Halloween in Taipei

A troll, a dad and a blue-and-white thingy.

Sisters
She hears all.


The pregnant clown is one of the lower school counselors. He is an excellent counselor and the kids love him.


Some of the "Dell Ex-pat" kids following a night of Trick-or-Treating on Yangmingshan.

Our Travels

We've been traveling in Taiwan but have gotten behind on our photo sharing and blogging. Too busy taking and preparing for our trips, I suppose. Below is a listing of where we've been thus far and where we will be in the near future. Damon and I plan to write blogs about those trips and share our photos. Some of you may have received our KodakEasyShare Album about our Kenting trip. If you need a link try:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=swjryj2.22uzyh1u&x=0&y=x75vl8
which should get you to the (enormous) album. We each have a digital camera and go nuts on these trips. Each place has scenery more stunning than the last. I am currently playing with a site called Flickr for photo sharing. It is free but limits monthly uploads to 20 MB... as I said we take lots of pics. I will post photos of our Sun Moon Lake trip at Flickr soon. If you have any thoughts on which is a better system let us know. The Kodak Easy Share site will allow photo purchase while Flickr is strictly a photo sharing site.

Here is our travel itinerary into the next year:

• June 21, 2005 - Arrived in Taipei and had a mini-vacation at the Grand Hyatt in downtown Taipei.
• June 28, 2005 - Moved into our apartment in TienMu, vacation's over, time to get to work.
• August 13, 2005 - Made an overnight camping trip to Camp Taiwan located north of Taipei in the mountains of Yangmingshan National Park. See Damon's blog dated September, 01, 2005.
• September 8, 2005 - I made a solo, day trip to Yingke, a nearby town famous for it's pottery. Great shopping!
• September 17, 2005 - Three day trip to Kenting for the Moon Festival holiday. We visited Kenting National Park, the beach and the National Aquarium. See the Kodak site for our pictures of this beautiful area in the southern tip of Taiwan.
• September 24, 2005 - Two day trip to Sun Moon Lake in central Taiwan. We stayed in a lovely Bed & Breakfast and hike around the lake. We stopped a small village on the way and had a fun bike ride. On the way back we got to tour a paper factory where they make beautiful handmade paper.
• September 29, 2005 - I made another trip to Yingke. As I said the pottery shopping is fantastic.
• October 7, 2005 - Four day trip to Taroko Gorge National Park. This has been our most phenomenal trip to date. Even with recent, heavy, typhoon damage to many of the hiking trails the gorge was incredibly beautiful. I will get photos of this trip (and all our trips) posted ASAP.
• November 5, 2005 - We are scheduled for a two day trip to BeiPu to explore the Hakka Culture of Taiwan. Our tour guide will be Amy Liu, cultural resources rep extraordinaire, she is one of the main reasons we had a really good "look-see trip" back in January and decided to take this assignment.
• November 24, 2005 - Hong Kong! We will be there for four days during Thanksgiving break. I've heard what a fun city it is to visit so I'm really looking forward to the trip. We will spend one day at the recently opened Disneyland Park near Hong Kong. I'm expecting it to be a very interesting cultural experience: Disney culture meets mainland China culture.
• December 22, 2005 - Austin and San Antonio for a two week dose of friends and family. We are going to do our best to spend as much time as possible visiting with everyone and making at least one trip to every restaurant that we've been missing.
• January 27, 2006 - Ten days in ???? We are undecided on where to spend Chinese New Year. We've been told that traveling in China at this time is too crazy. We are considering Palau, New Zealand or Japan. Any ideas or suggestions?
• March 2006 - We haven't planned this far in advance but we have a four day block off in early March and 11 days off later in the March/April for Spring Break. These will be opportunities for more great trips. We're expecting Thomas and Elva for a visit late in March-wahoo!
• May 2006 - Three days off in...??
• June or July 2006 - Back to the states for a visit.

As you can tell we are really trying to take advantage of our time in this part of the world. Should any of you want to join us for a trip let us know. We are spending our weekends at home in Taipei trying to explore the city as much as possible. We want to be ready to show our visitors all the great sites in and around Taipei. Come visit!

Margaret

Chicken Head

Our (Austin) neighbor recently visited China to meet with the manufacturer who makes the product that he and his wife developed. It's called NeatSeat -- check out their website. Anyway Fraser sent us the above photos. The first one shows the soup that came with the meal that his host ordered. It is pig blood soup. Fraser tried the soup but said he did not enjoy it and the next night he asked that they order something a little less challenging to a western palate. Something like chicken soup... The second photo shows the head that was in the soup bowl. He did not send photos of the the other parts (neck, feet, etc.) that were certainly in there as well.

Below is the head from a dish we ordered at JiJi Village on our way to Sun Moon Lake. We had a fun bike ride followed by a great lunch where we ordered "3-Cup Chicken". The dish included the head and feet. Damon and I were willing to photograph them but were too chicken (ha ha) to try them. One of our traveling companions said he was going to try the chicken feet for the first time ever (after living in Taipei for two years) much to his wife's dismay. Dan said they were chewy.
I'm afraid that our blog will likely contain many such pictures. We are endlessly intrigued, disgusted and fascinated by the things that are part of the cuisine here. I'm sure many other cultures would find the practice of cooking and eating whole cows heads very strange. But we Mexicans do that. Some people even bury the heads to cook 'em. I never eat the eyes (ojos), brains (sesos) or tongue (lengue) though. That would be disgusting. Mmmm, wish I had a barbacoa taco right now.

Margaret

Valencia 2-Burner

One of the things that we miss about our house in Austin in the nice big gas grill in the back yard; we could spark the ignition and have grilled chicken, burgers or pork tenderloin whenever we wanted. Although we have no yard on the 1oth floor we do have a balcony that will fit a small grill. We decided that before the grilling season ended (and the grills disappeared from the stores) we'd better pick up a one up at the B&Q (our local version of Home Depot). We bought a small gas grill called the Valencia 2-Burner Gas Barbecue, Made in China. It was on sale-- always an excellent sign!!

We got the grill home and up as far as our entryway. And there the rather large box sat in wait of someone with a keen mechanical ability or at least someone with a box cutter and a screw driver. Damon spends a lot of time working (including many night-time conference calls-hey I’m not complaining…I’ll leave that for another blog) and this project would cut into his off time. I have access to a box cutter and a screw driver and I like to read the instructions, who needs mechanical ability? Besides I am a Civil Engineer (registered as non-practicing in case anyone from the Texas Board of Engineers is reading this). This would be an excellent project for me especially because it was way too hot and sunny to go outside and do what I was really supposed to be doing: buying more food.

I unpacked the box in the living room, (the balcony was out of the question-too hot, remember) opened the curtains wide to take advantage of the bright light and laid all the parts out on the rug. There were so many pieces, hmmm. As I mentioned I like following the step-by-step assembly instructions unlike many (male) engineers and (male) non-engineers I know. I pulled out the plastic bag containing the parts list and instructions. In contrast to many of the appliances that we have purchased most of the writing on the box was in English so I figured the instructions would be in English too: wrong. But, there were pictures, I would manage just fine. However, I began noticing that some things were in English and some in Chinese.

This is very important. Wonder what it says?

At this point I will mention that the sky turned suddenly very dark and started rumbling. Was this I bad sign? I choose not to think so. This had been happening most of the past week, the sky would darken and it would pour for a couple of hours and quit, the next day would be just as hot and sunny again. Of course today this was happening about 4-5 hours earlier than usual. I stood up and turned on all the lights in the living and dining room. It was time for a lunch break anyway.

Back from lunch I started to examine the written materials and divide them by language. You may be thinking “Isn’t she supposed to be putting this thing together?” But, I had already attached the handle! Although it was number nine on a list ten steps it looked like the easiest thing to do so I went ahead and did it first. Besides the lid kept slamming down every time I would open the grill to peer inside; I didn’t want to lose a finger!

Back to the written materials: I began to wonder how it was determined what would be in English and what would be in Chinese. Was there a Chinese engineer or technical writer at the factory in Guangdong who had this job? The warning on the plastic bags that they are NOT toys and not to be given to children was written solely in English. Apparently a Chinese reader would never mistake these for toys and hand them to their children. “Accessories and Food Not Included” was also shown only in English. Again, a Chinese person would know better than to assume their grill would come with skewers, utensils and a chicken ready to be cooked. While the parts list was in both English and Chinese the assembly instructions and 10 pages of what I can only assume are technical specs and operating instructions were in Chinese. Does the writer think I (as the English-only-reader) don’t want to know how to operate the grill? Does he or she think I can figure it out on my own? Would the technical specs be too complicated for an English reader? By the way, I was so relieved that there was no chicken in the box. They always leave the head and feet on the chickens here and I don't want to have to chop those off.

I found the whole process very interesting. So much so that you (and I) are both thinking that I need to get out more. It's starting to cool off now so I will try to do so--to buy meat for grilling. Unfortunately, there is no gas canister beneath the grill. That task requires that I call the gas company and ask that they deliver a small gas canister with the proper connector. I must accomplish this task in Chinese. I'll let you know if we ever get to fire up the Valencia. See the finished grill below.

MM

This is a postcard that was issued in Taiwan as part of an anti-AIDS campaign. The text states "Although I don't need one, even I know." After an outcry from Roman Catholics (who comprise about 1% of the islands population) it was withdrawn. Catholics consider the use of condoms a sin. Apparently even if it prevents the transmission of AIDS... Reuters

Damon hiking through the jungle at Camp Taiwan 

Morning dance class on the porch of the ShiLin Courthouse 

Lili at the Taipei Zoo 

Emma at the Taipei Zoo 

Off to School

Emma and Lili started school today at the Taipei American School (TAS). I had mixed emotions as Damon dropped us off outside of the gate. It was a very exciting moment, the girls had been looking forward to attending the school ever since we began discussing the possibility of a move to Taipei and they got online to view the extensive TAS website. So seven months of anticipation were coming to a head. On the one hand I was gaining some "freedom" as my days would now be my own to do as I wished. I could finally re-start my much needed Mandarin Chinese classes, my (also much needed) exercise program could resume with yoga, pilates, hiking and gym workouts. On the other hand our summer of unprecedented togetherness was ending. Since we left Texas in mid-June the girls and I had spent much of our time together; our friends and family were far away and we spent a lot of time exploring our new home city. I guess there was some of that "my babies are growing up" feeling going on as well. They are in 3rd and 5th grade. To quote from the book that Emma and I are currently reading "waily, waily, waily".

The TAS is a large private, international school (~2200 students) that teaches using an American curriculum. The school was originally a US Dept. of Defense school until the US dumped the ROC. It then switched over into a college preparatory school. The lower school has about 800 students. Emma and Lili's classrooms each have about 22 students. Most of the students are Taiwanese; however, there are Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians, Americans, Koreans, Chinese, Singaporeans and English kids as well. About 70% of the students hold US passports. Everything I've read, heard and seen indicates that it is an excellent school with a highly educated and dedicated staff. The facilities are fantastic and include three libraries, two auditoriums, two gyms, an indoor swimming pool, a bookstore, a student store and (most importantly for me) a cafeteria that serves a Chinese and western entree daily as well as having salad, potato, and pizza bars.

I think the school is going to be a great place for Emma and Lili over the next couple of years. I had hoped to have pictures of the girls taken on their first day to share; however, photographing them in the crowded lobby of the school was deemed too embarrassing.

So what did I do on my first day of freedom? Went grocery shopping, napped and blogged...
-Margaret

Lung-Shan Temple

Today I visited the Lung-Shan Temple in southern Taipei County. It was beautiful and very impressive. Watching all the Buddhist rituals was very interesting. I am considering becoming a non-practicing Buddhist. I have been a non-practicing Catholic for the past 25 or 30 years so it may be time for a change.

The chanting, incense burning, bowing, food offerings, meditation, casting of oracle stones, worship of varied and beautiful deities are all very attractive. Of course, aside from the rituals, the Buddhist beliefs are also very attractive.

We have a Laughing Buddha in our apartment and I recently found a beautiful statue of White Tara. I chose her from all the many Buddhas and other deities at a store selling Tibetan Buddhist artifacts without knowing much about her. I just thought she was beautiful. When I did some research I found that "she is the goddess of universal
compassion, Tara represents virtuous and enlightened action. It is said that her compassion for living beings is stronger than a mother's love for her children. She also brings about longevity, protects earthly travel, and guards her followers on their spiritual journey to enlightenment." (from ReligionFacts.com) After reading this I thought she was the perfect goddess to have chosen for our home. The picture on the right is her.

While watching the people placing offerings of fruit, candies, breads, Lays chips (really-the kind shaped like Pringles that come in a box, I'm not sure of the flavor but they looked like Thai Shrimp) and many other food items I couldn't help but wonder who gets to eat all this stuff? Is it the monks? I hope someone gets to enjoy it. It all looked really good, except the bowl full of translucent pink and white balls in a soupy looking liquid. I'm not sure what that was but I saw the vendor on the street after I left the temple selling lots. I'm sure it's very tasty...
Below are some more photos of my visit to the temple.
-Margaret

7-Eleven in Taiwan

There are many, many 7-Elevens in Taipei, in fact I would say they are ubiquitous and not feel as if I were exaggerating. There are at least four that I know of within a five minute walk from our apartment. When people give directions it is common to use landmarks to describe turns, e.g. "go east on 35th street and turn right at the Texaco gas station". This is also true here of course but more so because street names can be hard to pronounce and are often spelled several different ways on street signs and maps. Saying "go north on DeXing Street and take a right at the 7-11" really isn't going to help much because there's just about one on every block of DeXing! So there are lots of 'em here--I've made that point. What is more interesting still (if that was at all interesting) is the amazing array of things you can buy/do at any 7-11.

Things One Can Do At The Local 7-Eleven in Taipei:

1. Buy a Tea Egg, Rice Ball, Steamed Bun or Hot Dog.
2. Buy postage stamps
3. Pay your electric bill
4. Pay your water bill
5. Pay your telephone bill
6. Pay you cellular phone service bill
7. Buy government issue garbage bags
8. Get free, collectible, Commemorative Hello Kitty magnets (with a 100NT purchase) I guess she hit the Big 30
9. Buy a Fanta Lactic (I have no idea what's in it)
10. Buy Beef Flavored Cheetos (Or chocolate covered cheese puffs in connection with the release of Wonka)
11. Pay for street parking (there are practically no parking meters in Taipei-a "meter reader" will place a "bill" on your windshield)
12. Pay parking or traffic fines (tickets could have been placed on your windshield or received in the mail after you were photographed committing a traffic offense)

Things One Can Not Do in a 7-Eleven in Taipei:

1. Buy a Big Gulp
2. Buy an Icee or Slurpee
3. Buy Shiner Bock Beer

I did a quick check on the 7-11 website, just to double check that I was not exaggerating. There are about 28,000 7-11s worldwide. There are roughly 5800 operating in the US and Canada; there are 3899 in Taiwan. Two Hundred and Nineteen of those opened in the last six months! In Taiwan there is one 7-11 for every 6440 people, whereas in the US there's one for every 51,000 people. You guys need more 7-11s.

BTW, "Tea Eggs" are eggs boiled in a tea mixture which can include soy sauce, spice, and sugar. They are very aromatic and most 7-11s smell strongly of them.

Gotta go-need to pick something up at the 7-11

-Margaret

Taipei 101 - The tallest building in the world. 

One Month(+) Later...

We have been in Taiwan just over a month. As expected I have kept up with some friends and family with some regularity and barely connected with others. (I have been thinking of everyone back home-whether or not I've called or written) I really enjoy writing (and getting) emails but it can be very time-consuming! And seeing as how I must forage for food daily I don't have as much free time as you might expect. (More on that later)

To bring everyone up to date here is what has happened so far:

• We "lived" in the Grand Hyatt for one week following our arrival. We had two very comfortable connecting rooms and felt we were in the lap of luxury. Emma and Lili swam in the rooftop pool and we enjoyed the fantastic breakfast buffet daily. We ordered room service a few times, ate out at cool restaurants, did lots of sightseeing and generally had a great "vacation." At the end of one week were thrust out of luxury's lap, removed from an expense account and sent to Tien Mu to set up house and live once more as responsible adults who had to pay for and cook their own food. It was a shock but I suppose it had to happen some time.
• Sightseeing adventures have included: The National Place Museum: Although it is currently under renovation there was still plenty to see. The museum is beautiful and the contents amazing. The Taipei Zoo: The zoo was fun. It is a much larger zoo than I expected; over 400 acres, about half are open to the public. The coolest exhibit is the Nocturnal Animal Enclosure where lighting is designed "day-for-night" such that all the animals are active. The enclosures are all natural habitats and designed to mimic the animals "lifestyles". I found it reassuring that the Taiwanese people are concerned about the lifestyles of the animals. Taipei 101, the tallest building in the world. Truth be told we spent most of our time here shopping and eating. Great bookstore, food court and restaurants. We haven't taken the 39 second ride to the Observation Deck-we've been waiting for a clear day so we can get our moneys worth. The trip will run about $45 for the four of us. The Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial was very impressive. They built a massive memorial to CKS. Although it was amazingly hot there were two military guards standing at attention in what appeared to be full dress uniform (with rifles) on either side of Chiang. They stood so still we didn't even see them at first and then thought they were statues. However, the fans sitting on the floor pointing at their butts (really) made us realize they were actually there to make certain no one messed with CKS.
• Speaking of "hot" that is what it is here... All the time. Except of course for when the typhoons come. We had a Super Typhoon our first month here. We've been told to expect 1-2 more during the season although they will likely not be Super Typhoons. We survived just fine. We had minor dripping at some windows and the wind was amazingly loud, rattling huge metal framed windows. We were home-bound for only about 1-1/2 to 2 days. Those on the south of the island fared much worse; there were several deaths, some flooding and a major bridge washed out. For now it's back to upper 90's with heat index around 110 F.
• Emma and Lili are attending day camp at the Taipei Youth Program Association (TYPA) which is located on the campus of the Taipei American School (TAS). They are getting to know the campus and meeting a few kids as well. The campus includes Elementary, Middle and High School so is rather large and can be intimidating. They are getting use to city life and looking forward to the start of school. They are also enjoying a perk of the expat life here: cell phones are the norm here for kids as young as 7, they are much cheaper than in the States and a good safety precaution when you don't speak the local language. They spend a lot of time programming the phones, downloading (free) ringtones and taking pictures. The first day of camp after getting their phones Lili called me at home to ask me if I could bring her her Chapstick. (For those of you who haven't seen the movie, that's a Napoleon Dynamite reference and extremely funny)
• City Life! I am adjusting to city life as well. We live on the 10th floor of a 15 floor apartment building with security guards at the front door and security access cards to ride the elevators. Only one of the four guards speaks English so we smile, use mime and get information across anyway possible. We have only one car, which Damon uses, so I do everything on foot, by taxi, or on the MRT. I've only taken the bus once (with a local), it's a bit more complicated so I'm still working on that. Anyway, I can walk to 3-4 different markets and to a nearby fruit stand. Needless to say I must carry my groceries or roll them in the cart I brought with from Austin. In order to find all the products that we want I travel to all of the markets. I can find most things we "need" but as I said early in the entry I must forage daily. Some markets have what I want but the label is in Chinese so who knows what I'm buying... Fortunately the packaged chicken feet need no English translation. Most chicken is sold here intact: you get the head and feet. Seeing as I have no recipe for these parts I have persevered until I found boneless, skinless chicken breasts.

That about brings us up-to-date. We have about two weeks of summer left before school starts. At that time, I will start several classes: yoga, Pilates, and Mandarin. I am hoping that I will still have time to gather food for the tribe and blog. We will all try to publish to this blog as often as possible with news of our lives in the ROC. Let us know if you have questions or comments.

-Margaret

Emma and Lili at CKS Memorial 

Margaret, Emma and Lili with Chiang