Jasmine and Peony Tea

We haven't had a lot of access this week, so we apologize for the lack of new posts. I did, however, have a nice friend in the States who edited a video for me. Thanks, Brian.

Bike Riding

Even though we are now home I wanted to post some stories to the blog that I had started and did not have time to finish.

On our itenerary the other day was for us to bike ride through Danshui along the river. This was a glorious experience. There was a little bit of cloud cover to keep it from being too hot but the weather was delightful with a small breeze and a cool temperature. We were able to stop at a temple and explore and view spectular scenery. It was not very clear but still magnificent.

Green Island, Wait...

During every Rotary GSE the team gets a mid tour break in order to rest and prepare for the second half of their trip. Our break was a little later starting at the end of our third week and was designated to be spent on a small island off of the south-eastern cost called Green Island. We learned the day before our trip that we would not actually be staying on Green Island but would be staying in Taiwan and be boated over to the island Saturday and boated back Saturday night to stay in a nicer hotel in TaiTung. After some small protest about needing to sleep and do some computer work it was settled that we would go to the island on Saturday and rest lazily by the pool and what not on Sunday. So, we boarded a plane early on Saturday (we had to be at the airport by 7:30, sleep in? I dont think so) and by the time we arrived at or hotel and checked in it was already getting late. The next boat to Green Island was to leave at 11:10 which put us on the island about noon. Our guide decided that this would be too late as we would have to return after only half a day. Instead, he decided that we would take a driving tour of the cost of Taiwan on Saturday and get up early on Sunday to go to the island. What about sleep you may ask, well who needs to sleep on our weekend of rest anyway, ha ha. I have to admit that I may have put up the biggest stink about this as I wanted to finally get some time to blog and check my email because I promised my work that I would, even though they dont really need me. I know that our hosts only wanted to do something special for us and show us a good time but I just wanted to sleep. After some belly aching our guide agreed to let us sleep until 9:30 on Sunday then meet for breakfast. Later that day we were able to KTV (karaoke) and get massages which was wonderful. When we returned our host families all asked us how the beautiful island of Green Island was and we had to admit that we never quite made it there. oops.