A "Colonies" connection clear over here.

Today I found that you can meet people with roots in the Colonies all over the world. I'm pictured below with Alan and Sonia Call. Alan is the son of Dean, the son of Charles Helaman. This picture was taken today, at the Georgetown chapel on Penang Island in Malaysia. Alan and his wife are here for a year. He works with Intel. We reminisced about our vacation visits to the colonies. He knows Dana Call. He remembers Uncle Mac having a strange sense of humor. Mom, I know you would have been proud of me, if I had made the connection. But I must confess that even though I knew he was a Call before he knew I was a Whetten, he was the first one to bring up the Colonies.

Jump to the beat:

This next series of photos were taken at Tze En Tower, which was part of the WuChuan 2nd Branch's trip to Sun Moon Lake in Taiwan. One person had the interesting idea of getting a picture striking the drum. It looked like such a fun pose that a bunch of us followed. I wish I knew everybody's names. I'm missing the names of the girls in the first and fourth photos. :( Sorry.

Wu Chuan 2nd Branch: Trip to Sun Moon Lake

Today I joined the Wu Chuan 2nd Branch's excursion to Sun Moon Lake. We rode in a tour bus from the church. There were 38 of us on a bus with 40 seats. I felt lucky to get on board.

Our first stop was Chang Tai Chen Buddhist Monastery, which has some very impressive architecture and artwork. Here is the happy Budda.

From there we went to Wen Wu Temple on a mountain side over looking Sun Moon Lake. I'm sure that on a clear day the view is beautiful. The pictures I took can't do justice to the view.

Opposite this view is the temple entrance.
From there, the tour bus took us along a winding road, up the mountain to the Tzen En Tower which "was constructed as the late Chiang Kai Check was in memory of his mother".

This is the view from the top of the tower, with Sun Moon Lake in the background.

Happy Birthday, Matt!

(Two days late).

As I was going to sleep on March 19th, I thought about what happened 15 years earlier. I remembered Byron Hogan helping me anoint and bless a little baby who wasn't breathing right. Now look at him. Maybe we used too much oil. He may count himself lucky for not being called Isaac Randall or Randall Buchannan (Randy Buck for short). Clarissa decided his name is Matthew. His middle name skips my mind from time to time. I guess there will be chances to name a grand child Randy Buck. No...? How about a puppy?

Matthews' birthday was celebrated in Taiwan with cheesecake. Here I am with Richie Wu on my right, Jovin Chan on my left and Jason Chen on the far left. They brought in a selection of cheese cakes that were all delicious. Well... the two kind that I had were delicious. For the record, this picture is taken at the office of Taiwan Green Point in Daya, Taichung County in Taiwan. TGP molds plastics for Motorola (and many other companies).

While I had cake courtesy of TGP, Matt and company are going bowling and enjoying a Brewster's Ice Cream cake. Do you think they'll save me a piece? Maybe for about a day. Then it'll be gone. Humph!

A walk in the park ends with dancing, dinner and new friends:

This blog has been about close-up photos of flowers until now. This entry is totally out of line with the other entries. It's for my friends at Shin Min High School.

After Church I walked through Chung-Cheng park again and came across something I've never seen before: teenagers practicing dance routines for the fun of it. OK, I performed in dance teams as a teenager too, but not by choice. It was by obligation. The first group I saw was practicing in front of a building with a glass wall where they could see their reflection. I stepped inside the building with the intend of watching without being too noticeable. Boy, was I in for a surprise! Inside the building a group of girls were eating lunch. They immediately greeted me and asked me to join them. "You must stay" they said. Instead of being discrete, I was the center of attention. Hence the photo below. We talked, they ate, they danced, they sent me away with a promise to come back an hour later after they rehearsed some more. I did. I think I was distracting them. They were getting ready for a dance competition at their High School. When I came back, they went through their whole routine. It was interesting to observe how they worked problems out among themselves. I wish I could have understood what they were saying in Chinese. I'm sure it would be a lesson in negotiation. Andrew, one of the guys who was less shy about talking in English invited me to dinner with them. OK. Why not? Dinner was at a small restaurant named Taka, about a block from the Church. We caught a ride in a van that shuttles people from the park to the department store. Here we are all squeezed in the van. Well, almost all. Two more had to catch the next shuttle.

The guys were a little more shy about talking in English, except for Andrew, whose father is also an engineer. But unlike me, they were definately not shy about dancing. They have a good routine. I was a little nervous about getting so much attention from the girls. (This could look bad). So it was comforting that Andrew would talk with me too. He's a skater. While the girls were dancing, he was practicing his skate board moves. He taught me how to position my feet to make quick turns on the skate board. Nice!

We took a bunch of pictures at the restaruant, but most of them turned out blurry. Finally we put the camera down on the table and set the timer. This is the result:

So, in conclusion, thanks to Sophie, Wendy, Jessica, Tracy, Shawna, Peggy, Emily, Andrew, Jason, Vinson and everyone else on the ABCDBravo dance team from Shin Min High School. I had a great time helping you practice your english.

A Sunday Morning Walk

I walked to Church again today. This time I looked for a different route on Google Maps. I found the National Museum of Natural Science and Botanical Garden is right on the way. It took me about 15 minutes to get there. I took a few pictures of the gardens, but I didn't stay long enough to find any really great shots. I promised myself to come back that way after Church. Beyond the botanical gardens, is a tree-lined walkway that leads to the park (see the yellow flower below) near the Church. It was along this walkway that I found the picture shown above. It was a very peaceful place. I didn't make it back to the botanical gardens.

Can I leave this blank?

I'm open to suggestions for the title of this image. I was walking through a park near the church on Wuquan Rd. in Taichung and came across this little flower. It was convenient to shoot because it was adjacent to the edge of the flower box, right along the stone wall / bench that I could brace the camera on. It was also protected from the wind. My simple Canon PowerShot A640 doesn't do well when things are dancing around a lot. I wonder if I shouldn't have rotated this image a little so the pedal on the right was more horizontal. What do you think?

From a street market in Taiwan

I walked to Church Sunday morning. That's something I haven't done since I went to Church in Orem. But walking to church from the Landis Hotel on Taichung Kang Rd. to the chapel on Wuquan Rd. was somewhat different than walking across Scera Park. On the way, I came across a street market where you could buy all kinds of fruits, vegetables, meats and more - including flowers. The man selling the flowers greeted me with a smile, which gave me courage to ask if it's ok to take some pictures. He didn't mind. The image above is my favorite from that session.

From Penang, Malaysia

Off the West coast of Malaysia, there is an island named Penang, where many high tech companies have set up manufacturing plants. I was there the first week of 2008, working with the team in the Motorola factory. I stayed at the Equatorial Hotel. The drive up the hill to the hotel is lined with trees. A few of them were in bloom, like this one. At the latitude where I live, there are not many blossoms during the first week in January. Even in Penang, despite being a tropical island, the blooms were not as numerous as what I had hoped. I came away feeling lucky for being able to capture this image and having it turn out as nice as it did.