on top of the world!

i had an excellent weekend! it was a national holiday--Dragon Boat Festival--so everyone had a whole two days off (that's a long weekend here). i didn't end up making it to the boat races on sunday because i was too worn out from lots of fun on saturday!

two of the other teachers, kirsten and kyle, and i took a bus to downtown taipei--it's about 45 minutes away. we went to the sun yat sen memorial hall and looked around. it's a very cool building but i don't know a lot about sun yat sen, so it didn't mean as much as it could have. he's the first president of the ROC, but also did a lot of other good things. (as i found out later in the day... keep reading!)

Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall

Sun Yat-Sen

then i went to a workshop for yoga teachers at Pure Studio in the afternoon, and kyle and kirsten went to a park. the workshop was pretty good, and i signed up for a monthly membership so i can take unlimited classes there... it will make me get out for class as often as i can! i'm excited... it's a gorgeous studio. see: http://www.pure-yoga.com/en/taipei/studios/studio.php?location_id=8

after the workshop kyle and kirsten met up with me and we went to Macaroni Grill for dinner. it was so nice to have some comfort food... kirsten and i split an incredible salad and bowl of fettucine, and i indulged in some warm apple pie for dessert. then we made our way to Taipei 101, the tallest skyscraper in the world! it has a huge mall in the bottom; we checked out the bookstore, which has a big english lit. section and some english magazines. then we bought our tickets for the ride up to the 91st floor! the elevator ride--which is the fastest in the world--absolutely tortured my ears, but it was worth it when we got to the top. it was night, so we could see taipei all lit up and dark mountains in the distance (of course, with a lovely misting of smog over it all)

(ouch... much worse than taking off in an airplane)

Sears Tower comes in 3rd place!

this huge ball hanging in the middle of the tower is supposed to balance the building in case of--when--there are earthquakes. hmm. they're called "damper babies."


me with "lucky red" the damper baby!

yay! i'm in the tallest building in the world!

we took the MRT (subway) back to the bus station, but on our way, in the MRT, we were approached by a Taiwanese missionary named Moses, who took the opportunity to tell us about Jesus and how He saved us and that we needed to accept him as our Savior. he also told us that Sun Yat-Sen was a christian and that he set "Double Tenth Day" as the national holiday (October 10th) because the Chinese character for "10" is a cross. good to know! but unfortunately, Moses couldn't speak English very well, so he kept poking people around him and asking them how to say something in English. it was very crowded so everyone in the whole car could hear him and he was so exuberant (not common in public places here) that people were turning away to cover their laughter. it was very cute, but it was hilarious, and he went on and on for a good ten minutes until we got off, with the people around us nearly in tears from laughing so hard.

that was just one of the crazy things that happened, but everything else, when i think of it, wouldn't be funny unless you were there. let's just say that my abs hurt from laughing so hard, and it was a great time! sunday i slept in--much needed rest as i'm feeling a little sick--and then explored downtown Jungli and went to starbuck's. perfect.