We've been singing these songs for months. The Dolphins take a nap time from 1:00 - 1:50, and class with me is supposed to start at 2:00. However, today they woke up late, like at 2:00. So I had asked our head teacher to come film them singing around 2:00 because they're so cute and they like to be on Youtube. They weren't quite as normally enthusiastic as they usually are since they had literally just woken up, but they did pretty well. And they're cute!
Here they are doing 'Lord I Lift Your Name on High':
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13eJ13RJicg
and here is 'Only a Boy Named David'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVTJz3dvTqY
Friday, June 17, 2011
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Outback comes to town!
Yes! Indeed! A cause for joyful celebration and mournful lamenting that I'm on such a strict budget that I can only afford one steak dinner per year! Outback steakhouse has come to town! and not just to town, but right across the street from my house!!!
Prior to this, the closest Outback was in Taipei, a three hour drive to the north. *sigh*... and now, I know exactly what I want for my birthday. :)
I also went grocery shopping tonight, which doesn't sound like fun, but considering I almost never go grocery shopping, it was fun. I usually just get something ready made like noodles or a dinner box at the cheap-o MSG laden buffet down the street. Or frozen food from 7-11 which is even less healthy than the cheap-o MSG laden dinner boxes.
But I had these gift certificates for a fancy department store left from Christmas from my boss, and I remembered that there is also a fancy supermarket in the basement of this fancy department store. So I went to check it out. It was, indeed, quite fancy. And expensive. But they had such Things!! Things like baked beans in tomato sauce, of the perfect variety for Toast!! I have not seen baked beans in Taiwan until this. I bought all they had, which was only two cans.
I will be living on sandwiches and pasta and beans, but I'm stocked up! And the best part, I used my gift certificates and thus extended the life of my budget for this month. O happy day..
I also won $200 NT in the Taiwan receipt lottery this month (which is the equivalent of...like $6 USD or so..). But it's better than nothing!
That's really all I had to report. And now I'm going to go make beans on Toast. YAH!! :)
Prior to this, the closest Outback was in Taipei, a three hour drive to the north. *sigh*... and now, I know exactly what I want for my birthday. :)
I also went grocery shopping tonight, which doesn't sound like fun, but considering I almost never go grocery shopping, it was fun. I usually just get something ready made like noodles or a dinner box at the cheap-o MSG laden buffet down the street. Or frozen food from 7-11 which is even less healthy than the cheap-o MSG laden dinner boxes.
But I had these gift certificates for a fancy department store left from Christmas from my boss, and I remembered that there is also a fancy supermarket in the basement of this fancy department store. So I went to check it out. It was, indeed, quite fancy. And expensive. But they had such Things!! Things like baked beans in tomato sauce, of the perfect variety for Toast!! I have not seen baked beans in Taiwan until this. I bought all they had, which was only two cans.
I will be living on sandwiches and pasta and beans, but I'm stocked up! And the best part, I used my gift certificates and thus extended the life of my budget for this month. O happy day..
I also won $200 NT in the Taiwan receipt lottery this month (which is the equivalent of...like $6 USD or so..). But it's better than nothing!
That's really all I had to report. And now I'm going to go make beans on Toast. YAH!! :)
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Of taxes and whatnot
I filed my taxes this evening, like the good American citizen that I am. I have an automatic 60 day extension because I work abroad. I'd just like to say, that my second year living in Taiwan and filing taxes in the US was immensely easier than the first year. While my co-workers and roomates were struggling through their tax forms and W-2s and waiting out their 300-some odd day physical presence in Taiwan test to exempt their foreign income for the past month, I waited until the last day before it had to be postmarked and then merrily finished clicking my way through Turbo Tax and had my forms all printed out and complete within half and hour. Wheee...
There are a few advantages to not being a newbie, after all.
I also finished preparing a package to send to my brother and his fiance Megan. Tomorrow I get to have a fun post office adventure. I say it like this, because the last time I had to go to the post office was to Fed Ex my Very Important Scholarship application, and the man behind the counter didn't know what "USA" stood for on my envelope. After a lot of phone calls and confused looks, he finally showed me and pointed and shrugged so I told him in Chinese. And then he was like "OOOHHH I know." He just didn't know the English letters. Which is weird, because everybody else does. I think if you are hired to work at the post office, you ought to know what "USA" stands for. So this time, just to be sure, I wrote it in Chinese characters right under the address to make sure it at least went to the right country. The time before that incident, I wanted to mail something to Suriname, South America. And I was with a Taiwanese friend, which was fortunate because he caught it right before in went into the bin. And they had stickered it to "South Africa". Augh!
A few weeks ago we had a day off from work for Dragon Boat Festival, so my roomates and I went to check out this tiny alley not too far away, where a man had decided to make his little neighborhood beautiful so he painted all the walls of the houses, the walls of the alley, and the street. It was colorful to say the least:
He had literally painted every inch of wall and street. This is actually somebody's house wall. And there were tourists everywhere. I would be a little creepied out if so many people were pointed cameras at my wall. We could actually see people inside through the windows, watching Tv. Weird.
My roomates and I pose for a picture, while a friendly English speaking dude takes our photo. This place is called "Colorful Alley" in English, and for good reason.
My friends have a little one year old girl. They bought this I suppose to educate her in such things as nature, deer, and forest life. Little did they know that instead of learning about mild sweet little Bambi the baby deer, she would see BAMB! Bambi's wild rock n' roll cousin.
As my friend Jacob, her father, said when I asked him if I could take a photo of his movie BAMB!
"Where'd "i" go?"
You would otherwise never be able to tell this isn't an authentic Disney copy of Bambi.
As I was walking home, actually from my friend's house where I took the awesome photo of BAMB! the movie,
I passed the corner 7-11 and this is what I saw.
I was only able to snap this photo before his owner came out.
Dogs may rule scooters on the street, but my cat sure rules at my house.
He somehow heard the song "The BIBLE, yes that's the book for me, I stand alone on the Word of God, the BIBLE!"
However, being too lazy to actually stand anywhere, he decided to adapt it to "I sit alone on the Word of God....and you'd better not get anywhere near it either or I'll bite you!! When I say alone, I mean it."
I'm sure this is what he would say if he could.
Anyway, that's all! It's almost July, which means.. lots of time on Sharon's hands! yay. So hopefully more blog posts to come.
There are a few advantages to not being a newbie, after all.
I also finished preparing a package to send to my brother and his fiance Megan. Tomorrow I get to have a fun post office adventure. I say it like this, because the last time I had to go to the post office was to Fed Ex my Very Important Scholarship application, and the man behind the counter didn't know what "USA" stood for on my envelope. After a lot of phone calls and confused looks, he finally showed me and pointed and shrugged so I told him in Chinese. And then he was like "OOOHHH I know." He just didn't know the English letters. Which is weird, because everybody else does. I think if you are hired to work at the post office, you ought to know what "USA" stands for. So this time, just to be sure, I wrote it in Chinese characters right under the address to make sure it at least went to the right country. The time before that incident, I wanted to mail something to Suriname, South America. And I was with a Taiwanese friend, which was fortunate because he caught it right before in went into the bin. And they had stickered it to "South Africa". Augh!
A few weeks ago we had a day off from work for Dragon Boat Festival, so my roomates and I went to check out this tiny alley not too far away, where a man had decided to make his little neighborhood beautiful so he painted all the walls of the houses, the walls of the alley, and the street. It was colorful to say the least:
He had literally painted every inch of wall and street. This is actually somebody's house wall. And there were tourists everywhere. I would be a little creepied out if so many people were pointed cameras at my wall. We could actually see people inside through the windows, watching Tv. Weird.
My roomates and I pose for a picture, while a friendly English speaking dude takes our photo. This place is called "Colorful Alley" in English, and for good reason.
My friends have a little one year old girl. They bought this I suppose to educate her in such things as nature, deer, and forest life. Little did they know that instead of learning about mild sweet little Bambi the baby deer, she would see BAMB! Bambi's wild rock n' roll cousin.As my friend Jacob, her father, said when I asked him if I could take a photo of his movie BAMB!
"Where'd "i" go?"
You would otherwise never be able to tell this isn't an authentic Disney copy of Bambi.
As I was walking home, actually from my friend's house where I took the awesome photo of BAMB! the movie,I passed the corner 7-11 and this is what I saw.
I was only able to snap this photo before his owner came out.
Dogs may rule scooters on the street, but my cat sure rules at my house.
He somehow heard the song "The BIBLE, yes that's the book for me, I stand alone on the Word of God, the BIBLE!"
However, being too lazy to actually stand anywhere, he decided to adapt it to "I sit alone on the Word of God....and you'd better not get anywhere near it either or I'll bite you!! When I say alone, I mean it."
I'm sure this is what he would say if he could.
Anyway, that's all! It's almost July, which means.. lots of time on Sharon's hands! yay. So hopefully more blog posts to come.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Summertime is here again..!
Wow! It's so hard for me to believe I've been living in Taiwan for almost two years! Two years ago at this time, I had moved out of my cute little apartment with the balcony overlooking the peaceful lake, and was living with friends, packing and preparing to say goodbye to everything and everyone familiar and head out into the unknown.
Not quite so unknown anymore, now after two years... but...there are still tons of new things left to discover here in Taiwan. :)
These past couple of years have gone by so fast. When I sit and think about it, I really have come through a lot of things. This isn't going to be a blog post full of reflections on the past, but it helps me sometimes to look through my notebooks and stuff and read all the things I wrote from last year and the year before. It helps me to see how God is changing me to be more like Him.
Well, I feel terrible that I've been so bad at bloggering lately.. oops. :) This weekend is a three-day weekend due to Dragon Boat Festival (um... don't ask me the history behind this holiday, because I don't know)(but I do know people eat this sticky rice leaf wrapped things that are pretty good). So I'm taking advantage of this extra time to post a blog. yay.
So, I'm starting to enter into that phase of life again where big things are changing and it makes me feel nervous, but really excited at the same time. The biggest change soon, is that I won't be working anymore! Um.. well, at least not like I have been working since I got here. I have been working at JacksonFive full time, that is, I'm at the school about 35-40 hours a week, with the same students day in and day out, etc. The end of our school year is June 30th. I signed a contract with Jackson for the following school year to take one evening class on Monday and Thursday nights, and also be the on-call substitute. This class probably won't start until October, however, which means my income won't start until the next month, November. eek! Teaching evening classes is much different, as you don't see the students as often and I won't be teaching theme classes (all the fun sciencey and geography stuff). I've been really treasuring all the time I get to spend with my kiddoes in the classroom these last few weeks I'm with them.
I will be taking full-time Chinese classes at a local university, Feng Chia Language Center, in the mornings from 8am - 12noon, at least for the first couple of semesters. This is sooo exciting to me, as learning Chinese is something I've felt inside is a very important thing I need to do. I've been saving and trying my little best to budget well, as I did not get the scholarship I applied for. I will be able to make ends meet with my night class and some tutoring, but it will still take a lot of discipline on my part and I anticipate eating a lot of cheap noodles in the future. :) This is a current prayer concern of mine, that the money would be sufficient to support me through the four months I will have no income, and pay for school as well.
Unfortunately, this financial tightness due to my returning to school has also meant no trips back to America in the near future. Tickets are soo expensive. This also unfortunately means I will have to miss my brother David's wedding in July. I know my family understands, and I still have them and my friends praying for a last-minute provision like we've seen God come through so many times before. However, I'm still preparing my heart for the disappointment that I will not be able to go.
Well, summer is officially here. This means one thing - - it's hot. Hot hot hot hot hot hot hot. Mr. Sun is showing his shiny face here quite frequently now, making me worry and fret about having my skin exposed and risking new spots. Ever since the Terrible Sunburn Incident of 2010, I have been very wary of exposing skin to the sun. I slather on sunscreen and even then many times I will still wear a hoodie when I'm on my scooter. I daily face this decision: would I rather be hot for ten minutes on my way to work wearing a hoodie, or, would I rather risk getting sunburt arms and skin cancer? *sigh*
Other than school coming to an end and the hotness of summer, everything else is going fairly well. I've been attending some classes at the church for training and just deepening understanding of the church and my relationship with God. The church is sending out a lot of missions teams to various places around Asia this summer, and I'd love to join one, but I'm hesitant because I feel like I would be kind of burden on the team to have to translate everything for me. I'd really like to join a trip to Nepal. This year I think I won't make it because of the timing and the finances, but my goal is by next summer to have enough money and Chinese language ability to join a Banner missions trip to Nepal. :)
I feel sad, if I blogged every day (or even every week), my blog posts would be far more eventful and full of small anecdotes from daily life. Really, something interesting happens to me every day, but I can't remember so far back what all the fun things that happened are. This summer after I'm finished working I'll have a lot of time on my hands. I have several projects I'd like to work on (none of which involve spending money! Those are the best kinds of projects)
1.) I'm teaching myself to play the guitar, beyond the four basic chords mom taught me in highschool. I'd like to eventually become good enough to lead worship in my small group.
2.) I'd like to expland that games website I started to include links to all the children's games I used in my class last year. I found so many great games from so many other sources on the internet, and I'd like to collect them all together in my one place so I know where to go for my resources.
3.) I'd like to start another blog of teaching resources, because I have so many great ideas and I have thought up so many crafts and drawn a lot of templates on my own, but I'd like a place to store them and so they can be available to other teachers as well. This is a big project.
4.) I'd like to take some more photos of just daily life happenings around the area where I live and post them on this blog to show more of the culture. So far this blog has turned into kind of a bi-monthly rambling from me on my general happenings and personal goasl and stuff. It's not very interesting or cultural.
5.) I want to eat more fruit.
I suppose that #5 isn't really a summer goal, but whatever. Um... ok. This was just to touch base. I hope every body is doing well and I wish a happy summer to you and whatever your plans are. And I wish a specially congratulations to my brother David and his fiance Megan who are getting married on July 30th. It's hard to believe my baby brother is getting married! I suppose I should not call him my baby brother on my public blog. :)
Ok. Thanks for reading! I appreciate all your prayers. I'm able to teach my students more about what it means to follow Jesus and what that looks like. Several of them have this year decided to believe in Jesus as their saviour and follow Him. There's still a language barrier, so please pray for real understanding in their hearts as I teach them more about Jesus. We're into the fruits of the Spirit now, which is going well but still a little bit hard to get the concepts across in kiddie ESL language.
Also I would appreciate prayers for my plans to study Chinese and how that will all work out financially. I have a tentative financial plan to support myself through my studies, but it will still require a lot of self-discipline and some help from the Lord as far as providing here and there tutoring jobs for me. I think I may have one lined up, so I hope that comes through.
Thanks a lot! I'm convinced the prayers of my prayer supporters like you are the reason why I've been scooter accident free for the past couple of years. :)
Oh! I hear my cat making mischief in my shoe shelf. I've got to go. Zai jian!
Not quite so unknown anymore, now after two years... but...there are still tons of new things left to discover here in Taiwan. :)
These past couple of years have gone by so fast. When I sit and think about it, I really have come through a lot of things. This isn't going to be a blog post full of reflections on the past, but it helps me sometimes to look through my notebooks and stuff and read all the things I wrote from last year and the year before. It helps me to see how God is changing me to be more like Him.
Well, I feel terrible that I've been so bad at bloggering lately.. oops. :) This weekend is a three-day weekend due to Dragon Boat Festival (um... don't ask me the history behind this holiday, because I don't know)(but I do know people eat this sticky rice leaf wrapped things that are pretty good). So I'm taking advantage of this extra time to post a blog. yay.
So, I'm starting to enter into that phase of life again where big things are changing and it makes me feel nervous, but really excited at the same time. The biggest change soon, is that I won't be working anymore! Um.. well, at least not like I have been working since I got here. I have been working at JacksonFive full time, that is, I'm at the school about 35-40 hours a week, with the same students day in and day out, etc. The end of our school year is June 30th. I signed a contract with Jackson for the following school year to take one evening class on Monday and Thursday nights, and also be the on-call substitute. This class probably won't start until October, however, which means my income won't start until the next month, November. eek! Teaching evening classes is much different, as you don't see the students as often and I won't be teaching theme classes (all the fun sciencey and geography stuff). I've been really treasuring all the time I get to spend with my kiddoes in the classroom these last few weeks I'm with them.
I will be taking full-time Chinese classes at a local university, Feng Chia Language Center, in the mornings from 8am - 12noon, at least for the first couple of semesters. This is sooo exciting to me, as learning Chinese is something I've felt inside is a very important thing I need to do. I've been saving and trying my little best to budget well, as I did not get the scholarship I applied for. I will be able to make ends meet with my night class and some tutoring, but it will still take a lot of discipline on my part and I anticipate eating a lot of cheap noodles in the future. :) This is a current prayer concern of mine, that the money would be sufficient to support me through the four months I will have no income, and pay for school as well.
Unfortunately, this financial tightness due to my returning to school has also meant no trips back to America in the near future. Tickets are soo expensive. This also unfortunately means I will have to miss my brother David's wedding in July. I know my family understands, and I still have them and my friends praying for a last-minute provision like we've seen God come through so many times before. However, I'm still preparing my heart for the disappointment that I will not be able to go.
Well, summer is officially here. This means one thing - - it's hot. Hot hot hot hot hot hot hot. Mr. Sun is showing his shiny face here quite frequently now, making me worry and fret about having my skin exposed and risking new spots. Ever since the Terrible Sunburn Incident of 2010, I have been very wary of exposing skin to the sun. I slather on sunscreen and even then many times I will still wear a hoodie when I'm on my scooter. I daily face this decision: would I rather be hot for ten minutes on my way to work wearing a hoodie, or, would I rather risk getting sunburt arms and skin cancer? *sigh*
Other than school coming to an end and the hotness of summer, everything else is going fairly well. I've been attending some classes at the church for training and just deepening understanding of the church and my relationship with God. The church is sending out a lot of missions teams to various places around Asia this summer, and I'd love to join one, but I'm hesitant because I feel like I would be kind of burden on the team to have to translate everything for me. I'd really like to join a trip to Nepal. This year I think I won't make it because of the timing and the finances, but my goal is by next summer to have enough money and Chinese language ability to join a Banner missions trip to Nepal. :)
I feel sad, if I blogged every day (or even every week), my blog posts would be far more eventful and full of small anecdotes from daily life. Really, something interesting happens to me every day, but I can't remember so far back what all the fun things that happened are. This summer after I'm finished working I'll have a lot of time on my hands. I have several projects I'd like to work on (none of which involve spending money! Those are the best kinds of projects)
1.) I'm teaching myself to play the guitar, beyond the four basic chords mom taught me in highschool. I'd like to eventually become good enough to lead worship in my small group.
2.) I'd like to expland that games website I started to include links to all the children's games I used in my class last year. I found so many great games from so many other sources on the internet, and I'd like to collect them all together in my one place so I know where to go for my resources.
3.) I'd like to start another blog of teaching resources, because I have so many great ideas and I have thought up so many crafts and drawn a lot of templates on my own, but I'd like a place to store them and so they can be available to other teachers as well. This is a big project.
4.) I'd like to take some more photos of just daily life happenings around the area where I live and post them on this blog to show more of the culture. So far this blog has turned into kind of a bi-monthly rambling from me on my general happenings and personal goasl and stuff. It's not very interesting or cultural.
5.) I want to eat more fruit.
I suppose that #5 isn't really a summer goal, but whatever. Um... ok. This was just to touch base. I hope every body is doing well and I wish a happy summer to you and whatever your plans are. And I wish a specially congratulations to my brother David and his fiance Megan who are getting married on July 30th. It's hard to believe my baby brother is getting married! I suppose I should not call him my baby brother on my public blog. :)
Ok. Thanks for reading! I appreciate all your prayers. I'm able to teach my students more about what it means to follow Jesus and what that looks like. Several of them have this year decided to believe in Jesus as their saviour and follow Him. There's still a language barrier, so please pray for real understanding in their hearts as I teach them more about Jesus. We're into the fruits of the Spirit now, which is going well but still a little bit hard to get the concepts across in kiddie ESL language.
Also I would appreciate prayers for my plans to study Chinese and how that will all work out financially. I have a tentative financial plan to support myself through my studies, but it will still require a lot of self-discipline and some help from the Lord as far as providing here and there tutoring jobs for me. I think I may have one lined up, so I hope that comes through.
Thanks a lot! I'm convinced the prayers of my prayer supporters like you are the reason why I've been scooter accident free for the past couple of years. :)
Oh! I hear my cat making mischief in my shoe shelf. I've got to go. Zai jian!
Friday, April 15, 2011
boo! did I scare you?
Hello blogger followers! I apologize once again for the long lapse in time since my last post. I assume you are all able to follow me on Facebook and so many other things are offered to me here in busy Taiwan that I can spend my time on rather than bloggering. :D Since last I posted about my new shiny red notebook, I am still very pleased with it! I've finally joined all the high tech people with their fancy little tiny notebooks that sit in coffeeshops and look all busy and cool. :D My old laptop was so chunky and large, it didn't haul it around to any coffee shops. However, I have yet to become so hi tech as to get myself an iPhone. If people really want to get ahold of me, they can call my normal little Samsung. I don't need 24 hour access to Facebook or my email. :D Although having 24 hour access to Google maps might sometimes come in handy, but not at the cost of $30,000 NTD (about $1,000 USD for an unlocked iPhphone. Although it also might be fun to play Angry Birds or Bejewelled whilst encountering situations that require me to wait, like at the doctor's office. But again, not at the cost of thirty thousand NT. Anyway, that was my little personal vent about iPhones and me not bending to all the peer pressure "ooooh Oooh get an iPhone! or at least an off brand..something like an iPhone!" I'm quite content with my spiffy little notebook and my old little samsung. Although I have to say, there have been situations when I've been very glad somebody I was with had an iPhone with Google maps, or.. just Google... THAT said, on to better things, like what's the goings on these days. Hm. *thinking in progress* *40% complete..* *60% complete* *80% complete* *100%!* Ok. Well, to start with, the school year is almost over! Two more months until the end of June! While I'm very excited to have some time to complete all the projects that are quickly filling up my "To Do This Summer" list, I'm also realizing how much I'm going to miss my students. Yeah, it's a lot of work to prep for all the classes, and they can really try my patience sometimes (ok, a lot), but I love those little guys. I can be overwhelmed with all kinds of personal life struggles and emotional issues, but when I walk into the classroom, it all kind of disappears for 50 minutes while I am absorbed in giving my students my full attention. They make me smile! They make me feel like everything is going to be ok in the world. And I get to show them love and acceptance and tell them what a great job they're doing and point out all the good things about themselves they might not see. Being a teacher is the best Job Ever! This summer I have a couple of months free before I go back to school in September. I still haven't heard about whether I got a scholarship or not, but regardless I will be taking full time Chinese classes next year. I'll be working a few nights a week at Jackson Five, but it won't be anything like the full time afternoon load I'm doing this year. We haven't heard about any new ITPS teachers coming this year. Samson's huge. He's a Monster. He's the biggest cat Ever. And since I got him fixed, he's becoming steadily nicer and nicer. I'm glad. We've started a women's Bible study in our house on Monday nights, and we decided to start with the book "Lies Women Believe" by Nancy leigh Demoss. I did this study a few years ago in Alaska, so I'm excited to do it again. Hm, what else. Well, if you follow me on Facebook, you already know the last few months have been pretty rough on me emotionally, as I went through the breaking of a relationship I had with a guy for over a year. It's getting steadily better and better, and God's been using this to teach me a lot of things. I realized also that I have a great community here who're ready to help and pray and support me through whatever life brings me. So, it's late now and I will leave you with a list of prayer requests, if you don't mind: -Please pray for a friend of mine who lost his wife a few weeks ago. He's going through a very difficult situation with the in-laws and needs support of prayer. He has a small baby girl. -Please pray that I would be accepted for this scholarship. It will make it possible for me to devote more time to study. -Please pray for the possibility of me devoting more time to ministry next year at the same time as I am a student. I'd like to volunteer with a program for disadvantaged kids on my free afternoons. -My brother David is getting married this July. Tickets from here to North Carolina are ridiculously high, and the only way I can go is if God provides from somewhere unseen to me! So you can help me pray for Him to make a way for me to buy a round trip ticket. -Thanks for prayers for me! I'm so thankful for each of you who read this blog and those of you who take the time to pray for me here. God's doing great work here in Taiwan, and I can see the way He's touching the lives of those around me daily. He's teaching me so much about Himself, and I'm really excited to see Him changing lives. Zai jian!
Monday, March 14, 2011
Hello again!
Well! Here I am, with my brand new notebook computer! My other computer is having some problems, so I sighed a great sigh and headed down to the Nova to get myself a beautiful red Acer Aspire One notebook.
Somebody posted a comment to my previous post about our Chinese New Year vacation, requesting a link to the B&B we stayed at in Hualien. So, here's the link for Homestay No. 6:
www.hs101.com.tw/aboutus.htm Sorry, it's mostly in Chinese, but maybe you can have a friend help you make reservations. Actually, if you call the number on the site, the owner speaks English so it shouldn't be a problem. Have fun! :)
I'm starting a Discipleship class on Tuesday mornings at Banner, as part of the "Banner equipping" system they have set up. So I will be just that much more busy, but it should be good.
This weekend is the annual JacksonFive staff weekend trip, and we're going to some island off of Pintung, a town down south. So the weather should be warm and it supposed to be beautiful. So since I have a snazzy new notebook that's tiny and beautiful and amazingly portable, I should be posting some photos soon.
Not much else to report from this side! We're all keeping track of the news in Japan. Keep them in your prayers.
Somebody posted a comment to my previous post about our Chinese New Year vacation, requesting a link to the B&B we stayed at in Hualien. So, here's the link for Homestay No. 6:
www.hs101.com.tw/aboutus.htm Sorry, it's mostly in Chinese, but maybe you can have a friend help you make reservations. Actually, if you call the number on the site, the owner speaks English so it shouldn't be a problem. Have fun! :)
I'm starting a Discipleship class on Tuesday mornings at Banner, as part of the "Banner equipping" system they have set up. So I will be just that much more busy, but it should be good.
This weekend is the annual JacksonFive staff weekend trip, and we're going to some island off of Pintung, a town down south. So the weather should be warm and it supposed to be beautiful. So since I have a snazzy new notebook that's tiny and beautiful and amazingly portable, I should be posting some photos soon.
Not much else to report from this side! We're all keeping track of the news in Japan. Keep them in your prayers.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Chinese New Year Vacation - The Whole (well, almost) Story
Well! I assume by now you've seen my photos, so before I forget what we did on our Chinese new year trip around the island, I figured I'd better sit my little self down and type out a post.
We left mid-morning on January 30th and caught a TRA ("slow") train to Taipei. It was kinda full, but we had reserved seats, so no worries! We got there around noon-ish and checked into our hotel - "Hotel Flowers", near the TRA/MRT station. After a nice lunch at KFC (yay for starting the vacation with fried chicken!!), we took the MRT to the National Palace Museum. The MRT is cool. It's cheap, quick transporation to most places around Taipei. If you're from California or familiar with California, it's sort of like the BART system.
Anyway, the museum was enormous and full of old, beautiful, ancient, valuable Things from China, that after an hour began to all look the same to me. I like museums, but I admit I am not much of a history buff. Apparently, I and Amy and Autumn missed the "cool manly floor" that the guys went to whilst we waited for them in the lobby. The Cool Manly Floor apparently had swords and stuff. Oh well. We did find a nice big bench Thing in one of the painting exhibits and had a grand time pondering the Meaning of Life while staring at a nice painting of a flower or something.
After snapping some happy photos, we took a taxi to the Shihlin night market, one of the oldest, largest night markets in Taiwan. It was crowded, as night markets tend to be, but we managed to find some good food. David and Cory, two of our guy buddies on the trip, were entranced by the abundance of fruits and were determined to try every single fruit known to the Shihlin night market. The rest of us filled up on...oops I forgot what they were called..some mexicany sort of pocket sandwich thing, and I had a really nice baked potato. My friends are going to make fun of me for calling whatever that was we all ate a mexican pocket sandwich. Oh well.
The next morning, we took off on the good ol' MRT to see Taipei 101. Formerly the tallest building in the world, but currently the second tallest, Taipei 101 still holds the record (as far as I know) for having the fastest elevator in the world and the largest wind damper in the world. 89 floors in 37 seconds. That's fast. We weren't Allowed on the 91st floor because of the wind (91st floor is an outside area), so we wandered around the glass enclosed 89th floor and took a truckload of photos. It was a good morning.
Afterwards we had a really long lunch, met up with a good friend Katie, and went to the Taipei zoo, which I learnt is the largest zoo in Asia. We got there with like one hour until the zoo closed so we hastened to see the pandas, who were awake this time!! we also managed to see all varieties of nocturnal animalas, and a sleeping koala. That's it. But it was worth it for the pandas.
We ate dinner at a Vietnamese restaraunt that was owned and operated by a crew of Thai folk. Then we bought the best bubble milk tea in the world. And that's the end of our time in Taipei.
This is an exciting story, isn't it? :)
To continue, the next day, February 1st, we took a train to Hualien. We arrived in Hualien to a great surprise - the cutest, best decorated, most comfortable B&B I've ever stayed in. The weather in Hualien was grand too, so it was a pleasant arrival. If anybody reading this ever goes to Hualien, contact me and I'll send you the info for Homestay No 6. It's close to the train station, very reasonably priced, owner speaks English, and it was the most comfortable bed I've ever slept in. I wanted to ship it home with me. We rented scooters and took naps, and then that evening we all decided we wanted to cook dinner, since in the B&B's common area there was a nice large kitchen. Marvin, one of our other guy buddies, had not taken a nap, and had instead been out exploring on his scooter, and found a Carrefour nearby, so we loaded up and went to buy groceries. We bought a splendid array of breakfast fare: bacon, eggs, sausage, bread, orange juice, tomatoes, syrup, etc. It was lovely. And we came back to discover that the oven in the beautiful kitchen was not hooked up. Oops.
Thankfully the B&B owner loaned us a little portable stove thing. The bacon and french toast were wonderful. The eggs...ended up... a little cinnamoney... thanks to David and the fact the cinnamon and pepper are both dark colored spices. hee hee.
The next day we took our rented scooters to Taroko Gorge. It was beeeeyooootiful! Every turn gave sparkling scenery. I tried my bestest to take outstanding photos, but.. I failed. My photos don't do the scenery justice at all. You'll just have to go yourself someday. We rode 18km into the Gorge and ate lunch at a tiny rest stop area. This is where I learnt how to say sausage in Chinese. How many people in the world can say they learnt to say sausage in Chinese in Taroko Gorge? I ought to put that on my list of Things I've Done that Nobody Else has Ever Done.
That evening we tried in vain to locate a local night market, which was probably closed like eveything else in town because it was Chinese New Year's Eve. everybody was popping firecrackers and having family dinners. Cory and David accidentally crashed a family dinner at a restaurant, thinking the restaraunt was open for business and got chased out by an old lady. hahaha...
The next day, was long.
We took a train to Taitung on the south eastern coast of Taiwan. When we booked our train tickets, it was the closest we could get to Kenting, on the southernmost tip of Taiwan. Our hostel arranged a driver to pick us up in Taitun with a van, so we thought nothing of it. But the drive from Taitung to Kenting.... is ... hoooorrrriiibble! It's a teensy tiny winding (for lack of a more approriate English word for winding..it was like..winding x 1,000) road through the mountains. our driver was chewing betel nuts and bopping to the music and talking on his cell phone and I gaspsed pretty much the entire drive. We were all feeling a little woozy when we finally stopped. I will never go to Kenting that way again. Blech.
Anyway, we did finally get there in one piece, after 3 1/2 hours of that craziness. I attribute a lot of our road safeties to the prayers of my mother... thanks mom! :)
In Kenting, the weather was AMAZING! Beautiful blue sky, warm breeze, and just a happy laid back atmosphere. I spent the afternoon in the hotel room recovering from the hairy drive through the mountains by taking a long shower, and then watching Master Chef Junior Australia on cable while repacking all my stuff. This tends to calm me down. :) everybody else went to find a little beach somewhere.
That evening we had a barbecue with are other friends who spent their week in Kenting and stayed in the same hotel. Later that evening, we had another adventure of an entirely different kind... but... out of respect for my buddies I won't share it on my blog. :) "What happens in Kenting stays in Kenting!" Suffice to say we all stayed safe and harbor no hard feelings towards each other. :)
The next day we rented scooters again and took off for White Sands beach. It was lovely. I opted to wander the beach, collect shells, take photos, and people watch. My friends Amy and Autumn sat under the umbrella and read a book, and slept, respectively. Marvin dissapeared on his own adventure, as he tends to do so often. It was a wonderful way to spend an afternoon. It was pretty windy and the waves were ginormous. They were knocking people over and stuff. It was way fun to watch.
That evening we went to the Lamest Club Ever. When we arrived, there were two small tables of people, and two small children on the dance floor. We sat there for a while and talked. It didn't get much better, so I left and went back to the room to go to bed, and the rest of the group went somewhere else and apparently had another adventure that I'm glad I missed out on. Whew.
Saturday, we went back to White Sands Beach and had a grand time. Marvin got swallowed by the Biggest Wave Ever, and I found a bunch of shells to add to my Shell Box.
Then we got our Chinese names painted and framed ( so cool, I'll upload a photo another time), ate a corn dog, took a taxi to Khaosiung (on the south west side of Taiwan) (a MUCH better drive than the other one), took the HSR (high speed rail) to Taichung, and took a taxi back to our house.
And that, was our vacation in a nutshell.
This wasn't a very exciting post, I'm sorry. I seem to have lost all my creavite writing skills somewhere in all this mess I have in my bedroom. I'd better clean up and unpack.
I hope you all had a lovely Chinese New Year! and if you didn't celebrate Chinese New Year, then I hope you had a lovely week this week anyway, holiday or no holiday!
Smile, eat good food, treat yourself to something fun, and enjoy life! :)
Until next time,
~Sharon~
We left mid-morning on January 30th and caught a TRA ("slow") train to Taipei. It was kinda full, but we had reserved seats, so no worries! We got there around noon-ish and checked into our hotel - "Hotel Flowers", near the TRA/MRT station. After a nice lunch at KFC (yay for starting the vacation with fried chicken!!), we took the MRT to the National Palace Museum. The MRT is cool. It's cheap, quick transporation to most places around Taipei. If you're from California or familiar with California, it's sort of like the BART system.
Anyway, the museum was enormous and full of old, beautiful, ancient, valuable Things from China, that after an hour began to all look the same to me. I like museums, but I admit I am not much of a history buff. Apparently, I and Amy and Autumn missed the "cool manly floor" that the guys went to whilst we waited for them in the lobby. The Cool Manly Floor apparently had swords and stuff. Oh well. We did find a nice big bench Thing in one of the painting exhibits and had a grand time pondering the Meaning of Life while staring at a nice painting of a flower or something.
After snapping some happy photos, we took a taxi to the Shihlin night market, one of the oldest, largest night markets in Taiwan. It was crowded, as night markets tend to be, but we managed to find some good food. David and Cory, two of our guy buddies on the trip, were entranced by the abundance of fruits and were determined to try every single fruit known to the Shihlin night market. The rest of us filled up on...oops I forgot what they were called..some mexicany sort of pocket sandwich thing, and I had a really nice baked potato. My friends are going to make fun of me for calling whatever that was we all ate a mexican pocket sandwich. Oh well.
The next morning, we took off on the good ol' MRT to see Taipei 101. Formerly the tallest building in the world, but currently the second tallest, Taipei 101 still holds the record (as far as I know) for having the fastest elevator in the world and the largest wind damper in the world. 89 floors in 37 seconds. That's fast. We weren't Allowed on the 91st floor because of the wind (91st floor is an outside area), so we wandered around the glass enclosed 89th floor and took a truckload of photos. It was a good morning.
Afterwards we had a really long lunch, met up with a good friend Katie, and went to the Taipei zoo, which I learnt is the largest zoo in Asia. We got there with like one hour until the zoo closed so we hastened to see the pandas, who were awake this time!! we also managed to see all varieties of nocturnal animalas, and a sleeping koala. That's it. But it was worth it for the pandas.
We ate dinner at a Vietnamese restaraunt that was owned and operated by a crew of Thai folk. Then we bought the best bubble milk tea in the world. And that's the end of our time in Taipei.
This is an exciting story, isn't it? :)
To continue, the next day, February 1st, we took a train to Hualien. We arrived in Hualien to a great surprise - the cutest, best decorated, most comfortable B&B I've ever stayed in. The weather in Hualien was grand too, so it was a pleasant arrival. If anybody reading this ever goes to Hualien, contact me and I'll send you the info for Homestay No 6. It's close to the train station, very reasonably priced, owner speaks English, and it was the most comfortable bed I've ever slept in. I wanted to ship it home with me. We rented scooters and took naps, and then that evening we all decided we wanted to cook dinner, since in the B&B's common area there was a nice large kitchen. Marvin, one of our other guy buddies, had not taken a nap, and had instead been out exploring on his scooter, and found a Carrefour nearby, so we loaded up and went to buy groceries. We bought a splendid array of breakfast fare: bacon, eggs, sausage, bread, orange juice, tomatoes, syrup, etc. It was lovely. And we came back to discover that the oven in the beautiful kitchen was not hooked up. Oops.
Thankfully the B&B owner loaned us a little portable stove thing. The bacon and french toast were wonderful. The eggs...ended up... a little cinnamoney... thanks to David and the fact the cinnamon and pepper are both dark colored spices. hee hee.
The next day we took our rented scooters to Taroko Gorge. It was beeeeyooootiful! Every turn gave sparkling scenery. I tried my bestest to take outstanding photos, but.. I failed. My photos don't do the scenery justice at all. You'll just have to go yourself someday. We rode 18km into the Gorge and ate lunch at a tiny rest stop area. This is where I learnt how to say sausage in Chinese. How many people in the world can say they learnt to say sausage in Chinese in Taroko Gorge? I ought to put that on my list of Things I've Done that Nobody Else has Ever Done.
That evening we tried in vain to locate a local night market, which was probably closed like eveything else in town because it was Chinese New Year's Eve. everybody was popping firecrackers and having family dinners. Cory and David accidentally crashed a family dinner at a restaurant, thinking the restaraunt was open for business and got chased out by an old lady. hahaha...
The next day, was long.
We took a train to Taitung on the south eastern coast of Taiwan. When we booked our train tickets, it was the closest we could get to Kenting, on the southernmost tip of Taiwan. Our hostel arranged a driver to pick us up in Taitun with a van, so we thought nothing of it. But the drive from Taitung to Kenting.... is ... hoooorrrriiibble! It's a teensy tiny winding (for lack of a more approriate English word for winding..it was like..winding x 1,000) road through the mountains. our driver was chewing betel nuts and bopping to the music and talking on his cell phone and I gaspsed pretty much the entire drive. We were all feeling a little woozy when we finally stopped. I will never go to Kenting that way again. Blech.
Anyway, we did finally get there in one piece, after 3 1/2 hours of that craziness. I attribute a lot of our road safeties to the prayers of my mother... thanks mom! :)
In Kenting, the weather was AMAZING! Beautiful blue sky, warm breeze, and just a happy laid back atmosphere. I spent the afternoon in the hotel room recovering from the hairy drive through the mountains by taking a long shower, and then watching Master Chef Junior Australia on cable while repacking all my stuff. This tends to calm me down. :) everybody else went to find a little beach somewhere.
That evening we had a barbecue with are other friends who spent their week in Kenting and stayed in the same hotel. Later that evening, we had another adventure of an entirely different kind... but... out of respect for my buddies I won't share it on my blog. :) "What happens in Kenting stays in Kenting!" Suffice to say we all stayed safe and harbor no hard feelings towards each other. :)
The next day we rented scooters again and took off for White Sands beach. It was lovely. I opted to wander the beach, collect shells, take photos, and people watch. My friends Amy and Autumn sat under the umbrella and read a book, and slept, respectively. Marvin dissapeared on his own adventure, as he tends to do so often. It was a wonderful way to spend an afternoon. It was pretty windy and the waves were ginormous. They were knocking people over and stuff. It was way fun to watch.
That evening we went to the Lamest Club Ever. When we arrived, there were two small tables of people, and two small children on the dance floor. We sat there for a while and talked. It didn't get much better, so I left and went back to the room to go to bed, and the rest of the group went somewhere else and apparently had another adventure that I'm glad I missed out on. Whew.
Saturday, we went back to White Sands Beach and had a grand time. Marvin got swallowed by the Biggest Wave Ever, and I found a bunch of shells to add to my Shell Box.
Then we got our Chinese names painted and framed ( so cool, I'll upload a photo another time), ate a corn dog, took a taxi to Khaosiung (on the south west side of Taiwan) (a MUCH better drive than the other one), took the HSR (high speed rail) to Taichung, and took a taxi back to our house.
And that, was our vacation in a nutshell.
This wasn't a very exciting post, I'm sorry. I seem to have lost all my creavite writing skills somewhere in all this mess I have in my bedroom. I'd better clean up and unpack.
I hope you all had a lovely Chinese New Year! and if you didn't celebrate Chinese New Year, then I hope you had a lovely week this week anyway, holiday or no holiday!
Smile, eat good food, treat yourself to something fun, and enjoy life! :)
Until next time,
~Sharon~
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