Taiwan Journal #7 - Top 8 Foods We've Seen Eaten on Sticks

Here in Taiwan there are many, many street markets. They're everywhere, they're fun, they're crowded, and there are LOTS of unusual foods served by street vendors. We've only been brave enough to try a few (giant fried chicken which was kind of gross and pork dumplings which were amazing) but we hope to get a little bit braver to try some more...

Back home when we're at the fair, there's nothing better than snacks on a stick... corn dogs, corn on the cob, pickles, whatever. Here in Taiwan, they have also discovered the joy of serving food on a stick. Here is a list of the things we've seen eaten on a stick.

8. candy coated strawberries

7. candy coated cherry tomatoes (like a candied apple except it's a tomato... weird)

6. tofu

5. corn-dog

4. fish balls

3. crab legs

2. grilled squid

1. octopus tentacles

Taiwan Video #4 - Jodie's Cooking Class

Taiwan Journal #6 - Jodie's Cooking Class

On Wednesday, we had an amazing experience taking a private cooking class with Jodie Tsao. We heard about her class on Trip Advisor and it was rated very highly so we contacted her and set it up and we're so glad we did... it was just awesome!

Jodie speaks perfect English even though she is from Taiwan. She has traveled all over the world... she said that her cooking style blends native Taiwanese cooking with concepts she learned while traveling in Italy. She has been on TV a couple of times, most notably on a Discovery channel program about Asian food. We're going to try to find that on a rerun sometime!

The class was held in her home... she lives in a mountain suburb just outside of Taipei with an incredible view looking down over a valley into the city down below. It was so neat to be able to spend some time in someone's home. She had us remove our shoes and wear slippers which is customary in most asian cultures but other than that, her home wasn't much different from anyone's back home.

The class lasted about 4 hours and for the first couple of hours, she taught us about the basic ingredients of Taiwanese cooking. Jodie is a total foodie... she gets really excited about organic, natural ingredients... she talked a lot about how when you eat healthier how much better it makes you feel. It's hard to argue with that. She taught us about different kinds of sesame seeds, sesame oils, different kinds of salts and sugars used in Taiwanese cooking, different kinds of vinegars, different styles of soy sauce... it sounds kind of dull but she was so passionate that it made it really interesting.

After that we started cooking... it was a total blast. We made spicy szechuan pineapple, white sesame paste and black sesame paste (both were awesome as a vegetable dip, salad dressing, or on noodles), spicy szechuan cucumbers, chinese green onion pancakes (delicious... we told Connor about them though and the thought of onion pancakes grossed him out! He wanted to know if we made chocolate chip), and Jessica's favorite, she taught us how to make authentic Hot and Sour soup. She's ruined us though... after eating her soup, the kind you get in American Chinese restaurants just can't compare. If you've ever eaten it and wondered what all that stuff is, now we can tell you!

The cooking was a lot of fun but the best part was just talking to and getting to know Jodie. We learned more about Taiwan and its culture in a few hours with her than we'll probably learn the whole rest of our trip combined. Jodie asked a lot about the United States as well and I think she was very surprised by some of the things we told her. She said in Taiwan they view all Americans as being very rich and also very strong or powerful. She made it sound like they were a little bit intimidated or afraid of us. She was really surprised to find out that the rich only make up a small percentage... there are a lot more homeless people in the US than there are here... we haven't seen any here in Taiwan and she said that you generally don't. I told her about how many people come through our church food pantry or call asking for help with their bills and that seemed to really surprise her.

I was able to shoot just a little bit of video of the class... I'll try to put that together and show you some of it sometime later today. It was a great experience and if you're ever in Taiwan, we strongly recommend taking Jodie's Cooking Class... you can find her website right here.

Taiwan Video #3 - Random footage of our first 2 days here

Taiwan Journal #5-Jessica's Random Observations About Taiwan

Greg posted his observations so far, so I thought I'd post some too! Here's what I've noticed!

1. All the young people here dress incredibly stylish! It's insane, even the men alway look like they stepped out of a magazine. The girls are so cute, and even though they dress well, they are modest. No one here dresses sloppily!

2. It is so cold here right now! I packed just terribly wrong! I wish I had my coat and sweaters with me! I've been freezing. Every time I get ready to walk outside without being bundled up, the concierge, bellman, and front desk workers all come to me worried about the cold. "Don't you need your jacket?" they all say. They are so kind!

3. Some men here carry their wives/girlfriends purses for them. It is not uncommon at all to be walking in the mall or on the street and seeing the men carrying purses. It's very kind! I even saw a little boy with his mother's purse last night!

4. Men also carry "man bags". Most men here have these stylish little bags that they wear as well!

5. The food here is incredibly, incredibly different. It has been very challenging for this picky eater! Some of the smells that I've encountered as I've walked past food stands have literally left me about to throw up! There have been two nights here that I've not even eaten dinner. It has been much more challenging than I thought.

6. Everyone, especially the young girls stare, point, and sometimes even giggle at us! One girls sat down right beside me, and just leaned her head on her hand and stared at me for at least five minutes. In America, this would be considered so rude, but here, everyone does it! It has been VERY hard for me!

7. I've traveled all over the United States, to all of the big cities. I've been to many, many malls! I've never seen a mall as nice at the one in Taipei 101. It's huge, clean, and incredibly nice. Name any high-end store that I'd never be able to afford and they have it. Prada, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Armani, etc. etc. etc.! Five floors full of stores with socks I couldn't even afford, and tons of people everywhere! The residents of Taipei have some money!

8. It gets dark here around 5 p.m. It's so weird! Greg and I usually stay up late, but because of the early sunsets, we're usually exhausted by 9 p.m.!

9. The night markets are insane! They are so cheap and so crowded! It's hard to be in the mood to shop in the crowds though, and as your walking past stands selling roasted locusts for a tasty snack.

10. Everyone here has been so nice to us and helpful. They have tried to accommodate us as best as they can. We've found more and more people who speak a little English as we stay longer. The first day was really rough for us, but it has gotten better every day.

We have had two encounters with two different Taiwanese people who have taught us a great deal! We'll post about our wonderful private cooking class, and our private tour of the Taipei coastline next! Stay tuned!

Taiwan Video #2 - Happy New Year!

We celebrated the New Year at 11:00 AM Eastern time for all of you back home... we're 13 hours ahead. This video is a basically uncut shot of what we saw. Seriously, it was way cooler than Times Square! Enjoy!

Taiwan Journal #4 - Random Observations about Taiwan

(Greg again...)

1. This is not a place that gets a lot of American tourists. Yesterday we were out in the city for most of the day and saw a total of 5 white people and we're pretty sure most of them were European. Jessica especially has been getting stared at a LOT! We found out today that Taiwanese men are very attracted to pretty blonde american women because of the popularity of Hollywood movies here. So yeah... Jessica's basically a rock star over here. She's really hates being stared at so it's been tough for her.

2. Taiwan is a much more "green" nation than the US. That's probably not surprising but here, recycling is everywhere. In fact, if you don't recycle your garbage, you get fined. When the garbage man comes each week, not only do they expect you to have your trash sorted, they also have 2 buckets they empty... one for compost waste and another for all other food waste. Leftover noodles... uneaten meat... whatever... throw it in a bucket and the trash truck will take it. We were told they use it to feed pigs and other animals. They don't waste anything at all! I'm pretty sure they do all of this because they have to... Taiwan is a very small island with a LOT of people... I'd hate to think what it would look like if they didn't recycle.

3. EVERYONE and I do mean everyone drives a scooter here. On the road it's pretty much nothing but city buses, taxi cabs, and scooters and the scooters outnumber all of those probably 5 to one. As you can well imagine, the streets are total chaos... I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like to drive here. We've been sticking to taxis and riding the public transportation trains (MRT) and that's been suiting us just fine. I'll try to get some video going of the scooter madness.

4. We were under the impression before we came that almost everyone here speaks at least a little English. We were under a wrong impression. At our hotel, they speak wonderful English. Everywhere else, none. I'm starting to get pretty good at pointing to what I want on menus and signs. We would be completely lost were it not for our wonderful hotel staff here at the Riviera... whenever we are going out, they write down all of the places we want to go on little cards in Chinese... we show those to taxi drivers or anyone else and they help us get where we're going. Fortunately, all of the street signs, bus signs, and MRT signs are both in Chinese and English. I'm not sure why though, it doesn't seem like anyone here really speaks it and seriously, we are yet to meet another American 2 days into our trip. We did meet 2 people this morning from Canada but heck, they probably spoke French.

5. The people here are VERY friendly. Taipei is a lot like many big American cities... parts of it feel very similar to New York with one difference... everyone is very, very nice. Even with the language barrier and with us pretty much sticking out like sore thumbs, everyone has been incredibly friendly towards us and very, very welcoming.

Okay... we're headed out for the evening... much more later including hopefully some pictures and video. Sorry we've been slow getting that together... it takes a long time and we're staying pretty busy!

Taiwan Journal #3 - A Little Rain...

(Greg writing here...)

Our first full day in Taiwan... I wish I could say that today was a great day but that wouldn't be honest... today was very, very hard.

Our first order of business today was to visit the Cathwel Orphanage. We were obviously very excited to visit with Sister Rosa and to be able to spend some time with the children. We were also excited to deliver all of the supplies we collected from Powell Church and also the additional supplies we purchased with donations people gave us. We got there a little after 10:00 in the morning and gave Sister Rosa all of the clothes, diapers, medicine, and bottles. She seemed amazed at how much stuff there was... we brought the biggest suitcase we have and it was crammed completely full. She wanted us to thank everyone at church for being so generous. She seemed to be deeply appreciative for the gifts.

After giving her these gifts she asked if we wanted to talk for a little while about our adoption process. We sat down in her office and began to discuss our adoption process a little bit. I don't really want to get too deep into the specifics of our conversation here on the blog but I will say that she confirmed that our wait is going to be every bit as long as we thought it might possibly be. Because we have requested a healthy infant girl, we will probably be facing the longest wait of all... that's nothing different from what we've been hearing it but to hear it straight from the person who would know best, it was hard not to be discouraged a little bit. There's more too it than that but I'll save it for another time...

The good news is that after our conversation, Sister Rosa asked us if we wanted to go on a tour and to spend some time with the children. We started off in the nursery where there were probably 10-15 babies... some as little as a month and some up to almost a year old. They were all together in one room and seemed to be very well cared for. All of the sisters we met at the orphanage were very, very nice and seemed to really love the kids. I'm having a hard time shaking the image of one little girl who waved to me when she saw me... she couldn't have been more than 9 or 10 months old but she held her hand up and waved at me like she knew me.

After the nursery we spent some time with the 1-2 year old children. This room was somewhat chaotic... there were probably 15-20 children here and many of them had special needs. Jessica and I were able to go in and sit in the floor and just play with the kids for a good while... I can't really even process or put into words quite yet what it was like to be with these children. They were all so precious and sweet and fortunately, most of them are waiting to be picked up by their adoptive families. Sister Rosa would point to the children and say "she's going to America... he's going to the Netherlands... she's going to Germany... he's going to Sweden..." I wish one of them were going to Tennessee!

I wish I could show you some pictures or some video from our time at Cathwel but we didn't want to be rude or invasive so we left the cameras in our backpack. We'll be going back another day though and we may be able to shoot some pictures then.

After our trip to Cathwel, we both were just feeling kind of spent... the reality of being among the orphans, feeling how wide our hearts opened up being around the kids, and then realizing that it could be another 2 to 3 years before we're able to bring Claire home... it felt a little bit like being punched in the stomach... it took the wind out of us both.

We did a little bit of sightseeing in the afternoon (including wandering around looking for a restaurant with an English menu and finally settling on... McDonalds which we must say, tastes exactly the same here as it does at home) and we visited the largest Bhuddist temple in Taipei. The temple was very interesting... you'll see some video of that later.

We went back to the hotel around 5:00 and laid down to take a short nap... we woke up and it was midnight! I guess our bodies weren't quite adjusted to Taiwan time.

So, our first day was a little rough... it was good to get to visit Cathwel, even with the reality of the wait that lies before us sinking in the way it did. I'm looking forward to visiting again later in the week. As I'm writing this, it's 7:00 pm on our 2nd day here... I'll post more after we get home from the New Year's Eve festivities we are going to see... today was a much better day!

Taiwan Video #1 - The Journey

We made it!

(This is Jessica, reclaiming my blog!)

50 hours after leaving Knoxville, we finally made it to Taipei! It is 12:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning here. We're trying to get settled and into bed. We are supposed to meet Sister Rosa at the Cathwel Orphanage tomorrow at 10 a.m. for a visit, and to take all of the donations that we brought with us. I'm excited and nervous to go to the orphanage tomorrow. It's a strange feeling!

Our travel was smooth after our 24 hour delay in Dallas. We had a hard time with American Airlines, and it seemed that the right hand had no idea what the left hand was doing. Every agent told us something different, so we got very frustrated! Despite it all, we are thankful to be here, safe and sound in Taiwan! Thank you so much for your prayers, they definitely helped! I am always such a nervous flyer, and I did better on this trip than any other, which is a miracle! The highlight of our day was flying over pretty much the entire state of Alaska. It took about 2 hours for us to fly over it. It was so beautiful and looked so cold! We got to see beautiful mountains and glaciers. It was amazing! Greg filmed video of it, which we'll post later on!

Tokyo airport was amazing, so clean! We rented a dayroom there and grabbed a quick shower and nap. We went to McDonald's to get a snack and it was crazy expensive! We got one medium coke and one medium fry to share and it was $8. The dollar isn't worth much there!

Well, that's all for now. We are excited about our first day in Taiwan tomorrow, and will post our adventures tomorrow night! Thank you again for your prayers, and please continue to pray for safe travels and protection for us!

Taiwan Journal #1 - This is Not Going According to Plan

(hi everyone, this is Greg writing...)

The fact that I have internet access right now when I should be on a plane should let you know that things aren't going exactly according to plan right now. Here's what's up...

We drove to Nashville last night so we could catch our early morning flight to Dallas. We only had a 40 minute layover in Dallas so we knew it would be tight... 40 minutes to catch a flight to Tokyo had us pretty nervous. Our flight this morning took off from Nashville on time and everything was going just fine until...

"This is your captain speaking... there are some sudden thunderstorms that have come up over Dallas and we're going to have to divert... we'll fly around the storms to Waco and fly in behind the storms... shouldn't be too much of a problem".

Okay, so maybe a lot of flights are experiencing this and they'll just delay the flight to Tokyo to wait for us. We might have to run through the airport but hey, that will be exciting. We'll be fine.

"This is your captain, guess what everybody? I'll be darned but we're fresh out of jet fuel if you can believe it. Tell ya what, we'll just land here on this airstrip 5 minutes from the real airport and refuel and we'll have you there in a jiffy, okay? Great. Thanks for your patience."

Awesome... anyway, long story short, we get to Dallas about 45 minutes after our plane to Tokyo took off. Wanna guess how many flights there are from Dallas to Tokyo each day? If you guessed one, you win the other half of the room service pizza sitting at the foot of my bed in the Courtyard Mariott right now.

So we're stuck for 24 hours here in Dallas in an area that could only be described as a barren wasteland of abandoned factories, warehouses, vacant lots, railroad yards, and as luck would have it, a Courtyard Mariott. We're surrounded by what looks like the set to an episode of "24". I'm pretty sure I just heard Jack Bauer scream "We're running out of time!" from behind one of the factories that completely surround this hotel.

The ONLY piece of good news from the day is that American Airlines agreed to let us stay an extra day in Taiwan since we lost a full 24 hours getting there. So, instead of getting home at around 11:00 pm next Sunday, we'll now be returning home at around 6:00 next Monday. We'll be flying back through Tokyo and Los Angeles instead of Dallas which is fine with me... I don't care if I ever come to Dallas again.

Merry Christmas and Adios!

We leave tomorrow for Taiwan! I can't even believe it's time! I'm still not packed, but I swear I'm going upstairs to take care of that in a minute. Talk about procrastination! We're planning on doing a little bit of shopping in the morning and then we head out to Nashville. We fly out early Saturday morning with stops in Dallas and Tokyo, before Taipei.

We had a wonderful Christmas. We had both sides of our family here this morning, and enjoyed a yummy Christmas lunch, that I thankfully pulled off without any disasters. I'm usually a good cook, but I kept thinking, if I mess something up, it's not like I can just run out and grab something else! Since Greg and I were dating, we have always had the tradition of going to a movie and eating out Chinese food on Christmas evening, and we have had so much fun carrying that on with Connor! Tonight we spent some great time as a family, enjoying our last evening together for several days!

This will be our last post for a few days. We'll be out of communication completely for about 24 hours. We'll hopefully post again on Monday evening (Monday morning here at home). Please pray for us as we travel to the other side of the world, and please pray for our family back home! Please pray for protection for not only us, but for Connor and everyone else here helping to take care of him. Check back for exciting pictures and video of our great adventure! My fortune cookie tonight read, "A pleasant surprise is in store for you soon in the coming week." We'll see!

Enjoy our holiday pics from the past two days! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

It's About That Time!

I can't believe Christmas is this week! Time has flown by. I am so thankful that I started Christmas shopping early this year, even though I still have had a hard time getting it all done. I feel like I've been wrapping presents for days. Hopefully, that will get finished up tomorrow, as well as trying to get the house cleaned up and ready. Then add in the grocery shopping to feed 10 people Christmas lunch, which I'm actually very excited about, and trying to pack up to leave the country the day after Christmas. It's hard trying not to be stressed in the midst of it all, but I am in great anticipation about the good things on the other side of it all.

I cannot believe we leave for Taiwan early Saturday morning. We drive to Nashville Friday night to spend the night, and then head to the airport at about 5 a.m. We finally make it to Taiwan Sunday morning our time, Sunday evening Taiwan time, after a short layover in Dallas, and a 4 hour layover in Tokyo. It's hard to believe this time next week we'll be on the other side of the world! We are scheduled to make our first visit to the orphanage Monday morning and have a huge suitcase full of donations thanks to Powell Church. Monday evening, we will explore Taipei. Tuesday we are scheduled for private cooking lessons which will last a good portion of the day, and Wednesday we plan to enjoy ringing in the New Year at Taipei 101, which looks to be an amazing fireworks show. We also plan on making several more trips to the orphanage, visiting a hot springs, and hopefully making it to some parks and museums. We have so much to pack in! I am having some slight anxiety about being on the other side of the world from my baby boy, but I know he is in good hands with Mimi, and the rest of his grandparents are right here to help too if needed. It's just a little scary as a momma!

Here are some Christmas pics of Connor getting into the Christmas spirit. I think he's ready! Also included are pictures of Connor, Atley, and Ava rockin' out at the Ralph's World concert last weekend. They had front row seats and thought they were pretty cool little cats! We had a great time!

Connor Coloring

Christmas Time is Here!