Preparing for the Next Term

This week I have been doing a lot of work preparing for the next SYME Term to start on July 4th. We have cleaned all the dorms, moved beds around, put furniture in new dorms, painted the class rooms and many many more things. This term we will have a little over 30 students attending, 10 that are not believers in Christ. Please pray for this term as we begin Monday morning with Orientation.

Birthday Bash Taiwan!

Today was my exciting 22nd birthday. They day before I got my hair cut bringing my age from (looking like) 32 back down to 15 which averages out to about 22 years old over all. The day started out with going to Zhang Hua to see one of our students, Dora get baptized at her church.

After the baptism we all went out to eat and surprised me with a bear or panda birthday cake. Which before the cake came out we ate a 7 course meal. I was pretty full when someone told me that we just got done eating the appetizers.

I wasn't sure if I should be nice or retaliate...I went with the nice option today.

In Taiwan as strange as it might sound to us, for fun they go feed cows. I am not sure all the reasons why, but we did have fun even though it isn't what I would normally think of as fun.

After feeding the cows and eating ice-cream we ran into a guy skating by himself. So I joined him for a bit borrowing his board taking turns and making a new friend. (Photo of the college there)









Later that night after hanging out at the night market, we played the elevator game. 6 of us went to the top floor of a building played some rock, paper, scissors or other style games to determine who gets kicked off of the elevator. Well, I was the first to be booted out on the 21st floor happily taking the stairs all the way to the bottom as fast as I could. While the other guys took the elevator down 3 floors kicked someone else off and so forth.

To see the short video from the elevator game follow this link to my friends blog...Travis' Blog

Thank you for the best and the worst birthday I have ever had in Taiwan!

Rainy Day in Taiwan

Going Skateboarding Taiwan Style

200 Photos Printed!

Between 3 of us we printed 200 photos that is about 67 each. (we saved up so many because it is cheaper to print them that way). Now just to organize them and decide what to do with all of them.

The Best Friend One could have...a Skateboarder

I went to the local skateshop because one of my American friends wanted to get back into skating from his childhood days while he is here with me. So I gave him one of my old decks then he bought the other parts that I didn't have to give him. While there the skateshop owner, who knows very very little English, but I love hanging out with him said "What size shoe are you?" "I am about an 11." Before I knew it he was shoving brand new shoes on both of our feet. The time before that, he gave me a free t-shirt, and every other time he will by me tea or something to drink.

Then after 10min of skating my friend broke his board. Now he was kinda out of money to buy a new board. So I contacted a few skate friends and within a minutes we had a used board in good condition given to us. 

Go Skateboarding Day Taipei Footage

I was not at the first half of the video because it was ran by a different skateshop then I attended. I show up in the red pants around 4:15.

Cultural Bus Tour

Man Worshiping the gods 

I was able to go on a free bus tour with a church group as a cultural experience and site seeing.  The first part of the trip we stopped at a Buddhist Temple.

For 3 hours of the bus ride we had to listen to Karaoke. The other Americans I was with really didn't like it. I didn't mind it, I actually thought it was kinda fun, but I wouldn't have minded a little less Karaoke on the trip.

One of the stops we made was in a old town. The lady to the left sells honey. She is a bee keeper without the protective suit or gloves. Look at her bare hands, how she just pushes the bees around.

The photo of the women above is a very interesting. We were walking down the street and I see this women standing amongst this rubble I heard her saying in Chinese "Jesus Loves You" On the building was a sign with a cross. I assume this place might have once been a church. I asked her if I could take a picture and she accepted and gladly posed for this shot.

Another stop we made was at a pottery factory. This factory had tons of pottery some that they make for Disney and other American companies.

Go Skateboarding Day 2011 Taipei, Taiwan

To start the day I met up with about 20 other skaters from Taichung to ride the bus for 2 hours up to Taipei. We then met up at the skateshop before we hit the streets.

Unlike the United States were all the skaters join together, there are two separate events in Taipei. Both the skateshops there are in huge competition against each other. If you associate with one skateshop the other one will shun you. I don't know all the facts to this controversy but it seems pretty crazy how much they hate each other. Hopefully I have chosen the right crew of guys.

Most of the day we spent skating this flat area with a rail and a box to skate. There was probably about 100 or more skaters that showed up. There was only a few that I could speak English too. The photo above is from some of the fun little contest they had. This is the High Ollie contest. I only made it up to 4 boards. I nicked the 5th board so I got kicked out of the contest, even though I know I can make that. I just needed a few more tries.

After skating in 33 Celsius weather from 12-7 we headed back to the skateshop for some food and a skate video by Toy Machine. Sorry for my lack of photos, I seem to have failed to fully document this day due to being occupied by skateboarding.

Go Skateboarding Day 2011 Taipei, Taiwan

Go Skateboarding Day is today, actually it is June 21st, but for some reason we are celebrating it early here in Taiwan. Right now all day I will be skateboarding all over the streets with hundreds of other Taiwanese.

I will update photos etc. in a few days, about the event, in the mean while if you would like to check out last years event when I went to NYC CLICK HERE

Land of a Thousand Monkeys - Chang Hua, Taiwan

Don't let my title confuse you. We went to a mountain that is supposed to be filled with monkeys however, we went at a bad time, and there was none.

I still had a lot of fun, taking pictures and spending time with Friends.

We had a lot of great food. This photo is of me eating Pig Intestine, try not to think about it.

Another interesting treat, Chicken Feet.

Photo Limit...

Both my Blog and Flickr has notified me that I can no longer upload photos with out paying for their services. What ever happened to offering free services because of advertising. Either way, I have a decision to make.

Security Guard Approval

I wanted to skate these stairs, so my Taiwanese friend asked the security guard if it was ok. The guard said it was fine, however before I got to ollie them someone who owns a business here, told the security guard to not let me ollie it.

Daya, Taiwan

I go to Daya each week to learn Chinese from 7 year old children, however afterwards we went on a little photo tour. Marc our great leader from Daya, drove us around stopping at places so we could get photos and see new places. (photo of Clayton)

How many can you fit on a scooter? 1..2..3...no actually she has 4. There is a small child standing between her and the handlebars.

We drove up the mountain to reach the temple at the top.

Clayton trying to get the shot he wants.

The Temple had rows of idols lined up along the fence bordering the ridge of the mountain area.

They wouldn't allow us to take any pictures inside - I am not sure for what reasons.

This is a Taiwanese tomb, they don't bury their dead under the ground but instead put them in these tombs.

$100 (NT) a Day

I have committed to only spending $100 a day for food, that is in Taiwan currency which equals out to about $3.50 (US). So here are some ground rules below.

Rules:
1. I can only spend $100 each day that is $700 a week.
2. If I spend less then $100 it can carry over. But after a week it resets.
3. If I run out and don't have money for diner I can always eat some Peanut Butter and Jelly at home.
4. If someone buys me a meal it doesn't count against me.
5. The only exception to spending over $100 is if I am with guests, because saving relationships is more important then saving money.
6. This only counts towards food, if I pay for bus fair or anything else it doesn't count against my $100 a day.

Why am I doing this? Well for a few reasons, one is to just manage my money better, I know it isn't much but Taiwan food doesn't cost too much either. Another reason is I think it will be fun, I just want to see if I can survive on that little of amount of money each day to say I did it. So don't pity me it is my choice.

There is 2 other people doing this with me, but I am not sure how serious they are about it.

Glass Museum - Lou Gong (鹿港)

After the Dragon Boat races in Lou Gong (鹿港), we headed over to the Glass Museum which is also in Lou Gong.

They had many tiny figures made out of glass. And also some other cool glass fogging/unfoggy technology which makes a window no longer clear when you don't want people to see through in an instant.

Taipei 101 

At the end of the displays of glass was a mirror maze you can go through. It had many cool lights and floors that looked like where wholes to the end of the earth. A few times I thought I was following Nikki to the next room but realized it was only her reflection.