Finding...

Today the sunshine was back! And with it came our desire to get OUT and see TAIWAN again for goodness sake! After feeling melancholy for a bit yesterday, I determined to find more, do more, see more and eat more of everything I would miss back in Utah, and today was the perfect day for it.

Tired before we begin. This is in the walk TO the museum. AND we're in the shade. Wimps!

We first hit the National Palace Museum. This place is enormous! It holds the treasure stolen/rescued from the Forbidden City in Beijing. Museums with nothing but ancient artifacts can be taxing on little people, so we promised to move fast and hit only the interesting stuff.

I think our renewed energy to be up and out hit everyone and the place was as packed as I had ever seen it. Maybe full of tourists similarly pent up during the typhoon for 4 days? Despite the crowds, it was a decent place to be because the sunshine brought a return of the heat and it was as hot and muggy out as it has ever been on our whole trip.

Anyway, we loved the ceramics and jade in our brief dash around the 3-story main building. We left wanting to see ceramics in the making, learn more about identifying characteristics of the dynasties, learn more about Muslim/China interactions, among other things. After dashing, we found a NICE and yummy sit-down restaurant for a late lunch. The curry was Thai style! Mmm-boy!

We are ambiance-starved! It seems we take a picture of anywhere we eat that has any sense of it! Oooh, paper place mats and water before we eat! Wow!

These were croissant dough grilled in sugar and filled with custard!
Yes, as good as they sound!

We left about 3:30 and Q continued home while Rachel and I hauled all the kids to a department store. I thought it would be a mall.... Oh well. More air-conditioned comfort! And amazing treats in the food court on the 7th floor! Everything else was too pricey to catch our serious buying attention.

From here we trekked to the Shilin night market - Taiwan's largest and most famous. We knew we would get there early and planned to eat before things started up. BUT after walking through the sights and smells of the basement food court, we decided we WEREN'T hungry enough to justify dinner and returned topside for two orders of bing!

This strawberry shaved ice is as good or better than it looks!

Then we caught a very early version of the night market. Some places were not open yet, but the smaller crowds suited our tired pace and small people better. Rachel scored some gifts, clothes, and souvenirs, but I couldn't bring myself with 5 people in tow to dig, to haggle, to translate, to find the right sizes, or to pause to pull out money. I think what I will do is take each kid on a date to the night market so we can move more quickly and focus on fewer interests. Mine included! Oh, I saw so many clothing items I'm drooling over! I hope I get the wardrobe overhaul I'm needing!

Arthur DID get a fishy game that he had played at Sophia's house and loved. It was there, the price was right, and not surprisingly after it was purchased, he contentedly held it in his lap and was as sweet a boy as he has ever been for the rest of the market and the longish journey home. Hallelujah! We left the market still not especially hungry and I told the kids we could just head home and have papaya milk and p.b. and j. for dinner. They took the offer and we were on our way by 6:45.

Eloise conversing with the natives.

On the train ride home, Eloise engaged the people around her (as usual), impressed them with her VERY limited Chinese, and made a contact for the missionaries of the woman in this picture next to her. Taiwan loves my kids, and they love Taiwan!

So, it may cost a bit more moula to insert all the wonder Taiwan has to offer! But it was a wonderful day finding and remembering that we are HERE and this is, by far, the coolest thing our family has done, EVER!

Missing....

Taiwan is so fun. But being here reminds me of all the joys of being home. Wanna know what I miss?
1. Friends and family - being around people I know who know me, laughing and relaxing with them, and feeling generally connected.

2. Living with half my brain tied behind my back. If I zone out of anything here (church meetings, where we are on the train, etc.) chances are, I will miss something completely. I have to focus to achieve comprehension. I'm tired of focusing! (No wonder small children need a nap!)

3. Autumn in Utah. Cooler temperatures, the turning of the leaves, fire pits and the smell of smoke, fall decorations in our house, getting out the winter clothes, sleeping with the windows open and waking up cold, shorter days, weather that justifies a mug of almond vanilla steamed milk or hot chocolate. Ahhh, sigh. I miss autumn.

4. Baking. I have no oven here. No "brains." No breakfast cookies. No fresh pies. No peanut butter cookies. No rolls hot out of the oven with the soups I begin to crave with cooler temperatures.

5. Garbage Cans. They just don't have garbage cans anywhere here! It makes me want to leave thank you notes on public garbage cans back at home: "Thank you for emptying this garbage. I know it's your job, but that you do it means I don't have to walk around carrying my trash all day, and that is so nice. Bless you!"

6. Sidewalks. I know my town isn't big enough to have them, but there the streets are wide and mostly untraveled. You would think that planners would plan a safe place for so many pedestrians in a large city with so many varied vehicles. You would be wrong.

7. Cool rain. I love that it rains here. I wish it cooled things down like it does at home. Rain here just makes things muggier.

It's been 4 inside and rainy days as of today. I'm feeling a bit melancholy. Maybe I just need to think about what I will miss about Taiwan when I am home and make sure I fill my days with plenty of THOSE things. Papaya milk from 7-11, here I come!

PS: How could I forget:
8. Toilets that flush toilet paper!!!!!!!!!! This is my 4th trip to Taiwan and I may be our family's worst at remembering to drop what I have used to wipe with in the garbage provided in each stall (and even in private homes). Yes, gross.

9. (Remembered while posting today) Water served with every meal, and clean water from the tap. Post-typhoon, people are especially paranoid as flooding CAN cause further water-purification issues. Our apt has a filter picture we use, so we're rather cavalier about the water even after the typhoon. Famous last words, right?

10. Carpet! I'm on the hunt for any sort of padding I can get my hands on for stretching, or even sitting on something a little more inviting than cold, hard tile. Ah, sigh, what I wouldn't give for a yoga mat. Which brings me to....

11. Walmart. If you know my family, you know we have a hate/strongly-dislike relationship with Sam Walton and his stores. NOT huge fans. Who could ever imagine Q and I would be pining for a big box store we knew and could get everything we could possible need at - cheap prices for low quality goods and all!

Mid-Autumn Festival and the TYPHOON!

These are the "before eating" faces, which reflect the built-up anticipation of
waiting 2 DAYS to devour these babies!

This weekend has been one of Taiwan's most popular holidays, Mid-Autumn Festival. Do your own research on this holiday. The origin-story is a fun one. Like most holidays, it's celebration is reduced to activities whose connection to the origin seem a bit random. "On the ground" the holiday is eating youzi (a dry, bland grapefruit), mooncakes (right), and barbecuing. Only there ALSO happens to be a typhoon in town, so most folks today, who might have had more fun plans, are likely doing what WE are doing today (Monday): surviving on the utter edge of sheer BOREDOM!

I took the "before eating" picture at the top of this post anticipating there would be a funny, contrasting "after" picture when the kids actually ATE the cakes they have been wanting for DAYS. I wasn't disappointed in their faces. Needless to say THEY WERE disappointed in the cakes. Ha!

Yes, there is a typhoon in the neighborhood AS I TYPE. I know TYPHOON sounds exciting and a little scary, but all the typhoons I've experienced amount to a very large (or insignificant) rain storm with a lot of wind. Right now the rain is impressive, and we have an 8th floor view of it all! The rain is coming down in sheets! I'm glad we aren't out in it because we would be DRENCHED.

In fact, the rain started in earnest yesterday (Sunday) about the time we were supposed to be on our 20 minute walk to church. It didn't turn out all bad. I had wanted to head out at 8:30 since we weren't exactly sure where we were going and had never been to the church before. We didn't get to the front doors of our apartment building until 8:55, however, and when we walked up to them we noticed the rain was dumping. Unlike rain in Utah, it falls in very fine drops, almost a mist, but at this moment it was falling fast enough the mist would have drenched us in about 20 seconds, even with our 2 umbrellas.

So we asked our door man to call us 2 cabs instead. They drove up from the MRT station and we loaded up and were off, except for me not remembering the exact address for the second cab which I was in. Both drivers figured it out and we made it for the sacrament hymn, in better time than we could have walking, and arrived mostly dry!

The ward, by the way, was very kind. Q was sufficiently impressed he decided to request our records to be moved. I thought he had ruled that option out, but it's nice to think we will be a little better rooted here. I think there is a great opportunity to serve! The ward only has one set of missionaries serving in it. (Generally there are a total of 4-6 missionaries per ward.) From what we could gather, some of the reduction is due to local leadership preferring a smaller missionary force. But we also learned the Taiwan government has recently tightened down on missionary visas, so the mission doesn't quite have the numbers it wants anyway. Of the two missionaries, one is a Taiwan native from Tainan, Elder Dong, who introduced himself Sunday and has been a missionary for 4 days. Having just one foreign missionary has crippled their English class offerings, and we hear they have lost a lot of regular attendees.

This picture of Tamsui ward members and missionaries was taken the following Sunday at the monthly ward FHE.
The game was a mix of elevator, truth or dare, and gospel trivia. 

I never was a huge English class fan, and felt MOST often they weren't a great source for people interested in the gospel. HOWEVER, for US they should produce people interested in a language share, and who have time and are open to meeting people which is exactly what we are looking for. So we are thinking we will go as a family to the classes to help where we can. Korean also happens to be fairly fashionable here, so Q is thinking he may offer a class on how to read Korean, which he thinks can be mastered in about 10 minutes. We shall see if all our scheming produces meaningful experiences for any of us, but we are hopeful at this time.

Otherwise, Arthur lucked out and did great in nursery with a fairly fluent English-speaking nursery leader. There were just 3 Chinese kids in Eloise's Junior Primary class, and another 3 in EV's Senior Primary class, but they both reported their teachers were very kind and they had a lot of fun. I think the super yummy looking cake they were all served as a snack went a long way in their love for their day at church. None of them reported any problems, or even boredom with being around Chinese for 3 hours, so so far, so good.

If they weren't impressed by his Chinese on the first Sunday,
 THIS moment the following week of him doing
push ups while reciting the 13th Article of Faith (the longest)
had to make an impression!

Q reported that Kai was asked several questions at the beginning of the priesthood meeting and his answers in Chinese impressed everyone. MY Chinese impressed everyone too, apparently, but I take that with a depressed grain of salt. I am painfully aware of how much I don't understand and ALL that I can't read or write and am in NO danger of getting a big head.

Case in point, I didn't remember to grab the address of where we now live, nor have I committed it to memory, so we had to ask members help us after church to call the cab, and then I went in the lead cab while the rest followed in a member's car, as I guessed our way back home. (Several times on this trip I have reflected on what a blessing my good sense of direction is. Because I don't read, it truly saves me by at least keeping me going in the right direction. We would be so crazy-lost without it!)

So the welcome at church was warm, but not overwhelming, perhaps because WE are. We are a big family of 7, making up almost 50% of primary, apparently, and so we should not have been surprised that we left without an invite to dinner or holiday celebrations later in the day or week.

The kids in Tamsui on Saturday night.

Thankfully for us, and most blessedly, Sammi and Alan once again delivered a mighty blessing. We got home from church at about 1pm and I made a large batch of fried rice which was devoured. Sammi and Alan said they would come get us around 3pm. I told everyone to take a nap, and only laid down myself around 3:15. At 3:30 we got a call that there was a delay and it would be another 30 minutes. We then got another 2 phone calls with the same 30 minute delay about every 30 minutes, so the kids, who hadn't napped, got to watch a bunch of stuff, and I got to sleep. THAT was a great blessing because on Saturday night, Sammi, Alan, and Sophia had come to our place and we had gone on to Tamsui for dinner. They didn't leave for home and so the kids weren't in bed 'til after 11pm.

The littles at the little kids table.

Anyway, Sammi, Alan, and Sophia all came finally on Sunday at about 5 pm and we crammed all 10 of us in their car for a 30 minute drive across Taipei to their home. We spent a lovely evening chatting with them. They cooked meat and prepped a lot of veggies for the sake of Q. I made a salad with what they had, which was a hit with Alan and hit the spot for us salad-deprived foreigners. Mostly, it was just so lovely to be with friends. Sophia was darling to share all her things with Arthur and the girls. They all painted their nails later in the evening and with Alan's help, we tried to find Chinese names for the kids.

(Below: The spread prepared by Sammi and Alan's input because, as he explained, while he doesn't often cook, his dad IS a chef! They crack us up! The table below is a butterfly table (both side fold out) which they apparently keep for occasions just such as this night when they are entertaining 7 guests!)

We had some success too! Our family name is Jin, which means gold. We got that because Q's Korean name, Kim, translates to Jin here. We liked gold just fine. And we are a golden family! :)

Kai's name is Kai, meaning triumphant.
EV's name is Juan. Her English name pertains to a source of life. Her Chinese name (so far - we may add another syllable) means brook or small stream. I liked that water was also a giver and keeper of life.
Eloise's name is Chun Jing. We never found a reliable translation for her English name, so I assigned it the meaning, "Peace from God." In Chinese, Chun means simple, uncomplicated, or pure, and Jing is an even, undisturbed stillness. Sammi and Alan thought her name was a little odd, or old sounding, which I also thought was perfect because her English name is a grandma-era name too. So both the girl names relate somewhat to their English names.

We still have Arthur yet to go. His English name only pertains to the literary and historical figure and has no meaning in itself, so we are hunting for a name that might reflect that he is the boy of my dreams! (Not only did I dream of him before he was born, but I always wanted a clever, naughty little handful to make me laugh and love me best!

Anyway, we stayed with our friends until after 11pm and finally got home, thanks to Alan, just before midnight! We all slept in this morning, and because there isn't much to do today, have had a rather restful day today as well. Q and I went with plastic ponchos to score us all some food for lunch and timed things just right - we were out for perhaps the only relatively dry 40 minutes all day. Otherwise I have cleaned and done countless tiny batches of laundry and the kids have played, played in the bally room, taken a bath (in lieu of swimming) in our huge, balcony bathtub, and are now watching stuff on youtube. Q has been able to work to his heart's content!

Typhoon feast of guotie's!

The Casper-people on the Bus

Q installed a bus app for me, so today we decided to see if it works. In the end, I'm not really sure. It certainly had issues. But it got us on a bus to Fort Santo Domingo and then when we were finished there we were able to find a return bus stop and ask the next bus that showed up if it was going where we wanted it to.

So our world is getting a bit bigger. Which is a good thing, because while we live in a very nice neighborhood of dalou's (big buildings), it's very bu fangbien (not convenient) to do shopping of any kind, including street eating, which was a bit shocking because I didn't know a place existed here that didn't have street food at SOME hour of the day.

So we bused to a fort built by the Spanish in the 1600's, then occupied by the Dutch before becoming (200 years later) the home of the British Consulate. This was a lovely place, but one of the two buildings was closed, and I was trying to keep an engaging pace with the kids and got just one picture.

Next to this fort is a large university which was opened by a Presbyterian missionary MacKay.



Here's his info:

Us Mormons used to be called on missions like this.... Why not anymore? (He married a Chinese woman after his first wife with whom he had 5 children and who was NOT Chinese passed away.) Anyway, I was VERY impressed with the university's mission, so pardon the blurry picture, (and the flash in the one to the left) but I just had to capture the thoughts below:

The kids at OXFORD! Oooh, ahhh.

The missionary's residence, called "Little White House" is behind Veeve.

Anyway, evidence of the great good he did is all around, and it was fun to get a tiny taste of it. Fun for me. The kids were sure gripey about every little thing.

Immediately after stepping off the bus, they wanted to eat, so because we didn't have Q with us, I chose an actual sit-down restaurant for it's quick convenience and ambiance. It cured me of needing to stop by any others.

I'm sure I said, "smile!" but Rachel's expression better captures the
reality of this restaurant experience.

The food was WAY overpriced, not especially good, and it took nearly 30 minutes to be served, during which time I got to wrestle MY hungry natives. I wish I could say behavior improved after they ate, but maybe they are just over seeing one more place.

Of course, they don't act that way when presented with the option of going or staying. Maybe I need to find better bribes or a way to increase cooperation. Without Rachel, we would have been done-for.

The whole day was extended by multiple stops to see street processions of traditional musicians and puppet Gods. I still haven't been able to understand what is going on today - something about Matsu, NOT related to Mid-Autumn Festival. Anyway, the volume has been LOUD and the worshipers many. The video below is the SMALLEST taste of all the firecrackers they literally lit at our feet!

Coming back from the fort we split up. Rachel took Stew home while the big 3 and I continued into the next city to see if we could find the temple where there was supposed to be a show. A very kind gentleman offered to walk us there. (Another very kind gentleman on the bus gave us a whole box of Italian chocolate which I was able to use for the rest of the day as bribery that got Stew up a flight of stairs and ended a string of pointless arguments and complaints the girls were launching....)

So we saw more performance that went completely over our heads. But I told the kids that we could find the stories later and to pay attention to the moves of the performers and we could do our own similar play for Culture Club. After that, they seemed quite engaged and would turn away briefly while watching to shout at me ideas for the costumes, music, or audience participation. It will be fun to post videos side by side. (The clip below is shortly after our surprise moment when this low-speaking-voice performer began to sing....)

Some of the performers seemed about as enthusiastic and rehearsed as friends might be, having been pulled into one of our elaborate basement productions. I'm always fascinated by performance attitude - what makes a good performance/performer (humility? an attitude of going through the motions? facial animation or the lack thereof?) because AS a performer, I want to see from a show what I enjoyed giving (my best, full effort, no mistakes, and 100% for the audience) but watching the show today, like watching Native Americans dance at a pow-wow, I wonder if MY sense of performance is more tuned to ballet, or western expectations, or some other set of standards, and if the standards aren't universal, I'm completely curious to learn about other sets!

Anyway, we left this show early (again, against my performance etiquette instinct, NO ONE seemed to have any special sense of paying attention) to grab more groceries while we were around the corner from our new favorite grocery store, and then took the train back home for the final hike. Tonight, I'm doing NOTHING and Q can take the kids for a swim! Ah, blessed rest!

Veeve's View of Tamsui

Veeve at the Zoo!

It's hard to believe that we're actually IN Taiwan. It seems like no other family could ever do this. I'm really excited to go shopping. I want clothes - I mostly want the clothes and t-shirts that have funny English on them. I'm also glad that we've started home-cooking so that we can have pancakes and smoothies and some of the dishes that we have at home. Today I tried some really weird sweet noodles - they were like jello-y and sweet. Also, there is a smoothie place we go to with mango-milk that is pretty good.

Some of my favorite places to play in are the park, the ball room, and the swimming pool.

Today we went to a cool play. I thought the music was pretty funny - first it was like banging pots and cans together, then at the fighting scene it was like rock music. After that, we went home, took a nap, and went swimming. Then, for the big finale, we had curry for dinner.

What I really want to remember about Taiwan is the zoo. It was so cool because we got to see an orangutan, lynx, giraffes, hippos, and more. What was also cool is that we saw male lion that was actually awake and roaring. I can't wait to tell all the people back at home.

The thing I miss most about home is my friends, the house that I live in, and our milk! My favorite milk here is probably papaya milk. The regular milk isn't too bad, but it's not as yummy as the milk we have back home.

Taiwan has been pretty fun and I really like it.

Taipei to OURSELVES! (Trip to the Taipei Zoo)

Yes, I realize Taipei proper is home to probably over 3 million people, while the larger Taipei area is probably in the neighborhood of 7 million, but when everyone works and puts their kids in school from morning to night, it's easy to feel when we are out mid-day that the place is OURS! (Which is just how we like it.)

Casperson tradition held true, and for our trip to the Taipei Zoo today, we had rain, rain, rain. Aside from a few serious downpours, some of which we managed to be indoors for, it was just a lovely drizzle to keep things cool and the animals LIVELY!

We took the MRT from our end of the city all the way to an opposite corner - a voyage which took over 1 hour - and arrived just after 11am. To our delight, the zoo only cost $2/adult and $1/child. I guess the downside of our relaxed American attitudes towards work-day recreating drives prices up at comparable American destinations. Who has ever heard of $2 admission to a country's premier zoo!?! And we seriously had the run of the place! I joked that if you wanted to go to the zoo, it would be cheaper to FLY to Taiwan and go to the zoo here. Q joked that the money you saved traveling to Taiwan's zoo would be blown on fruity drinks and delicious street food. True, true.

Anyway, it was a great day, and Rachel's choice to celebrate her 18th B-day! I hope it was a hit.

We lucked out and took this "train" first thing inside the zoo. It dropped us off at the top and the rest of the walk throughout the entire zoo was more or less downhill!

I am not a big zoo fan, myself. This would not have been on my to-do list of destinations to take in. (We have both animals and zoo's in the states, right?) HOWEVER, between the proximity we got to the animals, their activity level, and the price of admission, I was absolutely DELIGHTED!!! (I didn't post all the pics, but for memory's sake, the lions were doing a fabulous roar, the brown bear was pacing, and we got pretty close to the giraffe, pandas, and elephant in addition to the pics of the animals I've posted!)

This guy looked right at the camera for me.

THIS is how close the kids were to him!

Except for the glass, Stew might have reached out to touch a tiger.

Even the wild-life outside of the enclosures is impressive!

If there was any worry we misinterpreted, check out the derriere next to Veeve's raised fist.

Finally, I think I have solved the mystery of bizarre bodily function info-graphics. I think it's just a complete cultural casualness with going the bathroom. (Case in point: walking out of a women's restroom in McDonalds, I had a full view, less privates, of a man relieving himself in the men's room. This was SO shocking to me, I almost wanted to take a picture, but that seemed in worse taste than the pictures of the info-graphics I've posted. Anyway, now I know the facial expression of a man relieving himself. Swell.) But back to my point, THIS display was at the zoo. From the context of the whole thing, it was probably explaining how all excrement becomes fertilizer for the world.




HOORAY! Now we can turn a little turd into a super hero cartoon! Just what the world (and my blog!) needed!

The Super Turd is to the left of Big Bro's hips.

ANYWAY...

One little is clearly bushed at the end of our zoo trip.

Near the zoo is another gondola, and I was campaigning to ride it while we were in the neighborhood. When Q pointed out it was nearly 3:30 in the afternoon, that ended that campaign, but I was blown away by the time! I think I must still not be fully adjusted. It felt like 10:30am to me. (I wasn't the only one. I was so surprised it was so late, I asked Big Bro what time he thought it felt like. He said 10am without hearing from me first what time I thought it was.) Maybe we're just really rested today?

Anyway, we tried to beat the post-work-day traffic home so we could sit for our hour ride. We got on the train at about 4pm and who should we find there, but the sister missionaries! They told me what MRT stop was nearest the temple, so perhaps we'll get to make a go of it soon! They helped us sing Happy Birthday to Rachel on the train, and enjoyed the extended Ackerman version.

For Rachel's b-day dinner I stopped by a shop for what are like elongated, fried pot stickers, just down from our home MRT station. I met the rest of the fam back at home and we managed finally to crowd all 7 of us around the table. Rachel is now out on her OWN adventure shopping in Tamsui. (Except she went the wrong way on the MRT, so she is hopefully NOW arriving in Tamsui after hopping back on the train!)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RACHEL! THANKS FOR AMAZING MEMORIES!

Crashing and Burning in Tamsui

We made it! We MADE it! (Pant, pant!) We drove in to Taipei, and in FACT we didn't literally crash, OR burn, or kill ANYONE! After making the drive, Q joked that he wanted to curl up in a ball and cry. We weren't on the craziest roads I'd ever seen, nor did we make any of the tight passes the drivers here can manage. But we were in a minivan filled with non-Chinese readers, and a bunch of hungry, tired, little non-Chinese readers at that.

A shot from the cut-into-the-cliff roads heading north on Taiwan's east side.
Treacherously beautiful.

We went from winding mountain roads near Hualien which were making everyone feel ill, to a total stand-still, to miles of tunnels bringing us to the Taipei basin, to the horrendous maneuvering we had to do in a completely unfamiliar environment, 6 busy lanes flowing one way, and scooters and pedestrians crowding everywhere. (Added to the mix, my phone, from which we were accessing google maps was about to die, and while I might have charged it with the car charger, the GPS didn't have quite the juice it needed to be without IT'S power source.) Whoa.

Oh, but before we actually got here, we DID stop in Yilan to hit the National Center for Traditional Arts. And it was cool. We caught 2 or 3 productions - 1 on a stage, and another in the street, which then ended on a stage. We didn't understand a word. This place exists to preserve "traditional" (meaning old) performance, craftsmanship, and culinary art, so the performances where in what I assume is an older form of Chinese. I could make out some words, but they were very affected.

The crew with the actors of the play.

Still, it was fun to imagine ourselves in Ming-dynasty-era times, being drawn into a performance by amazing feats and choreographed antics on the street. (My phone was ALREADY dying here, so the pictures are very few. I will have to hit Rachel up to send me the extras she took and post them.)

Weese's squat in all it's authentic Chinese glory!

Maybe these cool wheely dealies on this performer's feet aren't Ming period, but they made for awesome effects!

High flying Dragon Fly

Above is a smoke billowing Dragon ready to descend on the crowd.

The other cool thing we saw here was an exhibit on the fantasy, kung-fu puppets that have recently done a movie. At least I thought they were cool. Veeve thought the boys looked too much like girls (true), Rachel thought it was weird grown people would be so into it (also probably true), and Q just kept wondering who their marketing demographic was. (The movie seemed too violent for kids, which led him to wonder with Rachel if it was something NORMAL adults got into.)

Right: These are NOT the puppets, but are caricatures of them.

Once again, more random photo-opp "stuff" that seem completely unrelated to anything.... Still, it was "working" with MY kids.

This was the sort of place we probably could have spent all day at, but the road was calling, and the thought was to hit get to Taipei by 5pm. It was a good plan, but traffic leading up to the first 12km tunnel was complete stop and go, so what should have been an hour and 15 minute trip turned into almost 2 hours. And we were anxious to make the best time we could, so I don't know that we stopped more than once to pee. We got snacks, but the plan was to get to our destination and then find food while we waited for our Airbnb host to appear at 7 and let us in.

Anyway, we arrived starving at 6, again finding the place on a wing and a prayer. Miraculously, when I called our host to tell him we had arrived, he said he was just 2 minutes away. This was such a blessing because there was NO WHERE to park, but he arranged with his doorman to have us pull up to the nearest front door and we were able to unload our lives from the van immediately. Finally, we were unloading it ALL (whereas before, we had left as many as 3 or 4 pieces of luggage IN the car and just moved from day to day with our backpacks). So it seemed to take a while to get everything out (including the accumulated trash and journey junk). THEN the orientation for the building took a while too.

Meanwhile the kids were MORE starving, and totally hyper. We left them with Rachel watching TV so we could see the building at a quicker pace. When we got back to our apartment, it was almost 7. Our hosts, JJ and Mabel, offered to take us to the local bulk grocery store and to get food. We gladly accepted, but had to re-shoe everyone and have everyone pee again, and we weren't out the door 'til 7:15.

The car was being picked up at the closest MRT (mass rapid transit) station at 8:30. Getting to the Carrefour (bulk store) took 15 minutes. We went strait for dinner (we ate at a Japanese restaurant inside the Carrefour) but the food took another 10 minutes to order and 15 minutes to come. JJ planned to go with Q to return the car. Poor Q. He got a 10 minute shot at eating and then was on the road back to get the van picked up. Thankfully THAT process went smoothly. VIP Car Rental was very kind. Then he and JJ hiked back up to our new place.

Meanwhile, Mabel had stayed with me, Rachel, and all the kids. We probably didn't finish eating 'til 8:30. (And boy did we polish every last mackerel off!) So at 8:30 (and remember, we'd been going to bed around 8pm pretty consistently) I'm hauling all 4 tired kids around a completely unfamiliar, crowded Costco with 3 levels! It was amazing we came home with anything relevant to our needs, my body and brain were so exhausted!

We finally left about 9:30, Mabel hauling all of us and just 3 large bags of groceries, home in her car. We unloaded all of us and the groceries, JJ and Mabel quickly bowed out, and finally it was just US in our new home.

It truly is a lovely place. We have views of the jungle, the river, the city lights at night, the sunsets. There is a grand piano in one of the activity rooms so EV can practice her piano, and may even be able to continue lessons with her teacher on the phone! There are 2 pools and a hot spring hot tub, there is what Stew calls the "bally room" - the room with a mini jungle gym in a ball pit, there's a movie room (we probably won't use because I can't read the Chinese postings of the showings, and probably wouldn't know Hollywood movies by their Chinese titles anyway), there is BBQ spaces on the roof, and a work out room too. So all of that is the upside of where we have landed.

However, this is also the smallest 3 bedroom we have stayed in during the whole trip! Our very first Zhongli digs were a bit smaller, but it was also just a 2 bedroom. Needless to say, I am feeling a bit claustrophobic. At first, I was entertaining a little pity party for myself. Life in Taiwan was just so hard, I was thinking. And with tiny fridges, tiny washing machines, a tinier dryer (but we DO have a dryer! which is a total luxury!) about 2 square feet of counter space in the kitchen, and NO car, no wonder families chose to only have one child or two, IF they have kids at all! I am not looking forward to cooking in the kitchen. I am not looking forward to laundry for 7 people. Basically, my life as a mom and housewife HERE is completely different and HARD!

So those were my thoughts. THEN I thought, "Grow up!" This isn't Taiwan, this is life in a big city, and plenty of people in big cities have done it, so get over it.

I still don't think I AM over it. But I am hoping it won't be as hard as I am fearing.

Above: the family room/the boys bdrm at night/second dining table b/c we don't all fit, nor are there chairs for all of us at the first. See pic below.

Right: This is the entirety of the kitchen. I am feeling SO blessed the fridge is as large as it is, though it is tiny by American standards. The microwave is in the living room. The machine above the sink is a dish dryer, NOT washer. And there is no oven. Perhaps we'll have to go to the church to make our addictive peanut butter cookies.... Out the door you can just see the edge of on the left is the 4 ft x 4ft laundry patio. The washing machine's large load setting holds a medium size load at home, but the dryer probably can only dry about half of that. Again, I am just feeling blessed we HAVE a clothes dryer. They and ovens are VERY uncommon in Taiwan.

Those who fit are gathered around our first "home-cooked" meal of the trip (outside of eating fruit for breakfast): frozen pot stickers!

(Below left: sisters room. Below right: Rachel's room with Big Bro's coveting grin - "this will soon be MINE. bwa-ha-ha.....")

Q's work space gets two thumbs up. One from him,
and one from my foot encroaching on his office space from the comfort of our bed. :)

The entirety of our common area.

So now we have survived the hectic, traveling lives our challenge is getting back to REAL life in a very small space. I thought I was blessed to do so much de-junking before we left Taiwan for the ease of packing up our home. Now I wonder if the blessing was preparing me to live with WAY less here, because more simply will not fit.

The kids are still in vacation mode, which means we are away from any semblance of routine, and they think our lives revolve around entertaining them. Right now there is a lot of obnoxious behavior and whining because we are NOT, in fact, primarily concerned with their entertainment. Once again, we are hoping Rachel will be able to bless us to make a smooth transition into settling here, as she may be able to take Stew to the bally room, or the kids down for a dip in the pool, or be with Veeve as she practices piano, allowing Q and I to unpack/get back to work/master our new environment.

But we are dead tired. I am glad we have Rachel's tighter time frame (she heads back home Oct 9) to keep us motivated to keep moving, otherwise, I might feel like taking a week off of doing ANYTHING but NAPPING. Anyway, on our first full day here I did about 6 batches of laundry, unpacked everything, reorganized cupboards and drawers, took the crew less Q to explore the 'hood and figure out the MRT, Q took the kids swimming and figured out all our tech, and we took the kids to walk around Tamsui in the evening.

Fam in Tamsui for the evening spent by the river.
We are actually in Hongshulin, which is the MRT stop right BEFORE Tamsui.

Though we only got home about 9pm, by the end of it, I felt like I could hardly walk. I was literally hobbling around. (It doesn't help that the final stretch from the MRT station to our place is about a 10 minute, uphill hike. When I get home, I am going to be SO BUFF!) Anyway, Q had a work call so we got to sleep by about 11 and slept 'til this morning at about 8:30, which we never do! We WERE exhausted. So we have crashed, we have burned, and this morning it seemed we had the strength we needed for another day in Taiwan. Hallelujah!

The Beyond-Epic Journey Draws to a Close

I can't believe tomorrow we are going "home." Not to our home-home, but to our home base for two months. These last 18 days have FLOWN BY!

But at the moment we are STILL in Hualian, and have had a lovely Sabbath.

Sign says, "Stay away fools, 'cuz love rules." Or maybe it's "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." What do I know? I'm illiterate.

Right off this morning we headed to church. As blessings go, church was just a ways down the street from us, we discovered on our first morning here. (We came to a corner and I looked up and thought, "That looks just like a steeple in Utah." Then I noticed the size of the building and thought, "That is one HUGE, very conservative-looking building." As we slowly drove past the gate around it, I noticed the signs on the walls and exclaimed aloud, "LOOK! It's our church!")

So we knew just where to go, and found on the internet when we could catch a Sacrament Meeting. At least that was the plan. And Sophia wanted to come, so Sammi came too. We were even there a bit before 9am. Sadly, and I didn't know this 'til AFTER the meeting began, it was the "new member meeting" of Stake Conference! So instead of taking the sacrament, we got to listen to whom I presume were the mission leaders of each ward introduce the members that had been baptized in the last year or two, and then hear some conversion stories. I should have done much better translating, because some of them we touching. I thought perhaps it was just I who was touched, but Big Bro and Veeve also said they could feel the spirit, though everything was in Chinese. And even Q noticed the loving, welcoming vibe and happy countenances of the faces of the people. Sammi has never seemed especially interested in our church. That was a constant.

The recurring theme of those who bore testimony or shared their conversions was that they were able to feel God's love in their lives. This THRILLED me, as it's what I want MOST to share with all the people I meet and see.

The upside of missing a sacrament meeting was that I got to meet the new Mission President, President Jergenson, from Providence, UT. I wish I could remember everyone who asked us to tell him hi. We'd never met him before, but I picked him out as the tall, older gentleman who was WHITE. Also, his name tag helped. I walked up to him and said, "I'm sister Casperson, and I bring you greetings from Millville, Utah."

Anyway, we only were able to meet one member in the 15 minutes after our meeting ended and Stake Conference began. Big Bro was very interested in meeting the missionaries, and it's always the missionaries who seem excited to meet us. At first I thought it was because we have a Rachel - an absolutely GORGEOUS American girl about their age. It MAY truly be this. But I've also remembered how excited I felt as a missionary to see any white person, and how I always wanted to talk to them and find out why THEY were in Taiwan. The missionaries LOVE that I am back with the whole family after loving my mission 18 years ago. Big Bro is fascinated that nearly ALL of them are from Utah. I did meet a sister today from Ammon, Idaho. Go Ammon!

Veeve, working on her fashion coloring book.

We left after this meeting and came back to the apartment where the kids played, and Sammi packed to head back to Taipei on the train today, and Q drilled her about Daoism. Q, having read the Tao te ching (I think that's how it's spelled in English) is fascinated with the process of moving from very deep thoughts on how to live in oneness with others and the world to the ornate temples filled with incense, gods, and bowing worshipers. What we found out today (or perhaps more firmly confirmed our suspicions of) was that Laotsu (again, a guess on the familiar English spelling) is NOT a god in one of the temples that people worship. Most likely, the various gods represented were believed in BEFORE Laotsu's teachings. Sammi explained some people believed (and believe) in one god, some in many, some in ghosts and demons, and so there were many stories about these deities. When people began to believe Laotsu's teachings about the Dao (spelled Tao) they became Taoist, but they likely didn't leave their other beliefs. (Which makes sense because the Tao doesn't prescribe worship, or a belief about life before or after this one, or answer any of the big questions that seem to be addressed in most religious faith.)

Pondering all of it, we feel to become better believers ourselves. Q likened how one might feel after meeting a really kind, or in-tune Catholic priest or nun, and then going to a Catholic church with all the graphic depictions of Christ's suffering - that there might be some emotional disconnect. We wondered if people go on pilgrimage to Mormon mecca and only to find rude drivers and multi-level sales folks, where they had hoped to be with holy saints. Anyway, Q is a bit let down (again) by eastern religion. The "believers" we see in action, especially in the Taoist temples, seem to be buying favors and bowing with empty expressions. I hope we never come across this way in our faith.

After the kids played here, we chatted religion, and Sammi was ready, we decided to hit a park just down the street from us and discovered we are mere blocks away from the ocean! For whatever reason, the ocean is just not the draw here that it is in the states. This park was deserted, and furthermore, no buildings were surrounding it or built up to maximize the beautiful view. MY kids were thrilled to be back with their friend, the fighting swimming pool, and Weese and Stew kept asking if they could get wet. Or even just a little wet. The pictures should explain why the answer was NO WAY. These huge boulders reached all the way to where the waves were crashing on them. It might have been a lovely place to sit and chat with my dear hubby for hours. But the wee natives were restless so we hunted for other things to keep them occupied. We didn't find much, but we soaked up the rest of the time 'til Sammi needed to be dropped off at the train station and took her there. Since they've been gone, Stew has asked to see Sophia again about 10 times. (And it's just been a few hours.)

All over Taiwan, there are odd, cartoony structures with English on them. I think they are just photo-ops, but they all strike us as rather random. Q was disappointed I'm pondering his forceful proposal in this shot. Which is as true to life as his anxious pace and disappointment in my pondering during our courtship. Some things never change!

Veeve, dead from the heat, in one tiny spot of grass in
the shade of a palm tree.

It was SO hot outside, we opted to get food on the go and head back home to our air conditioned S P A C E to eat it. After lunch, I crashed, and we rallied again at 4 (when it was cooler, or at least bearably hot) to hit the Buddhist University we passed on our way to Taroko. We finally got out the door, ice cream barred the kids and got there about 5, with only 1 hour of daylight left. We didn't see much, not much was open. But we are thinking we may get out the door early tomorrow and see more before heading north. We shall see.

The building behind us was HUGE!!! We haven't seen the inside, YET, but the outside is something right out of Mulan or Kungfu Panda. So beautiful.