In with the good, out with bad.

I'm the year of the ox.
Sweet stream.
Beautiful waterfall.
Waterfall.
I'm a lost boy!

Where does it lead?

This is a heart, look closely... Two trees one heart.

And this is a pig, you kiss it for good luck.

Me and court on the lake.

Yeah this is the mean little bugger we ate.

It wasn't all that bad.

Gorgeous sunrise!!!!!

Supermodel pic I took.

These last couple of days were the definition of good and bad, lol. Let's start with the good. We left early saturday morning to go to a mountain called alishan. It's known for having the most beautiful sunrises in taiwan... and it didn't disappoint. We started off with about an hour and half train ride, and then paid a guy to take us up in his van. Arriving there it sorta seemed like it would be a nice sky resort in the winter, very picturesc in the mountain. We hiked up to were we were staying, six girls in one room on one very large bed, and two beds for 3 boys. It was a little bed and breakfast place without the breakfast. We dropped off our stuff and headed out to hike the trails. The trails led through very picturesc places; giant trees, great vegitation, lakes, and fog rolling in and out. Every once in a while you run into a little temple. It was gorgeous! For more pics look here... http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=147738&l=db295&id=735790433 We hiked till night fall making it back just as it was getting dark. We decided to try a community hot pot, with all sorts of stuff in it. I ended up eating whole shrimps and alot of other weird stuff. I got some great pics though. By the end of the night we were all dead tired to say the least. We went to bed early and it's a good thing cause we'd have to get up at 3:45 the next morning to make it in time for the sunrise. In the morning we got ready and headed out to catch the train (much better than hiking) and got there about 30 mins before the sunrise. There was a huge crowd and a man on a megaphone telling everyone what was going on in chinese, to me it was just anoying, haha. but it was a sweet sunset!! After that we ran home to get there in time for church... 3 hours later we made it just as the sacrement hymn was starting!! lol. I taught my lesson and was very spirtiually edified by that of others. all

in all it had been a great weekend!!! Then came the bad... We caught the train home and when outside the station to get our bikes, and mine and courtney's were nowhere to be found!!! SOMEONE STOLE MY BIKE!!!!! Anyways we caught a taxi home and I'm still debating if I should buy a new one or not. Anyways today was another normal day of teaching... all in all I learned to breath in the good and out with the bad.

I love to rock! (but walking on them hurts)

My beautiful new bike! I love it!

Alright so today was another crazy day, I worked from 9:30 am-7:00 pm. Then we all cruised home to eat some food before hiking up the mountain. The girls had done it one sunday and said that there were some rocks embedded in concrete and you walk on them barefoot and they helped you feel better. (reflexology) Well after a long day, and a long hike up this mountain I was sweaty and stressed to say the least, haha. Let me just tell you that walking on these rocks is VERY painful, lol. Well I did it and afterwards it felt great, I think I'm going to make it a tradition. After that on our way home we found some locals learning to dance the cha cha. After a few moments of watching they invited us to learn and we learned the cha cha from these cool older taiwanese couples, it was fun. Then we trecked on home! It was a long day.

Ba gua san

Tonight was great! After a long day's work my room-mate and I biked up the mountain to ba gua san. Which is a 70 buddah statue, and a sweet temple. We love going up there, it's very peaceful and you can see the whole city. It was a very tough bike ride, but it was worth it. The craziest part was that it was raining the whole time. I've been biking more and more and it's a blast. When we got to bag wa san there was a water, lights, and music show. It was sweet. Afterwards we went back down as slowly as we could so we didn't die. (haha, wet and steep don't go together on bikes)

When we got down there was a concert and dance thing of some sorts going on so we stopped and checked it out. It wasn't that good, but it was funny to see asians do the flamenco and trying to break dance. It was a fun night!!!!

More pics of ba gua san during the day.

My first post!!!!

Alright so I've never really done the whole blog thing, but I figure I might as well give it a chance since my sis-in-law says it's the bomb!! plus this way my whole fam can keep tabs on what's going on while I'm 3000 miles away!! this first blog will be mostly dedicated to my experiences while I'm here teaching English in Taiwan. So don't be surprised if my blogs are cluttered with strange pictures. End!