Gavin has arrived for a week of fun in Taiwan. His plane landed at a very reasonable 9:30 am Saturday. We should have suggested to all our guests to choose a flight that landed during the daylight hours. Those 11:30 pm flights are tough, especially when you have to go to work the next day.

Shortly after touchdown we whisked him off with Pearl to Meinong to have lunch at the Hakka restaurant and wander around the Hakka cultural village. When Gavin had talked to Zach about his recommendations of what to do while he was here, Zach said lunch with Pearl was not to be missed, and Gavin was not disappointed.

We'd never walked around the village before. It's a sort of shopping mall more than anything else. My favorite stall had a woman selling an odd collection of plastic toys, small metal sculptures and wooden instruments. Sitting behind her was an old gentleman playing Chinese music using a hand saw and a metal broom handle. We stopped at a tea shop and tried the traditional tea. We skipped the opportunity to make our own - it involved a half hour of grinding the tea into a powder - but enjoyed drinking the tea. Okay, not so much enjoyed as experienced. It was gritty with the flavor of hay. It reminded me of when I was a child and I'd drink the last of the milk leftover from a bowl of puffed rice cereal. Sweet, milky and gritty.

The air pollution on Sunday was as bad as ever but we ventured out anyway and tried not to breath too deeply. We spent the day on bikes, going to Cijin Island, walking around the lighthouse, stopping for mango ice by the ferry terminal. The views were completely obscured by the smog but it was a nice day nonetheless. It's a different kind of tour when you can bike everywhere. We were a bit stymied about where to go with Zach and Cierra because we spend all of our time on our bikes. It was harder to come up with ideas for them to do because we just didn't know what to do on foot. It worked out just fine, of course, and we learned about some places to visit that we didn't know before. We learned the bike rental system when the Pragers were here so that's made it easier to get a bike for Gavin.

Today he's coming to school to see the presentations my students have prepared on Taiwanese cooking. Josh got to learn about places to visit in Taiwan, for Zach and Cierra it was favorite spaces at KAS, and Gavin gets food.