PhotoHunt: Orange

This is from my first trip to Taiwan, one weekend Natalie and I went downtown and had shaved ice. This is technically mango but it still looks delicious and orange!

PhotoHunt: Letters

This is again from my first time to Taiwan. One weekend we went to Taipei to the Temple and to see Taipei 101. You could buy postcards and send people a letter in the highest mailbox in the world. This postcard was sent to Mom and Dad.

A Weekend in the City

Last weekend Andrea and I took our last trip to Taipei before going home, we had many things that we wanted to fit into this visit, in the end I'm not sure that we covered all of them but it was a memorable and fun adventure.

Isn't this gorgeous? This is what we get to see every time we go to Taipei, on the way up and on the way down.

Friday when we arrived it took us a little bit of time to find our hostel (there were three buildings owned by the hostel but we went to the wrong one first), but it was still early and we didn't really want to go to bed yet. It was really strange as we were signing in we heard the owners speaking Spanish, and we were both like we understand that. It turns out that the owners (used to be married or are currently married--we weren't sure) are from Mexico, well the guy is from Mexico and she lived there for 20 years.

We decided that we would go on a walk and find something to eat. We asked if there was a movie theater nearby and discovered that there was one only like a five minute walk away, we got something to eat and decided to walk over and see what they had to offer.

We had originally planned on coming Saturday night but there was one starting right then and so we decided to watch it. We ended up watching Letter's To Juliet, it was really cute and I would highly recommend it. I haven't seen any movies lately that I have felt the urge to buy but this is one that I think that I will buy when it comes out on video.

When we got back from the movie it was about 1 o'clock, our roomies were there (we got a woman's dorm room with 4 bunk beds and a private bathroom), they were from England and have been living there for the last year as they work at an English school in Taipei. They weren't the most talkative or friendly towards us, despite Andrea's attempt to ask them questions. They had no problem walking around in their underwear or leaving them out to dry though :(

Saturday was a very long day spent with much walking, shopping, talking, eating, and just having fun. We went to see if there was any other movie that sounded good but nothing caught our attention so we decided to just go home and get ready for bed.

Sunday morning we got up and ready before the roomies were even starting to get up, we left to go back to the Temple and stake center to go to church, it was really weird to hear everything in English and even stranger to pick up the hymnal and find it feel very heavy compared to the English hymnal. After Sacrament meeting we bundled all of our stuff and headed back to the train station where we had a little bit of a wait until our time.

Walking from our hostel to the MRT there was this little park that they had lots of animals made out of stones. I'm not sure what their purpose was, but they made for great pictures :D

Our "humble abode," Andrea and I both decided that this place is not what we would pick to live in for over a year, I don't know, maybe we are spoiled with our apartment but I would not be too excited with the prospect of living out of my suitcase for a year. This is the door to our room.

Looking in from the door, that door on the right is the bathroom, with shower and toilet. The shower was really nice--a lot bigger than ours and it actually has a little thing that separates the shower floor from the rest of the bathroom floor.

Looking from the bathroom.

By the end of the trip I felt kind of like a city girl, or at least that I could live in one if I needed to. I'm still not excited by the idea but I could do it.

Weight of Words

Andrea and I attended the Sacrament meeting of an English ward today while we were in Taipei. When the first song was announced I went to pick up the hymnal, I was so surprised at how much it weighed. I had not realized until now how many songs are not available in Chinese, but yet at the same time how many have been made available and that there is the demand for them. I will miss carrying around my hymnal in pinyin and singing in the Choir with the beloved Ji-An Branch.

PhotoHunt: Memorial

Ok, so not quite American but I still thought that it was an awesome picture that I took! I took this last time when Nathan and Sallee were here visiting. We went to place and watched a Changing of the Guard. All the people kept walking back and forth and Sallee and I got a little tired of it, so we sat down and I quickly snapped this picture when the wind picked up all the flags.

PhotoHunt: Monthly

I hate to say it but the first thing that came to my mind when I thought of monthly was not the most appropriate for blogging (well for some it might be, but not for mine :D), so I cleared that away from my mind and thought of the best thing that I do monthly...I get to go to the Temple! At school I wasn't the best at attending the Temple (which is really sad considering it's right up the street), but here we have worked hard at attending at least once a month, and I love being able to attend- even when I hit my head on the font :D

An Invitation

On Wednesday I was talking with Yuling about getting train tickets for Andrea and I got to Taipei for the weekend of the 22nd so that we could go to the Temple and do some shopping. As I was talking with Yuling about it my tutor student Leslee came in, she handed me an envelope. I asked what it was and her Mom said that it was an invitation to a garden party at Leslee's kindergarten school, but that it sounded like we were going to be out to town. I said that we weren't sure yet, when we got upstairs Leslee said something to her mom, her mom said that she was really worried about us not being able to come to her garden party.

I told her that I bet that Andrea and I could talk about it and go to Taipei a different weekend so that we could go to her party. She got very happy.

This is the second time that they have invited me to something, they are always very sweet and give me a card with a note written by Leslee and a note written by Leslee's mom Becky with directions how to get to the place.

Thursday Leslee and her mom stopped by the school again to give Yuling something, her mom asked Andrea if we had decided what we were going to do, she told her that we were going to go to Taipei a different weekend so that we could come to the party, she said that she would tell Leslee and that she would be very relieved, that she had been worried about whether we would come or not.

6 Course Fancy

Two weekends ago Andrea and I were able to go to Taipei with Yuling and Joseph to go to the Temple. After our sessions we had several hours still until our return train so we went exploring around Taipei. We were starting to get hungry when we walked past this fancy place, it was a steak restaurant and Andrea had mentioned wanting steak. It seemed a little on the fancier side but we figured that we were in our Sunday clothes and we weren't going to get much fancier.
There were 6 "courses"

Course 1: Bread (yummy!)

Course 2: Soup (I had sweet corn and Andrea had French Onion)

Course 3: Salad (I had a green salad with a yogurt dressing and Andrea had tomato and asparagus)

Course 4: Main Course (I had a yummy pasta with cheese, meat, and peppers. Andrea had steak)

Course 5: Dessert (Ice cream with fruit cocktail and a dollop of whipped topping)

Course 6: Drinks (I had lemon juice and Andrea had kiwi) (they don't generally drink during their meals which is why the drink is considered a course)

This is what I get for ordering fresh lemon juice, I was thinking lemonade, on the sweet side- yummy and delicious! Nope, I would say that there was absolutely NO SUGAR! added to my "lemon juice" and so you get this lovely

face :D

The meal was really yummy and only like $12, not that bad when you consider all that we had. It was kind of fun to eat at a multiple course restaurant, I have never done that before and it's kind of neat to mark that off on my experiences.

PhotoHunt: Foreign

This week during while I was searching for pictures of Taiwanese groceries stores I stumbled upon this thing called PhotoHunt, every Saturday this lady puts up a subject and you search through your pictures (that you personally taken) and find one that shows your interpretation of the subject. Of course in my general blog stalking fashion I have looked at blog many times over and love the idea. It pushes you to look through your pictures often and to also look at things through different eyes. I hope that I will be good and stay on the top of things because I think that it sounds like a fun project.

This weeks theme is Foreign, when I first read the theme I had no idea what I was going to put, yes I am in a foreign country but what picture really portrays that? So I started going through my pictures, I came across this one and I loved it It is from our trip to Taipei, at the hostel, a list of the rooms, the people sleeping in them and where they were from.

Hello....Paul?

Since we were gone for 4 days on our adventures to Taipei I am going to break it down into at least 3 different posts so that you (and I) are not completely bogged down with things to read. This is part 1 of our adventures, or Monday.

Our train was supposed to leave at 1pm and we had arranged that if Yuling was available they would pick us up and take us to the train station. She wasn't 100% certain if she would be available so I wanted to be ready to leave earlier in case we needed to. I woke up around 8 and took a shower and did some cleaning of my room and finalized my packing. At 10 was my family phone call that we have every week, it was fun to be able to get on and not have to rush to class after 30 minutes, I ended up staying on for almost 2 hours and was able to talk to 3 of my brothers.

To be sure that we would have enough time to walk if we needed to I called Yuling's house at about 11:15, their cleaner/helper answered the phone and said that they would be able to take us, Joseph (Yuling's husband) would come around 12:30 to get us and if we hadn't seen him by 13:35 to call. Since I wasn't concerned about time I was able to talk some more with my family. I finished my phone call and asked Andrea if she wanted to try calling her family, by the time we were able to get her family on skype and get it all figured out she was only able to talk for 5 minutes but I think that she appreciated being able to hear their voices.

12:30 came and we still hadn't seen Joseph, I tried calling there house but the phone was busy, I tried calling the cell phones- one was turned off and the other no one answered. I was starting to get really frustrated and anxious, I knew that there was no way that we would make it if we had to walk. I kept trying to call the house and finally at about 20 till I got through, I was told that Joseph had been on the phone with his Mom and had lost track of time but that he was on his way now. We were outside waiting for him when he pulled up, he apologized and explained that he had been on the phone, he then proceeded to rush to the train, he was going really fast honking at people and zooming around them. It was quite entertaining to watch as just on Friday night Yuling was telling us how Joseph is not a angry driver, he always lets people go before him and takes his time while driving.

We got there and we still had about 10 minutes before our train was supposed to leave but they were already lining up and getting on, so we quickly got into line and found our seat on the train. Andrea and I talked for probably the first hour or so, it was really nice to just have some sit down time and to talk with each other, the last several weeks we have had some tension building between us, I am not very good at expressing things because I don't want to hurt the other person or to make things awkward between us, but I guess I'm not very good at hiding my feelings even though I wasn't expressing them, so we were able to talk about it and other stuff and just make things a lot better and smoother.

After talking we both fell asleep for awhile until right before we pulled into Taipei. We got off the train and headed towards the other part of the Main Station where the MRT (Taipei Metro System or underground trains)) was, we first need to purchase our MRT cards (electronic cards where you put money on them and just scan to pay for your ride), I needed to pull money out of the ATM before I could get my card but I couldn't get the ATM to work finally I tried doing something different and I was able to get it to work.

I had written down the instructions on how to get to the hostel, they were a little confusing but we were able to figure it out and got there safely and with no real problems. We came to the door and buzzed up that we were there. We went to the 8th floor where the hostel was and walked in, I had made the reservation in my name so I was asked to fill out a little sheet with some information about myself, 1st problem…I didn't have my passport with me ("where did you come from?" oh we are working down in Hualien…oh ok--I think that I freaked her out for a 2nd saying that I didn't have my passport with me), it was ok I could just put my e-mail instead.

I finished filling out the paper and paid her, she said let me show you your room, She walked to this room that 2 sets of bunk beds, and told us that we would be using the top and bottom of that bunk. And then she said the worse words that I could hear "and this is your roommate…Paul" my first thoughts going through my head…please let Paul be a girl who had real mean parents. That thought was quickly dashed as Paul (very much male) got off his bed to say hi. I felt bad but I quickly asked "umm…do you have anything without…boys?" She told us that she was full but that the other dorm room had been reserved by two people and they had reserved the whole room, they were supposed to have already been there, she normally gives them an hour to call but that we could wait and see if they came if not we could have the room.

We both sat down on the couch, probably both silently praying for a solution, something that would not be against our morals and what we believe. After we had been sitting for a few minutes she said "you know Beth I do have one room that is available, why don't you come and look at it" she showed us a very small room with one double bed, we would have to share the bed, we didn't care we both very quickly said "we'll take it!"----Isn't it funny though? When I had first been looking at hostel's this room had been available but then when I went back to reserve like 20 minutes later it wasn't available and now it was again! (but we weren't going to complain, we weren't having to share a room with a guy possibly even two!)

Man after that story the rest of our week is going to look pretty tame :D The rest of the evening we went out and had dinner at the Taipei Main Station, a yummy Indian pita place and then went to watch a movie at the Breeze Center, we watched Valentines Day, we were lucky that it ended up not being R (they didn't have any ratings anywhere so we went in with faith that it wouldn't be rated R or be really bad), it had a lot of big name people and had a cute story line but there were several parts that I could have done without.

After the movie we quickly ran back to the MRT (we weren't sure what time it shut down) to get back to the hostel, we stopped at Family Life to pick up some snacks and something to eat for breakfast and then went home. We played cards on our bed for an hour or so and then went to bed.

Not bad for our first day!

AB Taipei Trip: The Hostel

Stomach Satisfaction

Food? Was there food on our trip? I don't know what you are talking about, in 4 days we couldn't have possibly eaten anything...except for the fact that I felt like almost every time I was turning my camera on it was to take a picture of food, us eating it or it on a plate. In actuality it only ended up being 1/5 of my pictures, but that still is A LOT of food!

AB Taipei Trip: Food

New Year's Gifts

I am not sure if it is traditional to give gifts to others but it seems that whenever a major Chinese/Taiwanese holiday comes around I get lots of gifts (in the disguise as food) given to me, it has happened to me this time and the last time I was here. Not that I am complaining because I love getting given free food (:D), I like it because I am getting free food (who can pass that up?) and I often get to try something that I may not have tried otherwise.

Last Thursday I had tutor group and when I walked in Kristy walked up and handed me this box, last time I was here she or someone else gave me a box of these Anka crackers, I didn't like them the first time that I tried them they were a little different but I quickly did like them. They make a great snack cracker, not too sweet, and not too dry.

It's a good thing I liked them as that big box came with 12! of these boxes and then each box has 6 of these packets. Because they are rather small I generally end up eating more than one at a time (good thing I have lots of them) :D

It is tradition for Chinese New Year that you give a red envelope (I think generally it's parents to children, bosses to employees, etc.) and inside I was told that you give new money. Yuling came in after our afternoon classes last Friday and handed these out to each kid in the class and then gave Andrea and I one also. She said Happy New Year and then told us not to open it until the New Year.

Inside I found these chocolates, sadly they weren't very good :( and I only ate one but they still looked really cool. This boat looking thing plays a big part of the New Year, I am not quite sure what it means--that is something I need to ask as soon as I see people that would know again.

Thursday Andrea and I went to another computer district (more about that later) and when we walked in this guy walked up and handed us these red envelopes. I didn't think that it would be polite to open it there so I waited until I got home...
Inside I found a shiny new $1NT, yeah for free money!

Chinese New Year

(This guy popped up outside what we call the "stuff store" last week sometime, lots of red decorations are coming up :D)

Chinese New Year starts next Sunday and then lasts for 2 weeks. Part of the celebration is that everyone goes home to their hometowns, as such we will only be meeting for an hour next week for church. Andrea and I have been trying to ask people what we should do but we still weren't really sure what we were going to do with a whole week off, Yuling suggested that we go to Taipei as most people aren't from there so the town would be a lot emptier than normal, we talked about it and decided that, that was what we were going to do. Yesterday we bought our train tickets, we will leave Monday afternoon and come back Thursday evening! Now just to find where we are going to stay!

Riverdance: A Journey to Taipei, Part 1

I tried starting writing this post when I was in the LA airport waiting for 4am to come around so that I could check in my luggage. I had started with realizing how it had only been a week since I had gone and here I was already back in the US, when I realized that I couldn't do it then-- it was still too fresh so rather I went back to my pictures and started looking at them. My I must have looked a sight to the lady sitting next to me, it was 2 in the morning, I have my laptop open on my lap and I am looking at my computer with tears streaming down my face. I didn't know what I was crying for more, that I was happy to be back in the United States or over how much I missed these kids that I was looking at the pictures of. I still have a hard time when I look at pictures of those wonderful little kids that I miss so much, but I also realize that it is time to finish writing about my trip before it is too far away and I don't remember. (sorry really random beginning I know)

What a grand adventure it was to be able to go to Taipei to see Riverdance, of course knowing me I could not go anywhere without things happening. I was very lucky to not have as early a train ride as last time I went to Taipei, but I still had a pretty early ride so Friday night went to bed early and had all of my stuff ready to go. Most of the ride to Taipei I slept (fro some reason I could never get on the train and stay awake the whole time), except I did keep on startling awake feeling like someone was watching me, finally I saw a little boy peaking at me through the cracks in the seats.

Finally I arrived in Taipei at the Main Station. Teacher Stephanie had told me that the show was going to be at a certain place and I knew that it was supposed to be close to the train station but I couldn't quite remember where it was so I went to the information desk and showed them my ticket and explained that I was trying to get to this place. They started to tell me that I had to take the MRT to Taipei 101 and then catch the bus to 101 and then walk some, I was like, "umm, can't I just walk there," they laughed at me and then told me that, no it was too far away. I was still confused and thought that I should be able to walk there but I decided to trust them and get on the MRT. I took the MRT to the city hall stop, there was a free shuttle that would take me all the way from the MRT to Taipei 101, but because it is free the lines are always really long and the buses really crowded so I decided to just walk. When I got to 101 I was a little confused about the next part of the directions so I pulled my ticket back out and stopped a police officer about where I should be going. They pointed the directions to me and I began to walk, I had my ipod on and wasn't really paying attention, just walking, when randomly I looked up and there it was- right in front of me!

I walked inside and double checked that I was in the right building and then quickly realized that I was hungry, but I was pretty far away from anything that was going to be cheap and I didn't really want to wander too far away (I get stressed out about time, even though I had arrived like an hour and a half before the show was supposed to start). Luckily there was a little cafe kind of thing inside and I bought me some lunch (it advertised hamburger but when I really got it, it was a ham and cheese sandwich, I thought that, that was funny but it was good all the same), I also bought some cheesecake kind of thing that had raisins in it- it was good except the raisin part.

While I was waiting to be able to go inside the auditorium area I noticed that there was a table that was selling, books, DVD's, shirts, mugs, etc. of stuff about Riverdance..I have never had my own Riverdance movie and so I thought that it would be cool to buy the DVD as it was only $12 US for 2 DVD's, I almost bought them when I stopped myself as I remembered the last time I had bought a movie in Taiwan- it wouldn't work because of the codes. After I changed my mind about the DVD's I headed to my seat (about 40 minutes before the show was supposed to start :D). I was looking at my ticket and slowly going up the stairs when I had the thought "wouldn't it be sad if my ticket was the last row?"...well guess what, it was :( and even worse the numbers were switched on my row, all the other rows went seat #1 was on the right and went to the left but on my row seat #1 was on the left and so I was out further even. But I finally found my seat and took the opportunity of extra time to start writing down everything that had happened so far that day.

As I was sitting, waiting for the show to start somethings that I noticed were happening (sorry these will all be kind of random, they were written down as I thought of them):
*There was this random guy that was yelling out in Chinese- he would yell about every five minutes and it sounded like it was always the same thing to me, I could never find where he was yelling from though.
*Irish music was playing in the background, even though I knew the show was going to be a little different considering it was in a Chinese community hearing the music from Riverdance made it all real to me and seem like I was used to..it also helped to calm my excitement.
*Some people were obviously very used to coming to the shows in this particular building and having the cheaper seats (meaning seats at the very back of the auditorium), as soon as they sat down many people started pulling out their binoculars and looking around them...it kind of made me feel like I was in the movies for an opera scene where all the ladies had their opera glasses and men had their eye-glasses. As funny as it was to see people doing that it also made me kind of wish that I had $200 to just spend on a ticket so that I could have been really close.
*From my viewpoint the stage looks really small...I think that it was smaller even than most Riverdance stages.
*There were two couples-one on either side of me, the couple on the left smelled of smoke, alcohol, or tobacco, I'm not sure which one, but I did know that he smelled really bad. The couple on my right was really kind and they even talked to me a little bit. The lady asked me if I was a student doing a report because of all my writing, I explained to her that I was here interning and that I easily forget details so I had to write everything down as the day went.
*I'm not sure if I ever said but I was at the TICC- Taipei International Conference Center, there was several big things going on that day.
*I am kind of sad that I won't be able to watch it but I am pretty sure Lion King was coming soon to the Conference Center.
*At 3 minutes till showtime I started to get VERY EXCITED!, I was pretty sure that I could hear footsteps as people were getting into place. I had also not seen any white people there.
*The company was a smaller company than I was used to but they were still wonderful. I found it really amazing how they magnify the sound from the feet so well- I kind of wonder how they do that.
* The escalators were sweet, they wouldn't work until you stepped on this pad thing at the very bottom or top of them and then they would start working- it had it all figured out too for how long it would take you to get to the top or bottom. The first time I figured that out I was walking up to the escalators, I saw that they weren't working but I was like oh well I guess I'll just walk up them anyway, I had just stepped onto them when they started going- WEIRD!
*The intermission came a lot faster than I thought it would, about an hour after it had started and it really confused me as they did the ending dance before the intermission- so I thought that it was over, but I knew that they still had more to do. Oh well!
*I changed my mind and decided to buy the DVD anyway- I figured that if it wouldn't work they would make good Christmas/Thank You presents for those in Taiwan. I bought myself one and then decided to get mom/dad one also- I said if they didn't work it would be perfect for Teacher Stephanie and the Chu Family. (But YIPEE!!! they worked :D)
*The people wouldn't let me just walk all the way down the stairs inside the auditorium- I had to go outside and use the elevator or the escalator, both which took a really long time as there was lots of people trying to go downstairs during the intermission to get to the bathroom and to where they were selling things.

Riverdance

Ahhhh I am going to see this in two weeks!!!! I can't believe it, I am so excited.. I got my ticket tonight. To see a little preview of what I will be seeing on the wonderful day of December 13th go here or here or here or here or here. I'm sorry, you don't really have to watch these all but I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am, this is a show that I have watched for years on VHS and have always wanted to see it live. They came last February to Salt Lake but unfortunately I didn't have the money and no one really wanted to go with me. So when I saw that they were having a Taiwan Tour I just had to jump on it. I am sure that I will somehow fit in a countdown until the day, but until then I will just have to make due with youtube videos.

~Bethered~