Formosa: "Beautiful Island"

So this is Taiwan....Taipei to be exact. We arrived late in the evening on April 26. With a two month visitor's visa and a whole lot of stuff we ventured out into the city. First, some fun Taiwan/Taipei facts:

- The island of Taiwan is slightly smaller than Maryland and Delaware combined.
- The total population of Taiwan is 23,036,087.
- The total population in the city of Taipei is approximately 2,700,000.
- Literacy rate 96.1% of the population over 15 years old (can read and write)
-Teledensity is 1.9 persons per telephone.






















Rube's father came with us to Taipei for the first ten days to ease us into Taiwanese life. While he was here, we went to some great tourist spots like the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial shown above. It's an amazing comglomeration of buildings housing some cool CKS memorabilia and historical stuff. The grounds are grand and marvelous.

Here's Rube and his father by CKS's big ol' Cadillac. Looks pretty good!












This is an awesome temple in Wanhua, the old part of Taipei where the city government used to conduct their business. Now, the city governmental buildings have moved to the eastern section of Taipei known as the Xinyi district. In this district you'll also find Taipei 101, the world's tallest building (for now) and a very glitzy, ritzy, tres-moderne shopping area. Pretty cool.



This is a picture of Taipei at night. The city comes alive at night with various night markets throughout the city. These markets all have their own specialties and air about them, however, what they all share is fantastic eats. Taipei night markets are chock full of food stands selling everything and anything you could ever think of from deep fried smelly tofu, to strawberryies lined up on a skewer and dipped in syrup, to dumplings of various size and composition, and anything you could ever want deep fried. Yum.



These next pictures are from the Taipei botanical garden. It's a pretty stroll and peaceful surroundings. This picture (left) was taken by Ellen who loves the juxtaposition of older style garden and structures with the looming modern city-scape in the background. Nice work El!











The Botanical garden also had a Chinese Zodiac section where Ellen and I found our animal sign and had a moment.





Alright, so Ellen and I were cruising around the city, taking in the sights and eating everything we could. We set up our schedule for Chinese lessons, and started to slowly move our things into our apartment. By good fortune, there was an available apartment in the Yen family apartment building so our apartment hunt ended before it started. So this next section of pictures are dedicated to our sweet abode.





The pic on the left is the lane we live on. The building in the distance is Taipei 101, lit up all pretty at night. The pic on the right is Taipei 101 lit up specially for Mother's day (isn't it cute).












Here's the view of our grand foyer. We have a nice cabinet to put our shoes in and numerous slippers to wear around the house. There's also an assortment of umbrellas for those afternoon rain showers. We live on the third floor and are lucky to have many of Rube's family members (uncles, aunts, and cousins) in the same building. Rube's third eldest aunt often comes to check on our progress and to bring us treats. She's wonderful.














As you enter our apartment and proceed to the left, you enter into our spacious and inviting sitting area. Won't you please have a seat while we make some tea?











This is a closer picture of our beautiful statue. We don't exactly know his significance, but we feel he gaurds our home from evil spirits and protects us when we sleep.







As you enter the sitting room and glance to the right, you'll see our dining room. A large table with room for six people (for all those wild dinner parties we throw for all our adoring friends we have).


To the right of the dining room is our lovely kitchen where our wonderfully diverse meals are prepared with love and care. We're still making our kitchen more functional by purchasing important kitchen items. Still, it's great and we like it.




Back in the dining room we proceed slightly to the left and just before the sitting room and straight ahead (are you lost yet) go down the hall way. Pass by the two unused bedrooms filled with old Yen family memorabilia and at the end of the hallway to the left is where you will find Rube and Ellen's bedroom. Pretty nice!


So in our apartment we have two full bathrooms and check it out.....there's a urinal in one. It's quite nice addition I must say. No more toilet seat down issues for me!


Ok, so our house is really sweet and we love it and we love our neighborhood and there's a park nearby and markets (open air traditional and supermarkets) are close and public transportation is highly accessible. Pretty much an ideal situation. By now, we're feeling pretty well settled into the apartment and getting used to our surroundings and our daily Chinese lessons have begun. We've both signed up for two hours every day from 8:30am till 10:30 am. What do we do with the rest of our day? (you might ask) Well, that's where the job search comes in. But before we get into that, here are some pictures of our day-trip to a town called Danshui, which translates into "fresh water."



















Danshui is a town where the Danshui River flows into the Pacific Ocean. What we expected was a mellow, peaceful, coastal retreat from the hustle and bustle of the city. What we found was a fairly crazy and carnival-esque scene with a riverside touristy ambiance. Oh well, go with the flow I guess.

Also in Danshui is Fort San Domingo, built by the Spanish in 1629 a sweet jaunt back in history to when Europeans occupied the region (pretty crazy)



A couple views from inside the walls of the fort.







Here's Ellen looking at ease overlooking the Danshui River and Rube being engaged by an inanimate, bronze Spaniard.













After having a pleasant time at Fort San Domingo, we cruised around town and visited some temples. The temples of Taipei are wonderful, amazing places that are extremely ornate and beautiful. The care that goes into every detail is apparent and the result is something truly outstanding. Pictures cannot do justice to how moving and powerful it is to be surrounded by such warmth and serenity. But here are pictures anyway.




















So here's Rube standing between two of his favorite corporations, the ubiquitous Mickey D's and 7eleven. Man, Taiwan is so different! Except for the myriad convenient stores and fast-food restaurants of course.










And here's a picture of the seemingly endless line-up of scooters parked along the sidewalks of nearly every street. Scooters, scooters everywhere!









So after our trip to Danshui, we set our minds to the task at hand: jobs. English cram schools, known as buxibans (pronounced boo-shee-bons), seem to be on every corner, so our task at hand didn't seem very difficult. We sent out tons of resumes, wrote out many emails, and called scores of schools. Ellen soon found a school that she felt was a good fit. She will be developing and running a science based summer camp for 1st and 2nd graders, and after the summer, she will be teaching English for their after-school language department. Perfect! Rube, however, didn't fare so well in the job hunt. Seems as though that the vast majority of buxibans aren't too keen on their foreign, native English teachers having a Chinese appearance. Seems as though many schools have a policy against hiring American born Chinese individuals. But after much effort and stress, he too found a pretty good English teaching position. He is working for Hess - one of the largest English schools in Taipei with many small branch schools throughout the city. Pretty good! So we're both gainfully employed and able to get on with living the good life in Taipei. So, here's more pictures, cause that's why you're here right? Right.





This was the sign that greeted us as we stepped off the train in the city of Keelong (pronounced Jee-Loang). Good words to live by indeed. Keelong is about 30 minutes northeast of Taipei and is on the northern coast of Taiwan. It is a big port town, and has some great character.




Here's a picture of Keelong from a ferry that we boarded that took us to Keelong Island about 15km off shore. It was fun, we got to wear these really great life preservers. Boy did I feel safe!

























These pictures are of Keelong Island. It is an amazing island that is very small, yet rises quickly to a high peak. We navigated the countless stairs to the very top of the island where we found a very cool lighthouse.














Here's Rube (right) taking a break on the way up. Only 3 billion steps left, buddy.





And Ellen on her way through the tunnel of eternal happiness.