Until Next Time, Taiwan

Currently, we are sitting at the Taipei International Airport, awaiting our 3PM flight to Shanghai. From there we will transfer planes and at 11:55PM tonight, we will be off to Frankfurt, Germany! Do you know what that means?

Ray and I have officially flown around the world together.

Just a fun thought I had : )

The last week in Taiwan has been so much fun and a bit unsettling too. Ray put it best when he said: "It makes me happy that I'm sad to be leaving Taiwan. It means I did something right." While we're so excited to see family (and have second Christmas!) leaving a place you called home is never easy.

As we've prepared, we have shared with each other the things we'll miss about Taiwan. Now we share them with you.

1. Our students- there couldn't be a cuter bunch of kids anywhere (except for our nieces and nephews who will only ever be trumped by our own children. We're planning on raising super model, Olympic swimmers, you know).

2. Select Food Items- Things like: fried curry dumplings, banana milk, fresh mango smoothies, rice triangles, and dongua cha are just a few of our favorites that are unique to Taiwan. With some luck, maybe we'll find fried curry dumplings in the states somewhere. We managed to find a brick of dongua cha (a fruit tea~ in English either Wax Gourd, or Wintermelon) so we're excited to try that out soon!

3. Flora and Fauna- Living in a tropical climate has been unbelievably rewarding in terms of the foliage. You can't go anywhere without being floored by the amount of greenery, the size of the greenery, and the vast varieties of it too!

4. People We've Met & Friends We've Made- Taiwan has some of the sweetest people in the world, they've been kind and helpful to us and even with a language barrier sometimes, we've made some lasting memories. Through church too we've met great people and created friendships that we look forward to tending for years to come.

5. Night Markets- Although Ray may beg to differ, they were one of the coolest things Taiwan had to offer. I never got tired of perusing the streets and checking out all the fun and quirky things for sale. 


Inevitably, we also developed a list of things we probably won't be yearning for any time soon...

1. BUGS- From cockroaches, to mosquitoes and biting midges, the bugs have been overwhelming and a rather unwelcome part of Taiwan. Of course as the weather cooled, things got better. The cockroaches especially though were a never ending battle we're happy to see the end of.

2. Humidity- In the summer you melt from it, in the winter you freeze from it. Who knew you could be shivering and shaking when it's only 62 degrees out! That's apparently what a wet cold will do to you though. We made it through alive, but humidity is something we could deal with less of in our lives. : )

3. Traffic- I don't think you ever quite fully adjust to being on a bike with 20 scooters around you, trying to get through an intersection with no stop lights or signs, and a tour bus eeking between you and oncoming traffic.

4. Smells- It scares us how accustomed to the smells of Taiwan we have become. When we first got here they were almost unbearable, now they're tolerable and sometimes even nice. Have we destroyed our noses forever?! Will we ever smell things the same?! We got some solace when we finally tried stinky tofu last week. Although we made it through the smell, it still did not taste good. Phew! We haven't lost all our senses yet!

 

"Stinky Tofu" by Ray
It tastes like eating a deep fried scab.

Ray ends now with some more reflective and mature writing.

It was a few weeks ago while walking to the store at night that I realized: I've grown accustom to this place. I've grown accustom to the old buildings, the abundant green foliage covering the mountains and popping out wherever it it can, the bright neon signs that line storefronts on the roadsides. I've grown accustom to the sound of hundreds of scooters bustling through the streets, the sound of people speaking in a kind of melodic warble all around us and not understanding what they're saying, the sound of children's laughter, and yelling and giggling. I've grown accustom to the smiles of helpful strangers and the "Hellow!"s of passersby; accustom to the feeling of being a foreigner at home in a foreign land, surrounding by everything I don't understand but feeling comfortable nonetheless. And this realization made me wonder; have I grown to love Taiwan? Do I love this place with all of its smells and foods and quarks and confusion? I know I'll miss it and that I'll look back at my time here fondly and often. Yes, Taiwan has truly "touched my heart."

2012 Christmas Card

Dear Family and Friends,

Physical cards were a little more than we could handle this year, and apparently even emails have size limits. So we've had to resort to our blog to wish you all the very Merriest Christmas.

Although Taiwan is by no means famous for Christmas celebrations, we've been able to feel the Christmas spirit each day of the season through our fabulous students who made this experience the joy that it was.

From all of us to you, Merry Christmas!

The Final Countdown

Today we officially have exactly one month left in Taiwan.

YIKES!

That's not even a month of teaching days. That is: one month from today we will be on a plane leaving this gorgeous island. We really can't get over how quickly time has flown by.

Nothing tremendous has happened- we did finally get to go to the Taipei temple. It was a much needed trip, we're both happy we got to go.

 We got to the temple the day that Taiwan decided to have two weeks of rain in their "dry" winter season. But it was still beautiful, perhaps even more so.

In other news, Ray continues to be amazing by putting his endless array of talents to use in designing another game.

Meanwhile... I'm still trying to get these munchkins to put an 's' at the end of their plural nouns. *whew!*

Thirty one days until Germany. The reality is harder to take than I thought it would be. Chins up, and tackling each day with more conviction to love every second.

A Very Happy Thanksgiving To You

We have so much to be thankful for this year. We're so thankful for the opportunity we got to come here to Taiwan and teach. We're thankful for the timing of this blessing in our lives, and for everything it has taught us.

Being in Taiwan has made our relationship grow stronger and develop more than we could have expected or hoped. It has challenged us as individuals also, and given us perfect opportunities to tackle the things we have been too afraid to try before. We are so grateful for this all around development and recognize none of it could have been possible without faith in Heavenly Father. Mostly we are thankful to Him for guiding us together, bringing us here, and keeping us safe while still helping us progress. (Everyone knows progress always comes with some bumps and bruises along the way- we're thankful for those scrapes too, the scars make great stories!)

On top of all our blessings, we're thankful that some of my extended family was willing and able to come visit us and spend time with us here in Taiwan. My fabulous aunt and cousin came to spend a week in Taiwan; see the sights, eat the food, and help us have a marvelous Thanksgiving.

Even though we still had work everyday, it was so fun spending the evenings chatting with them and playing games. On Saturday we finally got to spend the whole day with them so we took them to Lukang where they bought some temple fans of their own, plus some other great gifts to take back to family. Here's some pictures of all the fun we got to share with them.

Cousin Carie, me, and Aunt Deb. My cousin is gorgeous. My Aunt is a rock star (literally, everyone wanted pictures with them.)

Armed with a hand drawn map and directions, my family trekked to Costco in Taichung for the *last* pumpkin pie, just to make our Thanksgiving that much better.

You can't eat pumpkin pie in Asia with a fork, come on! Are you crazy? You gotta eat it with chopsticks!

Here's our whole group with some of the waiters who wanted a picture with us at our favorite restaurant: TASTY. It was our official Thanksgiving meal on Friday night since we worked late on Thursday and we don't have an oven. Duck is pretty much the Taiwanese turkey, right?

While doing some shopping before Thanksgiving dinner, we came across these good lookin' mannequins. We couldn't say no to a photo op.  

Ray has been working hard designing a new game, so while Carie was here they played a couple tester rounds. It was super intense and lots of fun to watch them get into it!

While we were in Lukang there was a random huge parade full of temple shrines carried on structures like this one. There were also fire works and lots of drumming and crashing of symbols. They were obviously happy and having fun. We, a little shell shocked from the sudden crowding of the narrow street stepped aside and whipped out our cameras and then enjoyed the show!











Later that night we put my family on a train and sent them off to Taipei so they could catch their flight back to America this morning. It was so great having them here, we will forever be thankful for this particular Thanksgiving. With only 40 days left in our journey we're working hard to soak up every last experience and memory we can. Again, we're so thankful we came, and we're excited for our next adventure after Taiwan.

Taipei- 台北

Last weekend we did a whirlwind 48 hour trip to Taipei. It may possibly be our favorite weekend that we have had here in Taiwan!

We went with some friends from Fengyuan and they had booked our train tickets leaving from Taichung at 7AM, which meant we had to be on a train from Changhua at about 6:30AM- it was quite an early morning, but a peaceful bike ride to the train station that early. Hooray for no traffic!

The train ride took about 3.5 hours and when we got to Taipei, we took our first MRT (Taipei Metro) ride to our hostel to drop off our bags and quickly freshen up- for we were off to the Zoo! Ray and I were worried that the zoo would be a waste of time. After all, we don't have kids oggling over the animals and begging us to go. The entrance fee was only $60NT (~$2USD) though, so we figured, what the heck! Turns out, there's something about zoo's that makes everyone turn into a little kid and have the time of their life. Who can say no to monkeys chasing each other through the trees and swinging from branches like you've only seen in Tarzan?

Also, who can say no to your first panda encounter?

I know he's small, but we were being pushed through this huge line of other people trying to take the same photo!

 Right next to the zoo, is the boarding station for the Maokong Gondola. The gondola ride takes you up the mountain surrounding Taipei and provides you with this stunning view of the city. As luck would have it, I'm still pretty much terrified of heights so the whole ride up my palms were sweating like crazy and I had to keep myself from screaming at anyone who dared to move an inch in our gondola. Call me crazy, but that one metal bar attached to a wire holding 7 Americans just doesn't give me oodles of confidence.

Fortunately my group didn't make me go in one of the glass bottom gondolas- I would have died. I also definitely would have been scrapping my return ticket and finding a bus down to the bottom!

When we finished the gondola ride, we boarded the MRT again and headed straight for Taipei 101, the second tallest building in the world. It only lost its title of the tallest in 2010 I believe, to Dubai. It really was rather breathtaking walking up to it all lit up like this. The elevator ride to the top (a.k.a the 85th floor) costs $450NT, and there was a 15 minute wait to go- so Ray and I bagged that idea and went for the "been there, seen that" point of view instead. Can't say I regret it either, I had had enough heights for one day really.
 

Following 101, we made one final stop the night market. Night markets may sound like a touristy kind of thing, but they really are part of the Taiwanese way of life. There is one nearly every night and people routinely hit them up for dinner, no special occasion needed. It's like going to the fair- a big party every time! The market in Taipei did not disappoint- only in the sense that we did not budget nearly enough time to explore all of it! We probably only got through 4 streets of the countless ones available. We did however, manage to pick up our new favorite souvenir.

We've noticed in Taiwan a lot of couples wear matching shirts... so we decided we should definitely get in on that action. When in Rome, right? So at the night market we found a fabulous T-shirt shop and managed to scoop up these babies for a steal of a deal. We're cool, you can say it.
 

Ray's says: "I love my wife" and mine says "I love my husband"

End Day 1. Followed by a wonderful nights rest- those beds were the most comfortable thing I've slept on in nearly 4 months. I seriously started planning in my brain how I could get out of the hostel with the pillow.  On Sunday we made it to the Jade Market and spent nearly two hours just enjoying "window" shopping, if you will. I discovered a new found love for coral jewelry and Ray spoiled me by buying me a pair of pink coral, rose shaped earrings. I pretty much love them, and Ray. We got some other goodies too, but I shan't be ruining any surprises here... ;-)

After the Jade Market, we went to the National Palace Museum. I had directions from another blogger on how to get there, but apparently we still looked lost enough that an MRT worker attached himself to us, provided us with English MRT maps, and handed us off to our train conductor with instructions that she was to come get us at the stop we needed. He also gave us a note in Chinese to hand to the bus driver to make sure he took us to the right place. The Taiwanese are so helpful and sweet :) And after being in Changhua for so long, we were amazed at how prevalent English was!

The palace museum was fantastic. It is full of old Chinese artifacts that were brought to Taiwan from China in order to save them from destruction during the Chinese Civil War (1948). Ray loved the history involved, and I enjoyed listening to him retell me the stories as we both admired art, jewelry and tapestries all centuries old. If you're ever in Taipei, it's something you don't want to miss.

We ended the night in probably the best way any night could ever end: MEXICAN FOOD. Oh lanta, it had been 4 months plus since we'd had a burrito, and we knew there had to be a decent place in a big city like Taipei. I did a quick Google search and discovered Macho Taco, a highly recommended Mexican restaurant conveniently located downtown. We were the only ones there when we walked in, but soon the place was busting with white people, it was almost like being in the states :) I was too excited to remember to take a picture of my steak burrito with the works and horchata before, so instead I took a picture of our mess after. Oh it was good.

After our Mexican food we headed to the train station once more, indulged in some Cold Stone ice cream (I love big cities) and made it home in Changhua a little past midnight. Phew! Then it was back to teaching 9AM the next morning.

Taipei was fantastic, we hope we get a chance to go back again because we know there is lots more we'd like to see.

Confucius say...

... don't judge us for disappearing from the blog scene too harshly. Here are our most recent diversions to appease your ceaseless hounding for more dramatic tales.

Below you will see us in front of a lovely back drop of Changhua. You can actually see our apartment building in this picture! We had decided to try out a nice bike trail that day, but we got a little lost on the way there. So we explored Baguashan Mountain for a while before eventually making it to the trail. Usually rain would ruin a bike ride, but this blessing brought in a glorious cloud cover that saved our foreigner skin and took the temperature down enough to not kill us too.

The bike trail we took meandered through a graveyard, which was eerily beautiful. The graves sprawl over the hills in a disorganized manner, but you know that each family knows exactly where their loved one is. The silence on top of the mountain was gorgeous, only punctuated by the ice-cream van quality version of Fur Elise from the garbage truck in the city far below us. I'd have to say riding through this cemetery is one of the more beautiful and enlightening things we've done in Taiwan.

Our next adventure was to make it to the Saturday Night Market on our own, with no firm directions or any guides. We hopped onto the street we knew would take us near the market, and went to town. Eight miles and some lost confusion later, we arrived; and rewarded ourselves with some high quality Night Market deliciousness. I shall call it: Explosion Changhua Corn Dog. It was love.

Then it was time to take our "Super Students" to McDonald's for some food and fun! Every two months we pick our top two students in each class for this night out that Maryland School sponsors. We play games with the kids and practice English with them until our food comes. It's good publicity for our school, and hey- we get a free American meal, I shan't say no to that!

This little treasure is Mickey, behind her is Flora. Mickey is so smart, and is one of our favorite students. Flora is in my 2A class and I just love her to pieces. She's the kind of student who walks into class, immediately informs me she wasn't able to complete her homework, and the she understands she has to use her break time to finish that homework. Then she heads to her desk to start writing in her planner. She's adorable, smart and just the sweetest student I could ask for.


At the end of September we got our first and only 3 day weekend- our school took Sept. 28 (Teacher's Day) off. We had planned a big trip to Green Island off the East coast of Taiwan. It was going to be beautiful: hot springs, snorkeling, small local population. Unfortunately a huge typhoon came through that weekend and we had to cancel the trip. Fortunately full refunds are given for typhoons! Since that weekend was also Moon Festival, we weren't too bummed since there were plenty of other things to do. For instance: here we see Ray attempting to BBQ some corn on our $3 USD grill. Our apartment complex called in a KTV (karaoke) vehicle and invited everyone out to the common area to BBQ and karaoke 'til they dropped! Because of the typhoon, it was pretty windy, hence Ray holding up the box to try and keep the wind from blowing out our coals. They also didn't have any songs in English for us to sing, but nevertheless, we thoroughly enjoyed our corn, BBQ chicken and watching several 60+ year old Taiwanese men and women stand up and belt their hearts out with varying levels of success. Good times.

July 25, 2012 Blogpost by Ray

I don't have a cute title for this post, Kailin's the cute one.

It's hard to believe that we've already been in Taiwan for a month. It is going by incredibly fast, pretty soon we'll be hopping on a plane to head home (wherever that is).

On to the stories:

It rains here fairly often, and when it starts I tell my students, "Oh man, I forgot my boat. Looks like I'll be swimming home tonight." Usually it's just intense rain lasting only 10-15 minutes, and if we wait it out we can avoid getting soaked. It's a good plan, except for last night, when the rain won the waiting game and we had to ride our bikes home in the deluge.

It was about halfway into the 10 minute ride home that I started feeling like I was drowning. Maybe it was the water streaming down my face from my somehow saturated poncho, or maybe it was the waves washing over us as cars passed by. More than likely however, it was a both of these things added to the weight of Kailin's purse hanging from my neck, underneath my poncho, feeling heavier and heavier.

But when we turned into the back alley leading to our apartment the deafening explosion of the rain pounding the brick and metal buildings all around us and echoing down the the narrow row was a beautiful sound. Kailin says she had never been on a bike ride like that before, but I imagine it won't be our last during our time here.

 



Today I named my first child.

In Taiwan, people who learn English have an English name in addition to their Chinese name. (Ever heard of "Jackie" Chan before?) I've asked my students how they chose their names and the ones whose parents speak English often choose a name, but if their parents don't speak English, it seems their first English teacher chooses the name. What an incredible and terrifying responsibility I thought. Choosing the name by which this person will be known for the rest of their English lives. It seemed to me too much to believe.

So when I walked into class this morning and one of the school administers introduced me to a new student and her mother, I wasn't expecting the answer to "what's her name?" to be "She doesn't have one." It was my job to give the little girl an English name right there on the spot. I would have preferred to have taken some time to get to know the family, walk them through a few name books, and maybe let the girl choose a name she felt appropriate to her personality. But I wasn't so lucky. So instead, a dozen names flashed through my head and I felt overwhelmed.

But when I looked at the child I was happy with the name that stuck in my mind. Kira. Everyone thought it was a beautiful name (and easy to spell) and the mother was very pleased. The administrator later told us that she wants to name a daughter Kira.

Kira

As I mentioned earlier we have been here a month already and I think a conversation Kailin had while Skyping her mother sums up my feelings pretty well. Her mother asked her how I was enjoying the experience and Kailin said, "We get to spend all of our time together, so I think he is happy." And that is the truth. It turns out that for me, home is wherever I'm with her.

One Week in Taiwan

We have made it to Taiwan! What a week it has been. Here are the highlights from our first few days...

Saturday, June 23
We made it to SLC airport and boarded our plane to Portland, OR, where we met up
with the other girl in our teaching group. After a quick layover, it was back onto a plane for
an eleven hour flight to Narita-Tokyo, Japan. Roughly 3 and a half movies, and some quick naps later, we
landed in Tokyo exhausted. We also wished each other happy first anniversary! Since we crossed the
International Date Line, we missed most of the 24th, so we really only had about 6 hours to
celebrate. Bummer, but that just means we get to celebrate another weekend to make up for it :)

Sunday, June 24

Happy First Anniversary! We flew from Tokyo to Taipei and after making it through customs,
entered the large airport lobby and looked for someone holding a sign with our names on it.
After an hour and a half of waiting, no one was there still. We called our school director and she
quickly arranged for another driver to pick us up. *Phew* Two hour bus ride and we finally got to our apartment in Changhua, Taiwan! Sleep beckoned, and we crashed around 2AM. 

Monday, June 25

Our first day at the school. We observed classes and listened to endless instruction about which classes we would be teaching, when they were held, what books we should use. Information overload combined with a jetlagged brain, meant we weren't too useful this day. The kids were great though and we realized teaching in Taiwan would be very different from Russia. The kids actually like English class here, and maybe the ones in Russia did too... Alright, the real difference is the culture- the parents just expect more of their kids here!

Tuesday, June 26

Observed more classes, got more instruction on how to teach. We felt much better today with some more sleep on our side. However we were still (and are actually) melting from the humidity. We went to
a local grocery store this evening which was nice and air conditioned inside, and when we walked back outside, Ray's glasses literally fogged up. It's like stepping out of the shower into your bathroom when you

forgot to turn the fan on or leave the door open. You are wet, all the time, everywhere. It's going to take a lot more getting used to!

Wednesday, June 27

The previous married couple teaching at the school flew back to America this day, so Wednesday was our first day of teaching. Both SPE's (little kids) and Elementary levels. It was so fun, and we both felt very satisfied with how our days had gone when we sat down at the end of the day. The other teachers still with us from the first semester showed us around our neighborhood and took us to "Food Street" where they began introducing us to all the delicious and... interesting things... one can get there. So far our favorites are: fresh mango smoothie and a seafood/rice gratin with pumpkin sauce. 

Thursday, June 28

Ok, this is Ray, it's my turn to tell a story. Thursday started out like a normal day, as normal, that is, as any day when its only your fourth in a foreign country. Kailin and I woke up, got ready and left for school. She wanted to lead the way on the bikes and as we approached the main road in front of our apartments we had the green light. She checked the light, checked both ways and started to turn left. Out of nowhere a scooter came barreling down the road. Just as she was thinking, "it's ok, I have the right of way" the scooter turned left and drove straight into her. "Kailin!" I cried out as she bounced of the front of the scooter and fell over. She quickly stood up and said she was ok, some people stopped and she reassured them she was fine and everyone rode off. Kailin and I walked to the side of the road, The handlebars on her bike were bent, she had a scratch on her knee, and her pinkie finger was scratched, swollen and bruised. She was more embarrassed than anything. Our school director Sherry reminded us that this is Taiwan, and for busy Taiwanese workers, red lights are more of a suggestion. Also, I got a haircut.

Ew, gross. I had to take off my wedding ring too because that finger was swelling.

Friday, June 29

For only 3 days of actual teaching we were more tired than we probably had a right to be, but we're going to keep blaming jetlag for that. We ventured out to Food Street and ate some more delicious rice gratin, then walked home in a steady drizzle of the warmest rain I've ever experienced in my life. Since we were already soaking wet from our own sweat (TMI?) the rain hardly even phased us. 

Saturday, June 30

Today we were able to finally sleep in (woot!) which felt awesome. Then we rode our bikes (myself much more cautious and maybe too obsessed this time) to the Morning Market. Talk about sensory overload! In a small alley, there are crammed stores with fish, jewelry, clothing, handbags, dishes, bed sets, shoes, shoes, more shoes, plus the frequent fruit stand. Darting between the shops and stands are hundreds of people, scooters (which I'm still not sure I will ever be okay with) and even a van or two! Apparently, no space is too small to try and cram your vehicle through. We found tons of exciting souvenir prospects, but since we are here for 6 months we kept our monies saved. We did however go see a movie! Snow White and the Huntsman, which was thankfully in English and only cost about $6- totally worth sitting in a dark, air conditioned room for a couple hours. Then more biking to Shopping Street; more shoes clothes and bags, and finally home again, home again, jiggidy-jig.

Le Shopping Street- I just noticed these girls are in long sleeves... No idea how they aren't dead.

Two loads of laundry later and our first week in Taiwan is complete!