This is the story of how I [almost] died...

Movie reference! Ten points if you can name the movie. Twenty if you are the first. You might be thinking "Pft, 20 points? Who cares?" Well, I'm just saying that you should care. See, I am going to have some pretty cool stuff by the time I croak. And probably I'll be rich too, so you might want to get in on my will, right? Welllll...I might have a nifty little notebook. And in this nifty little notebook I might have my favorite people listed. And I might just keep track of how pleased I am with those people by using a points system. You know, that just might be how the booty is divvied up when I kick the bucket. A little something for you to ponder. But, I digress. Back to what this post was meant to be on:

^ my bike                                              

When you look at these you may think of environmentally friendly transportation, or a good work out, a leisurely Sunday ride, or perhaps even Lance Armstrong. There was a time when the sight of a bicycle conjured up these same magical images in my own mind. But those days have come to an end. I am here to tell you that these...these...things, are really instruments of death.
You may be laughing at me right now, but I assure you that I bring this subject up in all seriousness. I'm pretty sure the Fates have decided that I will suffer death-by-bicycle. I have stared death in the face approximately 62 times in the last week. If you are wondering, it's a little less scary after the 11th time, and after the  23rd time it just becomes downright hilarious.
Okay, so maybe that is a gross exaggeration, but I really do think danger follows me when I am on a bike. Have I told you about the Tunnel of Death? Well, there is a Tunnel of Death here. I think that most of us here in the teacher dorms at Berhan find this tunnel to be appropriately named. To get to the other side of the train tracks you must ride your bike through the Tunnel of Death. This tunnel is very narrow. There is part of this tunnel where you are temporarily unable to see very well at all. And best of all, you often must ride your bike through this skinny, dark tunnel with a line of scooters in front of and behind you. And the noise from the scooters echos. And you really do have the feeling that you might die at any second. There is a separate tunnel for cars and yet another tunnel for foot traffic. So obviously you do not walk through the actual Tunnel of Death, right? RIGHT? I would say it is pretty obvious. Well, there seems to be at least one suicidal/homicidal person in Feng Yuan who does not seem to understand this, because she happened to be walking through the Tunnel of Death when Rachel, Kaylee and I  were riding through on our bikes. And then, in the darkest part of the tunnel, she decided to stop in front of my bike. Really? REALLY?! Who is that stupid? Well, unfortunately no one got hurt. It would have been more exciting. But I did hit my brakes hard and the back of my bike slid forward so it was horizontal and blocking the tunnel. And it made a really cool screeching sound. It kind of made me feel like a stunt woman. Fortunately for me, and Miss Airhead (who just kept walking and acted like nothing even happened), there were no scooters this time.
The same night we were riding through on the way home. This time I had a cake roll...thing in my basket. It had been a lovely evening and I had nearly forgotten about my previous tunnel experience. Kendra and Rachel entered the Tunnel of Death before me. I saw a scooter coming so I stopped and let it go in first, but then I had to hurry so that I could catch up to the other girls at the other end. So, I was speeding and bouncing along (I forgot to mention previously that The Tunnel is also poorly paved) and the cake roll thing was bouncing around violently in my basket, and I kept thinking, "it's going to fall out, it's going to fall out" but I couldn't do anything about it because I was bouncing and speeding enough that I needed to have both of my hands on the handlebars and you DO NOT slow down in the Tunnel of Death. If you do that the name automatically changes to the Tunnel of Certain and Inescapable Death. I was nearly to the intersection on the other side of the deathly tunnel and just as I thought, "maybe it won't fall out" I hit a really uneven piece of pavement and the beautiful, yellow cake roll thing flew like a kamikaze angel right into the middle of the street. At the intersection (what is it with me and intersections?). I was going so fast that, even though it flew forward, I passed it before it hit the ground. And then I screamed. Really loudly. It's a reflex. It's just what I do. And it's ridiculous. Anyway, it got Kendra and Rachel's attention. I slammed on the breaks again, half flew, half leaped off my bike, dropped it, and sprinted to the cake before the light changed. Like saving that cake was the most important thing I would ever do. I sustained minor injuries...to my pride. Also my hand was bleeding. Okay, so it was just an itty bitty scratch.
Anyway it was all rather exciting. And I feel that I have adequately proved my point about the dangers of bicycles, even though those are only two of my many bike stories.

I've Got a Dream

For those of you who don't know (and I think that a lot of you do), Tangled is my favorite movie ever. As in I could watch it everyday for the rest of my life and not get sick of it. At least I am 98% sure of that. It is super cute and colorful and funny, but what really sealed the deal and made it my all time favorite was the lantern scene.
A couple of years ago I stumbled upon a youtube video of a Chinese lantern festival and thought I just might die. It was so incredibly beautiful. Hello, can you think of anything more magical than thousands of lanterns lighting up an inky night sky? I'm not sure I can. Seeing those lanterns in person became the first item on my bucket list.
Guess what? There is a little town in Northern Taiwan, called Pingshi, that holds this festival.
Guess what else? It's during Chinese new year. A month and a half or so after I am supposed to come home. 

I keep telling myself, "Only if I stay six months. I could stay a year." Sometimes things like this pop up and make it so hard to do what I know I should :(

I Want More Taipei! (Taipei part 2)

After everyone was done at the temple Saturday we all got back on the bus we had rented just for our branch and went to Taipei 101! Some of us went up to buy tickets to ride up to the observatory (because, just in case you didn't know, Taipei 101 is the second tallest building in the world). Only a few from our group decided to wait in line to go up to the observatory, and I was not one of them. The rest of us had a really good time exploring the mall that took up the bottom five stories of the building though! Okay, so I actually didn't appreciate the mall experience so much, but hanging out with Heather, Kylie, Sara, and Veronica was tons of fun! AND Kylie and I got Cold Stone from the food court. Soooo good. I have never appreciated real ice cream so much. I haven't been much of an ice  cream fan since I first tasted aggie icecream because nothing measures up to it. However, in search of familiar foods I have tasted several different brands of ice cream here and....well, just...wow. Taiwanese ice cream really sucks. Cold stone was heavenly. I am so glad we decided to get some. I was so focused on consuming its goodness that I didn't take a photo, but we all know what ice cream looks like so its no loss.

This is part of our group.
Jessica Stoker, Veronica, Kendra, Heather, Sara, who you can't really see, Kylie, Jessica, and half of Kaylee

Taipei 101 from the bottom:

 

Me with my gross, frizzy, air-dried chlorine hair, but next to a really cool and colorful picture of Taipei 101 at night! (thanks for the shirt Susie :) I'll make sure I bring you home another cute shirt to replace it).

 

A display at Tiffany's. This mall only has really pricey stores, like Prada and Mui Mui, and Fendi. You know all that over priced stuff :) I thought this display would have been really cute...if the note weren't so fake, haha, but the little picture was adorable!

We also found the world's most ridiculous (and possibly most hilarious) mannequin:

 

LOVE it! They have really funny mannequins over here actually. There are these amazing light-up ones which they like to put lingerie on. Oh! I've also seen a couple maternity ones (as in, light-up maternity mannequins). Wearing maternity lingerie of course. So strange. This place really entertains me. 

Part of the mall:

Outside Taipei 101:

Heather, Kylie, and Sara:

Kylie with Brother and Sister Liston:

 

The Liston's are awesome. Our branch temple trip consisted of them, the ILP teachers, and President Baclayon. We got on the bus and were like "this is it?" Haha, we do make up almost a third of the branch though. Last night I asked Jenny what the branch does when we're all gone on a trip because we fill half of the branch callings and Jenny is relief society president and Jessica is primary president. Apparently they combine all of their meetings and just hold church for two hours. I thought that was kind of funny.

We met up with the Liston's and President Baclayon at the church building for the Chinese-speaking ward in Feng Yuan to get on the bus. I had assumed that we would be walking, but we ended up riding bikes. I was wearing a pencil skirt. Hmm, let me tell you, that was a real adventure. For one, it was rather hard to get on my bike in the first place, then we had to stop at an intersection and I had a hard time getting going because of my stupid skirt so I lost control of my bike, ran into Jessica's bike, then lost my shoe, which Kaylee accidentally ran over, then had to make a circle in the middle of the intersection to get it back, had a hard time getting my shoe on, had a hard time getting back on my bike and moving, was screaming and laughing the whole time, and then looked over to see a guy at one of the food stalls on the street laughing at me too and realized how comical the whole thing must have been. I'm pretty sure by the time I leave here I will be know as the crazy foreigner girl. Knowing myself well enough I can tell you that this definitely won't be the last time something like that happens. Then  on the way home my tights got caught on the gears. I was like "Aaaaaaaah! I'm gonna die! I'm gonna die! Pedal backwards, pedal backwards, don't fall over, pedal backwards, don't crash into Heather, PEDAL BACKWARDS!" Don't worry, this isn't a posthumous post. I survived. I even managed a perfect dismount when we arrived home. I do now have a gigantic hole in my tights unfortunately. You may go here, to Kendra's blog, to see a photo of me on a bike in a skirt, pre-accident. Don't worry, no adult content ;P

We've been doing "family" dinners together every Sunday, taking turns cooking, and the Liston's set up family home evening for us too. It's awesome. I love these girls. They are beautiful inside and out, and funny to boot. I'm so glad I that I have six months to get to know them.

Taiwan: 026

Today was Saturday! Hoooooraaaay! Okay, so the day started off a little rocky. My alarm went off and then I fell back asleep and my eyes snapped open 2 hours after I had meant to get up. Whoops. But it's okay, it's not like my day was ruined. My class this morning went fast and I really love those kids, so it wouldn't have been too awful anyway.
And you know what the best part of the day was? Go on, guess. Really. Try to guess. I want you to try to guess....
Did you guess?
If you guessed that trying red bean ice cream was it, then you are completely wrong.
The best part was that we all got to go to the Taipei temple! So awesome. It made me really miss the Salt Lake temple though. I love that place more than anywhere else, but hey! I am super super super glad we got to go because it was wonderful. And beautiful. And peaceful. And all that other good stuff. It was really small. Holy smokes, the baptismal font was so teeny. And there was almost no temple grounds. I'm not complaining, just stating fact :)

Me, Veronica, Jessica Stoker, and Kendra. Please pardon our hair. We had just finished with baptisms.

 

The stake center/distribution center next to the temple

Afterward, all of us that did baptisms went down the street to get something to eat. I got this really good mango shaved ice with kiwi, strawberry, mango, and Taiwanese pudding on top. Mmmmm :) AND we ate at a tasty dim sum restaurant too! I didn't take any photos of the food, but here are some of the street we walked down:

 

Jessica Stoker. She teaches at the other ILP school on the other side of Taichung from Feng Yuan.

Miss Heather

Okay, confession: you know how as a kid the world is just amazing and everything in it is interesting and magic is real and every single thing in existence has it's own special kind of beauty? Well, I never really grew out of that, and I feel a little bit drunk with so many new things to see and touch, and hear, and smell, and taste and...learn. Everywhere I go there are so many amazing things to see (colors, new plants, people, architecture, food, clothes, shops, culture, etc) and my brain is on overload. Even at home where so much is familiar I get so excited over the smallest things, so I feel like a little kid that has just been given free reign of a gigantic toy store/ice cream shop. It's wonderful and I am completely enchanted by this place.

Day...how long have I been here?

20 days!
Holy cows!

Tomorrow I will have been here for three weeks! It sure doesn't feel like it's been that long.

It's the second week of classes, and can I just say something? Well I'm going to because you can't really stop me: teaching is way easier when I am using my own lesson plans! And it probably helps that I am getting used to the kids and the way things work around here. I don't quite love it yet, but I like it a little bit better than last week. I am trying to focus on the good things, so: I love the secretaries here. They are awesome. And really nice. And helpful. And patient. And are giving me a little bit of time to adjust before they start telling me all the things that I'm doing wrong ;p And my writing classes are going really well. There are some kids that I really love having in my classes already and one or two that I am praying really hard to understand. And love. Praying works. I already used that tactic on one of my "kindergarten" kids. Um...we had another child come to kindergarten today so now we have six! Zip-a-dee-doo-dah! This is good news. Now we have two groups of three and it is a little bit easier to stretch out the lessons. My "self and world exploration" lesson went swimmingly today. I didn't have to work really, really hard to get them to use the language, they just wanted to, which means it was more fun for all of us and none of them were bored out of their minds. The little girl that doesn't speak very much English yet is starting to pick up on the more important phrases quickly which makes my life (and probably Rachel's too) a whole lot easier. And I suppose I should mention my elementary students too. I really love those kids. They can get a little bit rowdy, but that is to be expected of ten year old kids. They are really cute and just as smart.
Veronica came into my room this afternoon after AK (afternoon kindergarten) and told me that they were paging me downstairs. I thought I might be in trouble or something. I don't know why. As far as I know I haven't done anything to get into trouble but...you never know! I ran down there and got a good surprise instead: a donut! The parents (I think) of one of my elementary students and his little brother had brought a "Mister Donut" for each of their teachers. How nice is that? I feel like I owe them a card or something now....
Anyway, I bit into and it was not what I was expecting. But it was so good! It was kind of chewy and the frosting was strawberry flavored. Delicious!

Okay, going backwards...
Yesterday was Sunday, which means I haven't posted for a whole week! I think.
Here is our church:

 

I don't know how they did it, but there is actually space for grass and real landscaping around the building, which is pretty much unheard of here, but they did it, and I love it! I get so giddy on Sundays. Yesterday I noticed that I was grinning most of the time we were there and everything seemed extra funny or just made me extra happy.
Dear Lord, thank you for making it possible for me to go to an English speaking branch.
Oh! And the choir of the other branch that meets in our building is singing at stake conference in October. They invited our ward to sing with them. So we're learning "The Iron Rod" in Chinese. Yes, we are that cool. :)
While waiting for the bus home from Taichung I turned around to find another potted plant collection. Only this time they were succulents. I LOVE succulents! They are so neat looking.

And these are some of my lovely roommates waiting at the bus stop (left to right: Rachel, Kylie, Veronica, Sara):

 

I took the photo and said "Veronica, you look..." She was like "Awesome." I think I was looking for cool and detached, like a celebrity or something. But awesome is probably a better description :)

Saturday night Jessica, Rachel and I went to the orange chicken restaurant again. This time I actually got the orange chicken. It was soooo delicious. They were really busy and didn't have any seating, so we got takeout and came home and ate on the roof. It was totally amazing.
This little boy was so cute. Just chillin'

 

The restaurant (Rachel in front):

 

Jessica and Rachel

 

I'm not sure what day it was, but Rachel and I were at A Mart. There are tons of things here that we have no idea what the flavor is or what the food is at all. Rachel was taking photos on her ipod so that she could send them to her friend to figure out what they were. Here is one of the items we found:

What would you think it was? It was about the shape of a package of ramen noodles and I thought it sort of felt like that, but I was waaay off. We have now been informed that it's dried seaweed. Please tell me what wizards playing go have to do with dried seaweed?

Tonight Heather, Rachel, Jessica, and I were all sitting in our room and I found this photo. I was like "Rachel, you know the seaweed with the wizards on it playing that game? What game are they playing?" Jessica was like, "What are you talking about?!" I think it looks like Dumbledore playing checkers against himself like that Pixar short with the old guy who beats himself at chess. Pixar rocks.

And here is the best part of the post; my roommates are gnomes.

 

 

 

I know that's a lot of photos, but I couldn't choose just two, they all crack me up. I love how Veronica's face is pretty much the same in all of them, hahahahaha :D

A week ago I realized that I hadn't drawn anything since I got here. Not even doodles. So I decided to sketch something really quick. It's not too wonderful, but I  think I need to make it a goal to sketch something daily. I think it will help me feel less stressed because it's a good outlet. And because it just makes me happy. Maybe I will share every once in awhile...

Love you all. Peace out.

SundayMonday Happenings

I didn't post yesterday. I have a feeling that it is going to get harder to post regularly. I teach classes until about 9 pm Tuesday through Friday, so there will not be much time for blogging during the evening, but I will do my best.
Yesterday we rode the bus to church again. It takes about fifty minutes to get there once you add together the time it takes to get to the bus station and the actual bus ride. it's not too bad though. I am so glad that there is an English speaking branch here. It is definitely helping me to feel less homesick. Everyone here is so kind and patient and helpful, but being surrounded by a language you don't understand and feeling like an outsider all the time can take so much energy out of you.
Anyway, on the way to the bus station we have to cross over the train tracks. The chain-link fence on the bridge has locks and writing all over it. I guess that people go there to "lock their love." It's really pretty cool looking.
Some of the locks...

And my favorite...

 

"Spend more time with happy people and you'll discover happiness is catching."

And if you are a happy person already, then you get to help others learn to be happy! Life is good. Life is beautiful. I love it here. I feel home sick, but I think I will feel homesick when I have to leave here too.

I found this quote and I really love it:

"Being happy doesn't mean that everything is perfect. It means that you have decided to look past the imperfections."

Today while Rachel, Heather and I were at the grocery store one of the ladies that works there came up to us and said "Beautiful! You are beautiful!" We actually get that kind of thing from people here pretty regularly.  Like I've said before, and I'm sure I'll say it many more times, the people here are awesome. I really love them.

Love you all! Hope everyone is doing well. If you want to see photos or hear about anything in particular leave a comment any time and I will do my best!

Today I Smelled Stinky Tofu.

Saturday!!! Woohoo! So, I taught my elementary class this morning. It has five kids in it and only two showed up today. Then one threw up. And she had her hand over her mouth so it looked like an explosion and it got all over her. Doesn't that story sound familiar, Susannah? Anyway, I felt really bad but I didn't even know she felt sick. She just sat there quietly, and then out of nowhere...puke! But otherwise it went well. After that I went and took a nap because yesterday was a long day and today was a sort of early morning.
Tonight I went with a bunch of the other teachers to the "teacher store." Yet another place that I do not know the actual name of. We call it that because you can get a bunch of different school supplies and such there and teachers get a discount. It was so cool! Of course I am a nerd and love school supplies, so maybe you wouldn't agree with that opinion :)
After that we dropped our bikes off at the school and walked over to the Feng Yuan night market. It is definitely not as exciting as the night market in Taichung, but it has more games. It's cute and small townish. One problem though: there was a lot of stinky tofu. That or one stand selling the vile stuff was enough to stink up the whole market. I have said that when it comes to food I will try everything at least once. That is not completely true anymore because there is no way I'm getting anywhere near that stuff. I am not exaggerating when I say it smells exactly like crap. The smell was so strong in some places that I came dangerously close to throwing up. Sooo....I will be steering clear of any stinky tofu in the future.
I did see some awesome things at night market though. For example...

A Giant Sponge Bob!!! Woohoo! AND...

A guy with a yellow thing around his neck! Just kidding. It was actually the large spinning, glowing Pikachu that was so exciting.

This guy was my favorite. He posed for the photo and I didn't even ask :D

I am naming him Squidward. Because Sponge Bob is on my mind and also because he was selling squid on a stick. Not because he is grumpy and unsociable and plays clarinet really badly.

This is the squid:

This is me holding the squid...

 

this is me still holding the squid, but also eating the squid...

And this? This is me STILL holding the squid but also enjoying munching on the squid tentacles...

 

I was not really as disgusted as you might think after having seen that photo. It was actually really good! Until it got cold. Then it wasn't really good anymore. Don't eat cold squid.

And here is Kendra eating some of my squid. She didn't make any funny faces :(

Ooooo! This lady was cooking quail eggs or something and I wanted to try some but then she started putting weird stuff on them and I decided to get squid instead. So, I will have to try them next time.

 

There was a table full of CANDY! I am a sugarholic, but you should all be proud of me because I only bought three pieces...because THEY WERE SOUR!!!! I found sour candy in Taiwan! People, this is the first sour candy I have seen since I got here (except for all the sour candy papa-san gave me to bring, but that is an entirely different matter).

Chicken feet is also a popular dish with the older generation over here, or so I am told. We saw some nice raw ones in a bin tonight. At first I thought they were deformed rat tails:

Yum!

The blue and yellow truck in this photo is one of many trucks that drive around playing advertisements for various businesses very loudly throughout the streets:

And this is a small group of scooters. They are everywhere! I can't wait until I receive my ARC and can get a drivers license! I found out that I can just rent a scooter for a month at a time. How awesome is that?! I'll tell you: it's extra super awesome.

Also, while I am on a roll with this whole typing and photo thing, I have a couple photos of the potted plants that are everywhere here. There is no dirt to grow things so people just plant flowers and trees, and shrubs, and other such things in pots and stick them out on the streets (there aren't really sidewalks here), on their roofs, on their balconies, pretty much anywhere they can find room. Bougainvillea seems to be rather popular.

 

And Rachel, happily posing by the greenery:

 

We ended our night with a bing-sha. Strawberry-mango style. Bing-sha is the healthy version of Jamba Juice. I hate to say it, but I think they might actually be better than Jamba Juice. Sorry Jamba.