Driving on the wrong side of the road

We are currently in Kota Kanabalu, Malaysian Borneo. We rented a car today and plan to drive to Kanabalu National Park to see some cool jungles, flowers and creatures, and then on to Sandakan to see orangutans and proboscus monkeys.

As it turns out, drivers in Malaysia drive on the left side of the road. The steering wheel is on the right, and I shift with my left hand. Thankfully, the pedals are the same as I'm used to. Our inital drives around Kota Kinabalu have been safe, but awkward. It just feels wrong being on the right side of the car, and I can't tell you how many times I've shifted into 4th gear when I really wanted 2nd. I've tried getting into the passenger seat several times, and once I pulled to the right as a car was coming at us. Thankfully, we were both driving very slowly and he went around me, looking at me as if to say, "are you insane!?". Hopefully I won't do that again.

I'm expecting that the driving will be much easier once we get out of the city and into more rural areas where there are fewer intersections, rotarys and other obstacles. This should be fun!

We were here today

Malapascua Island, Philippines

We are going to the Philippines tomorrow. Over the next 2 weeks, we are going to Manila, the islands of Cebu and Bohol and the Malaysian side of Borneo. We are extremely excited. My goal is to see the following animals: tarsier, this famous species, this monkey, and many other interesting animals. Phil's goal is to do this. We want to see this beach. We also want to hike through the rainforest, but there happens to be these, (warning: gross pictures) so we need to purchase these before we leave. Thanks for keeping us in your prayers. Oh and enjoy this webquest!

umm, ok

All I can say is that when I have children, I want this to be one of my top hospitals.

If you thought that was weird, there is a mini-van/car that is also themed in a similar way. We will try to get some pictures soon.

Things that are commonly found in Taiwan

Road construction that sort of makes sense.


(They are setting up for a funeral. This is on a MAIN road, such as Route 9 in Shrewsbury or 290 in Austin, Tx. This was set up for the funeral and it is blocking half the road. This is REALLY common here)

Taiwan is basically mountains.


It wouldn't be a home without a ridiculously big spider in it.

We work with these people

That would be Moriah, the 4-6th grade teacher wearing the way awesome helmet and Jeremy, our fearless leader on the right with the amazing shades.

A dog for Christmas?

The Monday before Christmas, Daniel, an elementary school student knocked on our door, mumbled something that we sort of understood and then handed us a white dog. We think he mentioned its name, which is Japanese for white. So, for one evening, we "owned" a dog. (It actually belongs to one of our students who houses it on the other side of campus. We were heading that way later in the evening, so we decided to let it stay with us for a little bit.) She peed 3 times, got lost multiple times in our monstrosity of a house and also fell asleep on us. We enjoyed having the dog for the evening, but were glad to see it leave. Here are some pictures of that evening. Enjoy

New Year's Eve

Last night we went to Anna's Restaurant, which is somewhere on the east coast of Taiwan between Hualien and Taitung. This was the view from our table. The food was really good and, as you can see, the atmosphere was spectacular!

At midnight we toasted with French sparkling grape juice in some of the finest wine goblets we've ever seen. (courtesy of Fuh Wuan Hotel)

Cheers!

Here's a clip from the New Year celebration in Taipei that we watched on tv. The building with fireworks on it is Taipei 101.



Happy New Year!

Photos from our trip

Check out some photos from our Christmas break trip.