Going to the Hospital in Taiwan

Anne Marie's had a cough for the past two weeks. We've been avoiding going to the doctor because we don't have Taiwan healthcare until June and we were hoping it would just go away. This past week it began to get worse, to the point were she wasn't feeling up to going to school. We finally decided to make the trip. When we got to the hospital we weren't sure if we were in the right place but a lady helped us find the right department and get registered.

Within fifteen minutes we were already in the doctors office having Anne Marie evaluated. It turned out that she had bronchitis due to the air pollution here. There are many factories here as well as so many scooters that cause the air quality to be very poor. Anne Marie and I usually wear surgical masks anytime we go out. The doctor told us that the pollution in China is a problem too because the wind carries it over here to Taiwan. When Anne Marie asked what she needed to do so that it wouldn't continue to be a health problem, he told her, "Just get used to it like the rest of us!"

After the doctor wrote Anne Marie's prescription, we went back to the front desk to pay our bill. We weren't sure how much it would be. The total cost of the hospital visit which included registration, seeing the doctor, and the prescriptions, was $28USD! Within the next ten minutes we had our prescriptions in hand. In all, the entire process took us only about forty-five minutes.

Christmas in Taiwan

Celebrating Christmas in Taiwan felt a little more festive then Thanksgiving. Some department stores and parks decorated with lights and Christmasy things. It was still difficult to be away from family in the States during the holiday season.

Thanks to Yu Fen for this awesome photo collage

Luckily, we have lots of good friends in Taiwan. The same girls who celebrated Thanksgiving (click to see blog post) with us also celebrated Christmas with us by treating us to a Mexican themed restaurant. We exchanged gifts, chatted for hours, and enjoyed having a Bible study.















The following week, we invited our classmates over for a Christmas party at our house. We did a gift exchange, talked about different Christmas traditions from each other's countries, and played some other games.

Because Christmas isn't widely celebrated here, on Christmas Day we still had class. We agreed not to study after school and just enjoy most of the afternoon relaxing. Christmas evening we were invited to KTV, which is what Taiwanese call karaoke, by one of our Korean classmates and his Taiwanese girlfriend. At Taiwanese KTV's you rent a private room for just you and your friends to sing for 3-8 hours. Generally they also have an all you can eat buffet.

We joined the KTV group from 7pm-12am while others stayed even later. We were able to sing one Taiwanese song that we learned previously and a few American songs. However, we mostly sat and watched everyone sing. KTV is a big part of Taiwanese life that is hard for us Westerners to understand, but it is certainly enjoyable to watch! 

Taiwan Collared Scops-Owl

Click on the Photo to Enlarge the Image

While walking home from our University in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. I heard a bird making lots of noise in the bush like trees alone the sidewalk. I was curious to what was making all the noise. So I looked in and I spotted a tiny bird chirping like crazy. I soon realized that he was making a fuss because of the Owl that decided to take a nap in his low tree.

Lucky I bring my camera almost everywhere with me just in case there is something interesting going on.

His eyes were closed and he was clearly resting however with all the chirping that tiny bird was doing and with my trying to move in closer to get a clearer shot without brush blocking my view his eyes began to open really wide like in the photo above.

I am no bird expert but I believe this is a Collared Scops-Owl.
www.birdingintaiwan.com/collaredscops-owl.htm

Anne Marie Sings at Taiwanese Concert

At the end of November, our school held a concert to commemorate a new sculpture on campus. Anne Marie was asked to perform the Taiwanese song she learned for the Foreigner Chinese/Taiwanese Singing Contest, as well as two other English songs. This became an awesome opportunity for her because she sang two praise and worship songs. Before she performed, she was asked on the spot to explain the songs and she was able to share about our Faith. The whole thing was translated in Chinese so the whole crowd could understand.

Thanksgiving in Taiwan

When the holidays come around and you're living in a foreign country, sometimes it can become lonely. You don't feel the same mushy feelings in the air around this season; no one is putting up Christmas lights on the street or their houses, T.V. programming doesn't get you excited for the holidays, you don't hear Christmas music when you go to restaurants or listen to the radio, no one talks about what they are going to buy for their families, etc. Thanksgiving and Christmas just feel like regular days in the heat of Taiwan (Temps have still been in the high eighties). This will actually be my wife's first Christmas away from her family. Last time I lived in Taiwan, I spent the holidays without any family too so I feel blessed to have my wife with me this time.

We have a couple Taiwanese friends who decided to have a Thanksgiving meal with us so we would feel more at home. They told us to not worry because they would get the food and bring it to our apartment. We were excited because my wife was having a hard time finding ingredients to make traditional Thanksgiving dishes. She is also still learning how to cook in Taiwan, since Taiwanese homes generally don't have ovens. Most homes only have a tiny stove top, which is basically those stoves you can get for when you go camping; so that makes it difficult to cook a real Thanksgiving meal.

The girls substituted the turkey with a chicken, pizza for stuffing, and of course the sweet potatoes were substituted by McDonald's French Fries! A perfect Thanksgiving feast!

This was actually our first time to have Thanksgiving in our home because usually we spend it at one of our families homes. This is also the first time we were able to use our wedding china. It was almost a classy Thanksgiving minus the McDonald's and pizza.

After the meal we told them a little bit about what its like/means to us to celebrate Thanksgiving in America. Then we put on the Christmas music and set up our Christmas tree!

Happy Holidays!!!

Chinese Singing Contest - Anne Marie Gets 1st!

After class one day in October, our Chinese conversation teacher approached Anne Marie and said she saw on her school file that she had a degree in music. She asked her if she could sing in Taiwanese for a concert in late November. Anne Marie reluctantly accepted the offer, feeling that she wasn't great of a singer and knowing it would be a lot of extra work on top of studying Chinese every day. We are studying Chinese, but the song was in Taiwanese.

The concert would be by one of our teacher's friends who actually wrote the song. It turned out that he was very famous and had won the Taiwanese equivalent to a Grammy some years ago, as well as other awards. We had the privilege of going to his house, seeing his awards, and getting to practice the song with him.

Our Singing Group

Every year our school, (中山大學 - Zhong Shan Da Xue) holds a singing contest for foreign students from around southern Taiwan. Our Chinese teacher convinced Anne Marie to compete with the song she was learning. She figured it would be a good trial run to help prepare her for performance in the concert. We also decided to participate with a group of 8 other classmates with a group song: Yen-j嚴爵 feat. PEACE [ 輕輕 Lightly ] Official Music Video

There was a lot of really good singers at the event. Many students who had been in Taiwan for years and had been studying Chinese for a long time competed. Anne Marie was the only one to sing in Taiwanese.

At the end, they announced the winners. The whole contest was in Chinese so I wasn't sure all the time what was going on. When she got called up to the front I didn't know why; but when she came back to her seat and showed me her prize money and certificate and I realized that she had won first place in the solo category!  We were both in shock!

Anne Marie and the other top contestants

Our group performance didn't even place. However we did get 1st place for best delivery!

*All photos provided by our school's faculty.

Lotus Pond Dragon Boat Race - 蓮池潭的龍舟

One of our Chines language school classmates was competing in a dragon boat (龍舟) race at Lotus Pond (蓮池潭). We decided to go out to support him and the rest of our school. Watching the race today got us excited for the Dragon Boat Festival which will take place next May.

Dragon boats are long narrow boats that hold twenty paddlers, one person steering in the back, and one person drumming in the front to keep everyone's rowing in sync.

It is believed that the use of dragon boats for racing originated in southern China during the same era of the Greek Olympic games. Originally, dragon boat racing was to celebrate the summer's rice planting and to celebrate the Chinese's dragon water deity. For some more info, check out Wikipedia.

Dengue Fever Outbreak in Kaohsiung, Taiwan

This past week has been pretty exciting. We've been studying so much for our midterms, and in the middle of life we had to take a break for Dengue Fever.

All Saturday morning we studied. In the afternoon, we decided to take a break for an hour a two to get some fresh air. When we got home, we found a pink paper with an official notice on our door, which was written entirely in Chinese. The only recognizable thing on it (besides the few characters we've learned) was a picture of a mosquito in a circle with a line through it.

We've seen many posters around talking about mosquito prevention because of the problem that Taiwan has been having with Dengue fever this year. It's a disease spread by mosquitos biting infected people and then in turn biting others. Over 25,000 people in Taiwan have become infected since May! We thought maybe this notice was just some good information about prevention. After checking with a Taiwanese friend the following morning, we found out that someone either in our apartment building or in our neighborhood has been diagnosed with Dengue fever. The government had issued a warning to us and our neighbors that they would be sending people to inspect and to spray everyone's homes the following day. If the inspectors found any larvae in anyone's home, they would be subject to fines. If anyone was not at home when they arrived the next morning, they would call the police to break in.

Sunday night we had the privilege to be Skyped into a church's mission conference. We were planning to prepare for that and to study most of the afternoon. However, it turned into us buying plastic tarps and tape. We spent the rest of the day cleaning our house and covering furniture and all our belongings with plastic to protect them from insecticide fumes. We were worried that the toxins from the spray would make us sick. Monday morning we also had to miss the first hour of classes to let the inspector and bug killers in.

Other than how time consuming this endeavor was, it is a somewhat scary thing for us. We are in a foreign country, we don't know their regulations on bug chemicals, and also Anne Marie has the gift of attracting mosquitos to bite her legs. There is also a frustrating side to this; our home is clearly not the problem as it has always been mosquito larvae free from how clean it is, however they sprayed everything in our home anyway. Also, in our courtyard there is standing water in the floor drains constantly which is the most likely place mosquitoes would breed, but they didn't even bring up that issue as far as we could tell and left the standing water there to continue as a breading ground.

After school we opened all our windows in an attempt to air out our apartment. We then spent all of Monday afternoon cleaning the walls, floor, and other various places. So far neither of us have shown any symptoms from this disease and we pray that we never do!

Taiwan Focus - Dengue Fever Article

Explore Kaohsiung: Formosa Boulevard

Formosa Boulevard

Formosa Boulevard (美麗島站) is Kaohsiung's main MRT station. It is named after the Formosa Boulevard Project, which aimed at remodeling Jhongshan Road (中山路) to prepare for the 2009 World Games (which was for sports not contested in the Olympics).



There are two MRT lines that meet here. The Orange line which runs West-East and the Red line which runs North-South. You can transfer to the next line in a matter of a couple of minutes. At this station you can exit on any street corner on the intersection of Jhongshan (中山路) and Jhongjheng (中正路).

Dome of Light

Within the Formosa Boulevard Station is a massive beautiful art piece called the Dome of Light. The Dome of Light was created by Narcissus Quigliata. It is the largest public art display made out of individual pieces of colored glass (Source).



The pieces were shipped from Germany and took about 4 years to complete. It has a 30 meter diameter and covers a area of 660 square meters (2165ft). The art is symbolic of the 4 stages of life. Water representing The Womb of Life; Earth representing prosperity and growth; Light for the creative spirit; and Fire to illustrate destruction and rebirth.

Moving to Taiwan

We have official moved to Taiwan! We flew out on August 2nd and arrived August 4th, celebrating our two year anniversary in the San Francisco Airport (8/3). The flight from San Francisco to Taipei took around 14 hours. It was a very tiring few days of travel.



After we arrived in Taiwan we met our Taiwanese friend, Nikki, who is studying at Moody. She allowed us to stay in here home and to show us around her neighborhood and reminisce about the places and food we missed that we haven't had since the last time we were in Taiwan.

We then decided to take the High Speed Rail (HSR) to Kaohsiung. Its about $25 more a person then a bus or a train. However it only took us one hour and a half verses a six hour trip! The train is a straight shot with quick stops along the way that travels over one hundred miles an hour.

We met up with Kim in Kaohsiung, who is another Taiwanese girl studying at Moody. Her family brought us to our new apartment which she rented for us. She also took the time to get our phones, internet and transportation needs all squared away. Having her here has helped the process a ton compared to if we had to figure out how to do all these things ourselves. A lot of these things would be impossible to do without a Taiwanese signature also.

Its so crazy being back in Taiwan. We feel very excited, nervous, scared, and relaxed. It's hard to explain the feeling. We really feel at home in Taiwan but are also so far away from everything that is normal to us.

Taiwan Bound: Moving Out

We just moved completely out of our home. It was a very sad and exciting moment. Seeing our house completely empty and lifeless was hard but knowing that we are on our way to Taiwan makes it all worth it.

Anne Marie played Sunday morning for the last time. She enjoyed this last memory with the band and close friends from our church.

We will be in Michigan for three weeks and then Ohio for two weeks before we are sent off to Taiwan!

Last Day at First Glance Skatepark

Last Tuesday we celebrated my last day with First Glance Skatepark Ministry. It was a fun relaxing time just to be with everyone one more time before I leave Akron, OH. It was definitely a bittersweet time, skating hard with everyone but knowing it was the last time I would see a lot of these faces or at least for a long time.

We had a little farewell time and all the guys prayed for me. They gave me a departing gift that had all the signatures of that skaters that were there on the bottom of the deck with my favorite brand of trucks and wheels. I'll be using the trucks and wheels but I'll hang onto that board with their signatures!

Jeremy DePace made a Farwell video for me. I didn't realize he did this but am so glad he did. It really means a lot to me seeing all these faces in this video that I have spent time with almost every week and almost every day for some of them. Thanks for the video!

FYI: There was kind of a joke that got started tonight, the kids in this video refer to me in a way that isn't very nice but its all a joke, they don't really think of me that way....I hope. :)

Normally when the park closes at 10pm I'm eager to shut the doors and leave. However this last session I didn't want to end. I stayed at the park till 11:30pm skating with one of my favorite dudes Isaiah Jones and Joe Simpson. There was one trick I really wanted to do before the night was over and they stayed there and pushed me to get it!

June 2015 Newsletter

Garage Sale

Anne Marie and I are doing a lot to prepare for moving to Taiwan. It has been an emotional process going through all our belongings and having to determine if we bring it with us, store it, or sell it. All of those questions are answered through determining if the item is sentimental, how big it is, how much money is it worth, how easily we can replace it, etc. This process would be complete different as a single guy but being married adds whole new layer to the process.

We tried to pack up everything we wanted to get rid of and even a lot of stuff that we will be taking with us. We are now living off of plastic plates and forks. Our house has a strange feel to it with its emptiness in most rooms now.

There was a flea market at our friends house. So we packed our car three times to drive stuff over. We started at 5am and went till 3pm. We didn't make a huge profit but it was still something. Everything we couldn't sell, we are donating or giving to Anne Marie's parents for their garage sale.

Long Hair, No More

Before


After

The beard has to go too...

Jake and Emily's Wedding

This last week my wife and I took a week to spend down in Florida to stand up in Jake and Emily's wedding. They are a wonderful couple that we have served in Taiwan with in the past and will again in the future. They both first met in Taiwan with a similar story to ours with some differences.

We left Wednesday driving all the way down in one day. My wife makes fun of me for this but I have a rule that we can only stop once about every 5 hours. So basically we only stop when we need gas and food at the same time, any bathroom needs must wait until those stops come up.

When we finally got down to Florida, just past Jacksonville, I heard a loud noise. Now my car makes all sorts of weird noises so I normally ignore them. However moments after I made a comment about it to my wife our tire blew. We originally were going to arrive at our stop at 11:30 but got delay until about 1am.

The next week Kyle Paradis, another groomsmen and I charged lots of tires including the Bride and Grooms honeymoon car the day of their wedding. Luckily the bride never found out...

Kyle Changing Tires

The actually wedding was at a resort at St. Pete Beach. It was a beautiful location and aloud us to have a decent amount of time at the beach.  There was lots of old friends from WOLBI (Bible College) that I got to see again and made lots of new friends.

Picture: I snapped a few pics of Jake getting a haircut for his wedding.

Both Anne Marie and I had the privilege of being in the wedding. About 30min before the wedding it was down pouring. When the wedding finally started there was still a very very light rain but it made for a beautiful ceremony with people holding umbrellas in the audience.

They wrote their own vows. Jake has an amazing way with words. Most of the time its for making jokes, but he can be really powerful and make people feel and understand his emotions. Many people were crying after he finished his vows to Emily.

The next few days we were able to meet up with friends and spend a few days with Anne Marie's relatives. We even stopped by were we got married almost 2 years ago. While we were there we took some photos of ourselves trying to re-enact the photos from our wedding day. (but I don't have those to upload at the moment)

Support Raising Bootcamp

We are in the back row second from the left

Anne Marie and I were invited to go up to Word of Life (WOL) in Schroon Lake, NY this 2 weeks ago, to partake in a support raising bootcamp. It was extremely last minute, we literally found out about it a week before going. There was a lot of homework, including a Bible study, a book to read and more. We really enjoyed the prep-work, that we were able to get done. The bootcamp gave us fresh eyes on how to support raise and Biblically what it should look like. I'm really glad we took the time to sit down and read through God's Word and his plan for us through support raising.

This is helping us better view ourselves as missionaries and the donor. Lots of times we almost view missionaries as having to be poor and begging for money from potential donors. Instead I need to be viewing myself as an investment for others to partake in what God is doing in Taiwan while I need to view the donor as someone I can minister too and pray for. As missionaries we often just see donors as dollar signs. I'm really glad Anne Marie and I took the time to go through this training, we look forward to support raising the way God intended it!

While we were at WOL we were able to connect with a best friend couple of ours who will also be returning to Taiwan to do ministry. We look forward to serving God as a team with them and being able to encourage each other as we go through struggles and with joy from ministering to others. We also met a lot of other missionaries and we able to be encouraged through them. We look forward to following their ministries and receiving prayers from them.

Through the bootcamp and meeting with WOL Directors we have decided to join the WOL team! We will have more details to come after the partnership becomes official!

Top 10 Most Exciting Things about Moving to Taiwan

Moving back to Taiwan has gotten my wife and I thinking about all the things we are really looking forward too! I took all the pictures below, these are real experiences I've had! Check out the top 10 things that I love about Taiwan!

1. Night Markets

Night Markets are the best places to find a late night snack, cheap things to buy, and just meet people or hang with friends playing carnival style games. It is generally really crowded but thats part of the fun! You can experience very cultural food here or play it safe with Taiwanese style corndogs and chicken steak.

2. Warm Weather/Beaches

Taiwan has a very warm climate. It passes through the Tropical line of Cancer. In the summer the temperatures will be 78-100 Fahrenheit. In the winter it will get down 55 Fahrenheit.

Taiwan also has some of the best beaches. If the water is calm you'll be able to see 7+ feet below.

3. Learning Chinese

Learning Chinese isn't going to be easy but its exciting. The challenge of it and joy when you start to understand something you could't before is like nothing else! Being able to listen in on a conversation and pick up parts of what they are saying is an awesome part about learning a new language. I can't wait to start studying Chinese again!

4. Beef Noodle

Taiwan has a lot of interesting foods. Lots of them are very terrifying to try. However, there is some foods that I've been craving since the day I left. Mostly Beef Noodle. Its basically just big chunks of beef and noodles, often served with some cooked vegetables in it. It only costs about $2 for a big bowl.

5. Tea Shops

Tea shops are everywhere in Taiwan. Almost every block you will run into at least one tea shop. I am not a big fan of tea but they carry a good selection of fresh fruit drinks. You can choose how cold you want it and how much sugar to put in it. In America these kind of teas would run about $5-8 but in Taiwan you can get it for $1-3.

6. Convenience

Taiwanese are all about convenience. They have special phrases in their language pertaining to how convenient things are. Taiwanese have mastered convenience. You will have any trouble finding a 7-11 or similar shop. There is a 7-11 for almost every other building in Taiwan. You can often find two or three 7-11's within a 1 block radius.

7. Scooters

There dangerous but oh so much fun. Having a scooter will almost guarantee you'll be able to find a place to park in the crowded cities of Taiwan. Without one enjoy driving around for hours trying to find a parking spot. They are an excellent mode of exploration and fun.

8. The City

I love the city! The tall buildings, the traffic, the people everywhere, its the best. Taiwan's cities are mostly all hit with a mountain in the background also. Causing for some beautiful scenery on clear days.

9. National Health Insurance

One of the best things is the cost of health care! Even without health insurance it doesn't cost you that much to go to the hospital. However when you have a Healthcare Card your set. Oh, you feel a little sick? Go to your local health care physician and get pumped with medicine for a total cost of $10 USD.

10. The People

Taiwanese are very unique, creative, and fun people. We do have our cultural differences but that's part of what is so exciting and fun about building friendships with them. There is so much you can learn from living in another culture surrounded by people who grew in another world.

April 2015 Newsletter

Life Update: We are Moving!

My wife have finally made a big decision. We have been carefully praying and seeking God's direction in our lives. We have decided to move back to Taiwan the beginning of August! 

This is a very exciting and scary time for us. We have lots to do in preparation. We don't have all the details now. However, we hope to send out a newsletter in the next month or two to inform those who are interested in praying for us and supporting us financially.

My First Wedding Shoot

I was finally asked to shoot my first wedding. I was pretty hesitant about it. I take pride in doing a good job and don't really try to sell myself because I think I could be a lot better. I told them I would do it. However they have to understand that this is my first wedding and if they had the money to go with someone who has experience.

Apparently the groom used to read my blogs about Taiwan when he was planning on going there. And I was also the bride's English teacher for a semester while living there. He already saw a lot of my work throughout the years and I think my work helped him learn a lot about his future wife's culture/country.

Seeing we had that connection and were friends I didn't really want to charge much. I charged enough for me to kinda break even on the flight. In the end I lost money however it was my first wedding shoot and didn't want to charge them much for taking a chance on me and giving me that experience for the first time.

This was a very nerve racking experience. I have never shadowed under another photographer in any sense, especially not for a wedding. I tried to do a few shoots for free to assist another photographer at a wedding but it never seemed to work out. I began studying wedding styled photography and tips from the web and youtube. Many photographers that I came across had very poor work which gave me some confidence going into it thinking "If people are happy with their work I should have no problem." and at the same time annoyed me because they would sell their work with such terrible results.

It was raining terribly for the rehearsal. So the rehearsal was inside. The space we had was very tiny and not optional. This allowed me to practice using my flash and getting settings right for an "indoor" wedding, however the actually wedding turned out to be outside.

So here it is...some of the photographs from my first wedding!

This is the "full" Flickr.com album. (only 65 out of 250 photos)

We started the day with taking photos of the groomsmen. I had a second photographer take care of the ladies for me.

The men prayed before the wedding, it got a little emotional.

The Groom's first time seeing the bride.

After the wedding we shot pictures of the Bride and Groom with family members. Then shot the wedding party.

The sun was super harsh but then quickly began to go away. We had to work quick to still get great photos of the bride and groom while also getting to the reception on time.

Overall my first wedding shoot was a really good experience. I wouldn't do it for as cheap as I did ever again. The day wasn't too bad but the post-processing work took me a good amount of time. It was defiantly nerve raking for the first time. I had no idea what to expect to come of my work. The hardest part of the day for me was posing the wedding party and the bride and groom. The other difficult part was having to quickly adjust my camera during the ceremony with the harsh sun glaring directly into my lens.

I sent 3 photos to the bride and groom the day after their wedding. This is something my wedding photographer did that I really appreciated. This aloud them to get a quick glimpse of the day while on their honeymoon. It then took me about 2 weeks to get them the rest of their photos.