We had a very long day today. After having a wonderful breakfast at our hotel, Brother Lyau drove us up to Puli, one of my old areas that I served in. It is in the very middle of Taiwan, tucked away in the mountains. Our first stop was to eat at my favorite restaurant and visit one of the chefs which I baptized, but today is Tomb Sweeping Day and the restaurant was closed. We continued on to suprise a member family that owns a pig intestine noodle shop. They were very suprised to see me, and more imporantly suprised that I haven't forgotten chinese. They said that they saw some pictures with me and a cake with chinese characters saying "happy birthday" written on it, on facebook. The characters were written completely wrong, so they were worried that only after one year (at that time) that my chinese could disgress so quickly. I had to explain to them, that it was Ruth who tried to write the characters on the cake which was for me. They were very relieved to hear that.

After this, we continued on to the Zhongtai chansi. This is one of the largest monk monestary in the world. They have about 2,000 monks, and the building is absolutley gigantic. Pictures will come later. Ruth and I were luckly enough to join a group of people from mainland china to tour the entire building. Typically you need reservations, but again, being white helps out. We were able to see all 20+ floors of the building.

After this adventure we traveled on to Sun Moon Lake which is a hot spot for tourist who come to Taiwan. This was a place of relaxation for Chiang kai shek. We drove around the entire lake and stopped at several Buddhist temples along the way. Ruth got a little car sick, which also made for a fun picture. We returned home around 8:00, but stopped at a Teppanyaki, that I frequently went to, before coming home. The same chef still works there and he still remembers me. He made us some extra food.

We are both very beat now and want to go to bed. Sorry for the lame post. Pictures and more to come tomorrow.