Long time, no see!

Hi everybody!

I realize I talk to a lot of people on a semi-regular basis, but you still dont get to see or hear all that much about whats going on with us! Well, Tasha and Jeff visited us in early January and we had a lot of fun. We spent some time in Hualien and Taipei, and they spent some time here in Changhua while Matt and I worked. Well, my Mom and Pat are visiting right now! I am quite bored while everyone else is sleeping, and since I was uploading some pictures I figured I would share them with all of you. If you have not seen the pictures from Tasha and Jeffs visit, I may post a few on here if I have the motivation.



So one of my favorite parts of Taiwan is the night markets. I absolutely love them. Especially the ones up in Taipei or in the big cities. Changhuas is nice, and the food is good, but it doesnt have that amazing energy that big cities just pulse with. There is so much great food, fun games, little shops and trinkets, and people everywhere! Lots of noise, crowds, and there is truly something for everyone. Well, with Tasha and Jeff we were able to go to both Shilin and Huasi Night Market up in Taipei. We played games, did pretty poorly for the most part, although I did win a stuffed animal thing from those claw machines you drop some coins in. Also, the fruit here is beautiful and delicious! There are a lot of fruit stands at Shilin. I love how many colors they are. I really want to try the purple dragon fruit. I guess there is two varieties, and we have only ever tried the whitish one. To me they seem kiwi-ish, one white and one purple, both with black seeds.

Well, we haven't been up to anything too exciting recently. We have to save a lot of money to spend on those pesky little, or not so little, college loans. However, we have two days coming up soon and although we havent finalized any plans we are hoping to do something exciting! You will know when we do! The weather has been getting really gorgeous lately. It still gets pretty chilly most nights, but some days have been getting close to 80. Its been just fabulous. Matt and I have been trying to get out for walks to enjoy this. One day recently we wandered up to Bagua to get some sun, and see all the hawkers selling their stuff. Cant say for certain, but it looked like one lady had ostrich eggs! They were huge!



Mom and Pat have been here since Saturday evening. We all got back to the hotel, and went for a short walk. We happened to stumble upon the Banciao Night Market, which was a lot better than we could have hoped for. We were just out to stretch our legs before turning in (and Matt and I were starving). I had a tasty pork chop (my first that I have knowingly eaten since arriving here), Matt had a steak, and Mom and Pat enjoyed some very Taiwanese noodles with sprouts.

The next day we exhausted ourselves trying to fit in as much of Taipei as we could. We went to 2/28 Peace Park, which was quite cool. There were a whole bunch of people doing martial arts in the park, which was super neat to see. Pat would know more about it than I would, but even I could appreciate and differentiate different styles. Cool swords stuff, tai-chi, Pat said some kung-fu style, and various other stuff probably.

Then we were off to Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall, where there was some sort of event happening. There were a ton of people there, and I dont even know how to begin to describe it. It was pretty neat though.

We decided to do the Maokong Gondola next, which was definately worth it. We didnt know what we were doing though, so ended up getting in the line/queue for the gondola with the crystal glass floor. It was absolutely amazing, but it took a lot longer, and Im torn on if it was worth it. We did get a gondola cart to ourselves, it didnt cost anymore, but we had to wait in line for a long time! I think on a weekday it wouldnt be such a hassle, but weekends in general in Taipei are a pain in the butt. Oh well, like I said, I am torn on if it was worth it. Doing the gondola is of course worth it, but Im not sure the glass floored one is. It was absolutely beautiful. The ride was amazing, and not very scary even though that type of stuff normally scares me stupid. Once we got up to the top it was even more spectacular. The view was amazing. It was a hazy day, so you could see the mountains off in the distance poking out from clouds. Then the top of Taipei 101 standing among the clouds. It was like something out of a fairy tale. I truly loved it. I cant wait to go back. The view was one of the prettiest I have seen. We ordered a locally grown tea, from in those very mountains, and some lunch. Ate it right there on the deck with the amazing view. (I know I keep mentioning it, but I just cant help myself.) We tried a new food! Pat has been great in just how adventurous he is with food, and so we tried turtle dove! It was actually great. Moist and delicious. Matt was the only one though who actually ate the head, but we all enjoyed the rest of it. We headed back down the mountain, on the normal carriage of the gondola this time.



Then off we went to Taipei 101! We had hoped to make it before dusk originally, but that just did not happen. It is not nearly as cool in the night time, although it does light up prettily. You just cant tell what anything is from that far up, it just looks like pretty lights everywhere. Oh well, now we know. After that we had been out and about for around 11 hours, and were pretty tired. Headed back to the hotel, and stayed in the rest of the night. I think Matt and I had overly optimistic ideas of what you could all do in Taipei in a day, so we missed out on some of our favorites. We are now back in Changhua, but will be off on more exciting pursuits this weekend! I promise I will try to write again soon!

Christmas Pictures!

If you click on the pictures you can see them bigger! Ill write more next week. Tasha and Jeff are here, yay!

Lugong/Sun Moon Lake

Recently we took two little day trips to Lugong and Sun Moon Lake. Lugong we went and looked at some temples and street markets, and then went to the glass museum that I had previously taken my students to. Later that week, we went on a trip to Sun Moon Lake. It was beautiful, but quite chilly. By the way, thought you guys would be interested to know that I bought a jacket, scarf, and mittens!! Here are some pictures, I will try to write more soon! Sorry it’s been so long, time is flying. Plus it’s a crazy busy month subbing classes for a girl that went home for Christmas. We are going with some other NST’s to Hualien for Christmas, so hopefully we will have lots of pretty pictures and exciting stories to tell. Hope everyone is having a fabulous holiday season!

Earthquake!!!

Earthquake!! It finally happened. We experienced our first earthquake. It wasn’t a strong one, only a 4.7, but it was still exciting and very creepy. So were just watching a little TV at night before getting ready for bed, and we started to hear the doors and cabinets and everything rattling. It started to shake everything, and we could feel the building swaying back and forth. It wasn’t a strong sway, but it was still a very creepy feeling, especially being on the 8th floor of a building. A co-worker of ours mentioned that since he has been here, some have been strong enough that he has fallen out of bed. Now that would be really scary! It’s really an indescribable feeling, for people who haven’t experienced one; I don’t think I could describe the creepy-ness of the feeling. I’m sure it’s something that people just get used to and it doesn’t even faze them, but being from Minnesota, it definitely was a rush for us.

We dont have any really exciting plans for this weekend. The weather is really crappy right now. It has been raining all day, so we don’t really have any big plans for when Matt gets done teaching. It is not fun to ride scooter in the rain, so it might be lazy evening in. Hopefully its nicer tomorrow. That’s all for now! Love and miss you all!

A little bit more!

I want to add one comment that one of the pictures is a shrimp that wouldnt let go of the bucket. Its grip was so strong it seemed like it was going to pick up the bucket! We couldnt get it to let go, they hardly even seem like shrimp but more like lobster with how big and strong they are. Although, they do have a nasty habit of losing their arms when you are pulling them up. One time, one got away from me but I pulled up his arm!

Also, when I said they put salt on the shrimp, I didnt mean a little bit. They dumped 5 or 6 scoops full of salt on it. Each scoop was probably around a cup of salt.

Shrimp Fishing

Hello again,

So we finally got to go shrimp fishing! Something that I have wanted to do since I discovered we were going to be coming to Taiwan, and it was as amazing as I thought it was. It’s a relatively inexpensive activity, a lot cheaper than going to a KTV or bar. You can rent a pole, or you just pay for two hours at a time. Everything you catch you put on the grill when your time is up and eat! We went with some of our fellow NST’s, which was a good thing as we are not professional fisherman like most of the Taiwanese that were there. One guy pulled up 27 shrimp by himself! As a group of eight, I believe we got 16 or 17. The very nice man gave us some of his shrimp, which are absolutely amazing. How you cook it up is wash the shrimp, put some salt on it, put it on a rack, and throw it on the grill! The shrimp are really huge, unlike anything I have seen back home! The “small” ones are like four inches long, and the large ones are like ten to twelve inches long. As a group we got two really large ones, Andy and Nicole (who were fishing together) and a different Matt caught two that must have been at least a couple pounds. The first catch was very exciting for everyone! A nice man helped me, so I never completely got a catch by myself. They did teach us some shrimp fishing techniques though. I look forward to going again. The fishing was a lot of fun, place it tastes absolutely amazing!

Temple and Glass Museum

Hello,
One of my favorite things about teaching is that we get to go on field trips! Today we went to Lugong, to a glass factory/museum. It was really pretty. It had beautiful blown glass from little trinkets to 4 foot high temples build all from glass. I didn’t get too many pictures, as I had other things I had to do, but I plan on taking Matt there soon enough so he can see it too. My favorite was a beautiful glass water lily pond, with a pretty bridge. There was also a really cool mirror map of Taiwan.

On our way back from the field trip, I saw a temple not too far from school that I had not seen before. So I directed Matt back there when we got off. It was really beautiful, although my pictures are pretty terrible because everything was so big that they couldn’t get in focus. Although we did find a charger for our nicer camera, so our pictures should be prettier now. Our old camera was just a 7 mega pixel camera, and is pretty outdated now. Especially since we want nice pictures of our time over here! Well, there was one nice man who was at the temple who spoke a little bit of English. Basically, it’s a temple dedicated to a general of the gods, as best as the guy could translate anyways. Well, it was pretty so I thought I would put up a few pictures.



By the way, it’s been pretty cold over here! We know you don’t feel bad for us, especially since you have already had a bit of snow, but for us it’s very chilly! It’s now even getting chillier in the evenings, maybe down to the 60’s or 70’s. You see a lot of people here now wearing big puffy jackets, or at least sweatshirts. We wear sweatshirts, and if you are in capri’s or sandals at night you will be cold, as I often am. We definitely will have to get jackets before we can attempt a longer drive, especially if it will extend into the evening.

We have an amusing little story about life here in Taiwan. We live in a quieter area, at least by Taiwanese standards. There is a road out front of our place, and every so often a lane will be blocked for a day or two for what seems to either be a mini-festival or something to the gods, or a funeral. Well, a while back a lane was blocked off for two days, and all traffic was diverted into the other lane. (That at least is not uncommon; lanes here are more suggestions than rules for a lot of streets.) The first night was relatively normal looking; they had food offerings and some traditional music. The second night however was a different story! They still had the tent up, but they were feasting on food, and watching Avatar!! They had set up a big projector, and it was playing on the side of the apartment building. We felt kind of bad driving right through it, but it was too late by the time we knew what was going on.