Campity Camper

I truly apologize for not updating this week and to be honest I'm really not in the mood to write right now. But, here's a brief synopsis.... so as you know we went camping this weekend. Uhhh... it was fun? Despite the fact that I'm not the biggest camper in the world. Ok, well maybe if you're going somewhere cool where you can actually enjoy nature I don't mind it. But, really people why in the ell do you want to go camping at some playground park area with running toilets, swimming pools, and not even any hiking trails.... to me it's just down right STUPID!! I'll go have my fun for the day and then go back home... simple as that. No D*** tent to set up, no sleeping on a rock solid floor, and air conditioning, yes sir i'll take that.  And to top it all off it rained the entire weekend.... mind you there were 10 small children with us.... I know you're really green with jealousy right now! But all-in-all it really wasn't that bad, i'm making it sound much worse! It was definitely a great cultural experience. I'll let the pictures explain the rest...... (so much for brief eh?)

The cute mother of our 2 students and our secretary who came along also! American camping food consists of all the classics hot dogs, hamburgers, beans, chips, snacks, pop, you name it. Here... notice the wok, cabbage, and chicken parts on that plate (of which I can't even describe nor want to know what part of the chicken it was I exactly ate) pumello, and corn soup for breakfast, not too different. 

Oh nothing just setting up our camp under a pavillion. Of which I've never been so grateful, that would've made for one miserable night and day in the rain let me tell ya!

Meet Barbi. I got the spend the whole weekend with this. 

And Eilleen, such a little dork. 

We were getting ready for bed and they came into our tent. Barbi took someone's book of Mormon and started pretending like she was reading it and telling us bedtime stories. It was probably thee most adorable little thing EVER!

Just gnawing on some good old sugar cane. No starbursts and skittles for these people. They keep it real.  

On Sunday we packed up and went to these super cool hot springs. They had clay in them and boy howdy we had some fun with that. (I wish the picture showed it better but, they had me looking GOOD!) oh and notice the swim caps? EVERYONE here EVERYONE wears them, and speedos too.... I have no clue why. Seriously though a matching swim cap comes with every swimsuit, male and female. 

So, before we left our school director told us we were going to a tower factory. We had no idea what in the devil that meant but ya know, i'm really getting used to never having  a clue as to what is going on so we just went with it! When we got there it was a TOWEL factory, hello!

These people mean business with their towel decorations. 

I'm going to make this for Festival of Tree's next year. It'll make BANK!

So there ya have it folks so much for short! But that's how the Taiwanese camp.... not really camping if you ask me, but we really did have a grand old time!

Saturday we're going with Kitty's family to this sky bridge. I'm stoked.

Weird?

So, i'm sitting here waiting for my cookies to bake, which let me tell you is no speedy thing in our toaster oven. And I look down and see this. Do you know what this is? Let's just say if you ever asked a child here, "what color is an orange, or lemon for that matter", they say green. What the? When I first got here I was so blown away by it. Now.... completely normal, but when I stop to think about it... it really is weird. Way weird. I can't tell the difference between oranges (which this is an unusually large one, usually they really are the size of a lemon) lemons, and limes. Not kidding it's just a guessing game at the market. At least you know you're getting something citrus right?

While still bored sitting in the kitchen, it's been over a half hour now for one batch ONE, I start looking around and bam! I see this..... 

Our FULL size fire extinguisher. 

So ya know it has crossed my mind a couple of times that I don't know what in the devil we would do if there were some sort of disaster that were to happen. Seriously I'd already be a wreck in America if some sort of thing happened, but here, holy smokes..... It would soooo not be good. 

Apparently our cute little guards at our apartment complex got the same idea. Seriously these guys are so cute they wave at us everyday and keep a pretty dang good tabs on us too! I love being greeted by their cute chinglish "good morning" no matter what time of day it is. 

But anyways our doorbell rang the other night. We were greeted by a guard with this baby.... One would think maybe their just giving one to everyone in the building. No, that's not the case this thing is pretty dusty. I don't know why either but i take great pleasure in the fact that it's a FULL SIZE fire extinguisher. Seriously weighs 25 pounds. 

Please just pray we NEVER need to use it. 

So, there's my boredom spheel. oh and the reason I'm making cookies is because we're going camping this weekend. With our kids. Who's parents don't really speak that good of english. and 20 of their friends. i'm reeeaaalll excited.... (please sense sarcasm here.)

I'm sure i'll have some stories to tell.

HallowGiving.

          Bet ya don't know what hallowgiving is do ya? Let alone celebrated it. Well oh well you ARE missing out. Sucker. So I don't know what it is about Americans but we seem to have thing thing where it's ok to celebrate Halloween for weeks in advance but the day that it's over, the decorations come down and all Halloween related items are up for clearance. Well that really is a shame, in Taiwan this is not such the case. In fact they like to throw in Thanksgiving to butte, hence Halloween + Thanksgiving = HALLOWGIVING! Jealous yet? You should be. If not, let me add that they had a turkey and haunted house too, the whole nine yards I tell ya. Probably the sweetest ward party I've ever been to. EVER. 

          So, how did we get invited to attend such a glorious event you ask? Well, one of our students from our college class got baptized on Saturday. (not sure if i've mention this before but, yes. I teach a college class. It is fabulous! Associate Professor Kailey Jean Larsen of National Chang Hua University of Education. Sounds like a joke i know, but it's real life I swear!) After we attended her beautiful baptism, they invited us to go to their ward party. So we did, and that's where all of the greatness happened. 

From now on out my friends, the first weekend in November we WILL be celebrating Hallowgiving. Have your party pants washed and ready, it'll be the party of the year! Maybe, just maybe i'll throw in a turkey, sushi, whole mini-octopus, and egg drop soup just to make it really realistic....

     

In the middle is one of our cute students Tiffany, who had just been baptized. Apparently something was really funny at the moment too.

So, my thoughts are just a little bit bazerk here today and now we're going to back track a little bit. As far as the weekdays, everything was pretty much exactly the same. Minus some ridiculous comments and suggestions given by some certain people that make my life a living, you know what. But, we won't get into that here. Friday night we got the pleasure of going with our super students to McDonald's again. Which is always such a pleasure. 

Saturday morning. Saturday morning, was just oh so lovely. So there is this lake in Taiwan called Sun Moon Lake. EVERYONE talks about, so Anna and I decided to take a little trip out of town. It was lovely, not only the scenery but just to get out of town and breathe some fresh air. Not even kidding you my throat has been feeling like someone took a cheese grater to it or something this last week. While we were there, my throat did not hurt at all. When we got back, guess what? My throat hurt again, no exaggeration. I really am going to die 6 years early for living here for 6 months. I read somewhere that the air here is something like 15 to 100 times (can't remember exactly, but it's bad alright cut me a break) WORSE air days in L.A. disgusting I tell you, the inversion in Utah sounds real good right now.

But here are some pictures of the lake and our little adventure

This would be their "trails" in Taiwan. The people all claim here that they love the outdoors. But really they're all just a bunch of pansies. 

I love the little Asian fishing boats. 

Everybody's been to a trout farm in their life, but how many of you have been to a Coi fish farm? Intense too, I tell you. Look at that net they use!

While not quite getting Thanksgiving and Halloween, they also really don't understand Christmas. They leave Christmas decorations up year round!

Just some ladies doing Tai Chi on the side of the "trail"

Okay, so I must tell you about this rock. I'm still yet to discover exactly what this puppy says but it must say something really good! There are rocks like this all over the place at Sun Moon Lake but for whatever reason this one was ultra special. Notice how you had to line up to get a picture with the rock? 

Obviously, with a rock that great we had to get a picture with it! Maybe it will bring me good fortune for life or something.... i'll hope so. 

That "island" was pretty cool they made it out like the stuff you have docks on and just had the plants growing right in the water. 

Taiwan Touch Your Heart. It's like their BIG tourist motto logo majig that's all over the place. 

So, weird random fact. All of their highways are up on bridges like this, and some will have two or three roads beneath them. It's really odd and when your driving in the city, especially Taipei you just drive right on top of the town. It's so odd, i'm not sure why they do it. To save space I suppose? If you have any idea why please let me know.

I also must mention  one last thing. We also went to the Chinese branch again this Sunday to see Tiffany get confirmed. After she was confirmed the ward counselor dude called us up on stand to introduce ourselves and bear our testimonies. Interesting. So after going to that we still had to go to our English branch. I had to teach the lesson in relief society today and we were in somewhat of a hurry. Well..... we rushed to the train station. Got on a train. Going the wrong way. Crap. So, needless to say I didn't give my lesson today. Oops.

There ya have it. Taiwan is great.

Kauila(HAPPY) Halloween!!

This past week was Halloween. So I know I've mentioned before that teaching is sheer and utter chaos about 85% of the time. Oh my holy hail. Lets just say I never knew things could get so crazy around the school until the day of the Halloween party! Here are some pictures of the madness......

We had a haunted house. These poor poor children. I wish I had a video of how far this little gal jumped, she was clinging onto me for dear life as I lead her through. But that's not the reason this was so chaotic.... lets just say obviously we needed at least 2 people in the haunted house at a time meaning.... we had to leave our classes alone while we led a group of kids through. Needless to say, the kids DEFINITELY had their fare share of fun for the day. Little twits.

My little youngster class... This class may or may not be the death of me. DANG good thing these kids have me wrapped around their finger. Their just so CUTE. Example a: the child raising his hand, words can't even describe the greatness of this child.

This is Penny. She helps me keep my sanity in my crazy class of little ones. She speaks pretty well and I swear she understands whenever I feel like i'm going to explode. She'll give me some ridiculous look or say the cutest little thing. I never knew I'd rely on a 7 year old so much to help me keep my sanity.

Meet Jim. Jim also, surprise surprise, holds a special place in my heart. He is ridiculously smart and ridiculously funny to butte. He didn't dress up on Halloween, I asked him why. He said, " I did" he then walked up to the board and said i'm Teacher Kailey and wrote No HW on the board. (only you have to understand that the reason I love Jim so much is because you know when you make fun of asians and how they talk funny when they speak English? Well Jim talks like this on an EXTREME level. Every time he opens his mouth I just love it and his little hahaha Asian laugh could not get any better)

Aside from Halloween I have some other random things i'd like to share.

#1: As I was sitting here writing this I looked around my room. This is my reality ladies and gentlemen. I wish I could take a panoramic picture so you could see it all. Our gosh dang washer broke and there is extreme wind outside... meaning all my clothes are hung around in my ridiculously small room. I can't wait to come home to a dryer again, although I think all of my shirt collars are so hammered they will not be coming home with me now.

#2: This is also my reality. Remember way back when, when we went to Jhoushan? I've been kicking myself ever since we went for not taking a picture of the statue in the middle of the city of a woman breastfeeding. Well, apparently that trend has spread throughout Taiwan. This is plastered on the bus. Apparently it's a really good marketing tactic to motivate women to breast feed by shoving another woman's boob in their face. Nice.

#3: Ok so I know that this looks like Halloween and I know I already covered that but.... This picture is great for another reason. Well first of all check this guy out. They really don't get the dressing up for Halloween, Super-Man, Gorilla, and laterns? Really? But you wanted to know the GREATEST part of this picture? Do you notice anything different about me and Karyn in this picture? Wait a minute is my hair down? It hasn't been down for nearly 4 months now, and am I wearing a half sleeved cardigan?! WHAT?! Ladies and Gentlemen I'm happy to inform you that the weather has COOLED down. I've been brewing in a pot of jealously at you guys and the cool weather you have back home. Well HA how the tables have turned. It is now in the mid 60's most days. I couldn't be happier. Thanks to David Curtis Larsen, I have been raised to be a warm blooded human. Our house growing up I swear was always right above the freezing level. Until coming to Taiwan, I never realized my SEVERE HATRED for the heat. Seriously i live in Utah, Utah is a desert. Taiwan heat has NOTHING on Utah, NOTHING. Thank you for the change of seasons, I couldn't be more thrilled about the fall weather. 

We also went to Taipei again this weekend with our branch. We went to Chang Kei Shek memorial again. it's so great. I love going to the temple here. It's always an interesting little adventure....

So there ya have it, a brief synopsis of my life.

Whoa chu jian, ziah nall lee?

As I mentioned earlier, I got a tie dye kit from the parentals. This Friday night rocked. We decided to hang around ChangHua this weekend because we were invited to go to a dance concert for some of our kids (I know what you're thinking, I thought the same thing) This is the result of some good ol' tye dye....

As you can tell we did not use gloves.... and If you're gonna tye dye you MUST use ALL of the dye..... hence the large amount of plastic bags full of whatever random stuff we could find. And of course to honor my old disgusting shirt, that seems to be on whenever I take pictures, I had to wear it. 

The finished result! Jealous? I'll now be sportin a sick new skirt, 2 shirts, a pair of socks, and my disgusting Tom's got a nice little face lift! If you were sick of seeing me in my old tye dye shirt, well now you're going to see even MORE of it!!

And not to worry, my mama sent me with a refill pack. Meaning.... I will be tye dying with my 5th grade class. That should be rather interesting, considering the kids nearly blow a gasket when you put food coloring in their food and it dyes their tongue (they think it will make them sick). I'll let ya know how it goes.

On Saturday we made a trip to Taichung in hopes to see this beauty.

The Natural Science Museum. We had our bus number's ready and set out on our way, so well prepared. Or so we thought..... We got on the bus that was supposed to take us to the museum, after quite the long ride, the bus driver pulled over and motioned that we had to get off the bus. Uh.... ok? We knew we weren't in the right place because we had our specific stop to get off at. So being left in the middle of the city we wandered around for a little bit, thinking the bus driver kicked us off because there was something to see. Don't worry, there wasn't anything. So needless to say... we didn't get to the museum yesterday. However! 

We did stumble across this old Confucius temple that was kinda cool. Honestly when I first got here I was so dumb struck by the coolness of all the temples. Obviously i've lived here a while because I really could care less about the temples now... But this one was a little different. They had these sacrifice burning majig's where they bury and burn hair, blood, and silk. Supposedly it's the only temple that has them in Taiwan and I found them rather disgusting.

But the ULTIMATE SCORE OF THE DAY goes to none other than the THRIFT STORE!!

I've been hunting like a mad demon to find these! Pretty much every house and store you go into here has one of these puppies hanging on the wall, and they are all so cool! I've been WANTING on so BAD! But despite my savage like scavenger hunt I've been on to find one, I've only failed... Until yesterday! We saw this thrift store a while back and wanted to go in it, so yesterday we did. At first they really only had a lot of quite frankly junk that should have been thrown away 20 years ago. As we were about to walk out the door, we stumbled upon these. You can bet that I bought 5, yes FIVE, of them in all sorts of different shapes and designs. Some of them are a little hammered but that makes them all the better, so count yourself as one lucky devil if I decide you are special enough to receive one once I get home.

 

Like I said we were invited to go to a dance recital Saturday night, yet again, we thought we knew where we were going and surprise SURPRISE!! We didn't. We rode our bikes to where we thought the recital was to be at, and there just happened to be a dance recital going on outside, obviously we thought this HAD to be it. We sat there for a while, and most dance recitals are bad enough.... this one was really bad. After sitting through 45 of agony, the girls dad came running up to us, after looking for us around the town for a while, and told us we were at the wrong place! 

So, after sitting at the dance recital of dance rejects we got to the right place. It was actually not too bad, unfortunately we missed the girls dance, but we got to see the older kids which were pretty good! 

So, today being our stake conference call me a sinner but you can bet that I was NOT about to travel 2 hours to get there. So, we went to our local ward. It was splendid. This is our sweet friend Amy. She is awesome! Kinda a tom boy and I loved her church get-up so much today I had to take a picture. Like the playboy shirt? They don't understand what playboy is here, or the F-word for that matter. It's plastered all over the place!! But we did see one of our students from our college class at church. She is getting baptized in November so we were super excited about that! One of the members said they have at least 1 or 2 new baptisms a week here, which is incredible!

Wow, I'm on a yik yaking roll today. Sorry! 

Hun Hoa

Life is good. Life is great. Life is Beautiful. Like is Lovely. 

Wanna know why?

#1: I received a package yesterday from my great familia. Made. My. Day.

So here's the thing. At home, I have copious amounts of clothes. I didn't bring so many to Taiwan, and alot of what I did bring I don't wear because clothes just get ruined here. Therefore, you may not have noticed but surely will now, I wear the same thing over and over and OVER and OVER and OVER!! My parents have noticed this, and like great people they sent me some shirts and tye dye. YOu know what that means?!? This weekend looks like a party! What else was in the package you ask? Oh just some twizzlers, tootsie rolls, and tootsie pops.... not my favorite candy or anything.... 

Currently i'm wearing one of the white t-shirts (I just couldn't wait to wear a new shirt) and i'm munching on some twizzlers (why I have grown this weird liking for licorice while I've been here, I've not a clue)

#2: My kids are Hilarious. Want to hear a funny story? Well, you're going to here it anyways....

So, I have this class of kindergarten kids, they are banchi's let me tell ya!! Sometimes I just sit back and laugh because these children are so out of control. Seriously, INSANE! But anyways, last week a kid asked me if he could go to the bathroom. Not wanting another pee your pants in class incident, I said yes. Usually it takes kids a whopping 30 seconds to go to the bathroom and be back. Not this kids. Seriously 10 minutes later he still wasn't back. Due to the craziness of the class and that our school intercom system is being fixed, I couldn't go to check on him. So, after about 15 minutes he returned..... His pants were on backwards and his hair and face was soaking wet. Umm..... hi there bud! Did you just decide to take a shower while you were in the bathroom or what? I'm not sure exactly what went down, but let me tell ya, no matter how hard I tried to hold it in, you can bet I was belly rollin in the middle of class! 


Those are just two brief reasons why my life is so great. Thought i'd share. 

This weekend, I feel in Love.

Odd caption, i know. But that's the only thing I could think of to describe it. This past weekend we went to Green Island. Wow, I almost keeled over just thinking back at the beauty of this place! And what is a great weekend without a couple of near death experiences? Not a good one at all i'd say! So with the perfect mixture of these two, I tell you I fell in love.

So Green Island is an island just off the coast in southern Taiwan. So our journey started out with a real long train ride there, and then what I thought would be a nice relaxing boat ride to the island. I mean i've been on ferries before going to Cornodo Island is California. Let me tell you this was no peaceful ferry ride like that one. I never get sea sick. I got sea sick. This boat was rocking and shakin so much I wanted to kiss the ground when we finally got there! We immediately got our scooters rentals, checked into our hotel, and were ready for some snorkeling.

Here we are, in all of our glory. Ok, so lets just say people here take water safety very seriously (and that's an understatement). Snorkeling in the US they throw you some goggles and a snorkel and you're off. Not here. You'd think with our full body wet suits the water would be below freezing or something, no it was a warm 70 degrees. and the life jackets? Oh yes you definately need those puppies for snorkeling in 5 foot deep water. And you can't see them but they made us wear these ridiculous water socks.

We were greeted with this sign at the beach where we were going snorkeling. Dang it!! I can't electrocute or bomb the fish? Crap. Now my entire weekend is ruined!

Ok, so I thought that wearing a life jacket was a little extreme. Well apparently not extreme enough. We went in and they had these floaties tied in a chain. We all got one and had to hold onto it while the snorkeling guide carted us around. I was giggling the whole time. I loved it. Had we had a normal snorkeling experience it would have been down right boring. Despite the EXTREME safety precautions that they took the snorkeling was awesome! Some of the best snorkeling i've seen before. Since it's a volcanic island there are really beautiful coral reefs and lovely fish! Very worth it.

After our snorkeling adventure we got to watch the sunset. Now can you see why I love this island? (mind you i'm an awful photographer and even I can make this place look good)

Oh just an average BBQ dinner. What am I about to munch on with such a disgusting look you ask? Oh, just some rice soaked in pigs BLOOD! This stuff is supposedly the most exotic food in the world. They knaw on this stuff as much as we knaw on extra gum! They love it. I wouldn't say it tastes too exotic just the whole idea of it... But this is how they BBQ here it's rather fun. We had a buffet style and you went and chose your food and then cooked it yourself. What is all that on the table you ask? To be honest alot of it I don't really know, I just eat and don't ask. But white in the middle is some sort of taro plant thing, we ate some chicken heart (pretty good actually), whole squid (the odd purple looking things, flying fish, and who in the devil knows what else! But it was sure tasty.

So we'd heard that a typhoon was coming but wouldn't hit until later on this week. Well we started to feel the affects of it while we were on Green Island. During dinner it started to rain. HARD. Our drive back to our hotel was a doozy! Imagine this: Kailey behind the wheel of a scooter(scary enough thought as it is) with Karyn behind me trying her darndest to sheild my eyes from the pelting rain so I could see somewhat where I was going, complete darkness (no streetlights on the island and very few people), large puddles, wind howling. Yes, this is one reason I thought I was going to die. I was so friggin scared. When we got back to the hotel I again wanted to kiss the ground.

After being completely soaked from the rain, I really just wanted to take a shower. Well, Taiwan is super into this whole "Global Warming" spheel. Therefore, they try to conserve water and energy as much as possible. Ok, that's cool good for you. But you know what? You've taken it to far when you don't give people towels. This was my towel. Some disposable cloth thing. No joke it was folded in half in that package. (the size of a hand towel) Uhhhh.... ya air dry it is i guess, considering I wiped half of my leg with the thing and it was soaked....

Just the glow in the dark painting on our ceiling..... pretty sick eh?

The next morning we woke up at 4:45 in the MORNING to see the sunrise. Since it was so cloudy from the looming typhoon it was nothing too great. But luckily we went to watch it from the hot springs. They were lovely and quite magnificent. There were a bunch of pools up higher where they pumped the water up (what i'm standing it, like all of the sexy men in speedos?) There are also a whole bunch down closer to the water, but we weren't allowed in because they waves were really big from the storm.

This is just a little part of the hot spring down close to the beach. They really were magnificent! But when we first got there I saw all of these people with egg cartons. I couldn't figure out why in the devil all of these people have egg cartons! There not that nice to carry stuff around in or anything. Then we figure it out. See that rock thing right in front, and a huddle of people down farther. Their cooking their eggs in the scalding hot water! Clever? I don't know, maybe cooking them in the water will make the egg be like the fountain of youth or something.....

This picture doesn't even describe the gale force winds that we were experiencing.

If you don't think this is beautiful, i'll slap you in the face.

I love that they've really left this island in the most natural state that they could. Just some goats a grazin on a meadow overlooking the magnificent sea. Yes, this is my real life. I love it.

"Exterminate the Communists, Restore the country"

That's always been my ultimate motto in life. You all know what a politic guru I am... NOT. Here's a little background to this: So the Chinese came in and were real buttheads to the Taiwanese. They had a prison on Green Island for all the people who spoke out against what they were doing to them. This is by the old jail.

No memorial museum is complete without human wax figure portion. The wax figures potrayed how hard life was for them and showed the work they made them do. Uhh...... and then we got to this. Apparently you can't show how difficult life was for people without showing them going to the bathroom in quite the graphic manner.

And I must mention our boat ride home.... Oh my great land! So you know how the typhoon was coming? Well obviously high wind=angry seas. I thought I was going to die on the first ferry ride. I would have killed for that "safe" of a ride on the way back. Lets just say 15-20 foot swells and one rocking boat. I honestly, no exaggeration, didn't know if we would make it home alive. The boat was swaying back and forth at like an 85 degree angle!! I seriously had it all planned out in my mind what I would do if we cap sized. I felt like I was on that fishing show on discovery channel. I really wanted, yet again, wanted to kiss the ground once we finally hit land.

Lastly, because of the crazy seas we missed our earlier train. So we had to catch a later train, but we didn't have a seat. Not a big deal you think? It was a FIVE hour ride of sheer hell. Excuse me not all of it was. The hospitality of the people in Taiwan never ceases to amaze me. They really are the MOST LOVING people around. We met these cute old couples on the train and the lady let me sit on her footrest (which yes my butt was so sore this morning it felt like i'd ridden a bike 300 miles) but, they gave us these cool pencils they had just made, made out of some grafted pear trees, and some snacks. Most definitely were a tender mercy for me sent down during the grueling train ride.

So that was our joyous weekend! Now you see why I feel in love? The lovely craziness that we experienced only made the trip WAY better. I love Taiwan. I've almost been here 4 months, boggles my mind.