Meeting Doulos in Keelung, Taiwan

(Photos are from http://www.wretch.cc/blog/doulos/ Right Reserved.)

I went to see the Doulos at Keelung East Habor this past Sunday. It was my first time to board on this boat. I have never heard of it before. That is ashamed. I should've known it.

What is Doulos?

It is an amazing ship visiting more than 100 countries, including Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australia, Europe, the Middle East, and many island nations. It travels with books to share the knowledge with the whole world. The book shop on board has more than 6,000 titles of book. Surprisingly, there are Chinese books on board, too. I am wondering if they already got it on board before porting in Keelung, or they cooperate with the book store in Taiwan.

The line of people waiting to get on board was crazily long. I waited for one hour to get on board. And the people on board were like sardines. I am not kidding! I recommend visiting Doulos during weekdays, instead of weekends to avoid the crowd. But I only got Sunday………Well, but it was worthy, really!

What is the most exciting thing is that I met a great guy on board. His name is PJ. He is from Korea. He has been working on board for 8 months. We talked for like…..2 hours or 3? We were like old friends departing from each other for a long time. I wish I had more time to talk to him and show him around my hometown, Keelung.

We talked about serving in the army. Korean males have to serve in the army, too, like Taiwanese guys. But they are serving longer. Their military service term is 2-year. Mine was only 1 year. He said he’d had to finish his military services before joining the Doulos crew. He told me the training in Korea was very tough! And we talked about how was it like working on Doulos. He said it was fantastic! Wow, I wish I could work on the ship with the rest of the crew like him!

(He gave me a Korean flag as a gift. We hugged and bade farewells to each other. I wish we could talk just a little more!)

I have also met a lot of different people on Doulos. Fumio (I hope I got her name right.) was one of them. She is Japanese. Her mom is a Taiwanese. Therefore, she speaks perfect Mandarin. She was helping translating for Taiwanese visitors and the rest of the crew.

There are more information about the Doulos here:

1. http://www.doulos.org/

2. http://www.wretch.cc/blog/doulos/

You should check this cool ship out while it is still in Keelung. They will port here until 5/28^th. Go and check it out now~! You will have a lot of fun on board!