Jan 25, 2015 - Sunday: A Day of Rest?

Good Morning, Everyone! We here in Taiwan are a full 14 hours ahead of you. That means you are settling in to your Saturday night, and we are beginning a new day. We've been lucky in the weather department. Ellery tells me winters are usually rainy and cold. It's been beautiful here. Yesterday 70s put the sun on my face as we enjoyed a leisurely tea break of 2-1/2 hours in the mountains between gondola rides. I'll be sure to sure you photos in a moment. As for how this day began, it is with the usual concern for clothes drying. We brought...

Jan 24, 2015 - Saturday: What to Do!

(I just lost an hour and a half's journal entry due to not saving. Please have faith as I start again. I shall re-do and finish! I'm like a pit bull this morning, and I refuse to be beaten!) We start each day with a shower, washing out our clothes from the day before and hanging it to dry. It's a process, and it's kind of fun living so bare bones. I love the clothes that I brought, and as long as they are clean, I have enough choices for all kinds of weather. First things first: journal entry, coffee, adventure. Today our coffee shop of...

Jan 23, 2015 - Evening: Night Market

"You are such a good sport," Ellery tells me, "for trying all the foods I put in front of you." After tonight, I would have to agree, as you likely shall in a moment. The Night Market in Taipei is an extravaganza of color, street performers, people moving in all directions, and food of all varieties except for that which North Americans are familiar. So what's a person to do in this environment? Go with the flow...literally! "Taste this, mom, go ahead, taste it!" "What is it?" "Taste it first; then I'll tell you." Can't guess,...

Jan 23, 2015 - Lunch and an Afternoon Visit to Ellery's Cram School

Food times are always exciting. We never know what we are going to get...at least Rich and I do not know. And I have made the promise to "be a good sport" and try everything Ellery puts in front of me. Rich has done so also. That means if it contains meat, so be it. If it contains ???, so be it also. Just the way foods are put together is interesting in and of itself...as you shall see. First, Ellery looks at and fills out the menu. We order, and the gorgeous food arrives. I am trying hard to learn to manage chopsticks. I've never been...

Jan 23, 2015 - Morning

Freezing cold w/wool socks, leggings, and top on along with my wool cap and goose down sweater, I finally fell asleep last night. Six and a half hours later I was up and happily showering while Rich got us coffee down the street as our Air BnB does not supply coffee. And only a small amount of TP. But I'll save that discussion for later. Ellery came over by 8:30 a.m. announcing our plans for our adventure today. I planned to be flexible and to try any foods he decided would be worth trying if for no other reason than to say we...

Jan 23, 2015 - Day 167

After a trip to the laundromat in the morning, I worked on getting some photo collages and blogs ready to post tomorrow. Also got some soup ready for supper: cauliflower, roasted garlic and potato. Later in the afternoon we walked up to Brisbane Park (north of here, along the river, named for Kaohsiung's "sister" city in Australia). It was lovely sitting in the sun with a cup of coffee from 7-11 (where you can get 2 medium coffees for only 52 NT - less than $1 each CAD. We have pretty much given up on Starbuck's. Not only is their coffee a...

Jan 20, 2015 - Day 164 - A visit to Tainan

For David and Theresa's last day in Taiwan, we decided to go to Tainan, a city of about 800,000, just a 45 min. train ride north of Kaohsiung. We went in 2012 with Andrew, but felt it was well worth another visit. Tainan is the former capital and the oldest city in the country. It was settled by the Chinese in the late 1500's, but later colonized and ruled by the Dutch from 1624-62, when they were defeated by the Chinese under the warrior Koxinga. So it's a great place to get a sense of the traditional culture as it has some of the oldest...

Jan 18, 2015 - Day 162 - Sightseeing with David & Theresa

The four of us enjoyed a lazy morning drinking coffee and visiting at the apt. Just before 11AM, I walked with T to a hair salon just across the river on Minghua for the appointment we had made for her. After a late lunch, we biked to Aozihdi MRT station on Bo-ai, took the subway south to Yanchengpu station and then walked through the Pier-2 Art District, an interesting area just north of the harbour - the former site of a coastal railway, large rail yard and warehouse district built by the Japanese during their occupation of the island...

Jan 17, 2015 - Day 161 - A Busy Day

Today was very busy… Luke, Claire and MK picked us up about 9:30 AM so we could go with them to her younger sister's engagement party. We have met Ingrid on several occasions. Her fiance, Fong, whom we met at a family dinner after we arrived last November, seems like a really nice fellow. Since Claire's father is in failing health (battling cancer), he wanted to have the engagement party as soon as possible. As mentioned earlier, we had already made arrangements to meet David and Theresa at the airport at noon, so we weren't able to stay...

Jan 13, 2015 - Day 157 - Change of Plans

It's been over a week since our last post, but we have some very good news to report. We decided before Christmas, with encouragement from Luke and Claire, to try to extend our stay for an additional month. There were a number of issues that had to be worked out, however, so we didn't mention anything until we had all our "ducks in a row" so to speak. The first thing we had to confirm was that we could continue to stay in Lisa and Jerry's (Luke's Taiwanese friends) extra apartment. Then we had to find out about extending/renewing our 90-day...

Jan 3, 2015 - Day 147 - Kaohsiung Art Museum

Finally got back to the art gallery to see the Art of Architecture exhibit, featuring the work of UK architect, Norman Foster. While we weren't familiar with his name, we were certainly familiar with many of the iconic structures he has designed over the past 40+ years in places all over the world. He has even designed a residential complex to be built here in Kaohsiung. In addition to two galleries full of scale models, the exhibit also featured an excellent video interview with Foster - definitely a man of incredible vision and...

Jan 2, 2015 - Day 146 - Starting our 3rd Month in Taiwan

It's been a pretty quiet, uneventful past few days. Doug and I opted to spend New Year's Eve at the apartment. Both restaurants were fully booked from 10 PM on. We could have eaten at FH2 earlier in the evning but decided we felt like a home-cooked meal so picked up some loin chops and wine at COSTCO, some fresh vegies at a market and spent the evening here - played scrabble dominoes, had dinner and watched a movie - "Julie & Julia" (with Chinese subtitles). We didn't even bother trying to stay awake until midnight. Yesterday we went out...