Home

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.

Voting, Pictures and a Science Fair Project

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


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

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


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


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

Oh, Taiwan.

A closeup.

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

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

Parents and Taiwan

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!

First Impressions of Taiwan

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

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.

Odd Juices

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...

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

New Year's Eve

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

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

Cheers!

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



Happy New Year!

Massive Eggplant

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!

Festival in Puli

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

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.

Give Thanks

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).