Well, early Saturday morning no one in our apartment was very happy about having to work 10 hours without being paid. But it ended up being rather enjoyable. The day was called "Paint a Lantern, Make a Wish" and the main activity of the day was making, painting, and setting off traditional Chinese lanterns. We were supposed to be there as 'foreign friends' to talk to the exchange students coming to Taiwan and leaving Taiwan for the US. It was a LOT of socialization and way too much talking all day. However, the making a lantern and field trip part made it worth it. Here are the pictures to tell the story. To start with, these were the flowers that greeted me in the morning. 
Carole
Kathleen, eager and taking notes on how to make lanterns.
Carole
This is Kathleen working on glueing the pieces of tissue paper together, under the watchful eye of the lantern-master who came to teach us.
Carole
My wish for wisdom and peace. (I had someone else draw them for me.)
Carole
Kathleen 'painting' her wishes on her team's lantern.
Carole
Whadya think? Do we look like twins? Here I am also drawing my wishes onto my team's lantern.(Oddly enough one of our team's lanterns was pink, which is wishes for a 'perfect significant other' (or at least that's how it was translated)!
Carole
Kathleen with some of the Taiwanese students who will be studying abroad this summer. We were each assigned to a team and were supposed to chat with the students and encourage them that they would be okay!
Carole
After we made our lanterns, we went to Kuantu temple in North Taipei. We had an hour to explore all the beautiful grounds of the temple before we walked down to the wharf to set off the lanterns.
Carole
K.
Carole
Isn't this a great shot. I consider it a redeeming picture, because it convinced me that given the right circumstances I will be able to get just as good of a picture with my new Pentax digital as my old film Yashica.
Carole
Enjoying the temple gardens. The pictures are blurry because of the photographer not the camera.
Carole
Temple incense
Carole
Kathleen doing her best crazy monkey god interpretation.
Carole
Carolyn and Stephanie, enjoying another level of this massive temple complex.
Carole
The housemates. It's amazing how settled our roommate relationships are now, and I'm going to remember this group as my good friends in Taiwan. And isn't this a great shot! I didn't even edit the lighting or colour, it was just the right time of day (5:30pm)
Carole
Kathleen, kissing a dragon gargoyle. (That was pretty-self explanatory, wasn't it?)
Carole
Kathy was quite surprised by the brightly colourful decor of the Taiwan temple. This was a display outside that was strickingly reminiscient of Disneyland. The lanterns were light and revovling. Kathy bought cotton candy for the full theme-park experience.
Carole
Two faces passively observing the temple bustle.
Carole
This was one of our group looking inside the lantern before we lit the little pile of gasoline-soaked cardboard in the bottom on fire. This shows you how big the lanterns were. I was quite concerned, because the wooden wire thing in the bottom has to come down sometime doesn't it?!
Carole
This is my lantern on it's way up. I had alot of time to write on it, so I put on everyone I could think of. So there's a good chance that if you're reading this, there's a lantern on it's way up to heaven with your name of it. I had so much time I wrote down childhood friends, and names of Bloggers I've never met!
Carole
This must be the reason for all those UFO sightings.
Carole
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Kathleen holding her lantern with best wishes for her friends.
Carole
Paint a Lantern! Make a Wish!
Carole
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