I miss my I-Pod

I lost my I-Pod. I am very sad. I left it on a bus on my way to Taichung. Very sad. I miss it everyday and hope it comes back to me. Just wanted to put that out there.

Anyway, moving on. Here's a hodge-podge of stuff I've been up to lately:

I have a fourth grader whose parents own a restaurant and invited the teachers who teach their four children to eat dinner there. Tammy's parents are here visiting from Logan, Utah and they came too.

Our table was filled with special dishes that are typically eaten on holidays. I tried everything even though I have a strict policy against mystery meat. On the left, I'm actually about to suck the meat out of a little clam shell...something I would never do under normal circumstances. I even tried some of the eel...not a fan. There were these little fishes that were battered and deep fried whole (I could still see their beady black eyes)...I couldn't do the head and tail but I ate the body. I loved the deep fried shrimp and the veggie dishes that they served us.

The next day, we visited this temple in Chung Wa. There was a huge Buddha statue and a fountain show set to music.

Thursday night, we went to see a performing arts group in Taichung. I just have to give props to Whitney and myself for driving all the way to Taichung by ourselves with only a map and crazy Taiwanese street signs to guide us. Whit drove and I navigated. When we were stopped at red lights, we would try to ask other drivers next to us which way to the University by pointing to our map. We had to pick alternate routes when things like a cement barricade or forks in the road that weren't on our map came along, but we made it. Very few street signs are in English so it's disorienting when you can't always figure out where you are until you match the symbols on the streets signs with the symbols on the map. I would ask Whitney to help me look for symbols that looked like a battle ax or whatever else I could associate a symbol with. But as always, people here are very friendly and helpful. One guy even let us follow him on his scooter to find a parking spot and then helped us by lifting and moving other scooters over so we could squeeze ours into a spot.

The performance was great. I should write more but you can click here if you want to see a little bit more. Afterwards, there were Taiwanese reporters asking what we thought of the show. Whitney and I felt a little ridiculous answering questions, when really the only qualification we have is being American. They took our pictures and our names so we just might be quoted in some Taiwanese paper.

Here's a picture from Bunny's birthday.


We brought her a card and some cookies. (Bunny is one of the secretaries...she's in charge of getting us our requests for things like science experiments or kitchen activities.)

My little pizza makers.

4th grade science experiment