Happy Moon Festival!

Tropical Storm Usagi changed the plans for a lot of people in Taiwan for the four day Moon Festival weekend - including the Rockwells.  James picked me up at school on Wednesday night with bad news.  He looked at the weather and decided that our trip to the east coast was a baaaaaaaad idea.  The good news is that James was able to return the train tickets for a full refund!  I seriously feel like we have to plan our lives around typhoons here.

We pondered what to do with our four day weekend.  We did not want to waste it sitting in our apartment watching the rain so on Thursday morning we headed up to Taipei.  The weather was decent so we continued our journey and headed north to Yangmingshan National Park for the third time since being in Taiwan.  We were literally walking in a cloud the entire time but the exercise and change of scenery was nice.  We even hiked in ponchos for a while.  We looked pretty cute - my poncho is pink and James' poncho is blue :)

We were able to somewhat see and definitely smell some sulfur pits!  This was a new trail in the park for us.  There were several other people out there hiking too so we felt ok about our decision... At the bus stop in Yangmingshan, we met a couple from Canada that teach in South Korea.  They were vacationing in Taipei for the weekend.

The pink poncho from 7-11 does a great job to as a waterproof bag cover!

Sulfur pits smell nasty!

The next morning we ran from our hostel to Elephant Mountain.  Taipei has the "Four Beast" mountains literally next door to Taipei 101.  Elephant Mountain is a popular spot to hike (it's literally a 15 minute hike to the top) and watch the sunset over Taipei 101.  Well, we had a pleasant surprise at the top of Elephant Mountain.  The trail continued.  In fact we were hiking trails on the four beasts for over an hour and the run to Elephant Mountain from our hostel was already 40 minutes long.  The good news was it did not rain.  The bad news was we were quite hungry! We took the first set of stairs we found that went down the mountain.  We ended up at a Family Mart eating sweet potatoes and bananas, then walking to the closest MRT station.

Wow.  Taipei is awesome!  How many cities have miles of trails on mountains near a MRT station?!  We were wondering why everyone else hiking on the mountains had large backpacks.  They were spending all day hiking there.  We will definitely go back to complete the trails and bring some food with us.

We did walk into the lobby of Taipei 101 on our way to the MRT station.  Unfortunately, we have no pictures of this adventure since we left our phones at the hostel in fear of rain.  Umm...so on the MRT ride back to the hostel you'll never believe who was on our train.  The Canadian couple from South Korea!

We enjoyed the afternoon.  We shopped at a few outdoor clothing shops.  Then, we visited Peace Park.  From there, we walked to the Memorial Hall.  I decided I wanted to grab a snack at the 7-11 in the National Library before seeing the main attraction of the Memorial Hall.  As soon as we entered the library, the sky opened up! We ended up resting our feet at the library.  We read a couple of the English newspapers in the newspaper reading room for about an hour.  By the time we left, the Memorial Hall was closed and it was dark.  We'll be making another visit to the Memorial Hall along with the Four Beast Mountains at some point in our Taiwan future!

Please note a typical street in Taipei - there is a 7-11 across the street from another 7-11 and a Starbuck's on the corner. 

The grand entrance to the Memorial Hall!

The concert hall

The Memorial Hall will visit next time

On Saturday, we woke up with a not so hot weather report.  After calling a few gyms in Taiepi that were listed in our Lonely Planet Tour Guide book (we are quite dependent on this book!), I looked out the window and realized it was not raining at that second.  We enjoyed a quick run around the area and avoided the rain!

We pondered whether to spend the afternoon at the National Palace Museum (filled with Chinese art work, statues, etc) or the Children's Science Museum.  The two museums were located near the same MRT station.  We decided to go to the vegetarian restaurant recommended in Lonely Planet before heading to one of the museums.  We ended up meeting and eating with an English professor from South Korea who is from Canada.  When we parted ways with him, James told him we would be running into him again at some point in the future.  We keep running in to people we know / have met before in Taiwan!  

James and I picked the Children's Science Museum/National Taiwan Science Education Center (www.ntsec.gov.tw) for the pure entertainment factor.  We LOVED it!!!!!!!  It was eight floors of awesomeness all for $3USD.  We were at the museum for over four hours.  We only left because they were closing :)  We even paid an extra $3USD to do the Turbo-Ride 3D Theater.  Everyone sat in chairs and wore a seat belt.  The film was 5 minutes long.  We virtually "rode" the Great Wall of China on a cart.  The chairs moved with the screen.  It was tons of fun.  I am glad it was only 5 minutes long because I was starting to feel a bit nauseated by the end.  It truly felt like a roller coaster!

The walk-through digestive system was pretty amusing especially at the end -  http://youtu.be/bJyATIFpPog

I don't know what the sign says but it has my birthday on it!

You could pay $3USD to ride the sky bike.  It looked too intense for me!

Water creates power. 

Blowing bubbles. 

The things we will post on facebook to receive a free gift bag from the museum... The sign says something about "The Story of Water" exhibit we were in...or at least that is what they told us!

A special picture for my brother who moves to the Australian outback next month!  I don't know why the picture is in French though.  

James and I will be visiting my brother there at some point :)

The puzzle section was so frustrating!

Yes!!!!!  I finally got it with a little help from my sweet husband. 

How is he standing there?

Cycling the scenic Hsinchu 17km coastline while staying dry during the typhoon. 

The theater

Serious and ready for the ride!

Did I mention how cool this museum is?

How do you ride a bike with square tires?  You ride it on round bumps! Please note this bicycle is quite hard to pedal!

After that we headed home for Hsinchu and enjoyed a laid back Sunday.  Our feet were worn out from the weekend.  Who would have thought we would have gotten so much exercise during a typhoon!  Overall we were pleasantly surprised by the weather.  We were definitely at the driest and safest part of the island for the typhoon.  The east coast and southern part of Taiwan were hammered with high winds and rain. We made the right decision for our Moon Festival weekend!

We should have taken a picture of our receipts from Taipei.  It was a pile of about 15 receipts from 7-11, Family Mart and Hi Life convenient stores.  We were living large in Taipei :) Actually a lot of restaurants were closed for the holiday weekend so we did not have as many restaurant choices as normal.  I really think I could survive from only buying things (including all food) from 7-11 for months.  The place sells salads, fresh fruit, pre-paid minutes for my cell phone, laundry detergent and even disposable underwear (not sure why though)!  I am highly considering contacting 7-11 and offering to do a documentary film on "How I Survived in Taiwan for 60 days with only 7-11."  Do you think I could become a movie star?!

Every time we go to Taipei we like the city more and more.  It's a magical place.  We did find one thing we do not like about the city.  There are not fruit stands on every corner and people independently selling fruit at every park like there is in Hsinchu.  We think there must be regulations in Taipei that do not allow the sale of fruit in open air or something like that.  It is disappointing to buy the overpriced and not so delicious fruit at the grocery store.

So, the Moon Festival is a big deal holiday in Taiwan.  Most people give gifts and visit family.  Both of our schools gave us a box of moon cakes.  Our Taiwanese mother gave us a box of vegan moon cakes.  Our favorite vegan restaurant gave us a few moon cakes.  We certainly felt well-loved.  James is eating so many moon cakes that he is going to look like a round moon cake ;) He is celebrating like the Taiwanese!!!!

The lid of one of our boxes of moon cakes reads, "May all the happiness and joy be tightly by your side."

***James says his pants are fitting more 'tightly by his side' since eating all the mooncakes***

MOON CAKES!!!!

I had my first dentist appointment last week.  The Taiwanese National Insurance covers two cleanings per year.  Well, I know why Americans have more pearly white teeth than the Taiwanese.  My whole cleaning was only a water spray method.  I was waiting for him to floss my teeth, use a pick to scrape off plaque, use the fun spinning toothbrush with some intense toothpaste, etc.  After a few minutes of the water cleaning, the dentist told me I had no tooth decay and my teeth looked healthy.  I was wondering when he was going to do the rest of the cleaning!!!!  It was an awkward moment when I did not get up to leave and he had to tell me the cleaning was finished.

Happy Moon Festival to everyone!  Hopefully the Moon Festival will bring some cooler weather here in Taiwan :)  I am looking forward to the fall and not dripping sweat on my walk to work everyday.

Are you glad you moved to Taiwan?

My mother asked me that question a few weeks ago.  Hmmm.  That is a big question.  My honest answer at that time was, "I don't know".  There is a lot to that question.  There are a lot of things I miss greatly from the good 'ol US of A.  Friends.  Family.  My last job (why did I quit that job???).  Well, parts of my last job ;-)  No language barrier.  Golf.  Wait, maybe not golf.  But maybe golf.
I could go on and on.  There are a lot of reasons that could make me answer that question "No".  But - I feel very strongly that, later in life, both Rachel and I will be extremely glad we made the move to Taiwan and will confidently answer that question with "Oh heck yes we are!".  I'm not sure why I'm starting the blog with that statement, but I do think of that question often.  We are gaining a whole bunch 'a new experiences over here.  Maybe more than we bargained for!

Anyways, life is good.  I have had a really good past 1.5 weeks of work.  I think I am finally settling in to being a teacher.  It is not as overwhelming as it used to be.  And it was rather overwhelming for the first two months with the schedule I was thrown in to.  But it feels good now knowing how to teach and being able to (somewhat) manage the classroom.  I do have just a few crazy little monsters I haven't quite figured out yet...

Guess what?  It's raining and there is a typhoon coming!!!  Definitely not unique weather as we have been through 3 typhoons now.  But unfortunately the timing of this one is horrible.  This is just the beginning of a national holiday here in Taiwan - the Mid-Autumn Festival (aka the Moon Festival) and we get Thursday & Friday off of work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Autumn_Festival

Taiwan is just left of center in the picture.  Can you
guess where the typhoon is?  

We had planned a trip to Taroko Gorge National Park but I just now pulled the plug on the whole ordeal (it's 8pm Wed evening).  We had train tickets booked and paid for to leave at 7am tomorrow morning but I just returned them.  Luckily I got a full refund for the round-trip.  We will be losing our first night deposit at the hotel, but it wasn't too expensive.  The weather is supposed to be ok tomorrow (Thursday) but raining Fri and Sat.  We are going to go to Taipei instead as there are a few hikes on our list we can check out while the weather is still good.  Once it starts raining there are many more options for indoor activities in Taipei than Hsinchu.  One that we hope to check out is the National Palace Museum.  It's supposed to be phenomenal.

That's really all I have to report at this point.  I got off work earlier than Rachel tonight so figured I could write a quick blog.  Hope everyone back home is doing well!

Eating 'mooncakes' is a tradition of the Mid-Autumn Festival.
My boss gave me a box.
They are as delicious as you are imagining.  

Taking a day of silence...

Teaching English definitely requires one essential ability...speaking English.  Unfortunately James and I have a cold and guess what it stole from me...my voice!  I am at home taking a vow of silence while James attempts to make it through another day of a cracking voice.  Wasn't I the person that received a perfect attendance award 7th through 12th grade?!  What is wrong with me here?!!!! 

I learned why we are sick though.  During the current ghost festival month in Taiwan, there are specific things you are not supposed to do.  No whistling at night, wearing black, or leaving your clothes outside overnight to dry.  The ghosts wear your clothes at night and you get sick!  James and I need to be sure to do our laundry in the morning now!  Ohh, I think a ghost must have pushed me down the stairs a few weeks ago...

I went to the Chinese Medical Doctor on Monday.  I have painfully been drinking a bitter herb mix three times a day.  Yuck!  However, I have to admit yesterday when I completely lost my voice I headed straight to the regular doctor to make sure it was not strep or anything serious.  My experience at the Chinese Medicine Doctor was really not as exciting and magical as I had hoped so I don't have much to write about it!

Anyway, there were a couple of fun things about my students I wanted to post on the next blog.  First, I wanted to share some of the fun names of our students.  The parents pick an English name for their children that typically start with the same sound as their Chinese name.  I have only had one student who's name started with the "L" sound for that reason.  Most of the names are common names in the US but here are a few of the fun ones: Apple, Sweet, Milk, Shadow, Cherry, Angel, Yummy

One of my classes just learned how to describe what someone looks like - long blond curly hair, blue eyes, etc.  Since all of my students have black straight hair and black eyes, I had to be creative in what we did to practice what they learned in class.  I would have loved to have 15 Guess Who? games!!!!!  Anyway, here is the difference you see in giving assignments to young girls versus young boys.  I asked them to create a description of a person and draw a picture.  

The assignment completed by a sweet little girl named Cherry...and...

Wow...what boys are brave enough to hand into the teacha!!!!  It says "He has long poo-poo hair and purple eyes.  Lovely!  I have come a long way with my nonchalant reactions to the things the boys say in my class.  I have been told I look like a monkey before. I hear the word poo-poo often and must erase it from the board. Also, I am thankful to not teach the class with the daily armpit flatulence noises anymore as the substitute for the
"I'm here." roll call response.  Is there an all-girl English cram school here? 

Wow!  I was about to post this blog and look at what our new "family" here in Taiwan delivered to my apartment by scooter!  My student's mother who is vegan (I wrote about them in a past blog) brought me some good home remedies for a cold and sore throat.  James and I went to lunch with her and her friend last Thursday.  Now, she is like our loving mother here in Taiwan!  She said vegetarians must take care of each other.  She also does not think we are American.  She thinks we are Taiwanese :)  Well, she brought a porridge, ginger powder and black sugar to mix together with hot water, a lemon plum vinegar to mix with hot water, and some VERY tasty vegetarian flakes.  I don't know exactly what they are but we have tasted them before on wraps and sandwiches.  She has already invited us to spend Chinese New Year with her family in February.  Then, we can see how it is celebrated.  As a quick side note, vegetarians here strongly believe they are vegetarian in order to bring about world peace and that all vegetarians are one big happy family.  I guess we picked a good country to move to with our dietary restrictions!  It used to exclude us from eating with others  :) 

James' Section: 

I came home from work/school (unsure what to call it...its both I guess) surprised by all the stuff that Rachels veggie lady brought her.  Well, for the record, I have people that care about me too!  My manager at school brought me a pack of throat lozenges and some traditional Chinese plants / herbs / things.  She said to boil one of the big balls with 8-10 of the little almond looking things and drink the tea it makes.  She warned me that it wouldn't taste very good, but would fix my voice.  My voice has been HORRIBLE for the past two, well I guess it's three days now.  I feel fine, its just that my voice is 85% gone.  I can't speak very loud or change the pitch of my voice much or it goes away.  Super annoying.  But anyways, it is so nice that we have people in our lives here that genuinely care about us.  Makes it feel like we are not so alone out here.  

The stuff in the bowl is the weird plant things steeping in water.
I have no idea what they are but fully expect it to be disgusting.  

A Super Weekend!

We had been stuck inside our apartment in Hsinchu for the past two weekends due to rain, rain, and more rain.  We were beginning to go crazy from the lack of adventure.  For two whole weeks in a row!  Horrible, I know.  So last week we decided we were going to Taipei for the next weekend.  No matter what.  We found and booked a hostel early in the week and planned to catch a bus after getting out of work on Friday so we could spend the entire weekend in Taipei.  I also had identified a few hikes in the Taipei area we wanted to check out.  And they were both easily accessible using public transportation.  Yeah!  

Rachel was finished with classes at 7:00pm on Friday, but I had classes till 8:30.  I rushed home after my last class and quickly packed a bag.  Rachel had prepared our dinner to go so we could eat on the bus.  We drove our scooter down to the college (where there are a lot of buses going to/from Taipei) and were quickly on a bus heading north.  Rachel had prepared a lovely salad of sprouts, veggies, tofu, peanuts, and apple with a soy sauce dressing.  Yum!  We were travelling in style.  

When we arrived to the Taipei bus station we took a quick look at the map on the wall to decide which exit would be best for us so we could be on the correct side as our hostel.  A woman noticed us looking at the map and came over asking if she could help.  Taiwanese are ALWAYS going out of their way to help us.  It seems to be deeply ingrained in their culture to help others in need.  Anyway, the woman insisted she walk us to the hostel rather than point us in the right direction.  It was about a 20 minute walk from the bus station and NOT on her way home.  I still feel bad accepting such kind help, but it is getting easier ;-)  Anyway, it turns out the woman lives in Taipei and commutes to Hsinchu every day for work and we had a lot in common.  We had great conversation on the walk to the hostel and exchanged contact information at the end.  We may all get together for lunch one day in Hsinchu.  Not bad!  

This blog is already starting out waaaaaaaaay too detailed so I will get to the point.  Saturday morning we took the train about 30 minutes outside of Taipei then transferred to a bus for another 15 minute ride to Jinguashi.  Jinguashi is the next city over from Jiaofan where we hiked a few weeks ago.  We arrived and were dropped off in front of yet another big Buddhist temple with a really big, scary looking dude statue overlooking the temple.  The hike started right behind the temple and began with lots and lots of stairs.  We were heading up to Teapot Mountain. 

One the first climb, looking back at the ocean

Some good lookin' dude we saw on the hike

There is an old gold mine in the mountain we are climbing

Almost to the Teapot summit 

Coming through the 'teapot'

Once over / through the 'teapot', we kept going along the ridge to Banping Mountain.  The trail was super over grown with tall grass and we really should have been fully covered in clothing.  But, we weren't and we wanted to continue on.  So we did!  

Looking back at the 'teapot'

Going through the tall grass.  The trail was like this and worse for the next 2 hours

Looking ahead to the summit of Banping

From the summit of Banping.  Looking at Teapot and Keelung mountains, as well as the
Pacific Ocean.  You can almost see Los Angeles waaaay out there...... 

Here you can see almost the entire ridge we hiked. 

 Here's the video of the hike:  http://youtu.be/vr4xYXS4bPE

The hiked looped us back around through the Jinguashi Gold Ecological Park.  We walked around the park for a bit and paid the $50NT entry fee to tour the old mine.  Putting on the hard hats was the best part of the tour.

This is what you see upon exiting the old gold mine.  You forget what a
beautiful spot you are in when you are underground!

This was all just DAY ONE of our super Taipei weekend adventure.  We took the bus/train combo back to Taipei and managed to find the vegan restaurant we ate at a while ago.  They made some really really really good veggie wraps that we have been craving since.  Luckily they were just as good as we remembered and they fed us till we were full.  A short walk back to our hostel and we were ready for showers and bed.  

The next morning we started a little earlier than we had the previous day (but not too, too early...) and took another train/bus combo out to Shiding.  Shiding is a small town just SE of Taipei and a great starting point for some good hikes.  This day we were planning the Huang Di Dian trail.  

The bus dropped us off 'downtown' Shiding and the only directions I had was to 'follow the road to the left, take another left, and look for a red arch over the road'.  Turns out those directions were spot-on!  We grabbed a quick bite in Shiding and headed to the trail.  The trail began with lots and lots of stairs but eventually turned in to a nice, dirty single track trail.  We kept ascending then traversing then ascending then traversing, even going up chain ladders till we found the ridgeline trail we were anticipating.  It was awesome!  The pictures really don't do it any justice, but they give a general idea. 

Rachel enjoying here rice-wrap.  It is a rice mixture wrapped in a banana leaf (or something like it) and steamed.  We have enjoyed a few of these over the past months 

One of many chain-ladders.  They were not easy to climb 

Well, maybe for this guy 

Finally made it to the ridge!

One of many great views

Who needs obstacle races when you have access to hikes like this?  

This is how all the ridgeline sections were.  I don't think either of us could have hiked
this trail had there not been the rope. 

We could actually see Taipei 101 from a few different points but unfortunately the pictures didn't turn out well.  

After getting back to Shiding we finished the rest of the food we brought (with a few add-ons from the local convenience store) as we waited for the bus to take us back to Taipei.  The bus number was actually 666 and I have seen it referred to 'The Bus of the Beast' on a few different online articles.  Regardless, it is an easy one to remember!  We made it back to our hostel where they were holding a bag for us (so we didn't have to take it with us on the hike).  I very kindly asked if we could use the shower one more time and THANKFULLY they said ok.  It makes for a much better trip back to Hsinchu when you are not disgustingly disgusting from hiking all day during the summer on a humid island near the Tropic of Cancer.  

Back to Hsinchu really was all about getting laundry started, finding more food, a few chores, etc till it was time for bed.  Unfortunately we did not make it back to Hsinchu in time for our evening church service (we had planned on / hoped to make it back in time) but luckily our church from Atlanta plays a service online we were able to watch.  That is the one and only good part about the time difference between America and here.  We can watch the Sunday morning church service at 9pm Sunday night!  

That's enough for now.  Later!