Pictures from July and August

Well the summer craziness--planned and unplanned-- is over and since my fan club (thanks SQJ) is clamoring for a blog update I thought I'd put some pictures up from the last half of the summer.
The end of July I was able to take a few days and head down to Kaoushiung in the southern part of the island to visit my co-workers, John and Cheryl Dunn and their kids Bethany, Nathaniel, Andrew and Moriah.
It usually takes 4 hours on the train to get to Kaoushiung but Taiwan now has a high speed rail so I decided to try it out. The train I took got their in two hours but if you take one with fewer stops it actually only takes an hour and a half.
Of course it cost twice as much as the normal train but I guess if it gets me there twice as fast that's a good trade off. And the ticket was only around $45US which isn't bad for getting all the way to the other end of the island in two hours. Plus the service is really good and the train is nice on the inside. Here's a picture of the interior. As you can see there's lots of leg room for us long legged foreigners, which is not always the case in Taiwan. And they've banned stinky tofu and instant noodles from the inside of the train so you don't have to worry about sitting next to those smells for an extended amount of time!

While down south I went with the Dunns to Kenting, which is probably my favorite place on the whole island because it has the beach! And yes I know I live on a small island so there are lots of beaches but this one is by far the best. I've never been tempted to move out of Taipei to another city on the island but if there was a place that could do it, this is it!
After my mini-vacation with the Dunns it was off to Sports and English Camp. There were 72 kids this year from all over the island. And since I've not miraculously developed any athletic ability since last year's camp I once again helped out with Music and Drama. Here is a picture of our group. At the end of the week 8 kids made decisions for Jesus and were baptized!
The weekend after camp I went with the student group from CIY (Christ in Youth) up to Mao Kong. Mao Kong is a little community up in the mountains above Taipei that is home to many tea houses. It's a great place to go to drink tea and enjoy the view of the mountains and Taipei city down below. I've been to Mao Kong twice before with friends who had cars but the city just recently opened up a cable car system that takes you from the city up over the mountains and drops you off close to the tea houses. It's so convenient and a really cool ride--unless you're afraid of heights--then you'd probably still want to drive. Here is a picture of me with Lauren from the CIY group riding up to the top.
It's been a great summer and now that I'm looking back at all these pictures I'm a little sad it's over. But September is coming which means classes are starting again, more groups will be coming to visit this fall and hopefully I'll be heading home for Christmas! Yeah!


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