Rainbow Village, Changhua and Future Travel Plans

Rainbow Village

Two weekends ago Angela and I decided to take a trip to see Taichung's famous Rainbow Village. To quote the internet:
 "The Rainbow Village (彩虹卷村) was built in the 1940s -1950s to house soldiers and their families. As time went by, it slowly became a permanent dwelling for its settlers. One of the veterans there, 87-year-old Huang Yung Fu, turned the village into a giant piece of artwork in recent years by covering the walls and ground with his drawings."
The "village" is actually just three buildings, connected by walkways. It was really small and packed with people, but it was still pretty neat. All of the walls and some of the ceiling and floor are covered with different , mostly tribal, paintings. The man who created everything, Huang Yung Fu, was there selling merchandise and signing autographs. Apparently he still adds artwork to the limited blank spaces left on the buildings. He seemed like a pretty cool old dude.

Changhua

Last weekend the roomies and I decided to take a day trip to the giant Buddha in Changhau, about twenty minutes by train from Taichung. It was our first time going on the train by ourselves and we did it with very minor hiccups. All of the people who we asked for help at the train station were friendly and went out of their way to help us purchase the right tickets and get on the correct train. People here are seriously the best. Upon arriving in Changhua we took a taxi to the hill with the Buddha and we got a little tour of the area by our talkative taxi driver. Through his broken English and our super broken Chinese we discovered that the hill was not only home to the Buddha, but half a dozen other scenic spots as well. Jackpot. We spent the day  wandering around the area, exploring gardens and waterfalls, climbing into old American airplanes from the Japanese occupation era and making street art. 

 The mighty giant Buddha

The view from the Buddha

Fierce

The temple

Waterfall

Making some street art

Our amazing llamas 

In the cockpit of the old American airplane

Future Travel Plans

My wallet has not liked me this past week but I really do not care. Angela and I were planning on visiting one of my friends from KU in Myanmar over a long weekend in mid-October, but those plans fell through due to visa issues. So here were Angela and I with three days taken off work and nowhere to go. As we were deciding on a country to visit (I am so blessed that one of my only problems lately has been to decide what country I want to visit) we both blurted out South Korea at the same time. The next day our plane tickets were booked and we found ourselves pouring over South Korean tourist websites. We'll be traveling to Seoul and meeting up with one of Angela's friends from college. She'll be our tour guide and we even get to stay with her a few nights. So excited.

This same week, my mom finally bought her plane tickets to come visit me in November! We are meeting in Hong Kong in early November. We'll stay in Hong Kong for two days and then take a day trip to Macau for our third day. Then mom will be in Taiwan for a few days before she jets off to China. I am so excited for her to get here so she can finally see and experience everything I have been talking about for these past few months.

A Work Party, an NBA Star, Some Adorable Kids, Lots of Rain and a Little Food Poisoning

I know it's been over a week since I've written, so I apologize for that. I haven't traveled out of Taichung in two weekends now (that's a record!). This is due to the fact that there has been a typhoon the last two weekends, causing it to rain all weekend and the majority of the week. Traveling in a typhoon is not exactly fun, so we've stayed in town. I'm starting to go a bit stir crazy here though. I like Taichung and all, but there is so much to do and see in the rest of Taiwan that I get antsy when I'm not seeing it. A trip has already been planned for next weekend because the roommates and I have to get out of town! Here's what has been going on in my life these past two weeks:

Surprise Work Party for Teacher Susan

The Taiwanese staff did an amazing job organizing a surprise birthday party for our foreign director Teacher Susan. We were told to wear pink and white and show up at T.Patricia's house at 7:00. It was so fun to see everyone outside of school! A few of the Taiwanese staff made a video for T.Susan with videos of old staff, present staff and children wishing her a happy birthday. It was adorable. T.Patricia said she wanted to make T.Susan cry and she succeeded in that. We had a fun night eating lots of delicious food, teaching the Taiwanese staff how to play quarters and just hanging out outside of school. 

T. Tameeka, T. Katie, T. Alice and I

Playing quarters. It was quite intense.

T. Kalee, Katie, Kelly, Brittany and I

All of the foreign and Taiwanese staff who attended

T. Patrica, Angela, Katie, Tameeka, Alice, Kalee and I

An NBA Star

Katie and I were wandering around last Friday night, looking for something to eat. Katie decided that she wanted to get carryout from a somewhat fancy restaurant that we had eaten at a few weeks prior. When we walked up to the building we saw that they were having a huge party and there were lots of people waiting around outside the building. We walked up to the hostess and said that we wanted carryout. We were let into the building where we learned that there was an NBA star there by the name of Robinson. Being the Jayhawk that I am, I automatically thought Thomas Robinson. We had to talk to four different waitresses before we learned that his full name was Nate Robinson. Turns out that he is an ex-Chicago Bulls, current Denver Nuggets player who also happened to win the slam dunk contest three times and he is the shortest player to ever win the slam dunk contest. Pretty cool. (And no, I did not actually know any of that when I heard his name but I did use the internet and my NBA loving roommate to figure that out when we got home). 

In front of the sign advertising that Robinson was going to be there promoting the NBA

Walking out from the restaurant to his car

Some Adorable Kids

My kids are the greatest. Here's some (okay a lot of) pictures to prove it. 

Pretending to be snakes

Playing a colors matching game

Learning the letter A

Dancing to the 5 Little Monkeys song

Making Father's Day Cards

Doing an apple counting activity 

Going on a letter "A" hunt

Making a friendship book

Practicing spelling our names

Reading about friendship

Making collage butterflies

Playing a matching game

Making birds out of the letter "B"

Playing a ball game

Blowing bubbles on the playground 

Reading Rainbow Fish

Playing during centers

The house the kiddos made out of circle blocks

Playing with cars

Painting with cars

Making roads and cars out of the letter "C"

Making a friendship snack

Painting emotions

Working in our workbooks

Practicing the letter "C"

Sorting pictures based on what letter the word started with

A Little Food Poisoning

I'm not going to share my food poisoning story with the entire internet but those of you who know my Mrs. E's food poisoning story, this was much worse. And looking back on it, much more entertaining. Maybe I'll share in the future, but then again maybe this will be a "what happens in Taiwan, stays in Taiwan" story.