It's Christmas in Asia

I'm a little behind again in my postings. It's Thursday and our third day in Taiwan.

On Monday morning, we got to the airport in good order in Shanghai. We slogged our way through the maze of people boarding planes for their destinations all over Asia. They used buses to ferry us out to the plane. While waiting for all the people to board the plane, both Raylene and I were taken aback by hearing a Kenny G Christmas song being played over the plane's intercom system on an Air China flight. What is this world coming to?

Taiwan is a good place to fly after four nights in China. It is an open country with friendly people. On our first night, it was great to get together with Austim Lee's mom, Shelly, as well as with Gary Tsai's folks. Gary graduated last year and is now attending Syracuse University. Shelly even brought her mother along for the lovely dinner at the Miramar Garden Taipei, the hotel we are staying at while here in Taipei. I had a cup of onion soup and a rather sizable Fillet Mignon. Oh, some western sustenance.

In the morning, Raylene and I took the bullet train south to Taichong for a day of school visits, touring, lunch, and dinner with Kennith Chang's parents and Lewis Lin's mother. That's me with with Kennith's dad, George, in front of the chapel on the campus of Tunghai University. It is also where Kennith's old school, The Affiliated Experimental High School of Tunghai University is located. Taichong is an hour's train ride from Taipei or about twice that time if you drive. Its climate reminded me very much of San Diego.

We were met at the Taichong rail station and driven to a McDonald's restaurant to meet up with Lewis Lin's mom, Jamie. How about that, an Egg McMuffin in Taichong. That's me with Kennith's mom and Tammy, our translator, in front of the McDonalds we stopped into. The first sch00l we toured is christain related. We then drove about an hour southeast to Nantou where we toured our second school a Buddhist related school, Pu Tai Senior HS. We were all very impressed by Pu Tai's campus. The touring of both schools gave Raylene a great opportunity to promote Brewster. Pu Tai is where Lewis Lin went to school before coming to Wolfeboro. On the way out from Pu Tai Senior HS is the temple of the school's sponsor.

After our tours of the schools, George Chang drove us into the town of Nantou for lunch at the Wen Wan Resort on the hillside overlooking Sun Moon Lake. After lunch and a tour of this magnificent resort property we headed off for a boat ride across the lake. That's a fishing on the lake. That's Raylene just before we boarded the boat.

After our lake tour we headed back to Taichung for dinner and a train ride back up to Taipei.

Up at 4 a.m. and back in bed at 12 midnight. A very long day.

I'm leaving Asia tomorrow and heading home. I'll keep you posted on my last two days in Asia shortly.