Mom's Visit 我媽媽探訪我了

(:-D)

This has been the longest pause between updates since I started this blog, but I have a good reason, I swear- my mom came to visit me!

Hi mom!

She arrived in Taipei on the 17th of May at around 9:30 pm. I wanted to be at the airport waiting for her when she arrived, and after an interminable bus ride arrived just in time to see her walking out of customs. We hugged, I grabbed some of her stuff and hailed a cab back to the city- unfortunately, I didn't have quite enough money! Already, the trip was going well. Happily, the cab driver was very kind to us and dropped us off close to home in exchange for just whatever was in my wallet (I was only like US$5 short).

She was very excited to be in Taiwan, although very tired- she said she couldn't sleep at all during the whole plane ride! So after we walked back to my apartment and I showed her her room (Harry's old room, now that he's moved out), she almost immediately went to sleep- although not before giving me some presents! Thank you, everyone who sent me things- I really appreciate your thoughtful gifts and encouragement. (And the truffles are delicious!)

The next morning, there was no sleeping in, sadly, for it was Sunday, and that means 9:30 meeting. We went down and got some very Chinese breakfast (pork fried noodles with a sunny-side-up egg on top, coated in black pepper sauce), then went to meeting! Although Mom couldn't understand any of it, the friends were very warm and loving towards her (as always), and we were invited to lunch afterwards.

Mom wasn't as good with chopsticks as she thought- Judy is helping her out

But the day was not done! After lunch, we went back to the house, packed a backpack and went to join a group of people heading to Wulai! I've mentioned Wulai before- it's a little Aboriginal village about an hour south of Taipei, in the mountains, with some nice free hot springs and a beautiful river.

Yep, Wulai is still gorgeous.

So besides the awesomeness of soaking in a boiling hot springs, then jumping in a very cold river, and repeating until totally relaxed, and interesting thing happened...

Although Wulai is a bit touristy, it is very much a local tourist place, a place for the people of Taipei to get a break from the city, but not really anything you'll find listed on travel boards or anything. So, we eight were the only Westerners in the whole village. Eventually, one Taiwanese guy worked up the courage to come over and start talking to us in his actually pretty impressive English, asking us the usual- where are we from, why are we here, etc. As it happened, our group was made up of four Americans, two English, one Dutch and one Danish person, and the Taiwanese guy (named Zhen En 真恩) thought it was very cool that so many nationalities were all hanging out together. He seemed like a nice guy, so I decided to preach to him a bit by explaining that although we have different backgrounds, we all have the same reason for coming to Taiwan- namely, to help people understand the Bible.

My mom took this picture like a ninja.

I gave him our tract on the Future- I always carry some tracts in my backpack- and he decided to follow us around the rest of the day. He couldn't swim, so whenever we jumped in the river he just kind of waited, but while in the hot springs we chatted a bit- a little travel, a little religion, a little hiking, a little prophecy. It was funny actually, earlier he had mentioned that he had some Russian friends who were nominally Christian, but he felt they were bad Christians because they "put Putin ahead of Christ"! I mentioned the hypocrisy in most religions and we went on... I did not know those same Russian friends were actually in Wulai with us! As we were leaving the hot springs to get something to eat in town, they called out to him in Chinese "Will we see you at church next week?", to which he responded "Oh, I'm one of Jehovah's Witnesses now!"

...Great! 

I got his information and gave him a copy of all the tracts I had, but he lives outside of the range of Taipei's metro, so I can't visit him unless I borrow someone's scooter... which probably isn't going to happen. Still, I gave him our web site, and if he's serious about wanting to become one of Jehovah's Witnesses, Jehovah will certainly bless his efforts!

Also, we got food. It's like... wheat jelly, coated in seaweed and spices, and is way better than it sounds.

The next day, we kept the momentum going and went to the National Palace Museum, which was as impressive and crowded as it always is. Unfortunately, no pictures are allowed inside, and my mom is a better person than I am because she took that rule seriously, not letting me sneak even one picture. Still, it was a nice time, and the people inside were happy to see two Americans appreciating Chinese history. You know, we aren't taught anything about China in school...

That night, we came across this guy!

This could be an ad for Taiwan.

Well, first we came across Terry and Joe coming home from a study, then Terry wanted us to check if James (that guy^) was home, which he was. James is a very old call of Terry's, he never really goes anywhere but he's always happy to accept and discuss our information. Also, he has a beautiful garden full of handmade art made up of trash... he collects old things, like plastic bottles and cans and CDs and stuff and makes art out of them, then plants flowers inside the art and puts them on display. While talking to us, he became overwhelmed with emotion and gave my mom a really nice plant in an artistic plastic water bottle... that she couldn't take home with her, so now it's mine. :-)

Afterwards, we went to Matsusei, bought beer and sat outside drinking... as you do.

It's legal in Taiwan!

We got busted up around 1 am though... one of the neighbors thought we were talking too loudly and called the cops on us, who very politely asked us to take it to a park or something. Rather than do that, we just went home.

The next day, we went on a rip to a town called Jiaoxi, on the east coast of Taiwan. My mom had heard that in Taiwan, there is a kind of fish the will eat the dead skin off your feet and make them all clean, so she wanted to do that while she was here. Terry recommended Jiaoxi, and Terry knows everything, so Jiaoxi it was! We took a bus to the town, which took about an hour and a half, and it dropped us off at a random street in the middle of town. After wandering around for a while, asking directions a few times, and trying unsuccessfully to use a McDonald's wifi (turns out you need to buy an account to use it in Taiwan), we eventually found the spa with the "doctor fish".

Kinda disgusting, kinda cool.

They don't have teeth so they can't actually bite you, although I'm sure they would if they could... they just kind of scrape your feet and legs clean. It's a really weird feeling, but afterwards your feet do feel cleaner... even a bit lighter! Unfortunately because the bus just dropped us off randomly (not at a stop or anything), we didn't know where to go to ride the bus back, so we took the train home, which was not only twice as expensive but also took twice as long. We did get some nice views of the ocean though.

We were hoping to go to Hualien, the biggest city on the East Coast, and see the famous Taroko Gorge National Park, but last Tuesday there was a fairly major earthquake in Hualien County (big enough that it shook me awake in Taipei), and combined with the constant heavy rain large portions of the park had suffered mudslides and were closed to the public.

So instead, we did something completely different... we went to Gaoxiong!

Gaoxiong 高雄 is Taiwan's second-biggest city, in the far south of the island, solidly in the tropics. We took the Taiwan High-Speed Rail to get there; despite being on the other side of the island, we got there in under two hours. Not bad!

We didn't really know what to do in Gaoxiong. Before we left we looked online and picked out a couple likely places to visit, like the Lotus Lake and the Dragon Tiger Pagodas, so we grabbed a couple maps and walked over to the bus station... where we quickly ran into this dapper gent!

The one in the suit, not me.

That's Jimmy Johnson. Not only does he have one of the best English names I've ever heard a Taiwanese person give themselves, he was incredibly friendly and happy to meet two foreign Witnesses- Gaoxiong doesn't have as many as Taipei! He recommended we go to a place called Xiziwan 西子灣 instead, so we did!

And his two lovely assistants!

They gave us young mangoes! Sour and delicious! It's worth noting here: Gaoxiong is hot. Although it wasn't as humid as it usually is in Taipei, the tropical sun beat down on us hard- it was at least 95 degrees in the shade, and yet here these three Witnesses are, wearing a vest and black tights. I guess it really is whatever you're used to...

We took Gaoxiong's subway to the Xiziwan station, as far south and west as it goes, then walked for about another fifteen minutes out to the harbor.

The weather reminded me of summertime in San Francisco, actually.

We wandered some more... we were pretty sure this was the right place, but despite Jimmy's recommendation we were unable to find anything to do. We did, however, find a ferry to a small nearby island, so... why not? We got on.

I got this nice shot of Gaoxiong's skyline, too!

The island, it turns out, is called Qijin 旗津, which means something like "Sweaty Flag". Not all Chinese placenames are pretty...

Although its name is a bit nasty, the island itself was really nice. It had a few shops selling food and drinks, a few stalls with roasted seafood (we got an oyster baozi- delicious!), and a 7-Eleven, of course... and then this:

Ahh yeah. Black sand beach.

We weren't expecting to go swimming, so we hadn't brought swimsuits or anything, but we still wanted to go walk around and enjoy the beach, of course.

At least my ankles will get wet!

The water was warm, the sun was hot, the people were nice, there were coconuts and spiral shells washing up on the beach... I really like Qijin. I'm totally getting a group together and going back this summer.

Another shot of the beach

After chilling on the beach for a while, we went to Ruifeng Night Market, one of Gaoxiong's more famous markets. It was fun, but mostly the same as the markets Taipei has- a little different food, and more games than I'm used to seeing. Delicious xiaolongbao, though! Afterwards, we got a train back home to Taipei and got in just before midnight.

Friday was actually a little irritating- in the morning, right as we were getting ready to make some tea to wake up, the power cut out. It turns out that we... er, forgot to pay our bill, so they shut us off... anyway, we spent the first part of the day walking down to the Taipower Company's office and negotiating to get our power turned back on. Not the best way to spend a vacation, but Mom had a sense of humor about it. Friday night is of course our meeting, and Mom actually managed to comment! In Chinese! :-D

Saturday, we went out in early morning service in Daan Park. Besides being a really nice way to start the day- the Park is beautiful- if you do it right you can have really good conversations with people.

What we ended up doing is spotting a group of people practicing their Tai Chi Fan martial arts, and asking them if we couldn't record them a bit. They seemed embarrassed and flattered, and although they said they weren't very good they let us sit down and record them going through their kata.

Feel the energy!

It was very kind of them to let us do that! Afterwards, we got talking, and as usual our reason for coming to Taiwan came up- because we teach people the Bible. They really were busy practicing their art, so we only talked for twenty minutes or so, but my mom gave the woman in that picture some literature and an invitation.

We went in the door-to-door ministry for a couple more hours (Mom thought it was very interesting, although she couldn't talk at all), then went back to the house to rest up a bit.

At around 3, we left to go check out the Flower Market, and Mom ended up buying some beautiful fans as presents to take back home, then we rushed off to meet my student Alex and his parents, Lillian and Steve, for dinner! They invited us to a really traditional Taiwanese (not Chinese) restaurant- duck noodles, beef meatball stew, broccoli with a weird orange sauce- my favorite was the pineapple shrimp! It was a huge amount of food, and they very generously picked up the tab for us.

Alex looks like a Power Ranger!

Sunday was another meeting- more happy smiling faces. Afterwards eight of us went out to Saizeriya for lunch, and we sat Asian style- all the brother together at one table, all the sisters at another. It gave me a good opportunity to sit with Kuanzheng, one of the young studies in our hall, and see how he was doing, which was cool. It also gave my mom a chance to meet some of the sisters while they were all relaxed- it seems that they really a bit tense around brothers, for whatever reason!

That evening, we went to the Tonghua Night Market, at Terry's suggestion, for a nice massage. I've typically been a bit suspicious of getting a massage here- I am a young, single Western male after all, could be a bit dangerous- but with my mom around I figured it was pretty safe. Not only was it safe, it was painful and relaxing, and they gave us a couple coupons for next time. Definitely going back!

Afterwards, we ate some grilled squid!

And then Monday came, which was my mom's last day in Taiwan. Because it was such a beautiful day- amazingly, it had finally stopped raining- we decided to go to the zoo, and because it was a weekday we actually got to see the pandas this time!

Panda!

All good things must come to an end, sadly. After a nice day at the zoo, we headed back to the apartment, got a last bubble milk tea in Shida Night Market (it was open despite being only 4 pm), packed Mom up and got in a taxi to the airport. The time passed quickly because it was so much fun! I really enjoyed my mom's visit, and I know she did too. (Besides, she bought so many gifts and stuff she had to buy a second bag to take on the plane home!)

Since she left, I've been busy. The TOCFL re-test is tomorrow, so I've been working on that, trying to fill my brain with the Chinese that may have spilled out over the last month or so. I took the practice test online and got a 90% on it, so I'm reasonably confident I'll do OK, but that's no reason to slack off! I'll tell you how it went...

Free Time 空

(School's out, man!)

Six months have gone by! That's crazy!

Okay, so several important things happened, and since many people have been asking me I'll talk about these first. First, my Chinese class is over, which is crazy to me- it's been pretty much a constant since I've gotten here, I've scheduled my service and free time around having class and homework every day, and now it's done. It's a great feeling- I can finally do things like spend all day in service, or take day trips places, without having to be back before 2 for class! I really enjoyed my Chinese class, but I'm glad for the break.

Last Tuesday was our Final, a two-hour test to see how much Chinese actually stuck to us. The hardest part was the final question- it was an essay question asking me to describe my home country's (I just picked California, because America is too big) natural resources, agricultural crops and major exports. I know these things, but explaining them in Chinese is... difficult, to say the least. I felt bad for our Vietnamese classmate, though- she honestly did not know what Vietnam's resources or exports were! Still, the test was really about our Chinese, not our economic knowledge, so she did fine. I found out yesterday I got 91% on it- 耶! :-)

But possibly more importantly, I've been doing some work on the TOCFL situation I explained last blog post. I got in touch with the San Francisco office, and the bottom line is this: Considering the circumstances, they don't want the money back. BUT, I am prohibited from obtaining any other Taiwanese scholarship until I get this test taken. Could be better, could be a lot worse. However, good news! I got an email on Monday from the Ministry of Education- enough students failed the test that there will be a make-up exam on the 30th of this month! Yes!!! It's unfortunate that there's a month-long gap between my classes and the test, but at least I'll be able to take it (and hopefully pass)! I made sure I signed up this time.

So, with that good news out of the way, let's talk about other stuff! Since I've had so much time, I've gone out in the ministry quite a bit more than usual, getting a couple 8+hour days out (which have been awesome). 

The group one night taking a break

Although I don't have any of my own yet, I've conducted a couple Bible studies, started a couple return visits, had many really nice conversations with people (including a two-hour long philosophical debate with two Irish guys in a park one night)- having my classes take up so much time for six months was irritating, but I'm glad I did it. I can see the improvement in my ministry now!

One day, we all wore blue!

This last Saturday, we got about twenty people together and all went to play hide-and-go-seek in a park. That might sound ridiculous, but it was really fun- playing hide-and-seek as an adult is great, because (at least for me) you're a lot more agile, and of course bigger, than you were as a kid, so you can have more creative hiding spots- like jumping over a concrete wall to hide on a bridge support, for example! I did eventually get found, but I was second to last, so that's almost winning... right? Michelle, a sister from Reno, had the best hiding spot though:

Are... are you okay?

She said she was trying to move when she heard someone behind her, so she just collapsed near these reeds hoping no one would see her. It almost worked!

Group photo!

I also went somewhere this last week! Earlier, I mentioned day trips- Harry and I took yesterday off and went to Keelung City (基隆市), mostly because it's only an hour train ride away and we had no idea what was there. This is Harry's last week in Taiwan, you know- he leaves on Friday to head back to the States. I'll be sad to see him go, but he plans on returning to Taiwan before the year is out. If I'm still here at that time, I hope to see him again!

So anyway, we got up early and headed over to Taipei Main Station, over to their slow train terminal. They have a bullet train here in Taiwan, but it sadly does not go to Keelung. No worries, it was a short trip anyway.

Platform 4 of Taipei Main Station

After an hour-long ride through what seemed to be solid suburbs, we arrived in Keelung. Keelung is a port city, the biggest and busiest in all Taiwan. It was established in the late 1800s by the Qing Dynasty when the Port of Taipei began silting up too badly- instead of spending more and more money trying to keep Taipei's port clear, they just built a better one nearby and connected it with the only railway they ever built in Taiwan (three years after Keelung was founded, the Japanese took control of the island).

Pier right outside of Keelung Railway Station

It's like Hollywood!

I had done some research on Keelung before we came, so I had a couple places in mind to go to. First, we were off to a place called Fairy Cave, a natural cove formation made by the tides coming in and out over the years. We took a bus over to it- it was quite a long way away, and actually we missed our stop! The bus driver wanted us to get out at the final stop, but when I explained what we were doing and where we wanted to go, he decided to use some of his break time to take us right to the cave anyway. Thanks, random bus driver!

The cave is located behind these buildings.

It was a beautiful cave. The ceiling was low, and Harry and I were forced to duck many times. Water dripped from the ceiling and off the electric lights scattered inside. Many people had carved into the rock- I couldn't read all of it of course, but I near one name I saw was the date 1912. As we went further in ,the cave began to narrow...

Suck it in!

Despite being quite narrow, this portion of the cave went on for a while.

Looking back at Harry

At a certain point, the cave got very small. I was forced to get down on my knees to get through, and Harry waited behind for me. My shoulders scraped the rock on either side, and I had to carry my backpack in front of me! But after a few dozen feet of that, the cave widened again, and on the other side was this:

A simple altar, hidden by fragrant incense smoke 

Some very devout person went through a lot of effort to build that there.

We exited the Fairy Cave, walked about thirty feet to the right and entered a different cave: the Buddha Hand Cave, named for a natural formation that looks like a man's hand inside. On the way, there was a isgn pointing to a bathroom:

Ahh, nature!

Yep, no walls. Who needs privacy anyway?

The proper entrance to the cave was up some disused steps, covered in moss and crisscrossed with spiderwebs. I gather not many people come to these caves!

Going down...

This cave was much bigger than the other. It was still dripping wet inside, the walls stained by layers of lichen and mineral deposits. It was a honeycomb of small passageways and arches inside, with some portions probably twenty feet tall and others four or five.

Harry, wearing his spelunking hat (the fake hair provides cushion if he hits his head)

Because this one was so much bigger, we wandered around looking at the awesome caveiness of it for a good half hour before coming across the main attraction entirely by accident:

There it is! It looks better in person... but that's a hand!

The cave was cooler than the hand design in the roof, but it was cool to think of what processes must have carved that there.

We emerged a different way than we came in to be greeted by the back streets of a small village:

Like Taipei, but tiny!

Not many people were around. There was one person selling ice cream near the bus stop, a few cats... not much else. The village didn't feel creepy though, just old.

After these caves, we decided to head over to Peace Island Park (和平島公園) and check out the views of the ocean it offered. It was on our way there that we encountered... Nowhere Man.

So we boarded a bus when it came, and a few stops later an old Taiwanese man got on. I yielded my seat to him, and he smiled at me and sat down. A few minutes later, I looked over at him and he was still staring at me and Harry, smiling madly. That's a little odd, but not entirely unusual- we're out of Taipei, after all, and we're two very tall foreigners. It's only natural for us to get some stares. I try to talk to the guy, but to my surprise he can't speak Chinese- only Taiwanese. I know about ten words of Taiwanese, not nearly enough to do anything useful, so after it became apparent we couldn't communicate I just smiled at him again and looked away.

He didn't stop trying, though. He used gestures and very, very basic Chinese (like, one word repeated over and over basic) to try to figure out if Harry was my dad and what we were doing. He was very focused on Harry! To be honest, I got kind of tired of him- I wanted to look at the scenery, and anyway he had horrifyingly bad teeth, like he painted brown cottage cheese over every gap in his teeth. I put up with him, trying to be nice, until he got off a few stops before us.

We got off the bus at the terminal and waited for the next bus to Peace Island. Not ten minutes had gone by, when guess who walks up? Nowhere Man immediately walks over to me, grabs my arm and starts talking excitedly. Now it's starting to get funny, so I humor him for a while longer- not like I had anything to do but wait anyway. He kept trying to pull me somewhere, but I was waiting for a bus, and anyway I didn't want to go anywhere with him, so I didn't let him pull me away- there are some advantages to being a huge American! Our bus finally arrived, and looking very conflicted Nowhere Man decided not to get on with us. We thought that would be that last we saw of him...

Anyway, an uneventful bus ride deposited us a short walk away from Peace Island Park.

Nice park!

The first thing that jumped out at us was, of course, the ocean. There was a small islet nearby the entrance of the park that looked very picturesque at first glance...

Beautiful!

...but as I looked at it longer, I realized it was covered in tiny bugs! I don't know what they were- they looked like cockroaches, but with a crazy number of legs, and an iridescent blue color. They weren't bad looking, actually, but I definitely wouldn't want to have them in my house!

Walking around the path, we came across this awesome view:

Natural picture frame!

This landscape was very reminiscent of the volcanic formations at Yehliu- in fact, I would be very surprised if they weren't from the same event. The rock underfoot looked quite smooth, but powdered away very easily, and we had to be careful to not damage anything.

Such a great view...

Over at the pagoda, Harry and I accidentally woke up a napping German man named Dieter. He said he had taken five weeks off work (nice, right?) to tour the island- despite living here for six years, working for Siemens Taiwan, he rarely ever left Taipei, and he just wanted to get out and see things. And in this case, nap on them. We explained why we were here- to learn Chinese, to allow us to preach to Chinese people- and he was politely interested, but no more. We left him to his seaside nap.

It's like the ground is boiling!

Old lava flows are awesome.

There wasn't much more to the park- we walked back to the visitor center, got some delicious seaweed popcorn and headed back out.

Where we ran into... Nowhere Man!

He greeted us with a big brown smile and an aborted attempt at a hug, pointed to the park and somehow managed to explain that he would have gone in to find us, but he had no money. (It was cheap, but not free to go in- $40NT, about $1.20US.) We laughed awkwardly and started to walk away, but of course he followed us. Harry really thinks it's funny now, especially because Nowhere Man is only trying to talk to me and not him. Multiple times, he tried to pull me down a side street, but again, no way. We realized that the only way were were gonna get rid of him was by calling a cab, not by taking the bus. 

When the cab pulled up, Nowhere Man began getting agitated enough that as he talked, his- at this point I realized, dentures- began to come loose. I tried to explain to him that he couldn't come with us, and even gave him the rest of our popcorn as a consolation prize, but even still I had to push him away from the taxi door as I shut it- he was really trying to get in with us! I bet he would have followed us all the way back to Taipei if we'd let him! His face was sad as we drove away, but it was the necessary thing to do- I can't even have a cat right now, I absolutely can't adopt a Taiwanese guy! A part of me really wants to know what he wanted so badly with us, but I don't suppose there is any way to know now, and I was not about to risk being stabbed or something.

After a quick trip through the Miaokou Night Market, Keelung's most famous, and eating some delicious fresh seafood, we boarded a train back to Taipei, joking/worrying the whole way that we'd run into Nowhere Man once we got home. Happily, we did not, and we got home just in time for me to join Terry Miller's family study.

And... that's up to now! I'm putting in job applications, so my free time won't last for long, but it's nice while I have it! My mom comes to Taiwan this Saturday (!!! Hi mom!), so the next update probably won't come any sooner than the last few have, but it will certainly be an awesome time! Until then!

Finals 期末考

(Brain pain...)

And so we meet again...

For the last couple of weeks I have been ridiculously busy with classes. Normally, my Chinese class is from 2-5, Mon-Fri, with on average two hours of homework each night; however, recently that has increased, with an extra class Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 7-9pm, with its own homework, and more recently Thursday and Friday afternoons from 5-7, with its own homework too. All of these extra classes were tailored for the TOCFL (華語水準考試), and since all levels of students take the same tests, all levels of students prepare the same way.

This, of course, meant that I was by far the newest student of Chinese in the room. I'm currently studying "Beginner 3" level of Chinese, which for all intents and purposes means I can talk about pretty much anything I want to, as long as I'm okay describing some more difficult concepts because I don't know the actual word for "kayaking"; however, after my level we start getting into written Chinese.

Chinese is a really interesting language. The spoken form of Mandarin I've been studying (and over one billion people speak) is actually only about three hundred years old, but their current writing system dates back to the Han Dynasty, established around 300 BCE. (There was Chinese writing before that, and a scholar could still read it, but it although the current system is descended from it it wasn't standardized, so it's incredibly difficult to read.) The beauty and horror of Chinese writing, really, is the same aspect of it- you can communicate a huge amount of information in a tiny amount of space- for instance, 近府施行法律成功了 means "The recent laws enacted by the government have been a success"! But, you would never, ever speak like that- no one would understand anything you say. Essentially, written high-level Chinese is a kind of officially endorsed shorthand, combined with a few thousand old, very specific characters that if you know them make it impossible to misunderstand what the author meant (useful when your hieroglyphic written language is spoken in over fifty local dialects), but if you don't know them leave you blankly staring at the shape in front of you, searching for contextual clues.

My teacher going over some new words in the form of a story (this is the normal class, I just felt we needed a picture to break up the wall of text).

And it is just this kind of written Chinese that we started studying in these evening classes. At first, I was completely lost, and despite the rapidly approaching test was seriously wondering why I was attending. I talked with my teacher, though, and she encouraged me to at least try, even if I felt like I was slowing the rest of the class down; so I did. We got workbooks with all the class material in them, but about 40% of the characters in them (all Chinese, no English to help out) were beyond me. I took them one at a time. I took them apart, looked at the grammar and meaning, then tried to put together a new sentence with them, and with the help of my teacher (working a little overtime for me, I might add) one by one filled in all the major gaps in my understanding, enough that after two weeks I could actually keep up in class, despite being a full year of studying behind the next newest student.

Class picture! Myself, my teacher Qiu 丘, Tatsu, Vietnamese Suqiu, and Indonesian Yuzu 

However... all was for naught.

This last Wednesday, I thought it was odd that although I knew which day the test happened, I still had no idea where I was supposed to go or what time of day to arrive at. Back in March, I went to my school's office to sign up for the test, so I figured I'd go ask them.

They told me they had no record of me signing up for the test.

We went back and forth for a while- I had to pay money for this thing, where did that go?!- and eventually figured it must have been a miscommunication. I went to the office because although I have to take the test as part of my scholarship, I had no idea how to sign up for it. They thought I wanted to sign up for the supplemental courses (which in fairness I did), but since signing up for the test is SO EASY, why would anyone ask us for help? His Chinese is probably just off, that's all. So they took my money for the supplemental courses and told me I was all set, which I took to mean all set for the TOCFL...

The next morning I woke up early and went to the Ministry of Education's office to see what I could do. They sympathized, but it was too late. I have two options: Either I can wait until November and then take the test, or if more than 40 students flunk, there is a make-up exam that I am invited to.

As far as the test itself, it would be nice to have an official document saying "Taiwan Says He Is Fluent In Chinese", but really it's a scholarship problem. I need to get in touch with the SF branch of Taiwan's Ministry of Education and explain my situation- hopefully they'll understand. Worst case scenario, they could take back all the money they've given me, which would leave me with little option but to return home and try to get out of debt!

But enough of that, it's depressing. Here's a picture of the "ethnic section" of our local supermarket instead!

Ketchup, Minced onions and Rosarita! Yes!

The only real interesting thing to talk about that wasn't class since I got back from Hong Kong was a little get-together we had the middle of last week. A couple months ago, we had a sister named Irinka leave our congregation, first to return home to Detroit and get things in order, then to go onwards to Mainland China. (Normally I wouldn't post that, or certainly not her face, but she said the area she is going to is totally fine with it, for some reason. Okay.) But on her trip to 大陸, she first stopped in for a visit one more time, and we had pizza!

Not pictured: Pizza.

We had gotten music and games set up, but in the end we just kind of sat around, ate pizza, drank beer and talked for like five hours. It would've been really boring to watch, I'm sure, but that's what happens when you have interesting friends! She took off just a few days after, surely off to a good start in her new territory!

Last weekend was our Special Assembly Day. We had a total attendance of 671, with 16 baptized- not bad for a SAD! At least one good thing came out of all this hassle with the TOCFL- if I had taken it like I was planning, I wouldn't have been able to attend this with my own congregation.

Main auditorium- it looks like we just rented out a high school's :-)

It was an excellent, very upbuilding program, and as a bonus we had not one but two English talks! (Translated, of course.) Two people from our congregation got baptized, too :-)

Afterwards, a few of us decided to go out for something to eat.

The view outside... and us, in the way of the view

Although only six of us decided to eat, people heard about it, and invited more people, who invited more people... in the end, twenty of us ended up all going together to Taipei Main Station! We looked around for about an hour, trying to find someplace that was both cheap enough for us pioneers to eat at, but had enough seats for us all to sit together... eventually we gave up, went our different ways to get whatever food we could, then met back up in the main hall an hour later.

Joseph brought donuts! Hooray!

Not everyone did meet up again, of course, but eating donuts on a (clean!) train station floor in a suit is just not for everyone. :-)

Then, because me and Nikolai decided we spend too much time in Taipei, we got a small group together and went to the small village of Wulai, about an hour south into the mountains.

Bridge into Wulai (and a butterfly that flew in the way!)

Wulai was originally an Aborigine village, and most of the people who actually live there are of Native Taiwanese descent. It's a little touristy, of course, but how could it not be only being an hour outside the capital city?

Wulai Main Street

Although it's definitely a tourist town, mostly they cater to Taiwanese tourists- we only saw one other non-Taiwanese person there the whole day. Because of their ancestry, they're allowed to hunt freely on the island (no one else is, ever), which made the food there amazing! Wild boar sausage with honey glaze... on a stick! (The stick makes it fancy. :-) )

Amy and Joel chilling with some... locals?

After bumming around the town for a little while, we went for a walk up a mountain road, and before too long...

Waterfall!

There was a Buddhist monastery built at the top of the cliff. The only easy way to get to it was by a fairly expensive cable car ride, though, and since we didn't want to pay for their temple, we skipped it. Awesome place for a temple though, gotta say.

Near the waterfall were a couple more small shops, mostly selling Aborigine crafts and such. They were really nice, but a bit too expensive for me! It was a nice walk and a beautiful waterfall, though.

We also saw this guy. Best caterpillar ever.

Check out what I found in one of the stores: Bee alcohol!

Actual bees, not honey. I asked the guy behind the counter who had that idea, and he said the bees "are very angry and attack people", as if that explained anything.

Apparently it tastes sweet and a little acidic, and is very good for your heart and hair. I wasn't brave enough to buy any, though!

We decided to be lazy and not walk on the way down- instead, we bought very cheap tickets to ride their tiny train back into town. They had a sign next to it saying how this train is really the only reason Wulai still exists, and at one time was their sole method of bringing food and supplies into the town. Now of course they have paved roads, but it's cool to see they maintained the tracks!

Fun ride too!

After buying some fruit and bread at one of the stores in town, we capped the day off by going down to the river for a swim!

Wulai Riverfront

The water was clear and cold, with a surprisingly fast current! It was full of fish and ducks, with the occasional hot spring making the water abruptly warm in spots. Downriver, they had harnessed a bunch of those to make a free area where people could swim or walk to and relax for a while. Myself, Nikolai, Cameron, Michelle and Joel swam across the river to do just that, but those hot springs are really, really hot, and only Cameron could stand them for very long. Even he said that was the hottest water he's ever been in!

I only have two more days of school left until I am officially no longer a student. Tomorrow is a review course and an opportunity to ask any last questions we might have about the last three months, then Tuesday is the actual Final. After that... well, it depends. If I can use my online schooling and my TESOL here in Taiwan, I'd like to find a job and save up some money for a few months. If I can't, I'll have to think of a new plan. And of course, if the San Francisco MOE decides to be a pain, that could affect me too. But all of these concerns are future ones that I can't currently influence- I just need to wait and rely on Jehovah.