Rising Stars

Over the two years that we’ve lived in Taiwan we’ve mentioned the perks of being some of the few white people in an Asian world, but I think being asked to be in movies tops them all.  That’s right, I said movies, plural.  In the last three weeks, we’ve been asked to be in 2 movies!  (Granted, we’ll probably be extras in the back ground, but these opportunities don’t come around everyday people.)  We of course said yes, because that’s what you say when someone asks if you want to be in their movie, right?!

Unfortunately, we quickly learned there’s a reason we’re teachers and not actors, the reason you ask?  We. Can’t. Act.  After agreeing to be in the first movie, we met up with some of the movie people for what we thought was a “we’re gonna film on this day and you need to wear this and act like you’re talking in the background” meeting turned out to be an audition.  We were as astonished as you because like I said before, we can’t act.  They wanted us to act out a short scene where we were riding our bikes and I fall off mine and Nick has to check on me, then stop a passing car to take me to the hospital.  They gave us a few minutes to think about it and practice, and then things got hilarious.

Picture this- we have no props, we’re standing in plain view of all the passersby, and we have no idea how to make this look real, but we do it anyways, because we’re dedicated.  So they say go, or action or whatever the movie term is, and Nick and I start our pathetic attempt at acting.  I fall down off my invisible bike and do some whimpering and crying for help.  Nick rushes over and sees that I’m okay, then tries to stop cars.  At this point we think we’re done, but they say “No, keep going,” so we keep going.  Thankfully I’m supposed be the injured, so no one can see my embarrassed smile because my body is blocking my face.  Nick stops invisible cars  like a pro, and eventually I hobble over to the “car” and they rush me off to the hospital.  End of scene.  We of course apologized to the people about our horrible acting skills, and they reassure us that it’s okay, but now they have to send it to the director to see if he likes it.  We haven’t heard from them yet, so, we’re not getting our hopes up, but there’s always our second movie.  That could be our big break!

Wreck Diving in the Philippines

Nick and I just received our new Advanced Open Water and Wreck Diver certification cards and it reminded me that we never told you about our amazing wreck diving experience in Coron!

After our disappointment with the Whale Sharks, Nick and I were really looking forward to seeing some cool stuff during our dive time.  After another two flights, we were in Coron and ready to start our diving with Rock Steady Dive Center.

During WWII, a fleet of Japanese ships were sunk in Coron Bay, so now there are about 11 wrecks that you can explore.  It’s been Nick’s dream since we started scuba diving to see some wrecks, so we knew we needed to hit these up.  We decided that while we were here, we might as well get wreck dive certified, because…why not?

Diving in the wrecks was amazing!  I feel like I use this word A LOT when talking about diving, but it just fits.  When inside the ships I can’t get over how amazing it is that nature has taken this foreign object and made it it’s own.  We saw coral growing on the ships, huge fish swimming in and out, and basically a what looked like a whole underwater city.  Nature at it’s finest I think!  And to imagine that this is all part of God’s work!  And then to think that this is just one of the wonders that the world holds for us!

Unfortunately our camera is only rated up to about 15 meters, so we couldn’t take pictures of most of the wrecks we saw, so just use your imagination!

Some above water scenery

Scuba Diving!

Hi Nemo!

One of the wrecks

One of the wrecks.