Chinese gardens

On Wednesday, we went to the Taichung City Seaport Art Centre. We saw some amazing works of art and although we couldn’t take photos, we were given two books featuring some of the art we saw. Which we were thrilled to receive.

The tour guides showing us around were all volunteers and they were amazing! We learned a lot and I found out that there are three elements that need to exist in a Chinese garden.

1. It must have a pavilion.

2. The pathway around it should zig-zag.

3. It needs to have a water feature like this very nice pond and mini waterfall area.

I forget what type of bird this is, but it’s been coming back to this area for the last five years. They’re not sure where it came from, but the art center has become its home.

Virginia

Kao Mei Wetland

Today we visits the Kao Mei Wetland. It was really windy, but not too chilly. It was really nice there and I was able to get some photos of the local birds, the windmills and people who were on the beach.

I also had Bobble-head Ted Blades with me!! This is a bobble-head figure of CBC Radio One’s Ted Blades who hosts On the Go. I won a contest when I wrote in and said that I was coming to Taiwan.

More photos and updates to come, this has been an amazing trip. I can’t believe we only have 10 days left in Taiwan!!

Virginia

Performance by Chiu-yu Chen

An amazing performance during our lunch on March 21, 2012. The song is called Oriental Dance. The video was taken with my iPad.

 

Lisa

A few snaps of temples to give you an idea of what we have seen!

Dragon dances

As Allison S mentioned in the previous post, we visited Chou-land High School yesterday. Take a look at the three dances they performed for us.

Another quick one

So WiFi is hit and miss which is the reason why we have been having a tough time posting to the blog. 

We saw a really cool dragon dance yesterday – videos are going to be posted soon. That’s too tech advanced for me to deal with but Virginia is going to post them on youtube and then we will have the links here. It was a group of high school students who actually won the number one spot in Asia for a choreographed dance routine.

The weekend we had off had some events planned. We had a great meeting with the coordinators where we were able to discuss some of the concerns/questions/ideas we had. Everyone here is so helpful and we were able to adjust some of the schedule to better suit vocational visits for the remainder of the time here.
We also had hiking, dinners and were able to hang out with the group which will be visiting District 7820 in late April and early May.  They are a lovely group and looking forward to spending some time with them (hopefully!) when they get to St. John’s.

In a nutshell…. we have been busy! We went to a place called Sun Moon Lake which is really beautiful – got some great photos there. We went to a bamboo forest and hiked aprox 6km or so. They say us Canadians are good walkers 🙂 We’ve seen so many temples… reminds me of being in Europe and seeing Churches! Visited Giant Bicycles for anyone who is into biking, we visited a hydro-electric power plant, an Aboriginal Textile Project, and just this morning went to an area that had bunkers/tunnels underground that were used during the war. It was really cool to see and made me sad that the similar type things we have at home are not maintained or cared for.

Hard to believe that we only have a week and a half left…. time flies when you’re having fun!

Stay tuned for the videos….

AS

 

Happy Birthday Allison :)

So I turned the big 3-0 here. It was a great day and both the host family and Rotarians who we were with the night before the big day, as well as the new group on my actual birthday did many things to make it special. Including multiple cakes 🙂 With technology the way it is (when you’re far from home it is a definite blessing!) too I was able to get messages from friends and family all over the world! It was great! With WiFi being hit and miss it was special that I was able to get access that day (Thanks to Virginia’s host family) and read all the lovely messages. Thanks to everyone who remembered and made it a special day for me 🙂
It was also really great to have a birthday celebrating that didn’t involve bleeding of the head, firecrackers, and an intensity that I cannot sum up in words like we had seen a few days before!

Birthday aside its been a busy period. A lot of amazing sites and still the amazing food continues! No way a person could come here and lose weight!! Temples, nature, food, company, museums, archives, libraries, university campus’s etc.  And of course Karaoke 🙂 Plus the nice weather is back and I got some colour yesterday! Yea!

Off to the mountains tomorrow for a couple of days rest and to interact with the team from here that will be visiting our district in April/May. I’m sure everyone will be posting and reliving through words some of the many memories here!

For now though Karaoke calls…. “Total Eclipse of the Heart”….
Karaoke Kops (George Street, St. John’s, NL)  won’t know what hit it when I get back 😉

AS.

Just watch these videos…

Words can’t really describe what we experienced yesterday.

We were having some dinner after an amazing afternoon of visiting the Lukang Temple when we heard some drums and music out in the street.

Today is Guanyin Buddha’s birthday! We had no idea that we would come across what you’re about to see. These are videos of a ceremony where other temples have sent their Buddhas to wish her happy birthday (it’s obviously more complex and spiritual than that).

Amazing!!

Asia, Week 1

Although I’m about 12 hours early we have been in Asia for one week, and travelling for 9 days (I believe – my sense of time is very skewed!)
It’s hard to remember all of the things that we have done!
Yesterday we moved to a new host family and a new region of Taiwan. And visited a massive Buddha statue. Of course the team had a lot of fun and took some silly pictures to document. We all had a Chinese fortune told and finished off with another big meal and great company.
Tonight we do our presentation for the first time. It will be really great to be able to share information about our district with people. My timing for people to translate for me is bad but will hopefully sort out that later.
Adding a picture of the events yesterday but can’t be a long post. Shared all the stories with my folks on skype and ran out of time!

Will write more soon. WiFi is hit and miss but I do have access for the next 3 days so will be able to share more.

Oh! And the first  picture is that me getting to have ‘Happy Birthday” sang to me at the Rotary meeting we attended last night. 5 more days my time until the big 3-0! 🙂

 

Arrived! and slow to post!

As Virginia mentioned, we arrived with a warm welcome and after declining food on the flight from Tokyo. We were delighted when we were given food for the drive to our hotel.  There was an amazing assortment of fruit which I had never seen before (and I have had plenty of those types since!) The bed after the long flight when I was finally able to get in it was like heaven. It’s amazing how much a person can ache after sitting and doing nothing!

Sleep has been hit and miss since. I assume it’s all part of jet lag. After the first night and waking up at 5am I had a skype call with my folks and then Allison P and I went for a little adventure…. We both attempted to swim (pool was way to cold!) and ended up in a hot tub, steam room and sauna before we met the crowd for breakfast. Life is tough eh!

The next night sleep was more successful, and the following day we had an hour long foot massage and acupuncture which Allison already mentioned in a post.

During this time I was staying with my host family Attorney and Judge (they name based on occupation) and they were absolutely delightful! Very sweet, king and generous people. Seems to be the only type of people we have met since we arrived!

Since then we have poked around shops, went to a couple of museums, the most amazing city hall, a couple of temples, a lot of eating, an impromptu saxophone concert, a massive night market, the police station,  etc. Today we saw a tree that was 1121 years old!! Wild!!!

Mom told me to write so hopefully in between all of our activities I’ll get another chance to go into more detail. Life is good in Asia though… I’m having a great time! 🙂

Did I mention it was 29 and sunny today 😀

AS