~ heart of a traveler ~

wow. this past week(+) has been a blur of everything amazing, happy, crazy, fast, awesome, fabulous, and  ____________ (fill in w/ your own positive word)!!!

Traveling w/ @Ruthie Hug and @Madeleine Laney was FANTABULISTIC!!

here's a quick overview of what all took place:

day 1:
i took an evening train up to Jongli, where Popo picked me up. Popo is the nurse at the outside school that Ruthie and I used to work at (see old blog posts from 2008-ish). She is SO AMAZING! I forgot how cool Popo is ~ prob one of the funniest Taiwanese people I've ever met! So her and her son picked me up... then we went to JuJu's house (her friend/co-worker/classmate in nursing school) for some snacks. AND THEN we went to the airport... just in time to watch Ruthie and Maddie walk through the baggage claim!!! SOOoooooo excited to see them! we went to Popo's sisters "house" to spend the night... the next few hours were filled w/ hugs, talking non-stop, smilez, laughs, and finally (around 1am) Bed :)

day 2:
woke up "early" and walked to 7-11 for some good ol' original breakfast (consisting of yogurt, coffee, and various other things). walked back to house and got a call from Popo that we were gunna go out to breakfast... at McDonald's! lol. so American we are :P oh yeah, we were also celebrating Chinese New Year these next few weeks (Feb. 1 - 15), so lots of firecrackers everywhere/burning money/lots of food/ etc, etc. After that we popo's house for a bit (met her other son, Ethan), went over to the temple where we observed the traditional Taiwanese offerings of food/dishes to the gods... oh! and burnt money! wow... burning money smells weird. Also did various other things (totally forgot what else we did that day actually) and then went to dinner at a traditional restaurant w/ Popo, Pat, and Ethan! it was so nice - SO MUCH GOOD FOOD!! in fact, that's my favorite part about Chinese New Years.... you get to eat ALL THE TIME... and not feel bad about it :)

day 3:
went to popo's for breakfast. waffles+coffee = fabulous start to the day! after that was a blur of activities... lunch at Juju's, touring Taoyuan, seeing the old EV(which included closed doors, but as we know, closed doors can't exactly keep us out... scaling walls comes in handy... and gives you dirty hands afterwards), bubble milk tea, dinner at JuJu's (w/ leftover lunch... which was still a TON of food), and long debates about why camille doesn't want to get married/have kids (odd conversation for a dinner table of 10 ppls, let me tell you). It was really cute though - Popo kept finding all of these "mixed babies" and saying stuff like, "you'd have such cute mixed babies". Lol... Yup, so that was our day 3...

day 4
woke up early and Popo took us to the Jongli Train station... where we took a long, long, LONG train ride down to Kaoshung. with it being Chinese New Years. and we were WITHOUT SEATS. lol. made for an even longer (5+hrs) train ride! kept ourselves entertained by taking pictures, listening to ppls conversations about us (spoken in Chinese cuz they didn't know that we understood them), discussing plans for kenting, and drinking a TON of water (bathrooms R us)! Got to Kaoshung around 1-ish, got some tea/fruit juice at a drink stand, and then took off on a bus to Kenting! funny story inserted here: Maddie and i had to go to the bathroom, but the bus driver got there right as we were getting to the restroom, so we had to skip out and just get on the bus, *hoping* that there was a bathroom on the bus. there was not. and it the next 2 hrs were PAINFUL! lol. they actually involved maddie faking being "preggie", Ruthie going up and begging the bus driver to stop at a bathroom, walking up and down the aisles, and screaming as our head hits the ceiling after going over a bump! lol. soooo much fun now that i look back on it, but it was SO BAD at the time... seriously thought we were going to wet our pants! Oh! and to top this off, we had to switch buses an hr from  Kenting, so maddie waddled over to the other bus (which almost took off before we got there) and *i* ended up carrying her luggage cuz she was "pregnant". oh! and there was no bathroom on the next bus either... but thankfully the bus driver this time was super nice and stopped soon after picking us up :) :) :) so yeah, we made it to Kenting w/ clean pants and smiles on our faces! We were super grateful to be able to book a good hotel that night, cuz man it was PACKED in Kenting. ate at a nice restaurant, walked around the night market, and crashed in bed! it was a crazy, great day!

day 5:
slept in. Starbucks for breakfast. and all day on the beach. basically a great day, lots of sun, and good talks with two amazing girls (seriously, Maddie and Ruthie are amazing.... everyone should get to know them!). that night we walked out onto the beach and just sat on the sand and stared up at the stars and the huge waves. i was once again overwhelmed at how BIG my God is. and how He takes 24-7 to care for ME. he made this huge universe... full of pain and sorrows... but also full of joy and beauty. idk, something just triggered inside of me and reminded me that life is truly what we make out of it. God gave us beauty... but he also gives us a choice, and we have to decided to see it .... <3 oh, so we stayed another night in Kenting (ended up getting another night at that hotel, which was nice... cuz otherwise we were going to have to camp out at the McDonald's down the road).

day 6:
left kenting that morning and headed over to Tainan where we met up w/ Ruthie's friend, Joyce. Joyce was an AMAZING tour guide and ended up showing us all over Tainan. I had no idea that Tainan was the "first town" in Taiwan. there were so many old buildings over there, so much history... funny actually... it reminded me how young my country really is... and how fast technology/life has expanded since then....
oh! and we also got to visit her church. so cool! I'm going to actually go visit there for a service one of these Sundays! the ppls there were so nice, super encouraging, and i walked in and just felt.... Love. it was beautiful <3 that night we took the train over to Douliou and spent the night at my place. it was so fun to get these two girls + Jo in the same room.... wow. happy times for sure!

day 7:
we left Douliou early and took of for Taipei. this day consisted of taxis, MRT's, crosswalks, lots of walking, coffee, bookstores (yes, I actually bought some books!), Taipei 101 (which i *still* haven't gone up on), and night markets! Oh, we even got to see Rachel G. for a bit - so cool cuz I havent' seen that girl in forEVER-ish! She's still as sweet as i remember :) :) that night we rushed to take the last train for Jongli, where Popo picked us up and we (once again) crashed at her sisters house! it was fabulous, and i'm pretty sure we all just crashed as soon as we got there :)

day 8:
slept in! it was around 9:45am when i actually got out of bed - longest i've slept in since forever ago! Met up at Popo's for "breakfast" around 11am. We all hung out at her house for a while and then we headed out to go swimming, drink milk tea, hot coffee (note to self: never let Maddie have a cup in a car w/o a lid), and get our hair done at a salon. that evening we went to Popo's house and had a ton of fun! We had this delicious/amazing dinner (very traditional/hakka food) and then we turned on some fun music and did face masks.... with the boys too!! it was hilarious! So much laughter.... pictures... it was awesome! (and my face felt fabulous too!). that night consisted of major packing, talking girls, sniffles (we all got sick by the end of the week), and Glee Music (who knew?).

day 9:
worst day of the trip by far! Maddie finally got her breakfast from the traditional breakfast stand, we made it to the airport through crazy traffic, and had to say goodbyes. i hate goodbyes. a lot. i had sooo much fun this week and was so encouraged by hanging out w/ two amazing and godly young women... and then it was over all too fast. sad. i am now determined to go out to WA (maybe this summer...?) and visit them! So yeah, just the sight of the airport (and knowing that i wasn't going on a plane) was enough to make me cry... :( We all said our goodbyes... and then Popo dropped me off at the train station (where i started my journey back to douliou).

*pictures from this week (and Japan) can be found by clicking here*


gosh... it was a FABULOUS WEEK. don't think i would've planned a better one.
and it was *just* what i needed during this "half point" in my year here.
i know that a lot has happened these past few months... and more will happen in the next 5 months... but it's going to be good. it's a new year (a month late, but still)... and a new year means new beginnings.


oh gosh.... there's much more that i want to write, but i'm bouncin out of here and going to visit the Pingdong team this weekend (leaving tonight)... and i'm still in the process of unpacking/packing my bags. So more will have to wait for another time....

Blessings to you in this New Year

<3 <3 Lots of Love <3 <3