Go Karts and Night Market

This week on Tuesday we went Go Karting and this time they were actually open :). It was really fun, the go karts are gas powered and thus a lot faster than any I have driven back home. There were 19 from both our congregation and a few from English and 2 brothers visiting from California. It costs 300nt ($10.72 USD) for about 10min which depending on how you do is time for 12 to 15 laps. At the end they give you a print out that shows your times and what place you came in. Since there were so many of us we divided up into 4 groups. Hannah and I both came in last place. :)
Here are our Times, our best lap has a box around it:

Hannah Car #3

Phil Car #10

As you probably can tell by the times Hannah was really nervous and was afraid to go too fast. At one point two sisters were coming up on her to pass and i watched her pull over to the side and slow down as if to say "Go around I'm not going to race you" :)

Go Kart Rules (interesting English if you can make it out)

On Wednesday we met with a group of sisters who took us to the night market near Feng Jia (our school).  Even though it was right there we had never gotten the courage up to go. it was pretty fun though. Tons of strange food but most of what we tried was pretty good. Also something kinda fun about it is that since they are all pretty much street vendors they expect you to negotiate on the price so you can normally get a better deal than the sticker price (which is already alot lower than it would be in stores). We got Hannah a robe since our apartment is so cold, we had seen the same kind in stores but they wanted over $100 usd for them we got this one for 480nt or $17.14. I also got 3 dress shirts for about the same price.

Grilled pork on a stick

Fried Squid (No we didn't try this)

Mushrooms (didn't try them either)

Chocolate crapes (soo yummy!!!) 

Both were allot of fun and we want to go again.
Well that's all for now until next time.
Love Phil & Hannah

    

Making dumplings 餃子 Oh and video from the Assembly

Hello! This is Hannah. We have been busy studying and trying to adjust to service here so we haven't blogged in a while. One neat thing that happened recently was Friday they had the cultural class. Every couple weeks they have a different optional class focusing on a different part of Taiwan culture. Friday it was making dumplings! Which happens to be my favorite Taiwanese/Chinese food. :) Our teacher had gone on vacation and missed a few days, so we actually were suppose to be making up our 101 class during that time. We also had a test scheduled. But the teacher let me go to it anyways and said I could catch up on what we learned. I started my test but didn't have time to finish. Phil wanted to stay in class so he wouldn't miss anything.

The room was packed! Everyone wanted to get to make dumplings. They staff provided all the ingredients for dumplings and showed us how to spoon the filling into the wrapper and correctly pinch it closed.

 When properly made they are quite pretty. (Most of us were terrible at it though)

They cook the dumplings by bringing it to a boil then pouring cold water on it, bring it back to a boil and pour cold water on it and then repeat once more.

They also had their own recipe for the dipping sauce that they provided. Everything was delicious! I ate at least 8 of them. :) And I made it back in time to catch the last 20 minutes of class. 

Once back in Class I was able to finish my test, I got a 97 and Phil got an 81.

Oh and on a kind of random note here is that video of the baptism from a few weeks ago Phil was finally able to upload it 

Our Apartment

Well we haven't had to many exciting things lately mostly just study and service so I decided to take this opportunity to post some better pictures of our apartment now that we are all settled.

Our Kitchen

TV & Computer & Helmets

Couch and table

Stairs to bedroom inside the stairs there is closet space.

Tiny Bathroom

Tiny bathroom cont. when you shower everything gets wet so you have to make sure you put the toilet paper out side.

View from upstairs

Our bed

little area upstairs for storage and stuffs

Our Tiny Washing machine on the balcony. No dryers here so we have to hang our clothes out on  the balcony.

And here it is our view off the balcony....

At night

At night

At night

Daytime

Sunset

Sunset

 Oh and Look what they are building across the street from us :) Happy Days!

We are very happy with our apartment. It both suits our needs and likes and we are glad that we chose it for the reasons we did.
Hope you enjoyed this little tour of our little apartment. Home is where the heart is so that will always be back with you all.
Love Phil & Hannah