Hey everybody

Just wanted to say a quick hello from Tauyaun City Taiwan. The trip was long. Too long. For anybody that’s coming here, my suggestion would be to take a flight from Vancouver.Basically from San Francisco, you fly all the way back up the west coast anyway. It was a 14 hour flight from San Fran with a packed plane (about 90% Asian). I got maybe 2hours sleep, if that. It was only a quick 45 minute layover in Hong Kong and then just a quick hour and a half hop to Taipei.

And of course when I get to the airplane, Amanda isn’t there. So I wait around for a bit to see if she shows up. About 45 minutes later, I finally ask to borrow a phone from the informaton desk to call her. “Apparently” she looked up my flight # from San Fran and it said that it was cancelled. So after about and hour and a half she finally showed up!

New Years Eve was spent in the main city of Taipei with over a million people jam packed into downtown to watch the fireworks from the world largest building - the Taipei 101. It was nuts. I have a video on my camera of the fireworks to which I’ll put on later when I get back.

I will definately have more stories to tell later. I’m borrowing her dorm neighbour Brandon’s laptop while they’re both out working for a few more hours. Yesterday I sat in on Amanda’s Kindi class while she taught for just over an hour. These kids are cute. Hearing them speaking English and playing games was an enjoyment to watch. After class they would come over to you and play with you. Didn’t matter who you were, they just were laughing and smiling all the time.

Well I should get going. The plan is to leave on Thursday night for Kenting. It’s about a 5 hour bus ride to Kauhshing (The 2nd largest city in Taiwan) and then another 2 hour or so bus ride to Kenting. As we leave at midnight, we can easily sleep through the night and have the whole day ahead of us when we get there.

Take care.

-Matty