Around the island

Over the last few months, we've been visiting various different places around Taiwan to consider where we might work in the future. We've really enjoyed going to some new places and seeing more of the island. One of these places was a fishing port on the south west coast called Donggang.

In many ways, Donggang is a lot like other

Taiwanese towns...

...however, being a fishing port, it has a lot more

boats!

Unsurprisingly, it also has an impressive fish

market! As you can see from the photo below, the

Taiwanese love eating fish - the WHOLE fish!!

Christmas and New Year's Eve celebrations 2014

Times of food, fun and friendship :)

Christmas Day - lunch at the home of some fellow

British colleagues:

Boxing Day - we invited some of our Taiwanese

friends over to experience their first traditional

'British' Christmas Dinner...

...though we had a roasted chicken in place of a

turkey - Taiwanese style (head, feet and all!) 

New Year's Eve - the same Taiwanese friends

invited us to one of their homes to have Hotpot

(a bit like a Taiwanese Fondue!) with them:

And of course, there were fireworks!

Our first visitors!

In October, we welcomed our first visitors to Taiwan! Abbie's parents came to visit for a couple of weeks.

We spent the first week having a holiday together

in the south of the island...

...and then we spent the second week including

them in our usual activities so that they could

better understand our day-to-day life here.

We also spent a day sightseeing in

Taiwan's capital city, Taipei.

We asked them to write a few words reflecting on their time here. Here are some of their impressions:

'Taiwan is both Asian and Western, rural and modern. It has vibrant and beautiful scenery, masses of scooters, and a dazzling array of neon signs... The Taiwanese are a generous and lovely people, and Taiwan feels a safe place (unless you step into the road!)'

It was very special to be able to spend time catching up with them after so long, and introduce them to our life here. In doing so, we realised just how much we like living in Taiwan and the Taiwanese people!

The Night Market

One thing that Taiwan is famous for is its Night Markets. Night Markets sell a variety of food and drink, clothes, accessories, etc. and are very popular with young people. They are busy places with lots of bright lights, sounds, smells and general hustle and bustle and can be found all over Taiwan.

One food that Taiwan is famous for and that can be
found at Night Markets is Stinky Tofu (not 'skllnky'
as the photo suggests!)

Stinky Tofu is bean curd that has

fermented (yummm!) and is so called

because, as you can probably imagine,

it STINKS! It's cooked in a variety of

different ways

Paul being brave and trying the fried
variety! (Actually, it didn't taste too
bad...)

Another famous Taiwanese food that can be found at

Night Markets is Ji Pai

Ji Pai is basically the whole front of a chicken which

is pounded flat, breaded and deep fried...if you can

imagine a giant chicken nugget but crispier on the

outside and juicier on the inside you're pretty close!

And a famous Taiwanese drink that can

be found at Night Markets is Pearl Milk

Tea, also known as Bubble Tea or

Boba Tea

Pearl Milk Tea is iced, sweetened,

milky tea which has chewy tapioca balls

or 'pearls' in it. Sounds strange, and at

first we weren't sure, but we've grown

to love it!

So if you want a fun and interesting evening out in Taiwan, a Night Market is the place to go!

Learning Chinese Mandarin

In a previous post we mentioned that we spend most of our time at language school learning Chinese Mandarin. We've been working through a series of textbooks called 'Chinese Made Easier'. There are five books in the series consisting of seventy chapters in total. On average, each chapter takes about eight class hours to complete (plus some preparation and review time).  

Here's a chapter from one of the textbooks:

Each chapter starts with a story or

dialogue on a particular topic which we

have to read though (notice that we're

still learning how to buy food!)...

 ...then there's a vocabulary list of about thirty new
words relating to that chapter to learn...

...new grammar rules and sentence pattern exercises...

...questions about the story/dialogue and
translation exercises...

...and eight traditional Chinese

characters to memorise (and write -

if we want to!)

After we've completed this series of textbooks we will have only covered the basics - there are plenty more textbooks lined up on our bookshelf, ready and waiting!

And of course, aside from working our way through the textbooks, we also spend time putting theory into practise!

The east of the island

Having done some exploring in the south of the island, we decided that it was time to head east!

We went to a place called Tienxiang,

deep in the mountains

We stayed at the church guest house there

We climbed up to this temple which

was perched on the mountainside...

...walked through mountains...

...valleys...

...caves...

across bridges suspended over gorges,

rivers...

...and waterfalls!

Taiwan is a stunning place!

Paul's first birthday in Taiwan

For his birthday, Paul received this t-shirt:

Enough said!