2012 was a great year full of adventures and blessings, friends and laughter, change and peace. As you know (hopefully) we moved to Taiwan in August to start a year of teaching English on the fun little island of Penghu. We had recently graduated college and wanted a chance to explore the world, do what we love, and get paid (what else could you want out of a job?) 🙂 God has been with us every step of the way! He has orchestrated everything from our job search, to getting hired, to getting placed in a wonderful school with wonderful people, and we know He will continue to guide us in 2013.
With that said, lets get on to our New Year’s adventure! (Very smooth transition, right?)
When in Taiwan, there is no better place to ring in the new year than in Taipei. For the last nine years, the city has put on a wonderful fireworks show at Taipei 101, the second tallest building in the world, and our goal was to be there this year! Like all good adventures, getting there was more than half the fun.
We left our house and hopped on a plane to Taipei with our friend and co-worker Anly early early early on Saturday morning (6:40 to be exact). Okay, so maybe it’s not that early, but to us, anything before 8 o’clock is too early. When we arrived in Taipei we bought tickets for a train to Sinchu where our friend was getting married later that day. Since we bought our tickets the morning of our trip, we had to stand on the hour long train ride, but it was okay because we watched a movie, read, and talked. We spent the rest of the day walking around Sinchu. We found a big bookstore (the bookstore was big, not the books :P), ate frozen yogurt (a commodity not found in Penghu), and watched some University students performing in a park-like area. When evening came, we quickly got dressed for the wedding and hurried over the the venue. The wedding was beautiful and sweet. Everything about it was personalized to fit the couple’s style and love story. We had a great time celebrating their love and eating great food (there was soo much)!
The next morning we woke up and got on a train back to Taipei. Lucky for us, Anly lived in Taipei for a year, so she knew where everything was! We went all over the place! Fisherman’s Wharf, Starbucks, Lover’s Tower (a tall lookout thingy), a really old church, The National Palace Museum (which we only got halfway through, it’s huge!!!), a really big shopping mall (we felt like small town people saying “Wow! It’s soo big!”), Toys R Us (to get gifts for Anly’s niece and nephew, but we had fun shopping for them), Sun Yet Sen memorial hall, a park with a giant Christmas tree, and lots of places in between. We, of course, ended our adventure with a viewing of the Taipei 101 fireworks on New Year’s Eve. It was 188 seconds of firework beauty!
We have been thinking about what our favorite place in Taipei was, but we can’t really pinpoint a certain place. The most fun was getting to explore the city together and enjoy each other’s company. After being together for almost four full days, we didn’t want to kill each other (AMAZING)! I have to admit, when we finally got back home, we were exhausted! I think I slept a total of eleven hours that night, and it was sweet sweet bliss!
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Oh what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh!
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On the train to Taipei.
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Nick gets a little hungry waiting in line.
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The giant bridge at Fisherman’s Wharf.
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Up in Lover’s Tower
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Taipei 101 pre fireworks.
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He’ll never grow up!
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GIANT Ferris wheel!
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We saw so many dogs dressed up!
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Frozen yogurt in the park.
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The happy couple!
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After the wedding, don’t we look pretty?
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We are MRT pros now!
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The old church on old street.
While in Taipei and during these first days of 2013, Nick and I have been reflecting on some goals for this year. I am posting them in hopes of keeping ourselves accountable.
Here it goes:
1. Read a book every week- CRAZY I know, but we’re going to try.
2. Pray more- together and individually.
3. Learn to scuba dive.
4. Learn to surf.
5. Exercise more (we’ve heard exercising is good for your health or something, who knew???)
6. Explore 2 new counties in Taiwan.
7. Nick wants to write more.
8. Nick also wants to improve his French.
9. I want to improve my Chinese.
10. I also want to blog at least once a week.
11. Go to two new countries (we are starting with Japan).
So there you have it!