Day in Taipei

We got to spend a day with 9 Taiwanese college students traveling around Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. Most of these students spent their summer in North Dakota, where they happen to meet Andrea's parents...which connected them to us here in Taiwan. What a great connection. It was so fun spending time with them, getting to know them, and having them be our guides. They brought us to Danshui which is a beach at the northern most tip of Taiwan. This is a huge turorist area with markets, food, and beautiful views. Our friends enjoyed buying us the crazy Taiwan foods we'd never seen before - including: squid balls, shrimp wraps, octopus, sugar cane juice, candy covered tomatoes on sticks, pretty much everything on a stick that could be (unfortunetly not a pork chop though), green tea icecream, cotton candy, etc. After the sunset we took a boatride to a nearby island where we walked around and enjoyed some more of the sights. We ended the night with a visit to Longshon Temple where they shared with us the formalities of "praying to the gods". Seeing the frito lays offering to the gods made us chuckle a bit - but, really - it breaks my heart to hear how much they believe these gods are eating their food and answering their prayers through the blocks they throw on the ground. Makes me so thankful to have a God I can pray to anywhere, anytime, without guilt, obligation, or works. Now...next to the temple is a market...which happens to be called "Snake Alley". If we would have known this before entering - well, you all know - we wouldn't have. We realized it when what we thought was a banana split stand (surprised us hugely - haven't seen one of those for awhile), was actually a snake show, showing the parts of a snake and the actually cutting apart of a snake. Oh my...it was after this we noticed cages with snakes lining the alley, snakes hanging dying to death as their blood drained. Let's just say - Andrea and I drew more attention to us than usual. I'll leave it at that. It was a great day, made some new friends who we look forward to getting to know better and sharing the joy of our God with.

Happy Birthday Dong Men!
Saturday morning my school celebrated their birthday. Who knew a school's birthday could bring this big of an event...and a day off of school. The track was full of tents set up with parents and students selling food, drinks, merchandise, and running games. It was amusing to walk around and watch the kids play the different games that were set up by other students. They were having so much fun. I was definetly a sucker for buying their little treats and crafts...hard to resist when they come up to me and say, "Teacher Mandy, for you...20NT." It was fun to meet the parents of some of my kids as well. Then there's always the occassional people that just come up to me to practice their English. I love talking to new people though, so always enjoy the random chats with strangers.

Visit from Francis...
Our ITPS leader, Francis, came to visit Hsinchu for a Sunday. He was traveling around Asia visiting all the other teams prior to coming to see us. We were thankful he could come for the day and visit our new church and also get to meet our missionary friend Nancy who's been helping us get settled here. Francis is a man with an amazing vision of furthuring God's kingdom in Asia. I love hearing his thoughts about what he wants to see next, as well as hearing about everything that is happening already. He heads up many other ministries besides ITPS, but has such a passion to see the gospel spread to children and adults through teaching English. Being able to spend the day with him and be encouraged by him gave me a new desire to be here and see God's love spread throughout Hsinchu. We were also able to connect with some church leaders at Victory (our new church) to begin organizing our ministry for the year. We're excited to work with the youth and get to know other members of the church through prayer groups and Bible studies.

Train Ride to Naiwan
Some people at church told us about a place near Hsinchu that we had to see. We're always up for those pieces of information...a few days later, we were off to see it. Some friends, Erin and Tim, from my teaching agency came with us as we took the train up into the mountain. Besides the stading part, it was a great ride...and the destination was beautiful. Once again, we were reminded that we were on the little island of Taiwan. Before coming we saw many wonderful pictures of this country which excited us to come. Living in the city isn't quite like the pictures, but whenever we do some traveling we are able to see the diffferent landscapes and sites that Taiwan has to offer. Naiwan is a village where the Hocka tribe originated. Now it is a tourist location with a long street of shops and food, climbing trails, tea shops, hot springs, and a beautfiul view of the mountains. We enjoyed the day trip...many laughs and memories.

Hsinchu's Entertainment
The windy city, Hsinchu, is known for its rice noodles, meatballs, and industrial park. If that says anything...you can understand why it's sometimes hard to find things to do here. Don't get me wrong - love Hsinchu - just have to get out there and search for the fun things it offers. We had our first visitor at the beginning of November, a friend from Taipei. This caused us to do some thinking as to what we can actually show visitors who come to Hsinchu. Each weekend shows us a little bit more of what our city has to offer. This specific weekend we came across a bowling alley. Bowling at home was never to much of an excitement for me, but I'm thinking it might become a new love being that it's one of the more active things to do besides seeing the beautiful sights and going out for dinner. Since this bowling trip, Andrea and I are proud to say we've gone again, and our scores continue to increase. Those of you who have witnessed our below average scores...be ready for some competition when we get back!

Window on China Third grade Field Trip
I got the priviledge of accompanying the 14 classes of third graders on their field trip. Seeing the 14 charter buses as I rode up to my school that morning made me realize field trips were maybe done a bit different here. All the classes came down to the basketball courts to line up and prepare for the day. Leading the group was a bunch of adults with yellow shirts - to my surprise, the school actually hires a tour company to take the kids on the field trips. The teachers get a bag with treats and a newspaper for the ride, and enjoy tea and fellowship upon arriving. I decided it'd be way more fun to experience the field trip with the kids instead...that made for an exciting day. Window on China is a park that has minature creations of the most popular sights throughout Asia. Once walking through the park, seeing the sights...we took a train to the other side of the park which is an amusement park for kids. After being dragged from ride to ride, hearing "hello teacher mandy" constantly from everywhere, and given candy galore...I was ready for lunch with the teachers:) It really was an enjoyable day though, so fun to hang with the kids outside of the classroom. Pretty sure I was the only American in the entire park among about 4 different schools and other tourist groups - the stares never ended.

Proud Scooter Owner!
The biking days finally came to an end. It was good exercise, but really...it's a whole new world being able to drive places without arriving in a complete sweat. Also getting to see places that were unknown of before the scooter has been refreshing. I bought the 125 cc, green Kymco scooter October 4th...yet, it's just as exciting as the first day each time I ride it. Some of my favorite places to scooter to are, Nanlioa (the harbor), 18 Peak mountain (great running trails overlooking the city), Hillcrest (resort in the hills with an outdoor pool), and Windance (Southeast Asia's largest mall). The traffic is a bit crazy, well, let me be honest - it's completely crazy, so a prayer is needed each time I get on the bike. So far so good though!:)

Taiwan has beautiful beaches??
October 10th is the country's birthday, therefore...no school! We made the most of this long weekend by traveling to the southern tip of Taiwan to a city called Kenting. It was a 5 hour bus ride followed by a 2 hour taxi ride, worth every minute of it. Once there, we met some other friends from Hsinchu for one day, then our teammate Kevin from Taichung for the remainder of the weekend. After being in Hsinchu where the smog is great and the blue water is unheard of, Kenting made Taiwan feel like a whole new island. The coast line was aboslutely beautiful, covered in sandy beaches and carribean colored water. We were able to scooter up the east caost some as well. We look forward to making the trip more often!

Let the teaching begin!!
I began teaching August 31st at Tong Men Elementary School. This is the largest school in Hsinchul, located right in downtown near the East Gate. The school has around 2,500 students first grade to sixth grade. I teach all 10 of the first grade classes and 13 of the third grade classes English, each class ranging from 32 to 40 students. That makes a grand total of around 850 students I see each week. That seems ovewhelming, but if anything it's more exciting having so many kids know me and get to learn English from me. I feel priviledged to be able to have a part in this many Taiwanese students' education. I absolutely love seeing their smiling faces day after day - seeing their joy to learn English makes teaching the same lesson over and over worth it. I also get to tutor a few groups of first graders Monday and Friday afternoons, as well as a sixth grader and a third grader. I enjoy getting to know these students on a more personal level. The students in Taiwan go to school long hours, usually 7:30 or 8 am to 4 to 5pm, followed by cram schools until about 8pm. Then they start their studying and homework. These kids lead stressful lives starting at such a young age.

We arrived in Hsinchu!!
We landed in Taipei August 11th, got picked up by a complete stranger, and headed to an unknown place. That was just the beginning of a very interesting start in Hsinchu. Although the first two weeks were completely chaotic and frustrating, we soon began making ourselves at home. Thankfully some missionaries took us under their wings and have been teaching us the ins and outs of Hsinchu since. We've enjoyed seeing around the city and some neigboring cities. We even got to go to a Taiwan pro baseball game. Nothhing from home compares to this sports game experience. I can't even begin to explain how the fans get into the game and cheer until the last inning is up. It's also fun to look around and see people eating dumplings and drinking tea - a little different than home:)

Sight-Seeing in Beijing

One morning we got in a van and thought we were going with our campers on a field trip to the largest university inChina. About an hour later, we got dropped off at the Forbidden City. So, here we are traveling around the Foridden City amongst millions of Chinese people. There are a lot of buildings, that's what we got out of this tour. Tour meaning, us walking around wondering what a tour guide would be saying if we had one:)

After going to the Beijing International Church on Sunday, we were surprised by a stop at the Summer Palace. That's the way things usually went in China...didn't know what was happening until we were in the midst of it. We were usually dropped off by our driver who didn't speak English, he'd point on a map to where we should meet him, show on his clock how much time we had, and off we went. Usually our time at these sites consisted of getting from point A where we got dropped off, to finding point B where Brother Lo would pick us up. It took around 3 hours to find our pick up spot at the Summer Palace, which was timed perfectly according to how much time Bro. Lo gave us. It was a beautiful place! Once again, no tour, but we enjoyed just looking and making up our own ideas of what things were used for what:) Whenever we knew we were no longer lost at these tourists spots, we'd stop and enjoy an icecream treat. We longed for those times:)

This is the American baseball team that came to spend an afternoon with our Beijing campers. They were very encouraging and brought a lot of energy to the camp. They were even kind enough to host Andrea and I for a night on their side of town. They were staying right in the city (we were an hour outside of the city), and, well, you could say living it up on their off time. They treated us like queens that night, starting at starbucks, then to the night market, a shampoo/head massage, and ending with a swim in their hotel's pool. They blessed us in so many ways that one night...most of all just encouraging us and giving us a great send off as we began our year in Taiwan.

Andrea and I also went to the great wall before leaving Beijing. This was quite an experience. We loved climbing the wall, no matter how hot it was or how many umbrellas we had to dodge. The umbrellas? No it was not raining, Chinese women use the umbrellas to protect their skin. You can imagine the height of the umbrellas, and well, our height...doesn't work out so well when there are millions of people climbing the great wall. We made it through though with all eyes in place...some hair missing...but that's ok. The funny part of this story, well funny now, is that we had come to the Great Wall with 6 of our campers. We climbed with one of our campers, thinking the other little ones were spending the day with the driver. Ooops, we got to the end and there were the younger campers, just waiting for us. We honestly didn't know we were supposed to take them with us. Not so sure they would have made it through the umbrellas anyway?? Everything got smoothed over, but for a little bit there we thought the driver was going to send us back to America. "Communication"...wow have we learned about that since we've been gone. It's a continuous battle, and will continue to be. Two different languages will bring that, no matter how well you act things out:)

Fun China Experiences

Food! You all know Andrea and I love food. China put a whole new meaning to that. We loved the choices, especially the "lazy susan" way of giving us those choices. We just put our chopsticks in and take a bite...never really knowing what it is, or understanding how it will affect us after. We've eaten things we thought we'd never even look at:) KFC was quite a treat!

Here are just a few of our fun "China" experiences. Baotou is known as "deer city" so basically there are many places to see deer. Only not only do you just look at them, you are free to chase, pet, feed, or probably even ride them.

Andrea and I took up the chance to get our hair cut in the little village where our Beijing camp was. We would venture to little areas on our runs...this day we decided to stop, and hey, why not get a hair cut for 50 cents. She did a great job.

And the beds...wow...when you need to sleep...you can sleep, no matter what kind of arrangements you have. Our beds were defenitly just a board with a one inch matress. At first we had some aches...but those went away and we became quite used to our rock solid beds. They actually prepared us for what we have in Taiwan. Beds are just made a little less soft here:)

Beijing English Camp

On July 29th four of us from our team flew to Beijing and started another camp on the 30th. We were excited to meet another team and get to know another group of kids. What we weren't expecting though, was that the team there would be leaving and the four of us would be leading the camp and in charge of 40 kids. Although that came as quite a shock we forged on through and began the camp the day after the Baotou camp ended. This was a completely different experience than our first two weeks . Andrea and I were given the leadership positions, which caused much stretching and growth throughout the 2 weeks here.

We carried on the schedule that we had made in Baotou, only now each of us teaching a class of about 8 students. Andrea taught the youngest group and I taught the oldest group. I enjoyed getting to know my students and having converstation with them. Even though we were free to share our faith at this camp, the hearts were not as receptive. This was discouraging, but caused us to truely search God's word and pray about how we would be used in this camp. We trusted in God's plan and knew that if we continued to follow him, he would be faithful. We shared freely during classtime, group time, and free time. Again, many seeds were planted, and we can only pray that they will be fed in the future. One of my students recently wrote me to say he had just finished reading John in the Bible I gave him. It's so great to see God still working and still showing me why we were placed at that camp.