The woman at the market

It's Christmas and we are doing what we do when the country we live in doesn't feel like Christmas.  Snow and cold weather is essential to a good Christmas, in my mind, so if we can't have that, we like to escape to someplace completely different.  This year we are in Thailand.  All of that is just a side note to set the stage for the real story that I want to tell.

This afternoon we were at a market, enjoying the great bargains on all the "designer label" things.  We really had a great time, Chad was in his element dickering away at prices.  The kids enjoyed poking through all the stuff and finding their treasures.  We stopped to get some bubble drinks before we hopped into tuk tuks to go back to the hotel.  While we were sitting around a table, a woman approached us.  She was clean and neat, dressed nicely and had a genuine smile that shone out from inside of her.  She held out her hand with little trinkets in it and gave us a card in English explaining that she was deaf and selling these items to support the deaf community.  We began to look through the trinkets--an elephant, a globe and a deaf hand in the symbol of "I love you."  We all looked to Maddie.  Slowly at first, she signed something.  The woman's smile got bigger and softer and her hands began to fly.  Maddie told us that she didn't get it all, but back and forth they went, signing to one another.  The woman pulled out another trinket to show Maddie.  It was a cross.  She pointed to the cross in her hand and then to her heart.  I didn't need to understand sign language to know what she was saying.  

It was beautiful to watch Maddie communicate in ASL to this Thai woman.  Maddie got the trinket with the hand on it and promptly put it on her purse.  Sometimes it's not the activities we do along the way, but the people we meet.

A few foods

A stroll through the grocery store is always an adventure.  Here are a few things that I took pictures of!

Do they collect bee's wings for this?

Not sure what it is, but who doesn't like Hello Kitty in the frozen section?

Domino's Pizza - Peanut butter filled crust

Why not give it the "fresh from the ocean" taste with some seaweed powder?

Meat lovers with corn???

View from my Window

I don't often take time to stare out the window.  Maybe a glance now and then, but it is a rare moment when I really take the time to look.  I don't have my camera with me, but maybe I can describe a bit of what I see.

Hundreds of mopeds are parked across the street.  They stand in a long row, the white liscence plates facing out.  They all look the same and I often wonder how the owner finds his bike.  Maybe it's by the helmet hanging on the handle, screaming out individuality in a sea of sameness.

A man stands by the street--sometimes he sits in a portable chair he has brought with him.  He is wearing a tan, Japanees style hard hat and a red cape.  Yellow trims the cape that is draped to the ground.  He stands still, facing the ground as people walk by.  He has something in his hands.  I don't know if he is a monk, but no one has offered him anything.  He will be there all day, barely noticed by anyone but me.si

A taxi stops and the driver helps a woman get into a wheel chair.  It takes all he has to heft her out of the car.  She is wrapped in shawls and pink blankets.  Someone runs up and whisks her away.

A young couple stroll by.  She is on her phone, her straight, long black hair flung over her shoulder.  He holds her hand as they briskly walk by.

Shades of green marble the park across the street.  Like a Monet, indiviudual leaves blur together creating dimention and feeling.  The wind blows the long leaves of the palms in ribbons across the sky. 

In the center of the park is a large, renaissance sytle building.  I am told it is left over from the Japanese occupation of Taiwan in the early 1900's .  It is an oasis of Savanah charm in the midst of steel and glass.

Catch a Wave and You're Sitting on Top of the World

Playing in the water is part of who we are.  Chad grew up swimming on his school’s team, I had a pool in my backyard and we both were lifeguards in high school.  When the kids were little and we lived near Lake Michigan, I would load them into the car a couple times a week and head out to the beach.  There’s just nothing like sand between your toes and waves to play in.  The last island we lived on, Chad, Damon and I got our diving certifications.  Diving hasn’t turned out to be my favorite sport, but I tried it because I love the water.  Now we find ourselves on an island once again.  We’ve been out to the beach a few times, Chad and Elena played in the waves.  Taiwan isn’t a “lay on the golden sand and bask in the sun” sort of country, but it is a “grab a surf board” sort of a place.  

We set up lessons with Rising Sun Surf Inn 1½ hours away.  On the sand, we laid on top of our boards following the instructions from our teacher.  Theoretically, if I paddled hard, placed my hands on the board then hopped to my feet I would be surfing.  Of course it was much harder than that.  After a few tries though, I found myself flying ahead of the wave, popped into the air and raised my arms in victory.  Not exactly what I was supposed to do, but the feeling I had of success simply expressed itself in pure excitement.  

Surfing turns out to be loads of hard work.  There’s this big board you have to drag out into the ocean while battling the waves.  Then you have to turn the board around and get one top of said board.  As the wave approaches, you paddle like crazy.  This is more of a mental activity rather than anything that propels you towards shore. Then comes a moment when you are completely connected with the water, wave and your board.  You plant your hands and pop onto your feet in one smooth movement.  For a brief moment or two, I experienced the sheer exhilaration of riding a wave.  It's completely addicting.  

Beach Clean-up Day

We've settled in and life is beginning to find its routine.  We're having fun exploring and getting involved and even enjoying just the routine of living in one place and knowing we will be here for awhile.   I hope to catch-up, in the next few weeks, with some of the things we have been doing and some of the observations I've made.

We joined in, one Saturday, with a bunch of other people from AIT to do some beach clean-up.  Each year Taiwan sponsors various clean-up days on beaches around the island.  There were probably about 200 people on this one beach picking up trash.  It was very well organized and turned out to be a lot of fun.  They had gloves and bags and pinchers for us to use.  The Taiwanese people are amazingly clean and you typically don't see trash around.  (You also don't see garbage cans around either, but that's a different story.)  But after a few typhoons, stuff gets blown in and blown around and it takes a lot of work to get things cleaned up again.  So we just walked around with our  pinchers picking up little bits of refuse and putting it in our bags.  It was amazing the pile of trash two hundred people collected.  

We explored a bit after we were finished and came across a harbor full of these fishing boats.  They are strung with huge light bulbs.  Man I would love to see them all lit up at night!  From what I read, they are used to light  up the boat and attract fish.  I'd like to return when they are coming in from a trip and see them unload the fish.  I'll have to ask around a bit and see what I can learn!

Cross Country Season

Yesterday morning I cheered Elena on in her last cross country meet of the season.  It's been a new sport for her, and the best decision made in moving to a new country and school.















I can't think of one negative thing from this running season.  Yeah, Elena ran with an injury, but I watched her overcome the pain, and push herself to reach personal goals.
















I really didn't know what to expect of the sport, but I found it to be the most personally supportive group she's been involved in.  The coach knew when to push her and when to tell her to take an easier run.  He saw her strengths and weaknesses and worked with them.

It gave Elena a place to belong, a place to find her feet and settle.

I'm going to miss Sat. morning meets.

Two in One Day

If you've followed this blog since the beginning, you would know I am a little bit bitter about not feeling earthquakes in New Zealand.  I'm over that now.

This morning, around 3:30, I awoke to the bed swaying gently around the room.  Or at least that's what it felt like.  Chad was out in the family room on a call with the states, taking care of some business.  He ran into the room with his eyes wide open and asked if I had felt it.  Yes,  I did.  Is that what an earthquake feels like?  I really was expecting a bone rattling sort of mind numbing shaking. 

We were talking about it at dinner, and apparently many people were awaken by the shake.  Elena slept through it, she was disappointed.

I looked it up, because I was curious.  The quake was a 5.6, off the east coast of Taiwan at 3:37 a.m.  What was felt here in Taipei was 3.0.  My gentle sway has the potential to be a lot worse.  Chad says it was not a gentle sway.  He said I was half asleep.  What really happened was, the room shifted and the apartment creaked.  It was rather freaky.

As I was sitting here this evening, contemplating writing a blog to document my experience, the room swayed once again.  This time my eyes were big.  It felt like it lasted forever, like maybe 20 seconds or so.  Elena ran out of her room and her eyes asked if it was an earthquake.  Yep.  

So two in one day.  My heart is a bit on edge right now.  I think I've had enough excitement for the next three years.