March - The lion & the lamb

March began like a lion. Taiwan's monsoon season happens to land in March.  It rained, rained and then rained some more.  In fact, it rained so much that we broke down and made a couple of wet weather worthy purchases. I bought a pair of galoshes to use on my walking commute to school and for the scooter.  I am happy to have dry feet!  We also purchased a dehumidifier.  Our apartment was literally molding from the humidity and our towels would not dry. Have you ever wiped mold off of walls with a paper towel and cleaner?  Now, we can say that we have.  The buildings in Taiwan have concrete frames rather than wood frames simply for this reason.  Fortunately, the monsoons have stopped and the sun is shining once again!  James and I also purchased a book called "Taipei Escapes." The book is written by an expat.  He gives great directions for one day hikes near Taipei.  We have already enjoyed three of the hikes in the last two weekends.  Another excellent purchase choice!

On a particularly wet Saturday in early March, we attended James' school's English show.  Each class did a song, dance, or play.  James can vouch about the huge amount of work that went into this show.  His students did awesome on the stage! Good job Teacha James! My school's show is this Saturday. 

James with his students.  They performed "Hop like a Bunny." 

Last weekend we used the book to hike in the Danshui area.  Danshui is coastal area in the northwestern part of Taipei.  We visited the area with my friend Michelle.  We did an excellent and tiring hike to the peak of Mount Jhan.  I personally found the most enjoyable part of the hike to be lunch.  As the book told us, a temple along the hike on the side of the mountain provides a by-donation vegan lunch on the weekends and holidays.  It was delicious and fueled us for the remainder of the hike.  We were so happy that we forgot to take a picture of lunch :)

Looking out towards Danshui from Mount Jhan

This hike included some of the ridiculous vertical rock climbs with ropes.  I believe I have gotten much better and more comfortable with these "scrambles."  However, please note the lady behind me in blue would have passed me if it was possible.  We chatted with her and her husband in broken English/Chinese after the climb.  I think her and her husband are in their 60's.  I am humbled by the Taiwanese hikers!!!!!

A waterfall in a temple cave

The following day, James and I joined a group from Taipei to do a run at the Shimen Reservoir.  Part of the run included this strange abandoned amusement park.  We were able to walk through the castle.  Weird!

This past weekend, we headed back to Taipei to check off another hike from the book's list.  Now, it is a goal to do all of these hikes! Our Saturday hike started off of a train stop on the northeastern side of Taipei not far from the coast.  'Taiwan is always full of surprises' as James and I frequently say.  The stop is known for the enormous amount of stray cats that hang out around the train station.  I suppose the Taiwanese found this "cute" and decorated the whole train station in a cat theme.  

That's a cat on top of the giant floating cat head!

The cats are everywhere!

The hike is titled the Golden Character Tablet.  This ancient tablet is carved into the rock.  The design around the Chinese writing is quite intricate.  Oddly, these people were painting the Chinese characters white.  They did not act suspicious as we walked by and snapped a few photos.  However, James and I found this a bit strange...

View from the top!

We passed by this cave on a route to a waterfall.  James kept insisting he saw a pair of eyes staring at us from inside the cave.  I thought he was trying to scare me (which worked since I carried a rock with me for the next ten minutes just in case of an attack), but he keeps insisting he was telling the truth. 

The hike also included the ruins of a coal mining town.  We felt like we were in Cambodia looking at ruins!  This area of Taiwan became very popular for a short period of time for coal mining.  A few small towns popped up.  They were quickly abandoned after the coal mining rush ended.  The trail we hiked is the same trail the miners used to walk to and from the mines.  It was the ancient I-75!

A good view of the coast from the second peak on the hike!

We ate dinner at an incredible vegetarian restaurant in Taipei next to the Longshan Temple! James found a review for the restaurant by an expat on facebook. The reviewer recommended the pumpkin soup as well as a few other dishes.  The Taiwanese call the Japanese kabocha squash "pumpkin."  It's a delicious squash that I highly recommend everyone to try.  This soup was phenomenal!!!  We will definitely be going back here.  

The restaurant is located near a famous night market in Taipei.  The night market is famous for it's unique (and absolutely disgusting in my personal opinion) "foods." You can eat snake and turtle AND drink snake blood.  Ugh!!!!!  We walked around the market and saw a few weird things.  All of the weird vendors have signs posted for no photography.  We followed directions.  Whenever something is worthy enough to post in English as well as Chinese, it's serious!

On Sunday, we had an important goal to accomplish.  We wanted to visit Chinese Culture University's campus.  Although we already submitted our college applications to two schools in Hsinchu, I felt remorse about not applying to colleges elsewhere.  Of course, our original plan was to apply to a handful of colleges until we realized how complicated and expensive the application process was.  We discovered the application deadline for CCU is April 15th and we have "leftovers" of the correct documents to apply!  CCU is just north of Taipei.  The campus is actually located within the boundaries of Yangmingshan National Park.  If we attended school here, we could officially say that we live in a national park.  Sunday was a lovely, sunshiny day, which of course makes one like a place more than on a rainy or cold day.  

Well, the college's campus is in an amazing location.  The views from the campus are incredible!  The campus is located less than a 30 minute walk from the main entrance to the national park.  In addition, the campus is surrounded by a never-ending amount of trails.  James and I would not have to go far for our weekend explorations! While we fell head over heels in love with the location, we were not in love with the campus itself.  All of the buildings are quite old.  We were able to explore the gym and dining area.  Not that anything was bad or disgusting, but we know that the facilities and buildings at the two campuses in Hsinchu are quite new and nice.  We have used the colleges' gyms and dining halls on several occasions.  There are always pros and cons to everything!  We haven't been accepted anywhere or received any scholarships yet, so I am jumping way ahead of myself here :)  We will find out about all applications by the end of May.  

After our visit to the campus, we enjoyed a nice shorter hike just a short stroll from the campus.  Spring is awesome!

A cool picture of the Catholic Church located right outside of campus.  

We had heard the horror stories about the huntsman spider.  We had only seen the spiders outdoors in the past.  Well, our apartment complex had a lovely visitor on first floor.  These spiders can move fast!  Here's a picture of our little friend.  By the way, these spiders are not poisonous and rarely bite humans.  The larger huntsman spiders eat small birds instead!  Gross!

James and I are especially fond of our furry friend who lives by the coastal bike/running path, Wo Chi. This is the same dog James fed the crumbs of Gammy's cookies.  We think he wants to learn English.  James bought Wo Chi some "irrestible" dog treats, as the package reads.  Wo Chi politely rejected them!  I suppose wild dogs don't care for "human dog food."  The next time we went to the coast, we brought him peanut butter crackers.  James managed to teach Wo Chi to sit with just one pack of crackers!  He takes after his dad, the great dog trainer!  

We enjoyed our first watermelon of the season (yellow variety)!  We are looking forward to the tropical fruits coming back into season (aka mango and papaya)! 

Speaking of spring, one of our favorite parks to go for a run in Hsinchu is famous for its flower festival in March.  The park is named Eighteen Peaks.  It is named appropriately as the park is very hilly. 

Pumpkins

2014 - The year of the horse (this horse looks a bit crazy in my opinion)

Flower Clock

Butterfly

Glass chickens (I am assuming these were made at the famous... or not so famous... Hsinchu Glass Museum)

Extra large fruit

Fish and flowers

Happy Spring!!!! March is going out like a lamb in Taiwan this year. 

Da Shan!

Da Shan (Big Mountains in Chinese)!

Our college applications are in sealed envelopes and ready for a hand delivery tomorrow.  Somehow living in a foreign country and not speaking the language makes everything complicated.  Imagine that!  After an extremely complicated application process, we have completed applications for two universities in Taiwan and three scholarships.  What a relief to have them complete!  Applying as an international student to graduate schools makes applying for colleges in high school seem like a breeze. Both of the schools are in Hsinchu.  Hsinchu has grown on us during our time here so we thought it would be nice to stay in the same city where we already know the lay of land, a few people and a nice church.  We'll let y'all know the outcome in May!

College Applications are almost complete! What a complicated process and a lot of paper to submit. 

Even with the college applications, we have still managed to squeeze in some trips.  Imagine that one, too! The Rockwells are never finding the time to go play in Taiwan ;)

First of all, we received a lovely gift from James' grandparents, Gammy and Roger.  James was more than thrilled to receive a box of Gammy's famous cookies.  Many of you may remember these cookies from our wedding.  Although the cookies did not last long, James did share a few crumbs.  As we have mentioned before, we have a few stray dog friends around town.  We are particularly fond of our dog friend that we affectionately named "Wo Chi" ("I eat" in Chinese) that watches our scooter while we run along the coast.  When we arrived, Wo Chi enthusiastically greeted us as normal.  James fed him a few crumbs from Gammy's Pecan Sandie cookies.  The dog loved it.  When we returned from our run 45 minutes later, we had a little surprise.  Wo Chi told the neighborhood about the delicious cookies.  Two other dogs were hanging out by the scooter with Wo Chi anxiously awaiting our arrival.  I think the dogs were pretty disappointed there weren't more cookie crumbs to share. They also probably called Wo Chi a liar.  We learned two important lessons that day: 1. Feed the dogs at the end of the run. 2. Everyone loves Gammy's cookies!

Gammy Cookies and other surprises!

For some crazy reason, ultramarathon man James signed up for a 54k run in Neiwan.  Since the race started at 5am, we decided it would be best to stay in the night in Neiwan.  Neiwan is a mountain town about a 45 minute scooter drive from Hsinchu.  On Saturday, we did a small hike with a group of friends and our church pastor outside of Neiwan.  We hiked to the ruins of a Japanese Fort.  The Japanese controlled Taiwan between 1895 and 1945.  During the hike, our pastor made a hilarious comment that I must share relating to the way time passed while living in Taiwan.  I have written before about the strange slow way time passes here.  Our pastor said the best way to calculate your time living in Taiwan is by doing it in dog years.  I am in complete agreement!

The Japanese Fort

Enjoying some vegetarian rice dumplings wrapped in banana leaves in the sunshine by the river and swinging bridge in Neiwan.  I can't imagine a nicer way to spend the afternoon. 

James and I stayed the night at a Bed and Breakfast since there were no hostel options in Neiwan. The experience was very personal.  The owner, a middle aged Taiwanese woman, cooked us dinner and breakfast.  She even made a breakfast at 4 am for James and the other racers staying in her B&B.  The place looked like I had decorated it when I was in high school. It looked like the way I decorated my bedroom. She painted the ceiling with clouds and covered the walls in butterflies, flowers and lady bugs. I loved her choices of bright colors, too!  James will have to write more about the race itself.  I enjoyed a nice long run on a gorgeous country road going up a mountain while James ran in his race (I had a few hours until he finished) and met James at the finish line to find him with a smile on his face.  I don't know how he finishes a 5 hour race looking so happy and with so much energy, but it happens almost every race!  We even made it to 1:30 pm church service in Hsinchu!

**Race Report from James**
I saw at least 50 people running barefoot.  I ate probably $40 US in tomatoes at the aid stations.  My race was fueled by tomatoes!  The aid stations also had weird Asian cookies, bananas, tofu, and some kind of pork, maybe pork skins.  Gross.  The race course ran 20k up a mountain, 7k down the backside to the turn-around point, then 7k back up the mountain, to a 20k downhill descent to the finish.  It was rather brutal, but a beautiful course with excellent weather.  And the race was called 'King of the World Ultra Marathon'.  So I guess that means I am now a King?

Ultramarathon Man James - always smiling

This past weekend we traveled to the BIG mountains of central Taiwan.  Friday was a national holiday, 2/28 Peace Day.  On February 28, 1947 in Taiwan, many civilians were killed due to protests and government unrest. We took advantage of the holiday and traveled with the couple from our church small group to Huan mountain.  It is literally right in central Taiwan.  The mountains were huge!!!!!!  The area is known as the Swiss Alps of Taiwan.

We arrived mid-day on Friday. The weather was not as delightful as we had hoped but we had a few good views when the clouds occasionally parted.  The area was packed with tourists for one main reason: snow.  The Taiwanese are not used to seeing snow.  Snow can only be found in Taiwan in the high mountains during the winter. We actually saw people filling up buckets with snow.  We are assuming they were bringing them home to keep in their freezers.  Also, tourists seemed to enjoy making small snowmen and putting them on their car windshields.  As you can imagine, this whole scene of excitement over a small amount of snow seemed odd to our group which included James from Michigan, one friend from New York City and another friend from Ohio.

We felt so small compared to these huge mountains. 

It was so cold!!!!! 

Glad that's not our scooter...

We hiked up a well traveled trail up a mountain.  The trail was more difficult than anticipated due to the snowy steps.  The descent was dangerous but quite enjoyable.  We (well, actually just James and I) were literally snowboarding down the snowy sections in our running shoes.  Our shoes were soaked but I could not stop giggling.  I think the other couple we were with probably wonder about our sanity and think we lead them to hikes where their lives are at risk :)

The Taiwanese LOVED the snow!

Hiking in the snow.  The descent was the fun part!

All the Taiwanse loved that we were wearing shorts. Ohh, those crazy Americans!

The next morning James and I awoke early to watch the sunrise.  We enjoyed a sunrise run up the mountain to the Cingjing Farm.  After a delicious breakfast at the B&B (James and I are spoiling ourselves with all of the B&Bs), we went back to the Cingjing Farm with our friends.  The Farm has sheep from New Zealand that graze on the land.  Once again, I was amused by the pure joy of the Taiwanese seeing and petting sheep.  I suppose we are spoiled in the US by having the opportunities to see snow and go to petting zoos, as well as James and I are spoiled from seeing an endless amount of sheep in New Zealand. We also enjoyed a horse show.  The horses were from Mongolia.  I don't know if this is a regular show or something new for the Chinese year of the horse.  Nonetheless, I always enjoy seeing horses.  We were even able to pet the horses after the show and take pictures.

Sunrise.  The building is the Old England Bed and Breakfast.  It really looks like a building from England. 

The campgrounds here are quite different than in the US.  Everyone pitches their tents right next to each other (often times right next to the road) and there are no camp fires. 

The cherry blossoms were in bloom. 

Sheep!

Wow...sunrise in the mountains is breathtaking!

I think we should send this picture into Runner's World magazine. 

The rays of sunshine shining through the clouds are always a good reminder of God's beauty for me. 

Look at all those sheep. 

Here are a couple of pictures of the Swiss Alps I experienced in 2005 when I studied abroad in Europe.  I would not personally compare Huan Mountain to the Swiss Alps, but that's just me.  Each place is beautiful in its own way. 

We headed home on Saturday evening.  It's amazing how you'll cut a trip a short to get a car back before you are charged for another day.  This makes me like the public transportation with few time constraints in Taiwan more and more! James and I did not want the vacation to end so we enjoyed the evening in downtown Hsinchu. The local glass museum set up an art display in the river canal.  The combination of the lanterns and glass displays was quite nice and romantic.

Let's hope the February showers bring March flowers (rather than March monsoons)!  Love y'all!