What Have I Been Doing With My Time?

I typically have a bit of extra time on my hands when we arrive at a new post.  Basically, I'm starting over with no commitments, free to make new choices that will fill my days.  It's a great time to build new friendships, get familiar with the grocery shopping, and just settle in.

Using crazy household objects as straight edges

This is the first post I've come to where I have a job waiting for me.  I did the interviews over the phone and was fortunate to be offered a position before arriving.  I gave myself one month after arrival before I would begin.  I'm coming up on the last few days of an open schedule before that job begins.
I feel like I've had more time at this post.  We are down to one child home, which feels extremely different.  She's been involved in after school sports, so that leaves me with lots of hours to fill during the day.  Our apartment is the smallest space I've lived in for a long time, so it doesn't consume my time keeping it clean.
I've tried to be very purposeful in how I use my time.  I feel comfortable with the grocery stores in my area.  I have a handle on Elena's school and classes.  I can get around on all means of public transportation and am just waiting for our car before I begin driving.  I've organized and bought shelves and feel ready for our HHE to arrive.  I've even painted our entire apartment.

Cutting the scarf

Last spring I began getting itchy to get my sewing machine out.  There wasn't time, and I didn't have a project to work on, so instead, I decided to pack the machine in our air shipment, buy some fabric while home, and use my extra time before working to begin a few projects.
I've been having a blast.  I've made two skirts for work and began a quilt.
I have this silly little goal, to make a quilt from each country we live in.  Of course I have quilts that look traditionally American, I have one I made from fabrics I collected on our trips to Africa and I have one 3/4 finished from New Zealand.  The squares for my Colombia quilt are waiting for inspiration.  While in Russia, I purchased some inexpensive scarves to make a quilt out of.
I got together with a few of my mom's friends, whom I knew made beautiful quilts.  We looked at the scarves, and discussed patter and color options. Then my mom and I went to the quilt store and picked out fabrics.  The clerk was wonderful, she came up with some color ideas that I fell in love with!
So, I've been making a quilt top.  In typical Kris fashion, I packed the sewing machine and scissors in the air shipment, but didn't think of all the other tools I would need to cut out a quilt.  So I've had to be creative.  I've made patterns out of paper, figured measurements on the computer, and used the groves in the tile to make sure I'm keeping my quilt square.  I've found odds and ends around the house to use as straight edges and right angels.  Overall, it's been fun to improvise, but in the future I'm going to make sure I pack the correct tools.

Piecing together the top

Fortunately, I am not a perfectionist.  There are some problems with my quilt that would probably drive some people nuts.  The first is that I should have stabilized the scarf.  It changes shape and dimensions and is very hard to correctly cut.  I will definitely stabilize the next scarf.  The other problem is that I sort of winged the pattern.  There are a few places where I should have just had one large strip of fabric filling a space, but instead I have several strips pieced together.  Not ideal, but it is a quilt, after all.
So I've been having a blast with my sewing machine on these hot humid days.  I will be putting it away in the next few weeks and have no idea when I will find time to sew with abandon again.  I've treasured these creative moments and am glad that I will have a fun project to look at as a result.

Eating Locally

We are becoming quiet fond of the local food.  It's the first country we've lived in that we are excited to eat out.  Typically, in other places, we've looked for a good Italian or American restaurant and sort of avoided the local food.  Here, we may not recognize what we are eating, but typically, it tastes good!  

This is a typical restaurant that we ate in one day.  The first clue that it's truly local food is the lack of English.  No English menu, the staff does not speak English and there's not even a picture menu to help out.  Another sign that the food will be good is the crowd around the front waiting to order.

The menu looks long, but everything is simply a combination of meat, rice, noodles and vegetables.  We order through pointing and sign language, typically combined with the help of a sympathetic customer who speaks English.  We always need to have the attitude of "I may not get what I'm expecting so I need to just go with it."  Dining is always an adventure.  For example, the other night we went out.  The restaurant even had plastic molded copies of the entrees.  One looked amazing with beef stew around a pile of mashed potatoes.  As I sat waiting for my dinner to be ready, I kept babbling on about how good the mashed potatoes looked and how I was suddenly craving mashed potatoes.  Big mistake.  Never get your expectations up when ordering food in a foreign country.  My mashed potatoes turned out to be rice covered in a thin sheet of scrambled eggs.  It was rather disappointing.  I couldn't even imagine mashed potatoes while I was eating egg covered rice.  

Several people work up front, taking orders, boxing up meals to go and working the cash register.  The kitchens are typically tiny.  This kitchen was only the size of a typical bathroom.  The women seem to have a rhythm, moving in unison to prepare and plate the food.  

Although I have my days where I just need some good ole American food, I'm beginning to prepare a few local dishes at home.  

Butterfly Trail

Crazy, large wasps eating some sort of fig.

Wouldn't you want to see where these stairs led?  I discovered them while taking the dog for a walk one day.  I immediately realized it was the beginning of a butterfly walk I had heard about.  On Labor Day, Chad and I took advantage of a day off to explore and see where the trail ended.  We had a wonderful morning walking together.   

There were so many things to see.  I will let the photos show you what we found. 

Nice view of our area as we headed up the mountain.

an interesting bird 

Sign of all the butterflies we could possibly run into.

Very cool rock with writing
in the middle of nowhere.

Freaky large spider.
We saw a couple of this variety.

We saw lots of butterflies.

More curious steps.
Too overgrown to explore.

Lanterns strung up on an obscure road.

Temples are everywhere.

Chad finds these large snails facinating.

Idols in a temple.

a.mart

Button on door

What to eat for dinner?  I looked at my list and picked a new recipe then watched the video I had found to make it.  Shoot, I was missing the vegetables.  I'm sure I thought, "I'll get them fresh when I'm ready to make it." last time I did my shopping and of course I didn't bother to figure out what I was making for dinner this morning before I went to the grocery store, so back to the store I needed to go.   Since I needed only Asian ingredients I thought I would try the grocery store I had been avoiding, a.mart.  It's only a block away and closer than Carrefour by a smidgen, so when in a hurry, it might be a good idea to know what they have.

I've been avoiding it because people seem to think that it's the Chinese store in the area.  No English.  No recognizable products.  I've been afraid that I would feel completely lost inside, so why bother?

I can see the back of the store from the end of my street.  It's right there, across a large, vacant lot.  Should I go left or right?  Right looked shorter so off I went.  I found a sketchy looking parking lot and cut through and ended up in the loading area.  I dodged delivery trucks and garbage dumpsters and walked around to the front.  Turns out there is a whole mall there.  I have found this to be typical overseas.  Grocery stores are located in malls and here they seem to be located on the second floor.

I found the main entrance and walked towards the sliding glass doors.  I haven't gotten used to pushing the button that makes the doors slide open.  I usually stand there, like an idiot, waiting for them to magically slide open.  Typically someone walks up, pushes the button and I meekly follow.

I wandered in and was delighted to find that there is a McDonald's in the mall, just around the corner from my apartment.  Right there, easy to get to when I have that need for some greasy fries.  Next to McDonald's was a donut shop.  Why do people avoid this place?  

I found my way up to the second floor and entered the grocery store.  Neat, clean, wide aisles and logically organized.  I walked down a random aisle and found the brown sugar and yeast that have been alluding me as well as several choices of flour.  They had cake flour, waffle flour, fine ground flour, standard flour, tapioca flour and just to spite Americans, they had extra gluten flour.

I grabbed the fresh veggies I needed for tonight's dinner then walked through the freezer section.  On my way to the cash register I saw the most interesting ice cream delights.  It's always fun to try the products in a foreign country so I picked a box of white covered purple ice cream treats.  Who knows what flavor that will be?  I can't even imagine, but it will make for a fun ending to our meal tonight.

The Chicken

My goal each day is to have dinner on the table around the time Chad and Elena get home in the evening.  OK, that's always been my goal, but things have gotten a bit more complicated here in Taiwan.  My real goal is to produce a meal that is edible and I know it will take me most of the day to accomplish that.  Once I get into the swing of things, I'll have a list on my refrigerator of the meals I can find all the ingredients to make.  In the meantime, it's trial and error in the kitchen.

One of the meals we love and find comforting is simply baked chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy.  Chicken is a meat found in most countries, and having been to the market here in Taipei, I knew it was available.  I'm a bit leery of buying the market chicken because I have no idea how long it's been sitting on that table, unchilled.  The last thing I want is for all of us to spend a miserable week running to the bathroom because I bought meat that had been sitting out in the heat and humidity for too long.

On my shopping trip to Carre Four, the grocery store that has a nice balance of local & other products presented in a bit more Western way, I found whole chicken, nicely wrapped in cellophane and packaged in a familiar way.  I examined it an made my purchase then began contemplating opening the package up and beginning the cooking process.  

I wasn't sure exactly what I would find.  I was a bit worried about feet because I could see there was a bit of color variation sort of tucked up inside the cavity.  I tore the plastic and began pulling at the grey part with my knife.  After a bit of effort, the leg slowly began to unbend and out came the leg, foot and claws.  The feet were scaly and just sort of curled up in a witchy sort of way.  The claws looked like long finger nails ready to scratch a groove in my cutting board.  Yuck.  I looked at the knuckle where I would need to make my cut and gave a shudder.  I quickly flipped the bird over with my knife to see if the small legs needed removing as well.  

That's when I saw what I was completely unprepared for.  The head was still attached, smashed into the side of the breast and squashed flat.  I squeaked.  Mind you, it was not a full out scream, but there was some sort of strange sounding noise that came from me.  It took a few minutes of hopping around the kitchen and shaking my hands out before I was able to return to the bird and sort out what to do.  I picked at the head with the knife in an effort to pry it away from the body and considered what to do.

I made a quick trip across the hall to see if my neighbor had ever removed the head from a chicken before.  She had a cleaver but had never cooked a whole chicken, so she had no useful tips for me.  Armed with my weapon, I marched back into the kitchen to get this over with so I could get on with my day.  I'm not really a hacking sort of person, so I gingerly took the cleaver and sawed it back and forth across a leg.  It didn't even break the skin.  I applied a little more pressure but didn't have any more luck.  So, lesson one learned.  You must have sharp kitchen knives in order to de-head a chicken.  I got my good chef's knife out and amazingly enough, with a little bit of pressure, the leg came right off.  The ease was actually a bit frightening.  Leg number two came off quickly before I turned the body around to deal with the head.  

There's just something about cutting a head off that is a bit disconcerting.  The more I looked at it's face, all ugly and smashed, the weaker my knees became.  I finally just sucked it up and in one, smooth slice the head was severed.  I peeked into the cavity.  Fortunately it had been thoroughly cleaned out to make room to tuck the feet.  I rinsed the body out and placed it in a baking dish.  I'm sure a Taiwanese cook would have a fit because the feet are one of their favorite things.  Not sure what they do with the heads, some things are better left unknown.

Dinner was a huge success.  The bird was juicy and tasty.  Another meal down.  1,085 left to go!

First Impressions

I've been here for 10 days now.  You probably think I've been around the town with my camera out, exploring and being a genuine tourist.  Although I've begun to see a lot of things, I've really just been adjusting.  I always forget how lost I feel those first few weeks as I try to find my feet in a brand new country.  Taiwan has been no exception.  So here are a few things that I noticed and have stuck with me that are unique to Taiwan, or at least, Asia.

The language - Chinese characters are everywhere.  Not only can I not understand what is being said, I have no hope of reading either.  In a way, this is relaxing.  I noticed that in Russia I tried reading everything I passed by.  Not that I could speak the language, but I always hoped that exercising my brain to translate the Cyrillic alphabet to the Latin alphabet, then sound out the word, that I would end up with something that sounded sort of like an English word I knew.  This only worked about 1 in 100 times, but none the less, if I saw Старбакс then I knew that a good frappuccino was just around the corner.  But if I see 星巴克, I really have no idea what to expect.  (Both mean Starbucks!)  It was exhausting, really.  I'm working on Chinese.  I've now perfected two words:  Hello and thank you.  Both are useful and make me seem extremely polite.  I plan to learn more words, but if you know me, then you know that two words in ten days is pretty good.

Mopeds - There are a lot around.  It's not quite as busy as I've seen in some other cities and, for the most part, they are very orderly.  I will have to pay extra attention when I begin driving, but even the driving seems relaxed and orderly.

Face masks - I hadn't thought about this prior to arriving, but Asians really like to accessorize by covering half their face with a mask.  I don't find it polluted here like I know it is in cities such as Beijing, so I'm not sure the purpose they hold other than creating a lot of sweat.

Muggy heat - It's hot and rainy here.  I actually really like the muggy heat, but I am going through more than one outfit a day and my hair has gone completely wild.

Food - My sponsor took me to a local market the first day I was here.  Later, the same day, I walked over to Carre Four with the hopes of finding something for dinner.  I realized, at that point, that meal preparation was going to be a huge challenge for me.  Now I've also visited Jason's (the international grocery store where you can find those rare, but extremely expensive items like a can of soup) and Wellman's Market (also an expat store with high prices for to die for items, but not all nice and shiny like Jason's).  Wellman's is really just a hole in the wall with dusty American canned goods. But now I know where I can go to get canned pumpkin at Thanksgiving.  Costco is a staple for every expat in the city.  I crossed several more items off my list there.  So I am left with a short list of items that I just can't find.  Mainly baking ingredients, so next I'll look online.  Honestly, I am a bit disappointed with myself.  I really like the idea of eating like the local people do but I just have no idea what to do with the ingredients and how to make them into something edible.  I guess food expectations in my mind–at least when eating inside my own house–are so ingrained into me.  I'm determined to work at it and get a few new recipes under my belt.

Temples - I hadn't given too much thought to the religion here.  It's the first time we've lived someplace that has a completely different religion than Christianity.  New Zealand had the Anglican church, Colombia the Catholic church and Russia had Orthodoxy.  They all focused on Jesus and the Bible, so the common threads made them easy, comfortable places to be.  Taiwan has a mixture of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism.  I really don't know what any of these religions believe.  There are temples and alters and offerings and incense.  I've been taught that idolatry is a sin, but because no one back home had an idol sitting in their family room, I was taught a TV or job was an idol because it took the place of God in one's life.  Here there are real idols and people who worship them.  I can see that I need to spend some time in my Bible and explore idolatry in a very black and white way.

Kind people - I think this is the kindest culture I have lived in.  The kind manner of the local people affects the attitude of expats as well.  Foreigners are happy to be here working.  It feels good to be in a place where people are happy.

Safety - Taiwan is safe.  The security briefing I did at the AIT was a bit of a joke.  Kids can travel on the metro and buses alone.  My neighbor has left her cell phone numerous places and it's been returned every time.  People leave their doors unlocked.  We don't think about safety and how it affects us on a daily basis, but after living in Bogota for two years and constantly concerned about muggings and petty theft, then living in Moscow where you were always looking over your shoulder- wondering if you were being followed, or wondering if someone had been in your apartment while you were away-it is a relief to be safe.

Now that I have mostly recovered from jet lag, I'm excited to be here.  Every day I feel a bit more settled.  I anticipate the next three years to hold some amazing adventures and to build some wonderful friendships.  

Michigan Touring

Michigan is a great place to call home.  We've lived in several areas of the state and enjoyed each area.  Rivers for kayaking, woods for hiking and of course, Lake Michigan to play in, were all easy to get to from our home in Grand Rapids.  If we felt we needed to get to a big city, Chicago was only a three hour drive.  

Although our girls have traveled the world, they don't remember many of the things that make home such a special place.  With friends visiting the girls from Colombia and Russia, the timing was perfect to explore our own state.

Bright and early (at least in teenage girl time) I loaded four girls into the car and we headed from Grandma's house in Midland, to Mackinac Island.  We had great views of Mackinac Bridge and a lighthouse from the ferry.  The girls were enchanted with the quaint island where no motorized vehicles are allowed, only horses and bicycles.  We rented some tandem bikes and tried to take off.  The next few hours gave me some unique insight into my girls as they tried to navigate staying on a two person bicycle.  I learned that Maddie is more of a leader and take charge person and her friend is laid back and willing to be on for the ride.  Maddie worked best in the front so her friend never even gave it a try.  Elena is very flexible, riding easily in the back but also wanting to try the front.  This is probably the result of being the third born and having to be flexible.  Her friend, on the other hand, is a first born and although she wanted to succeed in the back, she just has too much alf a type A personality.  It was rather fun to watch the girls struggle through the riding a bike experience then hoping on my own single bike and taking off without a care in the world.  We spent the night on the Island, enjoying the quiet after the last tourist boat has floated away.  We spent a rather hazy sunset skipping stones in the Lake then swung on the swings until it was dark.

The girls found Sleeping Bear Dunes fun.  They loved running and jumping in the sand.  It was refreshing to see nature completely captivate the girls.  We could have spent all day hiking and playing but we needed to move on.

Macwood Dune Rides were a bit of a disappointment to the girls.  I think they were envisioning flying over the dunes at neck-breaking speed, but I enjoyed my hair whipping around my face as we flew up and downs the dunes.  The evening found me free to watch the sunset over Lake Michigan with the light house adding to the scene.

We wrapped up our tour with a day at Michigan Adventure.  The girls' third cousin from Finland was visiting America, so she joined us for the day.  It was so fun to watch five girls with international experience connect.  They were simply carefree teenagers for the day.  Laughter and conversation filled the air.  I don't think my girls would have done well in this situation if we didn't lead the life we do.  They would have struggled with small talk and getting to know one another if they hadn't been the new kids so often or had no idea of what the rest of the world was like.  This was clear in a conversation that happened shortly after we arrived.  The girls were busy talking as we were standing in line for a roller coaster.  The girl behind us asked our cousin where she was from.  

"Finland" she replied. 

 "Your accent is so cool.  I love it." 

At this point the stranger's friend tried to jump into the conversation.  "I'm Finish too."  This was met with awkward silence.  She was as Finish as I am–her grandparents probably also immigrated from Finland.

The conversation completely died at this point and my group went back to small talk and joking around as if they had known each other forever.  These five girls saw no difference in one another and just had fun.

I felt so lucky showing my girls and their friends our amazing state.  It was a fast and busy week, but what great memories this will provide when we are split up and in different countries this fall.