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Into the “Wild”

posted by Kristie
22 Mar 2008

Last Saturday we went with a group from our church to Xitou, in the
mountains of Taiwan. Of the places I have been in Taiwan, Xitou is one
of my favorites. The air is fresh, the forest is lovely, the fog is
romantic, and the hike is pleasant.

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This is how excited Ellie was to go to Xitou….
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…in truth, I was this excited too.

Ellie thought this grassy hill (if I can even say hill, it was a very gentle slope) was the best. She loved walking down it, just on the verge of losing control and falling down. This made Jason excited to teach her how to ski.

Chinese people like things to be regimented organized, so we spent the entire morning playing group games. We made a circle and tried to throw a ball out of the ring through other peoples legs, tried to pop the balloons tied to other peoples ankles without having our balloons popped, did relay races, tried not to get caught by London Bridge falling down, and more!

This is all the fun we had playing games…
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There was also a photography contest, who could take the best picture from our day at Xitou. While announcing the rules the judge said that Ellie was really cute and encouraged everyone to take pictures of her, plainly implying that a picture of Ellie would win. The results aren’t out yet, we’ll let you know if she wins.

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Ellie ended up hiding from the paparazzi.

After game time we ate lunch and then had some hang out time to let our lunch digest before doing a little hiking.

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Here we are hanging out.

Ellie wouldn’t cooperate with our plan for a family photo. What she really wanted to do was keep walking up and down the little stairs that were in the courtyard outside the cafeteria. We held hands and we went up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down…she wouldn’t. get. tired. When I made her stop to take the picture she cried, so we had to distract her with a Rubik cube.

The hike was by far the best part of our trip. It is a very easy, relaxing hike on paved roads and breathing fresh mountain air is soooo wonderful compared to being in the polluted city.

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These girls walked with Jason and me, asking us questions about the US. On the left is Vivian, who loves American and wants to study there.

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The pastor’s wife with Ellie and me. (I don’t know her name because in Chinese the pastor’s wife is respectfully called “pastor’s wife”.)

There are lots more photos from our trip in our photo gallery.

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