On Monday, October 5th, we had our first adventure with Terry's parents - driving through Taipei traffic in the rain! Just kidding. That was just annoying.
We took them to Taipei 101!
Who would've thought Evie was almost taller than the building?
Obligatory photo around the building sign. It was very foggy for the first part of our visit, but we made the most of it.
They had new interactive screens that showed what was viewable on the ground depending on the direction. Pretty cool.
Posers. What was cool, though, was that the building basically recreates these fireworks on October 10th-- Double Ten Day, or Taiwan National Day-- that weekend.
It had been a year and a half since we'd been up there and they had pretty new decorations.
"So cuuute," as our Mandarin tutor used to say. We say it all the time now.
Checking out the damper - a giant 728 ton (or 132 elephants 😂) ball that displaces excess energy from the swaying of the building during earthquakes or typhoons.
The fog was clearing.
We hung out in the cafe with our mochas and/or ice cream, because why not.
"Because that's why."
Jerry and Alice have officially been in the 11th tallest building in the world.
Henry and Jesiah took this amazing photo in July of 2025. We have always joked how Henry looks exactly like a model...
...so Evie and Samuel did their best to remake it! 😝 Nailed it!
The clouds got thinner and thinner the longer we waited. We weren't in a hurry so we stayed a long time.
We bought some postcards, wrote on them, and sent them to friends from the "post office" there.
The damper from one floor lower.
Afterwards we descended to the food court and successfully navigated it. I thought it went much better than last summer when I about lost my mind in there.
I think I got a pretty decent 0.5 photo of the family and the building. They pressured me to take the photo from the ground like Mei did last year, but I didn't have to.
This LOVE sign is in front of the building.
We walked a few blocks away to a mall.
There was Pokemon store in the mall, just perfect for the boys!
They were happy.
After a long drive home through traffic, we shopped at the store real quick so I could make dinner. Taco soup time! Jerry and Alice wanted to see what the store was like, so they came.
I made soup super quickly and then we hung out and relaxed. Jerry and Alice went to bed early. Jet lag takes time to adjust to. Ezra put his new Taipei 101 nano-block set together. Samuel and Alice played cribbage with their homemade cribbage board made of cardboard. Evie wrote.
Jerry and Alice moved their trip up since the boys' had no class due to fall break. When we bought their tickets we didn't realize there was such a thing as a week off from school. So on Tuesday, October 6th, we went out again for another adventure. When we saw Rex on Saturday, Terry had arranged to go to "Yilan" on Tuesday, so even though we were kind of tired, off we went again!
Rex led us to a beach to start with. And coincidentally it was the exact beach I had been wanting to visit...and the same one Evie and Samuel had gone to at the end of May for their Morrison "last hurrah" school trip, Waiao beach.
We bought two lessons and rented two surf boards for the boys. They started their lesson on the beach...
...and then moved to the water.
We watched them for a long while. Jerry and Alice sat in the two beach chairs we had bought the previous week at Costco, but I forgot to take a photo of them. Boo.
Evie imitated the face this washed-up coconut was making.
I was impressed by how quickly both boys were able to stand up on their boards.
He looks so good!
Terry and I discovered we could rent boogie boards, so that's what we did.
Four in the water...surrounded by other surfers. The surf was actually pretty rough so we didn't go far out. The teacher made a point to tell us that people usually died at this time of year. Yikes. Obviously we were fine.
I'm a lot better at boogie boarding than surfing!
Evie took a turn on Ezra's surf board. She had a "lesson" from the former principal at Morrison in May.
Then I took a turn on Samuel's bigger board...which ended up being hilarious. Terry got some great footage of me falling into the water every time I tried to stand up.
I went back and grabbed a screenshot of Evie standing up. She wouldn't give up until she did it.
Such a pretty place.
We stayed at the beach two and a half hours-ish but would've stayed longer, except we needed to meet Rex and his family at a restaurant for lunch. Unfortunatley. Alice had already left when we took our family picture together.
Rex and his mother and her mom came along with him for the day. They were so incredibly sweet to us, and especially to Jerry and Alice. Theresa gave Alice a gift when we first met them that morning. They ordered a big seafood lunch that we tucked into once we arrived. They'd ordered a large red fish that was made into three things - roasted fish, sushi, and fish soup (complete with eyeballs).
From there we went to a city called Jiaoxi and discovered there were people all sitting around with their feet in pools next to the parking lot. They were all so friendly and telling us to join them that Terry did just that. Samuel joined him, followed by Evie. The area is well known for hot springs, which is what the pools were filled with. Terry gave out gospel tracts to the people he talked to!
Later, after we had some wheel cakes, bubble tea, and scallion pancakes from street vendors, we stopped at another hot spring and I tried this one out. I'm wearing one of the new Eowyn t-shirts I ordered from Etsy for my birthday that Jerry and Alice delivered for me. The water was very hot but felt good. If it hadn't been a cooler day it probably wouldn't have felt as good as it did. Thankfully, the weather cooled off from what it had been during the Sunday picnic when we all sweat through our clothes.
Samuel joined again.
Visiting after we left the second hot spring.
We walked around the corner and went in this hot pepper sauce store, before we decided to leave for the day. The drive home was quick until we came to Taipei and hit the traffic again. We were ready to be done with traffic after two days of it. But the drive through the mountains was cool because of an eight mile (12km) long tunnel called the Hsuehshan Tunnel. The kids tried holding their breath through it at first and then it just never ended, or seemed to. We didn't realize there was such a huge tunnel!
On Wednesday, October 7th, we slept in, worked out, and bought fruit from this fruit stand.
We decided to stay in town and rest that day, but we did venture out to lunch. We headed to one place and changed our minds mid-walk. So we went just next door to the hot pot restaurant we first went to with the STM team in July just before English camp started. Hot pot is something so very Asian, and we probably don't totally understand it yet. It was good for Jerry and Alice to experience, even if it was a bit strange for them.
The kids enjoyed themselves, probably b/c they got to have ice cream afterwards.
We explored the balcony outside the restaurant and discovered it overlooked Rotary Park.
On our way out, we discovered a pet store in the mall. That's where I fell in love with this midget cat Evie dubbed Bruce. I want him so badly. He was rubbing against the glass and I just know he'd love me forever if only I paid $2,700 USD. Alas, we can't do that.
It was sooooo nice outside, just absolutely perfect, so we walked around the park.
Checking out the koi fish.
On the other side of the park.
It was so nice out that we didn't want to go back inside. So we walked a few more blocks to The Archives, a Taiwanese museum that's relatively new. In the bathroom I snapped a shot of the new earrings Alice got me for my birthday in Taipei. We stopped in a fun shop after the boys' excursion into the Pokemon store. I love them!
The Archives was completely fascinating.
We learned all about the founding of Taiwan - escaping communist mainland, bringing gold and treasure with them, setting up a new government, living under martial law for decades, democratic freedom, and growth. It was astounding how quickly Taiwan has grown and how much it has overcome. Our tour helped me to understand some cultural things I've noticed too.
Outside we took a picture by this geometric shape meant to illustrate the fog that's common to Linkou. It's accurate!
The Archives is pictured behind them. Only the first few floors are accessible to the public and the remaining behemoth of the building is for storing "archives."
On Thursday, October 8th, we went on another adventure, this time north and east along the coast of the island.
Meanwhile, in SD with Noah, it was very fall-looking on campus.
Finger update! It was healing so well after just a week since injuring it. No need for Evie to vomit anymore.
Our first stop was to the swimming pool Samuel had left his water bottle at for their final practice there weeks ago. The whole team had to drive half an hour down the hill to the coast to this place in order to swim on Wednesday nights and Samuel left his water behind. Terry's parents thought it was a long shot that it would still be there but we've learned in Taiwan that they don't just throw stuff away. They're so nice. It was there, just sitting at the front desk!
From there we decided to stop at the lighthouse on the northernmost point of Taiwan. We weren't exactly sure how to get there, but figured it out by the signs once we got out of the van.
On our way to the bathroom we passed by an actual maze, just like one sign had said. Crazy!
It was a 3k walk to the lighthouse, but there was beautiful scenery, breezes, and weather to enjoy.
This was on top of the platform of the lighthouse.
Another 0.5 shot to get the whole thing in.
Selifie by Terry.
I insisted on one of just me and Terry.
Jerry took this one for us.
Rough-housing as we left.
I really wanted to capture memories and kept insisting on taking Jerry and Alice's photos. They get annoyed (I know I do take a lot) but I think they'll appreciate them when they look back.
Beautiful sea view on the walk back.
Next we got loaded up in the van and ate the Subway we had brought along. We continued driving 45 minutes up the coast to the Yehliu Geopark to see the Queen's Head.
The rocks along the coast are all very eroded. Here they looked like mushrooms.
The island behind us is probably a mile long hike, but we didn't do much of it. Jerry stayed behind at this point, I think b/c of his vertigo.
Mother and son.
Smile, monkeys, smile!
Samuel had taken off running along the island trail, thinking we were all going to come that way. After seeing how long it was, we decided not to. So Ezra ran after him and Terry walked. Evie and I descended the steps back to where we had come. Ezra never caught Samuel. Samuel doesn't realize how tall, fast, and strong he is yet 😂 but he turned around and met Ezra on his way back.
It was a beautiful view while we waited for the boys.
My rock fit just like a hat. 😆
There were many natural cupholders.
It was a beautiful place. Now Noah wants to visit it too.
We came to this place after having learned about it from the "damper baby," a toy Terry got at Taipei 101 that had a model of what's behind us, "the queen's crown." I actually used my phone to delete the dozen people in the frame - pretty cool what iPhones can do now.
There was a small pool in this rock behind Ezra.
This rock sorta looked like a broken heart.
In this unedited photo Terry took you can see "the queen's head" and how it looks like the silhouette of an elegant woman with an updo hairstyle. Her neck gets thinner every year. 😬
Peekaboo
I deleted some more people to try to get the right angle on her...🤷
It felt like it took forever to drive home, but it was only just under two hours. It had been a long day. We had Bravo Burger delivered for dinner. We'd been wanting to try it, but it wasn't great. It would probably be better fresh. We went to bed tired that night.
On Friday, October 9th, we rested. Terry made pancakes, we watched Price is Right, and then Terry and I went to work out.
After lunch, the boys went downstairs to swim in the complex's pool. They hadn't gone into the hot tub area before and discovered there was a button to make this waterfall thing turn on.
We took Jerry and Alice downstairs to give them a tour.
I want a lawn chair like this for our balcony.
The boys enjoyed the bubbles.
Next we took them up to the roof.
We spent some time just gazing out at the city and mountains, trying to figure out which way was north, haha.
The trees had yellow flowers for a while that have now turned into red seed pods. They look so pleasantly fall-ish.
Downstairs, Evie had been busy making monkey bread for a potluck happening at our place for dinner. When we came down I made cheesy potatoes. We had our bible study group over to meet Jerry and Alice and just hang out.
It was Nanson's idea and it ended up being quite fun.
On Saturday, October 10th, we took another rest day. We'd probably had enough adventure that week, but it was also a national holiday. October 10th, or 10-10, is known as Double Ten day, or Taiwan's National Independence Day. It's like their version of the Fourth of July. That's why all of the Taiwanese flags have been out for a couple weeks. We didn't really want to go out into any crowds, so we stayed home.
Terry beat everyone in Taiwan Monopoly.
Gramma was pretty psyched to hold Porky for the first time that morning.
Meanwhile at home, Trouncer greeted Noah after he had completed his first week back at school after his weekend trip to the Cavetime retreat. Noah called us after making his spaghetti dinner and we watched an episode of A Series of Unfortunate events with him.
We went out for lunch at ABV Mediterranean, a place Henry had introduced us to months earlier. Terry's parents liked it quite a bit so that was a win.
The kids took G&G home and Terry and I went out for a quick coffee date to my favorite mocha place, Swell.
When we got back, the guys all went to the pool. The boys wanted to swim laps and Terry and Jerry wanted to sit in the hot tub.
The heater in the hot tub was broken, though! So they sat in cool water.
The boys swam a ton of laps. Samuel found out he has another swim meet next week, if he wants to do it.
Us ladies joined them for a little while.
On Sunday, October 11th, Noah worked at Bass Pro, had dinner w my folks, and then enjoyed some hangout time with his former roommate, Nick. Nick had moved out a couple of months ago, but stayed the night while he was passing back through. Noah was happy to see him.
We had church followed by lunch out at The Boogie Garden. The kids went to a pasta place, followed by youth group. We got some more soft serve ice cream for Terry's folks on our way home.
Then we stopped to get some yummy Portuguese egg tarts too.
We admired the pool across from the shop and discovered this lonely turtle.
I also admired the palm trees, which matched Jerry's Hawaiian shirt.
Later, while the pizza dough was rising, we went back out with Alice to get some bubble tea. I really wanted her to try it since it was invented here in Taiwan. She liked it better than she thought she would. It had to grow on me too.
Cats always like those who don't like them. Trouncer likes Jerry best. Traitor cats.
We enjoyed pizza and Nate Bargatzi's movie The Breadwinner that evening. The following day school started again!
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