On Sunday, June 14, Terry preached at our church, Linkou International Church (LKIC). Pastor Nanson and his wife had their first baby five weeks prior and had arranged for Terry to preach this week to give them some adjustment wiggle room. Terry was happy to oblige. You can watch if you'd like if you click on this link and start at the 37 minute mark.
Terry modified a previous sermon but I couldn't remember it at all. He did great! He spoke on evangelism, as no one who knows him will be surprised by. He was gratified and encouraged that a younger couple came up afterwards to discuss their interest in trying to have gospel conversations at the mall.
He shortened it quite a bit to account for the translating. Yes, our church operates in both Mandarin and English. The sermon is preached in either language and then translated appropriately. Therefore, Terry had to submit his written sermon to allow Nanson to translate it for the translator to read along sentence by sentence. There is less freedom to improvise.
It was raining again when we got out of church. I'll spoil the rest of the week, but it has mostly stopped raining after this.
We majorly chilled that afternoon.
That night we got some pictures and videos from back home where the B clan had a get together with almost all of Terry's dad's siblings. Only two were missing.
On Monday, June 15, I finally said enough was enough and took Samuel to the doctor. Ever since he came home from the Philippines in April, he's been sick on and off. I thought this current cough was a result of not completely healing fully after one of his last bouts of sickness. The doctor agreed with me... I think. His English is just okay, but not great. Basically, Samuel has/had bronchitis ("aint nobody got time for that!"). But we did get prescribed some antibiotics and cough meds.
After we got the meds next door, we immediately sat down on the stairs of the next business and he took those pills.
I stopped at the store on my way home. This shot is after I deposited my bike in the parking lot behind our building, which you can see beyond me.
Here he is resting and watching a video about anxiety that my friend Lillian sent me. He's always wrestling something, the poor guy.
Tuesday, June 15 began with some rowdy chess. Terry had an English tutoring session with Justin.
The boys made another small cardboard cat house for Porky.
I went to the store. We packed. And then we all left the house together in the spitting mist. The kids were going to the mall to buy a puzzle to keep them busy since Terry and I were going away for a couple of days!
We took this train into Taipei.
The kids quickly found a puzzle.
Meanwhile, we were riding through the dense forest ravine that the train goes through. I don't think I'll never not marvel at that thick jungle.
We disembarked and climbed out of the underground, and boom, we were in downtown Taipei. Terry takes a photo of that pink tall building almost every Tuesday night on his way to Aroma church's English conversation night.
And the kids were already hard at work on their puzzle.
We went back to the same hotel that we stayed at for our 2024 vision trip, the Green World Hotel. We wanted to experience it again, but most of all, we wanted the coffee from its breakfast bar that was legendary in our memories.
We dropped our stuff off and went out again for different coffee, from the same place I had when we visited Aroma during Chinese New Year, The Ramble Cafe. It did not disappoint. Their lattes are amazing and remind me of old Pure Bean, my love.
Deciding what to do next.
This block had many camera shops, so Terry bought a tripod and then a bluetooth clicker.
Then we went to the Ximending Market area.
It was very touristy and fun. We were hungry and stopped for dumplings at this random place.
Evie and Samuel made cookies.
Zoom in to see the chicken/duck (?) heads that we did NOT buy.
We did, however, get a donut.
Nom nom nom.
We were still hungry, so we went across the street to Sushiro.
It's a very popular sushi place. We have one very nearby in Linkou, but it's always busy. Here we got right in because it was early. When we left there were lots of people waiting.
You can order specific items off the app or you can just grab whatever item is going by on the conveyor belt. The plates are color coded for price. Super thankful for an English menu option. It was all very good.
The kids had popcorn and a movie.
After resting at our hotel, we went back out to Aroma Church for English conversation night. I attended with Terry for the first time. The discussion was about getting older. The students practice English through answering questions, learning new vocabulary, and playing games. It was surprisingly fun for this shy and nervous first-timer. Terry mentioned that nearly two people die every second... were they, the students, ready to die if today was their last day? This led to an opportunity to share the gospel. One student really appreciated the deep question about what happens after we die.
Wednesday, June 17 was our much anticipated breakfast with the legendary coffee. The breakfast was always just meh. We came for the coffee... and we were disappointed. They changed the coffee machine and this one was nowhere near as good!
Noah got a haircut and sent us a pic.
For lunch we walked back to the tall pink building we saw when we disembarked the train and went to the basement restaurant that we had been introduced to in 2024. It is the cafe that invented bubble tea!
It's small and we had to wait 15-20 minutes, but it was worth it.
It was the best boba I've had since moving here. I remember I didn't like it much in 2024 but now I love it. The food was all tasty too.
Meanwhile, Evie took the boys to the next-door pet cafe.
When we came upstairs, we discovered that it was absolutely pouring outside!
We decided to brave the rain with our umbrellas since the sidewalks are all mostly covered. We walked to a guitar shop next to Ximending. Terry's been considering getting a guitar and he gathered more info this day.
I hoped it would stop raining soon, so we continued walking to our final destination, the Taipei Botanical Garden. It poured and poured almost the whole way there! This was across from the presidential offices we saw in our 2024 walking tour.
This was outside the supreme court building.
And this is behind the supreme court building, at which point it finally stopped raining. It has beautiful grounds.
We crossed the street and took a pic.
We stopped here purely for the name. We had joked since the night before that Terry needed to stop there to feed his wife. They make amazing cinnamon rolls and we were not disappointed. Plus it was right next door to the garden.
The garden was so beautiful!
Terry bought a canned mocha from a vending machine near the restrooms and we took this selfie in an avenue of palms.
I don't get tired of palm trees! It's funny though b/c sometimes I don't see them and forget I'm in a (nearly) tropical climate.
Not too far from there was the lotus pond!
Wow it was gorgeous.
Terry used his new bluetooth clicker to take this selfie of us.
And then this guy insisted on using Terry's phone to take "beautiful" photos. He was funny.
At first it was fun and then we started wondering if he was going to demand payment for all of these pictures he took of us. What did the people walking by think? Did they know what was going on? It started to get awkward. But eventually the guy was satisfied and gave the phone back. Terry then gave him a gospel tract and Gospel of John, both in Chinese. The man surprisingly started reading them right away!
We made our way around the far side of the pond and interacted with some friendly turtles eating the grass.
The lotus flowers were huge!
Meanwhile, at home, Evie made hamburgers for the boys!
We walked around the garden until we had basically seen it all and were tired. I was kinda disappointed there weren't more flowers. It was just a mass of green after a while. So we rented uBikes and rode back to the hotel, which Terry is in front of.
We rested for a while and then went out to a Japanese hotpot restaurant, basically. Hot pot is something that I didn't know about prior to coming in 2024. They give you a pot of broth and then you cook your own veggies and meat on a hot plate at your seat. This place was much tastier than the other places we'd been. But Terry wasn't feeling all that great.
The next day was Thursday, June 18, and we had to check out at 11am. We walked down to Cama Cafe, which I'd been eagerly wanting to visit since our 2024 maiden voyage there. It wasn't as good as I remembered! I prefer Ramble now.
Next we wandered around Ximending again. It was soooo hot though.
So we went into an air conditioned store and bought some souvenirs for the kids. Then we ate lunch at a very tasty ramen shop on the top floor.
We went back to the hotel to grab our heavier bags and walked to the underground mall by the train. I was hoping to visit a favorite store but we just couldn't find it. So we took the train home.
And not long afterwards, the kids finished their puzzle. They were only a little crazy after two days of constant puzzle making.
On Friday, June 19, we talked to our friend and fellow youth pastor Josh and his two kids while we compared Lego "monsters."
This is Evie and I correcting her very last paper of her high school career.
She graduated from high school!!!
That afternoon Justin came over for an English lesson that involved teaching him Settlers: Cities and Knights as well as get-to-know you conversation questions.
I noticed new orchid flowers in our courtyard and took a better photo of the hanging roots. If you zoom in you can see how the longest root has basically fused into the tree stem.
Samuel had run out of meds after only three days worth, so Terry took him back to the doctor that morning. It's annoying that they only give you three days of meds! I don't quite know why that is but it's another reason people keep going back to the doctor. Samuel was still fighting the infection, worn out, and he needed a nap.
We decided to go out for dinner that night to celebrate. It was officially our anniversary (22 years!) and Evie "graduated" high school.
We attempted to go to Sushiro in Linkou but even though it was very early, there was still a long line. So we went back to The Magic Touch, another sushi restaurant.
Wobbly mango pudding.
This was the same place we went out to last summer with our team the B's and W's. So fun to go back again.
The kids biked home...
... and Terry and I strolled home.
Never noticed this statue before. So European-looking.
Even later we went to Bible study at pastor Nanson's place.
Saturday, June 20, was very chill. Just Ezra playing some old fashioned games.
Also old fashioned.
Evie woke up with a plan to make cheesecake and invite friends to swim with her.
So we made it happen! There were some kinks to work out but it was a fun time.
We could only have three guests at a time. And we seemed to annoy an older women trying to swim laps.
It's a Taiwan thing to require swim caps. I don't love that.
The cheesecake! It was very good.
The guests.
Sunday, June 21, was also very chill; however, I was not feeling great. I don't know what my deal was but we decided maybe I just needed some space. I had church on my own at home while everyone went to LKIC. I think it helped to have some introvert alone time. Evie took the only photos of the day when she went out with her friends to have dumplings after church. Then they had ice cream at Family Mart. I made pizza that evening and we watched Anaconda through Vid Angel b/c wow, there's a lot of bad language.
That's a wrap for this week!
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