The Little Boat That Could

I have much to write about, many adventures have happened in the past day or so. After I finished my post on Friday night I completed my evaluations of each child and got my lesson plans done for this upcoming week, except the part that I need to finalize with Natalie (and I even got a big chunk of that done)—quite proud of myself for getting all of that done. Anyway while I was working on that Luke and Kaylene came back to grab their stuff, they had just returned from going to the movies, they had seen Made of Honor!! (*I talked to Brooke about that last night and she wants to see it too, so tomorrow night for our “FHE” we are going to watch it, yippee!!-and it is only $100NT so not bad at all) I was totally jealous at first and kind of wished that they had invited me, but then I talked to Brooke so now I am ok. Anyway I finished all of my stuff and then Natalie came home, we talked for a little while and then she went to bed (she got up to go on a bike ride yesterday at 6am), I was going to be smart and go to bed too, but instead I started a movie and watched part of it and didn’t end up going to bed until like 1:40am! When I woke up I called Mom on Skype and got to talk with her for like 45 minutes, which was nice but then she had to make Dad dinner and I really needed to shower ( I shower in the morning and at night every day because by the end of those time periods I generally need it :D) After my shower I was just kind of hanging out for awhile, puttering around on facebook, etc. When I realized that it was 2pm and I remembered that there was going to be a concert at the branch at 2:30. I grabbed something to eat, Natalie wasn’t back yet from talking on the phone with her family and so I decided that I had better go as I didn’t want to be late (I didn’t really know what kind of concert it was). So I started off for the church building, the whole time I kept on worrying that it was going to be Sunday dress and I hadn’t dressed that way, but when I got there I knew that I shouldn’t have worried, I think that there was only like 4 people in Sunday dress (all men in white shirts and slacks). I got there a little early, they were still warming up.
The concert seemed to be of about 8 youth, some of them members of the church and others not. The instruments that they played were the bamboo flute, the piano, a violin, and a Chinese instrument that for some reason I think that I have seen before but I do not know what it is called. The concert was two hours long with each youth playing two songs solo and generally be accompanied by the piano. They were amazing musicians but I felt that the concert was a little longer than I would have liked, about part way through it I kind of started to drift into the land of sleep and then would have to shake myself out of it. My favorite parts were the flutes (which was a good thing as that was the instrument that most of the youth played), they were made of wood and where the mouth went was much further down then on a normal flute. What intrigued me the most was how high they could go. None of the youth used a microphone to play and yet you could hear them everywhere, the concert was on the 3rd floor but when I had first come into the building I could hear them on the 1st floor. I took a few videos, I hope that you can hear hour loud the instrument really was. Also what really impressed me was that this was a Saturday afternoon activity and there was at least 70 people there, I thought that it was really cool that, that many people would come and support the youth, I guess though churches out here are rather different then they are in the US, there are always things going on at the church, day or night (except they are all kicked out at 9pm every night) and they have gates around the building that they lock at night (more about that later).
After the concert we had been talking about going with the Sister Missionaries to get some kind of shaved ice as their appointment had not shown up, when Grace (from the Chew family—will explain in a moment who they are) came up and asked us if we wanted to go with her and her family to the water festival, which was kind of funny as just the night before Natalie and I had been talking about wanting to go to it before it ended next weekend.
*The Chew Family—many, many years ago I guess one of Natalie’s dad’s cousins served his mission here in Hualien and he had met this wonderful family and baptized them. When they found out that Natalie was coming here they got very excited and have had her over to there house every Monday night for dinner and FHE. I guess they are a very wealthy family (the dad is a doctor), they have 3 children and they have all gone to the US for high school. Anyway one of their sons is leaving on Monday to go and stay with Natalie’s family to go to high school and then their other son is leaving on Monday for his mission in Canada.
Back to the water festival, Natalie had been telling me about it, I guess her first weekend here Teacher Stephanie had taken her to it and she thought that it would be something that I would be interested in going to, she knew that it was also something that Brooke had been wanting to go to and so we said that we would try and think of a way to go to it and then the next day a opportunity presented itself. We were excited to be invited of course said yes, I just felt a little bad because I knew that Brooke wanted to go, but there was nothing we could do about it and hoped into the car. It was kind of interesting when we got into the first car they told me to sit in the front seat and in every car that we went I was asked to sit in the front seat. It was a fun drive to the part where the festival was, it took about 20-25 minutes to get there, during the ride we talked about how Natalie is going to set Grace up with one of her 2nd cousins so that they would be related or something like that. On our way there Sister Chew told us that we would be going in two different groups, Natalie, Grace, and I would be going with Brother Chew and his family. And the rest of the group would be going somewhere different.
We finally arrived at the park and everyone piled out of the cars (I think that in all there was like 7 cars or so, and somehow we had lost two on the way but I believe that eventually they caught up with us). There were quite a few of us, all of the youth aged kids headed straight for the lake where we rented some paddle boats. In our group I believe that we had 4 paddle boats, in ours there was Natalie, Grace, and I, then there was also two others with two girls in each one, one with Grace’s brother and Dad, and then another one with Grace’s other brother and a friend (oops that’s 5). We started just paddling for the middle of the lake, not really having any destination and did some bumper boating with the others and then we decided that we were going to have a race, somehow we won because the two that were racing us got turned the wrong direction! For our race we decided to name our paddle boat Rufio, so as we were paddling really fast the 3 of us would yell “Rufio, Rufio, Rufio, Ru-Fi-Ooooooo!” We then just pedaled around the lake for awhile, at one point we decided that we wanted to reach the other side, so we spent a fair amount of time doing that, because of the other boats that were driving around also we got turned in the wrong direction quite often, we did finally reach it at some point. After we had reached the other side I saw something in the middle of the water that from a distance it looked like a person in the water (we realized that it was a buoy but decided that we wanted to go and see it, so we headed in that direction, we even took some pictures with our friend buoy.Besides the fact that I am not a big boat fan (for some reason I love water but boats scare me) I had a lot of fun, the 3 of us just pedaled around singing songs really loud and really off-key, waving to anyone that we passed and just had fun talking. The part that I didn’t really like was when boats would drive by and create big waves and then we would go up and down, that part kind of scared me. By the end of it though my legs were absolutely killing me, I wish that they would move the pedals a little farther out from your seat, my legs cramp up from pedaling. After an hour or so of pedaling our time was up and we had to head back, rather then we all just pedal back separately, our boat and two others from our group hooked together with ropes and we all pedaled back together, I think that in a strange way we were able to move faster because of that, because it certainly took us a lot less time to get back in then it had taken us to get out there.
When we were all back from the paddle boats we sat down for a little to talk and then everyone headed off to go to where they were eating, again for some reason they told us that we would be going in two groups. So Natalie, Grace and I were switched into Brother Chew’s car and we headed for an Aborigine restaurant called “The Tree House,” we walked in and the restaurant was completely packed but they had a table set out for us, the only problem: we had made a reservation for 7 and there was 11 of us. So we all sat down trying to squish around a table, when we had all just got sitting down one of Grace’s uncles came up to the table and told us that they had a special table for us…it was outside, lucky us! I felt sort of like we were in trouble and had to eat by ourselves. It was a rather interesting meal, they first began by bringing in a plate of a whole fish and a plate with a whole chicken, someone then had to put gloves on and pull apart the chicken and someone also had to pull the skin back on the fish and then people just started stabbing at the fish with their chopsticks and eating. After they brought the fish and the chicken the plates of food just kept on coming, the thing that I ate the most of was purple rice, it didn’t really have any taste but it was the most relatively safe item on the table. Natalie and Grace kept commenting on how it was all romantic (because we were in the dark with music playing- and then they didn’t help matters by bringing out candles), I thought that, that made the meal a little awkward. It was kind of funny, at one point one of Grace’s uncles came over to Natalie with his cup of wine (they were not all LDS) and was holding his cup up, she kept on asking him what it was and all he was trying to do was cheers, I tried telling her but she didn’t get it- they did cheers several times throughout the night.
After dinner was over we walked over to the waterfront, I guess people come like an hour early in order to get good seats and the show was set to begin in like 10 minutes so we didn’t really have any hopes of getting good seats. So we were standing watching the show, when we realized that there was more than one show and that this was not the one we had actually been planning on watching, we decided that we would watch this one anyway and then rush in to get good seats for the next one (it kind of worked out anyway as the group that went to the other restaurant was not there yet). It was fun, because there was lots of loud music blaring Natalie and Grace started dancing, soon Brother Chew, Grace’s brother and I had joined them, we got some looks but we were having fun so that was all that mattered. When the 1st show ended we had to use the restroom so Natalie, Grace, and I went to find one, after we had used the toilets (once again I used a handicap so that I would have a normal toilet :D) we realized that we were a little thirsty, it is a bit hard to find anything that is non tea. But we did find one that is wintermelon tea (don’t worry it is not caffeinated), I have heard many things about it, some really like it and some really don’t – I wasn’t that impressed with it, it wasn’t bad but it wasn’t good either. It was actually kind of funny, Grace had told us that it was cucumber and when we were sitting down talking about it her aunts were like “What?” cucumber, no it is wintermelon- they thought that it was actually quite funny that she had called it cucumber. On the way back we also saw a guy selling soft serve ice cream and we decided that it would be good, it was the best kind of flavor- vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry swirled together. The first one that the guy out for us fell right onto the ground, I was going to try and get a picture because the way it fell was so perfect and cool but right as I was turning my camera on the guy kicked it out of the way. The ice cream was really interesting as it was steaming, but it tasted really good except that we had to eat really fast as it was hot outside and heat and ice cream do not mix well together for some reason.
Even though we had sat down right as the other show ended we were still squished especially as other members of the family came, but it was ok we were on like the 3rd row and were able to see the show really well. The show was amazing; I don’t think that I can even begin to describe it for you. Luckily I took some pretty good pictures and a couple of movies of it, so I will post them in the next post. I now understand how Natalie felt when I was asking her questions, you can’t really describe it, it is something that you just have to see. I cannot believe how much money they spend on this show, they do this show 3 times a night, every day of the week for nearly a month and a half- with tons of fireworks, water, and lights. After the show was over we again switched cars, this time we were with Sister Chew again, she wanted to walk quickly as there were lots of people so at times it was hard to follow her but we made it. At one point we were walking on the side of the road and there was a bus like 3 inches from us, Natalie and I both reached out and touched it, right as we touched it an officer blew his whistle and told us to move back and walk closer to the sidewalk, I was like dang it the only time I try and touch a bus I get whistled at by a police officer.
Natalie and I had left our bikes at the church and we were afraid that the doors were going to be locked, but Sister Chew was willing to check and see if they were open. Strangely she had a key to the gate (I don’t know why she didn’t mention that in the beginning), luckily as by the time we got back to the church it was 9:30 and the gates were locked. It was kind of funny, as Sister Chew had forgotten that all of the other cars were following her and when we pulled over in front of the church we looked back and had all of these confused drivers, she was like “oops!” Anyway Natalie and I grabbed our bikes quickly and rode out of there, we realized that we had not talked about dinner for today and Brooke who is usually the one to get the groceries had been out of town so Natalie rode quickly to the grocery store to get something even really simple for dinner tonight, as it is our last Sunday we will all be together we thought that we should do something together at least.
When we got home Brooke was home, at first when I tried talking to her she asked if we could talk in the morning as she had just gotten home herself and was really tired. I was ok with that and walked away, but as I was coming back from the kitchen getting a drink, she called me and was like do you want to see what I bought? I went in and saw what she had gotten, she got some really cool things but it made me realize that things here are still kind of expensive. I had been considering a trip to Hong Kong but realized at the price I am not sure if Natalie will want to go with me, she wants to save all of her money- I understand that, but I also think that I should experience what I can while I are here, there are no certainties that I will ever be able to come back here again.
I woke up this morning realizing that again I had overdone myself and was not feeling well, I need to remember that while I am having tons of fun that my body normally shuts down in the heat and I need to work with that, slowing myself down and taking precautions. Thankfully, after I have just been relaxing for a couple of hours I feel better. I am excited that I don’t really have any huge stresses tonight and that I already have my lessons done and pretty much know what I am going to be doing all week. I even finished a book today, The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis- there are a couple of books in English and I am going through them rather quickly, I think that there is one other book that I have yet to read- so who knows what I will do after that.
I am all caught up for now, pictures and movies still to come! This is ~Betherd~ signing off!