Having Brunch with Rita

#2025-0611

You yi wei nianqingde jiaoyou xujiu mei lai Yage-Tang zuo libai le, wo chadianr lian tade xingming dou gei wangji. Jingguo laopo tixing, wo cai huanhuan xiang qilai — Ta jiu shi Rita Chang, zhongwen ming jiao Zhang Yufang,

Meicuo! Chayuele wode buluoge, zhongyu keyi queding, ta zai 2018 nian 8 yue geile women liang zhang Zhongxingtang (中興堂) de ruchangquan, rang women you jihui xinzhang yi chang man tebie de yinhuihui: 

有愛、有光、有希望

讓 Eye 聽見 / 護眼音樂會

2018.8.18 / 台中市中興堂

Shijian guo de zhen kuai! Yi zhuanyan jian, liu-qinian de guangyin jiu zheyang qiaoqiao de liuzou le. Jintian, xinran jieshou tade yaoqing/jianyi, women laidao Meicun Lu (台中市美村路) de yi jia kafei jiancandian — Naked Cafe (美村尼克) — chi suowei de "zao-wucan" (brunch).

San ren yiqi yongcan, yitong liaotian. Huaxiazi yi dakai, jihu jiu ting bu xialai. Suiran duo nian wei jian, bici jian que haoxiang zhixin haoyou, keyi tiannandibei, wu suo bu tan, wanquan meiyou yidianr mosheng zhi gan.

Fenshou qian, wo hai tebie tidao Og Mandino xuduo nian qian xie de yiben hao shu: The Greatest Salesman in the World. Yinwei na ben shu cengjing daigei wo jidade guli ji bangzhu, zhidao jinri, wo dou hai qingchu jide shu-zhong di 8~17 zhang, na 10 mian gulaode yanpi juanzhou suo jiēshì de rensheng zheli yiji baoguide "zì miăn jīn jù" (golden sentences for self-motivation; inspiring words — golden rules for life!). 

(Even now, I still remember what the ten ancient scrolls meant to say in Og Mandino's most fascinating story!)

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相關文章 (See also)：

1)  Beautiful Sunday     (2025)

2)  The Day of Pentecost, 2025

3)  有愛 ● 有光 ● 有希望     (2018)

4)  Sentences from Ten Ancient Scrolls     (2010)

5)  Before the Ending of the Day (適合睡前吟詠的詩歌)     (2018)

松濤園 @ 中興新村

#2025-0610

Last Saturday, after Jean and I visited our friend Lao Ye’s ink painting exhibition, we went to Zhongxing New Village (中興新村) to enjoy the lotus flowers. Afterwards, we had lunch at a restaurant called Pine-Waves Garden (松濤園), about a hundred meters from the village entrance.

It’s a charming countryside restaurant — not very large, but surrounded by various trees and flowers. There are also two or three ponds, each with beautiful fountains spraying water either around or in the middle.

Next to the restaurant’s large windows, a lovely pond is specially equipped with devices that produce tiny water droplets, creating a misty effect as if thick mists and fog were swirling about. What a fantastic scene to watch! The delightful water vapor, combined with the air-conditioning inside, made the hot June day feel comfortably cool from within the restaurant.

Before going in, Jean and I were captivated by the trees and flowers in the front garden. As we approached the entrance, we saw a well-printed menu displayed on one side of the doorway, showing the main dishes and their prices. I noticed the prices were quite high, ranging from NT$780 to NT$1450. The cheapest dishes started at NT$780. Should we go in and have lunch?

“To be in or out, that’s the question!”

But in the end, we decided to enter this extraordinary restaurant. Both Jean and I would have felt embarrassed to turn away after seeing the menu — thinking about our ages, mine 71 and hers 68, and how hard we’ve worked in our lives. In recent years, some good friends of ours, also retired, have taken many chances to travel abroad and enjoy themselves much more than we have. We rarely spend time or money traveling far for ourselves; most of our trips are to visit our children, grandchildren, and Jean’s elderly mother...

“Let’s treat ourselves to a fancy meal today!” I said, it being around noon last Saturday.

“Why not?” Jean replied. “Now that we’re here, it would be too stingy to just turn around and go back!”

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相關文章 (See also)：

1)  鄉村風光 (Rural Scenery)     (2020)

2)  The Countryside (田園風光)     (2019)

3)  Meeting the Ye Family Again     (2025)

4)  Countryside Views in Dajia Today     (2025)

5)  Tokyo Disneyland (東京迪士尼樂園)     (2023)

The Day of Pentecost, 2025

#2025-0608

The Day of Pentecost, as I understand it, is one of the three most important Feasts observed in our church — the other two being Easter Day and Christmas Day.

(In the BCP, there are actually seven Principal Feasts, including the three mentioned above, as well as Ascension Day, Trinity Sunday, All Saints’ Day, and The Epiphany!)

To celebrate the Day of Pentecost, most of us wore something red, and part of today’s Gospel was read in different languages — including English, French, Spanish, Korean, Mandarin, Taiwanese, and Hakka. (If Hans and Atsushi had been present this morning, we could have heard it in two more languages — German and Japanese — just as we had hoped.)

Over forty people attended today’s English service, including three special guests: Ms. Catherine Lee, her brother David, and David’s wife, Anna — Anna, I hope I’ve spelled your name correctly! During coffee hour after the service, we had a long and joyful chat. From our conversation, I learned that their family name, Lee, was spelled “Leigh” centuries ago. What an interesting talk we had today — on the Day of Pentecost!

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相關文章 (See also)：

1)  The Day of Pentecost, 2018

2)  The Day of Pentecost, 2020

3)  The Day of Pentecost     (2022)

4)  O Happy Day! (聖靈降臨日, 2023)

5)  The Sunday of Pentecost, 2024