Flexibility

One of the most important words I've learned from living overseas is "flexibility". I had to practice this trait much more frequently in the first country we lived in, where people would call us up at random times and invite us to drop everything that we were doing to go do something else. Living in Taiwan, I have not needed to be flexible nearly as often, since my life here falls into a pretty predictable pattern and since most of my friends are big planners. But, there seems to be some truth to that old saying about the best laid plans...
A few weeks ago, my friend Angel invited me to go climb a mountain with her and see some beautiful scenery and historical locations. She warned me that it would be a long walk, but we could go slowly and enjoy the day. So, Saturday morning, we met at 7 am at the subway station near her house and were off to the mountain. We hopped aboard a train for the two hour ride into the country:
When we arrived at our destination, we excitedly walked thirty minutes through the town at the base of the mountain, seeking the path Angel remembered would take us up to the places she wanted to show me. We began to worry, however, when we asked some locals where this path was located and they warned us that it was a very long walk away. Finally, Angel called the friend who had taken her to this mountain before and learned that we were at the wrong train stop! Oh no! We went back to the train station and bought tickets going back to the stop where we should have disembarked. By the time we got there, Angel said it was too late to climb the mountain, so we decided to go biking instead. She was pretty disappointed because she really wanted me to see this mountain, but I convinced her that I was still having a good time as we rented bikes and began to pedal along the bike trail through the green, fog-covered hills.
The path was not too bad, a little steep (uphill, of course) but doable. Then, we rounded a corner to find the road going practically straight up the side of the mountain. I knew I would never make it up that road, so Angel and I turned around. We were both bummed, so we pulled over into some shade to take a break and make a new plan. Then, lo and behold, we spied the bike path! We had been travelling on the road, completely missing the point where the bike path had veered off to the right. The bike path was perfectly flat, no hills whatsoever. And, even more interestingly, it went through a tunnel!
The Old Caoling Tunnel used to be an actual railway tunnel. Now, the trains have been rerouted through a new tunnel, and this one has been turned into a bike path. Click here if you want to know more about the tunnel.
Inside, it was refreshingly cool and dark, vastly different from the intense heat and brilliant sunshine outside. It took us about 20 minutes to ride the tunnel's length.

At the end of the tunnel, we met with an incredible vista:

Angel and I spent a long time admiring the blueness of the ocean and the sky and the lush greeness of the mountain behind us. It was one of the most beautiful places I've ever been to (and Taiwan is full of gorgeous places!).

After biking back to the train station, we bought tickets and hopped on a train to go home. Unfortunately, the train we hopped on wasn't going to Taipei, so we had to get off at the next stop and wait half an hour for the train actually going to Taipei. A perfectly unplanned ending to a perfectly unexpected day!

Sunday was a long day, too, but everything actually went according to plan. ;)

We went to church. Esther and I both taught the children's Sunday School this week - Esther taught the younger kids, I taught the older. Then, we had our last VBS prep meeting and finally got to decorate our rooms. I was at the church from 9:30am-6:30pm, the longest amount of time I've spent in a church building since I was in America. It was fun decorating and meeting with my co-teacher to plan our week.

Here's a little sneak peek:

You'll have to come back later to see how VBS goes!