Memorial & Earthquake

Hello all here is just a brief update.
Our memorial was a great success. Our Congregation ran out of invitations after the first week. We had our memorial at 8:30 since our Kingdom hall has 2 congregations. I had the privilege of being a server. We had 108 in attendance with many many visitors and studies.

The Next day 3/27/2013 at the end of class we were talking with other students and our teacher when everything started to shake. At first it just seemed like someone was jumping up and down next to us but after a few seconds we realized that it was an earthquake. Everything was moving, it was a strange experience. The whole thing lasted only about 25 or 30 seconds. Afterwards it felt like after you had been on the water for a whole day, you get onto land and everything feels a little wobbly. It was a little disorienting. We are fine and nothing to serious happened in our area however there was some minor damage to most buildings. We noticed some new cracks in the walls of our building and one damaged part of the wall in our apartment. There was a fatality in Nantou, where a wall collapsed on a lady. The news reported that it was a 6.0. Most of the more serious damage is in the rural parts of Taiwan. The quake was felt in Taipei as well. But just to reiterate we are fine and life is back to normal.

updated 4-2-13 sorry had a few incorrect facts when I first posted this. They are now fixed

















Love Phil & Hannah

Update and a Trip to Alishan

Hello everyone. It has been a while so here is the update.

Well our second and final semester of classes has started. Hard to believe that our trip is over half way over. For our main course we are taking level 2 (201). Hannah was really hoping that we would get He Fen Fen as our teacher since even though shes very intense, she is a very good teacher. I was hoping and praying that we wouldn't get her because although I do agree she is a good teacher, she really scares me and I got really stressed whenever I had her class.

Well Jehovah answered both our prayers, we didn't get He Fen Fen. But the teacher we did get is very similar. She is fairly intense, she speaks quickly and gives us a lot of homework. Hannah is very happy with her, she thinks it will be a challenge. I think the class will be very good for our Chinese, my mental health on the other hand- the jury is still out on that one.

For our elective class we chose the practicing listening and speaking again. This time though Hannah decided to take the same level as me so we are in the 203 class. Hannah felt that when she took the level ahead elective that it turned out to be counter productive. They spend their time going over what you are learning in the main class which she had not taken yet, so she spent a lot of time just trying to catch up. Our listening and speaking teacher that we ended up with seems to be more laid back so it is a nice balance from our other class.

On Sunday (3-17-13) we went to a dentist to get a check up. Confirming once again that Taiwan's healthcare rocks and the healthcare in the US stinks. We both had small cavities which the dentist took care of both for 800 NT or about 26.86 USD.

Tuesday morning we had plans with Jackie to go to Alishan a mountainous area south of Nantou. It is famous for cherry blossoms and a train that takes you to the top of the mountains to view the sunrise above the clouds. They advertise it as watching the sun rise from a sea of clouds. 

So we got up to be at her house before 5:30 am. As I am going through the things on the scooter at her house I realize that the camera is missing! We both start to freak out but Hannah said I must have set it down in the apartment when I ran back into get my helmet. So I drive back to the apartment and search everywhere... No camera! I'm really starting to panic then I remember that Hannah took the trash out while I packed up the scooter so I start thinking I'm going to have to go look in the trash maybe she accidently put it in there since it is so early. As I am riding the elevator down though i remembered us shuffling things in the elevator so once it  arrived at the first floor i waited for the door to close and hit the button hoping the other elevator would open. It opened and there was our camera bag and all of its contents just sitting there on the floor of the elevator. Crisis averted :) After I rushed back to Jackie's from where we headed to the bus station.

(a side note driving with 2 people a backpack and a suitcase on a small 50cc scooter is very umm interesting. You have to hold your legs up above the ground instead of resting them on the scooter as you drive.)

The Bus took us to a train/bus station that would take us the rest of the way to Alishan. We were planning on taking the train but one of the minibus drivers offered to take us directly to our hotel and would do it for cheaper than the train, so we went with that option. 

We arrived at the hotel about 10:45 and dropped off some of our stuff. It was strange though the driver of the minibus wanted us to pay for the next day's trip in advance. We didn't feel comfortable doing that so we refused but made arrangements with him to pick us up at 9:30 the next morning. Then we went and walked around the park. photos below:

Sleeping on the long bus ride

Sculpture at the train station halfway to Alishan. We found out that Taiwan is the worlds largest producer of saxophones. who knew?  

in front of our hotel

Jackie

Riding the train up the mountain the first day

Some of the Trees here were almost 2000 years old

Really neat platforms that you can walk out on to see all the cherry blossoms.

After a long day of walking on trails all over the mountain we headed back and crashed. we were all so tired and slap happy that it made for some really funny conversations. It was really nice for us to get to know Jackie better.

Wednesday morning we got our wake-up call at 4 am and got to the train station by 5 am so that we could go see the sun rise. There were a CRAZY amount of people. It took at least 4 train trips for everyone to get there. Here are a few shots to give you an idea.

 Once we arrived and viewed the sunrise we all felt it was worth it. Here are a few pictures although they don't do it justice.

After watching the sunrise we walked back down the mountain and went to a few spots that we didn't have time to go to the day before.

This man is from one of the aboriginal tribes of Taiwan. There culture is very similar to our Native Americans

After we finished looking around we went back and took a nap. We were woken up by the driver calling us half an hour early and rushing us out once in the car he told us that he couldn't take us all the way back to the train station. We were really confused and upset, because first he said that he had to pick up someone else at 11 and that was why he couldn't take us; Then he changed his story and told us that he had to get his car fixed. But finally he told us that he wasn't going to charge us for that ride to the smaller bus station. We were also rushed because we had to get back so Jackie could go to work on time. 

Once there we took a free shuttle to the High Speed Rail. got some lunch at Moss Burger (a Japanese Hamburger Restaurant) then took a taxi back to our scooters. We got home about 1:30 pm after unpacking a bit i had to change to get ready to meet a brother to go on some RVs with him at 3 pm. I was really tired and my legs were aching so I can't say I was really excited when he told me the RVs were close and we would just walk to them. But with Jehovah's help I made it and it was a really nice afternoon. I got to talk to the brother a lot and hear how he came into the truth. it was really fun, his English is really good and it let me practice my Chinese with out feeling like I couldn't communicate at all. 

Well that is the update for now. Time to go do more homework.

Love Phil & Hannah

Trip to Nantou

On Tuesday we got up early to meet the Cai's. They drove us up the mountains  to the east of the island. Half way there we met the other group. We went to a famous tea shop that has a beautiful lookout. The tea shop was very interesting, it had been operated by a family for 4 generations. The scenery was beautiful! Here are some of the pictures.

It got very cold up in the mountains!

 After visiting a few spots including lunch traditional Chinese food.

Hannah eating a fried fish (Whole)

Hannah eating a shrimp (whole)

Eating Bamboo with Bamboo chopsticks 

Then we headed to the villa that one of the sisters had rented for all of us it was really nice and since it was off season the price was cut in half. They were so nice and insisted that we take the master bedroom.

After a nap we went too a Swedish garden near where we were staying.

Hannah got to feed the ducks and pigeons (She was ecstatic)

The pigeons were pretty happy too :)

 After our walk in the garden we had another dinner which was included in our stay. It was traditional Chinese of course.

After dinner we had family worship. Since I was the only baptized brother I conducted  in Chinese (yikes!!!). It was very nice though, we studied our watchtowers. And any comments that I needed to make Jackie translated for me so everyone could understand.

After family worship we went back to the garden because they were going to have a light show at 8:30. Sadly we got there right after it ended :( but we still walked through with all of the lights.

We made plans to get up early with Jackie to take pictures of the sunrise. So we set our alarms for 5:45. We got up and bundled up since it was really cold in the mountains. It was super foggy so we couldn't really see much Hannah and Jackie went back to bed. I stayed up for a bit longer and took these shots.

After returning to bed for an hour we went down for breakfast. For some reason I was expecting to have normal breakfast items. Nope...  more Chinese food... there were hash browns and some coffee that was really good but not what I was hoping for.

Next we headed to a sheep farm. They also had a horse show.

Another one of Hannah's friends we met along the way

We shared a little ice cream with her

Sister Cai and her husband 

The horse show

After the horse show Jackie needed to head back so she could get to work so that part of the group left. We continued to walk around the farm and take pictures. We told the Cai's we wanted to treat them to lunch for driving us around and taking such good care of us. Sister Cai suggested pizza, I was so happy!!! Finally real good food I thought. She said that there was a really good pizza place near a kingdom hall and a famous chocolate company called 18°C. But after going to the kingdom hall she said that we didn't have time to get pizza but we could eat some traditional rice noodles that would be faster. I was very sad, although the noodles were not bad. Just not as good as pizza.

Lunch

Kingdom Hall

After the noodles we went and got some chocolate and enjoyed some complementary coffee and tea from 18°C. The Cai's also bought us some passion fruit. Very yummy.

Well that was our trip it was a lot of fun and we saw some of Jehovah's wonderful creation. It is nice to be "home" though. Tomorrow (3-7-13) we go back to school and start the next semester of classes 201 (insert scary music here)
That is all for now, until we have more to share.

Love Phil & Hannah