A trip to the mountains

There is sooooo much going on right now for us. We are busy almost every day, our house is a mess (Justin's attempt at packing) and when I am not going on an adventure or packing I am trying to finish up some work so I can ship my computer back to Arkansas. We are going on more adventures than I can post about lately. We have ten days before we return to Arkansas and five days before we head to Taipei for the first section of our trip home. So much to do but so little time.

Friday was the last day of school for Justin and Noah. On the last day of school there were two adventures happening at the same time! Noah went to Taichung with the entire 7th grade class. There were seven buses of children headed for an amusement park. To say that Noah enjoyed himself is an understatement. Not having his parents there to micromanage his behavior he was free! He has not stopped talking about this trip and how much fun he had.

For Justin and I, we headed to the mountains with a wonderful group of teachers. That is where the pictures will begin because I couldn't take any pictures of Noah since I wasn't there ;)

 Me (the huge American) with Gloria (Justin's director) the cute Taiwanese... Our size difference is amazing!

We are headed to the peak of that mountain. You can see on the picture below that it is 3217meters high or 10,554 feet!

Here are a few of the beautiful flowers we observed on our way up the mountain!

Yea!!! We are about half way there. We had to have frequent rests because it was hard to breath.

At one point we had to use a rope because the mountain was steep with little to hold onto.

 A beautiful view!

And of course our good friend, Adrian, was with us! We are going to miss him... we are trying to talk him into coming to visit us next summer! I hope he decides to. I would love for our family and friends to meet him.

What's with the Pepsi??? Well there are two reasons... First, the lower air pressure on the mountain makes the compressed gases to expand. This causes the Pepsi to become more bubbly and the snack packages to inflate like balloons. To drink the Pepsi is like drinking liquid Pop Rocks... Way too much fun for some silly science teachers! Second, Pepsi in Chinese means good luck or good fortune so to drink it on top of the mountain will bring us good luck all year or something like that ;)

We made it back down in one piece! Now we are headed to lunch.

 Yum...Yum...Yum!

Our last stop of the day is to a paper factory! It was pretty neat to watch them make paper by hand!

Surprise! We were not done yet... Adrian took us to a Chili's!!!!! This is our first time to eat at a Chili's in Taiwan... It was exactly the same as the one in Arkansas!

We have a couple of satisfied guys!