No meetings for anyone all day, and not a purple shirt in sight all day ~ it’s a day off ~ YES YES YES!

Today was the day when the Diocese of Taiwan hosted all the bishops and spouses to a day of sightseeing ~ 4 choices on offer, Yilan Centre for Traditional Arts, Yingge Ceramics Museum, Taipei City Tour and (wait for the drum roll ∗∗∗∗!) our trip around the northern coast…. organized and hosted by Advent Church ~ and what a great day we had!

A bus full of happy bishops and spouses, all in relaxation mode, smiling away all day…. and the weather was perfect!  The day before a typhoon is often like this, perfect in every way ~ breezy, sunny, blue clear skies and magnificent views…

First to Yehliu Geopark for a walk around the rock formations – they’re quite staggering, but the number of tourists is, well, even more staggering!  So most of the group made a rapid escape and got up to the top of the hill, and came back looking full of fresh air and sun… and happy!

Then past Shimen Arch and round the northern tip of Taiwan for a brief stop at Advent Church, met by chaplain Rev. Lennon Chang and a large group of church members.  Off we went for lunch, and then to Tamsui Old Street – a tour of Fort Domingo, coffee or just wandering along.  I was in the coffee group ~ nice coffee shop in Mackay’s old clinic by the old church!

And so to the evening and the big big tour to Shilin Night Market ~ for which we had huge numbers of bishops and spouses and almost as huge numbers of our church youth from all over Taipei – to accompany them.  Well, it was just so much fun that we didn’t want to leave! Our group of 3 was with the Spanish-speaking bishops from Ecuador, Columbia and Venezuela and their 2 lovely translators ~ shopping shopping shopping, wow!

And the current in-item to buy is definitely a gadget that lets you take long-distance selfies…

In fact we were so busy shopping that we didn’t leave the night market until 10:00pm ~ fun fun fun!