Confucius and Bao'An Temple

We visited the local Confucius and Bao'An temples which are near where our buddies Stephen and Stanley live. What are the Confucius and Bao'An temples of Taipei? I'm glad you asked. When I know the answer I will tell you. I do know that Confucius was around the time that Daniel (from the Bible silly) was roaming around. He established the moral code that is the lynchpin of Chinese culture and social structure.

Confucius Roof Top (I think he liked Dragons, there's a lot of them)

Here's the 'inner court' (notice: it was rainy and those steps can be hazardous! Jason slipped and for the first and last time in his life did the splits)

Bao'An (a few more plants but basically the same except for the heavy presence of bearded statues)

All of the 'sacrifices' to whoever or whatever Bao'An might be. I'll get back to you on this.

Our "Students"

Here are our two "students" Stephen and Stanley. They're not really students because every Saturday we go to their house and talk for a couple of hours. And they're mother feeds us. Good gig.

Jessie's Students

Here are photos of Jessie's students. See if you can notice a common theme (other than the fact that they're all Taiwanese).

Emily, Bunny, Jessie (who has a brother named Jason)

Ian , Candy, Jasmine

Lele, Leo, Leon

Arvin, Danny, Cindy

Did He Eat It III: Call Me Your Hero

This goes out to Will Maximillian Dickerson: I did in fact eat it..........all.

P.S.- Jessie at it too, and liked it.

Did He Eat It? III

Jess and I went to a night market in the n.w. part of the city. Jess loves fried tofu (don't ask) and she saw this little delight on a few of the plates around and said, "oooo, let's get that!" I said OK. I asked a lady what it was that she had and she said that she did not get it at this stall. The matron of the stall came scurrying up and asked if that is what we want. I said, "yes, just one" she smiled and scurried away. She came back with this wonderful plate of:

Jessie took the first bite and by her facial expression I thought it must be extremely hot. She kept shaking her head as if to say "no, that's not why my face looks like this"

Check out this link to see what this slice of heaven was:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stinky_tofu

Did He Eat It?

National Palace Museum

We took a trip to the National Palace Museum. When Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalist Guomindang party left mainland China for Taiwan they took about 1/10 of the artifacts from the Forbidden City in Beijing and brought them to Taiwan.

Here's the front entrance

Looking back the way we came in

Jess eating a little pancake (stuffed with mashed sesame seeds)

side note: there was a brown man with a wand and a rainbow for hair on the cover dancing with a ground hog. Who runs the advertising schools in this country?)

Beautiful shot of the garden next to the museum

(side note II: we saw the largest fish we have ever seen in the pond in the garden. It was like a small whale. Serious.[I didn't get a picture])

Shilin Night Market

Jessie and I decided to head to a local night market last night. We attempted to go to this night market a week ago, however, we forgot our map and got off at the wrong subway stop and wandered for a while before realizing that we had no idea where the place was. We went home. But last night we actually found it...and some other interesting things:

Here we are at the entrance to the ShiLin night market

Here's a lovely place for kids where you can fish for shrimp or play mini pinball machines! (notice how there's only one kid)

Here's where they serve shaved ice desserts with fruit on top (yep, just ice and fruit)

This is for Jared Soergel! This is just a game for drumming, like Making the Band or whatever the band video game is you like.

"Did He Eat It?" Part Deux Answer

My friend Stacy makes a good point, I should take the picture before half the soup is gone. I did in fact eat it.

"Did He Eat It?" Part Deux

We had been walking for some time around the confusing streets of Taipei. We said, no worries, there are plenty of food vendors all over, we'll find something. The area we happened to be in had few if not just this one "establishment". The menu was on the wall and most consisted of three Chinese characters. The problem was that I only either understood the first two and not the last OR the first and last but not the middle. The middle character turns out to be the key! Ah Chinese, you entice me with your witty banter.

This turns out to be Pork Liver

(I thought it was just pork)

"Did He Eat It?"

To all of you who thought I might have a little class.......you were wrong! He Ate It! Very chewy.

A New Edition!!!! (to the blog)

Here's our new edition, its a little diddy I will call "Did He Eat It?"

Here's how it works: I will post a picture of an 'interesting' item that we run across in our adventures and will ask you the reader to post a response as to whether you think that I ate it or did not. Here's our first edition:

This little piece of wholesome goodness we happened upon when we decided to follow our guidebook for once. The book said that this is a great spot for a "bread and rib" style stew. Of course most of our food choices come down to looking and pointing. We thought this might be good but I didn't really translate it accordingly. This is 'lamb knuckle'

"Did He Eat It?"

(Jessie, of course, refuses to participate)

A Little Tourism

Jess and I went to the eastern part of the city to visit two of Taipei's most famous sites. The memorial to Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, the founder of modern China and Taipei 101. Here are a few shots:

The memorial and Taipei 101 together

One of Dr. Sun's speeches on China

The man himself Dr. Sun Yat-Sen (not the guy in the hat)

Taipei 101, the world's second tallest building

One shot during the day

And one at night

Job Update II

It is official, Jessie is employed! Actually she had her second day of work today, so this update is a tad late, but whatever. She works with kids that are pre-k so their level of English is slightly lower than mine but they're catching up. She likes it although adapting to a new teaching environment can have it's ups and downs. It's also a little bit of a trek to the school which is located in the suburbs but regardless, she enjoys it and she makes money. Two wonderful things. We also have two tutor students, we've met with them once, last Saturday. They are brothers who are in college here in Taipei. One, Stanley (not his Chinese name) is a journalism major and the other, Stephen (also, not his Chinese name) is a medical student. They're both seem like pretty neat guys.

Job Update

Jessie interviewed for a job with "Hess English School" yesterday evening. It went well but it seems she would probably end up with a 7pm-10pm shift. Which, if you know Jessica Anne Ulrich Soergel Manning....that is not going to fly.

She is interviewing today with another school which is a little farther out but are offering a day class with adults. Head to head it seems as though the smaller school will win out. Will see what they say and we'll keep you updated.

New Pictures

These are totally random but I thought I'd throw them up here anyway:

"God I hope this is chicken"

Here's a nice place to buy sweet potatoes

And here's our kitchen, right next to the front door. You can't see behind the curtain to the left because that's a window. Yep, there it is in all it's glory.

I told you they were random photos. I'd take more but it's still raining. Maybe tomorrow.

What You've All Been Waiting For!

Some random pictures for your pleasure:

Here's a shot of our flight into Taipei....hey, it was dark, what do you want from me?

Our Apartment:

Here's our theater room

Here's our bedroom/living room/refrigerator room/changing/sitting room/smoking lounge....And that's about it.

This is Jess standing in the rain while I order dinner at a take-out stand. It rained for three and a half days straight.

This is a shot from outside the Chiang Kai-Shek memorial. One of my favorite places in Taipei.

A Grand View of the Local Night Market w/ everything from Obama shirts, fake eyelashes to "Glorious American Pig Ribs"

Mission Accomplished

We finally and officially have an apartment. It's around 8 'pings' which translates to about 300 sq ft. Nice! No really, it's not bad at all. We have a little couch and a bed and a closet. I'll get some pictures up soon (don't I keep saying that?) of the new digs. By the way, recycling here is crazy. You have to put your trash in special blue bags that you can only buy from 7-11, your bottles go in a bag, your plastic whatever in another bag, your paper in another, and your "other" paper in yet another bag. All this has to then be carried down to the local garbage truck which comes at different times during different days in different neighborhoods. You know when he's near by the tune that he plays over a loud speaker. We mistook him for an ice cream truck. That's not ice cream. Anyway, we've yet to actually catch him. There's always tomorrow!

Taipei Apartments, Code Name: Trail of Tears

OK, our apartment adventure has come to an end.....or so I believe. We've seen about 12-15 different apartments, they've all sort of run together. All of which either have no bathroom or no kitchen. We thought we found one, but the landlord decided that since he didn't know who we were he might not want to rent to us. But, with a copy of our passport and a copy of the acceptance letter to my university he might rent to us. No thank you.

So we think we've found another place. We will go to sign the contract this afternoon after our trip to IKEA for all the necessities...One really neat thing is that what will be our new landlord is a Christian! That's an added bonus. It's maybe about 300 sq ft. so it's got plenty of room to stretch out. 

Once we get some things settle we'll throw some pictures up. Thanks for following us!