We had to leave Taiwan in order to apply for our visas, so that meant two nights in Hong Kong over Valentines Day, travel and lodging courtesy of our employers. Included here are pictures of the local wet market next to our hotel, where the seafood was so fresh it often tried to escape down the street. We lowered the resolution on all photos for the internet, but you still might be able to check out what’s in those tanks and buckets. Also look for the hanging pig’s heads, feet, and tongues/gums. The Man Mo Temple pictures appear fuzzy because that’s how thick the incense was. The staff there encouraged pictures and the worshippers didn’t seem to notice or care. Worshippers place food, drink, incense, and spirit money on various altars throughout the temple to appeal to/appease/manipulate various spirits for blessing/fortune/prosperity. At certain altars a bell and drum are also sounded. We also saw two big Christian ads: the first says “Jesus is Lord” and the second says, “The greatest is love” in poor Hong Kong Mandarin (according to our Taipei friends). In one street shot there’s a man in the lower right corner poking a stick into a bucket. That, along with the tiny altar shown in another photos, are things we see almost everyday: merchants burning spirit money in special containers or placing offerings outside their place of business.

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Made it back from Hong Kong in time to wake up, throw some lessons together and begin the first regular semester at PEI. Jessica will write more on the Hong Kong experiences, but I don’t know when since we’ve got the first week of class combined withour first major paper due Sunday. HK was tiring but really fun and interesting.

There are photos up on the photos page.

A house (or apartment) is not a home until there is…COFFEE! Especially in places where coffee is more expensive or more difficult to find, such as Taiwan. There are lots of little coffee shops on the streets (nearly all of them have ripped off the Starbucks logo), but in the supermarkets all of the coffee on the shelves is instant. Up until Tuesday, nearly all of the coffee I had consumed in Taiwan was instant coffee. Joel loved to remind me that I wouldn’t even TOUCH that stuff at home. Well, to drink it, anyway…I would use it to make cappuccino chocolate chip muffins. However much disdain I have for that stuff, I had to drink it anyway…otherwise, mornings with my xiao peng you or “little friends” at the school would have been pretty rough. (=

Monday night, I made a trip to Costco, where I was actually able to get some coffee (not instant) at a pretty decent price. So, Joel being the wonderful husband that he is, brewed the first pot of coffee in our apartment on Tuesday morning. That was a wonderful smell to wake up to. Really, there are very few things I can think of that make a place more homey than the smell of a pot of coffee brewing.

So even though we are still on the lookout for a few more pieces of furniture, we are feeling more and more settled all the time. Once we get a couch, we’ll take pictures of the apartment and post a “photo-tour” for all of you to see.

Meanwhile, I’m going to go savour the last few sips of this morning’s coffee. Mmmm.

We had our first two classroom skypings today: dad (and then mom and Julia) caught us just starting the morning lessons, and later Brian H. almost won the “Hey Cow!” competition, except Skype for Mac apparently doesn’t do video yet.

It was the first time for the kids and they were a little intimidated, but once they do it one or two more times they’ll be really into it (if the first day of class is any indication).
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Had the webcam aimed into class all day. During nap time (even working adults take ‘siestas’ here) the students were goofing off but thinking they were getting away with it. They were getting out of their seats, looking at the webcam stashed in the corner, and making funny faces. What they didn’t know was that I was in our office doing homework, and recording everything. After nap time I said, “Time to watch a movie!” and they were all excited (we use powerpoint and video a lot). “We’re going to watch a movie called ‘Nap Time at P.E.I.’” They weren’t really listening (also happens a lot) because they were all excited about the movie. It was soooooo funny to watch the realization hit their little faces. (In the end it was all a big joke and we scored some major cool points.)
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We’re leaving for two nights in Hong Kong on Sunday, travel and lodging compliments of our employer… Happy Valentine’s Day to us! (We have to apply for our work visas from outside Taiwan). That’s also when our first two major papers are due for our online component of our grad classes. We’ll try and crank them out before we leave, but at that’s gonna rough… it’ll probably boil down to getting an extension or just taking the grade.
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We found the ‘wet market’ in our neighbourhood (open during the day for fresh produce, meat, and seafood) and… wow. Let’s just say they don’t let anything go to waste. We didn’t take pictures because we were just passing through and didn’t want to get all up in people’s business. Once we’re regular grocery shoppers and they recognize us we’ll get some photos.

We’re on Skype now. Click the “Live” link for more info, and instructions for playing “Hey Cow!” with our students. If you see a green checkmark at the top of the page, clicking it will give you a live video feed of whatever we’ve aimed our webcam at. If there’s a blue X up there, it means we’re offline.

You’ll need Skype to make it work (free download).

Ever wondered what little Chinese kids are thinking as they sit in a class taught by white people?

I lifted (and edited) this bit of conversation from a Taipei ex-pat internet forum (where the Anglos in Taipei share info, whine, and sell stuff)…

“ARG. Has anyone else seen this commercial where they put on a big fake nose and can suddenly speak English? Does this commercial make anyone else homocidal?”

“I haven’t, but that does it. I’m commissioning someone to make an infomercial in which I’ll pull my eyelids back with tape and suddenly be able to do kung fu.”

“Are you serious? Does this commercial really exist?”

“I saw it a few months ago in the MRT [subway] station. And I thought, ‘Did I just see what I thought I saw?’”

“Foreigner” in Taiwan and the Mainland is literally (in Mandarin) “outside country person” (wai-guo-ren). But what they won’t tell you right away is their other term for foreigners: “Da bi-zi wai-guo-ren,” which means “big nose foreigner.” Taiwanese also has a term: “pointy nose.”

Haha! To the Chinese, all the white people have big noses! I’m liking this place better every day. =)

A few photos from our night out to Shilin with Cathy, Rachel, and Sunny (seen in order in the group photo). Since it was Joel’s dad’s 50th birthday, we dedicated this evenings eating adventures to him

You can read about this evening’s adventures here:

• First trip to the Night Market!

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There’re two main types of markets here: “wet markets” (fresh fruit/veggies/meat/parts of animals we don’t usually consider ‘meat’), and “night markets” (a massive shopping & eating par-ty!).

Our new friends Sunny, Rachel, and Cathy took us to the “very famous” Shilin Night Market (click the link for more info), which is a five minute walk and a 50 cent MRT (subway) ride (which takes about 20 minutes) from our apartment.

Since yesterday was ***JOEL’S DAD’S 50TH BIRTHDAY!!!*** (surely he’s pleased that we just placed that on the internet), we’ve dedicated the evening’s cultural experiences to him. Not that we’re entirely sure he’ll want them, after he reads what we ate.

Shilin night market is a few city blocks in size, a labyrinth riddled with alleys lined with small shops, food stands, and diners, and packed with people. In fact, it was hard to take pictures of anything due to all the people (getting in the way!).

Sunny, Rachel, and Cathy wanted to give us a fun night on the town and really got into it once they found out how open we were to trying new things. We tried to eat our way through the market, getting samples of the most interesting and famous (and/or frightening) things, but we weren’t through a fraction of it before all of us were full (apprently that’s the way you’re supposed to do a night market). We had a great time wandering through, and much had to be left unexplored for now as there’re only so many hours in an evening. We probably only covered about a quarter of the whole market.

Highlights from the evenings culinary adventures…
- hot candied strawberries and cherry tomatos, on-a-stick
- hot and cold versions of a dessert soup with various flavours of ‘bubbles’ in it (the ‘bubble tea’ kind of bubbles). These bubbles are called “frog eggs” because they’re dark, but don’t worry…there really weren’t any frogs involved. One of the soups was ginger flavored. Yum! The other one had lotus seeds and some kind of fungus in it. Yes, fungus, but it was still really good.
- famous shilin pork soup
- little bird eggs (quail?), on-a-stick
- duck tongues, on-a-stick (pictures on the photos page)
- duck hearts, on-a-stick
- chicken hearts, on-a-stick
- chicken or duck liver, but no stick
- chicken butts (yes, that’s correct)
- pig gums (also on the photos page)
- pig skin

And that doesn’t cover even half the exotic stuff we saw, and we still haven’t found the snakes or the insects-on-a-stick yet. (Btw, Houston, we’re getting closer to locating that special dish you requested). The girls mentioned it last night, but we were already WAY too full.(=

 [Ah, young glasshopper...] “…he realized that that proud butterfly was really Zhuangzi who dreamed he was a butterfly, or was it a butterfly who dreamed he was Zhuangzi?”
- Zhuang Zi, 369-286 BC.
(Additional intro info here.)

We borrowed some DVD’s that survey the teachings of China’s greatest philosophers, with subtitles, in CG animated comic book style form. Slightly different bed-time story experience than the Chronicles of Narnia, but it should be fun.

We spent several hours at the park today, reading and doing homework. It was so nice outside that we couldn’t bear being cooped up in the apartment or the school. There were lots of interesting things to see, including about 200 people doing tai chi exercises (check out the video page!) and lots of little yappy dogs. One dog even had little winnie-the-pooh barrettes on it’s ears. I’m so glad that we have this park right outside the front door of our building. It’s no Tynehead, but it’s got Nelson park beat by miles!!!(=

I also wanted to share this poem that was part of my reading today. It’s from Eugene Peterson’s “The Contemplative Pastor” and it gave me goosebumps. Here goes…

The Tree
There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. Isaiah 11:1

Jesse’s roots, composted with carcasses
Of dove and lamb, parchments of ox and goat,
Centuries of dried up prayers and bloody
Sacrifice, now bear me gospel fruit.

David’s branch, fed on kosher soil,
Blossoms a messianic flower, and then
Ripens into a kingdom crop, conserving
The fragrance and warmth of spring for winter use.

H*ly Sp*rit, shake our family tree;
Release your ripened fruit to our outstretched arms.

I’d like to see my children sink their teeth
Into promised land pomegranates

And Canaan grapes, bushel gifts of God,
While I skip a grace rope to a Christ tune.