Adventures..in...Tired...

Oh man! This medicine the doctor-man gave me is making me really tired! Either the medicine or the fact that since I do not have a scooter yet, I am riding a bike everywhere I want to go and I've probably gotten more excercise this week than I have all five years I lived in Alaska. Speaking of biking, what a hairy adventure THAT is! Trying really hard to stick to the farest rightest side of the road as possible but such efforts being thwarted by all the Obstacles that like to park themselves, mostly illegally, in the quite wide scooter/bike section of the road forcing the scooter/bikes to veer out into the Real Road where there is Real Traffic...*whew*. Delivery trucks, cars of all shapes and sizes, carts, busses, and who knows what else all block the side of the road. So far I haven't had anything truly scary happen to me on the road, only something a little embarrassing, such as the time I pulled up to the corner where there was a cop standing there for some Unknown Reason, waved hello to the cop, and then proceeded to pull out when the light turned green and turn left onto my road from the wrong side of the road I had been on. Ok, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense in words, but I made a couple of cars kind of mad because they too were trying to turn left and had to wait for Slow Foreigner Girl with Funny Helmet on Bike to get out of their way. I kept waiting for the cop to blow his whistle, but thankfully I learned later, that cops don't pull over bikes and especially not foreigners on bikes because they expect us to be just that dumb. (that's my own theory actually...).
So anyway, it's an adventure to be sure, but not really very scary although it sounds like it. (don't worry, mom, it's really not as bad as I made it sound. :) To me, biking here is more of a pain (literally, my legs are screaming for mercy), and by the time I get to the school I'm so hot and sweating and feel like I've lost 10 pounds. I can't wait to get a scooter.
On a brighter note, I found Honey Roasted Macademia Nuts at the Costco today. TOTALLY awesome disovery!!
I've completed a week of training at JacksonFive and am now more nervous about teaching than I was..like, ever. It takes me foreeevvveerr to write a lesson plan, and I have to write them a lot and all the time along with bunches of other paperwork and creativity and rules to remember, and all kinds of little tips and tricks and teaching Stuff to remember. Ack! My brain is so tired.
So I don't have any new pictures from this week because mostly I've been training and riding my bike around which takes too much focus on the road to take any pictures on the way.
I will be "helping" lead worship at the English Service at Banner this Sunday..I write it that way, "helping" because I'm playing second keyboard which is not really a needed instrument for the worship team, but more an opportunity to get me used to being on stage and playing with the team. Mostly I have to plunk out some chords at the right time. Kinda cool!
New Things from Taiwan:
1.) Seaweed flavored Pringles. And also Sushi flavor. I haven't tried them...they scare me. But I probably should try them. Where else am I going to get the chance to eat Seaweed flavor Pringles?
2.) Air raid sirens. They did a test the other day, big ol' loud siren. Supposedly this is what they will do if we ever experience an air raid from China. And then all the people are supposed to go inside when they hear the horn. And then the guard at our apartment will keep us updated through this loudspeaker that is installed in ours (and every other) apartment. So I'm thinking, suppose we ever have a Real Air Raid? so we all go inside and sit? It's kind of silly to me, but hey, who am I?
3.) Betel nut juice. This is so gross. They sell these gross Nuts called Betel Nuts at these stands with scantily clad girls (anyone who does any research at all on Taiwan will read about these) and (mostly guys) but some old women chew these nuts and spit on the sidewalk. Supposedly they have a kind of drugging effect. But the spit leaves read splotches all over the roads and sidewalks. I didn't really notice those until I started riding my bike. Ew.
4.) Swim caps. These are required at all the swimming pools, to prevent Clogging of Drains. Next week all the summer kiddos at Jackson5 are going on a swimming field trip, of which I am a supposed to participate so I purchased a groovy black swim cap. I don't think I have ever worn a nerdlier piece of headgear. And I ask the question overheard by my roomate Katie at her university one day on the subject of swim caps: "Do you have to wear them if you're bald?" not relevant for me, but still curious.
5.) Tea - really not as bad as I once thought it was!
6.) Eating a chicken drumstick with chopsticks is tricky business yet somehow all the Taiwanese do it so easily!
7.) Taiwanese friendliness - a parent of one of the students at Jackson 5 treated Jackson and I to free lunch at her sandwich shop because I was the new teacher. :) A girl at the Giant bicycle shop practiced her English with me and gave me all extra tune-ups with a big smile. Etc. People here are so nice.
8.) And the kid at Jackson5 who, when I was chasing him on the kiddie jungle gym thing says, "Oh! this one new teacher so fun!" Things like that make my day. (and I did not correct his sentence. :)

Yah, so that's my week in a nutshell. Hopefully once I am used to biking and am off this medicine and can drink caffeine again I'll be more awake. Thanks again for all your continued prayers, and if you could remember safety on roads too, since as Jackson put it the other day: "Every foreigner I know has at one point or another hit an opening car door on their bike as they passed a parked car, so watch the parked cars in the bike lane." WHA! There are SO MANY parked cars in the bike lane! Yeah, so pray for safety. I do wear my helmet even though no Taiwanese bike riders do and I look even nerdlier than the usual "foreigner nerdy" in it. Better safe than sorry.

Hopefully by my next post I will have some new pictures for you guys. Sorry. :)

Adventures in Heathcare

So today was my first day of training at JacksonFive. I was going to do another Adventure and try my hand (or feet) at biking to the school, but the bike I was going to use is an older one left here by a previous roommate and the tires are leakyish I think because when I sit on the bike they go Flat. So I abandoned that idea and took a Taxi. So basically we went through some paperwork and Jackson explained a few of the basics of lesson planning, etc. So I was coughing my (by now usual) cough and sniffing my (by now usual) sniff throughout the morning, so Jackson says, I'm taking you to the doctor. Oh, I'm getting better, I sniffed. I'm taking you to the doctor, he says. Oh, I say.
So we go to the doctor. A tiny teeny little clinic in the middle of Somewhere I would never be able to find again, apparently a nose & throat specialist. The clinic smells really disinfected-ish and is covered with colorful posters that of course I do not understand because they are all in Chinese. Jackson helps me "fill out" a form and then I see the doctor (very surprised, nobody makes appointments here, most of the clinics are walk in and with very short waits - apparently there are lots of well-trained doctors in Taiwan and there are clinics everywhere all vying for clients so this is another reason why healthcare is so much cheaper here). So the doctor pokes a Thing in my nose, and another flatter Thing in my mouth and goes mmm, aaahh, and asks a couple of questions about my cough and then declares, "Sinusitis. Do you know what that is?" "Some kind of itis, er, I mean infection?" says I, feeling less and less smart as this adventure progresses. Especially since every time I get poked Dr. Lin laughs at me. I think more at the face I'm making, but still. Dr. Lin goes on to describe the Ickiness that is Living in my Throat and then he squirts some airy Stuff in my nose and declares I must take medicine. So after an interesting exchange with Jackson translating we determine the Medicine he wants to give me will not interact with the Medicine I am already taking. Then I get my medicine. It's colorful. They tell me I must not drink caffeine with the medicine. I make a face. They laugh. Then I pay. Then we leave.
This was my First Adventure in Healthcare. Oh wait, that's not true. I got my healthcheck for my ARC a couple of weeks ago. But that was more different. That was your basic chest x-ray and blood test at a modern looking hospital. Anyway, tomorrow I will try the Adventure in Biking again, I think with a borrowed bike. Until then, zai jian!

Adventures in Youth Camp

375 kids plus all the staff makes for a lot of people in this meeting room!

Some new friends: Amanda, one of my roomates to my right; Paul, a Taiwanese friend in the cell group I've been going to; Ruby, a university student at BIOLA, home for the summer; and a couple of camp kids to our far right and left.

Drama workshop kids - Taiwanese people LOVE cameras and posing for pictures. The peace sign is very popular, I'm not sure why.

This is me and Annie, my co-leader for the workshop. She also attends the English cell group I've been going to. She's super sweet and a lot of fun.

Group photo with "teacher Sharon" :)

Playing "Have you ever" as a time-filler at the end of class on Friday.

Well...I've been away for a few days at the Banner church Youth Camp. I posted a bunch of these pics on my Facebook too but for those of you that don't have Facebook here they are again. This has been a great week and would have been greater except that I've had a cold (again) and a cough (again) all week which was no fun but otherwise had a great time. I think maybe since Alaska had beautiful fresh air and Taiwan has dusty polluted air and also since I'm constantly in really hot heat and then really dry cold (inside airconditioning) that my lungs and throat are trying to make the adjustment. I read about this sort of thing before I came but somehow pictured myself as Mighty Sharon who would never get sick from dusty pollution because I am Immune to All Bad Things Happening. (Hah!) This is the problem of being an optomist. But anyway I'm getting better and as they say, it could be much worse. :)

So we left for...good grief, I don't even remember where the youth camp was...Daya? I think..still in Taichung, but about a half-hour scooter drive from our apartment. We stayed at an old American Air Force base, so our housing was kind of oldish looking (furnishing-wise) but really nice and spacious, and the meeting hall was nicely laid out and there was a pool which I intending to swim in but never did. The camp was a Bilingual youth camp (the bilingual aspect drew a lot of students looking to practice English), and the Bilingual part was the responsibility of the English zone from Banner church which is led by my roommate Amanda. There were technically only four "legal" foreigners at camp (Amanda, me, and our couple friends Mandy and Jacob) and 400 kids (well, 375), so..but we had several other "foreigners" who were actually Taiwanese but had been to university in the States or for whatever reason spoke English so it was really nice to have kind of a "week away" to get to know everybody.

I heard about 50% (approximately) of the youth were Christians, and most of the other 50% had never been to a church camp and some had no idea what Christianity was about. The youth from Banner church were entirely responsible for the camp and did an EXCELLENT job with the activities and the worship and the whole organization of everything. I was so impressed that these young kids were so passionate about reaching their peers for Christ and devoted so much time and planning into this camp. The English zone was responsible for a chunk of time one day to do "games" with the kids so we had planned a big outside game for them, but we had a (small) typhoon so it rained cats and dogs all day that day. But it started raining like 20 minutes before the game time was supposed to begin. So we had to be really spontaneous about coming up with indoor games to entertain these 400 kids. The Lord really helped us and we very quickly came up with a list of games that we executed with no problems and the kids all looked like they had a GREAT time. We played an old favorite that I remembered from our youth group at ACS (way back in the day), where you have two teams and number them off and then put a ball or rag or something in the middle and call a number and both numbers from each team have to try to grab the object and bring it back to their side. We had to do this with four teams since we had SO MANY kids and we used a big rubber game ball and it was a good time. We also did some relay races and stuff.

Then that night was "international night" so the foreigners did a small drama, a couple of "games" with volunteers from the audience, a testimony from Jacob, and worship songs in English.

The next day the kids took part in what they called a "Grand Tour". They were divided into groups of about 20 kids each and each kid was given about 30 NT (less than $1 US) per person which they had to use to get to specific checkpoints in Taichung AND find a way to eat lunch. This really challenged their creativity. They were sent out with no cell phones (exept the leader emergency only phone) and no other money except the 30 NT. Some of the groups managed to catch rides with delivery trucks; one group even got some police cars to take them to their destinations! The groups washed windows in restaraunts, helped store owners advertise on the sidewalk, weeded a garden at an elementary school, sang songs for the old folks at a nursing home, prayed for people who lived next to a temple, and in return they got fed. One group prayed for the dumpling shop owner who gave them all they could eat dumplings in exchange for the window washing and he cried because nobody had ever done that for him before. It was so exciting to hear their stories and the kids were so excited because most of them were full-time students and studied ALL the time and had never done anything like that before.

The rest of the camp was more games, team time, etc. Thursday and Friday were workshop days and I was responsible for the Drama Workshop. I was a little apprehensive about this because I wasn't really an expert at Drama or anything (except for a few Sunday School skits), and I hadn't really worked with youth before. I had about 30 kids in my class, so I prepared a couple of icebreakers, and then printed out three stories for them: The good Samaritan; Shadrach Meshach and Abednego in the fiery furnace; and the Prodigal Son. I divided them into three groups of 10 and gave each a story to prepare a short skit. I told them, be creative! you can modernize it or whatever you wish, but stick to the theme of the story. I went over the stories with each team to make sure they understood the main themes of each story. Then I let them be creative. I was a little apprehensive that maybe their English skills weren't enough that they understood, or if they would be bored...but they FAR exceeded my expectations! These kids were SO creative and their teamwork was absolutely outstanding!

They went to work right away assigning themselves each a team leader who assigned characters, they changed the stories a little bit but stuck to the main messages.. like the team who did the Good Samaritan modernized the story to use characters from Taiwan politics, politicians who hated each other but one helped the other out when he was robbed on the street and beaten and left for dead. The team who did Shadrach Meshach and Abednego I was most worried that they woudldn't understand because it was a pretty long story (I printed in English) but they totally did like a "Veggie Tales" take on it (kind of). Instead of an golden idol they created a "Banana King" who had a "Banana Idol" built and required his banana kingdom to bow down and worship it. But three guys wouldn't worship it and said "Our God is the true God and he created everything, including your bananas! And bananas are meant for eating, not worshipping!" and they started eating bananas and the banana kingdom people who were bowing to Banana Statue were offended and the Banana King threw the three into the fire but the true God rescued them. It was SO much fun to watch them perform and to see that they excersized creativity but completely understood the main message of the story, espescially since most of the kids were not Christians and this was the first time they had ever heard these stories from the Bible. I was so thankful that my workshops went well especially since I was kind of sick last week.

The other workshops went well too, and the last night of camp the message was more of a direct gospel message and although I didn't hear how many kids gave their lives to Christ, many kids went to the front for prayer. So thanks everybody for your prayers and continue praying that there were some seeds planted this week at camp and that the kids who were not saved would be interested in learning more about who Jesus is and what Christianity is all about. Banner church is putting on a big special youth service tonight so hopefully many of the youth from camp will attend that and continue attending youth services on Saturday nights.

So this is a really long post, hopefully didn't bore any of you. :) I start training at Jackson5 next week so I anticipate the business of my schedule picking up quite a bit. I will try to update the blog at least once a week.

Now I am going to go clean my room because it is a pig sty. :)

Adventure #....47? I lost count...

I went to the salon this afternoon! My roomate Katie Jo and I decided we were going to get thermal reconditionings, also known as the Japanese straightening treatment. We both have kind of frizzy wavy hair (if air dried naturally) and she had had it done before and liked the results. So off we go. We checked out a couple of salons before settling on the one we got our treatments at (the name of which of course I do not remember). The only differences I noted between the Asian salon and American salons are:
1.) The intensity of which they scrub your head when you get shampooed. Whoa! This girl dug her fingers into my scalp as if her life depended on it. Apparently this is a "scalp massage". But it wasn't too bad...
2.) One of the salon girls offered to go get us tea drinks from the tea stand next door. It was so nice to have a yogurt green tea to drink while waiting for the chemicals to do their chemically magic.
3.) Also they offer you a free cup of tea when you get there, which I didn't try. I only like tea that doesn't really taste like tea. The yogurt green tea tastes only subtely like green tea. Otherwise it is like yogurty fruity-ish icy goodness.
Otherwise it was much like American salons, only this one had less "stuff" cluttering the salon - like not very many bottles or posters. They even gave us a free Matrix product with our treatments. I got some kind of de-frizzing serum which is interesting since I just spent 2 1/2 hours getting my hair chemically permanently de-frizzed.
AND the best part is compared to the upwards of $300 that this same treatment costs in the US, this cost just about $60 in total. Thankfully Katie Jo speaks good Chinese and explained what we wanted done and what we DIDN'T want done (apparently they always try to "thin" western women's hair here because they think it is too thick) (we told them "no thinning" and they didn't).
So far since it was just done, my hair is super duper Flat and shiny. My bangs keep falling in my eyes. I'm not supposed to wash it for 24-48 hours (imperative, they say, to keep it bone dry to allow it to finish "setting"). But I'm pleased. It will tremendously cut down the amount of time I spend blow drying and flattening my hair in an attempt to ward off frizz in the mornings.
All in all for someone with thick wavy hair that is prone to frizz, or if you have to spend loads of time blow drying and flat ironing to look somewhat ok, this is the treatment for you. But do it in Asia. :)
I wll post pictures sometime soon. But for now I am having terrible allergies to the Dust, I think, with the sneezy itchy congested wateriness so I don't feel like posting pictures.
Until next time, zai jian!

Pandas, Indian Food and the Stationery Store

This is my boss and his family: wife Angel, daughters Chloe and Faith (who is so not looking at my camera)..

This is the Panda we went all the way to Taipei to see! It did this the entire time. I was a little dissapointed but at least I can say I've seen a Real Live Panda.

This is very Cool to me (haha, literally..) it was SO HOT at the Zoo and they had these Things above us that sprayed fine mists of water (some of the businesses in town do this too) to cool things down.

This is me with one of my roomates, Katie Jo on the left and Ching on the right (Ching is a friend from Maylasia)

So yesterday: The Taipei Zoo. First of all, let me start by saying, that my Boss, Jackson, wanted me to meet him at house at 8 am yesterday morning to go to the Zoo. He wanted me to walk there, "for adventure" he says. He lives at 151 Dadun Road, he says. Half an hour walk, he says. Easy, he says. Okay..so I get on Google maps and find 151 Dadun Road, and think, easy.. okay. So I leave my house at 7 am (in case I get "lost")..and promptly forget what Google maps said. So I figure, I kind of know that Dadun runs parallel to Wenxin Road, and I knew where Wenxin Road was in relation to where I was, so I figure, if I walk around a little in that general area I would eventually hit Dadun. So, I walk around a little (like, half an hour), Not Finding Dadun Road, and then I FOUND IT! and I looked at the number on the closest building. 851 it says. Hunh, I say. Jackson lives at 151. You do the math. 45 minutes and a lot of sweat later, I find 151 Dadun Road. I could tell it was going to be a great morning.

So we get on the bus and go to the Bullet Train station. The Bullet Train rocks. Taipei is about a three hour regular bus ride from Taichung. The Bullet Train it is 50 minutes (but expensive..) so I got to see the country between Taichung and Taipei...really fast. But I was also entertaining Jackson's two kids, Chloe and Faith, during the majority of the time so I really didn't get to see the countryside much at all. They were really cute though. We played games with my little calculator and drew pictures of Pandas (mine looked like of like..cows).

So we get to Taipei and we ride the MRT to the Zoo. So Hot. So So So So SO HOT. and I wore JEANS. Oh bad bad Sharon. So Hot. So we go find the Pandas and we get a Ticket that says we are Allowed to see the Pandas betweent 12:50 and 12:59 AM. This is our Time. We were lucky, Jackson says. If we had come on a Saturday, we would have gotten 9 seconds, he says. So at 12:50 we go to see the Pandas. They were excited to see us too. I could tell. So excited that they slept the whole 9 minutes. *disappointment* but we spent lots of time in the Panda Gift Shop where I saw many Fake Pandas.

Then we went on to see a whole bunch of North American animals (hunh!) like beavers, various reptiles, wolves, and other Things. And the Koalas. oh and some Penguins. It was fun, but oh so Hot.

So Today I made a Find: The Stationary Store!! close to my house and oh so interesting! Asians make such Cute Things! Cute little note cards, papers, pens, note books..I will be spending Lots of Time in there in the coming months.

Also tonight we went out for Indian Food, and it was SO GOOD! OH wow I couldn't believe how good the food was. We ordered coconut beef, some kind of mutton thing, some kind of chicken thing, and some kind of indian cheese thing. It made up for getting "lost" yesterday. :)

New Things:

1.) Squat toilets still exist and are kind of scary. Also in the western toilet stalls there are signs (at least there are in Taipei) saying things like "Do not stand on the toilet" and "Do not crouch to prevent accident" in case someone mixes up a Western toilet for the old-style squats.

2.) There is a Body Shop (a real one!) in Taichung, not far from my house. Oh happy discovery...

3.) Chinese people can cook REALLY GOOD Indian Food.

Well, my internet is being spoofy on me again..at first I thought maybe the internet at the library was iffy..then I thought it was Gib and Retha's internet acting up...THEN I thought the internet at Rhonda's house where I was housesitting was doing funny Things...but NOW it's doing it AGAIN and I know it's not the internet's problem..it's MY computer.:( Just in the middle of doing things online it will suddenly decide it can't contact the server. No reason! It does it off and on with NO reason. So now it's tell me it can't save my Blog because they the computer can't contact Blogger.com. So irritated. So I will save this in Word and post another time when it IS working. SO irritated. but there is an Acer repair shop not far away. Acers are made in Taiwan. Go figure. :)

Until next time..

It must be 8 am, I hear "Fur Elise"

The view from one side of the balcony.

OK..this stand in the day market was so gruesome..this dude cut chicken necks, dropped them in this vat, feathered, and gutted them right there. Ew! but so interesting..

The courtyard of our apartment complex. It's really pretty but this day was overcast.

Me and a giant guitar playing kiwi! This was a display outside a new shopping mall. SO FUNNY! It was even fuzzy like a kiwi.

The view from the other side of the balcony.

This is our recycling system. :)

This is our living room. Cute, isn't it?

Flat Sharon says goodbye to her Trusty Blue Escort...

So, life goes on! I've officially lived in Taiwan for one week and all is well. I've finally gotten over that awful cold so I am a lot more optomistic about Taiwan now. :) I spent a lot of time at Banner church last week due to a three-day conference that a professor from Regent University spoke at - a Dr. Bekker who spoke on Finding Intimacy with God: Biblical Discipline of Devotion and Transformation. It was very good and very well attended. Banner church is a rather large church and so they are also a "cell group" church so that each member can plug in somewhere and get to know the other church members (which is hard to do when the church is so large). I attended also the youth service on Saturday night, which was also VERY well attended and not just with youth - the worship was slightly louder but otherwise it was very similar to the Sunday morning service. It wasn't like the "youth group" gatherings that we have in the States where they play games the majority of the time. Sunday morning service was also good and Dr. Bekker spoke again as a guest speaker. Sunday evening I attended the English service which was much smaller in attendence but it was nice to finally sing songs in English. :) After that service I checked out a cell group that my roommate Amanda leads at our apartment and that was a great time. I got to meet some of the other young people in the church, most of which spoke English fairly well. Cell group meetings are like small Bible studies and the topic of discussion is generally the sermon or topic that was discussed in the Sunday morning or evening services. It was very good. I think I will check out another English cell group this coming Sunday and decide which one to attend regularly. I have to attend one on a weekend since once I start working I will not have weekday evenings free.

When I WASN'T at Banner church, here's what I did: 1.) I ate out a LOT last week - Grace, the ITPS lady who came with me (who is from Taiwan), was determined that I should try all the local Taiwanese fare in my first week! :) Or so it seemed. I tried...oh I don't recall the names of everything... a lot of noodle dishes, similar to our Top Ramen only way better; we had this sauteed Cabbage stuff that was out of this world good oooh I could eat it all day; seaweed stir fry stuff, all kinds of chicken dishes...most of it was pretty good, but by last Friday I was CRAVING pizza! I felt kind of guilty for wanting American food so badly so soon, but I subtely ordered a spaghetti dish at dinner that night and it was SO good. :) Grace gave me a "look" like "why you order American food at a Chinese restaraunt" kind of look, and made me try some of her seafood soupy thing which included a large Shrimp that was not deheaded or deshelled and still had its eyeballs on it. Anyway, the last few nights we have been cooking at home which has been really nice. They don't have Mexican restaraunts here (of course) so we cook Mexican at home (a lot, I'm discovering). I found out you can buy Mexican seasonings like chili powder and taco seasoning at the Costco (expensive but at least it's available). yay!

I have three roommates but Stephanie is in Canada right now so I haven't met her yet. Amanda is from New Zealand and she works part-time at a cram school (English school) and devotes the majority of her time to Banner church ministries. She is very involved with the English ministries. Katie Jo is from Colorado and is very close in age to me - about three months older - and she is here to study Chinese. She attends classes at the local University and also works part-time at a cram school. I'm so grateful for friendly fun roomates. So far I think we get along well and they both have fairly busy schedules so are in and out a lot. I will be fairly busy as well once I start teaching in August. We also have had a girl named Ching who is Amanda's friend from Maylasia staying at our house and she just found a job at an English school as well. She won't be living here but has been staying here over the past week. So I'm discovering that our apartment is kind of a social hub where cell groups, friends, etc. meet and hang out. It's kind of a welcome change to my hermit life that I had in Alaska. :)

Taiwan is pretty close to what I expected it to be! Busy & noisy, hot & humid, but so far I'm loving it! I LOVE the fact that I can walk out of my apartment and there is a coffee shop right next door, and I'm within walking distance of all kinds of cute little shops and cool places. Yesterday I walked to the Carrefour store, about a 5-7 minute walk down a really pretty cool tree-lined street. The Carrefour is like...a brighter, cleaner, cuter Asian Fred Meyers of sorts. It's a department store but with restaraunts inside too. Some of the prices are cheaper than similar items in the States and some are the same or higher. I guess it depends on where they have to import it from. There's also a supermarket about two minute walk down the same street from the house. The church is about a 15-20 minute walk. My school is further and I don't know how to get there yet. I've been there to do my paperwork for the ARC (Alien Resident Card) but I took a taxi so I don't know how to go on my own. I tried scooter riding in the basement the other day - WAY harder than I thought it would be! I think until I get used to it I'll be biking or taking a taxi. Or walking. :)

I'm REALLY glad I brought several knee-length skorts. It's so hot and the locals don't really wear shorts a lot, but jeans are WAY too hot. I don't really have pants that aren't jeans (or black) so I'm ending up wearing the skirts. The local girls wear a lot of skirts so I fit right in.

Let's see...what else happened over the last week....this is what happens when you have a blog that you don't update for a while then you forget all the cool things that happened. :) Anyway, everything is going fine and I finally am starting to feel comfortable here like I will be able to learn everything and figure out my way around. And the taxi station is right around the corner if I need to in a pinch have someone ELSE figure out where something is. :)

Here are three New Things I have learned over the past week about Taiwan:

1.) 8 am in the morning - Garbage Pickup - but oh no, not quite and subtle - they announce the truck's presence very loudly with a tinny version of "Fur Elise"! It's still kind of amusing to me but I anticipate it won't be amusing much longer.

2.) When you meet a new Taiwanese person, they often ask you how long you are going to be in Taiwan. At first I thought this was just a standard "making conversation" kind of question, but was later informed by my roommate that they ask this on purpose to discover how much effort they are going to put into a friendship with you! Like if you say, "oh I'm here on a year's contract", then the Taiwanese person will assume you are only going to be here a year, why put any effort into being your friend? On the other hand, if you indicate you might be here a long time or indefinitely, then they will be much more open to befriending you. So I've learned to reply "I'm here until God sends me elsewhere!" or "At least a couple of years, but maybe longer" and then the Taiwanese people are very friendly to me. :)

3.) Avoid the day market - although the fruits and vegetables are much fresher and generally cheaper, they also have little stalls where they keep live chickens and then slaughter them, boil them, de-feather them, gut them, and quarter them right there next to the vegetables. It disturbs me and I do not think I will be spending lots of time at the day market.

4.) Scooters are heavy a lot harder to drive than they look. Oh, that's four new things. oops.

Well tomorrow I am going to spend the day in Taipei at the Zoo with my boss and his family. This should be an interesting day as I am still a little bit conserved around my new boss but his wife is very sweet and they have two cute little girls. His wife Angel took me to the hospital on Friday to get my health check done for my ARC so I got to spend some time with her and she is very sweet.

Here are some prayer requests if you want to know how to pray for me; they are much the same I think as last time I posted prayer requests:

1.) Continue to pray for the youth camp next week. The youth are very excited about this and have put a lot of effort into the planning and preparation.

2.) Continue to pray for good memory for me! as I am still finding my way around and trying to pick up some basic Chinese.

3.) Pray about where the Lord wants me to serve in Banner church. There are many opportunities to plug in but finding one that will fit with my school schedule is the key.

4.) Pray they I will develop good lasting relationships with some of the local Taiwanese people. They are very friendly and open to building relationships.

Ok! Well this is a long post so I'll go for now. I am looking into getting a new camera soon since mine is having very many problems (which is why I don't have a whole lot of pictures - it only works about half the time), so hopefully I'll have lots more pictures soon. :)

Until next time! Zai Jian!