Invisible House

Thursday 30 April 2009

Prices

Wednesday 29 April 2009

Prices posted out front of a local grocery store.

Garage temple

Tuesday 28 April 2009

The little temple across the street from our after-school school.

Mangoes

Monday 27 April 2009

This is a mango tree on my street. That's right, just growing out of the sidewalk. It's so great to see mangoes, coconuts, papayas, oranges, all kinds of fruit really, just growing all over the city.

This tree must belong to the people who live above it, as they have tied old take-out bags over the ripening fruit to protect it from bugs.

Ivy Sign

Sunday 26 April 2009

Korean Barbeque (and number 1000!)

Saturday 25 April 2009

We met some friends of ours at a fancy, all-you-can-eat Korean barbeque place. Look at all that wonderful food! Beef, pork, chicken, assorted seafood, kimchi hotpot, veggies, all kinds of little side dishes, heavenly spicy sauces.

I swear I'm not just putting this picture up to make my dad jealous.



P.S. This is my 1,000th post! I was hoping to have some spectacular photo, but it'll just have to be food. Well, I guess that's probably more fitting for the way Ryan and I travel . . .

Doulos at Night

Friday 24 April 2009

I was on the Doulos three times today! First, Ryan and I met our friend Rick for a personal tour from the Mexican girl I met on board last time I was here. Then in the afternoon, we took our kindergarten kids around. (Nothing like deciding at 12:30 that you're going to take a field trip at 2:30.) And in the evening, I went back for a delicious dinner at a little "Fiesta Latina" that the Spanish-speaking crew members threw. It was nice until they started trying to convert us . . .

Piano self portrait

Thursday 23 April 2009

This is the room where I give private lessons to the boss's daughter.

Taiwan Loffery

Wednesday 22 April 2009

Loffery ticket anyone?

Piano Building

Tuesday 21 April 2009

Our kindergarten is on the first floor of this building - we call it "the piano building." Guess why.

Flowers on the Sill

Monday 20 April 2009

Rehearsal

Sunday 19 April 2009

We're getting ready to do a murder mystery dinner theater in a few weeks. Here's Mayna, our amazing director Bekah, and Ryan, tweaking a scene.

Moon Mountain

Saturday 18 April 2009

Ryan and I went on a hike with the Kaohsiung Hash House Harriers. Which, if you're not familiar with it, is an organization that sets up runs/walks around the island. (There are branches in cities all over the world.) Afterwards, everyone sits around and drinks beer. It's a bit of an old boys club, but the hike was really pretty. It was through an area known as the Moon Mountains, very strange and surreal. This was one of the more difficult parts.

Doulos Deck

Friday 17 April 2009

I was back on the Doulos today. Ryan and I went to check out the book fair. It was pretty good, though we didn't buy anything.

Attack of the Lobsters

Thursday 16 April 2009

Ahhhh!!!!! Run, run to the hills! And prepare giant pots of boiling water!

Owen's Grading

Wednesday 15 April 2009

Owen, a classmate of ours, graded from yellow belt to orange tonight. Here he is doing Northern Basic Number One, one of the beginner forms.

Man Fashing

Tuesday 14 April 2009

Which is good, I've been looking for a place to get Ryan fashed . . .

Ah! His head exploded!

Monday 13 April 2009

Eugene used to look like this . . .

. . . but now he looks like this. Who on earth perms a three-year-old boy's hair??

Ads

Sunday 12 April 2009

Snoopy speaks Chinese

Saturday 11 April 2009

Even Snoopy wishes you a prosperous new year!

Electric Box

Friday 10 April 2009

Pretty much all of the utility boxes here are painted up, either with cartoon characters or pretty landscapes. It's kinda nice, having something so simple spruced up a bit.

Doulos

Thursday 9 April 2009

The Doulos is in town! The Doulos is an old ocean liner (built in 1914, just two years after the Titanic) that sails the world bringing "Knowledge, Help, and Hope," as they put it. They have a giant book sale on board, they provide humanitarian aid, and they are also missionaries. Putting aside my own feelings about evangelism, I decided to accompany my friend Ana there tonight for dinner with a Mexican girl she met on board. I just can't resist a chance for Spanish conversation! It was a lovely evening, and a lot of fun walking around such a neat old ship.

More traffic

Wednesday 8 April 2009

Another picture of rush hour traffic.

Pretty Clouds

Tuesday 7 April 2009

Rush Hour

Monday 6 April 2009

The traffic on my way home from work tonight.

Tea!!

Sunday 5 April 2009

On the left is a glass of qingcao tea (a minty, herbaly tea) with coconut jellies on the bottom, and on the right is a glass of milk black tea with tapioca pearls on the bottom. There is soooo much variety at even the tiniest tea stands here.

Confucius Temple

Saturday 4 April 2009

We went and took some kong fu promo pictures at the Confucius Temple out by Lotus Lake.

A night out

Friday 3 April 2009

Finally, a night out! Ryan and I go out so rarely, it seems. But tonight we met some friends for some beer and live music, and it was nice.

Foreigner receipt

Thursday 2 April 2009

Okay, so not the best picture, but oh well. This was Ryan and my receipt at one of our favorite sandwich places. Instead of a table number or name to identify us when our order is up, they simple wrote "foreigner" on it. Very effective, as we were certainly the only foreigners there that night, and here in Taiwan westerners are very obviously foreign. But it just made us pause, and imagine a waiter doing something similar back home, writing "the black guy" or "the mexican chicks" on a receipt.

Taiwan sometimes feels like a strange, happy little bubble where normal rules don't apply.

Lobster

Wednesday 1 April 2009

One of my student's family has a seafood restaurant. Today, he brought in a dried-out lobster for an unrequested show-and-tell. Most of the kids were scared of it, but I thought the colors were really neat. And monstrous.