Loving the Lukang

Okay, so first of all lets discuss the Taiwanese art. I can't really figure out what goes through these people's brains when it comes to art. Ok, I can see some random ugly art pieces around town, everywhere's gotta have one or two... But Taiwan, Taiwan brings ugly random art to a whole new level. For instance this gem of a goat. I really don't think goats even live in Taiwan nor should they belong in the middle of a really large park in the middle of the 2nd biggest city in Taiwan. But this isn't even all of them! Every single day I pass a VERY large statue of David, good thing i didn't see it in Italy... Taiwan's got me covered. But seriously these people need an art lesson on some good art. PRONTO!

Yes sadly Taiwan has Dominoes, along with tons of other American food chains. But luckily they put their own swing on the pizza. I'm not even sure if you can get the regular pepperoni or cheese pizza here. It's all seafood, really really weird. This one is lobster and it actually really delicious!

This.... ladies and gentlemen would be duck brain. Yes real duck, quack quack, brain. As if it was not enough that I ate duck, which was quite tasty, we chowed down the juicy brain. Let's just say it's probably not something that I want to experience EVER again. But it was an experience and the Taiwanese people LOVE it!

Lukang with yet, surprise surprise more odd Taiwanese statues. I still can't grasp the whole thought process. "Ya, ya, ya that's brilliant two ugly cartoon cats would be a perfect way to welcome visitors to our lovely town."

This is a temple is Lukang which they were doing rituals. It was an incredible temple and was HUGE!! It actually is a Taiwan National Monument. It is really interesting they come in with big ol' platters of any kind of food, and these huge bouquets of flowers and put them on a table in front of the temple. Then they go in with incense and pray and wave the things around. I really wanted to take picture of them but I felt bad so i just took a picture looking out. My question is though what in the devil do they do with all that food people bring throughout the day?!? No wonder people want to be monks they get to have a free feast every night!!

This is at the Lukang Folk Arts Museum.... I don't know why but I really miss swinging and throughoghly enjoyed this! Lukang was in general just an amazing place! It's really old town and is just a classy place. It almost feels like the Park City of Taiwan. There is a lot of quality things you can get there. Like these awesome fans this dudes makes. You can seriously bring in a picture of anything you want, anything and he'll paint it on a fan for you! They're beautiful! I definitely need to get one of the temple. Oh this also shows a good picture of the trees here. They are awesome and all have their roots above ground. These two were pretty small but alot of them have rope like things that hang down from them, George of the jungle style.

Ok, I had to put this in. I don't think people understand what a squatter is. Well.. the above picture not only lets you see it, but also how it is used. Why these people have them is beyond me! Sure yes i would love to pop a squat into this TINY little hole, which many people before me, as well as myself, have missed. Yep, I love standing in pee while peeing while standing. But the thing that gets me even more is these puppies are in 21st century buildings! Why? Maybe i'm not using it right or something but I dread having to ever use a public toilet, which seems like is quite frequently, crap! (Quite literally)

Ok, so i had to put this in. Pretty much everywhere we go someone says,"OH you are so beautiful" or they try to sneakily take a picture of us from their cell phones, most people stare sctrach that EVERYONE stares! It really is almost even more weird to me now if I go somewhere and people don't stare. But anyways people ask to take pictures with us all the time and I finally had the guts to ask if I could get a picture too. I really love the chick in the striped shirt. It was so blinkin hot that day i thought I was going to melt! She shows it.

Ok, well there's an update on my life!! Wahoo, and teaching, teaching is great!! I really love the kids. Sometime I want to strangle them but overall they are adorable and when they do random things like break down in 80's love songs, repeat EVERY single word I say... literally...and dance to Michael Jackson I can't help but love them!

Ok so I forgot the Taiwan picture.

So I forgot the put in the picture of Taiwan. It's the top picture and then I decided to throw in a couple more i thought were good.

Dear Dad: I can't get the pictures to email or upload to Facebook so here ya go!

Hey pops here are the pictures that you wanted. It is not all of them but I did the ones that I thought looked the best. Just let me know if you want any more. I have some more. Also there is one that is from here in Taiwan. We drove by this place and there was these cool breaks in the mountain. I thought you would find it interesting so i took a picture in your honor.

Wild Monkeys, Church, and a whole lotta goodness!

Spiritually fed by Taiwan

(Ps I don't know how to move the dang pictues so there just going to stay there)

Well Taiwan, good old Taiwan. Tis a great place to be!! Ok well, in the past couple of weeks a lot of great things have happened!

To start er off two Saturdays ago we went to this place called Eurshui. It is this little tiny town that has a forest with monkeys! Yes I know real life wild monkeys, fantastic. This place was incredible. It was the first time I really got to experience the jungles of Taiwan, which by the way are truly a sight to be held. So after a long, and FREAKIN HOTTEST bike ride of my life we got to the place. Ok, great I was thinking we’re here. Nope, then you’ve gotta walk up the mountain, I literally thought I may melt at any moment. But anyways it was really cool. We start walking up this path and were burning up right? You’d think the people on the sides with their little stands would be selling drinks and ice cream right? Nope, these people decide this place would be a good place to sell underwear, socks, and hard boiled eggs. What the Hail?!?! I couldn’t fathem what in the devil these people are thinking. C’mon people this doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that while people are hiking it the forest in freaking 100 degree weather WE WANT WATER, NOT UNDERWEAR AND HARD BOILED EGGS!!! Ok well aside from the weirdness of that Eurshui was great! The locals treated us a little more like the monkeys the way they would look, point, and wave. It was also really cool because as you walked up there was tons of bamboo plants and when they blow in the wind it sounds like old creaky doors. Creepy but really cool.

Ok, so moving on last Sunday we go the pleasure of going to Taipei to hear President Uchtdorf speak. Simply amazing is about all I have to say. Hearing that man speak anytime in general is generally bliss, but hearing him talk, in person, in Taiwan well I’ll just leave that up to your imagination how unforgettable it was.

As for this week, this week yet again was great! I really use the words great, amazing, cool, fantastic, and unforgettable too much but there is just nothing else to describe it, Taiwan!! But this week one of my students parents invited us to go to dinner with them at a restaurant called, Tasty. Oh baby oh it really is called Tasty for a very good reason! We had heard that this place served you a several course dinner, but I was blind to what I had in store for me to eat that night. We get in there and ladies and gentleman they served us a 7 yes, I’ll spell it differently SEVEN course meal!! I thought I had eaten a lot on my cruise with my grandma, no this puts that to dire shame. I seriously can’t even recall some of the dishes they just kept on a comin and a comin.

That was on Friday night and on Saturday we again got the pleasure of going to Taipei with our ward. We got to go to baptisms for the dead, again I will say it, bliss. The Taipei temple is so adorably quaint! It was really is the tiniest temple I’ve ever seen. Seriously the font water came half way up my thigh and my toes were touching the front and when I got dunked I was real scared I was gonna hit the back. Amazing though, made the whole experience all the better. Yet another reason why Taiwan is bliss. After this we got the pleasure of going to Taipei 101! WOW OH WOW! That snickerdudle is large!! It’s like a freaking giant!

Well yet again this post is ridiculously long and I apologize for that. I really will try to post more often because I have to leave out so many ridiculous stories and details this way!!

Oh by the way…. I got a calling in our ward today. Ready for this…. Ward…….. Re………..li……ef……. So….cie….ty….PRRRRREEESSIIIDENT. Yes, me Kailey Jean Larsen Relief Society President. I think I’ll go and crap my pants now. Buh bye.

Funerals, Big Buddha Celebrations, and oh wait BLISS!!

So, this past week? Words can’t even quite describe, I fall more and more in love with Taiwan everywhere I go.

Let’s discuss the lovely art of funerals here. There are much less than quite the spectacle! They set up these big honkin tents pretty much anywhere they please, middle of the street, in front of a business, in a garage, wherever. So there was this one set up on the side of the road, and I noticed it had been there a couple of days right? One night we were walking home and BAM coolest thing ever. There were all of these people dressed up white robes, they kind of looked like they were in the KKK or something and they had all these fires in cans and they were like skipping around the fire. I wish I could’ve taken a picture but I didn’t want to be rude. It was so incredibly cool. But wait it gets even better. The next day we woke up early and went to the morning market, well on our way back we passed the same funeral. We were yet again treated with a pleasant surprise. They have all these tiers set up and a big Chinese dragon was there, and apparently (I didn’t actually get to see it myself) but the dragon with people in it started jumping from tier to tier! Sweet right? But OOOHhhh wait there’s even more!! You’d think this guy was some kind of god here or something, but no it’s just what they do in Taiwan. So that same day we were in our apartment and we heard all of this racket. We look outside don’t worry there’s just a parade going on, for that guy. Let me tell ya, when I die don’t even have a funeral just have a parade and party it up, I’m sure I’ll pretty darn happy in heaven!

Next and best event that has happened it Taiwan to date, and right up there with one of the best events of my whole entire life! So today in the US they are celebrating the 4^th of July and honestly I was a little sad, the 4^th is my favorite holiday! But man oh man was I pleasantly surprised with what Taiwan had to offer. We woke up today and were just going on about our business. While we were taking out the trash we heard a crap load of noise coming from the street, so we went to check it out. I bet you can’t guess what it was this time? Yep, a parade again except this one wasn’t for a dead person, apparently it is some Buddhist holiday so they had quite the parade to show us. We watched it until what we thought was the end of the parade. No, a little while later we hear it again the freaking parade is still going on! At this point I didn’t know about the holiday and really had no idea what in the devil was going on. But anyways we decided to ride our bikes to the store, well on our way there what do we hit again? Oh wait another parade?!?! What the what?! I’m telling you these Taiwanese people know how to PARTAY!! So we keep going and hear all this loud banging, we come to the street and there literally is thousands of fire crackers that people have lit off as the parade went by! It was NUTS!!!

Now after all the parades and fireworks you would think that this day couldn’t have gotten much better but Taiwan never ceases to amaze me and it did. So Karyn had seen at the big Buddha there were fireworks tonight, so we decided to go. We get up there and there are TONS I mean TONS of people. We walk into the park area and there are people dancing all around in traditional dances it was so amazing, I was in awe. I seriously kept thinking to myself is this real? Am I really standing by a 70 foot Buddha watching people dance the night away? Then the fireworks begin, they started on this little overlook at the opposite side of the Buddha and they were great. They finished and we thought the night was over. We were sitting trying to get a hold of what just happened when…. The countdown began! Fireworks start buzzing out from behind the Buddha! At this point I just want to collapse, it was truly amazing! Words really can’t even describe it. I think the happiness and joy I felt in my heart compares to that I will feel on my wedding day, truly one of the greatest moments of my life.

Oh and yes we did start teaching this week, which was great! I think I am really going to enjoy it the kids are adorable! I really need to start writing more often….. those two stories are only the icing on the cake, but oh well I’ve got six months can’t write them all down!

It's Official I'm in Taiwan. This whole post may seem like jibberish

Ok, so I apologize if this whole post seems a lot like jibberish. But I haven't had the internet until just recently so i've just been writing what has been going on, on my computer and now i'm just going to put all that up on one big post!! TAIWAN IS ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE. oh and p.s. i din't proof read this and I wrote a lot of it while I was really tired soo......

Wow, here I am in Taiwan. It feels almost surreal. Actually no it really does feel surreal. I still don’t know how in the crap I ended up here and what I am doing, odd.

But as for what we have been up to the last couple of days…. The first day we got here we arrived at 6 in the morning and then took a 2 hour drive to our city of Changhua. I thought I experienced jet lag when we went to Europe but man of man was I EXTREMELY wrong. I physically didn’t want to function, my body just wanted to shut down. To top all of this off we go to baggage claim and dah dah dah da I only got one of my bags. Awesome, but from across the way I swore I saw someone with my bag, so I went up to them and tried to talk to them. I am new Taiwan and pretty much forgot I don’t speak Chinese, ya I got no-where with looking and getting that bag back. So I went and filed a claim with the dudes. Which yet was another great adventure, trying to fill out papers when I don’t speak Chinese, but luckily the people here are pretty much the most hospitable people around and they just filled it out for me. But luckily we were greeted by the wonderful teachers who we are taking their place and they got us up and moving and showed us around.

What we did the first night we arrived was much more than a treat, karaoke. Everyone should have the chance to experience Taiwanese karaoke. They mean business baby. We walk into this building and it looks like a 5-star hotel! Then we go into these ridiculously nice rooms with leather couches, surround sound, flashing lights, the whole speal. Oh and not to mention on the way there you can hear people singing in other rooms (lets just put it nicely and say that indeed the Taiwanese people are not the greatest singers in this world) it just added to the greatness of the whole karaoke experience. Well we sang the night away and it was pretty dang fantastic. Oh and I forgot to mention, pretty much everywhere you walk around here you smell this awful stench! For most of the time I had no idea what it was and thought it must be some really nasty smelling plant that grows here or something, but that night I was awakened to what the stench was. Stinky Tofu, oh ya and it’s stinky alright. When I ate it though surprisingly it wasn’t too bad, the texture was definitely interesting, but taste… not so bad!

On Saturday we went back into the city of Taichung, where we went for karaoke, for a day of fun. It all started out because some of the teachers who are here right now heard about these hampster like balls that you get in and walk around on this pond in a park. After winding our way through the city and getting lost a couple of times we finally found the park. Man oh man, this was a park, I don’t know if there was something going on that day or what but this park is legit. Blow up toys, the sweetest go carts covered in giraffe like stuffed animals, foods, donkeys to ride, paddle boat swans, and not to mention the sick walk on water balls. So ya know we go over and are taking turns getting in the balls. Well, Americans here already get enough attention as it is, if someone doesn’t stare at you as you walk down the street you almost start to think that something is wrong with you. Well, let’s just say the Taiwanese were having a hay-day about our show we put on while playing in the balls. We had a crowd that was surrounding the pond, taking pictures and everything, of I’d say at least 50 people. What an adventure.

After our wondering hampster experience we went into the downtown area of Taichung for dinner. We went to this place called Happy Toilet, it is hilarious. The whole restaurant revolves around the bathroom and poop. Your chairs are toilet bowls, the light look like poop, your table is a bathtub, and the food is served in either a squatter, urinal, toilet, or bathtub. It was funny and the food was actually really good and ridiculously cheap, like most of the food in Taiwan.

I woke up on Sunday morning and gave my parents a call on skype, while I was telling them all about all of my adventures the phone rang and it was some man only speaking in Chinese. I couldn’t understand him obviously so I hung up the phone, and keep chit chatting with the parentals. Well a couple of minutes later there is a knock at my door. A man had my suitcase!!!!!!!!!!! I seriously wanted to hug the dude, I had never been so happy to see some grey luggage in my whole life. So pretty much for the rest of the day I have been on cloud nine. I will never take for granted my clothes and the comfort they oddly bring to me as I do now. Thank you luggage delivery man! Oh and need I mention that someone did take my luggage on accident… probably those stinking people. So if you are ever in Taiwan and suspect that someone has your suitcase harass them until they let you get a close look at it. After that whole experience we went into Taichung for church which was just heavenly the people here are so fantastic, probably one of the smallest yet greatest wards I’ve ever been to!

AND NOW HERE IS ANOTHER..... JIBBERISH I KNOW.

6/28/2010

Funny Story

Ok so last night Kayrn and I were going to bed and just chit chatting it up a little bit before we went to sleep. We talked a little bit about how it was weird that we hadn’t woken up yet and been confused about where we were. Well, we spoke a little too soon. I guess we didn’t really wake up doing that but funnier. So I had set my alarm for that morning to wake us up at 8:45. We went to bed about 10:30 right? Ok well, my alarm started going off and I didn’t really look at the time and just pressed snooze. Well for whatever reason I woke up again later. I looked at my watch, which I still haven’t switched to Taiwan time, it was 10:30. Karyn and I both start freakin, how in the devil did we sleep in so late? But you must also realize that we were still half asleep and not thinking clearly. Then I couldn’t remember what time my watch was set to, was it 8:30? No, it was 10:30, WAIT it really was 12:30!! Shoot we’ve gotta get up and get going!! Still being really confused I went to look out the window to find not a soul on the streets. Then it hit, it’s 12:30 at night, duh. Why my alarm decided to go off at 12 I still am trying to figure out but needless to say it gave us a really good laugh to look back and talk about this morning.

Karyn and I both woke up pretty early this morning, so we decided to go take a little walk and try to get our roots set as to where in the heck we are! While wandering around we ran into the track which is actually really nice and close to our apartment. So, with the freaking Salt Lake Marathon coming up next spring I’m sure that puppy will become a good friend. Well as for now we’re just chilling waiting to go to the school and for some stores to open so we can get some errands done, which reminds me of another odd Taiwan culture thing, store hours. Pretty much store owners here open whenever they please and close whenever they darn well please. So if you every have to go do or get something really urgently at a specific place. It’s not too reliable, they may or may not be open just depending on their mood for the day.

Okay well, I do have a ton more to say!! And freak I still haven't even written about my more than amazingly awesome trip to europe.... i'll do that asap.....!! But here's this for now and i'll post more pictures and other great things to come.

I need a slap in the face. I'm not sure if i'm living in reality!!!!

This weekend has been so epic if I don't write it down somewhere it could possibly be a sin. Ok so to start off I FINALLY found out what city i'm going to in Taiwan!! So stoked... it's ChangHua and it's in the middle of the island on the closest side to China. (It may be really stupid of me but I don't know if that's on the east or west side of the island) anyways.... so I'm ridiculously stoked for that!! I've been creepishly stalking this other girls blog that I think I may just be her roomate (creepy how much you can find out on the magical internet) but it sounds lovely there!
Ok so moving on... if that had been any other week that and the fact that finals are coming up would probably be the MOST exciting thing going on in my life. This week however... no. So Friday I went to the Jazz playoffs game with the dam family. AWESOME! The Jazz won and to top the night off a drunk man spilled beer on my little sister! A night isn't complete in the Larsen family without some sort of excitment. Ok the Jazz game although I was oddly ridiculously excited about going... isn't even the best part of the weekend! So that night I get a text that my roomate Nicole is engaged!!! Wahoo!! Never would haven seen that one coming at the begining of the year... So FREAK i'm way excited about this!! But ya know i've known this is coming... we've been dress shopping togther I knew he had the ring... so I knew the engagment was coming any doay!
Okay, so the next night I came back to Logan everything was all honky dory just screwing around like the usuall. Then Marlee comes home. I come into our apartment not really knowing what in the devil is going on and low and behold.... dah dah dah MARLEE IS ENGAGED!@!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What the *&@$!! I had NO idea. THis is thee biggest suprise of my life!! I was screaming so loud I quite literally wet myslef a bit and began to break a sweat. It's all right I didn't go to the gym yesterday because the calories I burned from the reaction were sufficient. I seriously live 5 feet away from her. I know everything, even her bowel movement schedule and she managed to keep her engagment a secret from me for an entire month!! The little terd. But needless to say i'm incredibly happy for the woman!
Man life isssssssssss gooooooddd!