Radio Silence

(Internet Silence doesn't sound nearly as cool...)

(Although it might make a good band name...)

 

 

Hi everyone! I'm not dead!

 

I'm typing this from the computer lab of my school, on a Chinese keyboard:

And I discovered my phone can upload pictures to Blogger!

I'm very sorry about the long period with no updates. Life has been quite hectic recently- I have many places to go, they're usually about a half hour from each other by walking, and I still don't have Internet at my house. Or a phone. Or TV. But yesterday we got our gas working, so at least we have hot water now. (Side note: You do not know frustration until you've had a Taiwanese repairman attempt to explain to you in a weird Mandarin-Taiyu hybrid what's wrong with your gas lines. "Something-something-pipe-something-gas-something-fire-yes/no?") And on Monday our furniture arrived, including a bed! Hooray bed! Beds are underrated, seriously, it's amazing how much better you do all day if you sleep on a bed at night.

I took many picutres of all these happenings, but they're on my camera at home, so I only have those few I snapped with my phone to share. I will try to fit the others in soon- this will just be a quick update.

My school is going well! It's very, very hard. But I am learning a lot. Each night I have about two hours of homework, on a three-day schedule. The first day the homework is to write, ten times each, the twenty characters we learned this set, then use them in sentences- in characters, of course, no pinyin allowed. The second day is to write more sentences, along with some workbook activities, such as "Draw a map and label the locations on it. Give directions to various places." Over the weekend, I was assigned a full-page essay on what has changed in my life since I arrived in Taiwan.

My class in action- that's my teacher, Qiu Laoshi.

On the whole, my speaking is better than anyone else in my class, but my reading and writing leaves a lot to be desired. Many times the class will have a sentence on the board with the word we're working on in it- I can read the word fine, but there are three others we're expected to already know that I'm just blank on. I'm catching up- after one week I'm already doing better- but there's a gap, mostly because I started in Class 2 of 5 and these guys all did Class 1. (There are actually more classes, but they have 5 designed for comprehension. After you do 5 you're considered to be fluent, any more and you can start teaching Chinese.)

My class has a nice balance of ethnicities in it. I'm the only American, we have two Japanese, two Indonesians, a Korean, an English gentleman and a man from Jordan. I actually had to change classes- the first one I was assigned was in the morning, which was quite convenient but killed all service plans, so I changed to the afternoon. In my first class, we had an older Japanese couple, probably about 65, who were retired. Their kids had grown up, they had nothing keeping them in Japan, so they decided to move to Taiwan and learn Chinese together for the adventure. They can't speak English and I can't speak Japanese, but we used our Chinese to talk a bit and they were quite nice.

To my surprise, they showed up at the meeting on Friday! They were very happy to see me- they almost fell over when they recognized me! They came with another Japanese sister who has been here for years, but unfortunately I'm not sure if they're Witnesses or studies or what. I think they're a sister and her mate... but there's a definite language barrier here.

After the meetings, or service, or just randomly, many friends love going to this restaurant:



Those are actually some of our friends in front.

This is a Japanese-owned Italian restaurant in Taiwan, and while it's not Italian food, it isn't bad. Try the escargot pizza!

I've been out in service a few more times here, and it has been a great time every time. When you think of intercom witnessing, you don't think of a very productive ministry, but almost every person we talk to accepts a tract or literature, and many are eager to hear a scripture or to take an invitation to the hall. The Bible answers questions that their traditional Chinese and Buddhist beliefs don't even approach. One popular topic to bring up- although you must be careful not to offend- is ancestor worship. Specifically, you must always appease your ancestors by giving them food, money, respect, and by bringing the family honor. If they're displeased, they will attack you by making you sick, or by causing an accident, or by killing your pet, etc. But they never show favor, only anger. So the question is, do your grandparents love you or hate you? If they love you now, why would they hate you when they die? Then you introduce what the Bible says about dead loved ones.

For those of you who aren't on Instagram, my apartment!

I mentioned my house earlier- it's becoming more livable by the day. We got beds at IKEA (My parents were very generous and bought mine for me- thank you so much!) (Also, yes, Taiwan has an IKEA.) We have gas now, Internet tomorrow, we went out and bought a set of large appliances from Toshiba- washer, dryer, fridge- for NT$10,800 (That's a total of $350- Taiwan is super cheap)...

And also Mason arrived! All my pictures of him are on my camera, so you'll have to take my word for it, but he is indeed here.

We're having a great time here. The friends are warm, the food is great, the preaching is very productive and the language is interesting. There have been some bumps in the road- Harry is still sick, dealing with repairmen when you don't share a language, the proverbial "cold showers and warm beer" of a new apartment- but I think I'm getting into a nice routine. This weekend is our circuit assembly, so I get to meet yet more friends, and tomorrow is our first big Chinese test here at Wenhua (my school's short name).

I'll post again when I can Internet at home, even if only to show more pictures! Mingtian jian!

Progress! (Jìnbù!) (进步!)

你们好! (Nǐmen hǎo!) (Hi guys!)

Earlier tonight, Harry and I were out walking home from an errand we had to run that I will tell you more about soon. We stopped for chicken pies, boba milk tea and coconut macaroons (all told it was about $2 each), walked to a nearby park and enjoyed the beautiful night from inside the pagoda. Who saw this coming? Seriously, if someone were to take a picture of that and send it back a year ago, would anyone have predicted it? But it was a beautiful night. About 65 degrees, a light wind, green plants all around, and the pagoda was nice too.

Since I last updated, I've been working to get really settled in. I have a local phone number now, and a local bank account. My health check came back (no plague, fortunately) so now the process has begun to get my ARC. Things are progressing well!

I'll start the pictures with this one:

Qisi! (Cheese!)

I'm really not sure why we took this picture, actually- a bunch of us were just standing over there talking when one of the older sisters decided to take a picture, and since we were taking one we all got our cameras out, and... well, there we go. Harry still isn't feeling well in this picture, or right now either. Yesterday I took him to the hospital here and they gave him quite the potion to drink. Hopefully he'll be feeling better soon, it must be terrible to arrive in a foreign land and immediately be sick for weeks.

After the meeting we went to a hotpot place the one of the local brothers, Br. Zhou, knows about. About ten of us ended up going and having a really good time!

On the way to the restaurant. This is really a normal path that people use all the time, just part of the sidewalk near a park.

It was quite good! They serve goat in a pot of boiling broth, and they give you a bunch of vegetables and meat to add to it to taste. Everyone shares out of one main pot, ladling soup into a smaller bowl. As it turns out, goat is delicious! We did good, too- in the end we only had some goat bones and dregs in the pot.

Not that I let that stop me from eating it!

That evening, there were plans to go play soccer. It's a weekly thing the friends do- we all just go to a park and play soccer, basketball, tennis, squash, whatever is available at the time we arrive. Even the small children play- no one takes the games too seriously. Last week I tried to join in, but got lost- this time I promised I would be there.

Unfortunately, I didn't go. Again. I will eventually, guys, things keep happening! I'm sorry :-( !

But I had a good reason! Terry Miller invited me over to his place to help me find an apartment to rent, and after he and his wife helped me search for about an hour, they got a call from a brother in Taipei North. He was having some friends over for dinner, including Br. Wolfgang Schumacher, a Gilead grad from the 50th class who has been here for 45 years, and invited us to come. So we did!

Detecting a pattern yet? The food here is really good.

There were about 25 people there. Our host, Br. Paul Gouriet, is a British brother who swore he'd only be here for three years... twenty years ago. He got married, had three kids, and has been in Taipei for a long time now. Among those invited were also a couple who have the same Chinese last name as I do, Tang! I don't know their original last name because... we really don't use them here :-) Their first names are Flaviano and Sara, from Milan. They've also just arrived, and hope to be here for several years.

The older brother in the short sleeves and tie is Wolfgang. He's awesome.

The young man in he front of this picture, on the right, is actually a brand new... not even bible study! GianCarlo literally ran into him earlier that day while walking, apologized and offered him a tract. He was interested, so they started talking, and GianCarlo invited him to this dinner so he could meet some of the friends. He teaches English at a middle school here, so he's decently fluent (obviously not native, but still very good), and we ended up talking about the Bible, Jesus, neutrality, etc for about an hour and a half. He was especially impressed that at one table, we had Germans, British, Italians, Japanese, Americans, Hong Kongese, Koreans and Taiwanese eating peacefully together, as a family. I was invited to go on his first official study this Friday, and am looking forwards to it.

 So also, today was my first official day of class! I'm in Beginner Level 2, which doesn't sound like all that much, but I looked over the coursebooks... and these are some pretty huge classes. The difference between 1 and 2, 2 and 3, is huge. I actually already know most of these words we're learning, but I can't read or write them yet... so that's what I'll be working on at first, until we catch up to my spoken knowledge.

This is my school!

That is, of course, just the Mandarin Learning Center in downtown. The actual school is here:

Yes, that is a temple on top of a mountain that is also a school. Yes, that's amazing.

If I learn enough Chinese, I can apply for further classes at the main campus, like art, calligraphy, etc. I need to speak Chinese, though, because all the classes are in Chinese up there.

I mentioned earlier that Mi dixiong jiemei were helping me find a place to live. That's becoming urgent. Actually, I need to move out tomorrow. After many hours of searching online and making phone calls, almost every place we checked was already rented, or too expensive, or too far away, or too... terrible. One place we looked at had literally nothing in it- no gas lines, no phone lines, no heating, no a/c, no television, no internet, and only one electric light. It wasn't even that cheap! The problem is, the class of dwelling in our price range is mostly for students, appropriately enough. And there are two huge universities, actually the biggest in Taiwan, in our territory... and their terms started two months ago, so every decent student-type room has been rented out.

But good news! We found a place!

Sorry for the bad quality, I forgot my actual camera at home. This is my phone's camera.

Today, I hopped on the back of Tan Jiemei's motorcycle and we basically drove around randomly in the territory, trying to find rental notices posted in windows and such. After about half an hour, we found an incredibly convenient place. It's literally three minutes' walk from the Hall, about fifteen from our school, it's clean (kinda), and most importantly, it has electricity! (I didn't know some houses came without electricity in 2013! You learn something every day...) Bad news: It has no furniture at all. But you know, at this point I don't mind. It's got a great location, the price is good- well within our budget- it's got reasonable amenities, and the inside doesn't look half bad either. The landlord cut us a break on rent, too- we explained that the three of us living in the house are ministers, trying to learn Chinese to help more people, and he seemed to really appreciate that sentiment. Tomorrow at 6, Tan Jiemei is coming with us to sign the papers and pay the deposit (NT$42,000- translates to about $1,300 USD, divided between three people. That's two months' rent; Taiwan is cheap!)

So, that's it! Tomorrow I move out. I'm going to miss Tan Jiemei, she has been incredibly hospitable and has really shown herself to be a loving sister. Also, the new place will not have Internet for... a while. I'm not sure how long it will take to get that hooked up. My phone can use public Wifi to get messages, emails etc, but I can't update the blog very efficiently from it, so this may be the last entry until we can get that squared away.

Until next time!

A Day in the Life

 Hi everyone! Taiwan is still awesome.

Taiwan might be awesome, but it also has very different customs, and a different set of things assumed to be true than America. Take work, for example. In Taiwan, it is assumed that what you do is an integral part of who you are. If you own a restaurant, you are a Restaurant Owner. You don't get weekends or nights off, because you own a restaurant, and what if people want to eat?! But conversely, when you're at your job (which is always), you don't have to take it too seriously. Yes, we know you want to eat, but my kid is sick today, okay? I need to go to the doctor with him, the shop is closed. Oh, I have a customer? Okay, well I'm watching TV right now, wait until commercial. Go have a soda while you wait, okay? Free. Not every place is this chill, but it's actually kind of... nice. You're less inclined to see people as Corporations and The Man, because obviously they're people too, and... actually, Korean sitcoms are pretty funny.

So, this was my day yesterday (Friday)! Got up in the morning to join the group for field service, at 9 am. We went to our territory:

Those two buildings were our territory. They look Matrix-y, don't they?

And preached for a few hours. People here are quite friendly, even if they don't want to talk to you they're still quite polite about it. I was able to get to know some of the friends a bit more, especially when we collectively decided it was time for a coffee break.

Yes, this place is called Cafe Macho, why?

That cafe had band advertisements all over the place inside, it was quite cool to see all of them. As it turns out, Franz Ferdinand is huge in Taiwan. Who knew?

As I sat there sipping my incredibly manly latte, I spotted this guy across the street:

Made In Taiwan!

So you know the Japanese car company Lexus? I'm told by the friends that this is a Luxis. You can only get them in Taiwan, they only make the one car, and apparently it's quite comfortable.

Later in the day, I went back to my home restaurant and met up with Harry. We really need to get an apartment, quickly. I got an email from my school asking me to hurry up with my ARC processing, so they can give me my scholarship stipend... I'm still waiting to hear back on the health check (I'm sure it'll be fine), but I also need a local bank account. Which means I need proof of residence- a rental contract. So we spoke with Sr. Tan, and she recommended a volunteer agency called Tsui Mama. Their job is to get foreigners like us houses here in Taipei.

Eventually we made it there, after getting lost a few more times, and they were quite helpful! They couldn't speak any English, of course... but despite that, I spoke with them and got our search narrowed down a bit. I left with three pages of potentially rentable apartments in my hand, with the small complication that it was all written in Traditional Chinese characters. Which I can't read yet. It's a start at least...

I also saw this guy!

I see you seeing me!

In Chinese they call him a Ying, which means Eagle, but Terry called him a Slothbird. So he's probably not really an eagle. He really is slow, too- he walks at about ten feet an hour! Apparently it's because he eats mostly fish, and moving so slowly on the ground keeps him from scaring away the fish.

After resting up a bit, we went to our meeting (it's on Friday night)- this was Harry's first meeting, so I got to introduce him to everyone. They thought he was my dad at first! All white people look the same...

So something interesting happened at meeting. Before I left California, Br. Derek Galvez gave me a gift to give to a sister in Taipei Nanqu. I didn't look inside, but it was a Starbucks bag marked "Sister Vivian". I had never met her before, but Derek said she was hard to miss, because she had cancer and was bald because of it. So when I arrived in Taipei, I brought the gift with me to the meeting, and asked around a bit for Sr. Vivian. No one knew who that was, so I explained she had cancer, and they pointed me to an older sister, who was very happy when I gave her the gift.

So it turns out that wasn't her. I know that because the real Sr. Vivian's mom, Sr. Chen, came up to me and asked me about the gift I was supposed to give to her daughter. I gave them a really awkward half-fluent explanation and apology, which they found hilarious, and started searching for the older sister. Happily, she hadn't eaten the gift (candy!), and gave it back to me when I explained (she also found it hilarious). I gave it back to the correct sister (I hope), and all was right in Taipei. :-)

Also, this is my ride:

Don't worry Mom, we're just posing; when we're actually riding we have helmets.

This is me on the back of Sr. Tan's scooter. Now that Harry's around, it's easier for the two of us to just walk to the meeting, but I needed to get a picture of me riding on that thing for old times' sake. Side note: I love the Taiwanese word for scooter/motorcycle. Tiema (tyeeh-mah); it means "iron horse". Awesome!

I also learned at the meeting that I am no longer the new guy in Taiwan. A couple from, of all places, Reno NV arrived three days ago to assist us in the field, and I got to meet them. Harry wasn't feeling well after the meeting (I think he's still tired from the travel), but the new couple, Terry and I went out on a brief gustatory tour of the night markets.

Xiaolongbao!

Xiaolongbao are little baozi (dumplings) with meat and soup inside. They're amazingly good, and super cheap- you can get six for 35NT (just about $1)!

Choudoufu!

Choudoufu is the legendary Stinky Tofu of Taiwan. And man, it is truly stinky. At first I thought it was a broken sewer line, but Terry calmly walked up to the cart and ordered some fried tofu! It smells worse than it looks, and it looks pretty bad, but it tastes really good actually. And our breath protected us from pickpockets!

And no night out would be complete without a group selfie (is it still called that if it's more than just you?):

Sadly, Terry had already left, but this is me, Cameron and Madison (I think! I'm really sorry if I got your name wrong! Why can I remember Chinese names but not English ones now?!)

We walked back to the MRT and parted ways at about 12:30 Saturday morning. That's what I call a successful day.

I still need to find an apartment (quickly), I still need to get my ARC, and my school starts Tuesday, but with friends like these and Jehovah's organization, it'll be a piece of cake.

Setting Up

(Has it only been four days?)

Ni hao everyone, greetings from suddenly chilly Taiwan! Seriously, when I first got here four days ago it was humid and hot, but today it was windy, cold and raining! Still beautiful, though- from Taipei, you can't quite see the ocean, but you can look at the clouds and how they suddenly change when they hit the sea. Looking at the sky today gave me a great feeling of depth, from the mountains to the water.

So where did I leave off? Right, service in Taiwan. So how it works is on Saturday, you meet at the hall, but on most other days we meet just at a street corner in the territory. The Territory Servant's job, among other things, is to predetermine what territories will be worked on any given day.

This is why we don't always meet at the hall.

So you figure out where everyone's going to be, and meet them there. Then you break off into small groups, and you each grab an area. They don't really have regular blocks here, mostly, but they do have lanes and alleys you can use to divide the territory. So you and your partner work house-over with another pair, but not like back home, because easily 90% of all houses are actually apartment buildings. Big ones. So you stand on the sidewalk and buzz people over the intercom, and when they answer, give your presentation. That might not sound all that effective, but actually a surprising amount of people allow us to leave them literature in their mailbox (which is legal and ok here in Taiwan). Occasionally, someone will buzz you in, so you get to ascend to their floor (side note: Taiwan doesn't believe in elevators) and read them a scripture or two.

It was a lot of fun! I was able to take a few doors, or buzzers, or whatever, by myself, and place literature! The friends are very patient and without exception really try to help you along.

Afterwards, some of us went out to a "Jamaican" place. Well, it says it's Jamaican at least... I'm actually not sure what it was, but it was pretty good food!

They didn't have coffee, either! :-(

The brother to my right, your left, is Sasha from Switzerland. The other one, to my left and your right, is Nikolai of Holland. Together with GianCarlo of Italy, Michelin of Haiti, Terry of England and Joshua of Whittier (really!), and now myself, we make up the Foreigner Squad.

And also this guy!

Look! That guy!

The following morning, I woke up crazy early to pick Harry Sparks up at the airport. He had been on a plane for about the same length of time I had, except he had a seven-hour layover in Honolulu, so he got to lay on the beach and nap for a while. Not that I'm jealous or anything.... ahem, anyway, to mix things up we decided to take the high-speed rail back into the city instead of a taxi. And seriously, it's impressive. I don't have any pictures sadly, but it runs at nearly 200mph, can hold about a thousand people, rides as smooth as anything you've felt, and costs... $5. $2.50 for Harry, because he got the senior discount. Yeah, it was a good decision.

I also was invited over to the missionary home for afternoon tea and to play ping pong.

Kent and Huey Huang, two of the missionaries

They invited several people over, not just me, and also two of their studies, which was great. We had a very upbuilding conversation, and then I got destroyed in ping pong. These guys take ping pong seriously.

After that, I was invited to go play soccer with some of the brothers. I know this may surprise you, but I've played soccer about once in my life. They invited me anyway though, so I tried to come. I say tried...

When I left the missionary home to play soccer, I needed to go from the hall (which is, as I mentioned before, lost in a maze of alleys) roughly northwest, to Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall. There's a public field next to it where the brothers were playing. I was feeling very confident as I boldly strode off into the night.

Two hours later, I admitted defeat. I had no idea where I was, I was a half hour late to the game, and my feet hurt. I had made my way to a major street, and figured if I just kept following it I was bound to run into some landmark, or a street I knew, or at least a subway stop. Nope, just more lights and people and Chinese signs. So guys, if you're reading this, I'm really sorry I couldn't make it. I tried, really I did. You'll have to wait until next week to find out how bad I really am at soccer. I eventually did find a subway station... far to the south of where I had started from, and the opposite direction of where I was trying to go!

I embarked on one more endeavor since last I updated: my quest to get my Alien Resident Card. Normally I wouldn't need one, except I have a scholarship, and they want me to get one before I can get my stipend. Okay, no problem; I filled out the application online, got some pictures taken, and went with Harry off to the Immigration Office.

Many long lines later, I walked away from the Immigration Office with no ARC, but a plan. You see, to get an ARC you need a residence visa. I applied for one back in San Francisco, but they game me a visitor visa and told me to get it changed here. In order to get it changed, you need to get a physical in Taiwan. To do that, you need to register with the healthcare system, and to do that, you need an ID number. So! ID #, then physical, then visa, then ARC.

The ID number was easy enough. Fill out a form, wait in another line, get assigned a number. It was even free! The physical was a bit more interesting. I went to Taipei City Hospital at just about 11 this morning. It was very convenient, right off the subway- but 11 is a bad time to arrive. Everyone in the hospital, apparently, has a two-hour lunch, from 11 to 1, so I had two hours to kill. I spent them eating some delicious fried dumplings and following the signs to something called Longshan Temple- there are pictures at the bottom of the post, it was actually really cool. 

I am very impressed with Taiwan's healthcare system. When I got back, I registered myself into the system, got my physical, got a chest x-ray, and got two separate blood samples taken for two separate tests. This entire process, start to finish, during a very busy time of day, took an hour and a half, and cost $40- and I'm not even covered by their system yet! If I had been, it would've been free. Sorry Obamacare, I think Taiwan has this round.

So that's it for now. I still need to work on my ARC, but more pressing is a permanent place to stay. Tan Jiemei tells me that in nine days, the brother who stays in my room will be arriving, so I need to have a place by then. I'm meeting the group for service tomorrow, though, so I can ask around if anyone has seen anything.

And here's Longshan Temple:

Front Gate

Detail on Gate

Tower

When I decided to go here, I didn't know it was still an active temple. This is people offering incense to their ancestors.

And food, too.

Waterfall outside the temple...

Leading to a pool full of koi. This area was quite peaceful and nice.

Until next time!

Arrival!

(Now with 100% more Taiwan!)

Hi everyone! I'm in Taiwan now! :-D!

It was a really, really, really long plane trip. Sixteen hours to start, SFO to Hong Kong, a five-hour layover, and another two hours HKG-Taipei. Of course, my plane left from SFO at 11 pm. I spent the day very well with my parents, mostly driving around the long way to San Francisco through Napa Valley. It was a really nice day, and after a tearful goodbye at the security checkpoint I headed off west.

The first leg of the trip, I managed to get about two hours's sleep. The problem with the plane I was on is it's designed for short people. The seat reclines far back, and it's quite nice actually, very comfortable- until the guy in front of you also wants to sleep. At that point it's best to have no legs. So, after two hours I was woken up by sudden sharp pain in my knees as they attempted to merge with my entertainment system, and that was that. I did get some reading done though.

Hong Kong Int'l was nice, just like I remember it from last year. Lots of people going lots of places, pretty good food, and an excellent Starbucks.

You can tell it's Hong Kong because of the characters.

But I was mainly very tired, so I spent the five hours blearily looking around and trying to figure out what time it was.

The second flight, despite being much shorter than the first, had much nicer seats. It passed quickly, and as time wore on I began to get excited. "Taiwan! I'm going to Taiwan! I'm about to land! In Taiwan!" As we were descending, I broke the rules and took this picture of my destination.

Click it to enlarge, I really like this picture. :-)

And then we landed! All my stuff got there in one piece, nothing broken. Immigration was easy enough, all I needed to do was show them my scholarship paperwork and I was brought through.

All of my worldly belongings...

The above picture might not look like I have much stuff, and truthfully I don't. But what I have is really heavy. My initial plan was to catch the bus into the city, figure out where I was, use that knowledge to make it to my hostel and crash. But as I hefted my (no joke) 160lbs of stuff and took a step into the warm humidity of Taiwan, I began to reconsider. I reconsidered even more when I did the math and figured out that a NT$1000 cab ride was only $30 in USD. So I wimped out and called a cab, and actually my cabby was very helpful, so I'm glad I did. He couldn't speak any English, but we talked as much as we could and he told me about the city, places to go, places to avoid after dark, food to try. He told me a little about the history of the place too.

I got to my hostel eventually. It looked really shady at first, I wish I'd gotten a picture of it. Imagine: You've been dropped off in a narrow alley, carrying your aforementioned 160lb burden. The buildings around you drip with humidity, forming pools of moss on the ground. There are three doors before you. On the right is a steel door, closed but with a grille you can see through- inside is something you think may be food, but you can't tell. On the left is a raised patio with a weathered pink door, with the word "Joy" on it. In the middle is a tiled hallway, stained with moisture, leading to a series of steep steps in disrepair. One is your hostel, and you don't know which.

As it turns out, the middle one was, and it led to this door:

I couldn't take pictures inside because it was actually the manager's house, where his family lives.

And it was actually pretty nice! The manager, Tom, was friendly, the bed was comfortable (but after almost 40 hours awake, anything would be), and my room had a door that locked.

I took a brief two-hour nap, which was killer to wake up from, in order to get dressed for meeting. My hostel had wifi, so I used Tim and Nola's phone (thank guys, you're lifesavers!) to figure out how to get to the Kingdom Hall.

On the way to the Hall that night. 

Unfortunately, and of course, I got lost. The Kingdom Hall is in a maze of small alleys and lanes, and the friends know it's easy to miss. Happily, I stumbled across some missionaries coming back from a long day (their home is built on top of the hall) and was able to meet them and follow them back.

Taipei South!

 It's a really cool congregation. About 140 people, about fifteen foreigners like myself attending, and 68 pioneers. I wasn't very coherent that first meeting, but I got to meet many people and make plans to go out with the group the next day.

The Hall in daylight

Service today was great, and very different. I'll explain more in another update, but I learned a lot and managed to place three tracts. (In Taiwan! I can't believe I'm actually here!) I made friends with an Italian brother, GianCarlo, who took me out to lunch and coffee afterwards (Italian coffee is dangerous, man!), then introduced me to Sister Tan. Tan Jiemei can't speak a word of English, but she has a restaurant with three rooms above it that she rents out, usually to Japanese brothers staying for a couple months. Right now one of them is free, and she invited me to stay with her.

My new digs!

It was very generous of her! So I made the long trek back to my hostel, once again lifted my stuff (note to self: own fewer things), and moved in. I can't stay here forever, at the beginning of next month she has a Japanese brother she's already promised the room to, but this gives me some time to find an actual apartment somewhere.

So that's it for now! I didn't die, I'm really enjoying Taiwan, and this is going great!

Packing and Parties

(Such a strange time...)

Many things to do, these last few days. Everything major has been taken care of, for the most part. I still don't have anywhere to actually live yet, but besides that. Mostly, my time has been spent wrapping up small loose ends, being parted with and packing.

Packing! My room is a mess. Note the sleeping cat, Dave.

For a while I was worried about packing. Even flying Cathay Pacific, I only get to bring two bags aboard, which doesn't sound like all that much. Happily, I discovered that I really don't own many things. I mean, suits, check. Jeans, check. Giant five-pound Pinyin Chinese Bible, check... and not much else! Everything else I need I'll get when I'm there, and that leaves me with quite a bit of space in my bags. So I'm bringing extra things, like board games and cheese, and gifts for the friends there too. (What? I'm told good cheese is hard to get in Taiwan. Don't look at me like that, you like cheese too.)

Besides that, I've spent quite a bit of time and energy being parted with. Just this morning we had close to 70 people over for a farewell brunch. Delicious!

My mom, Sis. Lauredeh Holloway, and easily distracted me at the brunch.

 It was a lot of fun, and I'm very grateful so many people could come. Really, thank you. It was very touching that so many people came to wish me a safe and productive trip. We had several congregation come, too- my family, from their various halls, most of Del Paso Heights (English) came, and we had a delegation from Chinese too!

Chinese!

I still have more things to do, but it seems like this is the home stretch. A few more things to pack, a few more boxes to store, a few more errands to run, and a plane to catch. Hopefully my mom will stop crying soon after. (Love you, mom!)

Next update, Taiwan! (Xià gēngxīn, Táiwān!) (下更新， 台湾!)