Taiwan trip- I have to warn you its a little long, but you can still just look at the pictures if you don't want to read.
My niece was graduating from High school and I had not yet visited Taiwan. We were able for me to go and it was an awesome 10 days. My parents drove to Virginia and together we flew to Taiwan. On the way there it was pretty uneventful. We flew from D.C. to Chicago and then Chicago to Tokyo and then Tokyo to Taipei. The only thing that was difficult was the fact that our long flight (13 hours) had some difficulty. The food wasn't great and our individual TVs did not work, so it was a LONG 13 hours.
We got to Taipei around 8:00pm. My brother and nephew were there to pick us up. We drove a couple hours to Taichung, where they live. They live on the school campus. Their house used to be a school dormitory, but several walls were torn down to become a house. They layout was a bit different, but it worked pretty well. Everyone had their own bathroom. You could, however, see that the pantry
used to be a bathroom. There is no central A/C or heating so you only use them when you are in the rooms. It was quite warm
and we spent most of our time sweating.
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| gardening in the airport! ;) |
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| In Tokyo, they had these toilets in the bathroom. |
Thursday:
Thursday we got up (I didn't have too much jetlag) and Josh, my brother, was finishing up school so we toured the school and met a few of his students and got to see his classroom (AP Calculus, and Physical Science) and then we got to see my sister-in-laws classroom (Art). She is very lucky because her house basically backs up to her classroom, so she goes out her door, takes about 100 steps and then she is in her
classroom. She let me play with the clay wheel a little. The campus is very nice. Most to all classrooms come out to the outside and the
lockers are located outside. In the center of the school grounds is a big courtyard area where kids can hang out.
Later in the day Josh took me to go get my first Tea. Drinking cold tea is really popular there. A lot of them were green tea based, but you could get pretty much any kind you wanted. I got a ginger/honey one, there was a mango tea, and then one we tried was a milk tea( black tea and milk). They also have bubble tea. Which there were these little balls that were almost like Tapioca
in the tea and they gave you a thicker straw so while you were drinking, you would also slurp up those balls. Anyway there are tea stands everywhere. They give you the drink with a vacuumed sealed top (you would just poke your straw in it). All through out our stay we would see people drinking these teas (cold).
That afternoon my younger brother and his family flew in from China. We spent the rest of the day just catching up. The last time we were all together was 3 years ago. I was sad that my family (kids and husband)was not there, but very glad that I was able to be around.
That night we walked about 30 minutes to a restaurant that was buffet style. Most places you ate, all you got to drink was from
a water cooler with little cups that were usual tea or water. There was a large table with all kinds of good food. You basically had
to pick one protein and then 2 vegetables. You could have as much soup and rice as you wanted. There was no silverware, just chopsticks.
after that we walked another 20 to 30 minutes to an ice cream place. IT was pretty good. Then we walked about 40 minutes home.
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| My nephew Oliver |
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| My nephew |
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| relearning how to make a pottery bowl |
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| courtyard at my brother's school |
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| view from my brother's school. New track also in the view. |
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| Typical street |
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| Tea store |
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| brother ordering tea |
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| Love the English translation |
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| The way they park on the side of the street. |
Friday:
This was kind of a relaxed day because my brother and sister-in-law were finishing up their last days for school and it was graduation night.
That night at graduation it was kind of neat. You had to get tickets because there was not enough seating. Then all the people
sat sort of alphabetically so that when the graduate came, they could give a rose to their mother. The graduation was pretty normal.
After graduation, the kids stand outside and then you can go an congratulate them.
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| Attempting to play a game with my brother and nephew....I lost interest right away-ha! |
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| My nephews |
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| graduation night |
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| My brother and his family |
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| My niece, Aliyah, graduation |
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| graduation |
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| graduation |
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| graduation |
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| Aliyah's other grandfather (who lives in Taiwan). Apparently you give a red envelope as a gift (money) |
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| My niece and nephew (Caleb) |
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| Caleb being Caleb |
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| My brother and his son |
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| The whole crew |
Saturday:
My brother, nephew Caleb, nephew Tristan, neice Ellie, my dad, and I got up early to go on a hike. What my brother didn't warn me about
was that it was going to be cold. It would have been a nice steep hike if I had been more prepared, but I was not in as much shape
as I could have been so it was very difficult that day. We got to one part where you can stop and then the rest is climbing up
a cliff of sorts. I didn't trust my body much that day, so I stayed behind. The rest of them spent about an hour and a half climbing to the
top. As I was waiting there must have been at least 200+ people coming and going. Apparently because it is so nice every Saturday people come and go hiking. Even along the way we would see people pulled off on the side of the road with their tables set up to spend the day relaxing and eating. The air is cooler and more pleasant so all kinds of people are around. It was the perfect hike to be able to see the mountains and that part of Taichung.
Some of the kids went swimming in the school pool in the afternoon.
At night, my niece wanted us all to experience the night market. We took the bus for about 20 minutes to downtown where everyone has their stands out selling something. It is so crowded that you are bumping shoulders with people. It was not really my cup of tea, but it was a good experience.
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| The narrow road to hiking |
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| scenery on the way to the hike |
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| beautiful views from hiking |
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| One way tunnel (you just have to hope no one is coming the other direction before you get in the tunnel) |
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| our hike |
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| The second part of the hike where there is a drop off on the right |
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| mirror to see if anyone is coming before you enter the tunnel |
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| people on the side of the road having a picnic |
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| not a clear picture, but these are all water pipes coming from the Mountain heading down to the city |
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| crops |
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| Apparently "the Gods" need walking every once in a while, so these are the pictures of the Gods taking a walk. |
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| My brother teaching his son to swim |
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| nephew flipping |
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| nephew back flop |
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| brother doing a fun dive |
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| family fun |
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| nephew flipping |
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| attended an English class that my brother is helping with at his church. |
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| me and my brothers |
Sunday:
We got up and walked to the Church that my brother's family goes to. It was in English and Taiwanese. It was fun to hear the
translating back and forth. That night we went out to experience some fun places. My brother took us to a sort of Japanese Steak house
place. They cooked food right in front of us. The food was fantastic...I did find a worm in my cabbage, but I ate it anyway and
didn't get sick, so all was well. Afterwards we walked to get some dessert. It was quite interesting. It was basically shaved
ice with condensed milk and mangoes- delicious and HUGE! We also tried another one that had grass jelly, red beans, coconut meat,
and other things- not bad, but not as great as the mango one.
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| Niece and I eating the mango dessert |
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| night playground fun |
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| fun food was cooked right in front of us. |
Monday-Wednesday:
Beach. We drove 5 hours to the tip of Taiwan to the beach. It was fun to play in the ocean again. My brothers, dad, neices, and nephews did some body
surfing while the locals stood on the shore and posed for pictures. Apparently not many people know how to swim so they drive down
to the beach and do lots of poses in front of the beach. Another day we got up early (5:00am) and went snorkeling. I am a little spoiled
after scuba diving in the Red Sea, Bahamas, Cozumel and snorkeling in Kenya, but it was still pretty cool. I hadn't done it in so
long that it was refreshing.
We also went to another night market and ate at a "Tex Mex" place. The day we left we went to an awesome Aquarium.
Wednesday we drove back and then Thursday morning we got up early to make a long trip back to the United States. Unluckily this
trip was a little more eventful than we wanted. We had flown from Taipei to Tokyo (where my tv didn't work again, so they moved me next to a lady who practically slept on me) to Newark. On our last leg to D.C. we had to
literally run to our next flight. We had an hour and a half to get through customs, recheck our baggage and get to another terminal.
We made it barely! Then we proceeded to wait close to 2 hours on the tarmac because there was bad weather in D.C. Finally we got
to go and then got in the air for about 10 minutes when the flight attendant said the door wasn't sealing right and we needed
to make an emergency landing. At this point we had already been traveling over 18 hours (actual flying), so we were not excited to
stay on the airplane any longer. We had to get off, wait another hour and a half and then finally switched planes and made it home
by 1:00am.
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| Morning routine |
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| Baseball stadium in Taichung |
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| city pictures |
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| Rice fields |
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| I love how characters, Taiwanese and English was all used. |
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| Animal cruelty? Only in the USA |
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| Rest stop |
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| from Earthquake a while back |
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| chickens |
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| Places the Gods rest |
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| My least favorite animal |
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| game time |
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| snorkeling |
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| My sister-in-law posing like the Taiwanese and Chinese do. |
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| my mom |
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| My brother teaching his kids |
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| Breakfast |
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| The guesthouse we stayed at when we went to the beach |
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| The Aquarium |
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| Construction Mannequin used when ever there is construction |
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| Gas station attendants. They pump your gas. |
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| Massive statue |
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| Tex Mex eating |
I absolutely loved my trip. Taiwan is unexpectedly beautiful. It is a little mix of 3rd world with modern world and the people are
so nice. I was so glad I went.
