Night 1 of our Co-Workers retreat and journey to Matsu Island

We were very lucky to be able to join our fellow Chinese co-workers from all the various Chinese Lutheran Brethren Churches on a 3 day trip to Matsu Island.  Matsu Island is one of the furthest set of islands that are a part of the ROC. There are only a couple ways to get to the islands, you can take an airplane or take a ferry over.  We went up to Keelung (a northern port town) to take an over night ferry over to Matsu Islands.  We went late at night and slept in bunk beds as the ferry went to Matsu.  We had two people in one bunk and three in the other bunk.  Little N and John snored all night long and Little H and Little M were snuggled and tossed and turned all over the place at night.  

We had an extremely busy day before getting ready for our vacation.  We had church and then had to rush home so that we could do our final preparations before we left for the co-workers retreat.  We rushed back to church to make sure that we arrived at church in time to make the bus.  We got to church early and didn't have to worry about being late because the bus was running late. 

When the bus came we all quickly got on the bus and went to pick up more people at three different stops.   I'm pretty sure that on every co-workers retreat or trip we get the same tour guides because we had the same tour guides that we had on the previous trip.  Our tour guides are amazing and even though they don't speak English they make sure that we know what to do and try to ask questions if they need to.  

We got up to Keelung and we needed to go through security and make sure we had everything together because Matsu Islands are primarily military bases.  So we were told that there were places that we wouldn't be able to go to and see because they were secure areas.  We were excited to see some more parts of Taiwan. 

Waiting for the ferry and reading books. 

 The port of Keelung and the top deck of the ferry!  Standing up on top deck once we got away from all the lights we could see all sorts of stars and it was amazing to see.  

 One of our bunk beds.  Both of us were given the bottom bunks and we had people sleeping above us.