wuhoo!: July 2007

a man's god

A man's god is that which . . .

has the greatest influence over him;

he sets the highest value upon;

he chiefly devotes himself and his energies.

(Henry Law, 1797-1884, public domain as seen on Grace Gems.)

Tiffany, Rebecca and I are off to the northern part of Taiwan. They have just 4.5 days left here with me. As we will be busy seeing and doing lots of new things, the rest of the day-by-day updates will have to wait till I come back on Thursday.

Have a great weekend and week . . . and I'll "see you" later.

P.S. Again, thanks to those of you who helped with the contest voting. Winner will be announced on Monday. Even if I am third, I still will get my very own xshot so that I can bless you with even more pictures. :)

last chance

Friday is your last chance to vote for amanda--you have till noon EST. (So, it is also my last chance to bug you about it.)

If you voted previously, you can vote again--once a day is the limit.

THANK YOU SO MUCH to those of you who have voted for me. If I win, I promise to share lots of pictures with you! :)

Since I am out of town Thursday and Friday of this week, I have no idea how I am doing in the contest, and I also can't vote for myself (Yep, this is an auto-post). So, I appreciate all the help I can get!!! :)

dun xia

Tiffany and Rebecca have been having fun trying to "dun xia" (蹲下) (ie. squat down) like the Taiwanese do:

The only way Tiffany and Becka can do it and still keep their feet flat on the ground without tipping over backwards is if they are on an incline:

Tiffany and Becca's adventures--day 5

This day started off by just going to a local mega-mart for lunch and a little shopping. We had "teh ban tsao"--food that is prepared right in front of us. It was yummy if I do say so myself.

The girls get a kick out of the prices here--because here the dollar sign is sometimes used for New Taiwan Dollars, so things seem really over priced (like these $990 t-shirts). There are also many things for sale here that you would be hard pressed to find in the States.

Mega-marts here are multi-level complexes. So, the "escalator" is actually an inclined people-mover that has special tracking for locking in the wheels of the carts.

After our shopping trip, Andy (one of my former students) took us to Lotus Lake for some sight seeing.

First up was the Tiger and Dragon pagodas, but sadly they were under construction.

So, we went to the Spring and Autumn pagodas next.

Before going in the dragon and inside the dragon.

After exiting the dragon.

We then toured a Taoist Temple. Seeing people actually bow and worship idols for the first time can be a life-altering event. At the very least it gives new perspective to the book of Isaiah and the rest of the Old Testament as well.

We stopped briefly to enjoy a water lily pond.

Then we saw a huge idol which is actually a temple. There are two more likeness of this same god of war inside the huge one.

As we walked around the lake to the different sites, we stopped and took some fun pictures. :)

Our last stop on Lotus Lake was a Confucian Temple. A volunteer came and gave us a guided tour. So, I learned a lot of new stuff--I'll pass on my new knowledge on another day.

For dinner, we had Japanese/Korean style BBQ. Where we cooked our food on a BBQ grill right there in the middle of our table. Pretty cool, huh?

It was an "eat till you are full" resturant, so here are Andy and me with the "menu" where you can keep ordering from for up to two hours.

More Day 5 pictures can be found on my flickr account.

Tiffany and Becca's adventures--day 4

Day 4 with Tiffany included a trip back across the island. But, first we took a few pictures at the hotel. Taiwan's aboriginal people live on the east coast. We were staying in the PaiWan Tribe area. There are 12 different aboriginal tribes in Taiwan in addition to the Taiwanese (Hokkien) people, Hakka people, and Mainlanders.

We took the afternoon "off" and rested a bit. Then for dinner, we had DimSum with Larina and her parents in downtown Kaohsiung.

Of course we rode our mopeds there. Although their backsides ached a little from the trip, they truly enjoyed the experience and the night scenes here.

Then, the best part of the day happened!! We went to a Taiwanese night market!! If you have not been to a night market while in Taiwan, you haven't really been to Taiwan. ;)

We were kinda full when we got there, but still we tried some new things . . . like "tea in a bag" and a chocolate covered frozen banana.

And, we played some "night market games" too!

And, did some shopping and lots of just looking at new stuff.

But, perhaps their favorite part of the whole night was "fishing" for turtles with tissue paper hoops. The paper gets wet and breaks so it is not an easy feat at all. But, Tiffany got four and Rebecca got two. I was impressed!! So, now there are turtles living in my home too.

little turtle trying to escape