That's right, it says honey tomato juice, and it was good
Hi all,
Life is good here. I posted pics of my dinner tonight. It’s not terribly interesting but was good.
Jessica and I have finally made plans for Chinese New Year in February. We get a week off school, our only week, so as you can imagine it is a sacred week. We were going to go to Japan but that was too expensive. Then, the phillipines but, it is too, touristy on the beaches plus it has been ravaged by the recent typhoons. Then, we were thinking ThaiPPland, but it is again, a little over our budget for the plane tickets there. Then, we were thinking of just staying in Taiwan and seeing more of the southern part of the island, maybe staying on Green island in the south. That was our plan for the longest time but now we just changed our minds, thinking we can see Taiwan every weekend, and it’s so small, it’s only a few hour train ride to get even to the other end. So, we want to explore other parts of Asia, and Hong Kong had the cheapest plane tickets. So, yesterday we booked em, today we booked a hostel and bought the Hong Kong Lonely planet before checking out this crepe place near where we live. There is so much good food here. We found an amazing Indian restaurant, and in my opinion there is no food better than Indian food, only four or five block away from us. We also heard about a great cheap place in the building across the street from us that we didn’t know was there. I think we’re going to check it out tomorrow. Oh, and since we’re talking about food, I have to mention the Hot Pot. No, it’s not sexy drugs. My school had a bit of a celebration after our Christmas celebration. I was Santa Claus, Harry Potter, and Spelling master. But, that’s too long of a story. Anyway, the school took us out for Hot Pot, which is actually a Japanese style of dinner, where you have a big boiling vat of broth on a burner right at the table, and then you get to pick all sorts of meats and vegetables to put in it and eat. It was delicious. We’re taking Sarah for hot pot on wed. when she comes. Also, were going to see fireworks explode out of Taipei 101 for the new year. Who knows what else we’ll be doing.
We had a little run in with our internet service lately but it has been fixed in an arduously easy way. (It took us a long time to find out that we lived close to a bill paying center. ) But it is back now, and luckily we just took some fun and beautiful pictures today while hiking out in Maokong, a tea growing area with lots of tea houses and beautiful scenery just south of Taipei. Enjoy! As far as school goes, we’re preparing for Christmas which is really fun but also stressful as all heck. In one more week it will be all over though. Ah, yes. Last weekend, I went to Kenting, a big national park in the southern tip of Taiwan to finish up my open water diver certification. I did four dives with the rest of my class. Saw a cuttle fish (this link is just to a random video on youtube that shows the awesome power of cuttle fish, and is not of the actual cuttle fish I saw. I should be getting lots of pictures from Luke, my instructor shortly.)
There is only one photo today because my camera battery died immediately after I whipped it out. But this pic is a good one. Jessica and I went to the Lin Family Garden today for our weekly weekend outing. It’s in Taipei and as the name implies, used to belong to the Lin Family, a very rich family as this place was like an awesome neverland garden. It was the size of an entire city block, if not bigger and was full of surprise trails, caverns, ponds, buildings. The people that lived there were very fortunate. But, now it belongs to the government and is a tourist attraction, which makes us fortunate. There was a special rate today too, and we only had to pay two receipts to get as receipts double as lottery tickets. We had lots of fun there today. Then came home and got cabbage bao za (steamed bun) for dinner.
Also, here is a video from when Jessica I and Jessica’s friend Jessica went to the volcano in Yangmingshan park and saw water boiling up from the ground.
The months are going by fast here. We had a Halloween party at school on Friday, took the kids trick or treating. I went as a pumpkin with an orange shirt with a yellow paper cut out of a jack-o-lantern face taped to the tummy. It was the first time I’d made a costume out of one piece of paper. I thought it was inventive and fun but almost everyone else had store bought costumes and I think some thought none too much of my craftsmanship. But, my pride renders them irrelevant. The kids were excited and knew how to say “Halloween candy” in English very well.
On saturday Jessica and I went to the Yeliu Geo park. It is this awesome peninsula just north of town with cool morel mushroom looking rock formations everywhere and a peak that offers a great view.
As many have surely heard, there is typhoon pinball happening here and now in the East Asian waters. Luckily, the worst of the storms has passed around us. Still, the residual we can’t escape which translates to a husky rain happening in Taipei for the past few days. We did manage to journey a little though to see the little town of Xinbetou at the end of the pink MRT line. There’s a nice park there with a river looking like a Michigan creek that runs with hot water from hot springs farther up source, geothermically heated. You can see steam come off of the water. It’s the damnest thing. There’s also a hot springs museum that we visited which is housed in a house built by the Japanese during the occupation. There are some pictures of the baths there here. Today, we go to the Aquarium after deciding nay on “White Out” because of bad reviews. It looked boring to me anyway.
The view from the Xinbeitou MRT station
one hot creek
Beitou park river walk
one hot waterfall
the large basement bath in the hot springs museum/used to be Japanese bath house
beautiful gathering room in the hot springs museum
weird ass poster hanging up at the hot springs museum
nook view from the hot springs museum
Nice view from the Beitou (different than Xinbeitou) MRT station. The mountains in the backgroud are almost visible.
Hey fans of reading Two in the Pei. Jessica and I got out this weekend and are coming close to exhausting the Lonely planet’s list of sights to see. We utilized google’s public transportation feature of google maps Jessica discovered, one more awesome output of google which allows a person who has created two points on a google map to see what public transit options are available between such points, to find a bus to take us from home to the stunning Grand Hotel. It’s especially coolerific for us because an efficient bus route map of Taipei does nary exist.
I keep thinking of the Grand Hotel on Mackinac island and wonder if they are related in anyway, like two twins that have grown apart from each other.
We also went to Martyr’s Shrine which is a commemoration of all those soldiers who have died defending this great island during the many wars Taiwan has fought in. We witnessed the changing of the guard and Jessica caught I contact with one of the guys who is suppose to look like a statue. I hope his boss doesn’t see this.
But, the coolest part of our Sunday outing was this little hiking trail we intended to take as a scenic short cut back to the bus stop. It was not well marked and intersected a vast network of other trails. Most of the time we didn’t even know if we were going in the right direction, let alone on the right trail, so we went about two kilometers I’d say out of our way. But it was beautiful. We basically hiked up a mini mountain in the city that contained it’s own vibrant thriving world, including: a buddhist temple full of chanting Buddhists (see Jessica’s blog for pictures of that which should be coming soon), great views of the city, lots of singing by amateur folk, tennis courts and players, kick boxers, lunch eaters, young lovers, old hikers all wrapped in an ambiance of jungle trail. It was a hippy’s dream walk.
What. I know, another blog post so soon. Jessica and I had to get out of the house yesterday and she read about a mystery mountain we both didn’t believe to exist as it was said to exist next to our favorite MRT station, zhishan station. It turns out, my bus to work goes past it every day and there is a Buddhist Temple up on top. It was a lot of fun and here are some pictures.
I have a PTA meeting this Saturday. Wish me luck. The parents are going to come in and watch me teach the class and then I have to chit chat with them and ask them questions about their children. So, I gotta do a little preparing for that right now. Check you all later.
Hi all. It’s sparse blogging I know. But here is some more.
We had adventure this weekend. Yangmingshan National park has been the infatuation of our weekends for the past three or so. It’s a close great place to be in nature and away from the noise and the blue smoke spurt of scooters. So, we went to climb Mr. Cising this weekend the tallest place in the Taipei area. An added coolness factor that we didn’t know about was that the mountain is a fairly conspicious volcano. At many points in the hike there were barren plots of rocky land where smoldering mist crept its way up and out. Pretty scary. especially while going up. It was quite surreal. We didn’t really know what we were getting ourselves into. It wasn’t that long of a climb but when we arrived at the trail head, it was very windy and foggy, which we later deduced to be some kind of sulphur mist, simply because it was so smelly. Jessica said it was like being trapped inside of a fart. I was thinking the same thing when she said it. There was something amazing about walking in the fog up a mountain though. I think the pictures can do better justice.
This last picture is of the hugest spider of them all that I’ve seen with my eyes. It will always be remembered. The bugger scurried around on her web while we watched from ten feet or so.
It’s been a normal while for me. I mean that I feel very normal living here. Everything is not so exotic. I get bored on the bus now instead of enthralled with all of the lights and smells and sights.
We spent last weekend out. It’s been a working plan for two weeks now that Jessica and I would visit the tea houses to the south of Taipei in an area known as Maokong. We hear it’s a must do, mainly from our bible, the Lonely Planet Taiwan. That book is more of a guide to us than anything else which is funny because on several occaisons we have found it to be severly out of date and also a tad low on the information side. For example, we obviously didn’t go the tea houses last weekend as my earlier subtext about it beeing a working plan which isn’t really that big of a hint but regardless we never made it. The reason, because the brown line MRT train, the one that takes us to the bus that would have taken us to Maokong was shut down for the day. Who knows why the brown line shuts down periodically, but sometimes it just does. It turned out to be okay though, because while waiting in line for the long lined, crowded, inconvcnient shuttles that the city had replaced the quick and easy train with, we smelt something being vended and dodged off to get a taste. We found two little stands where Jessica bought a spinach pie type bread snack and I after much debate and insecurity about the fast paced service of the dumpling vendor luckily bought three of the most delicious dumplings we’ve had since we’ve been here. And, the dumplings were only 45 NT which is only about a dollar and a half, actually less. So our lunch was incredible and we decided it wasn’t the day for hustle and hardship but leisure and comfort and decided through several short conversations while walking through several train stations and riding on several trains that it would not only be possible but pretty awesome to lay on the beach for the rest of the day. This gets me back to our friend, companion, and guide, The Lonely Planet. To get to Bashiwan beach, 1st, make your way to Danshui, the very north of Taiwan, the last stop on the red line. Check. Next, take a bust east. It said take a bus east.
So, our response to the lonely planet was, 1st, we don’t know which buses go east because they are parked when they are at the bus stop and all of the routes are in Chinese. Granted, it’s our bad for not knowing Chinese. 2nd, How far east.
Those two things seem like they would have ruined our plan for lazyness I know. but, we took a bus headed for Keelung and then followed these two dudes when they got off and wouldn’t you know. We we beach bound. Not only five or ten minutes in, that is in the water, enjoying our second dip, the only relaxed one we’ve had in the ocean, a voice came in Chinese and told everyone that there was to be no swimming because the life guard was on duty. A second later, it repeated in English. If only it hadn’t come on in English. So we had to leave. The bus back, at least we knew which bus, was packed tight as the big jugs of water in our mini fridge. And more people kept getting on. And the bus driver kept letting more people on. Jessica was standing on the steps that lead down to the door when we first got on and then more and more people got on. Anyway, it turned out to be kind of fun in a way to ride a half an hour completely smooshed together.
Also, went hiking and are planning to do m0re in the beautiful Yanmingshan national park. We just went for a few hours and saw some gorgeous stuff, some of what we have pictures of.
And saw Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Bastards. Good flick. Give it shot if you haven’t already. Except you mom and dad. It’s a bit more violent that you would like I’m afraid.
