Never have I been so happy to be in Kentucky before! (Actually, never have I been in Kentucky before, but that’s not the point.)

We were supposed to fly out of John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, on Tuesday. We would change planes in Houston on our way to Orlando, where we would spend about twelve hours at my parents’ house before flying on to Indianapolis. Then we would rent a car, drive to Kentucky, and spend two nights and a day there enjoying Mammoth Caves. After that we would drive on to Illinois to spend a few days with Floyd’s Great Aunt Wilma, drive back to Indianapolis, and fly to Florida for a week or so with my parents before eventually flying back to California via Denver this time.

It all seemed like a good idea when we planned it. Even the part where we would start our trip on Continental Airlines and then switch to Air Tran in Orlando. Why not? We got the best deal that way. So, we spent most of the frequent flyer miles we’ve been saving for the last several years and bought our plane tickets, using more miles to pay for the hotel rooms and rental car in advance.

My sister, who lives in Orange County, dropped Floyd and me off at the John Wayne Airport on Monday morning. We got there in plenty of time, checked in, and eventually boarded the plane, where we sat. And sat. And were told by the pilot that there was a problem with the number 2 engine that would take a few extra minutes to check out. So we sat some more, until we realized that at this point, we were probably going to miss our connection in Houston.

Without cell phones, how would we call my mom, who was expecting to meet us at the Orlando Airport at a certain time? We could use a pay phone later when we did get to Houston, but I didn’t have her number except saved on Skype and in my Yahoo address book. Aha! I could look it up on my brand new Kindle 3G! So I pulled out my Kindle and got to my Yahoo account, but couldn’t look up her number because it couldn’t open more than one window at once. Not to worry; I sent her a quick email to let her know that our flight had been delayed and that I’d tell her when we knew more.

We waited on the plane a little longer, and then the pilot came back on the intercom and told us the problem was bigger than they had thought and the flight was going to have to be completely cancelled. All the passengers would be let off the plane to go collect our luggage, and then we were to go back to the Continental check-in counter so they could arrange other ways to get us all to our destinations.

Floyd and I decided to split up; he would get the luggage while I hurried ahead to get to the front of the line. A good plan, but at least a dozen people in front of us had thought of the same thing. The line at the counter hardly moved at all, and by the time Floyd joined me 15 minutes or so later, I had estimated that at the current rate, it would take four hours for us to get to the front. I pitied the poor people at the back, who would be there for a couple days if nothing changed.

Well, they eventually got more employees to the Continental Counter, and we only had to stand there for about two hours before it was our turn. But the waiting was only just beginning. A helpful employee named May looked up our information and tried her best, but no flights she could offer us would get us to Houston in time to get us to Florida in time to catch our Air Tran flight to Indianapolis. She let us use her phone and asked us to check with Capital One (the source of our frequent flyer miles and through which we had booked the trip) to see if we could postpone the Orlando-to-Indianapolis leg.

I kid you not, Floyd was on the phone with them for nearly an hour. He kept getting put on hold while people checked to see how they could help us, and they kept on not being helpful. Meanwhile, May was still looking on her computer to see if she had any other options for us, but because Continental and Air Tran are not partners, she could only do so much. Eventually Floyd reported that the person on the other line had said we might have to pay a “service fee” to reschedule our flight, but they weren’t sure how much yet. The next report floored me. Apparently the only option the Air Tran people could give us was to completely cancel our original ticket (nonrefundable since this was pretty much the last minute) and book us a new one, which would also need to be paid for. And again, since it was pretty much the last minute, the cost would be sky-high. As in, five hundred dollars per ticket!!

I was horrified to hear that Air Tran wanted an extra thousand dollars for something that wasn’t our fault, AND that we would lose all the frequent flyer miles we had already paid. The only other option was to use every last frequent flyer mile that we still had to buy one of the tickets and to pay $500 for the second one. Just as bad. At that point I was about ready to cancel that part of our trip and just take Amtrak or the Greyhound bus from Orlando instead. But Floyd said that the unhelpful person on the other line had told him that if we did that, the airline would mark us down as having cancelled our trip, and we wouldn’t have our tickets to fly back to Orlando afterwards. Not only that, but the hotels and rental car were nonrefundable too.

Near tears in frustration, I explained to May (who had stepped away for a moment and had just come back to our spot at the counter) that Air Tran wanted a thousand dollars to reschedule our flight. May  was almost as outraged as Floyd and I were, and she got back on her computer to try to help us some other way. Floyd asked the lady on the phone to wait while we discussed our options, and then he and I held our breath while May kept tapping away. We never found out exactly what she did that she hadn’t tried before, but in a few minutes she got excited and announced that she might have something for us. She got on her phone and told somebody that she needed two seats on “that United flight from LAX to Orlando later tonight”. Then she scurried around and printed two shuttle tickets for us, and also a couple of free meal passes to apologize for the inconvenience; and she took us to the United counter to print our boarding passes and to make sure there was a printed record that we had already paid for our check-in luggage. Along the way she explained with an air of apologetic embarrassment that she had “stolen” the seats and that her boss was going to be mad in the morning. We never found out exactly what that meant, and we protested that we didn’t want her to get in trouble for our sakes, but she assured us that it was fine.

So we got on a shuttle van headed for LAX, and on the way I pulled out my oh-so-handy Kindle once again to email Mom about the latest turn of events.

The (new) problem was, even though this new flight was going to take us straight to Orlando, it was a “red-eye”. It would get to Orlando at 6:45 the next morning, exactly 65 minutes before our 7:50 flight to Indianapolis was supposed to leave – assuming both flights were on time. So there was no way Floyd and I would be able to go to my parents’ house in between flights as originally planned. Actually, we realized with growing alarm that there was no guarantee we’d even make our Air Tran flight, especially if United was late or we had to pick up our baggage in between.

We got to LAX and checked in at the United counter, where we asked if they could check our bags all the way to Indianapolis. First the guy said yes, to our great relief, but our hearts sank when he looked at his monitor again and muttered, “Oops.” Turns out that wouldn’t be possible because United and Air Tran aren’t partners. I had never realized how important the “partner” thing was before, but it was turning out to be a big headache. Well, we would just have to hope we’d land promptly in Orlando, have time to collect our luggage, find the Air Tran counter, check our bags in for the next flight, and be at the gate ready to board, all in 65 minutes.

Waiting to board our United flight, I used my Kindle once again to look up the Air Tran website. There I discovered that customers are required to check in their luggage no later than 45 minutes before the flight leaves. YIKES! That meant we only had 20 minutes to get off the plane, get our luggage from the carousel, find our way to the Air Tran counter, and get to the front of the check-in line, of course assuming we didn’t arrive late.

I tried unsuccessfully to find a map of the Orlando airport so we could at least study our route in preparation for racing through it, and a conversation with an airport employee left us even more concerned. (He didn’t seem to think we had a very big chance of making it, though he said we’d find an airport map in the in-flight magazine after we boarded.)

Back on the Air Tran website, I succeeded in going through the online check-in process (including paying for our check-in luggage again), though there was no way to print our boarding passes from the Kindle. But we hoped that having checked in already would make the Air Tran folks a little more kindly disposed toward us if we showed up at the counter a little less than 45 minutes before the flight. We also agreed that Floyd would once again go get our luggage while I hurried to get in line, though of course I wouldn’t actually be able to check us in before he joined me.

We waited and waited to board our United flight in LAX, and then the United guy at the boarding gate announced that the reason we hadn’t started boarding already was because the flight crew hadn’t arrived yet. They were on another flight that had just landed (late), and they would be there as soon as possible. Floyd and I exchanged nervous glances at that. We also felt uncomfortable because the flight was completely full with a stand-by list, and two more people who had been hoping to fly stand-by would have been able to if not for us. Maybe that was what May had meant by “stealing” the seats. Oh well, there was nothing we could do about it now. And at least we had heard an announcement that our plane was supposed to arrive six minutes earlier than originally stated, so hopefully the flight crew’s delay wouldn’t eat into much more than those extra six minutes.

Finally the flight crew showed up and boarded, and a few minutes later passengers were finally allowed to board. The guy at the gate asked everyone to please find their seats as quickly as possible and not block the aisles when they put their luggage into the overhead compartments, so that everyone could get by and the plane could leave right away since it was already running late. Well, it seemed to me that the line had never moved more slowly, and that I’d never seen more people blocking others’ ways to arrange their luggage. Even when we finally found our seats, it turned out we were in the wrong ones and we had to wait for a gap in the line to step back into the aisle and move one row forward. We were thankful that June had found us spots in Economy Plus (a free upgrade!), where there was a lot more leg room.

By the time everyone was settled and the plane finally took off, we were thirty minutes behind schedule, and the in-flight magazine had no helpful airport map after all. At least I was able to stop stressing about the possibility of missing our connection, since it was now obvious that we would miss it no matter what. We would just have to make a new plan when we got to Orlando, but although there was no way I was going to pay an extra thousand dollars for our next flight, what else could we do? And then it occurred to me that if we were lucky, our next flight might possibly be running late too, in which case we would still have a chance. That was enough to get me hoping (and thus worrying) again, even though I tried to just pray about it all and then put it out of my mind.

Eventually I was able to get to sleep, even though Floyd and I discovered that in Economy Plus the seats don’t recline at all. Bummer. But the next thing we knew they were turning the lights back on and announcing that we were on final approach to Orlando, and it was just after 7:00 a.m. Apparently we had made up a little of the lost time in the air.

When we got off the plane and realized how big the Orlando Airport is, we decided we’d better stick together until we figured out where everything was. We hurried to the carousel, and luckily it didn’t take long for our two suitcases to show up. We followed signs and bystanders’ directions toward the Air Tran counter, praying and running most of the way. I sprinted ahead to get a good spot in line while Floyd followed with the heavier luggage.

The signs took me to a place where we would have to stand in a line to go through security, and I stopped at the back of the slow-moving line to catch my breath and wait for Floyd. But when I turned around, I saw to my alarm that he was no longer behind me. I waited and waited and let other people go ahead, but Floyd didn’t show up. Where could he be? I asked an airport employee if this was the only way through security, and he pointed to another place where people could get in a different line. I thought maybe Floyd had somehow lost sight of me and gone to the other line, but he wasn’t there either. I returned to the first line and he still wasn’t there.

By now I was getting really concerned. I knew he couldn’t have gone through without my knowing, because we had to show our boarding passes and ID, and I was carrying both our IDs. (We didn’t actually have boarding passes, but I hoped the security people would understand when I explained our situation.) All I could think of was that maybe he had accidentally dropped something or realized he’d left something on the plane and hurried back to get it, knowing he’d catch up with me eventually in line.

Well, I paced back and forth between the two lines for maybe ten minutes, and in the process found a monitor listing all outgoing flights and their status. Sure enough, the Air Tran one we wanted was scheduled to leave on time. Uh-oh.

Suddenly, to my surprise, Floyd reappeared from a completely unexpected direction, with even more unexpected news. I had gone the wrong way (how was I supposed to know that, since Air Tran was one of the airlines listed above the security area where I was waiting?), and someone else had told Floyd the right way to the Air Tran counter we wanted. He had already been there (it was just around the corner) and had spoken to an airline employee at the counter, who had told him that although it was now too late to check in for our scheduled flight, there was room on the next one, and we could leave an hour later instead, at no extra cost.

Wow. It was almost like one of those stories where the author doesn’t know how to end it, so she just inserts some cheesy solution and ties up the loose ends so abruptly that the reader is left sitting there going, “Wait. After all that, this is it?”

This apparently was indeed it. Floyd took me back to the counter, we stood in line and checked our luggage in, got our boarding passes, and wandered off toward our gate still reeling at how perfectly God had answered our prayers. On the way to the gate, we saw the plane we ought to have been on taxiing out toward the runway without us. I hope there were two standby passengers on it, thanking God that our seats had been available.

Our flight from Orlando to Indianapolis was uneventful, except that Floyd was concerned the rental car we had reserved might not still be available if we were an hour late. But after everything we had been through, that possibility seemed too small to worry about (much).

Having worried so much and slept so little on our red-eye, we spent most of this flight asleep. After we landed (and I added the Indianapolis airport to my list of global favorites), we decided to use our free meal vouchers now that we actually had time and were hungry. So we bought hot dogs and chili and a Starbucks coffee and some muffins and fruit to help carry us through the next couple of days, and brought it all with us as we headed down to find our luggage.

Having spent the extra time getting grub, we were the last ones from our flight to arrive at the carousel, which was empty and had stopped. We weren’t worried, though, since there was an Air Tran luggage room right there, and we could see several suitcases on the floor inside as we approached. Sure enough, ours were among them, but the lady behind the desk looked at us funny when we asked for them. “Are you sure? Because the luggage tags on them say they’re supposed to go back on the flight to Orlando.”

Floyd and I were shocked, but we bent down to look, and sure enough, the tags stuck on by the Air Tran folks back at the counter in Orlando did indeed say that they were supposed to go to Orlando via Indianapolis. What in the world?! Fortunately the lady here had thought that seemed a little odd too, and had pulled them aside instead of putting them back on the plane. We were truly thankful she had done so, especially since we’d gotten there late. We could easily have arrived at her desk only to find out that our bags – containing everything we needed for the rest of our trip – had returned to Florida without us. Or even if they had still been there, red tape and airport security issues could have prevented us from being able to claim them. But no, God was helping us out once again, and the lady gave our suitcases right back. She just asked us to let her peel off and keep the tags so her office would have them as a record of what had happened.

Bags in hand, we found a bench where we could sit down and eat our hard-earned free chili and hot dog and breathe a sigh of relief before going in search of our rental car. Which did happen to still be available. And we drove away thanking God from the bottoms of our hearts for how he had worked everything out.

We enjoyed the scenic drive from Indiana to Kentucky (although I slept on and off through most of it), successfully found our hotel room, and hit the sack early. This morning we visited the gorgeous Mammoth Caves and are now back in the hotel ready to hit the sack again. Tomorrow we’ll drive on to visit Aunt Wilma, and in a few days we’ll be ready to do the whole thing again in reverse. At least, as far as Orlando. Hopefully we won’t have any more adventures before we get there! Or before we fly back to California the week after that.

It’s after midnight here, so I’d better go. Tomorrow will be another long day of (hopefully uneventful) travel.

I know, it’s disgraceful. I’ve lived in Taiwan four years now, and have never made a whole phone call in Chinese. That is, not counting the wrong number calls we occasionally receive, or the Chinese telemarketers to whom we say, “Sorry, I don’t speak Chinese” in Chinese and then hang up.

I know enough Chinese to shop at the market and do basic things like that, but never having taken actual language lessons (apart from Survival Chinese for the first few weeks after we arrived), I’m not very confident. If I have to make a phone call, I’ll usually ask a Chinese-speaking friend to do it for me.

But today I was determined. I wanted to have lunch at a certain Indian restaurant with a friend, but today being Dragon Boat Festival, I wasn’t sure they’d be open. So I needed to call and find out, but no one was available to help at the right time.

I could do it. I had their phone number (from the Compass Magazine) and I knew how to ask the question – if not in perfect Chinese, at least well enough to be understood. My biggest worry at such times is always what to do if the other party says more than a simple “yes” or “no” and I have no idea what they’re trying to tell me, but I would cross that bridge if I came to it.

So I picked up the phone and punched in the number. The conversation went like this:

Guy at Restaurant (in English but with heavy accent): Hello? (Not an uncommon way to start a conversation here even when people only really speak Chinese.)
Me: Ni hao. Ni men jin tien kai ma? (Hello. Are you open today?)
Guy at Restaurant: Sorry, I have no Chinese.
Me (in surprise): Oh! Um, are you open today?
Guy at Restaurant (sounding like he doesn’t have much English either): No.
Me (disappointed). Oh. When will you be open again?
Guy at Restaurant: Eleven.
Me: Eleven O’clock today?
Guy at Restaurant: Yes.
Me: Oh! Thank you.
Guy at Restaurant: Bye-bye.

I guess sometimes things work out more easily than we expect. Now if only I could call our other local restaurants to order take-out and have it work the same way!

Lately I’ve been asking myself what the point of a blog is if I never write in it. It’s just easier to post little updates in Facebook all the time than sit down and write something. Especially when life is pretty normal and there’s nothing much exciting to write about. But I’ve decided I need to get back to posting in here at least a little more often than I have been, and yesterday Floyd and I actually experienced a blogworthy event, so here goes.

Floyd and I took the bus to Taipei Tuesday evening so we could spend Wednesday at the International Flora Expo there. Everyone we know who’s gone has said how fun it is, and how worth it it is to see before it’s gone in a few more weeks. So we decided we’d go during our Easter break when local schools wouldn’t have time off so it wouldn’t be too crowded. We would go up to Taipei on Tuesday, spend the night with our friend Linda who teaches at Morrison’s Bethany campus, get to the Flora Expo right when it opened in the morning, spend most of the day there, and take the bus back to Taichung Wednesday night.

A good plan, in theory, even though four hours in a bus is a bit much for one day of flowery fun. The problem started when Linda emailed us back and said that yes, we were welcome to stay at her place, but no, she wouldn’t actually be home at the time. She was going to Thailand but would leave her keys with a neighbor across the street (also a teacher at Bethany) and we could make ourselves at home in her apartment in her absence.

That sounded okay to us, so we made the arrangements and showed up on Tuesday evening as planned. The neighbor met us outside her apartment and gave us an envelope with Linda’s keys, which we promised to return the following evening. We found our way to Linda’s apartment (where we’d stayed once before) and successfully let ourselves in. This may not sound like any big deal until you consider how complicated the locks on Taiwanese apartment doors can sometimes be. Like many local apartments, there was a metal security gate that had to be opened before we could open the front door, and each needed different keys which turned all the way around multiple times in different directions with loud clicking sound effects. But after a couple of tries we got them both open and then closed behind ourselves.

Well, the rest of the evening was uneventful, as we went almost straight to bed (it was pretty late by the time we got in). We got up early the next morning (well, early for being on vacation), planning to leave the house by 8:00 so we could take the subway and be in line for the Flora Expo in plenty of time before it opened at 9:00. We were running a little late, though, so it was about 8:15 before we were ready to leave the house. Only to discover that the house was apparently not ready for us to leave.

Floyd tried turning the knob that unlocks the front door (there’s no keyhole on the inside) this way and that, and we heard the familiar clicking sounds from within the mechanism, but the door didn’t actually unlock. There was a second little knob on the lock, so he tried that too, and then tried different combinations of turning one one way and the other the other way, but nothing helpful happened. I gave it a try as well, but it was as though the door didn’t even recognize that we were trying to unlock it. That is, the lock kept clicking, but the bolt wouldn’t turn all the way. And when we tried both knobs at once, it reminded me of that scene from Star Wars: Return of the Jedi when Han Solo is trying to hotwire the door of the bunker on Endor, and just as he thinks it’s about to open, a second security door crashes shut in front of the first. Instead of unlocking the first bolt, the second knob eventually turned another bolt, locking us in doubly securely.

I was proud of us both for not getting more stressed than we were, considering that we were in a hurry, no one else was home to help us, we didn’t know very many people in the city, and we don’t speak much Chinese. After 45 minutes of peering into what he could see of the lock mechanism with a flashlight and struggling with two butter knives to try to pry back the bolt, Floyd finally gave up. We decided against unscrewing the screws on the hinges and removing the door completely (we couldn’t find a screwdriver anyway) and instead called the neighbor to see if she could recommend a locksmith, preferably one who spoke some English. She said she’d call around and see if any of the mechanically-minded workers at the school were available (not necessarily likely since everyone was off on Easter break).

After she hung up, I had the idea that perhaps the door could be opened from the outside with the key. Of course there was no way to pass the key through the locked door to anyone, but maybe we could drop it off the balcony (Linda’s apartment is on the 4th floor) to someone below. We decided to try this when the locksmith showed up so that we wouldn’t end up with as big a bill from him having to pick or break the lock.

Well, we heard the guy come to the door, and Floyd tried to explain our idea in a mixture of English and a bit of Chinese. Unfortunately, neither of us knew the words for “lock”, “key”, “balcony”, or “drop”, which might have helped. And the other guy didn’t speak a word of English. We had no idea what he was saying through the door, and I’m sure he was equally frustrated with our inability to communicate. Finally Floyd heard him get back on the elevator, so I hurried out to the balcony with the keys. (I should mention at this point that I wasn’t sure where we had put the keys Linda had left for us with the neighbors, but I found a spare set sitting on a shelf, so I grabbed those.) I saw the guy leave the apartment building, but he never even looked up, and I wasn’t about to toss the keys down onto a public sidewalk if I couldn’t get his attention first. I watched him get on a scooter and disappear down the road, and with him our hopes of getting out of there any time soon.

We decided to call the neighbor again and see if she would be willing to come over and try to unlock the door from the outside. She was, and I successfully tossed the keys down to her without getting them stuck on any of the neighbors’ balconies below us. (Wouldn’t that have made things interesting!) She got on the elevator and a moment later we heard her trying to unlock the doors. But she couldn’t even get the metal security gate to open with Linda’s keys, let alone the inner door whose lock was stuck. We conversed through the door while she tried all three keys on the ring, and I happened to mention that the locksmith had been there but had given up and left. So she called him again from her cell phone and convinced him to come back and that she would stay and translate for us.

The locksmith returned in just a few minutes. From the moment he stepped off the elevator, it couldn’t even have taken him five seconds before he got both the metal gate and the door unlocked. Floyd and I had never been so thankful for the sight of a door opening in front of us! As he stooped to examine the lock, he handed us two sets of keys. It took a moment before it occured to us that he shouldn’t have had two sets to give us. There was the one I had dropped to the neighbor, but where had the other set come from? On closer inspection, we realized it was the set we had been given in the envelope the evening before. But how…?

Oh. We had left it in the lock when we let ourselves in last night.

So that was why the lock had felt so stuck! Boy, did we feel stupid. It was a relief to hear the locksmith say (via the neighbor) that there was also a problem with a faulty lock mechanism. While we waited, he unscrewed the whole thing, took it off the door, and installed a new one, all at no charge (because he works for Morrison, and Morrison provides free housing for its staff, including certain basic repairs).

(Here’s a picture of the guy at work replacing the lock; you can see the security gate open behind him.)

He gave us two copies of the key to the new lock, and was nice enough to remove the old one from one of Linda’s keyrings so we wouldn’t get mixed up and end up jamming up the new lock with the wrong key or something. After he left, I decided we’d better throw away the old key just to be sure we didn’t have any more problems with it. I tossed it in the kitchen trash can while Floyd tried out the rest of the keys just to make sure of everything. And boy, I’m glad he tried them before the trash got emptied! Turns out the locksmith had given us the wrong one to get rid of! It was the key to the security gate. So I hastily dug it out of the trash and reattached it to the keychain, thankful that we had realized in time.

Well, it was after 10:00 by the time we finally left the apartment. Neither of us could believe that we had just spent an hour and forty-five minutes locked in, mostly because of our carelessness in leaving the key in the lock. The key to the problem had been that the key was the problem, at least in part.

Well, when Linda gets home from Thailand she won’t be able to get into her apartment. We left a note on the door to tell her so, not that she won’t be able to figure that out on her own when she gets there. And before we left Taipei on Wednesday night (after a day full of lines and crowds and 95,000 people at the flora expo – but that’s another story) we gave the keys back to the neighbor to give Linda upon her return. So, Linda, that’s why your door might look a little different when you get back. Sorry about that… but at least you have a brand new lock!!

I’m here in Malaysian Borneo for a few days attending a teaching conference, and I’m loving it!  (To see my first Bornean blog post, click here.)

Today after the conference sessions were over, Floyd and I took a taxi to visit the Tun Mustapha Tower.  It’s the second tallest building on the island of Borneo, and apparently is one of only four hanging structures in the world with a glass facade, and the only building in Asia in the shape of a 72-sided polygon built without columns.  We didn’t get to go inside, but it did look pretty impressive from the outside.  Here are a few pictures I took:

Afterward we visited The Sabah Museum, which featured various traditional local cultures.  Unfortunately, a large section of it was closed for renovation, but we did enjoy what we were able to see.  

Behind the museum was a traditional (uninhabited) village preserved in its original form.  We got to stroll around it and even go in some of the buildings.

I’m really enjoying our time here and everything we’ve been able to see.  What a pity we can’t stay longer!

I love Malaysia!  I’m here for a few days for a conference, which is being held in the beautiful, touristy town of Kota Kinabalu in the state of Sabah.  This part of Malaysia is located on the island of Borneo, along with a piece of Indonesia and the whole country of Brunei.  (The rest of Malaysia is a peninsula attached to the mainland in Southeast Asia.)  See the map below.  It’s very different here from Kuala Lumpur, which I visited back in 2008.  You can click here to read my blog post about that experience.

Floyd was able to accompany me; he works on his classwork on the computer in our hotel room while I attend the conference workshops, and then we go sightseeing together in the late afternoons and evenings.  This is the front of the beautiful Sutera Harbor Resort, where the conference is being held.  We’re staying at a different (less fancy but quite a bit cheaper) hotel.  I usually walk to and from the conference each day; I haven’t been timing it, but I think it’s about 40 minutes each way.

Once when I walked through the loby of the Sutera, I came across a musician in traditional dress playing the musical instrument below, called a kulintangan.  The sound was beautiful and almost haunting, and I lingered quite awhile to listen.  Here’s a link to a video (not one I took) where you can see how it’s played and hear how it sounds.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKKqFm79rxQ

Among other noteworthy sites, Kota Kinabalu boasts two especially large and beautiful mosques.  Below, with the even more beautiful flower in the foreground, is the Kota Kinabalu City Mosque.

Want to see more of our adventures in Borneo?  Click on the links below to read my other blog posts from the trip:

Borneo: The Green Connection and Dinner on the Beach

Wow, it’s been forever since I posted anything here. Almost a year! I much prefer Facebook, since it’s so convenient to post short comments, and they make it much easier to upload pictures. But this afternoon I decided it was time for another blog post.

Floyd and I arrived safely back in Taiwan early this morning after a wonderful Christmas in California. It was great to spend the holidays with family for the first time since we came to Taiwan three and a half years ago. Our eleven days there went by far too fast, as we knew they would, but I think we did the best we could to really make what time we had count.

Our trip back went fairly smoothly, even though we found out a few hours before departure that our flight would be leaving an hour and a half EARLIER than our tickets said. Yikes! Good thing we had called the airline that afternoon to ask a baggage question, otherwise we might not have found out until it was too late.

Oh, and the answer to our baggage question was that the box containing the double stroller we were bringing to Taiwan for some friends of ours was too big to be allowed on the plane, period (not just that we would be charged for oversized baggage). The Malaysian Airlines representative Floyd talked to basically said that we would have to plead our case at the baggage counter and hope that they let it on the plane. Otherwise we (or our friends) would have to pay very big bucks to have it shipped separately.

Well, we scrambled to finish packing and get ready and say our last goodbyes, and somehow we even got to the airport with time to spare. We were praying all the way that God would have just the right person in place to give us grace with our luggage. There was no line at all at the counter, so we went right to the front. I think we were both holding our breath the whole time the lady checked our luggage in. She did put one of our other boxes back on the scale a second time, frowned at the digital readout, said something to another airline employee about it, and then let it through. (This was the first time that’s happened to us, even though we usually pack each piece of luggage to just under the maximum weight allowance.) But she put the stroller box (which, though large, was not awfully heavy) through without a comment or a second glance. Praise the Lord!

Anyway, the flight was uneventful, and we arrived in Taipei a little after 6:00 this morning. We took the bus to Taichung and two taxis (with our luggage, we couldn’t fit in just one) from the bus stop to campus, and are back home now. We finished unpacking and enjoyed a take-out lunch from our favorite little Chinese buffet (and a warm milk tea for me from a nearby tea shop). It’s good to be back!

Oh, and the friends we brought the stroller for were very happy to receive it (and that they didn’t have to pay any extra to get it here)! They’ve invited us to join them for dinner at a nice restaurant tonight or tomorrow to say thanks.

So, we’re glad to be home once again. We have the weekend to get over jetlag, and then school starts on Monday. Here comes 2011, and shortly thereafter, the Year of the Rabbit. Happy New Year, everyone!