Always an Adventure...

Yesterday was a fun day, for "work" we got to go to a place called "The Living Mall" I'm not 100% sure why it has that particular name, but it was probably the cooolest mall I've ever seen, magnified in coolness by the fact that I am barely ever in a mall worth calling a "mall" Anyways, the neatest thing about this mall was the archeitecture! The mall has 15 floors in all I think, and the entire thing is round. The stores are around the outside of the circle and the middle is open, so from the top you can look all the way down and vice versa. Looking down from the top and seeing all the escalators crisscrossing through the middle at different angles gave the whole place an "Escher-esque" feeling. It was huge, and you could buy pretty much anything you might want. One the ground floor was the food court to end all food courts, and I tried something new and exciting : a Mongolian hot pot. You get your food on a tray with a meatal grill ...

Today was intensive Chinese lesson day… largely due to the fact that we were supposed to be gone today, so there really wasn’t a ton for us to do! But anyways, we’re leaving on Friday morning now! I’m excited, though I am getting attached to the people here, everyone that I’ve met has been so great in trying to include me, which is great, since I came here with no contacts already, which apparently is rather rare for this organization. So today were “learned” greetings for all times of the day, food, clothes, key questions, colours, and self-introductions, the last of which we then got to go practice on the bottom floor with some of the staff! It was quite interesting. I'm not sure how much of it i'll reatain, but i guess we'll see! Anyways, here is “my” Romanized version of my self-introduction: any guesses as to what they mean?? 1. Wo jyao Oh Tsai Lin 2. Wo tsong djawnada ly 3. Wo er shi er sway 4. Wo ju hso shung jing huhn ing ü jyao hsüeh I'll even give you ...

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WEATHER/10/24/taiwan.typhoon.ap/index.html Typhoon Nock-ten is battering Taiwan Monday as the storm's eye whirls just off the island's eastern coast, drenching mountainous regions with rain that could trigger deadly mudslides. Forecasters predicted the fast-moving storm would spend most of Monday working its way up Taiwan's eastern coast to the capital, Taipei, before spinning northeast towards Japan's southern islands. Flights were canceled between Taipei and Hong Kong, one of the world's busiest routes. Taiwan's two largest carriers, China Airlines and EVA Airways, said flights to Tokyo and Southeast Asia were also called off. Officials shut down financial markets, schools and government offices in most major cities. High winds tore away shop signs in some cities, where branches, twisted umbrellas and other debris littered the streets. Sheets of rain fell at a 45-degree angle in Taipei, where normally congested streets were ...

This morning we went to the Taipei International Church, which is an English church that meets in the American school. It was kind of cool to be at a service that was in English, instead of not knowing what was going on, and needing someone to translate for me all the time… not for long I hope! I am starting to pick words out of conversation that I recognize! Anyways, the service was almost totally made up of foreigners, I’d say around 75-80%. It seems like it is easy to come here but still isolate yourself, and continue to live much the same life as you did before, speaking to other foreigners, going to English churches, restaurants etc, and while it is nice to have that familiarity sometimes, that prevents you from being the only white face in a room (much less the only red head! Although dying your hair red/blonde is pretty popular here, it’s just not the same…), for myself, I think I would prefer a more even mix of cultures. Afterward, we went for lunch at an English restaurant, an...

I can’t believe I have been here a week now! So much has happened, and I have seen and done so many new things! Friday was a really busy day, we finished Chinese lessons and had a test!! It actually wasn’t that bad, it was Ellen, and she just said some words and we had to write the phonetic characters. There are still a couple that I am having trouble distinguishing between (ahn and uhn, ch and chr) but I am definitely ready to start working on vocabulary! I bought a little pack of paper on a ring today that I can carry around with me and write new terms in, as well as look back on old ones. Yesterday, we also got our laptops! I’m quite excited to have a laptop, though it is a little odd that as a “missionary” I have better technology than I did back home! But I guess our support is coming from a technology company! Anyways, our meetings went for a really long time yesterday, and it seemed like we were getting interrupted every few minutes! But in the end, we did get a briefing on Yu...

Today we had to "dress to impress" because we were meeting the manager and ceo of the company that is sponsoring us to go down to Yuli. We drove across town (and did see the world's tallest building). And went up to the 6th floor of a huge office building. Everything was very formal, especially meeting the people, it was kind of scary! I was worried that I would do something impolite! Anyways, after introductions we got down to our "fancy" lunch of KFC and Pizza Hut! It was not quite what I had been expecting!! Anyways, they do taste more or less the same, except that the one pizza was seafood pizza! I'm talking scallops and sole, chewy pieces of white fishy material on the pizza... haha it wasn't as bad as it sounds! Anyways, I'm pretty sure it went well, even though I really didn't understand the majority of it! Tonight we went to Costco, which is almost exactly the same as a costco in canada, except bigger than the ones I've been to, it...

I really have always loved Chinese food. It is really cheaper to eat out than to cook here. I haven't really done any grocery shopping, b ut there are hundreds of little restaurants around. I was given $1000NT which I think is around $25.00 Canadian. Meals come between 150 and 250 NT for Chinese food, american food is more expensive. SO basically you pay under $5.00 for a good meal! I had a "high" class meal at an italian (sort of) restaurant the other day, which costed me NT260. I had linguini and duck breast with pesto in a cream sauce. It was quite amazing! Also every meal comes with soup and a drink. The soup is mostly broth and a few vegetables. Today I had kind of a lettuce soup. There is one I have had twice that kind of tastes like corn chowder, it has ham and some thin noodles, but it is not a cream soup. Otherwise, I have been eating lots of rice and noodles. Today I had a kind of "dumpling" with cabbage and chicken, which was sort of sim...