Ok, so normally I wouldn't put up a lame picture of us on the train but... There's a story behind this puppy and we were extremely grateful to be on that sucker. So the whole week we'd been trying to figure out the dang train. After FINALLY finding the train schedule website in english (this took an hour or two with multiple looking p.s.) we found our train. 7:16 on Friday night, that was our train. So being all peppy and prepared we had one of our secretaries write down the train and we went a day early to buy the tickets to make sure we got a sitting spot. Friday night rolls around... we go to the train station.... our tickets don't work.... what the heck? We realize... we'd purchased tickets for the night before *?&*!! After haggling and frantically trying to figure out how to switch the tickets, we ended up just buying new tickets (with the help of some extremely kind translators...) but they told us to keep our old tickets and we could get re-embellished in Kaohsiung. Sweet! We get to Kaohsiung and try to get our money back. We need our tickets we just bought to get there.... ah problem.... we gave them to the dude as we exited.... crap. (mind you these tickets were a whopping $15 US dollars which seems like a small fortune to me now... so we wanted our money back!) So, long story short,there we were at 11 at night sifting through hundreds of old tickets in a garbage can..... Eventually we got our money. So just a word to the wise if you're ever in Taiwan make sure to buy tickets for the right day... it'll save ya an hour or two of sheer chaos and confusion.
Ya know people seem to think Americans like things big and flashy, I don't think people have noticed Taiwan. These people do too, every freaking corner you turn there's some ridiculously large thing!! But this place could easily be one of the coolest places we've been yet. It was called Fo Guang Shan, it some major major major Buddhist grounds, they even have a University there!! It was cool, we saw about a jillion monks, and call me a complete fool but I didn't know monks could be women. I guess since their heads are shaved I always thought man... no... every one we talked to pretty much was a woman. huh. But anyways this place was el coolio on top the stand Buddha, you can't see too well but it was surrounded by HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS of smaller Buddha statues, it was incredible. And the other picture is just one of the many temples on the grounds, it was GINOURMOUS though as well. There seriously were at least ten different kinds of shrines and temples at this place and it covered a couple of miles. It was incredible.
Another random statue. Great. I'm not sure what it's trying to convey but.... you wanna know what I see? One Buddha looking really evil and attempting to give the other a wet willy, i'm pretty sure if I asked the artist I would be correct.
Our next stop? THEE BEACH!!! Wahoo it's been driving me crazy I live on this dang freakin tiny ISLAND and I haven't seen the ocean the whole time i've been here. Finally we did, and it was no greater than fantastic. I'm a sucker for the ocean, as you can tell from the sick fist pump i'm doing in the picture.
Just some saweet night life at the beach. Ok, so I don't know if I've mentioned it before but people here really truly think that tan skin is the ugliest thing since blue eyeshadow. So when they go out they cover up their ENTIRE BODIES!! Mind you think island is the HOTTEST freaking place in the world, they are crazy about white skin. I just thought this lady was funny all covered up, notice it's dark out, and the nice reflector tape on the rice picker hat.
So, after church today (and getting to meet Sister Dalton the General Young Women's President.... incredible) we went to this place called Lotus Lake. It was pretty cool and for whatever reason they decided to surround the lake in odd statues and figures. Literally, everywhere freaking every 50 steps there was some sort of pagoda, odd statue, cool hug coi pond, some sort of temple, odd criss crossing bridges, women singing the most awful Karaoke, old men surrounded by dogs talking to them as if they were people, pretty much you think of it and it'll be here. Here are just a few that I found the coolest.
Umm.... take a good look at this picture.... a real good look. Yep, you see it correctly that's a sheep and a pig. No, they're not wax they're real. Apparently the Buddhist still believe in animal sacrifice. This weekend we've seen tons of these tents set up all around for some Buddhist holiday. They normally just have seriously a small grocery stores amount of food, but this one took the cake, with freaking animals!
So as you can tell this weekend was pretty great. But I do need to add this in. Earlier this week I was informed with some horrendous news. My good friend Nick Raitt, who has been battling cancer for the past couple of years has relapsed. Please keep him in your prayers.
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