Andersons in Taiwan

Failure to plan is planning to fail

2009-10-09T22:37:00.000+08:00

I suppose we demonstrated a moderate lack of foresight when we created a blog called "Andersons In Taiwan". Yes, it's true the blog was created with the intention of sharing our experiences while we were actually in Taiwan. But, what if we actually liked blogging? What if we wished to continue with it after we returned to the U.S.? Alas, we didn't think of this and so our title is stuck in the URI. The only thing we could think of was to start a new, more appropriately named blog and post a link here:

http://andersonawesome.wordpress.com/

While we may not look like exciting people, I will warn you that we do actually do some pretty cool stuff. We'll do our best to keep you interested and informed.

We hope you enjoyed reading about our trip half as much as we enjoyed experiencing it. If you ever get the opportunity to do mission work or travel abroad for an extended period of time or better yet to do both simultaneously, we highly recommend that you go for it. It is the experience of a lifetime.

Change is the same

2009-08-13T22:40:00.004+08:00

We've been home for over a month now and I feel strangely unstrange.

During the weeks leading up to our return to the U.S. my mind was constantly occupied with a mix of emotions: anxiety (will I be able to find a job?), anticipation (I can't wait to see my family!), hunger (Oh for the moment that I bite into a deluxe chicken enchilada at Chuy's!) and sadness (I will really miss this place that is so far from home, yet strangely feels like home now).

One thing I despise about my nomadic tendencies is saying goodbye. I turn and walk away from so many situations that will never be repeated. They will never happen again. I don't do this because I dislike were I'm at - I almost always find myself with awesome people and enjoying my circumstances. It just becomes the next step in my journey. Maybe it's God calling me. Maybe I'm eternally restless. I don't really know, but whatever it is, it keeps happening. And perhaps this repetition is making me numb.

For the past month, I have rarely though about what we just did. I've hardly felt sad about leaving the amazing experience of living on the other side of the world. Why is that? Everything I had heard and assumed about returning home told me that it would be a really intense experience. "Reverse culture shock", some people call it, "you have to re-acclimate to your own culture." It sounds rough, but I have experienced none of the symptoms. I got off the plane, said hi to my family and returned to life as normal. How can that even be possible? How can my world not be rocked? How can it feel just like it did when we left?

I really hope the cause of this is the fact that we are still in a transition stage. I am looking for work, preparing to move into an apartment, trying to be an auto mechanic, considering a career change, and doing a multitude of other things all simultaneously. This probably has me distracted enough to prevent me from reflecting on what just happened. I'm hoping that once life settles down again, I'll really have time to sit down and process the amazing experience we just had.

Home

2009-08-01T00:30:00.004+08:00

As of Monday, Phil and I will have been home for 1 month. We are still in awe of things found in the US that we could not find in Taiwan. (Think sweet desserts that don't include red beans) We also have eaten hot pot once, found bubble tea (Boba if you are in California) and already visited a few Asian markets so that we think we are still in Taiwan at times. There are things that I miss, such as cheap hot pot, the teas, the fruit stands and the daily confusion found in the inability to speak Chinese. There also have been some changes as well:

I have a job. I am teaching freshman course at a high school in the area. These include Algebra 1 and Algebra 2.
Phil and I went to Texas where we ate Chuy's 3 times and El Gallo 2 times. hmmmm
We are trying to decide where to live. There are a few things we need to figure out first.
Phil's car works and we are working on getting mine on the road. (The tree hitting it wasn't as bad as we thought)

Phil and I had a blast in Taiwan and are glad that we took the opportunity to do this. We also saw God in so many ways. Here are some of the ways we saw Him:

A man was possessed by a demon and we heard the demons come out of him. The people who were there said that the only thing that got the demons out were the words, "In Jesus' name."
We saw God in the Chinese Language. If you want more information on this, look at the following videos. God of the Ancient Chinese
I had to teach Biology this past year and I saw Him in all of the things I taught. While the Biology book taught Evolution, it did not disqualify Creationism. Instead it said there is no way to prove God exists without having Him in the original equation. (You can also argue the opposite as well) I get Evolution and I can see how it is the only explanation there is if you do not believe in God. Because I believe in God, I see how this world came about without the holes created by evolution. See these videos for more info.
In the people we came in contact with on a daily basis.
In our students.

I am glad that we had this opportunity. Before we left, we passed out Steps to Christ in Chinese to several people who we came in contact with on a daily basis. (Tea lady in Yuchih, Fruit stand people, the lady who cut Phil's hair) If you could pray that these seeds grow, that would be amazing.

I also want to thank everyone for their prayers and support this past year. All I can say is Thanks.

The Anderson Vehicle Tradition

2009-06-26T18:25:00.014+08:00

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

2009-06-18T14:40:00.006+08:00

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

2009-06-15T11:53:00.003+08:00

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

2009-06-10T11:41:00.003+08:00

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!

2009-06-07T20:30:00.005+08:00

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

Free with purchase

2009-06-03T16:58:00.003+08:00

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.

Mowing the lawn in Taiwan

2009-05-31T12:11:00.000+08:00

A few weeks ago, I watched outside my classroom as the landscapers were mowing the lawn. (I know, we must be pretty bored because we are watching people mow the lawn.) There was another reason why I was watching the lawn being mowed the other day. I sort of got a video.

I Will Beat You At Charades

2009-05-29T22:29:00.004+08:00

Chinese is really hard. We have been working on it (intermittently) since we got here last August. I would estimate that we probably have the vocabulary of 3 year olds at this point.

We do have a few specialized areas where we are slightly more advanced... Ask Heather how to order any of a multitude of Taiwanese teas and she will accurately hook you up. Ask me what a particular item is on a Chinese menu and I'll be happy to tell you. (although, if the dish does not contain one of the 6 characters I recognize, my response will be fabricated, and you will most likely not get what you wanted.)

At the beginning of our stay here, trying to communicate was not only utterly fruitless, but also semi-terrifying. Picture this hypothetical scenario:

You realize that your hair is getting a bit shaggy (read: way overdue) and you ask for a hair salon recommendation from a friend. You get it, and head to the place. You park the car, take a deep breath and rehearse the phrase you think will request a haircut. As you get close to the shop, your heart begins to beat a bit faster. You become preoccupied with concern that you will say something utterly stupid and/or completely unintelligible and be laughed at. Again. You walk through the door and are greeted by the stylist. At this point your stage fright takes over and you completely forget the sentence you just rehearsed 400 times in your head. Thinking fast, you resort to the only language you know she'll understand - International Charades. You lift your hand up next to your head and flash the peace sign. Chop those fingers together - just like scissors. Make some sort of question mark sounding grunt. The stylist understands, smiles and waves you over to a chair. Success! Have a seat and await your fate. (If you can think of a good charade maneuver for "take a little off the top." please post a comment...)

OK, truth be told, this situation is not at all hypothetical. It happened to me. Actually it's happened a bunch of times. OK, more like every day. (Not the haircut specifically, but this sort of interaction.) Sometimes it's easy. (Really, what else would the hair stylist think a shaggy haired guy want - A perm? Well maybe, but that's another topic for another post...) Sometimes it's impossible. (What maneuvers could I possibly conjure up to ask for fuel injector cleaner?)

Charades, while effective, can occasionally make you look even dumber than a few mangled syllables of attempted Chinese. I recall traveling to the airport on my trip to Hong Kong. I stepped up to the counter to pay for my shuttle bus ride and the clerk asked me something. Thinking he wanted to know where I was going and having no clue how to say "airport", I motioned with my hand the path of a plane taking off (complete with sound effects). He then repeated his question which had originally been in English. "How many people?" "Uhhhh... sorry. One person." Yep, I definitely felt like an idiot.

So having had all this practice, I would consider myself a true professional when it comes to International Charades. We are returning to the U.S. in just over a month... I challenge you to a game of making people guess phrases by acting them out. Be prepared to loose. You won't even know what hit you.

Banquet

2009-05-26T11:52:00.006+08:00

In my opinion, I believe that the banquet my school put on 2 weeks ago was way better than any other banquet I have ever attended. They actually had great entertainment which is a must (Our students presented!) and they also had great food! (Before I show you the pictures, many times in Taiwan, you see a mixture of styles in places considered fancy or posh. It makes for some amazing pictures.) Here are some pictures from our banquet:

The entrance to the place. What you don't see is that the road in front of this can only fit 1 1/2 cars on it. The bus couldn't make it all the way.

The place was called the castle or something like that. Here are pictures of the prince and princess. Amazing!

The theme was masquerade and the sisters ended up making a lot of masques for everyone to wear, including our trusty leader.

Moriah and Joseph. She ended up making her dress. It looked amazing.

Some decorations on the landing up to the second floor. As I said, they mix styles here.

Where we ate looked similar to this.

Outside heading to the talent show!

Megan.

Daphne works in our office and is amazing. My students actually loaned me the dress and the mask, meaning I didn't have to spend much money for the clothes. Very nice of them.

I would have put a great picture of both of us up, but this was one of the better ones...

Phil made his own mask.

Phil and me at the end. We had a great time, but are exhausted. And we have school tomorrow morning.

Video

2009-05-25T11:52:00.002+08:00

When my parents were here, we went to Taroko Gorge, which has many cliffs and suspension bridges that are quite scary. We had to cross one and here is an amazing video from that experience. If you listen very closely at about 4 or 5 seconds in you can hear my mom screaming. Pretty amazing.

From VideosSpringBreak

Parents and Taiwan

2009-05-21T17:16:00.007+08:00

My parents were able to visit me and here is proof that they actually came!

Outside the National Palace Museum. My mom got really good elbowing her way around to see things. She's pretty much Taiwanese.

Taking down the flag at the Chang Kai Shek Memorial Hall. Pretty neat shot.

This is either the national theater or the concert hall. One of our students will be playing there this coming Wednesday. We would go if Taipei wasn't 3 hours away and we didn't have classes early the next morning.

At the temple for a dog.

Looking out from Yeliu Geopark.

My mom and I at Yeliu. I feel like Wolverine or whoever that guy is.

I finally got a picture of this. My battery died the first time we came when I went to get a shot.

Another look at Yeliu.

Phil and I had not actually visited a Hot Springs until my parents came. Here is the picture of the bath in our room. It turns out that there actually is a cold for this bath, but we did not figure that out until the next morning. We filled the bath all the way and then realized that we were going to give ourselves third degree burns if we got into the water. We decided to wait about 1/2 hour. When that didn't work, we began adding cold water from the shower nearby. That took another 1/2 hour. By the time we actually got into the water, it was nice. We still felt like it was sitting in a bath at home with rusty nails.

I have a great video for this suspension bridge. As soon as I figure out how to post it, it will be up. Oh, this is at Taroko Gorge.

The parents.

We decided to drive over Hehuanshan to get to our school, which stands for Snow Mountain. The drive was incredible, but we will never do it again. We made my mom carsick by driving this road. Oh and the last hour was terrifying. You can see the road we just drove on in the distance:

This is what the last 1 hour looked like, except you can't see the massive drop off to the right and left:

A better view of the road. We don't want to find out if the guard rail will hold us. In fact, we had to back up at one point because in most parts the road is only 1 lane and a large truck was coming the other way. Oh and like driving in Taiwan, they do pass you if they can.

The temple at Sun Moon Lake. We live 5 minutes from here.

We were really sad when my parents left, but were excited when we could make:

And tonite, we get chili!

Cruel Teacher

2009-05-08T08:18:00.002+08:00

It turns out that one of my students is going to have a birthday today, Friday. It also turns out that I am giving him 2 quizzes today in the classes he takes from me. (Biology and Algebra 2) I almost felt bad, and then I remembered I had postponed the math quiz because he had been absent so many times and needed extra time to study. (Also unexcused absences) ah I love it when I have an aha moment.

We had a wonderful time showing my parents around the island and we will blog about it on a later post. (Phil has all the pictures)

High Fashion

2009-04-23T14:21:00.002+08:00

We were recently checking out the latest from this spring season at one of the hippest places in Puli - Fashion House. I considered this little number, but in the end decided that it was in everyone's best interest that I refrain.

First Impressions of Taiwan

2009-04-20T19:58:00.007+08:00

My parents are coming this Thursday evening around 9:30 pm and I am absolutely excited about it! I want my parents to know what to expect, so here are some of our first pictures we took when we arrived in Taiwan.

These are the view from the airplane before the flight attendant told us to put our cameras away. Actually, he yelled something like "No cell phones. No MP3 players. No cameras..."

Not as exciting as Thailand's streets, at least color wise, but this is Taipei.

Typical (ugly) apartment building in Taipei.

A view of 2 parking lots. One is for cars (Top lot) and the bottom is for, you guessed it, scooters.

If you have spent a day with Phil, you know he likes original (gross) drinks. Here is an example.

We were hungry after getting fed multiple times on our way over from the states, so we were excited to find crackers with sea weed on them and, yep you guessed it, Ramen noodles in our hotel room. We were hoping that the picture on the front looked like chicken. Who knows...

We also can not wait for my parents to come so we can impress them with our amazing Chinese skills. We actually have been asking our students how to say a lot of things so my parents will think that we are fluent in Mandarin after only learning it for one year. (I can communicate on a pre-toddler level, at the moment, but that is only if I can use some English words. Just don't tell my parents.)

The Great Tomato Dilemma

2009-04-12T10:06:00.000+08:00

One of the things I miss about life in the States is the food. Don't get me wrong there are some tasty dishes here, but overall I enjoy the food back home a lot more. There are a few meals from our repertoire that we have been able to reproduce with a reasonable degree of accuracy. One that I happen to love is home made pasta sauce. It's great with both eggplant parmesan and plain pasta.

At some point, several months into our stay in Taiwan, we got sick of referring to stores by locations and descriptions, so we gave then all American names. The only local store that stocks the rather critical canned tomatoes is known as "Whole Foods" because the sign is green and it's expensive.

Several months ago I grabbed several cans and was about to throw them in the cart when I noticed something wrong... both cans were dented. A memory flashed into my mind... My mother and I were standing in the grocery store and she was telling me, "never buy dented cans." So I of course put the cans back and grabbed two different ones. No! These were dented too! I frantically began digging through every can on the shelf. Every single one was dented! Panic began to grip me. "How will I make the sauce?!?!" Then I tried to think rationally. "Get ahold of yourself!" I said. "I'm sure they will get more."

A few weeks later I went back to Whole Foods. I immediately ran to the canned tomato section and began tearing through them. No! There were no new cans. A wave of despair began to sweep over me, but then I realized that I just had to suck it up and weather this storm.

For the next few weeks this scene was repeated. My hopes were cruelly dashed every time. Then one day I had an idea. I of course realized that the reason they weren't ordering more was because there were twelve cans on the shelf. "What if I just bought them all and threw them away?" I wondered. "Then they would buy more... No, that would be a waste of money. I need a better plan." As the gears in my mind continued to turn, I formulated a plan so devious and sneaky that I just couldn't carry it out and left the store.

The next time I returned, I thought of the plan again, and began to consider it more seriously. "What if I hid the dented cans randomly around the store? Then they would see that they are out and order more!" I picked up an armload of cans. I hesitated. I put them back and walked away. While contemplating which of the 57 varieties of soy sauce I should purchase, the thought came to me again. I was getting desperate. I really wanted that sauce. With a look of determination in my eye I strode back to the tomato section, grabbed a bunch of cans, and headed to the "baking" section. I feigned interest in a tin of roasted eel while a lady next to me agonized over which mystery sauce she wanted. (Which is really only a mystery to those who can't read Chinese.) Finally she picked up a bottle and headed off to another aisle. I looked over my shoulder to check for employees then quickly bent down and carefully placed the tomato cans at the back of the coconut cream shelf. "No one will ever find those." I thought to myself as I quickly headed back to the tomato section for another armload.

Heather walked around the corner just as I was stashing another couple cans behind some peanut milk soup. She looked at me and laughed. "Are you really hiding tomatoes?" she asked, laughing. "Yes", I said, deadly serious.

I am happy to report that several weeks later my genius plan was confirmed successful. They have fresh cans! Yes!!! Heather and I have now resumed our steady diet of delicious homemade sauce. What can I say? Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Things I miss

2009-04-10T19:09:00.008+08:00

I have been trying to be good and not post about things I miss in the United States. I am finally breaking down and doing a post on what I am currently missing. I am currently missing the following:

(We can get these at Subway, about 1 hour away, but still)

If you know where this is, then you really don't need the next picture. If you don't well, here is another guess:
Phil took this picture so we could look at it with longing over here. It isn't helping, only making it worse. It is "Deluxe Chicken" from Chuy's. You knew some form of Mexican food was coming.

Our Church family. (At Camp Winneakeag)

We are also missing our families, a lot. I wanted to add Phil's Grandma, but I don't have a good picture of her.

Hehe, remember, the fish symbol means that it is raw.

(Maybe not this face.)

Quote of the Week

2009-04-08T21:19:00.002+08:00

Phil and I are doing our taxes and came across the following on the online DOR for Massachusetts:

"Embezzled or other income from illegal activities is taxable and should be reported."

We will keep this in mind.

Mundane Things

2009-04-05T18:02:00.005+08:00

Phil and I have been posting things that we have been eating lately because our life is pretty mundane at the moment. Here are what we consider some exciting things that are occurring at the moment:

Phil and I are currently in the process of filing our taxes. It looks like we will owe MA about 100 dollars in taxes, mainly due to Phil not having proper insurance for the last 4 months. We are still working on our 1040. We can fill out a Foreign Tax credit, but we both just realized it is another publication. So far, this year has consisted of at least 4 different publications, each more complex then the previous. We have only had to call the IRS one time so far. Hopefully that is it.

I did our laundry today, including our sheets. Doing our laundry here means that we have to worry whether it is going to rain, at all, during the day. We do not have a drier and so we hang everything. Pretty exciting. (Remember, the post is titled "Mundane Things")

Phil and I went to bed at 10 pm last night (Yeah, party animals. I know) and I got up at 7:45 this morning, on my own. I haven't done that since first getting here and dealing with jet lag.

I hope you have had a relaxing weekend. To brighten your day, Phil has been teaching his class using an interesting strategy. When he wants the kids to do something, he creates a picture which shows the tool on the camera, or shows the proper technique. Here are some of the funnier pics:

I married this guy:

I hope you had a good weekend.

Odd Juices

2009-03-30T14:00:00.001+08:00

Going along with absolutely disgusting things, here is a video of Phil and another teacher, Cory, drinking, well what else.

Asparagus Juice?!

When in Rome...

2009-03-20T18:44:00.004+08:00

Heather also participated, but refused to appear on camera. Here's a closer look at this tasty treat.

Hong Kong! (Part I)

2009-03-13T18:29:00.010+08:00

My wife happens to be one of the privileged few who has her very own Alien Resident Card (ARC) and work permit. My legal status, however, is still uhhhh, how shall I say it... "under construction". My single entry visa expired upon leaving Taiwan for Chinese New Year and was replaced with a 30 day tourist visa when I returned. The temporary solution to my dilemma? Go to Hong Kong!

Generally our school will send people in this situation to Hong Kong or Macau for one night, which is generally enough time to take care of business. Heather and I decided that we might as well make a mini vacation out of it, so we added one wife and two nights to the standard itinerary.

Some history -
As a member of the Anderson family, I was initiated into a long standing tradition of heavy packing at the tender age of five (or somewhere around there). Although I can't remember it, I'm guessing it started with a family camping trip to somewhere like Moosehead Lake in Maine. We probably packed the car with everything you could possibly image to be useful on a family camping trip. Then we packed a few things that couldn't possibly be useful "just in case".

So now that you have a bit of background on my travel packing tendencies, you'll probably be very impressed to find that I packed everything into one standard size backpack. Including all my camera gear. While this rash act could be construed as moderate insanity by some (like my mother) I must tell you, it was a rush of liberation. The mobility was amazing. The speed was unmatched. Seriously, you gotta try this.

Now I know what some of you are thinking... you travelers out there who like to "be prepared for anything" by bringing everything, you're saying to yourselves, "I bet he got there and needed something really, really bad, and he didn't have it". Nope. Shockingly, I was fine. Turns out that most of that extra junk I normally bring just sits there. It remains in my suitcase for the entire trip just weighing me down. What a waste.

Day one started with me taking my first solo international trip. It was interesting wandering around, but seeing as my Cantonese is rather limited*, it was a pretty introspective day. Upon her arrival the next day, Heather commented that I was "rather talkative". My wanderings started in a night market searching for food and sweet deals, neither of which I found. I then headed to the camera/electronics district in an unsuccessful search for photo gear. (I really miss real photo stores like B&H). After several hours of wandering, I was exhausted. Hong Kong is so intense, just being there is tiring. The sheer mass of people is incredible. One of the areas I was exploring has one of the highest population densities in the world - 130,000/km² at one point.

*I know absolutely no Cantonese - it's a very different dialect of Chinese from what we are learning, which is Mandarin. The writing is all the same, so I could read a little, but unlike English dialects like American English and British English, the spoken language is so different that speakers of each dialect cannot understand each other.

Photo Blog

2009-03-12T21:35:00.002+08:00

I recently assigned my photography students to set up photo blogs and post two images every week. I decided that I should give myself this same assignment. Here's my blog:

http://philandersonphoto.wordpress.com/

As always comments are welcome and appreciated.

KTV

2009-03-11T12:02:00.005+08:00

In November, we had a retreat with several different organizations in Taiwan. While there, our director rented a bus to take us to some tourist attractions in the area. The bus had one additional feature. It was a karaoke bus. Yeah! Here is a video of Phil, singing. Enjoy!

Update on us

2009-03-09T15:15:00.002+08:00

Phil and I are doing well, just really busy. We started this semester off with a very different schedule. Last semester I was teaching 8 different classes, 3 of which I am not really trained to teach. (Biology, Chemistry and 8th grade Science) This semester, I lost 4 classes (Chemistry, Algebra 2, SAT Math and Precalculus) but added 2 others. (7th grade Math and Algebra 1A) Phil was a little more unlucky and got stuck teaching yearbook along with Health and Photography. He is a little stressed because you are supposed to do most of your work for Yearkbook the first semester and we have sort of passed that marker. It should be interesting.

We are doing well. There was an English Church Retreat on campus this weekend and we got to see some friends from Taipei and meet some new people. It was a lot of fun and nice to have church in English. (Something is lost when we get the sermon translated)

Because my schedule is a little easier, Phil and I have been attending a Chinese class offered by a parent of an elementary student. We are finding ourselves understanding more of the language. I am confident that I will never have a deep conversation with someone in Chinese, but I can at least sort of understand someone without using hand gestures at several stores.

Pictures

2009-03-05T14:49:00.008+08:00

I think that this may be the last of the blogs we do about our trip to Malaysia and the Philippines. Currently, Phil and I are really busy trying to get things together for an accreditation meeting happening on Monday for our school. Nothing to be scared about because it is our first meeting and our first year operating. We are just really busy. Phil and I got to go to Hong Kong last weekend because, well, Phil couldn't really stay in Taiwan any longer. He had to go early to get another visa and I joined him Friday afternoon. I would post pictures of our trip, but Phil took all the pictures and they are with him currently. We did go here, but these are not our pictures. Instead, enjoy more pictures of our Chinese New Year Trip. :)

World's Largest Flower. That is a large fly on the petal. This is about 3/4 of a meter across.

I am pretty confidant that the baby is the newest addition to the reserve.

Just so you can see who else was around.

We had the opportunity to go to Mount Kinabalu National Park, where you can hike to the tallest peak in the area. It was pretty neat to go to and the above picture was taken leaving our hotel. Those are clouds. The following pictures are the view of Mount Kinabalu from our hotel room. We would have climbed the mountain, but it takes 2 days and, well, you really need to be in shape, so we decided to just hike below the summit. (Walking for half a mile a day the week before does not define "being in shape",

This is the visitor center and the next few pictures are from our walk through the park. Also, you can see how messy it really was. It was really amazing!

Amazing!

More wildlife!

2009-03-02T14:10:00.006+08:00

Here is some more wildlife from our trip. At some point we will actually begin posting about some things that we have been doing more recently...

While the orangutan was very exciting to see, we could also see it if we wanted to go to Indonesia. There is another primate that we can only see in Borneo. Because of this, we decided to splurge and headed to the proboscis monkey reserve located in the palm tree plantations surrounding Sandakan in Borneo. It was incredible and I am extremely glad we got to see these rare primates. While there, I got this video of an oriental pied hornbill.

And why we actually went:

There is one dominate male (The largest in the family) and he has a harem of women. This is one of the families.

Here are some pictures so you can see the proboscis monkey more clearly.

Photos on Flickr

2009-02-26T00:34:00.001+08:00

Finally. Sorry I'm slow.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28755367@N08/?saved=1

Orang utans

2009-02-23T15:14:00.009+08:00

We had an awesome opportunity in near Sandakan, Malaysia in Borneo. We got to go to the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation center! It was amazing and I am really glad we decided to drive 5 hours to see it! We got to see many different wildlife while we were there and in fact, I am confident we got to see this new orangutan. Here are some videos:

2009-02-19T15:22:00.003+08:00

After visiting the cute tarsiers, we decided to go on a boat trip. No, I take that back. Our taxi driver decided that we should go on a boat trip. We were unsure if we really wanted to do it. In fact, it seemed really touristy but we decided to go ahead because it might actually surprise us. It turned out that we actually enjoyed it. We got to eat a meal on the boat and go up and down a river in the Philippines. At the end of the river, there was a waterfall. The food was not that good, but there was a guy playing a guitar and it was relaxing. Overall a very good trip. The above picture is us waiting to board the boat and the next 3 pictures are us waiting for our food and the waterfall at the end.

We had specifically told our taxi driver that we wanted to go to a Tarsier Sanctuary and then head to the Chocolate Hills so that we could take some nice pictures of the Chocolate Hills while the sun set. We actually told him multiple times what we wanted. Instead, he again did his own thing and we ended up here, at the Chocolate Hills early in the afternoon. (And we never making it to the Tarsier Sanctuary.) Oh well, the pictures at least turned out.

Our taxi driver, on his own itinerary took us to a beach near the city we were staying at. Again, more his idea then ours, but it was a nice beach, so we weren't complaining.

2009-02-15T12:06:00.005+08:00

After staying a few days in Malapascua, we headed to Bohol, Philippines. While in Bohol, we had the opportunity to see a Tarsier. We were really excited and thought that they are a really cute animal. We wanted to share in the experience of seeing these cute animals, so here are some pictures along with 2 videos. The last video is kind of long, but really cute. Enjoy!

Our Trip, part 1

2009-02-06T20:24:00.004+08:00

We started our trip by going to Carrefoure (think a 2 story Walmart) to get a few items, such as bug spray (it was taken at the airport because it was in an aerosol can), a power converter (we left ours in the states), some snack bars and leech socks (Actually we read somewhere that you can use pantyhose in place of the leech socks. Guess what we were getting at Carrefoure) Parking was interesting and here is the result:

To get to the next picture, we flew to Manilla, Philippines on a Tuesday evening. On Wednesday morning, we caught a flight to the island of Cebu in the Philippines. Once there, we caught a metered taxi which took us to the bus station where we then caught a bus to Malapascua Island (The bus did not have air conditioning and all the windows were opened) We road that for a little over 4 hours. When we arrived into Cebu, it was 2 pm and when we left, it was around 3:30, so by the time we got to the pier to catch a boat to Malapascua island it was around 7:30 and it was pitch dark. We had asked the guy taking tickets on the bus if there was a place where we could stay for the night. He pointed into the town and said somewhere in there. We were literally the last people to get off the bus and it was literally in the middle of nowhere. At the same time, we were told by some guys hanging out at the pier that they could take us to the island for php 1500 ($30). We had read that we could catch a ferry for php 100 ($2.00) so we said we were not interested. We did ask if there was a hotel somewhere we could stay at. They then said that they would take us to this hotel along with our baggage. Between the two of us, we had 1 small roller bag, 1 large roller bag, 1 camera bag, 1 purse and 1 backpack with a laptop in it, so when they pulled up with 2 motorcycles, we were a little worried about where they were 1. going to take us and 2. what we were going to do with our stuff.

Somehow they got us onto the motorcycles. The big suitcase was put between the guy that Phil was riding with and Phil. He was a little worried. Also, this was the first time I have ever ridden on a motorcycle and so when we took off at night with no helmets, I was a little worried. Also, we were trusting on God that these guys weren't going to take us to the middle of nowhere, take our money and run (without us). The entire time we were riding, I was trying not to scream and also I was praying. Luckily, they took us to a hotel which also had food. (another good thing as the hotel was in the middle of nowhere) We were releaved.

The next morning, we caught the following to the island. Here is a picture of Phil trying to save php 20 ($.50) by carrying the bags himself. I was impressed.

(He is saving it not because he is cheap, but because were really annoyed to have to continuously give out money every 2 seconds for someone doing literally nothing) Another picture from our sweet ride.

I am certain that Phil will write more about our trip to Malapascua, but here was the view from our first hotel room. We moved from this place not because the trees were in the way, but because the toilet did not have a seat and because were trying to avoid being bothered about going snorkeling with some guys who were a little shady. Besides the small inconveniences of getting to the island it was a beautiful place.

Survival

2009-02-03T13:26:00.003+08:00

We are alive. I have now spent approximately 12 hours driving on the left side of the road, and managed to stay on the left during most of them. We only had one near-death experience involving me attempting to pass a slow moving truck while a fast moving truck was approaching from the opposite direction. Thankfully, I was able to maneuver the car onto the right shoulder in time to avoid disaster.

The best way I can describe driving on the left, is to compare it to writing with your non-dominant hand. The main difference being that the stakes are higher... rather than risking looking semi-illiterate, you are in danger of being turned into a pancake on the side of the road.

Driving on the wrong side of the road

2009-01-29T20:30:00.004+08:00

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

2009-01-23T19:42:00.001+08:00

Malapascua Island, Philippines

2009-01-19T19:10:00.002+08:00

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

2009-01-15T19:26:00.003+08:00

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

2009-01-12T11:56:00.002+08:00

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

2009-01-12T11:50:00.003+08:00

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?

2009-01-08T19:36:00.004+08:00

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

2009-01-01T23:29:00.004+08:00

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

2009-01-01T23:12:00.001+08:00

Check out some photos from our Christmas break trip.

Massive Eggplant

2008-12-29T17:00:00.001+08:00

We picked these up at the produce market the other day.
I'm fairly confident they are the largest eggplant I've ever seen. Heather fried these bad boys up into an amazing eggplant parmesan. It was seriously delicious. The deliciousness increased exponentially as we have not had eggplant parmesan since arriving in Taiwan. That's four months without the crispy, savory goodness! It was amazing!

2008-12-24T23:57:00.003+08:00

It is currently 12:00 am and we wanted to wish everyone who is reading this a Merry Christmas and also a Happy New Year. You are in our prayers (as always)! May you have a glorious time during this part of the year. We miss you!

Enjoy the picture. It shows one of our favorite cities and also one activity that I believe ALL Taiwanese love to do. Again, enjoy!

- Heather and Phil

Christmas Party

2008-12-23T16:07:00.002+08:00

Monday evening we had a Christmas party. It included a talent show, large quantities of sugary deserts, a secret santa gift swap and a surprise appearance by none other than Santa Claus. It was pretty awesome.

I had an awesome secret santa. Some of the gifts I received over the last week include:

X-Max Dancing Palace - Traditional Christmas songs put to techno beats.
Dried mangos
A bag of toy dinosaurs. They are now guarding my office.
Nunchakus

Awesome!

Phil's Birthday

2008-12-19T22:16:00.012+08:00

Besides making apple pies for Phil for his birthday, I also got our students to surprise him at his photo club meeting which took place the night before his birthday. Through a lot of work, we pulled off one of the best surprises in a long time. Something that you need to know: The students make fun of Phil for a certain statement that he always uses. You will know what that statement is in a moment. The following is the slide show the students prepared. Phil had asked them to find a portrait photographer that they liked and as opposed to actually finding one, they surprised him instead. Here is the result. Enjoy!

(I am not really adept at putting a slide show on this site. These are just the pictures. The slide show started out with 2 slides, one that read "Portraits" and another that read "Breath of Life Photography" These 2 slides were there to make Phil think that this was an actual slide show. The rest of the pictures are what came after these 2 slides which are not shown. Also, read the slides using the question and exclamation marks. It makes more sense.)

Festival in Puli

2008-12-19T21:20:00.000+08:00

Several weeks ago there was a huge festival in Puli. I believe it was a religious celebration (but I'm unsure of any details). There were 4 gates each with an alter set up at it. Lots of people, lots of lights, lots of vendors.

It was here that I experienced my first Taiwan Hamburger. It was rather unlike an American hamburger in pretty much all aspects. Its construction included the following:

Steamed bread (which has no crust of any kind)
Crushed peanuts
Sweet pickle-like stuff. But long and stringy with a slightly different taste
A fried egg
The meat of your choice. Hamburger was NOT an option. I selected from pork, lamb, chicken, beef, and several other unidentified meats. (rule #1 when selecting meat in Taiwan: If you don't know what it is, DON'T eat it. It's probably not something you really want to eat. More on this later). I went with the chicken.
Some sort of sweet barbecue-like sauce.
Hot sauce (with a vinegar base)

The Taiwan Hamburger

I must say that although this may sound strange and rather unappetizing, it was delicious! The only problem: The festival is now over, and I have no idea where to get another one!

Baking an apple pie in Taiwan

2008-12-16T13:04:00.008+08:00

I wanted to do something special for Phil's birthday last month and I tried to think of something really neat that he would like. Unfortunately, there are not that many places we can go in our area to get a really good gift. (We have begun calling certain stores in Puli names common in the US, such as Walmart, Whole Foods and Best Buy, but they are not the same as the US counterparts)

Because of that, I decided to bake Phil an apple pie. Not just any apple pie, but his mother's apple pie. I got the recipe from her and began to think of how I would organize the actual baking of the pies. I had to get ingredients without him knowing and actually make the pie without him knowing. We do a lot of things together here, so the evenings were definitely out. Also, I actually have to teach, so most of the day was out as well. I have 2 hours right after my bio class and I exercise with a friend while Phil has study hall, so I decided those were the best time. I went to Puli on Monday to get a few items. On Tuesday morning, I bought the apples and I put the apple pie together during my "exercise" time. (You will notice that I am wearing exercise clothes so that Phil thinks that I am actually exercising. I made the mistake of saying that I drove to Moriah's house, but luckily he didn't question me too much about why I would drive to her house to exercise when she lives so close.) Wednesday morning, I baked the pies. The following are some pictures. I think he was happy. By the way, a chinese teacher, Joy, lives in the house that I used to make the pies. She had never seen an actual pie being home made. It was really neat showing her how they are made.

Ebola vs. the Flu

2008-12-10T15:00:00.004+08:00

I may have Ebola. Or maybe it's just the flu.

I am experiencing headache and generalized aching which are known symptoms of Ebola. Next thing I know, I'll be bleeding from my eyes.

Now before you start to worry about me, I should probably inform you of three relevant facts:

I am currently reading The Hot Zone by Richard Preston. It's a very interesting collection of true stories about deadly viruses like Ebola and Marburg and situations where they have gotten out of hand.
I am a moderate hypochondriac.
Heather got the flu several days before I came down with my Ebola-like symptoms.

So, all things considered, I'll probably be ok, but I'll be sure to let you know if my liver spontaneously dissolves.

Smellin' Pretty in Yuchih City

2008-12-04T16:15:00.007+08:00

I smell like a spring flower today. At least according to my new bottle of deodorant.

It all started the day before we left for Taiwan. Knowing myself and the fact that I am rather picky about my deodorant, I bought a bunch of it to bring along. As we packed our suit cases, we of course crammed as much stuff into them as they could possibly hold. Then came the fateful weight check. We were, of course, restricted to the standard 50 pound maximum per checked bag. Unfortunately all of our three big suitcases were quite a bit over the limit. We had to start making tough decisions. Hmmmmm... what will I not need for the next year? Eventually I ended up removing many of my auxiliary sticks of Old Spice. It was a sad and difficult decision, but one that had to be made.

We have been in Taiwan for three months now, and I still have not felt the pain of separation from my favorite Old Spice scent. (High Endurance Classic for those of you who are wondering.) My supply has held out, but it was beginning to dwindle. Last week I saw a horrific sight - the plastic base beginning to appear on my last stick! Nooooooooo! I ignored the problem for days, hoping that it would somehow go away. The situation became desperate. I had to do something. Heather and I took the 10 minute trek to Puli and headed into a pharmacy/CVS type store. I scoured the aisles for Old Spice. There was none to be found. In fact I couldn't find anything that looked remotely like any kind of deodorant. Finally with some help from the clerk, I looked over my options. There were about 5 choices. Two for women, two for men, and one semi-androgenous looking option. I read the ingredients (they were all in English!) and only the sort-of-androgonous one lacked aluminum (my missing element of choice). I selected this one with high hopes.

Outside the store I quickly opened my prize. As you can see, the bottle claims that I will smell like a "Spring Flower", which is pretty much exactly what I want to smell like, so my expectations were high. I lifted the bottle to my nose and my hopes were dashed. "It smells disgusting!" I told Heather. We laughed.

Dream Mall

2008-12-01T15:57:00.003+08:00

Phil and I recently went to Kaohsiung in the southern part of Taiwan. Kaohsiung is one of the largest shipping ports in this area. We decided Thursday afternoon that it had been too long from eating Mexican food, so we headed to Kaohsiung and ate Mexican food Friday. After that, we had no plans and because it took us 3 hours to drive there, we decided to stay for the weekend. (BTW the Mexican food was some of the worst I have eaten in my life, but it was the best we have eaten in a long time) Saturday evening, we went to the Dream Mall, the largest mall in Taiwan. (Phil will probably post about what we did Saturday afternoon, so I won't bore you)

Pretty much any mall in Taiwan is full of stores that sell products that cost more than I make in a month, so we just wandered around looking at everything. While there, we stumbled upon the Japanese style floor and there was a store there entitled Hankyu Department Store (I may be wrong on the name). It had a lot of stuff in it that was impressive. I started picking up stuff, like paper lanterns, picture frames and kitchen stuff because we would be moving soon. The problem was that there was no prices on anything. I looked all over the package because sometimes the package will have the price on it, but it wasn't there. It also wasn't above the stuff like some stores do. Because we had no idea what the price was and our numbers are a little iffy in Chinese, we mainly just wandered around looking at stuff but we didn't ask how much stuff cost. Finally we got the nerve up to ask and the guy looked at us strangely and said that the stuff was 39 NTD (about $1.25 or so). We then asked about everything in the store and he said that it was 39 NTD. We realized then that the big signs everywhere with 39 on them and the Taiwan dollar sign next to it meant that we had become that cartoon.

You know the cartoon with the guy holding something asking "How much does this cost?" when there are signs everywhere saying that "Everythings a dollar."

Yes, we are teaching the youth of tomorrow.

Give Thanks

2008-11-28T11:02:00.019+08:00

We had an awesome Thanksgiving. Not quite as traditional as usual, but it was a lot of fun. The teachers of TAIS prepared a Thanksgiving feast for the students. We recruited some of our high school students to help out. The total in attendance was around seventy hungry people. This was a big task! Heather and I started out by baking three apple pies and three coconut cream pies. Esther, one of my 8th grade students, and I sat down and peeled about thirty small apples for the pies. We had no peelers, and so resorted to small knives. It was slow going! Eventually, we got the pile down to about three remaining apples, when Heather exclaimed, "Look what I found!" and held up a peeler. Ahhh!!!!!

The pies were soon put together and baked to golden delicious perfection. Awesome!

Since we had no egg beating device (electric or manual) and no cream of tartar we had decided to make the coconut cream pies sans meringue. After the preparation was completed and the pies were baking, I got to thinking that if they were able to make meringue in the days before egg beaters (and cream of tartar?) than so could I. I grabbed a whisk and some egg whites and went to town. About twenty minutes later I had a large blister forming on my hand and my arm was about to fall off, but soft peaks were beginning to form! Our Chinese teacher Joy took over. She beat for another fifteen to twenty minutes and we had meringue! I quickly added it to a pie and baked it to a succulent golden brown. Mmmmmm! Upon later tasting, it was delicious!

The morning of Thanksgiving, Heather and I ran to the nearby town of Puli to get a few overlooked supplies. I felt very popular as my phone was ringing every two minutes. (Probably because Heather's battery had died) We found the necessary items and headed out of the store. As we approached the car, we heard a drumming sound. We looked down the street and noticed a very long, very slow moving parade about fifty meters away. They were headed right for us! "We gotta get outta here before we get blocked in for a half hour!" I screamed. As we threw the groceries in the trunk, Heather grabbed an improperly closed loaf of bread. The twistee gave out and slices went flying everywhere. I ran the cart back while she collected bread from the sidewalk. (Five second rule!?!?) I backed out of our spot at breakneck speed and screeched out of the lot only a few meters in front of the police car that was heading up the parade. Phew!!!! We made it! That was close. Then I got pulled over. Just kidding
.

We headed to Moriah, Suzanne and Joy's house to deliver the goods and start cooking. We were assigned the task of preparing green bean casserole. Rumors were flying around everywhere that the green beans had somehow gone AWOL. We headed to the pantry (AKA the elementary school) to investigate. The rumors turned out to in fact be true. For the past several days we had been looking up substitutions online (ie: The nearest bottle of corn syrup is 4000 miles away, can I use something else to create a similar taste/effect?) What could we substitute for the missing green beans? Seaweed? Tofu? Hmmm... To say the least this would be slightly less than traditional. I breathed a sigh of relief as Heather emerged triumphant from Jeremy's office holding six cans of green beans. They were just hidden, not actually missing.

Back to kitchen stadium (Moriah, Suzanne and Joy's kitchen). We began cooking. There are no french onions in Taiwan (at least that we could find) so we substituted Italian bread crumbs. Not ideal. It turned out ok, but not what I would call delicious.

We then turned to Moriah, who was beginning to look frantic. The night before, she and a few students had peeled forty, yes forty, pounds of potatoes. She had put them in a giant pot, placed it in the center of the stove top and turned on all four burners. After about an hour and a half, it still had not started boiling. Dinner was fast approaching. She was beginning to sweat. We paused for a moment to ask for Divine assistance in the boiling of the potatoes. The Lord came through, and the pot was soon boiling. I was then assigned the task of mashing. Draining this giant pot seemed out of the question, so we scooped the potatoes out into smaller pots. This seemed to be working, but was taking forever. Eventually, I decided to go for it, and drained the pot. I succeeded in not dumping the contents into the sink, which I was rather pleased with myself about. Five sticks of butter, and large quantities of salt and milk later, we had forty pounds of mashed potatoes! Delicious!

The meal was awesome. It was quite a spread as you can see. We realized that all our hard work was worth it the moment we chomped into these delicious dishes. It turns out that we have some serious collective culinary skills. Despite the few missing ingredients, it tasted very authentic.

I ate a huge plateful. I was full. I ate another plateful. I was about to explode. I ate three pieces of pie. My personal philosophy is that "there's always room for pie!"

Aside from the delicious meal, we have much to be thankful for. God has blessed us more than we even realize. He has given us awesome family and friends. Our experience in Taiwan is certainly one we will remember for the rest of our lives. He never fails to provide for all of our needs (and a lot of our wants too).

My Classroom

2008-11-26T14:27:00.008+08:00

If you had visited my classroom 4 years ago, you would have seen 4 "semi walls" (ask me about that sometime) and no window. If you had visited my classroom 2 years ago, you would have seen a classroom with actual walls (and a door) along with a window. The window, though, looked out on a generator that would run at inopportune times. Today, if you were to visit my classroom, you would see the following:

The view from the second prettiest window in my classroom.

My (actual) classroom. I have 6 windows!

The same window from above.

A view overlooking the campus.

I could not get a picture of the best view from my classroom because the day I took these pictures, the mountains were overcast. Every once in awhile, I yell out in class "Look at that. It's incredible" and the kids kind of jump and then laugh.

I know that I have made you jealous. If it makes you feel any better, to get to my office, I have to climb 2 flights of stairs (no problem). But to get to this classroom, I have to go down one flight of stairs and up another 2 flights of stairs (in the same building). In addition, there are 2 doors to the outside, but to get from one door to the other in the same building, you have to climb to the second floor and then down again.

Thanksgiving

2008-11-24T20:58:00.004+08:00

If anyone knows my family, they know that we invite a lot of people for Thanksgiving, whether we know them or not. At least that is the way we have celebrated it in the past. This coming Thursday, our school is fixing Thanksgiving for our school. We currently have 2o students in the high school, 22 students in the elementary school and 15 - 20 teachers / staff. Yes, if you got 60, you have added correctly. We are cooking for 60 people, even if some of them can only eat for a half person. Phil and I are on the list for baking 5 pies along with green bean casserole along with juice. The biggest problem is trying to figure out the baking situation. Currently we have 2 ovens that we can definitely use and perhaps a few others that belong to faculty on campus... Phil and I are cooking our pies tomorrow evening so we won't be fighting with the turkeys for space.

We are at least lucky enough that many of the people who are eating our Thanksgiving meal have never actually had Thanksgiving...

Learning Chinese

2008-11-21T10:54:00.003+08:00

I am presently learning chinese from a very important place. This would be the tea shop. So far I can order Passion Fruit Green Tea, Milk Tea with tapioca, Milk Tea with out, Grapefruit Green Tea, Chocolate Milk Tea with tapioca and Chocolate Milk Tea without. So far, my favorites are passion fruit green tea and Milk Tea. If you come and visit, we will take you to get some of these wonderful drinks. The picture above is a picture of a tea shop in Taipei. We have gone to this place one time. In Yuchih, near our school, we go to a place where the lady does not laugh when we speak chinese. She has the best teas, in my opinion.

Professional Procrastination

2008-11-19T17:14:00.003+08:00

So I we have parent teacher conferences tomorrow. I'm kinda freaking out, because I've never had these before. I hope the parents feel like I'm doing a good job. We'll see.

Anyways, since the conferences are tomorrow and the parents will most likely want up-to-date grades on their child's performance, I suppose I should get working on that giant stack of assignments that has been building up for longer than I am prepared to admit. My prediction: late night tonight. That's ok, from what I hear sleep is overrated anyway.

When it comes to procrastination I am a true professional.

Work

2008-11-18T16:13:00.004+08:00

I have decided to actually post something, even though I am not Phil. Sorry, mom. :)

I feel like all I have been doing recently is studying for biology and chemistry and I am not in college. It is 10 times harder when you also have to teach these subjects to someone else. Oh well. I actually am really enjoying teaching both of these subjects in spite of the amount of time I put into them. I really have no interest in biology as a subject, but I am having a blast teaching it.

I would post pictures, but the only pictures I have, I use for biology and those aren't too interesting.

We had a wonderful time a few weekends ago with the teachers up at the north coast of Taiwan. It was beautiful. Their apartments are on two sides of an apartment complex. One side overlooks the ocean and the other overlooks the mountains of Taiwan. If you have never seen pictures of Taiwan, then you are missing a lot. It is one of the prettiest countries I have ever been in.

On Sunday, our boss rented a tour bus to take us on a historical tour of the country. We also learned early on that it was also a karaoke bus! Needless to say, we saw few historical sites (A 45 minute trip actually took 3 hours, so we had to turn around) but we also learned who could sing and who could not. I do have videos of one Ferguson son-in-law which should be entertaining.

Experiment #001 Observation Notes

2008-11-13T13:28:00.000+08:00

9:37 - I have begun administering the experimental cure on the subject in large quantities at frequent intervals.

12:22 - Subject is making frequent trips to the restroom with a look of urgency on face.

14:35 - observed subject breathing easily through both nostrils simultaneously.

16:02 - subject has consumed in excess of 1000 ml of green tea. He refuses to ingest any more, despite repeated attempts on my behalf. Experiment is potentially compromised. Will wait and continue to observe.

21:12 - patient appears to be breathing easily. Note that there has been a significant decline in congestion level. Will continue observation in the morning.

Scientific Experiement #001

2008-11-12T09:37:00.003+08:00

I am sick. Just a standard "change of seasons" cold. Many of the students and other teachers are sick as well. My boss, Jeremy, swears by green tea. He makes high and mighty claims as to its healing properties. Since I am all about experimenting with potential cures for the common cold, I'm going to experiment. I hate colds.

My experiment will be conducted in the most scientific of methods. I have put a great deal of research and thought into my process. Here it is:

drink tea

see if I get better

Will my single test provide a mere "theory"? No way. I'm going for absolute proof here. We'll see...

Here are my materials:

Green tea bags

Pre-brewed bottles of green tea

Empty bottle for home brewed tea on the go

Pesky cold

Follow me on this epic journey to enlightenment. I'll keep you posted.

Personal Survey

2008-11-06T19:55:00.020+08:00

All the teachers from TAIS and other Adventist schools around Taiwan are going to a retreat this weekend. It is being held on the north coast of Taiwan. The drive will take an estimated five hours. I have been elected as one of the two drivers. (Probably because of my vast knowledge of the Taiwanese road systems) The retreat promises to have many exciting events such as Heather & Phil cooking "American Food" for Sabbath morning breakfast. We will be preparing a true American classic... chocolate chip pancakes. Awesome! (We actually eat these about 1-2 times per week. They are amazing with fresh mango or passion fruit on top.)

We were asked by our director Robert to answer a series of highly personal questions which will most likely be read aloud to the group in the most humiliating fashion possible. In the spirit of laying bare my soul, here are my answers:

1. Type of pet as a kid

Dogs, 3 fish (Goldie, Stripes & Dart who met a tragic end before their time. Ok, ok, I suppose their demise wasn’t that tragic or unlike most other fish – mysteriously found floating belly up in the tank, but still, it’s traumatic when you’re young!) Gerbils who reproduced like rabbits. (Hey, do you guys want a baby gerbil or two? They’re really cute!) A pair of rabbits who also reproduced like rabbits. (How bout a cute little bunny?) A single rabbit who met a truly tragic demise at the hand (teeth actually) of a neighborhood dog.

2. Your first car

Ford Mustang. But I must admit, that saying this is highly deceptive… it was not a cool one but one made during the less cool years – 1983. But the sliver racing stripes that I added definitely increased the cool factor (and I’m pretty sure they increased my top speed at least 7mph).

3. Number of brothers, sisters

1 brother – Matt. He’s ~~6’ 3”~~ 6' 4" and went as the jolly green giant for Halloween this year. He and his new bride just bought their first house last week.

4. Favorite fruit

Mango. Longyen is also awesome. Maybe a fresh from the orchard apple when I’m back home.

Longyen ↑

5. Favorite food

Thai curry or Pad Thai. The curry should be nice and spicy so I can feel it simmering in my stomach for a while after I eat it. Awesome! Also excellent: Pasta with homemade sauce, homemade pizza sans cheese. Mom’s apple pie, (I’ll probably be highly depressed on Thanksgiving and Christmas as I will not be eating it this year. My mother is a pie master.)

6. If you could travel to any place (money no limit) where would you go?

I want to learn how to surf, but you see the problem is that my biggest fear is sharks. I know, I know it’s completely irrational as only about 2 people a year get eaten by them all around the world. What are the chances? I know, you don’t have to tell me. The root of the problem comes from my childhood. I watched Jaws when I was young. I was terrified. Ever since, I have been really scared of swimming in the ocean. So where I really want to go is somewhere that has awesome surfing waves, but absolutely zero sharks. None. Not even one. Then maybe I’ll be courageous enough to get in the water.

7. Your favorite Taiwanese food

Tsong Yo Bing

8. How many books do you read a year?

One if I’m feeling ambitious. For the record, I do know how to read, I’m just not that into it. I like to look at photographs instead.

Any other weird and fun facts about you, your family and your colleagues!

My Chinese name means “A strong and handsome man”.

I proposed to the love of my life down on one knee in 2 feet of water.

One of my front teeth is half fake due to a bright idea I had once that my brother and I should have a sword fight with wooden baseball bats.

The Green Tunnel

2008-11-03T14:07:00.002+08:00

Last weekend we went for a leisurely Sabbath drive to the small tourist town of Rueli. Using our vast knowledge of Taiwan's topography and road systems, it was estimated that the drive would take approximately 3 hours. So off we went. A couple "detours", minor road construction, three treacherous mountain roads and 4 ½ hours later we arrived.

We went over two huge mountains on roads like this.

Don't drive off the edge!

Guard rails are optional on these mountain roads, paying close attention while you are driving is not.

After such a long drive we were all starving, so we located the closest restaurant and went in. Moriah, our friend and 4-6th grade teacher extraordinaire, requested a menu in Chinese. It was, shockingly, all in Chinese. I used my crazy skills to identify two items that contained chicken. We pointed at them to order. Shortly thereafter our food arrived. It had what you might expect from any touristy restaurant: a very high price to flavor ratio. Oh well, at least we were full. Time to check out the bamboo forest!

This place was really amazing. We walked into a small valley with tea farms surrounding us on the hillsides. The tea bushes are grown in rows that are reminiscent of the lines on a topographical map. The farms always look very well landscaped. This is because they constantly trim the new growth because it makes the best tea.

We then arrived at the beginning of the stairs. I don't know how many there were, but let's just say we got our exercise for the day.

As we climbed up, we entered the bamboo forest. It is incredible. You feel like you are entering into a set from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. In fact we were inspired to do a recreation:

This place is incredibly beautiful. The forest is very quiet which adds to the surreal, dreamlike ambiance.

This trail is known as the Green Tunnel.

I really wish we had more time to explore the area, but due to the fact that our car has really dim headlights and the roads are crazy, I wanted to do as much driving before dark as possible. Thankfully, we made it back in one piece.

Hair Party

2008-10-28T14:33:00.005+08:00

My male students have repeatedly exhibited a unique behavior pattern. They go to the restroom in groups, much like females in the U.S. I have noticed this before, but generally these groups are small, averaging three participants. Today as I was heading to the restroom I beheld the largest group I've seen to date. Approximately 8 gentlemen were crammed into the bathroom all doing their hair. Many of my students like the spiky/messy look, so they were frizzing and pulling and messing up their hair. I entered and asked, "Hey, what is this a hair styling party?!" I decided to join the festivities and began to attempt to spike my own hair. They noticed that my attempts were failing miserably, and so offered me some of the stuff they were putting in their hair. I took some. This is the result:

Next time you are invited to a hair styling party, I highly recommend that you attend.

Grocery Store Rejects

2008-10-20T08:34:00.015+08:00

While wandering around the grocery store yesterday, I came across a few interesting items that I decided NOT to purchase...

This does not sound appetizing.

Now the fried eel is wonderful,
but the roasted, not so much.

If you can figure out what this is,
I'll send you a bag of it. (No not really.)

Who's idea was this?

Fish heads anyone?

I must admit that I have not tried any of these foods, so I probably shouldn't knock them until I try them. I don't think, however, that I'll be trying roasted eel or fish heads any time soon. I'll have to become a lot more open minded before that happens.

TAIS Computer Class Meets Famous Rock Star

2008-10-17T09:46:00.005+08:00

Just as I was beginning my Thursday afternoon computer class, one of the students rushed in and shouted, “賴聖恩 (Lai Shen En) is downstairs!!!”

“Who is that?” I asked incredulously.

“He’s the fifth place winner of Taiwan Idol! Can we go meet him??? Pleeeeeeease???”

I hesitated. We were just about to begin class. I was amped up and ready to do some serious teaching. This was an important lesson we were about to cover. “If I let you go, will you promise to be back in four minutes?” I asked.

“Yes! Yes! Ok! We’ll be back!” they shouted as they stampeded out the door. I remained at my desk. One student popped her head back in the door and asked me if I wanted to come along. “Ok, why not?” I replied.

I headed down the stairs only to find my entire class huddled in the stairwell. “Well, where is he?” I asked.

“He’s over there” they pointed around the corner, giggling nervously. They were hiding! “Will you go talk to him Mr. Anderson? Pleeeeease!”

“I thought you guys were really excited to meet this guy! Ohhhh… ok, ok.” I found out his name, walked past them and told him that, “my class wants to meet you”. As I turned to point to them, only two had come out from hiding. “Come on you guys!” I yelled. They sheepishly came out and crowded around him, passing cameras to his friend.

I asked him through a translator if this sort of thing happens frequently. “All the time” he said.

Wow! So we met a famous rock star and learned about cascading style sheet inheritance all in one class period. Not too shabby! It just goes to show that things are always exciting here at TAIS!

Note: Lai Shen En is the guy in the center of the photo wearing a gas mask t-shirt.

2008-10-14T11:06:00.003+08:00

Phil and I went to Taipei this weekend and had a great time. While there, we visited Shilin Night Market, which is apparently the best night market in Taipei and Taiwan. (At least that is what our guide book told us) A night market is basically a mixture of clothing, arcade games, food that is fried, barbecued, boiled, frozen, chopped up, left out, etc. and a whole lot of people. It also happens at night, hence the name. It took Phil and I the entire night to actually find where the Shilin night market takes place. While looking for it, Phil found this and I (also) found a used bookstore...

What's In Our Pantry?

2008-10-04T23:03:00.006+08:00

Thankfully, our apartment has a kitchen. We've stocked our pantry with all sorts of local delicacies. Here's a sampling of what we've got:
(You can click on the photo for a larger view if you can't read the package)

If these aren't seriously delicious, I'm returning them on the grounds of false advertising.

Sometimes everybody needs a little fiber. These taste very similar to the whole grain pasta sold in the States.

Hey! I recognize that guy!

Just like home.

These are moon cakes... Everyone eats these during the Moon Festival. They're.... uhh... interesting. I was in a grocery store recently and the clerk offered me a moon cake sample. She said, "it's beef" so I take a big bite. "...and pork!" Uhhh, thanks.

The name says it all.

Seaweed crackers with chocolate in the middle. Sounds yuki to me.

What is Job's tear, you may be asking yourself. I'm asking myself this question too.

Oh, by the way, while eating these don't forget to make a "healthy beautifully wish".

Seaweed crackers with cheese filling. Not a pleasant combination. Personally, I think the nana club sounds like a gang of third graders who make fun of their classmates.

These packets turn your plain oatmeal into those flavored oatmeal packs. (You know, apple cinnamon, maple brown sugar...) Pretty tasty. Hey, it's got that Quaker guy on it, you can't go wrong!

***NEWSFLASH***
Heather has just informed me that they have other flavors -> vegetable, mushroom, seaweed and some other assorted flavors we cannot decipher. Vegetable oatmeal? Maybe you can go wrong.
***END NEWSFLASH***

Usually I prefer my apple soda with chemical ingredients, but I figured hey, what the heck? I'll try it!

I've been staring at the asparagus juice every time we go to the grocery store. I had to try it! I'm waiting for a special occasion... I'm just not sure what occasion is actually special enough. Please reply with your suggestions.

Music

2008-10-04T14:29:00.002+08:00

Phil and I went to a vegetarian restuarant in Puli last Friday. I had a really good baked curry vegetable rice dish and Phil had a noodle soup dish that he normally gets. There are a lot of Buddhists in the area and because of this, there are a lot of vegetarian restaurants. While we were there, we noticed that they definitely like English music. Here is the list of songs (in order) that they played while we were there.

1. Seal's "Kissed by a Rose"
2. A jazz song
3. Deep Forest
4. A Doors song
5. (I think) Fools Garden "Lemon Garden"
6. Bette Middler "Some say love, it is a river"
7. Engelbert Humperdinck "The Last waltz"

We unfortunately had to leave after that, but just wanted to share.

Taichung Trip

2008-09-29T16:36:00.010+08:00

View Larger Map

Heather and I took a trip to the nearby city of Taichung this weekend. It's about 1 1/2 hours from our apartment. The scenery along the way is beautiful... the mountains rise up all around you and are often shrouded in mist. Amazing.

We started our adventure with lunch at "Herb House", an all vegetarian restaurant. These are a lot more common than you might think. Apparently many (all?) Buddhists are vegetarian. I had a "macaroni rice" dish that had a suspicious lack of macaroni. (I didn't find a single piece.) It was good though.

Them we checked out the National Museum of Natural Sciences. We were undoubtedly the oldest people there without kids. It was fun though and even us "old" folks were able to learn some cool science stuff. I will soon be attempting to make a water sphere lens for my camera. (Now were can I get my hands on a glass sphere around here? Hmm...)

An image made with a simple lens

Frozen Shadows

We then moved on to the Rain Forest Conservatory. This place is really cool. It's a giant greenhouse about 200 feet tall in the center. They have all kinds of plants that I've never seen. Some were really interesting and beautiful.

The biggest greenhouse I've ever seen

In the afternoon we checked into Chin Hua Hotel. Pretty fancy. We were pretty excited about the shower curtain and tub. No water on the floor!

That evening we went to 一中路 (Yi Jung Road). This place was nuts! There were so many people I felt like I was at a rock concert. There were tons of vendors selling food, beverages, clothes and trinkets. I picked up some sweet expanding chopsticks. Heather was more than excited to see "Salsa Mexican Soft Taco" stand. She immediatly ran to it and ordered one. It wasn't exactly what I would call authentic Mexican, but not too bad nontheless.

The chaos on Yi Jung Road

"Salsa Mexican Soft Taco"

We wrapped up the evening with some delicious barbecue from a street vendor.

A barbecue stand

The next morning we swung by CostCo, which is rather exciting because they have American food and other items that are unavailable anywere else in Taiwan. We got four bags of tortillia chips! Awesome! Sometimes it's the simple things. We decided to head home after this as a hugh typhoon was headed our way and we were hoping to beat it back to our apartment, which we did.

Overall it was a pretty exciting weekend!

Motley Crew

2008-09-24T09:25:00.007+08:00

Here's part of our team. From left to right:

Megan from TN - Girl's Dean
Moriah from CO - 4-6 grade teacher
Heather from TX - Science and Math teacher (you might recognize her)
Esther from Taiwan - Vice Principal
Holly from WA - 3rd grade teacher
Cory from WA - ESL teacher, married to Holly
1/2 of Jeremy from NY - Principal

Here we are riding the bus back from an exciting evening out in the big town of Puli. (actually Puli is kind of small, but around here, it's pretty much a big deal)

Milk Tea, actually Chocolate Milk Tea

2008-09-22T16:23:00.003+08:00

I received an Email from Elizabeth at church and it was great hearing from her. I decided that I would dedicate this blog to her and you will understand why shortly.

I love Milk Tea, especially Chocolate Bubble Milk Tea. I finally figured out how to say it in Chinese (I am not going to even attempt writing it the English version of chinese) and I can actually recognize a few words. To say Tea, you write 茶. To write Milk, you write 牛奶. I have not figured out Chocolate yet, but will shortly. I will soon be able to read the tea stands!

Also, our small town of Yuchih (it probably has 3 small grocery stands) has about 10 tea stands. So far, I have only tried milk tea from 3 tea stands. I will soon try them all. At one stand, they laugh everytime I try to order Chocolate Milk Tea. Oh well...

Milk Tea, though, is served cold. At our house, we have yellow tea, which is absolutely wonderful hot. When I come back, I will definitely be bringing some back for everyone to try. I will also post pictures shortly.

New Wheels

2008-09-19T16:15:00.007+08:00

Check out our new car! It's a 94 Honda Civic.

The coolest part is pretty obvious... the magenta paint job. It also sports other amazing features such as 12 horsepower, approximately 5 miles per gallon and extra dim low beams/one working high beam (super handy on those dark nights when there are scooters all over the place). It has a four speed automatic transmission. I do wish it was a stick, but hey, you can't always have it all. It needs a little work, but mostly minor stuff. Replacing the air filter is number one on my priority list. It's coated with dirt and black junk. I'm thinking this may have something to do with the excellent fuel economy. The actual job of replacing it is the easy part. Getting my hands on a new one, well that's a different story. I have no idea where there is an auto parts store around here. I even went so far as to consider having one shipped from the US. This turned out to be impossible as this is a slightly different model than the one they sold at home. (the filter is a completely different shape).

Despite it's few flaws, it's extremely handy to have. We live off campus (about 4 miles away), so it was really necessary. Our international driving permits should be arriving shortly thanks to my parents, so before long we should actually be driving legally! Until then, my boss told me "if you get pulled over, just pretend you don't speak Chinese". No problem.

Insomnia

2008-09-17T01:16:00.004+08:00

We've just finished a four day weekend thanks to typhoon Sinlaku. After much tea drinking, most of which was unavoidably late in the afternoon or evening, (the Taiwanese love to drink tea, and love to share this caffeinated beverage with others - ie: Heather & myself) Heather and I have stayed up till 1:00 four nights in a row. I have to get up at 5:30 tomorrow morning but I cannot sleep. A late night photo shoot was definitely in order. Here are the results of my insomnia:

Typhoon!

2008-09-14T14:40:00.003+08:00

On Friday about 12:35, I was talking with Holly, an elementary school teacher. She mentioned that we were going to get a typhoon this weekend. She also told me that she had found out when our vice principal had prayed for protection from the typhoon that morning... We didn't think anything of it because we had found out so late. We went to Puli, a town nearby that has a few more modern conveniences than Yuchih. (We wanted to bling out our new cell phones and they don't have that type of stuff in Yuchih) We received a phone call from our boss in Taipei who informs us that this typhoon has 2 eyes and is comparable to a 5 on the hurricane scale... We were already getting stuff for an event Friday night, so we quickly got a few more supplies. Robert, our boss, also mentioned that we should not go near any signs during the typhoon because that was the second biggest killer... We still don't know what the first is.

Friday night I wanted to go to our kitchen which I have to go outside and then inside to get to it. At the front of our doorway, there was a ton of ants and they appeared to want to come in. (We think because of the typhoon) We cleaned them up and hunkered down for the long weekend. They reappeared the same time last night(Saturday night) as well. Auugghhh! We also found out that a majority of the typhoon was coming in Saturday night and all through Sunday.

So far, it is really windy and rainy, but I have not seen anything falling down. Phil and Cory went to get more water and tried to go to Balance to get chocolate milk tea for me and milk tea for everyone else, but they were closed. :( Luckily, they canceled the high school for tomorrow because our students are coming in and a lot of public transportation is closed. I finally got this place looking like the way we want it to... Yeah! I hope that no one is hurt.

More unique creatures

2008-09-12T10:53:00.004+08:00

I thought this bug was kind of cool.

The snails here are the largest I've ever seen.

Biology and food and Biology

2008-09-10T10:44:00.002+08:00

I feel that I have spent the past 2 weeks learning everything there is to know about Biology. The last time I learned biology, I was in 9th grade. Because of this, I have spent most of my free time trying to do a really good job teaching it. I gave the kids a quiz today, and I will soon see how they did on it. I actually gave a paragraph for them to write. When you teach, you try to avoid these, because it means that you actually have to read them. (Why I teach math, anyways) It should be interesting.

The real problem I have is trying to determine what is important to know in Biology. I want to skip certain sections just because of the vocabulary... At least the next 2 days, we will be using the microscope and they will be doing a lab type activity, so I dont have to stress so much about what to do next.

The food here is interesting. There are things that I really like and things that are horrible. I wish at the moment that we were in Taipei so that we could go to more American style restaurants. I am missing pasta, at the moment. or Diet Coke? (Not Coke Light)

How's your Chinese?

2008-09-09T16:05:00.007+08:00

The operating system on my lab computer is in Chinese. It makes things a bit tricky at times. I frequently have to ask my students to come up and tell me what something says.

Uninvited Guests

2008-09-04T16:27:00.014+08:00

There are lots of interesting creatures around here. From time to time some of them make there way inside our apartment.

A snail (or slug?) getting ready for the day with Heather's shower gel.

An assorted bug enjoying Heather's flip-flop.

Not Your Ordinary Flora and Fauna

2008-09-01T17:16:00.005+08:00

We went exploring down near Sun Moon Lake on Sabbath afternoon and found some rather unique stuff...

This is no optical illusion or Photoshop manipulation, this grasshopper really is as big as a cell phone. Crazy!

I think this is called a sensitive plant, but I'm not sure. Very cool.

Please let me know if this video loads quickly on your computer or if you have to wait for it. Thanks!

Good Eats (Sometimes)

2008-09-01T16:59:00.003+08:00

Check out some of the food we've been eating...

This is a typical meal from the cafe. It works like this: if you don't recognize something, just be brave and try it!

I have no idea what this purple thing was, but I can tell you that it tasted even more disgusting than it looks.

Last Sabbath the college church had a potluck in our honor (all the American teachers). They hooked us up with some good stuff!

Overall, the food is not bad here. I've had things I absolutely love, and other stuff that was just plain gross. I haven't been craving my "normal" food too much yet. I'm sure that will come soon.

Bonding in Chinese

2008-08-28T17:24:00.003+08:00

We were told 2 days ago that the main high school at Taiwan Adventist College known as Taiwan Adventist Academy was having some bonding time with their teachers and they wanted Taiwan Adventist International School (US) to join. This meant that we woke up really early and were doing calisthenics at 8:15 this morning. After that we divided into 2 teams, A and B. The first game we played is a combination of Tag and paper, rocks scissors, except we had Bear, fish and mosquito. Each team chose which to pick and whoever lost would have to run and not get caught. After this game, we played a game where everyone lined up and attached themselves to a person in front of them. At the front is a hen who is protecting her chicks (Us) from an eagle. We had to run around, but it was a lot of fun. Some other games we played was line up on a log and no one could put their feet on the ground. Because of this, we had to "trust" everyone. We also did the fall and be caught by our team.

Overall the day was a lot of fun, but we still have a lot to do to begin the new year. It was somewhat confusing because nearly everything was in chinese except what was translated to us, which did not happen all the time. It was fun being with the other teachers though. I am certain that the description of the games we played makes very little sense, but it is time for dinner.

Schedules

2008-08-27T16:33:00.004+08:00

I have been working on the schools schedule for the past 3 days. It has been difficult because we have 4 different tracks of students. There are the group of students who are taking all american high school classes, the group taking most american high school classes except math, an 8th grade class and a group of students who need to do some ESL before they begin their classes. I sort of got the schedules done today. I will be teaching a math class (I have no idea what the students need so I have to wait until they arrive to plan), a biology class, a chemistry class and an 8th grade science class. I am worried about the biology and chemistry lab because I am not exactly trained in these subjects. I am excited about the chemistry, but the biology has me worried. Please pray the students don't hurt themselves.

Starfruit Juice

2008-08-26T14:21:00.002+08:00

I love this stuff! They serve it in the college cafe once in a while. For some reason, they don't give you cups... you drink it from a bowl. Weird, but it tastes the same!

Arrival at school

2008-08-25T14:23:00.002+08:00

Originally written on 8/22/08

Well we made it. It was a long trip, but we are finally getting settled. We stayed in Taipei overnight to get our health exams. We had a chance to see a little of the city. It's pretty cool. We went up to the top of Taipei 101 - the tallest building in the world. It was a really nice view. (Which I suppose is pretty obvious.) We were lucky, because the air was really clear that day. Normally I think it's really smoggy and the visibility isn't too great, but we could see for miles. The entire city is surrounded by mountains. It's really beautiful.

Yesterday (Thursday) we took the high speed rail to a city closer to the school. This thing goes up to 190 mph, but it doesn't seem like it. It's really modern and a very smooth ride. It turns a 2-3 hour drive into a 40 minute ride. Then we were picked up by Jeremy, our Principal, and Donald the Business Manager for a 1 1/2 hour ride to the school. We arrived around 5:00 pm. They gave us a tour of the school then took us to our apartment. We are staying in this place for 2 weeks until our permanent place becomes available.

Our apartment is interesting. The shower is the whole bathroom. In other words, it's not partitioned off with a tub, and curtain. The center of the floor just has a drain in it. We have a fridge, and maybe a stove (I need to investigate more when we have time). The beds feel quite similar to what I would imagine sleeping on a box spring would be like - ridiculously hard. We put a comforter under the sheet which made it a bit better. Still not quite as luxurious as our own bed. But I guess we aren't here for luxury

We've been eating some very interesting food. Last night we ate at the college cafe. We had seaweed, and some other sea plant thing. (which wasn't that great), noodles and a few other assorted items. - Very different from what we're used to! This morning we had sandwiches for breakfast along with chocolate covered bread and some sort of blended rice soup. (thick, smooth, and pretty gross). This afternoon our director took us out to a vegetarian restaurant. The food looked pretty odd, but tasted good. Neither of us has gotten sick yet despite the fact that we are eating raw veggies regularly.

I hitched a ride on a scooter today, which was pretty awesome. (No, this was not random hitchhiking, but from a staff member at the other high school on campus - Taiwan Adventist Academy) Heather and I are going to be buying one within a few days as we are a 10 minute drive from campus. Right now, someone has to cart us around, which is a pain for both us and them.

The landscape here is incredibly beautiful. We are surrounded be lush green mountains that usually have clouds hanging around them. It rains pretty much every afternoon during the rainy season, so there is tons of really green vegetation everywhere. It's hot right now. It gets up to 95 or 100 with high humidity, so it feels pretty uncomfortable sometimes. Luckily, we have AC in our bedroom, so it's much better while we're sleeping.

We finally made it!

2008-08-25T14:19:00.001+08:00

Originally written on Wed. Aug 20

We left my parents house at 2:30 pm Monday. We arrived at our hotel in Taipei at 9:00 am Wednesday. (Which is 9:00 pm Tuesday eastern standard time) Needless to say, it was a really long trip. We can't complain though. On the flight from LA to Taipei we had an entire four seat row to ourselves so we could stretch out a bit. We were able to get a bit of sleep on the plane. Here's a few interesting things that happened:

In LAX they made us weigh our carry on bags. 7 kg limit - 17 and 15 kg bags. Sitting on the floor of the airport we did some switching around and checked one of them (our 5th free checked bag!)

Our LAX-TPE plane had a tire change while we were in it. (yes, we were still on the ground) This put us in Taipei 1 1/2 hours late.

We are staying in Taipei tonight to get our health exams tomorrow, then it's off on the high speed rail (190 mph) to our home for the next year, Yuchich Township.

We took the fastest elevator in the world up 90 stories in 30 seconds to the top of Taipei 101 - the tallest building in the world. (508 meters high) Needless to say it was a really nice view!

We had dinner tonight at a coffee shop. Heather had ice cream on a Belgian waffle (the perfect meal for a diabetic!). I had a veggie sub complete with slices of hard boiled egg, peanut butter and mustard. Interesting. It tasted better than it sounds.

We managed to stay up until 8:00 pm tonight. (that's 8:00 am as far as our bodies are concerned) zzzzzzz...

In Taiwan

2008-08-22T15:22:00.004+08:00

We have arrived and we are finally getting over our exhaustion. I am presently sitting in the elementary school using the internet. We would have posted sooner, but we have had a hard time finding internet.

We arrived in Taipei a few hours later because the airplane needed a new tire, but we got all of our baggage and had no trouble getting through customs. Robert gave us two options, either go directly to the school or spend a day in Taipei and get our health screening out of the way. (In Taiwan, to teach, you have to get a health check) We would be able to stay the night in Taipei and get some rest. We stayed the night in Taipei and got to do some site seeing. We went to Taipei 101, the tallest building in the world. We did not do much more than that, because we were absolutely exhausted.

We got our health screening out of the way and then headed to our school. It was really hard because there was just the two of us and we had 3 big bags, 2 small bags, a backpack, a camera bag and a guitar to carry, but we made it.

It is really pretty here. We will try to post pictures soon. I hope everyone is well.

Nearly there

2008-08-18T13:39:00.002+08:00

Ever 5 minutes Phil asks me to "come check the weight on this" to see if we have gone over the 50 pound limit. So far, they have been below. We are nearly there. It is currently 1:39 AM on August 18.

A Truly Magnificent Cake

2008-08-16T11:27:00.003+08:00

Our church family presented us with a true work of art at potluck last week. Custom made by the finest master bakers in the greater Taunton area, this thing is was amazing! We had to recreate it for this photo because it was not only cool to look at, but delicious too! (The original consisted of whole cakes.)

Weddings and other such stuff

2008-08-16T10:54:00.006+08:00

As the last post suggests, we are sitting around thinking only about going to Taiwan. Luckily it is not that case at all. Phil's brother is getting married tomorrow and "we" have been helping them out. Phil is a groomsmen and I am the official fish care taker/cupcake carrier. It has been nice to not have to think about packing and I am looking forward to trying to not kill the fish or massacre the cupcakes. I will be locating pet centers in the area, just in case and they have stacked the cupcakes in ridiculously nice cupcake holders, so I am not worried. We will put up some pictures when we get a chance. Although, here is a picture of the rehearsal dinner, well of Phil and me at the rehearsal dinner.

Last few days

2008-08-16T10:41:00.003+08:00

Phil and I are trying to not think about going to Taiwan. Don't get us wrong, we are excited to go but... Well, Robyn Davidson puts it well in her book, Tracks. She writes,

"There are some moments in life that are like pivots around which your existence turns - small intuitive flashes, when you know you are on the right track. I watched a pale dawn streak the cliffs with Day - glo and realized this was one of them. It was a moment of pure, uncomplicated confidence - and lasted about ten seconds.

"Diggity [her dog] wriggled out of my arms and looked at me, head cocked, piglet ears flying. I experienced that sinking feeling you get when you know you have conned yourself into doing something difficult and there's no going back. It's all very well, to set off on a train with no money telling yourself that you're really quite a brave and adventurous person, and you'll deal capably with things as they happen, but when you actually arrive at the other end with no one to meet and nowhere to go and nothing to sustain you but a lunatic idea that even you have no real faith in, it suddenly appears much more attractive to be at home on the kindly Queensland coast, discussing plans and sipping gins on the verandah with friends, and making unending lists of lists which thrown away, and reading books about camels." (Robyn Davidson, Tracks, Pantheon Books, 1980. p. 19.)

While we do have a better plan than she does, we are at the moment where we are wondering if we have just had a lunatic idea, as she puts it. Well, we will find out shortly!

Texas

2008-08-10T06:55:00.003+08:00

So far, the weather in Texas has reached a 100 ever since we got here. Here is a picture in the shade of my parents thermometer! Enjoy!

Visas

2008-08-08T07:42:00.004+08:00

After 2 trips to Boston, 3 phone calls to the Taiwan economic and cultural center, many phone calls to Taiwan and one intensive week of waiting, we have our 60 day visitor visas! We are officially going!

How to post a comment

2008-08-07T13:17:00.007+08:00

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Texas

2008-08-07T12:46:00.003+08:00

So far I have:

1. Eaten at El Gallo 2 times
2. Eaten at Chuy's 1 time
3. Eaten at The Salt Lick 1 time
4. Done absolutely nothing (many times)
5. Ran at Town Lake (1 time so far)
6. Seen my cousin's adorable children (2 times)
7. Been to one wedding
8. Had to worry about driving through tornadoes (1 time)
9. Realized why I still love Texas

We are having a much needed vacation in Austin, TX. I am happy because we have eaten really good food and we are not worrying about anything on our to do list. (I have no idea how to cross off things on our to do list, but I will be doing that shortly.) Also, we will add pictures from our trip to Texas and our move as soon as Phil finds something to put the pictures from the camera onto to the computer. Also, pray for our visas. They still have not come in yet.

Our stuff in the storage unit

2008-08-01T07:01:00.001+08:00

We spent a lot of time trying to fit all of our belongings in a 5 ft x 5 ft by 10 ft storage unit. Here are some pictures of what it looked like the last time we saw it! Enjoy!

Our To Do List

2008-07-27T04:13:00.001+08:00

We still have to:

1. Get Visitor Visa
2. ~~Move out of apartment~~
3. ~~Clean apartment~~
4. Determine what we need to live with for next year
5. ~~Buy camera for Phil~~
6. ~~Pack for Texas~~
7. ~~Go to Texas~~
8. ~~Buy gifts for weddings we are attending and not attending during August~~
9. Send gifts
10. ~~Copy music cds to computer~~
11. Send info to Adventistvolunteers.org
12. Get prescriptions
13. Get immunizations (Heather 2 more rounds, Phil ~~begin~~)
14. Finish classes (Heather)
15. Organize folders
16. ~~Change address~~

I probably will be adding to this list. I don't think anyone is reading this blog at the moment, but if you are, please pray for #1. It really is the only thing I am worried about at the moment.

Why we are going

2008-07-23T03:25:00.005+08:00

We have always wanted to do mission work. Let me rephrase that. I have always wanted to be a missionary. This past semester has been tough because we did not know where God wanted us next year and had no idea if Phil would even have a full time job. We began passing around the idea of doing mission work and began doing research. We at first felt that we should go to Korea, but when they could not tell us where exactly we would be placed for the full year we decided that God did not want us to be there. (I have diabetes and I needed to know where the local hospital was, etc) We also struck out everywhere we looked on the adventist volunteers site. We had contacted the principal of TAPA in Taipei who could not hire us, but said that he would pass our names on to his director to see if he would be interested in having us for just the year. We did not hear anything, though.

Phil and I gave God a deadline of a Friday to have a definite job so that I could let my job know on Tuesday of the next week if I would be returning there. When we did not hear anything on that Friday, Phil and I decided that God wanted us to stay in Massachusetts where I would continue teaching at my job and he would work part time at AUC. We were disapointed, but knew that God had it in control. On Monday, around 10:00 am, we got a phone call. It was from Taiwan and they were offering us the perfect job. It was everything we were looking for and, more importantly, it was a GUARANTEED job! We praise God for that! We know that it was not on our timeline of that Friday, but it still allowed me to quit my job on Tuesday! This is definitely one of the craziest, awesomest things we have ever done.

Welcome

2008-06-22T05:06:00.001+08:00

It looks as though we are going to Taiwan!