Kenting

This weekend I had the privilege of traveling again, also with the fabulous Joy Hu. On Friday, I moved into my new apartment. My coworker, Zoe, helped me move some tof the bigger stuff with her car. I feel very blessed to have the friends here that are so helpful. 

I picked Joy up at the train station and we went to see The Hunger Games. I was so excited that I got to see it around the same time as everyone else in America. So often, movies come out much later here, but not this one! It was very good as well. The book is obviously better, but the movie did a good job! 

Saturday morning we were up very early and so disappointed to find out that it was cold. But we hopped the train anyway. There we met Lori and Rachel with her friend Teacher Joe who was our guide/ driver all weekend. We drove to another train station and picked up Crystal and Rebecca. We stopped a few times to take awesome pictures. Then we went to eat at Smokey Jack’s. It was so delicious. I had a BBQ sandwich which was pretty good. Then we went to this park and hiked to the very Southernmost tip of Taiwan. It started drizzling on our way, but we still had a lot of fun.

 Sunday morning we slept late and ate breakfast. The rest of the group went hiking up to some waterfalls but Joy and I stayed at the house. We borrowed a scooter from Teacher Joe and went exploring. We went down to this awesome suspension bridge where we kayaked out on the water. I told Joy if we fell in and got soaking wet, I was going to kill her, but we didn’t fall in J.  After a delicious lunch cooked by our hosts, we went to several beaches and picked up seashells and sea glass. Then we headed to the train station and headed home! It was such

Kaohshiung

This past Friday I received some news about my school and my position that has made me a bit unsure about my future here. This year Tainan County and Tainan city are merging, making the school district very large and therefore making my school no longer classified as rural. This means that my school will no longer be in partnership with the program that I am a part of. My coteacher, Amanda, assured me that the school still wants to hire me, but they have to see if they can come up with the funding. So… while I had planned to stay at this school for another year, it might be that God has other plans for me. I still feel as if God wants me to stay here for another year, but I am praying about what capacity he wants me in. I enjoy my school, but I am moving into the city and the commute on a scooter is not that great. I will no longer receive the free flights home and back during the summer, so that is an expense I hadn’t planned for. There are several opportunities to teach in the city that have been presented to me over this year. Right now, I am just praying that God would lead me to know where he wants me. 

The past few weeks have been emotionally draining as well. I feel as if everyone around me is having a crisis of some kind. Please pray for emotional strength as I try to figure out what God wants from me.  

This past weekend, I spent the whole weekend in Kaohsiung, a city about an hour south. It is probably the second largest city in Taiwan. I met a fellow teacher, Joy Hu, and her friend Vincent who visited from Malaysia. We had a great time, even though it was hot and muggy the whole time. It was very good to just get away and chill.

We stayed at this awesome hostel – Walking Story. If any of you go to Kaoshiung, I highly recommend it. We arrived and went to the night market. Night markets are a lot of fun and we ate and ate and ate! 

The next day, we got up and went to the Lotus Pond. I had already been there, but it was very fun to see again.

Then we went and rented bikes and went to this island. First, we stopped and ate Mexican food at this great little restaurant – Taco Rico. We rode our bikes on to the ferry to get to the island. We hiked to the top of a very tall hill to see a lighthouse. It was so beautiful, but so hot!

 Then we biked to the beach, just to see it. After riding the ferry back, we had some delicious shaved ice with fruit and went back to the hostel. We showered and rested for a while before we headed our for dinner. We went to the Love River and walked around until we found somewhere to eat. We then ate Auntie Anne’s pretzels before heading back again.  

On Sunday, we relaxed and walked around the art district. We had fun just sitting and people watching. We then went to the dream mall and walked around. They wouldn’t let me ride the ferris wheel though L.