"Thanksgiving" in Taiwan!

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Thanksgiving was postponed to accommodate everyone's teaching schedules, but we were determined to have one, so everyone signed up to make something and we all sat down and ate! It was great!

A couple of days before this little creation was compiled:

It actually held the 'napkins.' Very clever, I thought!

Before dinner the kitchen was busy with preparations!

Whitney and Laura preparing the chicken dish that would be our entrée.

(not exactly traditional, but very tasty!)

Kristi sneaking a taste of her wonderful mashed potatoes!

Stuffing . . . . excited!

Traditional home-made stuffing!!!

It was definitely a Mozel Tov Moment! Thanks Libby!

Here's a look at the entrée

Yummy!

Meg's sticky and delightful candied sweet potatoes

Oh so good!

Homemade roles by Erin!

They rival any of your's, I'll bet on it!

Our partially set table with:

Devin's corn-0n-the-cob, thank you Devin!

Lein's veggie-medley and fried rice, which were both very tasty!

Meg's stuffing is on the right and in the background is Erin's Rolls and Kristi's potatoes.

It all makes a very beautiful plate, don't you think?!

Wait, wait, wait!!! We can't forget about dessert!!!

Allison made many varieties of wonderful peanut butter cookies!

Yummy plain ones, yummy peanut-butter-cup filled cup ones, and yummy M&M topped ones!

Now, of course you can't forget pie on Thanksgiving! So I attempted to make an apple-pie with the assistance of Whitney, who had never made pie, and had just found out that her soon-to-be loves apple pie! What serendipity!

I think it turned out quit well for my first unsupervised pie!

Thanks mom for the many years of pie-support!

Well, in our mini-America we managed to pull of a great

mini-Thanksgiving!

Thanks to ALL my roommates for your Thanksgiving spirits and delicious contributions!

Katy, Allison, Whitney, Libby, Kristi, Meg, Laura, Devin, Lein

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!

Taipei 4-ish

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Election day! And with that I didn't have to teach my Saturday class! (although I was planning on having it subbed anyway) AnnaLisa and I headed to Taipei to go to the Temple an to the Top of Taipei 101!

The whole day was chill. We didn't leave too early, and we didn't have to leave too early! It was all kinda perfectly timed in a serendipitous way!

The best pics yet of the Taipei Temple!

It just seems kind of misplaced from this angle.

This is the performance hall at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial, which we passed on our way to the metro headed for Taipei 101!
And in front of it we saw our first Christmas Tree of the season!

Me in front of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall Christmas Tree

(The 100 at the top is to comemorate that next year is 100 years since the formation of the Republic of China)

AnnaLisa in front of the Taiwanese styled Christmas Tree!

After that brief pit-stop of it's finally Christmas season-ness we continued on to the metro (I love metros!!!)

After emerging from the metro and rounding a corner this was our view:

And then closer.
And even closer.
Still we were a block or two away!

The thing is huge!

It took me a couple hours of being bombarded with the three punctured circles to figure out that they 'say' 101 . . . yep, I'm kinda slow sometimes . . . ;)

Well we got there around 5:00pm and found our way to the ticket counter where we were told that it would be about a 90 min. wait to go to the top and that was "with out getting out of line." Well we knew that AnnaLisa might not ever get a chance to go to the top again, and I really didn't mind waiting in line so we went for it and ended up only waiting for 60 min!

Taipei 101 is the second tallest building in the world at 101 stories (508 meters).

The view was amazing!!!!!

A view of Taipei from the observatory of Taipei 101

about 450 meters from the ground

When we got the tix we also got a coupon for 15NT off any purchase of ice cream at the top.

(ok, that's only 50cents, but hey, you take what you can get)

And because it was actually slightly cold in Taipei that night, I also bought an Italian hot chocolate! Yummmmmmmmm! =D

This is the spoon for the ice-cream . . . I just don't get it . . . are the bumps so the ice-cream doesn't fall off? . . . or just to make it a pain to try for every last drop? . . .

Read closely:

Could you even imagine?!

Me in front of a observation window and beside more festivities!!!

(I swear I heard Silent Night sung in at least 3 different styles all in the same song!)

When I saw this I realized that all those sci-fi movies that have that room with a big sphere in the middle of it, didn't just come up with it for a great visual, there really are big spheres in the middle of a tall building! They are dampers for to make the building earthquake and typhoon safe!

As with everything in Taiwan, it's sparkly!!

(though you can't see it in these pics)

We finally figured out how to go outside and, of course, the view was spectacular (even more if you jam your head between the bars to get the full view)!

(Side note, there was a Japanese tour group there, and when they came out I could understand all their expressions of excitement: "sugoi!" "kakoi!" "maji!" etc. It was sugoi!)

Yet another 'sbarashi' view!

The view of the . . . top . . . from the top . . . ;)

AnnaLisa's "self-portrait"

My "self-portrait" . . . yah

Remember the damper? Well 101's mascots are 4 baby dampers. Great name right? ;)

(My favorite was "Smart Silver")

Me with a festive Smart Silver, the baby damper!

The ride from the top to the bottom (or vice-versa) is only 37 seconds!

Thing in the Elevator that tells you where you are in reference to the ground . . . just in case you get board during the tortuous 37 second ride . . .

See you soon Taipei 101!

On the bus ride home we saw . . . shocker . . . fireworks!

Taipei 3

Saturday, October 30th 2010

Second branch temple trip, my third temple trip, and fifth time to Taipei.

This time I got Allison to sub my class, so we left at 8:30ish.

I love this Temple!

Taipei LDS Temple

This is actually the first view we got of the temple on the first trip. We all got out of the bus and waited to cross the street (not knowing where the temple was) looking at the gas station and then all of a sudden we looked a further up and there was an Angel Moroni! It was a great sight!

Taipei Temple behind gas station

After we were through at the Temple, we ate lunch as we walked to the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial, where we spent the rest of the day.

Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Building

Cool Tree, Gate to Chiang Kai-shek Memorial, and Temple

Why is it that we just can't resist trying the jumping shot . . . my timing as a photographer isn't really up to par for this type of shot, but they're fun to try ;)

AnnaLisa

( from who's camera I stole all these pics)

Katy

And, of course, if you're in a tourist spot, in a big Asian city, and you happen to be a blond, chances are high that you will get a woman coming up to you, with out saying a word, just pointing to her camera, shaking her head when you try to take it (having assumed that she wants you to take her picture), then leading you to a spot to pose with her, to inevitably become, yet again, part of some random person's vacation photos.

Maybe it's not because I'm blond, but because we're wearing similarly matching ensembles

So randomly we got there just in time to watch the changing of the guard! It was awesome!

Chiang Kai-shek Memorial's Changing of the Guard

AnnaLisa in front of the big statue of Chiang Kai-shek

Chiang Kai-shek

(well, ok, just his statue, but he just looks so happy I had to include it)

Katy in front of the big statue of Chiang Kai-shek

It's just such a cool building I couldn't resist including another shot . . .

So in the ground level of the building is the gift shop, some museum, . . . and other stuff . . . but what caught my eye were these great doors!

(don't ask, just go with it ;)

Katy and the Chiang Kai-shek Doors

Katy caught . . . doing the rumba . . . with one of the Chiang Kai-shek Doors . . . well, to each their own . . .

Yep, I kinda over did the awesome door obsession . . . no, I take that back I can do better, I'll get back to you on that!

Well, after that we headed back to the bus and from there (or on there . . .) back to Feng Yuan. From there I left my shoes on the bus, got into an awkward situation with a car and driver, ended up 'having' to go to the store where I ran into both my bosses and their kids (their married), then realizing as they saw me I had a very unfavorable expression on my face (having just realized that I left said shoes on the bus) this thought leading me to think that they might think that this expression was because I ran into them, from there I was overly excited to see them (although they are great people, and deserve as many excited greetings as anyone), and felt I had to explain my expression, which I was given the chance to do after one of them asked, "You just get back?" (he, being in the same branch as us, knew about the temple trip), I got to follow up with, "Yes, and I JUST realized that I left my shoes on the bus!" After all that the rice I bought on this impulsive trip had flies in it, AND the rice they replaced it with (I found out after having eaten about a sixth of it) had larvae (or some other similar bug) in it . . . . I haven't made rice since . . .

How's that for a blog post full of run-on sentences? ;)