2006-03-15 Taiwan Sun Moon Lake
15 March 2006
14 March 2006
Tuesday March 14th 2006
Our party consisted of Ben, Windy, little Elnorra, Ken, Lorie and our friend Leonard Pease. Both Ken and Leonard had international drivers licenses and Leonard was our “best boy” as he did most of the driving and all the translation for our vacation. We rented a VW Caravelle 8 seater van and borrowed a car seat for Elnorra from a friend and started our journey around the island of Taiwan. It was 2 pm by the time we were packed and ready to leave town and we drove to Taichung where we found cheap motel for $500 NT ($16USD) per room near the train station.
13 March 2006
Monday March 13th 2006
Windy’s dad, Ken, and his wife, Lorie, arrived in Taipei late on Sunday night the 12th of March. We spent Monday taking it a little easy and having a nice fried fish breakfast at a local morning market.
08 March 2006
04 March 2006
31 December 2005
05 September 2005
We do have our trashcan on the front porch and Mon-Tues, Thurs-Sat at 9 pm we hear an "ice cream truck" which is really just the opposite. The friendly music is the trash truck announcing its arrival and there is a 5-minute window of time in which someone has to haul the trash to the corner! We sure miss the curbside pickup in the US where we put the trash in at our convenience and they pick it up at theirs! We often are out and about when the truck comes so we have piles of garbage to deal with! Yuck!
The kitchen situation
Windy says:
Here you will see a similar situation to that which we had in Cedar city, the kitchen can not contain it's contents. This time we don't just have the micorwace, toaster, cutting board and knives in the dining room, this time we have the fridge too! After much seraching I finally found convection oven that was worth buying. It was a mere $2,000 NT (about $60 US) and holds a whole dozen muffins at one time. Exciting stuff... well after being oven-less for 3 months about anything looks good and I can fit 2 bread pans side by side so I can bake half a batch at a time!
Here you will see a similar situation to that which we had in Cedar city, the kitchen can not contain it's contents. This time we don't just have the micorwace, toaster, cutting board and knives in the dining room, this time we have the fridge too! After much seraching I finally found convection oven that was worth buying. It was a mere $2,000 NT (about $60 US) and holds a whole dozen muffins at one time. Exciting stuff... well after being oven-less for 3 months about anything looks good and I can fit 2 bread pans side by side so I can bake half a batch at a time!
Utilities
Windy says:
We have 2 AC units to cool our 5 rooms and it sure makes a tremendous difference. The water and electric bills show up every other month so we pay about $120 USD in electricity for 2 months and about $15 USD for water. Our phone bill is charged per outgoing minute and the reates change depending on what company you call. Our land line with DSL and an ISP runs about $35 USD a month. We were paying almost that just for our ISP back home.
We have 2 AC units to cool our 5 rooms and it sure makes a tremendous difference. The water and electric bills show up every other month so we pay about $120 USD in electricity for 2 months and about $15 USD for water. Our phone bill is charged per outgoing minute and the reates change depending on what company you call. Our land line with DSL and an ISP runs about $35 USD a month. We were paying almost that just for our ISP back home.
27 August 2005
26 August 2005
We now have all of our paper work and are in Taiwan with resident visas and our "Alien Registration Cards" (ARCs). What an expensive thing it is to move internationally. We have spent almost twice as much on the paperwork as we did on our plane tickets to get over here. Green cards (Alien Resident Certificates) in hand we applied for our own cell phone numbers so we can share the kindness of the friend who obtained us the first number to help the next new family have a phone until their ARCs are processed.
Taiwan is hot and humid in the summer and we are very grateful for the invention and common usage of air conditioners. We purchased a used de-humidifier and that little machine pulls over a gallon of water out of the air every 24 hours! What a change from the dryness of Southern Utah!
We finally made it to the top of the Taipei 101 building and the view was wonderful. We arrived at dusk so we did not see the expansive view of day, but were impressed with the city lights.
Ben's job is excessively busy since their school year started on August 1st and they only had 1 day to prepare for students.
We have been blessed with many friends and are doing very well with the food and culture so far. Lucky for us many people know some English and vendors are easy enough to communicate with regarding prices via hand signs or calculators.
Elnorra is growing up and is starting solid foods as you will see with our posed picture with a banana. She still is not sure if she likes the new taste and texture so we only feed her a little and she is still primarily breast fed.
On August 1st we had the delight of being able to attend the dedication of our church building by the Prophet, President Gordon B. Hinckley. Ben was in an upper room of the building and I was in a different chapel in Taipei watching a satellite broadcast with Elnorra (who was quite content and quiet during the talks, but cried only during the actual dedication, figures...) It was a wonderful thing being in Taiwan and having the prophet visit. The building we attend church in is on the same block as the temple and was only completed in February. Since we moved in late May we didn't realize that the building was so new for a while, it seems like "home" to us.
Taiwan is hot and humid in the summer and we are very grateful for the invention and common usage of air conditioners. We purchased a used de-humidifier and that little machine pulls over a gallon of water out of the air every 24 hours! What a change from the dryness of Southern Utah!
We finally made it to the top of the Taipei 101 building and the view was wonderful. We arrived at dusk so we did not see the expansive view of day, but were impressed with the city lights.
Ben's job is excessively busy since their school year started on August 1st and they only had 1 day to prepare for students.
We have been blessed with many friends and are doing very well with the food and culture so far. Lucky for us many people know some English and vendors are easy enough to communicate with regarding prices via hand signs or calculators.
Elnorra is growing up and is starting solid foods as you will see with our posed picture with a banana. She still is not sure if she likes the new taste and texture so we only feed her a little and she is still primarily breast fed.
On August 1st we had the delight of being able to attend the dedication of our church building by the Prophet, President Gordon B. Hinckley. Ben was in an upper room of the building and I was in a different chapel in Taipei watching a satellite broadcast with Elnorra (who was quite content and quiet during the talks, but cried only during the actual dedication, figures...) It was a wonderful thing being in Taiwan and having the prophet visit. The building we attend church in is on the same block as the temple and was only completed in February. Since we moved in late May we didn't realize that the building was so new for a while, it seems like "home" to us.
Windy says: We finally made it to the top of the Taipei 101 at dusk on a clear day so we were only able to enjoy the "night lights". Fortunately our little digital camera was nice to us and will give you a good representation to what we saw. Our apartment is located near the base of the hill where the lights begin to snake their way up the "mountain" in the picture with "apt view" in the title.
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