Getting ready to head home

We have had a great trip, but now we're about ready to head home. We fly out tomorrow (Monday) morning, going to Detroit via Tokyo.

Yesterday was a rainy day, especially in the afternoon. While I was in class, Mom had planned to go on a tour to Chiufen Village, but it was raining so hard that she decided to cancel, so she just wandered around took some photos when the rain stopped. Class went well, and when I got back to the hotel, we decided to just walk a little bit around our hotel, and then had some dinner at TGI Friday's. It was a nice slow day.

Today was the final day of class. We went through the remaining material for our class, and the students had group presentations to give. It is always interesting to see how the different groups take on the assigned task and reach very different conclusions about how best to take on the assignment.  Just as one of the groups was about to start their presentation, we heard what sounded like a parade going on outside. There was actually a protest going down the street, though the protest march was, essentially, a marching band parade. There were drums and other instruments, marching in ranks down two lanes of the street, while traffic continued on the remaining lanes.  The protesters were Falun Gong members. Falun Gong is a spiritual discipline rooted in Buddhism with some Taoist principles, and it is banned in mainland China, and practitioners are heavily persecuted there. I have seen various protests by Falun Gong members here before, but this was the first one with a band. It was pretty large, with what seemed to be a couple of hundred members.

We wrapped up class, and the students had invited me and Mom to join them at their post-last-day-of-class meal. They chose a very traditional Taiwanese restaurant, and ordered a fixed menu of a tremendous amount of food. They described it as the sort of meal that you might have had 30 years ago in a small village to celebrate some good fortune. I lost count when we reached eight different dishes brought to the table, but I do remember fish, beef ribs, squid, mussels, scallops, chicken, pork, cabbage soup, crab, and at least a few other things. It was excellent all around, and I left plenty full, that's for sure.

Mom and I came on back to the hotel, and we're all packed. The alarm is set for 5:45am, and the car will pick us up at 6:45am. We missed doing some of the things we were hoping to do while we were here, due to the rain, but we got to do a lot of things, too.  The Maokong Gondola was really cool, and we really enjoyed the National Palace Museum. Going with Mom to the outdoor observation deck on the 91st floor of Taipei 101 was really fun, and the whole trip has just been a pleasure. Hanging out with Mom has been the best part, of course, and introducing her to a part of the world she's never seen before. It's been a good trip.