Meeting up with peoples!

So there was hurricane alert so government said no work and no school today... which means church is canceled :( So sad... I was looking forward to it too. However, it was not raining at all during the day! That hurricane left rather quickly.... so I met up with shimu and her family for lunch anyways!

It was a pretty good hot pot restaurant... and we were able to eat... and video chat with Cathy!

But it was too loud, so we stopped the chat and restarted it again when we went to their house.

The kids have grown up after not seeing them for 5 years..... and only two of them remembered me! haha... Not bad :) Cathy and I brought some games for them so I was teaching them how to play Yatzhee.... let's just say that it's probably too much of a counting and risk game for their age. Maybe they'll like it when they're a bit older... haha.

And then we talked to Cathy some more...

And took a group picture..

The third oldest got this beetle as a pet.... that they caught in the mountain yesterday. It's quite big!

So that was my day with them..... hopefully I'll see them again sooner than later :(

And then while going back home, I saw the Ding Gua Gua place that I still haven't tried yet.... so I bought a whole bunch of stuff to try...

It was not bad... but still about the same as I remembered it 5 years ago. Not as exceptional as when I tried it as a kid... I guess the memory is always better.

And then I met up with Ruby!! She's up in Taipei for 3 days for vacation, and then going down to Taichung for the rest of the week.

I haven't seen her for a year and a half.... it was really good to meet her again!

We weren't sure where to go at all... so we decided to go to Shilin Night Market, despite the fact that the hurricane is coming.

And then I saw.... fruits! So I got "lian wu" and "shi jia", even though they were super expensive. One "lian wu" and half of "shi jia" cost me 270 NTD, that's $9! Bleh! At least I finally get to eat it....

And then we went to eat some more stuff.....

Not bad, not bad...

And we saw the devastation from the hurricane yesterday. Granted, these were newly planted trees, which means the roots were almost non-existent.

That's it folks!

By the way, I'm officially sick. Sigh. After trying not to get sick for 5 weeks, I've finally gotten the same virus everyone else had. I lost half of my voice and my throat hurts a lot..... bleh. And I'm going home on Tuesday! Whoa... time to face reality....