June 26

I forgot my camera again today, so not many pictures to share. We went to the northern part of Jilong city to a coastal swimming area – Heping Island. There was a small charge to get in and luckily we made it during their soft opening period for the season otherwise it would have been a very large charge to get in. 

They had a few trails that we walked on briefly, but then it was off to swimming. They had several large pools that were basically concrete squares that they built to let in the ocean water and fish and things like that. So we were swimming in the ocean, but the water was all calm like a swimming pool. There were three different pools, one only about six inches deep for the small children, one about 5-6 feet deep for swimming laps, and one deeper for snorkeling and watching fish. There were some pretty cool stripped fish swimming in the two bigger pools and lots of small crabs and fish in all of them. 

The pools though sound cooler than they really are. The small one was too shallow for everyone except Asher. The next one was a little too deep for the kids, so they had to pretty much hang on to the side most of the time. They all know how to swim well, but that was difficult in the salt water from the ocean. Maybe if we had brought goggles then it would have worked out better. We still did stay for a couple of hours and even though it wasn’t as fun as Rebecca and I were hoping, the children all reported that they did have a fun time.

Taking the garbage out that night. For their garbage trucks they play a loud song as they come by - they sound a lot like the ice cream trucks in the US. And then everyone runs out with their garbage. In Hualien and Tainan our apartments took care of it for us, but here in Jilong we had to do it ourselves. I didn't mind though, it gave me a chance to sneak out and get a smoothie or other evening snack.

Rebecca came with me to get a bite to eat. She picked out this plate of vegetables. It was kind of dark and she couldn't tell exactly what it was, but when she got home to eat it she discovered that it included hundreds of tiny little fish. she said it was really good!