Paul's first birthday in Taiwan

For his birthday, Paul received this t-shirt:

Enough said!

A day in the life of Paul & Abbie in Taiwan: a video

This is a video that we put together a few months ago. Although it only really shows us going to language school, really that is what most days in our life consist of! Hopefully as you watch it it will help you to get a feel for some of the sights and sounds that have become familiar to us in our everyday life here.

Our first Easter in Taiwan

Apart from amongst Christians, Easter isn't celebrated in Taiwan - so there are no chocolate Easter eggs or hot cross buns to be enjoyed!

These are the Easter eggs that we were given at church on Easter Sunday - real hard boiled chicken eggs with different plastic wrapper designs. Some have Bible verses on them, some have characters like the Easter bunny on them - and some have both!

Abbie's first birthday in Taiwan

It was a happy day indeed :)

(And we're learning that the Taiwanese

present things - flowers, cakes, etc. -

very well!)

One of Abbie's teachers is a year younger than Abbie

and her birthday is only four days after Abbie's

so they celebrated together in class!

The south of the island

We headed back down to the south of the island for

a few days holiday

 We went to the southernmost point...

Us at the southernmost point of Taiwan!

We went in search of a beach with some decent

waves so that Paul could catch a few after months

(or years!) of not being able to go

surfing/bodyboarding...

...and discovered that the Taiwanese like to surf

too! :) 

We also discovered this waterfall which was

actually one of seven that cascaded into seven pools

And enjoyed some time on our favourite beach :)

Lantern Festival

Lantern Festival marks the end of the Chinese New

Year celebrations. Traditional Chinese lanterns are

often seen hanging up. They are red because red is

the lucky colour

We went to the Taiwan Lantern Festival - a lantern

display where we saw lanterns of all shapes and sizes.

These were the closest designs to the traditional

Chinese lanterns

This was one of my favourites :)

There were so many different designs, all contributed

by universities, businesses etc.

Some of them were very impressive!

There was an area particularly aimed at children

This was the centrepiece of the display - a giant horse

lantern - because this year is the year of the horse

We had never seen so many lanterns in our lives!

Our first Chinese New Year

We learnt how to make Chinese stuffed dumplings

(one of the foods traditionally eaten at Chinese New

Year) at the home of a couple of our colleagues

It was a bit fiddly!

The finished dumplings ready to be boiled

Chinese New Year is a time for meeting up with family

and friends, so over the holiday we met up with one of

our colleagues and two of our teachers and visited the

Taichung National Museum of Natural Science and the

Taichung Botanical Gardens