Home

Yay!! Mom and I are home!! We flew into Seattle on Thursday, stayed the night there and then Dad drove us home on Friday. As we got near to home I kept saying, "I know that curve in the road!", or "I recognise those trees!"

G. K. Chesterton said somewhere that the reason we travel is so that we can go home. That is exactly how I feel. I've had an amazing opportunity to see another culture, another world, and it was incrediably different from anything I've seen before. It makes me appreciate what I know and love more.

Pictures will be uploaded asap. I just have to figure out "how". :-)

Day Tripper, Yeah

"We drove and drove and drove some more, and that was our vacation." ~ Disney Land commercial

Thursday we drove to Taipei - we saw Dan Shui Harbor where the river meets the Taiwan Straits and we went to the ShiLin night market
Friday - We went to the National Palace Museum containing artifacts for "4 thousand years"! What a claim to fame! We saw some very cool colored china, jade pieces (one famous one that looked like a cabbage and another that looked like a slab of meat), very old books in chinese, etc. China claims to have had moveable print in 618 AD! (they also claim the Americas which they discovered in 1421. When the ship returned to China 3 years later, China was in political wars and the discovery went unnoticed and the records were lost).
Next we went to the Grand Hotel. "The only hotel in the world modeled after Chinese palaces" It's huge and uses very striking colors; red, yellow, green which set if off from the mountain. There were many restarants from which we chose one for our lunch! It was like eating at the Ritz! lol
We went to the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial around 3:45. We walked up the many stone steps to the Memorial Hall and waited for the hour to watch the changing of the guard. It was so amazing. All the tourist got very quiet as we waited. There were two guards facing each other on the opposite sides of the room. It began with the two guards banging the butts of their guns on the floor. The sound echoed throughout the marble hall and we feel silent as we heard the other guard approaching from outside. I can't describe the rest of the movements except to say that watching 5 men walking, stomping, calling, clicking in exact unison was amazing. Mom took videos on her camera which we'll be sure to post when we get home.
At 5:30 we were at Taipei 101. The sky was very hazy, but we decided to go to the top anyways. We rode one of the fastest elevators in the world. It took 37 seconds to go from the 4th floor to the 87th at a speed of 1010 meters per minute!! At the top we walked around the observation deck, listening to an audio tour, and eating ice cream. We saw the world's largest mass damper which is also the only one in the world open to the public(nearly evey tall building has one to counteract the sway of the wind). It does an excellent job and I was grateful for technology. However I could still feel it sway! Mom didn't feel it, and Aunt Melody only a little. But I one point I was standing in the middle of the room, apart from anything else, and I lost my balance!! lol We walked up two flights of stairs to reach the 91st floor. There is an open air observation deck. We saw people on the east side watching the Moon rise. October 6 was the Moon Festival, the night the moon is the brightest in the year. (see my dad's blog)
Saturday we drove under a tunnel that took 18 minutes to go through! We drove along the coast to Heulien and then into the Taroko Gorge. We watched an aboriginal dance and spent the night at an stone church.
Sunday, we left at 9:30 and arrived at 8 pm. It was supposed to be a 6hour drive. We had to go slow on the hairpin turns and there was lots of traffic for the 5 day weekend. We were all glad to be back. Thank you for your prayers for safety! There were a couple times when we were on the mountain trying to pass traffic in a one car lane. Cliff on one side and ditch on the other. Pictures forthcoming of the gorgeous views!

Off to Hong Kong in the morning. Probably no computer until I get home. Toodles!

Capitol City

We'll be off, momentarily, to the capitol city of Taiwan, Taipei. We shall see some sight in the city, then come down through the mountains on the East side of the Island back to TaiChung Sunday night (Sat night American time).

Please pray for traveling mercies and health. I was sick Tuesday night from what we guess was slight food poisoning or just my system getting too sensitive.

See ya in 4 days!

Meat in the Market

Although you can't tell from the picture, most of the fish were still alive. Gills were moving. "Fresh fish! We catch 'em, you buy 'em!" - Aladdin



We ate roasted duck on Tuesday! "Very nice, very tastey." ~ 84 Charing Cross Road. We ordered half a duck and made pretty good dent into it. Food is so cheap here. I'm glad that I'm able to try lots of new things without it being an over-my-budget meal.

Driving

Pictures Ahoy!!

Market Day!

Walking through the streets lined with stalls full of wares, there was so much to take in! The colors were enchanting, bright and cheerful. The people sang there calls to "Buy! Buy our goods!" I was reminding of the scene in Oliver "Who Will Buy?" Every time Mom or I stopped to take a picture we were bombarded with "Buy my fruit!" or "Take my picture!" The scooters raced down the road and around the stalls. Mom and I weren't used to being so close to them. Here are a bunch of pictures of the Market Day (Friday).

Food

"Food, glorious food, that's what I live for." ~ Oliver
"Gotta eat to live." ~ Aladdin
Necessity is the mother of invention.

Eating in another country is so different. I came to Taiwan thinking to myself " you gotta try everything, even if you think that you won't like it. you have to at least try it." I've done way more than try things! Somethings are so strange looking, weird and contorted. Each place cooks their rice differently. All the open air resaturants (more like a corner shop) have questionable sanitation. And I've plunged myself into this totally different food culture ready and willing.

Mom and I have eaten breakfast out twice now. They usually serve a fried or scrambled egg with ham or bacon or turkey wrapped inside a flat totilla/crepe like pancake. Very good and tasty! Also dumplings in any shape or form are popular for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Some are small circular dough balls with pork inside. Some are made with the dumpling dough rolled out, the filling laid on top and rolled up and cut into slices. We watched a lady in the day market make dumplings. She took a small ciricle of rolled dough, about as big as a lady's palm, and piled a small bit of shreaded pork into the center. She then folded the dough in half and pinched the sides shut.

Some of the drinks are interesting. The tea here is hot or cold. Hot tea is "red" tea or milk tea. The red tea is our typical black tea although usually much sweeter. The milk tea is just that, a sweet, creamy tea. It can also be served cold. They also like fruit drinks. Fruit grows prolificly here and they use any and all in a drink. I found a new fad in the bottom of my fruit drink , tapioca balls! Small black balls of tapioca pudding in the bottom of the drink slide up the straw with the rest of the liquid. Soft and squishy in my mouth. But good. I decided after a lot of tapioca that I liked it good enough to have it again, although it wasn't my favorite.

Every meal is eaten with chopsticks. On the first night Aunt Melody offered me a spoon when she saw me struggling with my sticks. I refused knowing that if I didn't try I wouldn't get the hang of it. Mom and I have done better and better eating with two tiny sticks in our hands. It's kinda fun now that I understand the technic.

Saturday night, Cynthia's parents took us out to dinner. They order so much for us to try. Here is a list as a sample of what we've been eating. This is in the order of what was served to us when during our meal.

1) Shrimp and rice cake wedges w/ sauce
2) pork slices in thick fat
3) veggies plate consisting of carrots, green onion stems, bamboo
4) finally our rice came. It was seasoned with bits of salmon! I loved it!
5) bamboo and chicken soup. Mostly stock with tiny bits of chicken and some leaves similar to spinach and the inside of the bamboo shoots.
6) pig intestine
7) fried fish in a sweet and sour sauce
8) tarro cubes
9) cheese fish on bamboo shoots
10) lamb chops
11) candied sweet potato dipped quickly in ice water (it carmalizes fast)

I'm glad that we told the Mr. and Mrs. Lu that we weren't very hungry. :-)