Pictures from the Hockey Game.

Becky and Carli in their Whiteout shirts.

Megan and I in our shirts.

Game action. We lost 0-2.

Hockey

I love sports!!!! Since I was a little girl I have loved to watch and play sports. I still remember my dad taking me to the Astros games when I was five. However, hockey has never been one of my favorites. Don't get me wrong, I jumped on the bang wagon when "The Mighty Ducks" came out but, my enjoyment of hockey has always been through movies not following teams. Last Saturday (thanks to Becky) I attended my first game. The energy there was thrilling and I had a great time. I recommend to go watch a Coyotes game before they are gone.
It was the return of the white out

Frosty the Snowman

These are my kids preparing for the Christmas program.

View from the Top

This is a view from the top of the school (also the building I live in). You can see that we do not live in the most beutiful place, but sometimes it has incredible sunsets.

Wulai

My travel buddy Kirsten and I boarded a bus at 6:00 and headed for Taipei. After grabbing lunch at Subway we boarded a bus and headed for the city of Wulai. This was an extremely crowded bus ride that went up curvy roads. Worse of all we were standing. The ride was between 30-45 min. Right when I was about to be sick a women got off and I was able to grab her seat. The reason people go to Wulai is to walk through an over commercialized Aboriginal Village, take a cable car to the top of a waterfall, and to go an amusement park at the top of the waterfall. According to the map the cable ride was just up the rode. We walked for about an hour uphill and finally found the waterfall. Little did we know we could have taken a fast train ride. In reality it looked like a very bad prototype of the train at Disneyland. Kristen and I enjoyed our magnificent view and our ride to the top. Upon arriving at the top we began to look for the amusement park. We did not find the amusement park, but instead took a canoe around a 2 foot deep lake at the top of the waterfall. We enjoyed relaxing our feet and feeding the fish. We continued on our journey of trying to find the amusement park, but it has long been shut doen. Instead we found a wooden playground area with cable swings, rope ladders, and a nice Taiwanese crowd to laugh at us. To end the day we took the crazy train home and ended the day.

I am fimiling Kristen on the cable ride. Some Taiwanese decided we needed help and almost fell into the net.

Alex's Birthday!!!

Today was Alex’s (one of my KBR students) birthday. He is my oldest student out of all the classes I teach and he just turned 7.

I was going to make a treat, but instead is mom sent over a cake, chocolate, Hi-chews, and juice boxes. We enjoyed the birthday celebration!!

Sun Moon Lake

Today I took the day off of work and Liz Merket, Julie, and I took off to Sun Moon Lake. This is the largest fresh water lake in all of Taiwan. It is called Sun Moon Lake because if you were to look at the lake from an aerial view it looks like a half moon and the Sun with a small island in the middle. We first decide to enjoy a boat ride across the lake. We had the whole boat to ourselves. The driver also allowed us to drive the boat. I think after this experience I am qualified to drive the jungle cruise at Disneyland. After our trip across the lake we intended to take a bus to different sight around the lake. Unfortunately it turned out we had missed the last bus. We instead rented something that was a cross between a scooter and an electric bike and drove around the lake. As we drove around we did some street shopping, saw the Wenhue temple, and a Peacock garden.

Art Rotation

I am really enjoying my time in art. This week we have been making visors. The kids really enjoyed this activity, especially the feathers. Derek has the feather in his hair. King and Larson are the ones that look like gangsters. Jessica has funny look on her face. Penny is the one pictures holding te feathers. Kevin made a feather mustache. Belinda and Seth are the cute couple.

Halloween

For Halloween this year I was a member of the Tibet football (soccer) team. Six of us teachers did this because we found shirts for a really good deal and the team name on the back of the shirt was The Monks. All week I had been asking my KBR kids what I should be for Halloween. They kept telling me I should be a witch. Apparently here the girls dress up as princesses and everyone else is a witch or a wizard. Most of the kids came dressed as those things or Disney characters. I was very excited that one of my favorite students, Kevin, came as a pirate since I taught them how to sing “Yo Ho Yo Ho a Pirates Life for Me.” My favorite costume was one of my KBR boys came dressed up as a hula girl wearing a clown wig. There was cake walks, face painting, singing, popcorn hands, and overall a great Halloween. If you want to view a Halloween video that my friend Stori made just click on her name under my links. Most of my kids are at the beginning of the video. The video is under November 10. Thank you Stori for putting it together!

Shitou

Today we boarded a bus at 6:45 to visit Shitou. Shitou is known for an amazing Bamboo. We had a chance to walk through a Bamboo forest and see the bamboo bridge. We also walked up an insane amount of steps to see a giant rock. My favorite part was the skywalk. At the skywalk you are able to walk through the tops of the trees. It felt like a scene from Return of the Jedi. No Eewoks we hurt during our visit and picture taking.

Tainan

Continuing on our journey south we choose to visit the 4th largest city and former capital or Taiwan Tainan. Because the moon festival was going on there were fireworks and parades everywhere. We stop to wait at a red light and suddenly a parade went by. We also decided to stop at a side street to take a rest from our walking and enjoy a drnk. As we were enjoying our drinks another parade went by. Then suddenly 20 boxes of fireworks were also dumped into the street and lighted. We enjoyed the show. This picture if of me infront of oldest Confucius Temple in Taiwan. Becuase Confucius was huge on education this is also the oldest school in Taiwan. The yellow piece of paper is a wish that I am making and then you post it on a board. Students come make wishes before test. These next two pictures are of us at the Chickan Towers. This was a grave for one of the heros of Taiwan. It was also a dutch fort during the time they occupied Taiwan. The turles have tribute engraved on them for heros of Taiwan. They date back to the 1600 and 1700's.

Alishan

This Friday was our first day off. We were given a holiday to celebrate Moon Festival. For moon festival you eat moon cakes as you stare at the moon and make a wish. To celebrate this excitement we headed off to Alishan. Alishan is one of the most beautiful mountain ranges and forest area with one of the three remaining steep-grade alpine trains in the world. Because it was a holiday weekend everybody was catching trains and buses to head out of town. Crammed, we stood on the train for 2 hours to the city of Chiayi where we took a two hour taxi ride up the mountain going from and elevation of 30m to 2200m. I wish it had not been so late so that we could have seen the scenery. After getting just a few hours of sleep we woke up at 4:40am to catch an old train up above the clouds to watch the sunrise. As I watch the sun rise I again realize how real Heavenly Father is and how much he loves us. After taking the train back and getting a few hours of sleep we headed out to hike the trees trails. I cannot describe the beauty of all I saw so I hope you enjoy the picture. The one where our hands are in the air is the 3000 year old cypress. We are raising our hands because when the Japanese occupied the area they said the tree looked like a person with their arms in the air shouting long live the Emperor.


To head back to Chiayi instead of taking the scary taxi we boarded another old train and rode down the mountain. It reminded me a little of taking the train around Disneyland, except that because of switch back sometimes we were riding backwards. In our ride down we also passed through three climate zones. It was fun to see the scenery change from forest to bamboo to palm tree in our three hour ride. At the train station our group split. Julie and Stori headed home to teach Saturday morning while Mashell, Kristen, and I caught a train to Tainan to visit the former capital of Taiwan.

Taipei/Buddhist Hospital

This weekend I took a nice relaxing trip up to Taipei to visit my Uncle Sean and Aunt Wanda. Sean had bought a barbeque since my last visit and he was excited to grill for me. I was very excited to eat it. It was also really nice to be away from Berham and see my family. On Saturday Wanda also took me to this amazing Buddhist hospital. I was not sick it is just amazing. The hospital has been designed so that it looks like a Hyatt hotel and the conference center put together. We were in a hurry so I was not able to spend much time there.

Saturday I met up with Stori and Julie. We decided to hit the nightlife and check out the much talked about snake alley. This alley is a popular tourist attraction with snakes and shopping. I think it must be popular because they hang snakes by these hooks draining their venom or bile right before they die which you can drink. Yum! Sounds like such a tasty treat. Overall it was a strange place and experience.

On Sunday we enjoyed church and then I took Stori and Julie out to experience the Buddhist hospital. At the hospital we met one of the volunteer who told us that people donated the 4-5 million dollars to build the hospital. People also come from all over Taiwan to volunteer and help at the hospital. Also since I had more time we were able to explore a little bit more. We discovered that there are several amazing gardens and ponds on different levels. I really think they should built hospitals like this in the U.S. It was not only beautiful, but I felt so much peace and happy as I sat there.

National Talk Like a Pirate Day

National Talk Like a Pirate Day

There are many strange and random holiday’s in the U.S. that I am sure no one knows about. For example Pie day, Friends day, Write a Letter to a Friend Day. The only one that I remember and really celebrate is National Talk like a Pirate Day. Since I was not at home to have a party and celebrate it with my friends I decided to celebrate the day with my students. It took me awhile to convince my kids that they did not want to be like Peter Pan, but a pirate. After they decided that being a pirate would be fun, we celebrated the day by dressing up in pirate outfits (that is using what resources and paper I had), walked the plank, sang pirate songs, watched a clip from Peter Pan, had a sword fight, and a treasure hunt. We had a fun day. I hope everyone else had a wonderful pirate day.

Service/Dance

Today we helped by participating in the Island wide service project for the 50 year anniversary celebration. For this service project we wore very cool yellow vest and collect receipts for a group that looks after handicap people. As foreigner we attract a lot of attention anyway so this was a great way to put our skills to good use. We stood around holding the boxes and people gladly gave us their receipts. You may think how receipts help anyone. Little did I know in Taiwan they have a lottery? The lottery numbers come from the receipts. Each time you make a purchase you have been entered into the lottery, if you keep your receipt. Instead of you collecting the money you have now made the organization the possible winner.

Tonight was also the night of the big YSA dance. In the past the YSA dance were very formal and only about 50 people show up. Because of this they asked our ward to be I charge of the dance. Apparently they believe that the foreigners know how to throw a party. It was a Luau Theme and we spent several hours the night before decorating and setting up. The picture is of me putting my paper flower making skills to good use.

At the dance during the opening prayer (in Chinese) the man said something that made everyone laugh. A girl told us that he prayed that we would all meet someone special. Mashell and I put our EFY skills to good us and taught the Baha Men 1 Line dance. It was a fun night with over 200 YSA from all over Taiwan coming out. In case you were wondering I did meet someone special. Lots of nice Chinese men who cheered for me while I line danced.

It's a Jungle out There!!

This week in my Kindergarten Basic Reading class we read Curious George Goes to the Zoo. For this activity we all dress up like the animals and focused on using our five senses. My students names are Dennis, Vincent, Charlie, Ted, David, Tiffany, an dalex who was absent. Tiffany and Charlie are the two horses. Vincent is the lion pulling the tiger tail. He was not suppose to be doing that but, it was so adorable I had to take a picture. Dennis is the other lion attacking Ted in the red striped shirt. Enjoy the pictures.