Finally, the promised blog entry about my trip. I apologize for not getting it done before now. I’ve been back in the U.S. for a week and it’s been a crazy week! I’ve been very busy with work and activities that I had planned before I left. I’ve also been trying to readjust to the time change. I didn’t feel like I’d adjusted to Taiwan time until the very end of our trip, so I think my body was really confused when it got sent back to U.S. time. I’m finally feeling mostly back to normal and able to sleep for almost a full night.
I'm going to do this in parts. I don't think my brain could handle writing everything in one entry and it'd be a REALLY long entry if I did.
Our flight over was pretty good. It seemed longer than last time but I may have just forgotten how long almost 14 hours on a plane felt! I had an empty seat next to me so I was able to relax a little bit more and try to get some sleep. I think I slept for a few hours at least. Pretty heavily too. I woke up and the guy that had been next to me was gone. I’m usually a light sleeper and wake up at the slightest sound or touch so I was kind of confused for a minute. I’m not gonna lie: the scene from “Left Behind” went through my head and I briefly wondered if the Rapture had happened and I’d just missed it, lol! The guy had evidently crawled over me and I was just so out of it that I didn’t even know.
Landing in Taiwan felt “normal’. I was overwhelmingly excited or ecstatic; it just felt like I was home. Chad Edwards and JenJen picked us up and took us to the apartment that we were going to stay at in Taipei. We landed in Taiwan around 8:30 pm (Monday evening) so we pretty much just unpacked a little bit, checked out the apartment, ate some snacks and tried to go to sleep. The next morning (Tuesday) we met the Edwards family (who live just up the road) at “Marvin’s” to eat breakfast. Marvin’s is a little restaurant that serves AWESOME food!!!! Last time that Jessica and I were in Taiwan, we rode our bikes probably 7 miles to buy this “fat toast”. It’s really think toast with a chocolate, peanut butter or sweet mayo spread on it. It’s so yummy! I hadn’t had it in 2 years and it tasted even better than I remembered! We also at “don bean” (yeah I have no idea how to spell the English version of a Chinese word so I’m just writing it how it sounded to me!), which is like a tortilla with bacon and egg in it. It was just awesome to sit there on the sidewalk, eating yummy food that I’d craved for two years, and breathing in the Taiwan airJ. I was definitely “home”.
JenJen Chien, lives in Taipei and volunteers once a week at The Home of God’s Love. She, and her friend Renee, had offered to give us a tour of Taipei and take us to some of the popular tourist spots. So after breakfast we headed out for a day FILLED with walking and sightseeing. It had been raining for days in Taipei, but on this day the sun was out and the weather was gorgeous! So we took advantage of it and went to Taipei 101. It’s a skyscraper built in 2004 that was the tallest building in the world. It now ranks 3rd tallest. I’d never been in a building that tall though and the view was incredible! You could see the entire city and the mountains all around. We ate some amazing ice cream at the top and did a little shopping in the gift shop. We ate lunch in the food court on the bottom floor. I just ate Subway, instead of Taiwanese food. I was feeling pretty tired and a little sick and I didn’t want to risk eating something “unusual”.
After 101, we went to this huge Ferris wheel! I’m not normally a fan of any type of ride, but this Ferris Wheel was V-E-R-Y slow moving so I decided to try it. I’m so glad I did, cuz once again the view was spectacular! I just LOVE the mountains in Taiwan! Renee couldn’t even look out when we got to the top. She got her Bible out and said she was just going to read it until we came back down. We were teasing her about reading the Bible but not acting on it, we brought up the verse that says “I lift my eyes to the hills”. J
The people there are so friendly. We asked this one girl to take a picture of all of us in front of the Ferris wheel and we ended up talking to her for about 20 minutes. She was from Malaysia and had just moved to Taiwan because that’s where her fiancée lives. She wanted to know all about our trip so she could make sure we saw everything important that Taiwan had to offerJ We exchanged Facebook information and JenJen gave them her # too. Her fiancée called later that week just to make sure our trip was going good and that we didn’t need anything. Super nice people! (I may have also just liked her cuz she asked if I was a model, lolJ)
We went to a place called something like “Donshuey”. (Someone who knows the real way to say/spell these names, please correct me!!!!). It was starting to get dark so we went to a small Night Market and looked around. There are Night Markets pretty much everywhere there and it’s just a lot of little shops and booths filled with all kinds of things. We also went on a boat ride, which was really cool! I loved getting the chance to relax and just watch the city lights. It was around 5:30-6:00 and by this point we’d been walking since about 9am.
We were all exhausted by this time so we went back to the apartment and crashed! I was very glad we had the chance to have a day of sightseeing though. The last time I was there, the only place I went other than THOGL was Taroko Gorge. It was beautiful but I had worked all through the night, spent that day walking around, and then came back and worked another night shift. So I was so exhausted I didn’t get to enjoy it as much as I would’ve liked to.
I know my descriptions are not doing any of this justice. It was an incredible day full of beautiful views and special experiences. You should just go visit Taiwan yourself so you can see it all!
More to come… soon. I promise.
