Simply too much time has passed since my last post, and I have yet to find the time to sit down and properly organize all of my thoughts. So I am going to put my perfectionist tendencies aside and just briefly mention some my latest adventures.

The weekend after I returned from the States, I went bouldering at HeRen (part of Taroko National Park) with some of the folks at the climbing gym. HeRen was gorgeous: clear skies, blue waters, and dramatic cliffs. After bouldering Saturday afternoon, I played in the water. A collection of photos from the weekend can be seen here.

I'm so happy I've had so many opportunities to see how beautiful Taiwan is. In the time I took off after I quit UMC and started Lehman, I traveled down the eastern coast of Taiwan, saw my great-uncle in his village near Taidong, and visited Felicia in Kaohsiung. A couple of weekends ago, I went river hiking (also known as river tracing or canyoning) through the Nan Shih River in Wulai. I'll have photos up as soon as I can.

The more I explore Taiwan, the more I wish others knew about how many interesting activities there are to do here. I used to wonder why anyone would want to come here, but now I realize ignorance about Taiwan's attributes is really due to poor marketing and underdeveloped infrastracture. The Tourism Ministry could do so much for ilha Formosa.

I went to file and pay my taxes last Friday. Despite that over half the nation had yet to pay their taxes (you pay in person, or online if you're a national), the folks at the National Tax Administration were generally helpful and quick. I completed the filing and payment in about 35 minutes. Amazing! the process required only one sheet of paper to do all the calculations and figure out deductions, which was a huge improvement over the ten or so pages I believe I had to complete for my U.S. taxes.