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.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween was a crazy fun day at Maryland. We made a haunted house for the kids and filled the rest of the day with games, contests and of course: trick or treating! The pictures really speak for themselves on this one.

The coolest pirates in Taiwan.

Stairwell leading up to the Haunted House

...and our skeleton friend waiting for unsuspecting students in the Haunted Bathroom

We had helpers hide under here with a mask and then pop out at the very end of our scary story in the Haunted House

Behind these we had "spooky senses" the kids got to feel wet noodles, taste raw onion, and smell durian (a pungent fruit!)

Kira's bow da bomb

All our students who dressed up for the Costume Contest! From left to right: Superman, spider, vampire, shark, princess, girl covered in spiders, and ghost!

The cutest spider/bat you'll ever see!

Playing some Halloween Bingo with Teacher Ray

Pick a card, any card...

"Bingo!!!"

Gym time!

Oh, Mickey

Showing off (and oh so happily I might add) their "face" paint that they preferred to get on their hands.

Granny Lauren telling the Basic Readers a scary story

Time to make some edible spiders!

                                 Michelle loves to eat spiders.

Trick or Treating

Our Trick or Treat helpers

"Good haul this year guys..."

Not sure what Winnie's costume was, but he was excited about it. Until I wanted a picture of it!

"Baby there's a shark in the water..."

My 2's all dressed up. Notta one of 'em could tell me what they were. All they know is: "I dress up, I get candy."

Sun Moon Lake- 日月潭

Continuing our Moon Festival weekend, we decided to head to Sun Moon Lake. The lake is about two and a half hours inland by bus from our home in Changhua. The scenery was beautiful on the ride: tea farms and wild tropical forest as far as the eye could see. Sun Moon Lake itself was fantastic! The best way to get around, is to hop on a boat which will then take you to the 3 different ports of the lake. The first stop we made is where we spent the most time. The water was a gorgeous green/blue that just fit perfectly with the trees. Up several flights of stairs was a temple- but what we were looking for was the Cien Pagoda, which stands 46m tall. Past the temple, we entered the wild forest on a deserted trail. Halfway up, we explored some small shops set up in front of another temple. Then we pushed through to get up the last and steepest part of the trail all the way to the top of the mountain and the pagoda. The effort was well worth it.

The view from the top of the pagoda out over Sun Moon Lake

The Cien Pagoda. A beautiful sight to see after nearly 40 minutes of stairs up a mountain!

 At the top of the pagoda was a large bell. We had heard it when we first arrived at the port-all the way down at the water. It never clicked in our brains though that the bell would be in the pagoda. It nearly gave us each a heart attack when about half way up the winding staircase of the tower, a little boy struck the bell with this log!










Here we are on the back of the boat heading towards our next stop on Sun Moon Lake. The Lake is home to one of the aboriginal tribes of Taiwan: the Ita Thao. Our third stop was to include a visit to the cultural village, unfortunately we ran out of time! The boat driver told us we had only 15 minutes to explore the port, so we opted to just do an impromptu hotel stay to give us more time at the lake. I'm so glad we did too! Although we still didn't get to go to the cultural village, we did get a relaxing night away from home, with lots of street shopping and exploring.

Speaking of street shops: here is our favorite display of everything "Sun Moon Lake." Apparently the Ita Thao settled at the lake after a hunting party had tracked a white deer to the beautiful valley. The lake and land was generous to the people and they stayed believing it to be a sacred place.

Our time in Sun Moon Lake had to be cut short so we could make it back to Changhua in time to spend Moon Festival with one of my student's families. It was a truly wonderful and 100% Taiwanese celebration! The family started by taking us to the Changhua National Living Art Museum, which we love (we had accidentally discovered it on our attempt to find a bike trail a while back). The museum has a large courtyard and their current exhibit is the history of bikes in Taiwan. They have all sorts of bikes from different eras for people to try. We had lots of fun doing that and playing a hoop and stick game where you have to keep the hoop spinning... my student Ray had lots of fun finding bugs to stick in my face and terrify me with. 

This hoop game is harder than it looks...

"Oh it's a leaf it might attack me!"

 They also took us on a beautiful nature walk, where the entertainment was to pick "sticky leaves" off the trees and "surreptitiously" tack them to Ray. The kids thought it was hilarious, and Ray's comical reactions kept everyone smiling and laughing.

The night ended at my student's home with several of his extended family members there. We were so touched that they were willing to open their home to us. We ate traditional Taiwanese BBQ which included: fried squid, corn on the cob, chicken, steak, a variety of vegetables, and snails. My student Ray loved the snails and must have popped out and consumed 20+ that evening. Ray and I each mustered the courage for one and called it good after that. We played some badminton, a few games of Set, watched some fireworks and gazed at the full moon.

A lovely night I'm sure we'll never forget.

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.

A Smattering of Photos... with Toast

I wish this post included toast. I would kill for some delicious wheat bread, full of hearty oats and seeds and natural goodness. Smothered with some jelly, or perhaps homemade marmalade. But alas, I have none. So instead, we'll just move on to some photos.

A few weekends ago, the four of us (Ray, myself, and the two other teachers we work with) decided to go up to Taichung for a short weekend getaway. There are fabulous shopping streets in Taichung, an amazing, blissfully air conditioned mall, and most importantly: Modern Toilet. Modern Toilet is a restaurant (franchises available in Changhua!) where you sit on an upcycled toilet, and the tables are sinks or bathtubs with some plexi-glass over the top. Our tub came complete with a shower head mounted to the wall! We ordered some soda, and to our delight it came served in a miniature urinal- which Ray is beautifully displaying above. We also got a shaved ice dessert, which had a menagerie of: yellow shaved ice, soft serve on a wafer cookie, raisins, small croutons, mango chunks, and multiple flavors of gelatin pieces; all served in another urinal. Our friend got some french fries in a toilet teacup, and our neighbors ordered soup which comes in a small toilet. It was quite the adventure- and it left us wondering... could we pull off one of these franchises in America?

Here is a picture of me towards the end of one of my classes with our younger kids. They had made a Mr. Potato Head and were cracking up saying it was "Teacher Ray." I of course had to send of them to get Ray and my camera so we could document this. Aren't they the cutest? Johnny isn't trying to kill Yoyo there on the left, he just... didn't want to be in the picture I guess!

We stopped here at this lovely Confucius Temple on our way to Subway and some light shopping. The buildings are always so interesting, but the roof tops are what always get my attention. The animals and detail work are always just phenomenal. I wish I had my own personal tour guide that could just tell me everything about the significance of all these designs and animal statues.

 

Here we are in Taichung again! This time we went up to visit the Jade Market, unfortunately we didn't quite make it. We were delayed by some rain in Changhua, so by the time we rode our bikes to the train station and got a train up to the city it was already about 4:30PM. We got on a bus and told the driver we were looking for some certain streets and tried to communicate the Jade Market to him. He must have understood, or was just sick of us... He informed us the market was closed and we should just get off here. So with a vague idea of where we were in the city, we hopped off and went exploring. Fortunately we find this amazing Buddha statue, and eventually we made our way back to the Chungyo Department Store, where we could easily spend days just exploring the 14 levels of the three different buildings.

We also went to the night market in Taichung, which is way bigger than the one in Changhua, with a lot more to see. Though I will say, I feel like the Changhua night market has better "authentic" foods. We were starving when we got to the market though, so we all stopped at a dumpling place. Our native friend went to order, and came back to tell us she had gotten 10 potstickers. Among 5 people, alright- two for each of us. That will at least tide us over until we see something else we want to eat among the vendors. What we got however, was a bowl of soup for each of us, and 10 flats of 10 potstickers each! Nearly 100 dumplings, which I won't lie, only 10 of which were not consumed within about 15 minutes. They were delightful. :)

This past Friday, a huge typhoon was heading for us, so we got the day off work. Luckily, the typhoon took a southern turn and we didn't even get rain on Friday! Apparently once they've called the day off though, there is no going back, so we just had a nice, relaxing, typhoon free 3 day weekend. In preparation for the typhoon though, Ray and I had gone shopping for the ingredients to make some well deserved chocolate chip cookies. Chocolate chips were nowhere to be had, so we chopped up some chocolate bars instead. You should have seen us scouring the aisles for baking soda too! We had just about given up the entire venture when I spied a small, purple bag with the words "Sodium Bicarbonate" on it. Thank you sophomore year chemistry class for helping me bake cookies in Taiwan :) It was also my first time using a toaster oven! Which is why I'm now probably craving toast...

And finally, on Saturday morning we went to the morning market. We saw lots of cool things again, and everything was a great price, but in the end we ended up just buying me a pair of stud earrings since I left all my jewelry in America during our fast pack. I will definitely have to buy more- one pair for $30 NT ($1 USD) or 4 pair for $100 NT (~$3 USD), yes please!

We ended Saturday by going on a long bike ride to explore more of our "neighborhood." It was really beautiful- and we understand now why everyone has a scooter. The roads to get to homes would simply never accommodate a car. If you don't have a bike or a scooter, you're going to be walking for a long time, my friend. The greenery when we got up close to the mountain was just wild, it really dawned on me that we are living in a tropical country (as if the humidity weren't enough of a reminder). The apartments are so diverse and the range of well-off to impoverished is blatantly obvious, all within a 3 mile radius. Taiwan is unbelievably different from America, we're so glad we are here seeing and experiencing all of this, soaking it in to save and cherish for the rest of our lives.

One final note to end our Sunday. Ray and I both have callings in Primary now. Today was Ray's first day and I think his class will be a bit trying. It's been great to be a part of primary though, we're happy we are there.