“2000 miles is very far through the snow, I’ll think of you wherever you go”

Hey kids, it’s time for another bi-weekly(?) update!

I know Taiwan was on the news back home today for the earthquake last night.  It was pretty intense, not going to lie.  Some of my friends who were further up in their buildings and in different parts of the city were affected more.  Things moving and falling over and a lot of shaking.  I was actually outside our building at the time, and it started as a small rumble that got bigger and bigger.  It was quite neat seeing and feeling it all from outside.  It was the biggest on the other side of the island, so it wasn’t a 6.4 over here -  only around a 4/5.

Yesterday was also spent booking a lot of flights and hostels for my trip home.  The Vietnam part of my trip is fully booked (leaving Taiwan on Feb 6th) and am working on the next section – Cambodia!  I’m getting pretty excited, but it still seems hard to believe that I’ll be going to all these places – so soon!

Today we finally made a trip down to Tainan, Renee and I have been trying to go see the city for a few weeks now and it has just been put off due to other plans coming up and just poor timing. We started off around 10 this morning and made it to Tainan about an hour later on the train.  We took a free tourist bus through the city and stopped at the Confucious temple and saw the beautiful red buildings and huge old trees. It was very pretty! There was a kids art workshop going on, so kids were painting everywhere.

We decided to follow a walking tour in the Lonely Planet and made our way down the street to the red gate.  It had an even bigger tree and a neat ‘fort’ building.  We kept walking and made our way to lunch at the same Indian restaurant as our last trip to Tainan. A necessity when travelling to bigger cities is different food! It was very yummy! We walked our way back through the area and ended up doing a big circle.  We came across another shrine and took some pics and shopped in a gift shop.  In Chiayi there isn’t a lot of ‘souvenirs’ that I’ve found – so I bought a few things that I thought were neat.

While walking back to the train station we saw a lot of Christmas demonstrations and astronauts! We had seen them walking through the streets on our bus ride earlier, and found the store they were advertising for.  Why they had astronauts for advertising we dont know, but we definitely took the photo op!

We got home a few hours ago now and are settling in for the night.  It’s cooled off a lot here – still in the teens and twenties, but seems a LOT colder in our apartment and while driving.  I never thought I would think 18 degrees was SO cold! It hopefully will be the coldest it will get!

This week is going to be busy with getting ready for Christmas.  My kids are enjoying singing Christmas songs with me and reading a lot of stories.  They really liked watching ‘Frosty the Snowman’ last week – and they ask to hear about him all the time.  I’m going to have a lot of fun stuff planned for my kids, crafts and a party on the 24th.  We’re having a breakfast at a friends house on Christmas, and then drinks and Christmas movies at night when everyone is done work.  On the 26th there is a big parade in town, and of course my school is participating in it. My kids are marching and doing a performance as well.  I don’t have much information about it, but I hope it doesn’t last ALL day.

For New Years Renee and I are going to Taipei to see the fireworks, then we are making our way to Hualien (on the east coast) to see the mountains and Toroko Gorge.  It’s been on my list of things to do for awhile and we FINALLY have a long weekend to go and not be as rushed.  It’s a long train ride around the island.  I’m trying to figure out what else I need to see around here before I leave in Feb.

That was a big post!
I’ll try and add pictures – the uploader doesn’t like me so we’ll see how far I get.
Have a Merry Christmas!!!
Miss you!
xoxo