February 28 is a public holiday in Taiwan commemorating the February 28, 1947 "228 incident" or "228 Massacre". This was the Wednesday after the 9 days we got off for Chinese New Year, so it wasn't too hard to get back into holiday mode. This day was also the first time we planned a "larger" gathering at our new apartment in Taipei. Some friends from our church fellowship group organized an outing to Yingge 鶯歌 township in Taipei County. Its a nice little town famous for its production of porcelain and only a 40 minute train-ride outside of Taipei. It was the perfect day to get out of the city, walk around the historical town and take a look at the local stores. Lots of pottery and art. It was a nice relaxing way to get to know some of our new friends.
We all returned back to our apartment in the evening for food and hanging out. We couldn't think of a better way to inaugurate our apartment than to have a dumpling party! Sandra and our friend Woe went to the market in the morning and got us 250 fresh dumpling wrappers (for those who don't know, a dumpling party is basically where everyone helps wrap fresh minced meat and vegetables into these dumplings - see pictures. The dumplings are then pan fried or boiled). Ray was originally in a little bit of panic over Sandra and Woe's judgement of only purchasing 250 dumpling wrappers (yes, some things never change), but in the end, there was too much food and an overall successful night of feeding people. You can see pictures below. It was a nice feeling seeing people feel comfortable in our new home and hanging out. Hopefully this is the beginning of more opportunities to develop real relationships with people. In Taiwan especially, our approach of reaching people through their stomachs should work very well! :)
We were also very happy to have our friend Woe make a side-trip from her vacation in Hong Kong to come visit us. While her visit was short (three days), it was a good chance to catch-up on what was happening in her life as well as get her insight and reality check to what we are trying to accomplish here in Taiwan. She's promised to write a guest entry to our blog so stay tuned!
The completed food spread - we had extra food thanks to SF, our friend and land lady who bought us some specialty Taiwan dishes for our first gathering.
Hanging out in our DaAn apartment.
Our first attempt at teaching our new friends Settlers of Catan, unfortunately, we didn't have a chance to finish the first game!
Train ride and day trip to Yingge township with new church friends.
1 comment:
It's coming...really! :)
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