Blog #9: Taiwan Condensed + Goodbye?

Long time no see my friends. I definitely have been slacking with these updates. In my defense, the past month or so has been absolutely CRAZY! It just so happened that a bunch of our trips and other things occurred in quick succession. So this post will be a mini recap of what we have been up to since last time. In fact, this might actually be our last post, since we will be leaving Taiwan in less than a month…Ok maybe I’ll do one more.

Also, it seems there are quite a few friends from back home that will be attending the special convention later this year in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. So you can use this post as a little heads up for your upcoming trip!

Warning: lots of pictures incoming!

Ian + Taipei

To start this off, early March, our good friend Ian came to visit! After a week in Shanghai, he came here to Taichung, places that are polar opposites of Riverside.

He was initiated into the scooter gang.

Of course we had to take him to Feng Chia Night Market!

Ian about to try “stinky tofu” for the first time. Spoiler alert: he hated it.

 

If you come to Taiwan and find yourself at a night market, look for these black pepper pork buns (hujiao bing). They’re cooked in those barrel ovens. Pretty tasty!

We also took a day trip to the city of Tainan, about two hours south of Taichung. Here we are at the Anping Tree House, a house that has been overtaken by banyan trees. Photo credit: Ian’s rad camera.

 

Thanks to Gene for our Taiwan engagement photos!

Checked out the Anping Fort in Tainan. It was…ok.

We also went to Taipei. Here we are at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial. If you guys visit Taipei, check this place out! It’s huge and really neat to see. PC: Ian’s cool beans camera.

Modern Toilet restaurant in the famous Ximending area of Taipei. It’s pretty much a toilet/poop theme restaurant. Food is mediocre and pricey, but you go for the gimmick…which is poop…and toilets.

Ian blending in.

Another must visit place in Taipei! Din Tai Fung! Yeah they have them in LA, but you have to try the Taipei one. The soup dumplings (xiao long bao) are SO GOOD! This place gets crowded very quickly, best to go at an off time like we did. Tip: If using Google Maps in the Taipei area to search for this place, you need to type “ding tai fung”, if you type “din tai fung” only the Taipei 101 store shows up. Better to go to the more popular one.

Famous Taipei 101. Can’t miss it, as it’s literally the tallest building here. It costs about $400 NTD (about $12 USD) to go up to the observatory floor. I say it’s pretty worth it. You get to ride on a super fast elevator and get to see the entire Taipei landscape. But more often than not, weather isn’t always clear. Case in point, see below.

Was pretty foggy, but still cool!

 

Kenting Trip

The first weekend of April was a national holiday (Tomb Sweeping Day), so we had time off from school! A group of us Californians took a trip to Kenting, the southern most part of Taiwan known for their beaches. It’s about a 3.5 hour drive.

Road trip! Also, welcoming the Lees to Taiwan!

It did not feel like we were in Taiwan! Looks like Hawaii, right?

The infamous sea chariot. The guys in the back had it the worst! I think David’s arms are still shot from this, haha.

Beautiful couples.

Hualien + Taroko Gorge

So we had planned to go to Hualien, a city in the east coast of Taiwan and about a 4-5 hour drive, while Ian was visiting us. Unfortunately, the weather was projected to be bad and some of the plans fell through, so we weren’t able to go while he was here (sorry Ian!). Since the Airbnb place we got couldn’t give us our money back as it was too late to cancel, I changed it to a later time. It just so happened to be the weekend after the Kenting trip. Back to back road trips!

By the way, I think Taroko Gorge and the Qingshui Cliffs is an absolute must visit while in Taiwan. It is absolutely stunning to see in person.

On the drive to Taroko Gorge. From Taichung, we took the northern route, through Taipei, to get to the east coast. It’s about a 4-5 hour drive. You can also drive east through the mountains, however, it is quite dangerous as the roads get extremely narrow and winding. The drive up the mountains here was very hazy. Past that barrier is supposed to be the ocean.

Obligatory picture with the sign.

Pictures doesn’t do this place justice. Everything is just massive. You can see how enormous those boulders are compared to the people and cars along the road .

A lot of the hiking trails, like this one to cross the bridge, requires permits. We didn’t have any so we just drove along the road and stopped at viewing points. If you want to hike some of the trails here, get a permit from their website and also check to see the trail will be open that day.

The give everyone that comes into the Gorge a hard hat to wear because of falling rocks. But I’m too cool for helmets.

A shot of Swallows Grotto.

Here you can see how they cut into the mountain to build these roads.

Again, pictures don’t do it justice. Seeing all of this in person was awe inspiring.

About 15 minutes north of the Taroko Gorge entrance is the scenic view area for Qingshui Cliffs. This was absolutely amazing to see. If you go to Taroko Gorge, don’t forget to stop by and see this as well.

We were rebellious and crossed the wall divider to get this shot.

Visiting the Kavalan Whisky Distillery in Yilan.

Barrels and barrels and barrels of whiskey!

Free whiskey tasting!

Kavalan’s Solist Vinho Barrique won the World’s Best Single Malt Whiskey Award at the 2015 World Whiskies Awards. This whiskey has been sold out EVERYWHERE in Taiwan. There is a 6 month waiting list. We had even called the distillery months ago to ask if they had any at but it was all sold out. Well…it just so happens they had some bottles when we visited! Of course we had to buy it.

After Yilan, we went to Jiufen Old Street. This place is full of Korean and Japanese tourists, more so than usual. I think it’s because this place is mentioned in just about every single Korean travel guide for Taiwan and because the downtown area was used as a model in the famous anime movie Spirited Away. I, however, thought it was whatever. There are a lot of shops and eateries, but nothing too special.

Gaomei Wetlands in Taichung

We’ve been living here in Taichung for the past 8 months, but we really haven’t seen much of it. We decided to check out one of the destinations in Taichung, the Gaomei Wetlands.

Very long walkway to see more of the flat nothingness.

Doing my best imitation of a wind turbine.

How far the walkway goes into the water/wetlands.

Memorial and Service

Break time during service!

To truly experience the Taiwan field ministry, you have to take a break at a Family Mart!

Brother Lin is the coolest guy. During every Saturday morning field service break time, he buys everyone coffee. Seriously, every Saturday. Here he his delivering them himself.

A picture with the speaker after the Memorial.

On Sunday April 17, we had our “Imitate Their Faith” Circuit Assembly in Taichung. 15 were baptized, one of them from our congregation!

The assembly was held at a high school auditorium. This was the nicest high school I’ve ever seen! They even have a huge koi pond!

So that brings us to now. We have 24 days till we leave Taiwan. We’ve already started to slowly pack and divvy out things we have accrued. Time to go home!

If you guys have any questions regarding Taiwan, ask away! We’ll be happy to answer to them. I think our final post will be about all the information we’ve gathered on Taiwan.

Thanks for reading!

—
Andy & Hannah

 

 

 

Post #8: Enjoying Thairiffic Food

Hello everyone! Back at it again with the new post.

We just came back from our trip to Thailand! What a fantastic place with such amazing food! We were there for a week during our school break. We took our final exam for Mandarin 201 on Friday and a few hours later, headed to the airport to start our vacation!

Our “start of vacation” shot outside of our apartment. Headed to the bus station and took a two hour bus ride to the airport. Is it weird to say that I actually miss driving to LAX?

After a layover in Hong Kong, we landed in Bangkok at around 1:30am. Sounds like a long day right?  Well it ain’t over yet! We had planned to rent a car for a day, so we went to go pick it up. By the way, did you know Thailand drives on the left side of the road, and the cars’ steering wheel is on the right? Well, I did not. Imagine my surprise when I get in the rental car shuttle and see the steering wheel in the wrong place. Anyways, we get everything ready for the rental and finally get to head to the hotel. So it’s the dark of night, I haven’t driven a car in over 6 months, I’m sitting on what should be the passenger seat, driving on the opposite side of the road in a foreign country. I’m glad Hannah was there with me and attentive, because I kept making right turns into the wrong lane. And I kept turning on the windshield wipers when I wanted to turn on the signal! Arrived at the hotel and parked at what I believe is the tiniest parking garage in existence. I had to do a  57 point turn to reverse in. After all that, we got into the room at 4am.

In 4 hours, we had our Thai food cooking class.

The class starts at the market, with the instructor teaching us about all the unique ingredients that make up Thai food.

Here are some of the dishes we made!

After cooking class, we drove an hour to Amphawa Floating Market.

Papaya salad, one of the classic Thai dishes. I personally didn’t care too much for that particular one, it was way too fishy tasting.

Amazing pad Thai made on the boat! It cost less than $1.50 USD!

Taking full advantage of Bangkok’s convenient train system! Hannah said I didn’t need to do that to hitch a ride.

Delicious goodies at the Chatuchak Weekend Market! That is a must visit place when in Bangkok. For those in Taiwan, it’s like a way more intense/bigger night market. Seriously, check it out on the map to see just how huge it is. The top pic is mangosteen, perhaps one of the most delicious fruits in the world. If you ever get a chance to have some, you must try it! It looks like a garlic bulb but it tastes so sweet. The bottom is coconut ice cream. I’m not a big fan of coconut related goodies, but this was just so delicious. This one came with sticky rice (the green stuff), which took it to a whole…’notha…level. You can see more stuff from this place, as well as everything else, in the Thailand Trip video we made at the bottom of this post!

After Bangkok, we went to Krabi to stay there a few days. It’s in the southern part of Thailand, close to the water.

Water was so warm! A lot of the island and touristy excursions can be found in Aonang. We did one that would visit 4 of the nearby islands.

“Snorkeling”. It was basically swimming with snorkel gear since you couldn’t see any sea life underwater. I personally did not look under because I am super scared of deep water…but here I am, facing my fears…sort of. Hannah was a natural, of course!

Island hopping! These two small island are connected by a small strip of sand. The long tail boat takes us to the islands and back to the main boat.

Shortly after, Mufasa appeared from the clouds!

I probably drank Thai tea everyday. They make it so good! And some places serve it in bags!

We also got massages pretty much everyday as well. They’re only about $7 USD for a one hour foot massage, how could we not??

Hannah never fails to laugh while watching this…

I also saw my good friend! Right next to our hotel too!

Our hotel had a really cool infinity pool with a great view. Too bad we only found out about it on the last day. 😦

Our last night in Krabi. Swimming while the sun sets and then stuffing our faces with chicken tikka masala. There are quite a number of Indian restaurants in Thailand. I think we ate just as much Indian food as we did Thai food. Both are pretty lacking where we are in Taiwan, so we got it as often as we could. Garlic naan…sooooo good!

After Krabi, we went to Bangkok for one more night since we had to fly out of the airport there. We had the evening to ourselves, so we made it a point to try the super famous Thip Samai restaurant. They are known for their amazing pad Thai.

The line was long but it moves pretty quickly. This is apparently THE pad Thai to get. The noodles are “wrapped” inside this tortilla like egg. You can see how they prepare this particular one in the video below. Another must try is the orange juice they sell. It’s actually pretty pricey, considering the cost of most other things. If I remember correctly one bottle was about $4 USD. So worth it though. The best tasting orange juice I’ve ever had. The pad Thai itself was about $3 USD. Anyways, if you’re ever in Bangkok, try that place!

So that was pretty much the last thing we did in Thailand, eating pad Thai. How fitting for a big boy like me.

An added bonus, for our flight to Hong Kong, we got upgraded to business class! This was the first time we got to experience this, with the huge chairs and ottomans and everything! Unlimited ginger ale! That was definitely a relaxing flight.

Now, here’s a video of our trip to Thailand! Hope you enjoy it!

To sum it all up, we absolutely loved Thailand. The food alone was worth going for. It was also a nice break from rigorous Chinese class we’ve had for the past three months. Speaking of which, as soon as we got back, we started Mandarin 301!

Funny story about our first week back at school…Hannah and I were split up and placed in different classes; she got 何老師, our 201 teacher that is pretty hardcore, while I was placed with another teacher. Let me preface this part by saying that while in 201, I didn’t think I could handle this teacher if I had her for 301, since she gave a lot of homework and her classes move at a fast pace. Well, the heart doesn’t know what it wants until it doesn’t have it anymore…Being in the class with the new teacher, I realized I wanted 何老師 again. As difficult as she was, I actually enjoyed her classes and the way she structured her teaching. So I wanted to switch to her class. But the thing is, there is a limit to how many students are in each class. Since both classes are full, the only way to change is to switch with a student in the desired class. So after the first day, me and Hannah asked as many of the students as we could if they wanted to switch. All said no, they wanted to try this famous teacher out. Keep in mind, many other students were doing the same because they wanted 何老師 as well. The next day during break, we asked around again. Still nothing. Finally, at the end of class, Hannah asked one of the new students who was having trouble keeping up, and he agreed! Yes! So now both Hannah and I have 何老師 as our teacher, all thanks to Hannah’s vigilance. After my first class with her (today), I immediately regretted my decision…….Haha, just kidding.

Also too, our good friend Ian is visiting us here in Taiwan for a week! Can’t wait to take him to all my favorite McDonald’s! We’ll be sure to take him to all of our hot spots, all two of them.

Well that’s all for now! I’ll try to be more regular in updating our blog, since we only have three months left here! And since there are quite a few friends that will be attending the convention in Kaohsiung, Taiwan at the end of the year, I think I will do a “Intro to Taiwan” as our next post. Stay tuned!

—
Andy & Hannah

 

Post #7: Deja Vu

Hello family and friends! It’s been too long! When I last left you, we had just gotten back from our Korea trip and I was still limping around with a broken ankle. Since then, my ankle had been healing well and I was walking around no problem, riding the scooter, just minding my business. Well….there’s a reason why I used “was”…because I’m back to being slightly crippled again! Behold!

So Hannah and I got into an accident a week ago. We were on our way to meeting during CO visit when a taxi in front of me braked suddenly. Then a lady on a scooter swerved right in front of me and braked really hard, causing me to brake too quickly. Then the laws of physics took over, ejecting us from our seats and flying us onto the pavement. It all happened so quickly. One moment I was riding and then not even a second later, we were both on the ground. I was so worried about Hannah, but she said she was OK. She said that during the tumble, she fell on top of me. Thankfully I’m so fluffy and I softened her fall. I, however, got it pretty bad, which I am glad for. Rather me than Hannah. She hurt her left wrist and got a few cuts and scrapes on her fingers. I am 98% sure that when I fell off, the scooter fell on top of my left leg. My left ankle hadn’t fully healed yet, making it even worse. Some kind bystanders came over to us and helped move our heavy scooter while I limped towards the sidewalk. I initially thought I’d be OK, thinking we could even make it to meeting. But the pain in my ankle kept getting worse. So we decided to go the hospital and get ourselves checked out.

Poor Hannah! She says her wrist is better now but still a little tender. I think the even bigger tragedy is how badly scuffed her new boots are.

So after getting x-rays and all that, the doctor told us there were no fractures but I did have pretty bad contusions on my leg. I thought I had broken the same ankle again. But I was so glad to hear that it was just really bad bruising. Guess I was cruisin’ for a bruisin’.

This was us when we got back home that night. While we were waiting for our new ice packs to freeze, we used frozen Korean cold noodles broth to ice up. It’s also really cold here, so we have a heat pad warming up our other foot at the same time. This picture cracks me up every time.

The next days were extremely painful for me…It hurt to move around a lot, so I would just lie down in bed, taking painkillers 3 times a day. I stayed home for 5 consecutive days. I hadn’t stepped outside or saw another soul for over 100 hours. I began to wonder what the outside world was like. Unfortunately, I missed the entire week of the CO visit…

So that’s been our ordeal for the past week. We’re doing OK now!

OK moving on…

In other news, we have been in a Settlers of Catan mood recently. We ended buying a Chinese version of it. We thought it’d be fun to try and only speak Chinese while playing it. But turns out, I can’t speak Chinese! Hahahahaha…..

Another thing to mention, the weather here. It has been SO cold lately, even worse when you’re riding on a scooter. I don’t think I’ve ever been this cold back in California. For those interested in coming to Taiwan during the winter, be advised that it’s colder than you would think a tropical island would be. Especially because most, if not all, apartments and houses here are not well insulated.

 

Out in field service during a cold, windy, and rainy day.

Next week is Chinese New Year and we have a week off. It’ll be a nice break from the intense Chinese class we’ve been taking this new semester. And also, next week is our wedding anniversary! It’s already been two years. How crazy is that! Time certainly flies. It’s been definitely a wonderful journey so far and we know it will be many more years into the future. At the end of February, we have a week off after the end of the semester, so we have planned to go to Thailand as our anniversary trip. We’re so excited!! Just need to get my leg better by then, haha. I will see if the food there is as good as Sweetee Thai and report back to all my Artesia people.

It’s been two years since this day! Here’s a wedding video trailer our videographer had made, complete with my awkward singing. Take a look if you’d like! Yes, that’s really me in there. Yes, I know I was skinnier.

OK moving on.

We now have an idea on when we’ll be returning home! We came here without a return ticket, since we didn’t know when exactly we’d be coming back. We had initially planned to stay 9-10 months, which allows to attend 3 semesters at the Chinese Language Center.

Earlier, we were toying with the idea of maneuvering things around so we can stay another month or so longer. But it seems we will be sticking with our 9 month plan. We’ll most likely be back home around the second week of June. Huzzah! Can’t wait to land and immediately head to In-N-Out and Leo’s Tacos! So we plan to leave Taiwan at the end of May and go to Korea again. Then to Washington to visit Hannah’s parents for a week and then down to LA.

It feels very bittersweet to think about going back home; we miss our family, friends, the familiarity of home, and of course, the food. But at the same time, we will miss leaving the wonderful friends here in Taiwan, the whole “living in Taiwan” mentality, and being able to learn more Chinese at the school. We have definitely have been enjoying our stay here in Taiwan and have been making wonderful memories, despite me being injured for almost half the time.

If you’ve made it here so far, thanks for reading! I would like to try to post more regularly, since we only have about 4 months left here. At the slow rate I’m going, I only got about 3 posts left!

OK, now to hobble off to bed.

—
Andy & Hannah

 

 

Post #6: Return to the Motherland

안녕하세요! Today’s post will be about our recent trip to Korea. I can’t believe it’s already been over two weeks since we got back! We took off on Nov 30 and got to stay in Korea with my mom for exactly one week. Good times were had, despite being incapacitated with a broken ankle. Unfortunately we couldn’t do many of the things we wanted to since I was so immobile…But the good food made up for it!

As mentioned in the previous post, both Hannah and I haven’t been to Korea in about 20 years. We were definitely looking forward to going there, to see Mama Han, enjoy the amazing food, and to restock on legit kimchi and soju. So, we went to Busan, South Korea, located at the very south of Korea (1 hour plane ride from Seoul) and where I was born!

One plus about being immobile is the airport service. So convenient! They wheeled me all the way to our gate, which was absolutely necessary since it was SO FAR. C’mon Taoyuan International Airport, why are your terminals so far?? Another plus was skipping the long line for security and being wheeled to the open immigration booth. They did this at Busan airport as well. I really felt bad for the lady at the Busan airport though. It was a tiny, skinny Korean girl that had to wheel this fatty all over the terminal. Props to her though, she was much stronger than I thought.

 

So one of the (many) things Hannah and I were craving while in Taiwan was seolleongtang (ox bone soup). As soon as we landed, mom took us to this place, which was actually right outside of where we were staying. Both of us cried tears of joy, while shoveling spoonfuls of the goodness into our happy mouths. To be honest, it was actually OK, we’ve had better, but it was just so good after not having a traditional Korean dish in so long.

 

The first thing we did was visit our “Masan Gomo”, my dad’s sister. She speaks in a very, VERY heavy country-side accent that even other Koreans can’t understand. She cooked us a full meal, everything handmade. Can’t get any more Korean than that! She also made us a ton of kimchi, gochujang (hot pepper paste), and a bunch of other goodies for us to take back to Taiwan. So awesome!!

 

Where we stayed is really close to Haeundae, a big, modern city with lots of high rise apartments near the water. It’s pretty stunning to see. The city looks like something straight out of a SimCity game. We stopped by Nurimaru, which had a lot of nice spots to see the cityscape of Haeundae. The sister to the left, Sister Lee, is a good friend of my mom and she took such good care of us. She drove us around almost everyday and helped us out a ton. So thankful for her!

How I got around at a lot of the places. This was the first time we busted out the rented wheelchair. I was a bit embarrassed to be pushed around by the ladies.

 

Hey a Kingdom Hall!

For as long as I can remember, my mom has been begging me to go to a dermatologist and I always refused. Well, being in Korea, we took the opportunity to make that dream come true. On the left is preparation for removal of the skin tags all around my neck. Yeah, gross. They numb it with a cream and then blast it with lasers. Pew pew! A little painful, but nothing compared to the facial Hannah and I got afterwards. They really dig in deep…On the right is me having to hold gauze on the bleeding zits. Sorry, too graphic? Haha.

Whoa, cutie alert on the left! We also ended up getting haircuts from a brother in Sister Lee’s congregation. Hannah decided to chop off her hair to combat the hot weather of Taiwan. Looks great, right? Guess this trip to Korea was a makeover trip for us, getting facials and haircuts…haha.

At the famous Jagalchi Fish Market in Busan. Oh and I’m sure that’s exactly what the makers of GoPro had in mind for their product, to take footage while being wheeled around in a wheelchair. Haha. Speaking of which, you can see more of this place in the short video I made at the bottom of this post.

While at the fish market, Hannah got to enjoy real Busan seafood. Being a seaport city, Busan is famous for its seafood. She tried sannakji (live octopus), munggae (Google says sea squirt…), gomjanguh (a type of eel) for the first time and loved it. Not pictured is the eel dish. I didn’t eat anything here…hahah.

Where did my eyes go?

Afterwards, we went to the “gukjesijang”, or international market. Famous for the shopping and the street food. It’s also the name of a recent, popular Korean movie (the English title is called “Ode to My Father”). I highly recommend it. It should be on Netflix streaming. Anyways, back on track, we didn’t stay too long because it was super windy and cold, plus the wheelchair was kind of inconvenient in the narrow streets.

 

Yay! Food I can eat! Fried dumplings.

Finally, the moment we had been waiting for…milmyeon! This is Busan style cold noodles, the key difference being that the noodles are made out of flour, not the traditional buckwheat. IT’S SOOOO GOOD!! We came to this restaurant two times in our trip. They say the two absolute must haves when visiting Busan is 1) milmyeon and 2) dwaeji gukbap (pork-soup-rice). Which brings us to the #2 item…

Dwaejigukbap! Another Busan specialty. This is unique because pork bones are used to make the broth, not beef. The picture doesn’t make it look too appetizing, but these two items are must tries.

We also got to meet up with the brothers that stayed at our house awhile back. We had such a Korean meal: fried chicken, Honey Butter Chips, and Kloud beer. Korean fried chicken does not mess around. It’s incredible. It was nice to catch up. Bummed we couldn’t spend more time with them since our trip was so short.

And speaking of Honey Butter Chips, they are amazing! To fill the non-Koreans in, Honey Butter Chips are potato chips that taste like, well, honey and butter. When this first came out last year, there was a huge craze that spread through social networking sites in Korea. People were buying them up like crazy and were sold out everywhere. This whole situation even has its own Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey_Butter_Craze. Even right now a lot of the stores are sold out. But we found a store that had them and bought a box. We brought it back with us to Taiwan. We treat it like gold, rationing it.

Another item we haven’t had in Taiwan, sushi.

Picture with the Busan crew.

We ended up going to some coastal area about 30 min away, don’t remember the name.

Well that’s pretty much our trip, the condensed version. Super unfortunate to have gone while I was on crutches, not just for me but for everyone, since I hindered our plans. I also got sick in the middle of the trip. It got to the point where I just had to stay home the whole day. This trip was definitely filled with surprises. But we both enjoyed it! It was a nice break from studying hard. We really would like to stop by again when we leave Taiwan so we could do more stuff and visit more places, like Seoul and Bethel. Hopefully! We were able to bring a lot of goodies back to Taiwan, mostly ingredients for Korean dishes. Gotta have our kimchi!

Here’s a little video I made of our trip:

We are now two weeks into Mandarin 201 at school and it is kicking our butts. The teacher we have, which is who we actually wanted as our teacher, is a no nonsense, tons of homework giving, super fast Chinese speaking teacher. We are learning a lot but at the same time feel a bit overwhelmed at the amount of stuff to learn. But we just need to keep at it.

Well we hope you enjoyed the post!

—
Andy & Hannah