inspired by my paradisaical adventures at BYUH where beach book reading occurred weekly [exactly a year ago!]
i had a two hour break between temple work and the reception so i decided to walk around taipei a bit. after unsuccessfully searching for an MRT station, i decided to look JUST LOOK inside a cute dress shop. my mistake. the minute i walked in, i was immediately helped by this nice asian woman who didn't speak any english. so i figured...since she is helping me already, why not grab a dress for the reception? easier said than done. picture me acting out a wedding ceremony complete with "walking down the aisle" and "putting on the ring". once she understood, the party started. she promptly took the dresses from my hands, saying they were bad colors and pushed me into a dressing room with a foreign looking object in my hands. [and by foreign, i don't mean a beautiful chinese dress, i mean an object most likely from outer space] my awkwardness grew as she threw more and more hideous dresses my way. it was comparable to being a princess that got to try on every single dress until she found the perfect one. except for some reason, all the cute ones were "bu hao!" and so i was left to try on space suits, pink belly-givers, metallic cover-ups, pregnancy dresses, and large velvet numbers. all made me look HUGE and gave me lumps i didn't even know i had. and that is when the camera came out. here are some of the atrocities. enjoy!
so i had the genius idea of trying to recreate the solar system on one of my classroom walls. it is going to involve a very large sun [the sun does contain most of our solar system's mass!] and a large jupiter [the biggest planet], both decorated with small bits of torn paper. and then rockets, stars, moons, and all the other planets were going to be included. and that genius idea has gotten me as far as....
darn you preschool and all the prep work! good thing the kids are cute.
a slightly more glamorous version of the bike ride home with our newly acquired animals....amy rode with the cage on the back of her bike. and looked pretty much exactly like this model. too bad we have no pictures of that endeavor, or else i'd post proof.
want to start an english language preschool? make sure you have these things.
so i have always planned on taking a life-heritage trip [an idea stolen from my sister]--going to hong kong and mainland china to visit the places where my mother and grandmother grew up. but then the whole john-legend-going-to-macau-for-his-concert insanity came up and we took the opportunity to boat over to hong kong while we were so close to it. and then my life-heritage trip brought itself to me.
sipped on flower tea while catching up. they told me that my grandma would remember the country club and that i should talk about with her when i get back to america. and then driving around hong kong, my aunt kept pointing out things like where my mom lived, what buildings she would remember etc. then the real treat came when my aunt 
suggested tea time...british style. we went to the peninsula hotel and were treated like princesses. and it wasn't until after i had come back to taiwan from hong kong that my mom told me that my grandfather used to WORK there as a tour guide and front desk man. pretty sweet, if you ask me.
