Too much fun 太多玩

(Is there such a thing?)

These last couple weeks have been really busy, but in a really fun way- mostly, every bit of free time has been devoted to hanging out with people and doing fun things! It's not all happy, though (depending on who you are)- the reason we've been so frantically playing is because there's been a batch of people who have left, or will leave soon.

Of course, Mason was only here for a couple weeks, so we wanted to make the most of the time he was here and do lots of things together. Even before he had arrived in Taiwan, he was planning a game night based off of a Korean variety show really popular here, called "Running Man"- it's stupid but really funny. One of the things they do is play hide-and-seek in a large area, but with weird rules, and all of the seekers have to wear bells on their feet. Don't knock hide-and-seek, it's fun! Anyway, we got our group of 14 people together one evening in Da'an Park, assembled the teams, and got to it!

Fearsome!

I'm told it was a lot of fun! I would've been able to tell you myself, but there was a little problem...

So, my team was the first to hide. The rules were, if 5 of the 7 people on our team were found, we lost; if 30 minutes went by, we won. We had the entire park to hide in, but we also had quite a few people looking for us and only a short head start, so we had to be quick about finding a place to hide. I found an awesome tree and promptly used the vines hanging down from it to climb about 15 feet into it. I had it all figured out; it was near very bright lights, but they didn't shine into it, so people looking for me would have dazzled eyes from the lights and be unable to see me. I was pretty high up, and people usually don't look up, so I had that going for me; also, because the tree was full of vines, I could use them to move around inside the canopy to put more tree between me and people looking for me. I was set!

Time passed. I saw a few people come near me, clearly looking for people, and I evaded them all. Even when several people came at once, I remained undetected. I felt like I had been up there for a while, but that was fine; I got some nice thinking done. The only downside was that the tree was full of large brown spiders, but they all stayed away from me, so we were cool.

Did I mention my phone had broken? Yeah, a few days before it had bricked itself installing an update, so I had no phone (and by association, no clock). Eventually, I heard Cary calling my name, so I hopped down... yeah, I was up there for like two hours and people thought I got kidnapped. Apparently I'm really good at hiding. Good to know, I guess?

Anyway, everyone was mad at me, but then we went and ate food and we were all cool again. 

Food makes everything better!

A few days later, we all went to a different park for a music party! Music, friends, food, beautiful weather...

We even had a shark kite!

This one was really for two sets of people leaving soon; the first set is Ashleigh's mom and dad, who have been visiting Taiwan and studying Chinese for the past month or so. They've been really encouraging to all of us here, and we'll miss them; but I'm sure they'll go back to the UK full of Chinese and enthusiasm, and really help the congregations back home.

Ashleigh, rocking that guitar!

The second set of people leaving soon are Angelica and Anica, the Swedish sisters who have been here for about six months now. Their plan was always to come for just a short while, learn good Chinese, then go back home to Sweden. They're pretty sad about leaving (comparatively) warm and sunny Taiwan for (objectively) freezing Sweden, but at the same time optimistic about being able to help their friends back home. Their home congregation has a story familiar to many of us serving in Chinese congregations abroad; many Chinese students come, study for one or two years, then go back home to China. That means there is a ministry, a productive one even; but before these students can get very far in their studies, they go back to China, so the local congregation is perpetually small and needing help. Anica and Angelica will definitely contribute to that help.

This is neither of them, but 欣如 (Joise), rocking that Ukulele!

Mason, of course, had to be part of this; he's unnaturally skilled at all forms of music, and although he obviously didn't bring a guitar with him from America, he managed to borrow Ashleigh's guitar and belt out a few tunes for us. 

He really is very good!

Afterwards, I played a couple songs on my mandolin, but I've just started learning it, so I wasn't nearly as good as the others. I also haven't learned any songs I could sing along to yet, unlike them. I know, patience, I will get better. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of myself, since I couldn't manage a selfie during a song!

Afterwards, we went over to Cameron and Michelle's house to play a game or two of Settlers of Catan, a surprisingly fun board game about trading resources and building up a colonial empire. Naturally, Nikolai, the Dutchman, is really good at it. Cameron and Michelle are yet another couple who will leave us soon- they're originally from Reno, NV of all places, and will soon (Next week! Man!) be leaving to Myanmar. There's a city in Myanmar with over 750,000 Chinese people in it, but only one Witness who can speak Chinese... so soon there will be three! That's a 300% increase! They have a noble cause, but we'll still miss them here in Taiwan.

That didn't make us go easy on them, of course!

The ministry was fun, too. We got to enjoy the last of the good weather while Mason was around; he left on the 1st of December, and that same week our warm, sunny blue skies became gray and rainy. Taiwan misses you man! He graduates in May of 2015, and once he's saved up enough money after that he'll come back, hopefully for good this time. 加油!

Saturday morning fun!

A bit of good new on the ministry side; in eight days (!!), I'll be giving a Chinese public talk here in Taipei South. One of my bible studies agreed to come to the Kingdom Hall to hear it! That'll be his first time to a Kingdom Hall, and I'm sure the brothers and sisters will make him feel welcome. Who knows, he might like it enough to come back; now that would be cool!

A few days later, Paul Gouriet had another get-together for everyone still left in Taiwan, kind of a pot luck thing. Almost everyone there was a foreigner; I think I've only been to two or three events like that since being in Taiwan! It was an odd feeling, but it in no way ruined the fun of the night.

In other news, Joe is very tall.

Actually, these kinds of parties are nice, because it's an opportunity for people of various congregations all get together and make friends. Taipei South is so big, sometimes we can get a little isolated from the other halls; happily, Paul was there to rescue us!

Jason, Esther, Anica, Marco and Leah

And then I started getting fancy with my camera and began taking art shots.

Which, of course, means black and white.

Tunmise, a new sister from the UK, and Ashleigh

Sisters Qi and Mi, looking fierce!

And we finished this crazy week with a night of Karaoke, naturally! There's a place up at Ximending, a very popular part of Taipei, that will rent out a Karaoke room for four hours for about $15 per person... they throw in free food and drinks too!

KTV! 哇!

They didn't really have any new songs, but that's okay- we spent the night singing the top hits of the 90's. I can think of worse things to do! Joise even showed off a little and gave us all an introduction to a couple really cool/weird Chinese songs; if you want to listen to one, copy and paste 公公偏頭痛 into Youtube.

Alix took this pictures, then she took a picture of a dead rat. I thought this one was better.

All of these cool people are leaving soon! It's a little sad, but not the end of the world for us or for them; mostly, they're going on to new, exciting experiences, and they'll use the time they had here in Taiwan to further accomplish Jehovah's ministry in even farther parts of the world.