Farewell

Tuesday, August 3

It’s been such a long time since I’ve written, so I’ll try to keep everything short and concise. We’ve had a full three weeks since then.

Sunday night (the 18th) we went to the dollar theater with Josh and Dancy to see Ip Man 2. It was every bit as good as Ip Man 1 in my opinion! However, that evening my throat started to feel weird and the next morning I was sick. We found out a few days later when I went to the clinic that I had pharyngitus. Going to the clinic itself was a neat experience. We were there for about fifteen minutes. They only asked my birthday and maybe one or two other basic pieces of information and then got me straight to the doctor. The doctor looked in my throat, nose, and ears then asked me a few questions and told me it was pharyngitus. They promptly gave me three days worth of antibiotics, then we left. Oh, and it cost less than $15, for the medicine and everything!

I did end up going back to the doctor after my medicine ran out because I wasn’t feeling much better. I saw a different doctor and he told me that I had tonsillitis. When told that the earlier doctor said pharyngitus, he said, “He has that, too.”

Regardless of what it was, the new medicine they gave me did the trick, and I started feeling much better. The whole ordeal lasted about a week – through the whole college camp. Even though I was sick I still played music. I was disappointed that I couldn’t participate more than that, though.

On Friday the 23rd Isaac, Mom, and I went with Ms. Rachel to her school. Once there we took a tour of the campus and then spoke to two of her classes. We had a really fun time talking culture with them. One of the classes even had a short series of skits to shows us what they liked to do after school.

That evening (though I was still feeling poorly) our family (minus my dad) went to the Dream Mall. The Lins went with us, and Josh, Paula, and Mrs. Susan joined us later. The main object of our trip was to ride the Ferris wheel on top of the building. As soon as we arrived on the roof of the building eight or so stories up, it started to rain. They continued to give rides, though, so we went up in one of the see-through carriages. It was pretty high up but didn’t go very fast so it wasn’t too bad. I’m glad we got the chance to ride; the view from the top was great even though it was raining.

The next week we had the VBS English camp. I was the teacher for twenty 1st and 2nd graders. My parents taught the adult class and Isaac, Nathan, and Elijah were helpers. It was one long week! Even though I had a translator and two or three other helpers, it was difficult. Everyday a lot of time was spent trying to get them quiet and keep their attention. But I’m glad I got the opportunity to get my feet wet in teaching English. Oh, and the kids were so cute! They drew me some pictures, and six or seven of them raised their hand to accept Christ when I gave the invitation on the last day. The VBS was altogether a great experience.

Although it had rained virtually all week, there were blue skies for Saturday. This was an answer to a lot of prayer during the week. The carnival went off without a hitch. We moved the musical equipment over to the park from the church and played a rock concert. It was an awesome day!

On Sunday afternoon Dr. Chuang took us to visit his mother-in-law’s farm in Kaohsiung County. Although Dr. Chuang’s mother-in-law wasn’t home (she was traveling), Dr. Chuang showed us her house. We had a great time visiting the Daoist temple nearby, climbing the hill behind her house, eating fresh limes off of a tree, and enjoying popsicles and prune candy. We made it back to the house just seconds before it started to poor. We hung out a little bit and talked before heading to our next stop – a teashop. We browsed for awhile before making our purchases. We got some very nice stuff, both as gifts and for our own collections. From the teashop we went to a Hakkanese restaurant that Dr. Chuang recommended. The food was delicious!
I tried some clam soup, which was quite different.

Our last stop was the night market. We went there so we could try the quintessential cuisine here, stinky tofu. Every time Taiwanese food comes up in a conversation, people ask if we have tried stinky tofu. Now we can all say that we have. I actually liked it, too. It didn’t taste bad at all. Here are a few more interesting foods I’ve tried: squid ink spaghetti, fish eggs (smashed together and cut up into thin slices), and all kinds of clam and squid soup.

Early yesterday morning our family went to Carrefour to use up our gift cards (remember we received $30 each for helping out at the military school). We purchased some more neat stuff to take back with us. When finished we headed to lunch with the Yehs and had a great time visiting with them over a meal. The restaurant was a very fancy one right down the street from where we live. It’s only been here for a few months, and was started by a friend of Mrs. Yeh.

Next we went go carting with a bunch of people from church and youth group. Isaac, Nathan, and a few other people had gone before with Camp U.S.A. (the college camp), but Elijah and I had missed it because we were sick. I enjoyed our time very much. The go-carts went so fast. We took lots of pictures and even some video. I was able to drive a total of three 10-minute races thanks to Pastor David and William, who bought our last one. William is a guy we met who’s from France. He’s the student of another friend of ours, Mrs. Janine (Isabella’s mom). This is getting confusing, isn’t it? Anyway, William is here for a few years studying the language. He knows French, German (his home is five minutes from the border), Spanish, English, Japanese, and Chinese. He’s a really cool guy.

We ate dinner at the church to get rid of some of our leftover food. A lot of people showed up to hang out with us and also the LA guys, some of whom are leaving tonight. Roger is going back to the United States, but Peter and Daniel (who’s actually from Chicago) are staying for awhile.

Some of us left after a little while to go visit Caleb Joshua Hong, Josh and Paula’s baby. He’s less than a week old, and so very cute! We stayed for an hour or so taking turns holding him and taking pictures. I’m so happy for the Hongs!

Since today’s our last day we’re pretty busy with packing up, saying good-byes, and just getting everything in order so that we can leave tomorrow at 6 A.M. We’ve tried to take these last few days to rest, relax, and prepare for a series of long flights home. I’m excited about seeing all of my friends, sleeping in my own bed, and playing soccer. But I’m also very sad to leave. Our good-byes are bittersweet. I’m going to miss all of our great friends here, old and new. I’m so glad our family had the opportunity to come, and hope that we will be able to visit in the near future. I also hope that some of our friends here will be able to visit us in America.

Our experiences here have been nothing but great, and nothing short of amazing! It’s really been evident that God wanted us here, and he really worked out everything for us. So, Taiwan, goodbye and goodnight, we’ve had a great time visiting, and hope to see you soon!