With the kids off at their homestays for the weekend, the 5 of us adults went out for dinner and drinks. We gave a toast to our newfound freedom. 干杯! After breakfast the next morning Mallette and I hiked up Jiantan mountain, located above the Grand Hotel (the fanciest hotel in Taiwan). It’s still a…

Our kids packed up and checked out of the hotel this morning. We’re heading to the high school for the 2025 International High School Student Summit. The theme of this year’s summit is ecological sustainability. In attendance are students from 11 countries (Japan, Australia, India, Germany, France, Taiwan, China, U.S. and others!) The keynote speech…

We had a few hours free this evening, so Nathan, Lincoln and I snuck out to a bouldering gym to do some climbing. It was hard to find at first. Tucked away down underground, with no signage up on the street level. Once inside I was impressed with how orderly and clean everything was. They…

We had an early start today, heading to the high school for a welcome ceremony and classroom shadowing for the day. There is torrential rain as we hunt for the right bus stop. We arrive soaking wet, and wait for the Taiwanese students. Zhong Zheng is huge. 2400 students but it’s only grades 10-12. It’s…

At 9:30pm last night we had a 5.2 earthquake. I thought a large gust of wind hit the side of our building, but on reflection I realized that all the other buildings around us create a wind screen so it couldn’t have been that. I had some flashbacks to a bigger earthquake we experienced last…

About 10 of us walked over to our nearest night market tonight to see what it’s all about. They had about 60 vendors with everything from fruit juice to chicken testicles (I went for the fruit juice). Hadley was handing out fried sweet potato balls that were so good. Crispy outside, but chewy in the…