Birthdays and Fugui

It will come as no surprise that another year in the life of Bonnie has come and gone. And what a year it has been. Started off with a graduation from university and finished with life in Taiwan. Holy moly.

mike and amber

amber

the boys

ching shi elementary teachersss

i mustache you a question

alex and amber

drew and josh

josh

roon!

josh roon alex

kay!

The celebrations here were pretty fun. A group of friends met for dinner at Vigorous and then ventured out to a lounge bar for drinks and merriment. It was fun. A number of friends that I don't see very often came out so that improved my night. 

Sunday, my actual birthday, was filled with frisbee - as it should be. We played for a long time and then had a relaxing night of watching movies and eating pizza. It wasn't the most eventful birthday but it was a good one. And now I'm a whole year older. 

Now for Tomb Sweeping Day. On Wednesday, 4/4 we had a school holiday. It is Tomb Sweeping Day. And the Taiwanese do just that - sweep, clean, tidy up the graves of their ancestors. They have to keep those ghosts happy. 

But Rooney and I took advantage of the day off and went for a wonderful little drive up to the northern most point in Taiwan - Fugui Cape. The day was perfect for a drive - sunny and warm. And we didn't get lost once, though I was pretty sure we wouldn't make it all the way to our destination. It was such a nice drive. The getting there was as much a part of it as the arrival.

I have wanted to get up to the cape for a while now so it was nice to get up there. On the beach there are some geologically cool things like bright green algae growing on volcanic rock. And wind cut stones that are all sorts of freaky shapes. It was pretty cool. The beach itself wasn't very clean - Rooney almost literally stumbled on a dead pig. But the area was beautiful and the day couldn't have been better.

We also found a cute little beach town on the coast that we will probably go back to. And we found some Texas BBQ places and a promising water park that we're super jazzed about. All in all a really fine day.

saltwater shower

the lighthouse

And lastly, on Saturday night, we went into Taipei for a joint birthday party. It was at a club and had an extremely vague theme of 'retro'. No one was really sure what that meant exactly so I dressed 80s, Rooney went 20s, Carson went 50s and Yolanda went 30s. Haha. It was pretty fun though. There were a lot of teachers there and again, I got to see a bunch of teachers who I don't see very often. It's becoming a good trend, that is!

jenny! 

angie!

sara and rach

that's all she wrote folks.