Saying goodbye to Taiwan....

Thursday was our last full day in Taiwan so we packed it all in…once again ha ha. We got up super early to head to the temple and do baptisms. The temple president had to round up random people to help out because they only do baptisms once a week on Saturdays. It was so sweet of them to all show up and give us the opportunity (one of the men helping out is from Gunnison, Utah). They were also really excited to have us there and they were bummed that they hadn’t known earlier. Otherwise they would have taken us out and showed us around.

After doing the baptisms, they had us go to their church office building for an interview. They decided to do a piece on us for the church news over here in Taiwan! Then they set up an appointment with the sister missionaries for them to give us a tour. It was so generous of them.

After the temple we went to the Taipei Zoo! It was a complete blast…they had lots of cool animals…waaay better than the Hogle Zoo. Davit was supposed to meet us there at the zoo, but we never found him. We were way sad. We stayed at the zoo for about three hours then headed out to Taipei 101. 101 is the second tallest building in the entire world (a building in Dubai is the tallest). It’s really cool because it’s the only tall building in all of Taipei so it really stands out. We were going to go up to the top but supposedly the view for the night was really bad d/t the weather and we didn’t want to spend the money on it if we couldn’t see anything.

Christina, Christina, Sophia, Hayley & I headed back to the area around our hostel to get some dinner. We ate at a Taiwanese restaurant and had some delicious food! I had some coconut curry and the other girls had this delicious curry casserole! (sounds weird but it was really good). After dinner we decided to stop back at our hostel to drop some stuff off. When we walked up Davit was sitting there on a scooter! We were SO happy to see him! We had been looking for him all day and we felt bad that he skipped class and drove 4 hours to come see us. I guess he showed up late to the zoo (at around 3) and sat and waited for us for two hours! He even paid to go inside and walked around trying to find us. He finally left when the zoo closed and missed us by like 10 minutes. Then he spent two hours trying to find our hostel and then waited at our hostel for 3 hours till we showed up! I couldn't believe it! We felt so so so bad. Most cultures would have given up and left after searching for an hour but Davit searched and waited for like 8 hours. I really love that guy.

We all went out on the town shopping and playing around. Then we wanted to find some good dessert for our last night. Davit asked this random guy if he knew of anyone places so the guy escorted us to his friends place like four blocks away. It was amazing. Some of the best dessert I’ve ever had. The guy was kind of weird though. He was very touchy and kept hugging me and rubbing my head. Davit said he just kept saying beautiful American girls over and over again lol. At this same place this little high school girl just walked up to us and started talking in English (the Taiwanese love practicing their English). We met her and all of her friends. They were so cute.

After dessert Davit, Christina, Mike, and I watched a movie then we had to say goodbye to Davit for real. He was so sad to leave and left me the sweetest message this morning saying goodbye. I would love to go to Indonesia someday and visit him.

Today we got up early and packed up to head out. We all did some presentations for the trip (yes we actually have to do some work here) then our drivers picked us up. We had kind of a cool experience with this driver. At one point he slowed down and pulled off to the side of the road at one of the Beetlenut shops. Beetlenuts are from a tree here and they’re addictive, stain your teeth, and cause oral cancer. There are little shops throughout every city where girls dressed in scandalous clothing sell them. We immediately got kind of annoyed and upset that he would stop at one of these places on the job, especially with a bunch of girls……..but then he came out with a huge bag of water bottles, one for each of us. This is exactly what I love about Taiwan sooo much. I'm always constantly suprised by these people. Naturally being in a foreign country most of us are somewhat skeptical of the people and always assume the worst…..but every single time, the Taiwanese people prove us wrong by doing some act of kindness or generosity. Ugh I'm going to miss them.

We made is to the aiport safely and we’re currently waiting for our wonderful 14 hour flight. It’s really hard saying goodbye to Taiwan. I have fallen completely in love with this place, especially the people. In a sense it really has become home to me and will always be a special place to me. I will take the things that I have learned and the things that I have experienced on this trip with me for the rest of my life.

If going solely by time, I’ll be home in one hour ha ha. It’s 3pm here and we arrive in the states at 4pm (because of the crazy time difference). We leave and arrive at 4pm on Friday lol. See you soon!