We had a lovely time at the beach yesterday with some friends. We stripped down to our bathing suits and immediately covered up with towels underneath our umbrellas. In the middle of the day at 22 degrees latitude the sun can burn awfully quickly. The beach sand is black and blistering hot. It felt like my flip flops might melt as we crossed the 20 feet of sand to the water's edge. The water was slightly cooler than the air temperature so not refreshing but nice none the less.

As we ate our lunches we got to talking about upcoming trips we're all planning. One of the reasons we're here in Taiwan is to do some traveling in Asia so we're constantly planning one trip or another. On the docket at the moment is the east coast of Taiwan for a long weekend in October, Taroko Gorge in November, Japan in January and China in April.

We keep going back and forth about what to do for Chinese New Year in February so that was the main focus of our conversation over lunch. The friends we were with are going to Myanmar and have invited us to join them. Myanmar was not on my short list of places to visit but we've been wanting to travel with other folks (traveling with just the two of us is great but can get a little old. Who knew?) and we've come to enjoy their company quite a bit. A couple hours on the beach worked out really well, so why not a week visiting pagodas and hanging out on another beach for awhile? Myanmar, here we come.