TheBellSite

It’s been 5 days since I was in Hong Kong and I do not have any cold or flu symptoms, sooooooo I guess I missed the mystery China/Hong Kong disease – SARS. . . . . . My office desktop is still down – I am trying desparately to recover from the crash. I don’t even know what I’d lose if I don’t get it recovered I haven’t given up yet but it is looking pretty bad. BEWARE OF UTILITIES THAT WANT TO “CLEANUP” YOUR SYSTEM!
.:. Jackie .:.

On Friday (3/21)- Jackie and I attended a string orchestra performance at the CKS (Ching Kai-Shek) Concert Hall. My friend Nancy, who is a professional violinist gave us the tickets. The Concert Hall is very pretty and seats over 2000. We entered the 3rd floor and found our seats just so happened to be next to the VIP box. We noticed those seated around us kept staring at the few people seated in the VIP section. We observed several – what appeared to be secret service people with wires in their ears. As we watched, the best we could figure was it was the wife or mother and friends of the President or the Vice President. We enjoyed the concert very much, especially the cello pieces. The entire concert was very relaxing. We left right as the last encore began, and we ran into about dozen more secret service agents. They were holding and guarding one elevator for the VIP and made us get on another elevator. We walked out into the cool night and grabbed the first taxi in the elegant circular entrance. In God’s eyes, we are VIP’s too! [Fran]
Inside photos & info http://www.ntch.edu.tw/english/english.htm

Thursday (3/20)- It had been Oct since I last went on an adventure with Becky. We rode a bus up to an Aboriginal Village – Walai Falls. Consider it an Asian Eureka Springs. It is famous for it’s natural hot springs, so there are Bath Houses everywhere. We went with swimsuits in our back backs expecting to take a leisure dip. However, after entering a half dozen or so bath houses, we came up against the same scenario “no swimsuits allowed – you go naked”. Ha …. yea, right…. Little Miss Modesty USA – NO THANKS! Can’t you just read the headlines – “2 Baptist missionaries jump naked in the hot springs”. We don’t need such press. ha. So we went on the plan B – we crossed the river, rode a little train up to the next village and pick-nicked with a picturesque waterfall view. As soon as we finished our lunch, the rain came and we walked back down to the first village – bought pink guava sprinkled with dried plum powder and rode the bus back down the mountain. A fun day. I searched the internet – here’s some good photos of the place taken by some other tourist. [Fran] http://www.stanford.edu/~wsr23/Photos/Taiwan/Wulai/