Thursday, October 22, 2009

Kenting on a shoestring Part 1

Kenting is a beach resort about 2 hours away. And though only early 20-something Taiwanese are brave enough to take the journey on scooters, we decided that was the cheapest (and funnest) way for our little family to make the trip. So on July 29th (my birthday) we got up early to beat the tropical heat and my human GPS (Scott) navigated us on our 2 scooters, 3 children, 2 backpacks, 1 tent and 1 sleep mat through the windy and sometimes not-very-well marked Chinese streets and highways to our weekend get-away.

Here is Scott packing up the transportation for the journey in our basement garage.

And here I am with my travel partner, Sophie. (The long sleeves are for the early morning breeze on a scooter, and later for the scorching sun)

And here is the other scooter, minus Scott, all ready to go. Now, I know 99.9% of Americans (all who haven't lived in a foreign country where American safety standards aren't the norm and even most who have lived-and survived-in such places) are having a heart attack seeing our children situated on our scooters in such a way. But, we really don't have much choice. When in Rome... (Pray for us!)

3 comments:

Shadow - JingQin said...

you guys are really BRAVE!!

Nadia and Jeremy said...

yes, i think i had a heart attack when you updated your status on FB and said you were travelling 3 hours on scooter. i'm so glad you posted pictures, i've been wanting to see how it all turned out. you guys are having so much fun! i'm kind of jealous. meanwhile we're trudging through the last 18 months of residency. maybe after it's all over and you're still over there we'll come and see you!

oh, and the spider situation sounds hilarious. jeremy had so many situations like that on his mission!

rebeccaslife said...

OK ... so I loved just catching up on all of your adventures! I have so much I want to say! Mostly, I love all the pictures and stories! And since this is on the post with the kids strapped to the scooter, I have to ask how Euan was strapped on? I wondered about that when you said ya'll were going down there.
You are brave indeed!
But it brings back some good memories and makes me jealous that I wasn't there with ya'll to experience it this time with your kids! :)