laying on the ground are humongous firecrackers. They think that the noise of the firecrackers scares away the bad spirits that come out at chinese new year. Notice how everyone is just walking right through them...and do you know how many people were smoking right in the middle of it?!? And do you notice the smoke coming from down the street where they already lit off part of the firecrackers? One guy came running out of the smoke with his arm wrapped in a t-shirt, all splattered with blood. (of course there are no paramedics standing by)

First,these guys came by beating the drum to make way for the firecrackers.

Then came the firecrackers...and oh, the NOISE! And the smoke! And the FLAMING SHARDS OF SHRAPNEL COMING OUR WAY! This picture is blurry because I was running for my life.

We took cover inside an eyeglass store, which was so lucky because it had a glass wall in front. See all the firecracker shrapnel? Ya, IT HURTS! (and those balloons there in front didn't last long)

Then, people came by with buckets of water to douse the flaming street.



Then they carried the little God sitting in the chair into every store to 'bless' the stores.

They wasted no time lighting off more fireworks. Yes, they are putting fresh fireworks right in the middle of the hot steaming smoking pile of ash!

At this point, we didn't even need to cover our ears anymore because we couldn't hear anymore anyway. (WHAT DID YOU SAY?!?)

I took this picture from directly underneath the fireworks, right before I realized how stupid it is to stand directly under the fireworks. We ran for it when they started falling on our heads.

Poor Ashton, he wouldn't unplug his ears for hours.

Kunting

Over New Year's break, we drove to the southern tip of the island with our friends, the Parks. We got to Kunting and relaxed on the beach, shopped at the local night market, relaxed on the beach, visited the aquarium, relaxed on the beach, went to the lighthouse at the very southern tip of Taiwan, and relaxed on the beach some more!

This is the very southern tip of Taiwan

Yes, that's a baby octopus he's biting the head off of.

Evan got picked to get a picture taken with the beluga whale, but he was freaked out about it touching him, so he pulled his head up every time it tried to kiss him. You can see the poor whale trying to come farther and farther out of the water to reach him.