2006-03-18 Taiwan Road from Kenting to Hualien

2006-03-18 Taiwan Road from Kenting to Hualien

2006-03-18 Taiwan Road from Kenting to Hualien

2006-03-18 Taiwan Road from Kenting to Hualien

We took a ferry to “Little Liuchiu Island” and Windy, Elnorra, Lorie and Ben all went wading near “Vase Rock” and collected many neat shells and pieces of coral. After we arrived back on the big island we drove to Kunting and slept in the nicest $700 NT ($22USD) per night hotel.

2006-03-17 Elnorra's new hat (she hates it!)

2006-03-17 The ferry ride to Little Liuchiu Island

2006-03-17 our first veiw of the island from the ferry

A beautiful feature of the Coral island of Shao Leo Cheu is this rock called Vase rock. We swam near here and saw locals gathering kelp on this pristine little island.

We drove from Chiai to Kaohsiung. We drove through the tunnel under the harbor to go a black sand beach (no swimming allowed) and then we had a classic lunch at the seafood street market (such as squid on a stick and whole fried crab). After lunch we took a not so short trip to buy a hat for Windy and had a royal good time buying things at a variety of tourist shops. We then drove to Lotus Lake and saw many of the very classic tourist pavilions on the lake and then found another very cheap hotel and went to yet another night market but when we returned home we found out why we were able to rent the rooms for cheap! We were above the Karaoke bar that was loud and obnoxious until 3 am!

2006-03-16 Black sand beaches on the harbor island of Kaohsiung

2006-03-16 Yum! Squid on a stick barbeque style!

2006-03-16 Lotus Lake

2006-03-16 Lotus Lake: the spring and autumn pavilion and the dragon and tiger pagotas.

2006-03-16 Lotus Lake. This is only one of many figures who guard the bridge to one of the many shrines on the water.

2006-03-16 Yum! Squid on a stick barbeque style!

2006-03-16 Here is a picture of a strange, but apparently popular to eat, crustacean. Lobster like, but without pinchers. Instead they have many body lengths long whisker like appendages, and beautiful color markings.

2006-03-16 Taiwan Kaosiung Temple Detail: Phoenix

We drove from Taichung to Sun Moon Lake and then to Chiai. The major highlight of the day was this serene trip to the seemingly vacant temple in Taiping where we roamed the complex and then were invited to have lunch with the monks and nuns. Little Elnorra was such a hit that I spent most of the time after lunch escorting her around to see all the nuns who wanted to see the cute baby. Her overall pockets were stuffed with little candy presents from these very friendly folks. We then proceeded to Sun Moon Lake and Ben and Windy had a nice time in a rowboat on a mini date. Once we had found another cheap hotel near the train station (notice the trend here?) we went to the night market and had the famous Chiai “Chicken Rice” and then had “mango bing” (shave ice with real fruit topping) for dessert.

2006-03-15 Taiwan Temple

2006-03-15 Taiwan Temple detail

2006-03-15 Taiwan Temple detail

2006-03-15 Taiwan Sun Moon Lake

2006-03-15 Taiwan Sun Moon Lake

2006-03-15 Taiwan Sun Moon Lake

2006-03-15 Chiai Temple

2006-03-15 Taiping village Buddhist temple (1)

2006-03-15 Taiping village Buddhist temple (2)

2006-03-15 Taiping village Buddhist temple (3)

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.

Elnorra didn't much like her car seat and since a major feature of our trip was wrestling her into it and listening to her cry while we drive it seemed necessary to take a picture

The VW van we rented. Why don't they sell these in the States? 8 seats, 2 sliding doors and very little nose!

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.

2006-03-04 Shopping cart escalators in RT-mart

2006-03-04 "Fern Tree"

2006-03-04 another Taipei cityscape

2006-03-04 Rhododendron bush

2006-03-04 Rhododendrons flourish in Taiwan's climate, each bush is covered with flowers in March.

2006-03-04 A 6 legged spider? I live in a web, but do not have 8 legs! What am I really?

2006-03-04 Taipei cityscape from our local mountain park

2005 Shaffer Family picture

Windy says:
We've settled in quite well and thought you'd like to take a mini tour of our home life. So first you'll walk with us down our little lane, then climb to the 5th floor and then see our lovely view. Then you will see the rest of the apartment including our back balcony.

2005-08-07 Lane 195, WoLong Street, Daan District, Taipei, Taiwan

2005-08-07 Our building, #11

2005-09-05 Our outer door

2005-09-05 Walk with us up all 11 flights of stairs to the 5th floor!

2005-09-05 Our 2nd front door.

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!

2005-09-05 Our front balcony

2005-09-05 Looking down from our front balcony.

2005-09-05 View of the Taipei 101 from our front balcony

2005-09-05 Our 3rd and final front door.

2005-09-05 Living room from the front door

2005-09-05 living room of the "Mu" family.

2005-09-05 Time

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!

2005-09-09 Living room from the kitchen

2005-09-05 Improved kitchen: the shelving units and supplies were furnished by us.