Its Been a While

Hey everyone. We are doing great here in Taiwan. We are still teaching English. We haven't had a vacation yet, but we are planning on having one in September. We are going to go to the south of Taiwan to hit the beach. We really miss it.

Not much different has happened around here. I did a spelling bee about month or so ago. It was okay, except that they wanted us to say, "Sorry, you're wrong!" everytime a kid mispelled a word. I felt like I was so mean. One kid looked like she was about to cry. I tried to say it as nicely as possible though.

Within this past month, we also did Karaoke. It was a lot of fun. For Karaoke here in Taiwan, people rent rooms and only make fools of themselves in front of their friends and family. Of course we went with the family here. Claire and I were happy because there were more English songs than we thought there would be. A lot of them were pretty old though. She sang "Dancing Queen." I sang "We Will Rock You." We both sang "Hey Jude." Of course we sang others as well, but none were as memorable as these songs. If you guys come here, I recommend us going together. One reason is for the singing, the other is for the buffet that is included in the price. Hehehe.

Well, Claire is turning 27 tomorrow. Now she is going to be an old fart like me. Hehehe. We are excited. We are going to take her to get a hair cut after her next paycheck. I don't know if that is a gift, but she's getting one. She wants to go short. Anyways, I will probably surprise her with something tomorrow.

On another good note, I lost weight recently. I have been running a lot, and have lost over ten pounds. Yeah. Another 8 pounds and I will weigh the same as I did on my mission. Anyways, some clothes I haven't worn for a bit have started fitting again. I am really happy. Well, I will let you guys know if anything exciting happens over here. Bye for now.

We're back

Hey family and friends! We havn't posted for a while so I thought I would drop a line. We have been having a pretty good month. Tonight we just went running and I almost died. I am totally out of shape. I went two miles and then I had to crash in front of a fan for a while. Claire's family has a cute little daschund doggy. For some reason she (the dog, not my wife) loves sweat, so when I took off my sweaty shirt, (the dog followed me to the room) it sarted rubbing up against all my sweat. Then I sat down and the dog jumped in my lap and stayed there. It was kind of gross, but the dog liked it. She also followed me around sniffing me until I was finally cooled down enough to take a shower.

Well, in another interesting note, I had a funny dream the other night. All of you who know me know that I love the show Smallville. Well, in my dream, my bro Charlie and I entered into the world of Smallville through the TV screen. We met Clark and Lana and all the other characters. We told them about real life and how what they were living wasn't real. Then we told them we would take care of the world of Smallville if they wanted to check it out. We had to fist fight all of the crazy monsters and stuff without the Clark Kent powers. Anyways, it was cool.

For my birthday this month, we stayed at home and ate cake with her family. We also rented a nice room as well. It was fun. We had a good old time. The cake we ate was chocolate with white cream and raspberries in it. It was delicious. As for these pictures, the first two were taken when we ate cake, and the last on is the bath tub of the room we rented. It was awesome. One part of the bathtub had jets in the walls. and the other part had several rows of jets coming out of the base of the tub.

As for teaching, this past month I started a business course at an electronics company. The class has sixteen people. It is a good break from teaching kids, so I am enjoying it. All i have to do is focus on conversation, so I don't even need to teach grammar. This week, I am actually going to start another class at that company. I am looking forward to it. Maximum enrollment for the class is sixteen people. By putting a cap on enrollment the class stays managable. With too many people we wouldn't get any one on one speaking time, which is one of the main goals for the course. Anyways, I won't bore people any longer with my work stuff. Love ya guys. Talk to you later.

A Day in Neiwan

We're back postin' again. Well, yesterday was a very interesting day. We rode our moped for an hour to get to a place called Neiwan. It was a cool place. We walked along the river for a little while taking a couple of pictures. We saw a lot of people there as well. Some were barbequing by the river, others were fishing, snd others were swimming. Claire and I both agree that we should have brought our swim suits. We will probably go to that area again. Especially because there is a hot springs over there.

For lunch, Claire had lamb fried rice and I had bacon fried rice at a local restaurant. It actually kind of tasted like Dad's fried rice. At least one of the times he made it. His fried rice tastes a little different every time he makes it. Anyways it tasted really good.

The last thing we did before we went home is go-cart racing. They had double seated go-carts that we wanted to try, but my legs wouldn't fit in it. I thought it would be okay because I saw a lot of other adults in the double seaters, but they wern't as tall as me. We then had to ride in the single seaters. Claire got scared because she doesn't know how to drive, but she ended up being okay. I had a need for speed though, so I was weaving through people, passing them right and left. I even actually got the scooter on two wheels for a second. It was fun.

Throughout the day though, our moped developed a rattling sound, like metal hitting metal. We took it back to the dealer in the evening, and the showed us where a screw had fallen out that helps keep the exaust on the bike. They put a new one in for free, and then fixed our kick stand for free, and then washed it for free. I am actually amazed. Anytime we have had a small problem with our moped, they've fixed it for free. One of my co-workers told me that the dealer he got his moped from followed him home and put a screw in his exaust (or at least that is what he thinks), and then the day after he bought it, when he brought it back to the dealer, he tried to tell him that he had to replace the whole exaust for 300 dollars. I have heard horror stories from other people as well. I think we got our moped at a good place. If anyone who reads this ever moves to Hsinchu, let me know, so I can recommend these guys to you. Well, I guess this post is getting a little long. Talk to you guys later.

Three day Weekend

What's up! Lucky us. We got a three-day vacation this week. Today is April 4th which is Children's Day. It sounds strange for us to celebrate this holiday, but since we are teaching kids, we have to celebrate with them (sweet...I couldn't stop screaming).

And tomorrow is the national holiday of sweeping ancester's graves. A lot of people will go to the cemetory, top of the mountains or whereever they burried their family to sweep the graves tomorrow. I have to say there is something in our family traits: we hate going to crowdy places. In my family, they don't like to do things with all those people so they chose a day earlier to clean. Unfortunately, only my dad had free time today, rest of my family had to work. Therefore, he represented us to worship and show respect to our ancestors.

Hehehe....you're probabely thinking why Bryan and I didn't go since we had the day off. Well....we were planing to go back to my grandparents' house with my dad today, but due to the early departure, Bryan and I decided to stay at home and went to Tiebanshao instead. Hehehe....you know how late I sleep in ususally. Tomorrow we are going to Taipei and spending our MULA!!!

Tiebanshao

Hello everybody!!! I went out to eat at a tiebanshao place today. They cook your food on a huge hot plate. At least that is the best I can do to describe it. It tasted great. I had the pork dish and Claire had beef. It was pretty spicy and good. They do put a lot of garlic on the food, so not many people will enjoy talking to me later tonight.

On a funny note. Last night I had a dream that I was a rapper. I thought it was kind of funny. The rap even seemed good in the dream. However, I tried to remember it today, but I couldn't. My creative genuis will be lost in that dream. Oh well. Maybe I will have that dream again sometime.

In other news, I have contracted an in and out Taiwanese cold. Just when I think it is gone, it appears again and I start coughing up a storm. Its okay though. The other teachers at my school tell me that this is the season where they get those types of colds as well. Claire and I went to buy some medicine today, but I am a little scared to take it. I am not used to foreign medicines. Claire says it is okay, so I will take my chances.

Well, I thought I would add this picture into the blog as well. We told the guy we were about to take the picture. He said okay, but avoided looking at us. Now his picture is on our website. hehehe. He doesn't know he is on an English site.

Well, I hope things are going great for you guys. I will post again later. Have a most excellent day. hehe.