Let me start by wishing my lovely niece a wonderful birthday. I've missed my son's on the 9th and my sister's on the 12th. April is a busy month in this family.

It's only noon and I've already had a busy day. A friend offered to take me with her to the produce market this morning, what I like to refer to as the big melon market since it always has a large section of really big watermelons for sale. So she swung by in her car (a car! Wow!) at 7:00 this morning and we are now all stocked up on fruits and vegetables.

Then at nine Lee and I took a taxi to another friend's place and joined him on a hike on Monkey Mountain. Chris and his wife just spent spring break hiking in Nepal so I figured I'd be slowing him down quite a bit but he was kind and kept the pace on the slow side. Spring has turned to summer here with the morning temperature around 82 degrees but the humidity isn't bad yet so the hike was hot but not unbearable.

For the first time I saw a little tiny deer in the woods. Apparently their numbers have been in decline for awhile, maybe because of the rise in numbers of feral dogs, so a deer sighting is pretty rare. That was cool. I also saw plenty of monkeys, naturally, plus a couple of lizards. I have yet to see a snake in Taiwan, which I hope continues for the duration. I try to be logical about the whole snake thing - they're just lizards without legs, right? - but my reaction to them is purely visceral and there is no reasoning with your gut reaction.

We hiked for a couple of hours and are now resting up for an evening of baseball. Baseball is an important sport here in Taiwan so we're going to experience it first hand. We're meeting a bunch of KAS teachers at a large stadium for an Eda Rhinos game. I've been told it will be like watching a double A baseball game in the United States. Apparently the crowds can get quite raucous so it should be fun. I'll let you know.