Hakuna Matata

Pictures are FINALLY up on the right side. There are a lot of them, lots of repeats thanks to having two people taking pictures with two different cameras. There are some really good ones in there of Sarah and I (my favorite is the one with the umbrellas). ENJOY!!!

Lesson Learned for the day: If someone asks you to play a game of ping pong, feel free to accept and get some good play in. BUT if this person pulls out a custom made ping pong paddle with it's own carrying case.... be prepared to get your butt kicked.

So in a rematch of US vs Taiwan, Taiwan won 2-1 (best of 3... he actually took the first 2 but lightened up a little bit to give me game 3. I did actually play a little better though in the 3rd. Maybe next time;) ). But I continued to remind them that the US beat Taiwan in the Olympic baseball 4-2. No wonder nobody was talking about the game this morning!!!

Sarah and I enjoyed the production of "The Lion King" here in Taipei. It was extremely well done despite our seats in the upper levels. The only bad part of the show was the fact that the seats were only about 25% full. Only the "cheap seats" that were one section over from us were full. LOTS of empty seats on the main floor. When the lights dimmed, we tried sneaking down about 10 rows (as were a lot of people) but then the usher started yelling at everyone (even with the show starting) to move back. A dad and his two young girls had to even move back up about 10 rows. So that idea to sneak closer was out of the question. Thankfully we brought our binoculars!

The costumes were amazing! I loved the giraffes and elephants in the opening scenes as they came from the back of the crowds and made their way onto stage. Sarah was singing along most of the show - I remembered a lot of the songs from the movie days. There was indeed a split second of fear about 10 seconds before the first words were sung that this thing would be entirely in Chinese. Thankfully, it was in English! But as with the rest of my entertainment here, the TV screens show up close but with Mandarin subtitles! The crowd (that was actually there) enjoyed it and the kids were laughing throughout. If you've never seen the musical version of Lion King, you should. I also liked Scar - the guy threw in an occasional Chinese word or two to get the crowd excited. "How about a simple Ni Hao??"

I think Sarah's still singing throughout the day today!

Sarah's school seems pretty sweet! Most of her peer teachers are from the MidWest, with a few from Canada. She's enjoyed getting out of the house for longer period of times, but is still nervous to see what these 2nd graders are like. I told her to call my nephew to find out since he's already started the 2nd grade;) The best part of her teaching is that she brought me home a present from work already!!! One of the teachers from last year left a guitar before returning to the US. So since nobody else there wanted it, guess who ended up with a new used guitar???? ME!!!! It's not bad, it's not something Dave Matthew would use... but it will do for now and I'll spend some time learning to play FINALLY!!! Any requests?

Speaking of DMB - did you see his saxophone player died? Wow....

Ok - that's enough for today. It's a wonderfully clear day in Taipei thanks to the Typhoon to the south of us. No, we'll be safe this week but we're going to enjoy the nice view while it lasts.