The Anderson Vehicle Tradition

The Anderson household in the U.S. has long been notorious for the large number of cars that always seem to be parked there. We have been known to collectively have up to 9 cars residing in the driveway, on the street and even on the lawn. I know what you're thinking... no we're not hicks. At least we don't think so.

I personally have a long history of crappy cars. I have driven some amazing machines in my day, and have had more mechanical failures than I can count. (A few "fond" memories that immediately come to mind include: a blown coolant hose in the middle of Canada on a 16 hour trek to college, a radiator as a (much desired) birthday gift from my Mother and Father in law, and attempting to repair a brake line for three days in a Walgreens parking lot. The list goes on...)

We've decided that it's only appropriate to continue these trends here in Taiwan...

We have a red Honda Civic, leased to us by a friend named Donald. It has been our (semi) trusty steed since last September. We've put many kilometers on it during our travels around Taiwan. We have grown to love and cherish her. Unfortunately, several weeks ago, we noticed that when we turned the key, she wasn't roaring to life in the usual fashion, but instead, struggling to start. The problem increased over the course of a week or two until one morning, she wouldn't start at all, but only make that dreaded clicking sound that tells you, "Crap! My battery is dead!" A friend gave us a jump and were able to drive it around for a few more days until the problem repeated itself. Feeling somewhat stranded we wondered what to do. God saw our dilemma and provided a solution: A couple of our friends were returning to the U.S. and were willing to lend us their car.

For a week or so, we were feeling fashionable in our newly acquired Honda Civic hatchback with the flashy grey paint job (also owned by Donald). Sure it lacked a few amenities, such as a functioning defroster/defogger, but hey, it drove. We were once again happy and free. Until... the passenger side window somehow came off its track and got stuck half way down. Now if we were in the middle of the desert this would be no problem, but this is the rainy season in a sub-tropical climate. It rains constantly. So I, considering myself to be a pretty handy guy, took it upon myself to try to fix it. I asked Heather to push the "roll the window up" button while I pulled upwards on the glass. It was jammed in there tightly, so I increased the upward pressure until, CRACK! The glass shattered into a million pieces in my hands. (Don't worry, it was safety glass - I did not sustain any life threatening injuries.) Nooooo ! 2 cars down.

God blessed Donald with both a large collection of cars and a large dose of generosity. He was graciously willing to lend us a third car - a green Honda Accord. (Apparently he has a thing for Hondas.) So we are once again driving in style. As I was looking at our yard today, the sight of so many cars reminded me of a used car lot, which reminded me of home.



Ahh, home sweet home. We'll be arriving in one week!

Voting, Pictures and a Science Fair Project

My sister in law recently entered the National Geographic "World in Focus" Photo Contest. It is a great picture and I was wondering if the few people who read our site would be willing to vote for her picture. (Trust me it is worth it) To vote for the picture, go to her picture site. You will have to give an email address and they will then send you a link. You click on the link and you can then finally "actually" vote for the picture. Again, it is a great picture!


Speaking of pictures, here are some random fun pictures around Taiwan.

The next picture is what happens when you want to order something from a restaurant. Usually you look at the menu and you can't decided what wonderful thing to order and this menu is no exception. (On this menu, you can see such amazing selections, such as "Powder Bowel", "Flower Twig", "Shark Smoke", "Very hot green vegetables", "Burn meat" and many items that are absolutely fabulous. We ordered the "very hot green vegetables" and bean curd to get this picture. You may have to double click on the menu to see these items.)


Near Taipei 101, this guy was selling lemon tea by Nestea. I didn't get a picture of him face on, but that would have been wonderful.


I kind of wish it was from the Salt Lick, but it is the closest thing to Texan barbecue sauce I will ever get in Taiwan. (I didn't buy it though.)

Oh, Taiwan.

A closeup.

My students have been working on a science fair project this past semester and, needless to say, I am glad that we are done with it. (excitement does not even come close) This coming Thursday and Friday (next week), they will actually be showing their parents, other teachers and staff their fabulous projects. I will try to post pictures of the projects in the future. Right now, I have to write my last "lecture" for my science class. I think it is ok to say YES!

2 weeks and 1 hour and 40 minutes from now, we will be on a plane. and only 6 more days of school. (not that I am counting or anything)

Things I wish I had blogged about

Phil and I are looking at the next few weeks and realize that the year is really coming to an end. We are ready to go home but there are some things that we will always remember, but I won't post about that for now. I will just post on some blogs that we wish we had blogged about but never got around to it.

National Concert Hall
My student is a talented violinist and won a competition to play at the National Concert Hall located at the Chang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall with other musicians. Unfortunately, her concert was on Wednesday at 7:30. Because of this, we could not go. Several other staff were going but we could not go because we would have school at 8:00 the next morning. (Taipei is around 3-4 hours from where we are currently at and the concert would have gotten out at 9:30 getting us home around 2:00. I don't do well without sleep) Tuesday evening, I realized that we could possibly take all of our students and go and see her perform. (And Jeremy said yes) So we put together a field trip (last minute) and went. Because we took all of the students, we did not have class until later in the day (Yeah) and I got to see my student perform in the National Concert Hall! If you click here, you can see some pictures of what this place looks like.

Reading Chinese
Phil and I have gotten pretty good at speaking Chinese (Only if you want to order something from the drink stand or why we are where we are. We have those down.) and can recognize a few words in Chinese. This is a good skill and is very helpful, for well, communicating with people we interact with every day. One thing you notice as you drive around, though, is that all of the signs have the "English" version of the Chinese written on them. Even though they have the English and it is helpful, you also notice the multiple ways to spell the same word. For example:

中: Means middle, center

Ways to pronounce it in Taiwan (What you see on the signs in Taiwan):
jhong, jong, jeung, jung, jhung, jheung, chong, cong, ceung, cung, chung, cheung, zhong, zong, zeung, zung, zhung, zheung

We have pretty much seen all of those. Many times a city will have the same road spelled 3 or 4 different ways within a few blocks of each other. (If you don't know the previous fact, it can get REALLY confusing.)

The reason why there are so many versions of the same word is that in China they use the Pinyin, but in Taiwan, they use pinyin along with 2 or 3 other differences. If you want to know about the romanization of Chinese in Taiwan, go here.

Ants

Last year, during a typhoon, the ants decided to join us in the house that we were living in. This meant that the entire colony lived in our living room and dining room to avoid the rain. (In other words, they covered the entire floor) We spent a lot of time sweeping and putting them outside. We couldn't spray anything because part of the time, they were actually covering the floor in the kitchen. (We kept the counters, etc really clean, so they weren't there for the food) Besides this, our experience with the ants has been limited. (We think they liked the outdoors and then it just got too cold.)

It begin with seeing a few ants on the floors in our house. One time they were carrying a corn flake that had fallen on the floor. I didn't care that they were there because, well, it looked like they were cleaning our floors. (Free cleaning service?) We also have a trash bin solely for food products. It was weird because even though we had this bucket ALL year, the ants didn't attack it until 2 months ago. They have been doing this by climbing on the walls to the garbage bucket. Again, I didn't care because they were helping with the garbage. (Don't have to take it out)

Recently, though, they have been going through our shower to get into the wall. Phil was able to stop them once with glue. They probably ate through the glue (and took it back to their nests) and have been entering our house ever since. They also have been crawling over everything. They are on our curtains, our dressers, our counters, our shoes, our bibles etc. (Don't get worried, this isn't like that scene from the recent Indiana Jones movie. There may only be one on these objects, but it is still there.)

Phil and I have commonly referred to them as our pets. Reasons: (1) They eat our food (2) They have made our home theirs (3) They don't ask for a lot of attention and are focused

It is only 22 more days! (including weekends) 14 more school days! (Not that I am counting)

Lift Off!

For the past few months, we have been hearing about a rocket that Roger, an English teacher at the college, has been putting together. As opposed to getting a kit from a toy department, Roger decided to create his own rocket, from scratch. His idea is to heat a pipe with an aerosol can in it. The heat would come from a fire at the base of the long pipe. The aerosol can would ignite, causing an explosion, which would launch a rocket which was attached to the top of the pipe. Phil and I went, partly because we wanted to see his creation, but also partly to be prepared if we had to take Roger to the hospital. Needless to say, the pictures say it all. It was definitely the highlight of the weekend.

The rocket was named after Roger's daughter's Chinese name.

This reminds us of Jay Gould's work.

Preparing the site for "launch".

Roger, helping the process out.

Take off.

Another launch. (There were three in total)

What was left over...

From Roger_Stahl-Inventor

From Roger_Stahl-Inventor

Free with purchase

Our friends Cory and Holly discovered this little gem. Buy one can of deadly roach and ant killer...
Get a toothbrush free!

A wonderful and useful combination. Just think of all the time you could save brushing your teeth and spraying for pests simultaneously. Ingenious.