Happy Friday :)

Good afternoon! It's 4 p.m. here in Hualien. I am very excited that Friday has finally arrived. We have some fun things planned for this weekend, and I can't wait for Nick to get home from work. This week has gone by rather quickly, since Nick only had to work four days due to the typhoon. I spent the week doing my usual routine of exercising, watching movies, and studying in the library. I also spent alot of time planning our last week here in Taiwan. We will be leaving here next Friday and heading out for 6 days of sightseeing before I leave on Thursday night. Nick is not leaving until Saturday, so he will be spending two nights in Taipei. I am flying home early so I can get things settled before I start my job on the following Monday. It is very difficult to make arrangements when you cannot speak English and the company's website is available in Chinese only. I spent much of last night listening to Nick repeat "Ni Hao. Ni huisho Yingwen ma?". In English this means, "hello, do you speak English?". We were finally able to book our hotels and one train ride. Hopefully, we can book our plane tickets tonight and then we should be about set.

As far as this weekend goes, we are going to ride down the east coast tomorrow on our scooter. We will be stopping along the way to do some rafting down the longest river here in Taiwan. Wen Ping offered to meet us there, and some others from Hualien are also coming. According to Lonely Planet (the guidebook of Taiwan that we've been using), this is must-do attraction. On Sunday, we are going whale watching with Wen Ping and his family. There is only about a 30% chance that we will see a whale, but he said that we would definitely see some dolphins. Either way, we will have a wonderful experience. I am hoping for warm and sunny weather.

On Monday, Nick and I will celebrate our 1 year anniversary!! I cannot believe how quickly this year as passed. We have a chocolate cake ordered from a local bakery and we've booked a room at a nice hotel in town. Nick has also promised that we will be eating "American" food that night too. I am looking forward to our date night. I know that it will be fabulous, because I'm spending it with my amazing husband :)

We miss you all lots!! Lots of love....