Promises Kept in Taiwan

Lane's classmate from Graduate School days lives in Taiwan with his wife.  Even during those days we talked of visiting them in Taiwan.  Well we finally kept our promise during Spring Break.  (Be it 10-15 years later.) 

Jeff and JuiMei treated us well, housing feeding and planning out activities for us. 

Day 1: Jeff and JuiMei were working so we were left to entertain ourselves.  One quick 30 minute ride by fast train and we were in Taipei scouting out the LDS Temple.

This is a subway legend listing near-by attractions, second from the bottom, and ta-da there it is!

We found it!  To our dismay it was closed for cleaning!  Guy and Lane were planning on doing baptisms.  Not only that but the one restaurant we wanted to go to for lunch was also closed.  (The only day of the year!)  Go figure! 

So we settled for this dumpling house.  After a few, "I'm not going to eat thats!" We all found at least one yummy thing we liked.  Drake enjoyed the lazy susan and spun it fast enough dishes went flying off.  Between Lane and the waitress catching most of the fly-aways only one dish shattered on the floor.

Rough cement slide although it ripped up the boys' legs, pants, you name it, they kept going doing down.  Cool idea to have four lined up together, still wondering why it was made out of material that can hurt the kids.

Scouted out a geocache at this park.  Sorry we aren't disclosing its location.

Changing of the guards at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall.  Being the last change of the day it was quite showy and very much Drill Team style and all the guards left when done.

Look closely, you can see the huge statue of Chiang Kai-shek through the open door.

The entire park was very beautiful.  Lane and the boys found some geocaches as well.

Stopped for a little smackerel of Banana Milk, one of our favorite treats!

Next was this night market, hitting the jackpot with Crepes, although what we ended up with wasn't quite what we thought we were getting.  I only heard complaints from Lane who was the only one to notice the difference. 

Day 2: Just your typical pizza from Costco, Chicken with Peking duck sauce, YUM!!!

Yellow watermelon anyone?  We were told that the red watermelon use to taste better but now the yellow almost tastes better.  Tasted great to us!  Oh the fruit behind/next to the watermelon is a fruit only grown in Taiwan.  Like a very airy/apple filled with lots of extra water. 

Our hosts rented a van big enough to carry us all and we headed north east of the country.

Famous Taiwan 101 building.  It once was the tallest building in the world.

Pit stop at a few factory/food shops.  We were dragging out our time hoping the rain would go away so we could enjoy our night market.

Night Market

This was interesting.  A tortilla with crushed peanuts, three different scoops of ice cream and cilantro.  (See blurry up close photo below with fresh banana milk behind.)

Sunrise from our hotel balcony.  Of course it was very beautiful and something my phone camera couldn't quite capture!

Hotel for the night.  Hot Springs are huge here, in fact the water we bathed in came from the springs.  Due to the springs being both hot and cold the water was a bit muddy.  The pool is on the roof, You can see the ledge sticking out over the hotel.  Frigid water didn't keep Lane and the three older boys from a dip that night.

Around every corner are temples that look like this.  Very elaborate and bright!

"Peek-a-boo", trying to keep Drake entertained as we drive from one attraction to the other.

These are tombs.  Pretty fancy!  Often located on hill sides with the best views.

Day 3: Beach time!

 

Traditional Arts Cultural Park

A park full of arts, crafts, stores, Taiwanese traditional art museum, demonstrations, performances, acrobats, puppets and food all showing traditional Taiwanese culture.

Learning to flip puppets.

I had to put this picture in just because I love the look on Guy's face as a bubble pops in his face!

Turtle Island

Rice paddies

Day 4: Headed North, very north

Catch of the day

Yehliu Geopark

Wow!  Very tip top point of Taiwan where waves, wind and mother nature have carved rocks into beautiful fun shapes.  We hiked to the top of the "mountain" which ended up being more of a hike than we were planning on, especially with Drake needing to be carried up and down all the steps.

The Queen's Head

Only Lane and Duncan made it to the end of the trail, as far as you go, everybody off!

That night we went to Pinsi to send off a floating lantern.  This was awesome!  Lanterns were so popular with tourists that the government decided on one town to be a year round around the clock place for tourist to send their wishing lanterns.  It is located in a valley next to a river and the wind just carries them either upstream or down.  The launching point is on a train track which everyone needs to quickly clear when a train passes through inches from your face.  Pretty cool!

Another way to make your wishes come true, write them on bamboo and hang them up for someone like me to get a great picture.

A suspension bridge I choose not to cross, but didn't deter Lane and the boys.

We wrote our wishes on the four sides and sent it off on its way.

Boys have all agreed they want to move to Taiwan!

Notice: I have more pictures on my "real" camera that I will be adding soon.  A notice post will inform when that happens.  We just barely set up our "real" computer so hopefully soon.  Although it took a couple of week to get this post finished.  😕😕😕

School Days

 In YCIS, there are 5 school houses. The  Red Phoenix, Green Dragons, Purple Monkeys, Blue Mustangs, and Yellow Tigers. I am in: The Red Phoenix. A lot of my new friends are in Blue Mustang and Green Dragon, but it doesn't matter. In gym class, we are focusing on Basketball. My teacher and some friends in the class have encouraged me to  join the basketball team because I am really good. All I am good at is unexpecting 3p shots (won a game during class with them), pass support, offense dribbling, and fouling. I usually practice some BB during lunch period either in the gym or outside court. It's a shame that our apartment complex doesn't have a BB court, and that we don't have a Bball. For the violin skills, we sent a form for lessons into the school, but the school hasn't responded back yet. I will check into that on the next school week. Meanwhile, the orchestra is like a so called blues band that actually is made up of drunken monkeys. We have 6 keyboard players who 75% of them do NOT know what they are doing, same with the flutes. Violins, pianist, electric guitarists, and drummers are at neutral level. No one can keep the beat, and hold the whole group together. Everything is a complete mess.   

By Guy

Recently our mother figured out how to make slow motion videos on her phone. We quickly made a video with our scooters in the park neighboring the Forbidden City. 

Parks and Blossoms

Free days spent wandering different parks enjoying the blossoms. 

Yuan Dynasty Citywall Relics Park

Long and thin we didn't quite make it to the middle of the park.  Giving you an idea, from start to finish covers 7 subway stops.  The 3rd station was our limit.

Once we locate a park bench out comes our packed lunch.

South American feel to these statues.

Zhongshan Park

We came to enjoy the tulips but only about 1/5 were in bloom.  Thousands of tulips grow here.  I hope to go back in a week to see them in full splendor.

Next three pictures are views of the Forbidden City.

Older boys brought their scooters and weaved their way through the park, much to the dismay of other visitors (and their mother).

Guy sampling our new masks.

A new 朋友 (pengyou) (friend) for Drake.

Drake is very popular.  He is so used to being asked to be in photos that I am not even sure this lady asked him to be in her picture, he may have very well saw her setting up her photo and just joined her.  I only saw him walk up to her to be in her picture.  I think the next time we go somewhere I'll try to keep count of the pictures that are taken.

General Conference

The Prophet, Apostles and other church leaders from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints speak every six months, it is called General Conference.  This last weekend was the most recent General Conference.  Being here makes it interesting to watch the six sessions.  I was able to watch the Women's Conference last Sunday right after church.  The Sisters (women) went to one home for a yummy lunch then walked to a second home to watch the Conference that had taken place just hours before while we were having our normal church services. 

One speaker mentioned that people were watching all over the world, one sister watching with us yelled out, "That's us!"  It is wonderful that even though I am far from home I am able to participate in what is most dear to me and hear the words of counsel and love from those who lead us.

Can you find me?

 Half of our group as we wait for the rest to arrive.

 

Kids

This is what happens when your kids play with the camera on your phone.

Any guesses to who this is?

A Bit of a Back Story

Amazement comes to mind when I think of our journey to China. 

But first a bit of a back story.  When Lane and I were in High School, during our senior year there was this semester long project called "Marriage Journals".  One of our teachers paired up students and had them do various activities to provide an idea of the realities of married life.  (Should I mention here that Lane added this class just as this project was starting so that we could be paired up?)  Well, one of the activities was for each of us to compile a list of 20 activities we wanted to do as a married couple.  Lane typed up his list and "hid" it while I typed up my list.  The reveal showed that we had both written "learn different languages" on the exact same line (meaning it was the same number on the list for both of us). 

Years later, oh about 15 ish, we decided it was finally time to get our family learning a different language.  After debating and discussing our language choices we settled on. . . Chinese.  Everyone started learning the language one way or another.  As you probably have guessed it didn't go too far, although every once and awhile there was a jolt getting us back to it.  Imagine our surprise when we learned that we would indeed be heading to China for two months.  That really got us buckling down and doing a better job of staying focused.  Our efforts doubled even more so when we learned we would be living there for years.

There are many more little things that pointed us in the direction of China but I'll save those for other posts to keep interest.

Temple of Heaven

On Saturday we went to the Temple of Heaven. There they do sacrifices to heaven to have a good harvest. After that we went to a night market and saw a lot of disgusting things. Such as scorpions on a stick alive big and small. We saw pupa on a stick. Rats, squid, octopuses, snakes, and tarantulas. We just got caramel strawberries instead. We also saw a octopus salad and almost puked. Then after that experience, we went to a book store. It was humongous! There were toys here and there. There was a huge section of Legos and 4 floors of books. Then we went home and slept.  By Duncan

 

70 Year Door

Why is it called that you ask. . .Is it because the door is 70 years old? Nope it is over 600 years old.  The Emperor at the time was 70 and needed a short cut to the Hall of Prayer for Grain due to age and health issues.  To keep his family members from becoming lazy and using his door he created a rule, his posterity 70 years or older may use the door.  Interestingly he was the only one ever to use it!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Fasting Palace

"You shall not pass!"

The boys are convinced that there are Chinese Hobbits as we regularly find these circular doorways!

Look closely, the man is holding up his hands to look at this 500 year old tree called, Nine-Dragon Juniper.  It looks like Dragons twisting themselves around each other, thus the hands.  To keep things in perspective for the boys we remind them of how old America is and then compare how old the building/tree etc. is.

Night Market pictures.

Wangfujing Street

Yes, they are still alive before being cooked, or just twitching.

The uncooked meat is squid and octopus.

Bugs and Cacoons

Hard to see but there are starfish, sea horses, huge centipedes and snakes.

Finally something we can eat, caramel covered strawberries!

Octopus salad