Visit 探訪

(A guest arrives!)

This week, most of our activity has been dominated by one person, a slight girl known to some as... Kayla Moore. Mason's sister came to Taiwan to visit her brother! And she picked a good time to do it, too- today, actually is Chinese New Year, so for the last few days and for the next few days everyone is on vacation! Hooray, school's out! So we've had lots of time to do touristy things with her and help her get a feel for Taiwan and Chinese. Mason's not-so-secret motive for all of this is to get her to join Chinese, and hopefully someday move to Taiwan...

We started the week by doing early service in Daan Park.

Anyone for some morning Tai-Chi? And yes, I asked before I took this picture.

Daan Park is always pleasant, and it's very nice spending the first couple hours of a day walking around with a friend or two talking to people about creation. Unfortunately, Kayla can't speak a word of Chinese, so she was a bit confused walking around with Mason all morning, but it was still a nice morning.

Afterwards, we went into the National Taiwan University's campus:

The resemblance is uncanny!

Normally we aren't allowed onto the campus to preach, but because school is out no one cared. We actually ran into someone quite interesting- while walking around the campus, we saw a bagel shop. That's unusual, because I haven't seen a bagel since arriving in Taiwan, so naturally we went to buy some bagels and coffee. The shop is owned by a sister! She's a Taiwanese sister who moved to Alameda, CA about twenty years ago, but when her mother became sick three years ago had to move back to Taiwan. She wanted to not have to get a regular 9-to-5 job, so she thought: Bagels are delicious. Americans like to eat bagels. Taipei has no bagels, but has Americans. So she opened a bagel shop, and is doing well! She gave us free coffee and bagels for visiting her, and I now have a favorite spot to do homework if, for whatever reason, I can't do it at home.

The next day, we decided to ascend to the top of Taipei 101. I've seen it many times since arriving- you can see it from almost anywhere in the city- and I've been inside it a few times, but I had never actually gone to the top. It was a bit expensive, but check out these views:

Looking East, towards the mountains

Kayla is overcome!... or something

Looking West, towards most of the City

Mason and Kayla in a window

Panorama from the 91st floor after sunset, West and North

So Taipei 101 is huge, obviously, and Taipei City is in not only an area prone to typhoons, but is also in an active fault zone, so often has earthquakes. Those two factors are why most of Taipei is shorter than 20 stories tall. In order to keep the skyscraper safe, comfortable, and vertical, it has inside of it a huge motion damper, 600 tons of steel mounted on massive hydraulics and hanging from the roof, designed to absorb the wobbling of the building. Being Taiwanese, naturally they anthropomorphized it!

Hanging out with the Damper, and the Damper Baby

According to the stats inside the damper room, it reduces the wobbling by 40%. They have a video of it working during a typhoon, and it looks like it was a really good idea to have! At the top of the tower, they also had a small display of art, such as this eagle:

Cool, right? Every single feather is carved out of a different piece of coral, then fitted together

And now for something completely different...

This last weekend, we were invited by our congregation's hosted group, the Daan Group, to go on a picnic with them. We actually drove cars to a place about 90 minutes outside of Taipei, near a town called Pingxi. There were about 20 people invited, and it was a really refreshing change from being inside the city so much.

We're not in Taipei anymore...

All the people, all the friends. :-)

It was a cool setup- we each paid the equivalent of $10, and not only got to rent an area to hang out and cook but also were provided with a bunch of meat, vegetables, fruit, beer, rice, soda, everything needed to have a nice time. They also had a karaoke machine, but we didn't have enough Japanese friends with us to use it.

Brother Qi, his two sons and Ryota cooking with gas!... actually, with coal.

After we ate a lot, we played with the kids, playing a game similar to dodgeball that I'm pretty sure we just made up, and later hide-and-seek, which they are much better at than I am. (How can those tiny legs run so fast?!)

Group shot!

 On another day, we also decided to go through the Zoo up to Maokong, that same place I went with Harry a few weeks ago.

Random penguins!

In order to get to Maokong, you need to either hike or take the gondola... so we took the gondola, because it's like five miles away.

Also, because gondolas are awesome.

Even if Kayla was a little freaked out by it...

Because we're masochistic, mostly what we talked about was the worst places to fall off the cable. We decided "five feet from Maokong Station" was the worst, if only for the irony.

So last time I was in Maokong, I showed pictures of Taipei from up there; here's some pictures of Maokong itself! We took a bit of a hike around, and here's what we saw:

Rice terraces...

Scary looking rope bridges...

And tea plantations!

Ah yes, one last thing: While we were near Pingxi, we decided to go into the town itself. Pingxi is the site of the Paper Lantern Festival, which happens once every year a few weeks after Chinese New Year. The idea is you write your wishes for the next year onto the lantern, then release it into the sky. It's not for a little while yet, but there were still a few people launching their lanterns and wishes:

Unfortunately, it has a lot to do with Taoism, so we're not going to do it ourselves (the same reason we don't hand out red envelopes or do the Dragon Dance). It's still a cool thing to see. Also, the lanterns are big; I had imagined hand lantern-sized lanterns, but you could easily fit into these things! 

We still have about five days of vacation left. I return to school on the 5th of February, and Kayla takes off for home on the morning of the 4th, so we can still do some fun stuff. We're inviting a bunch of people over to our house on Sunday night, so that will be fun!

I'll tell you how it went next time...

Activity 活動

(Hot or cold...)

Hi guys!

This last week has been very nice. For most of the week, I've been very focused on school and the ministry- nothing too extraordinary, but very important. In school we've been focusing on passive-tense grammar, how to use it, when and how to interpret it ("Someone broke my window!" is active; "My window was broken!" is passive.) We also spent a great deal of time on fruit, of all things; so now I know how to say "Durian fruit" in Chinese. (榴蓮 Liu2lian2 "liyew-lieyan", if you're wondering.)

The ministry has, as usual, been great. We still usually place four or five sets of magazines in a two-hour block in the door to door work, and I may have started a bible study! As we were just finishing up one day, a man approached me and asked me if I was a minister (actually, he asked if I was a priest). I explained who we were and what we were doing, and gave him a set of magazines to read. He looked interested, so I showed him a few articles... to make the story shorter, I gave him a bible and invitation, and he said he'd definitely attend meeting on Friday! I'm keeping my eyes open :-)

The territory one sunny day

But we did have a few cool things happen. We all went up to Danshui again, which is always good fun. There is a Swiss sister named Corinne visiting Taiwan for two months who wanted to go see the sunset, so we got the group together and off we went! Unfortunately, my school didn't let out until 5, so I missed the sunset, but I got there as quickly as I could and we still had fun.

Not my picture- I was still on the train- Chihiro and the sunset

First, we went to the market and wandered around for a while, looking at knickknacks and eating food. We also picked up some custom bible covers for several friends who wanted them.

Brandy likes squid!

And that was okay.... the real fun was when we found a store that sold fireworks. We didn't go crazy or anything...

Mostly...

We just bought some sparklers. And thus began the climactic battle between good and evil on the docks of Danshui!

But who...

...is who?

We probably shouldn't be allowed near these things.

It was great! Sparklers are fun! And it's fun being kind of stupid with them!

Feel the power! 

Ahem, anyway...

The other cool thing that happened was we all went to the zoo! I mentioned earlier that one of our sisters, Irinka, will be leaving Taiwan soon to serve abroad, and one thing she wanted to do before she leaves is go see the baby panda in Taipei's Zoo. It's a big deal, because she just became old enough for the zookeepers to let people see her.

On the way to the zoo.

Unfortunately, we forgot to do the math. If pandas are cute, and babies are cute, then baby pandas reach a cuteness singularity that pulls every Taiwanese person within range into a giant squealing crowd. So although we still had a good time, we didn't get to see the baby panda.

This was the closest I got to a panda.

The Taipei zoo is huge! It's comparable to the San Diego zoo back in California, although with a definite bias towards Asian animals. We couldn't see the whole place today, but we did get to see their section just for "native Formosan animals". Here's some pictures:

Formosan Flamingos

White Jaguar

This guy was awesome. We couldn't find him in his enclosure at first. We looked for a couple minutes, and right as we were giving up we saw him watching us, camouflaged! As soon as he saw that we saw him he came out and started playing with some leaves.

Here we have a unique opportunity to observe the Formosan Foreigner.

And here is the Formosan Black Bear, also known as the Derp Bear.

"Well... hello there."

Monkeys! (Actually, Macaques. I have no idea what the difference is.)

The sister in the blue is Irinka, who will shortly be leaving us...

Did you know that when camels run, their humps wiggle? It's hilarious!

 We got kicked out of the zoo when it closed for the night- I guess zookeepers deserve to have lives too- so went back to Irinka's house to hang out for a while longer.

Buying dinner

And capping the night off well.

So, yeah! Nothing too earth-shattering, but a very good week nonetheless. Mason's sister Kayla will be arriving soon- actually, within a couple hours! Kayla is only planning on staying in Taiwan two weeks, to get a feel for the territory while she contemplates joining Chinese (we're going to make sure she does), and she's picked a good time to come- Chinese New Year is in just about a week and a half, which also means I get time off school! :-D

So, when is the last time you saw a panda?

22 二十二歲

 (A very eventful year!)

So, have you ever done that thing, where you imagine someone takes a picture of you right now (and, if necessary, explains it), and sent it backwards in time to past-you? How far back would you have to send it to make past-you actually believe it? Yesterday, as Mason and I were joined by our dear friends Adam and Drew, visiting from New York Bethel, at the foot of Taipei 101, I figured... about three months. If Adam and Drew weren't there, probably about... five months. Any further and there's just no way I would believe it.

Anyway. One of the first things I did this week was convince Harry to come up with me to Maokong, a mountain on the eastern edge of Taipei. I had heard for a while that it's a really nice place to visit, with teahouses, fresh mountain air, and a beautiful view of Taipei. Also, you can only reach it by gondola, which is awesome.

Inside the Hello Kitty-themed gondola, on the way back

I would have gotten more shots from inside the gondola, but... well, it's a gondola and won't stop moving and swaying around, so my pictures are terrible. But they weren't kidding when they said the view of Taipei was great. We arrived a little before sunset, and got to walk around and see a bit of the mountainside before going into a tea shop and hanging out for a while.

Taipei before...

...and after.

It wasn't heart-pumping action or anything, but it was very pleasant to hang out with Harry for a little while and kick back.

Service has still been great. I've got a few return visits now, enough that I actually need to start scheduling them. We've also been enjoying working with our American friends serving in another land- for hearing their stories, Taiwan is quite a contrast to what they're used to. They've also been very helpful to our friend Irinka, who is considering moving abroad soon.

The Art of Beer Contemplation, by Irinka

Speaking of Irinka, she also seems to be Mason's best hope of a job right now. She's gotten him into an English buxiban (cram school) as a substitute/tutor... or at least, she's gotten him into an audition to become one. He had his first trial yesterday and his second one on Friday, and we're both quite hopeful! If he can't find a job soon, he may have to go back home, which would be really depressing. 

Later, we were once again invited to Terry's family study. It was encouraging to be a part of it, although the material was slightly awkward... we were considering the Young People Ask book, specifically about money, and one of the biggest points was "am I ready to move out on my own?". Well... I sure hope so!! :-)

With Terry, buying brain food for the study

Terry is a cool guy. Recently, we were riding a bus together, and as we got off the bus driver shouted "Thanks Brother Miller!" It says a lot about him that everyone in this city knows who he is and what he does.

At the actual study. Despite Mason's protests, here he is again, playing guitar for the sisters...

And yesterday was a great day. Adam and Drew came to visit!! Well, actually they went to Myanmar for the international convention and just had a twelve-hour layover in Taipei, but that's good enough for my purposes! We're good friends from our time in Bethel together, and Adam in particular is one of my dearest friends in the world, so I was very happy to see them. I haven't seen them since I left Bethel about a year and a half ago.

Yep, still about the same.

This is the nicest smile I've ever seen on Drew! He must be really happy! :-)

So actually, the plan was that Mason would get them at the airport and take them to Taipei Main Station, where I would meet them and we would go do things for a while until we had to take them back. Their plane landed at 4:30 and my school doesn't get out until 5, so it just worked out better that way.

So after school, I called Mason up, expecting him to already have Adam and Drew and be on his way back. It turns out that he went to the wrong airport, and had no idea where the correct one was or how to get there from where he was. (We have two- Songshan is much more convenient and cheaper, but is smaller so only serves close countries like Japan, Taoyuan is the big one we both flew into.) So I got on the bullet train and arrived in Taoyuan at about 7, barely catching them before they gave up waiting and went back across customs to eat, and after many hugs and greetings took them to Taipei 101 to hang out and- finally- eat. 

It was great hearing about Myanmar. They announced this convention last year, and some brothers up in the hills actually took most of that time to travel to the convention. What they did was worked their fields back home, saved up enough money to buy another field about a day's walk closer to Yangon, bought it and worked it until they had enough saved up for another field a day's journey closer... and in that way leapfrogged their way to the capital city for the convention. Of course, once they arrived they had no way to afford a hotel or any kind of food, so the brothers allowed a tent city in a nearby parking lot for the Convention. Apparently, since the convention was announced last year the number of publishers has literally doubled, from 4700 to almost 9000!

Outside of Taipei 101

We showed them around the city for a while, eventually wound up back at our apartment, and talked for a couple hours until we had to regretfully get them into a cab and back to the airport. (Actually, I gave the cabby his money and directions up front, for all I know he could have turned a corner, dropped them off and kept the money... hopefully that didn't happen.)

This time last year, I had gotten back from Bethel and was looking forwards to learning Chinese in the field. This year, I'm still looking forwards to learning Chinese in the field, but the field is very different, and the horizon has changed.

So, please tell me, what's on your horizon, and what are your plans for the future?