TOURING YUNLIN

This past weekend we had the opportunity to tour our county. We haven’t done much of this in the past because it’s hard to do without a car, but we were lucky enough to have some people willing to show us around. On Saturday night, one of my (Annalicia’s) co-teachers, Nancy, took us to the outskirts of Douliu with her family. They showed us some fruit, vegetable and rice fields.

We also went out to dinner with Nancy and her family. They brought us to a restaurant located on the campus of a university in Douliu. The pond at this restaurant was completely filled with huge water lilies. It was gorgeous! We had never seen so many water lilies and we had definitely never seen water lilies that big!

On Sunday, Adelaide (our local friend who owns the English cram school) took us on a 13 hour tour of Yunlin! We started with breakfast at a café on the nearby, “Coffee Mountain”. From there we headed to Gukeng Township where we were able to take in some spectacular views of the area we’ve called home for the past 10 months.

After that, we went to the “Green Tunnel”. This is a road covered by trees (hence the name). On the weekends, vendors set-up on the road and it becomes a nice destination for families to get away from the crowded cities. Check out the bugs in the cage. Apparently kids like to buy these at pets!

A bee museum was located right by the Green Tunnel, so we checked that out as well.

From there we headed to Huwei Township (where Phil’s school is located), and went to “a famous” towel museum. (A lot of things are “famous” in Taiwan. :) Apparently this towel museum has been a family business for many years, but about 10 years ago it had to make some changes. I guess, their competitors started cutting their prices around that time because they started outsourcing their labor to the Philippines and China. Instead of doing that, this place decided to use creativity to stay in business. So, now they make their towels into different shapes, such as cakes and lollipops, and sell them as gifts.

From Huwei, we went to Beigang Township in southern Yunlin. We found out this township has one of the “most famous” Mazu temples on the island. (Mazu is their god of the water.) We spent some time touring the temple and shopping around the area. Check out the huge pig someone donated as a sacrifice! We had never seen that before!

We ended our day eating a very nice Hong Kong style dinner.

TEMPLE ACTION

As some of you may know, we live really close to a temple. What was so surprising to us at first (but seems “normal” to us now :), is how many noisy events and activities take place there. It is very common for us to hear drums, gongs, firecrackers, fireworks, songs, loud speakers, parades, etc... coming from the temple grounds.

These events, this noise takes place at least once a week, at various times and on various days. It is not uncommon for us to hear a parade go by at 6:30 or 7:00 on a Saturday morning. At the same time, we are not surprised anymore when fireworks and firecrackers keep us up past midnight on a weekday. To give you a taste of the action, we’ve posted a few pictures and videos below.

FOOD AND FUN

Last Sunday, Phil and I and another foreign guy, Mike, took some Chinese/Taiwanese cooking lessons! A local friend of ours, Adelaide, who owns an English cram school (where Mike works), invited us over to have her mom show us how to make some dishes. Her mom was so kind. She showed us how to make six or seven different things. We were all stuffed by the end! Her mom didn’t speak much English, but occasionally she would throw in comments like, “So easy...you can do it!” It was so cute!

(These are pictures of Adelaide's school. It's located on the first floor of their house. This is the case with most shops and businesses in Taiwan.)

After our cooking lessons, we all went to a Taiwan professional league baseball game. Phil and I had been to an all-star/charity game before, but we had never been to an actual game. It was fun and interesting. At baseball games in Taiwan, there is noise constantly. We weren’t used to this. Fans have organized cheers they do with noise makers, drums, instruments, etc... throughout the entire game. It’s crazy! There are a few videos of some of the cheers below.

There weren’t many people at the game, so Phil, Mike and I really stuck out. We got on the scoreboard screen at least three times and had multiple people tell us the next day at school that they saw us on TV a bunch of times. Only in Taiwan! :)

POTLUCK

This past Tuesday, we spent the evening at one of Phil’s co-worker’s house for a potluck. We had a fun time hanging out, eating and singing KTV (of course). There were a few things that we found interesting and some that really made us chuckle.

First, we found it funny how different Taiwanese potlucks are compared to American potlucks...

Second, we were fascinated by how much Hello Kitty stuff his co-worker, Roro, had. Roro was so proud of her collection and urged us to take a lot of pictures! :) She told us, compared to a lot of other Taiwanese women, her collection wasn’t that big. Roro is married...notice their bedroom...poor guy! :)

Third, whenever you enter a Taiwanese person’s house, you are asked to take off your shoes and put on “slippers” (which are more like sandals). Take a look at the ones we wore all night...we felt pretty hot...

Finally, we were lucky enough to capture some video of little girl, Wendy, doing KTV, singing “Twinkle, Twinkle” in Chinese. Too cute!