Super Saturday

We hit two destinations today, and met with three friends (which might have been 8)! Whew!

I LOVED this quote, and so, grabbed it via this shot.

First, we hit the Evergreen Maritime Museum. We'd stopped by last week when we wound up at Chiang Kai Shek Memorial, but entrance wasn't cheap when you accounted for all of us, and there was just an hour 'til closing.

Today, we still only gave the place 1.5 hours, but they had started a promotion where you could write your New Year's Resolution on a display and get discounted entrance, so we lucked out!

While EV is "King of the World," Arthur has spotted the ice burg! Love it!

AND it was FABULOUS. There were tons of intricately recreated models of ships through the centuries. And there were interactive displays which were very cool, and would have been all the cooler if they had been in English. But most things were in English, with very few errors, which was a pleasant change of pace. My favorite thing was the salvaged last words of a Titanic passenger who had carved a farewell to his family on a plank. I cried.

We Caspies triumph after we complete our own boat puzzle!

Here we met up with Krissy, another candidate to teach the kids Chinese and live with us in Utah. It wasn't optimal to try and meet someone AND manage Arthur and three other kids in a multi-floored museum. But we liked her and she joined us for lunch at Taipei's Main Station - our second destination.

I wanted to take the kids to see the train station because I remember it was busy and it was huge. My memory of it's busy-ness and huge-ness was BEFORE the MRT was completed and before the high speed trains ran. It's busy enormity is almost beyond description. On a Saturday afternoon, the press of people was intense. And we wound ourselves through an immense labyrinth on 4 below-ground levels just to find our way to the ground level and main hall.

I had suggested we meet Sammi and Sophia there for lunch. We didn't arrive until 2 pm and we were starving. Sammi pointed to a box lunch place next to where we met and said it was the cheapest option. More crucial, the lunches were ready NOW so we grabbed what we needed and went to find a place to eat in the food court on the second floor. That was MY plan, but I wasn't prepared for the throng that would still be eating at 2 pm on Saturday. Not only was there not a place for all 9 of us, but the noise was so loud we would not have been able to communicate without shouting.

We fled quickly to a pavilion outside and sat to the far side of a performance going on which we didn't understand. So things stayed noisy, but there was room for the kids to run, and dance, and complain our box lunches weren't very good (true). So I was much more content there, and we were able to visit with Krissy a bit more. (She was great with the girls, and easy to talk to, and would make a good teacher/roommate, but we give preference to people who are able to stay longer, and as of now, she was only thinking to come during a break from school. We're going to keep in touch.)

Around 3 I finally pressed us to leave. We were meeting a family from the ward at home at 5pm and I needed to clean and cook dinner. Sammi helped us back inside, and then decided to buy everyone a treat.

So we had tiny custards out of real egg shells and the kids drooled over the Thomas the Train ride around a giant Christmas tree and Quent asked Sammi about the mass wedding happening just yards away from that.

This shot was Q's idea! So we were wedding crashers, joining the other 20 or so couples who just got married. It was a group ceremony we just caught the tail end of and only crashed the picture portion. It struck Q and myself as very odd and very funny, but our reaction confused Sammi so perhaps group ceremonies in hectic public places are a thing here....

Finally we said goodbye to Sammi and Sophia, and Kai who was staying with them for the weekend and were on our long ride home. We made it back at 4:30 and I decided I MOST needed to lay down or I'd be a lousy hostess. It was a good thing I did because our guests delayed their arrival, then confessed they were at Costco, then asked how late the kids went to bed, and finally said they would be there at 8 pm, at which I point I suggested we change days. (I don't know how kids function pleasantly until 10 and 11 pm here - and I'm talking LITTLE kids, 3 and 4 years old! - but MINE don't, and I don't either.)

My kids had been looking forward to this evening for a few weeks, but thankfully I had an alternative activity we'd been procrastinating too: putting up the Christmas tree. So after an easy dinner of pasta and salad, the kids and I made our tree and then made ornaments for almost 3 hours while listening to Christmas songs. It was a lovely evening after all, and the rest I grabbed at 4:30 carried me through 'til bedtime! It's days like these that truly increase my love of the Sabbath as a day of REST!

PS: The weather for all of this was unseasonably GORGEOUS. Clear blue skies, sunny, about 75 degrees! My one regret of the day is that our plans weren't more centered around enjoying it while it lasted! I said to Quent, "This is the kind of weather that comes just before a typhoon! I wonder if one is coming." Sure enough, though it's no typhoon, a storm came in last night about bedtime and it's still dark and rainy outside today. (Sunday)