Moon Festival

Today was Moon Festival in Taiwan.  It's the equivalent to Thanksgiving but with different traditions.  Apparently on Moon Festival day you're supposed to have a barbecue, eat pomelos (a fruit I didn't know existed until today), and have moon cakes for desert (more on that later).  Here's some more info on the Moon Festival from google: 

The Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Festival or Lantern Festival or Mooncake Festival or Zhongqiu Festival, is a popular lunar harvest festival celebrated by Chinese and Vietnamese people.  A description of the festival first appeared in Rites of Zhou, a written collection of rituals of the Western Zhou Dynasty from 3,000 years ago. The celebration became popular during the early Tang Dynasty.  The festival is held on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese calendar, which is in September or early October in the Gregorian calendar, close to the autumnal equinox.  The Government of the People's Republic of China listed the festival as an "intangible cultural heritage" in 2006, and it was made a Chinese public holiday in 2008.  It is also a public holiday in Taiwan.

A very friendly woman, Abish (like the woman in the book of mormon), invited us over after dinner for Moon Festival dinner.  She didn't have a barbecue but we had spaghetti with pomelos and moon cakes.  It was very nice of her.  She is the ward translator so she knows fluent chinese and english, all from teaching herself.  She has a 2-year-old named Jonathan.

These are pomelos.  They're a fruit similar to a grapefruit but not as bitter.  It took a lot of work though to get to the fruit.  It had so many layers that by the time I got to the fruit I didn't care anymore!  But they were actually very delicious.

But the moon cakes on the other hand...were not.  They were some store bought ones and I thought it would just be like a...cake, some dough, flour?  No...

Half a chew into this "cake" and I knew...KNEW...that I could not have another bite.  It would not be physically possible.

Here's why:

I'm already not a pastry person, but mixed with the things above and I'm definitely out.  So I knew I had to find a way to not bring attention to the fact that I wasn't going to finish it.  So I casually put it down behind a bowl for a few minutes as to not bring attention to it or me and that I wasn't eating it.  I was semi-freaking out though because the cake was too large to wrap in a napkin and leave on the table.   Fifteen minutes later at last she took her son to the bathroom so I wrapped it in a napkin and quickly threw it in my backpack on the other side of the room.  Phew!  I felt bad but it just wasn't going to be possible to finish it. (Again, it was store bought so I don't feel as bad).  Plus, no one noticed!

But everything was great and I'm very thankful for her invitation.  People here are so nice and it's been great to see people homes and see how people live here and get to know them.

 Happy Moon Festival!

Ocean/Beach Pictures

...with no story.

Just pictures.

(except this one.  i'm jumping; my legs are not invisible or in the water)

English Speakers Potluck

One of the members of the bishopric at church is American.  He and his wife invited all the english speakers in the ward to their place for a potluck.  I brought cookies (not that you care).

This is the neighborhood they live in.

I'm used to poor-looking buildings built a hundred years ago with rat-infested walls (ok, slight exageration...)...BUT, was not expecting this.  They had a beautiful home in a gated community (complete with detailed landscaping) which was way nice to visit.

(their living room)

(tacos!)

This is Julian.

He was my first friend in the ward when I first showed up.  Within ten seconds of walking in he invited me to sit next to him at church.

All the english speakers.

A fun and very nice group of people from all over: California, Utah, Idaho, Vegas, Hawaii, Omaha, the Philippines, and Taiwan.

Cool fact: The guy two heads to my left is a scout for the Oakland A's.  He told me, "I have a friend named Craig Shipley," and I said, "Cool!  I know there's an old baseball player from the Padres (surprise! yes, I actually knew that) named Craig Shipley that I grew up knowing about..." and he said, "That's who I'm talking about."

Small world?...Kinda?

Taipei 101 - Part 2

When my American friends were still here we went to the top of Taipei 101 for them.  This was my second time going up and even better than the first time.

When I went in May it was cloudy and overcast and rainy and couldn't see too far into the distance. 

But this time it was super blue and sunny and you could see on for miles.

(reminder: this is the 2nd tallest building on earth)

This time I started the guided audio tour of the top of the building.  But I didn't last long before getting too bored: "Look at the yellow building in the eastern direction about half a mile away...that was built in 1975..."

I was done with that.

But the views are amazing.

This time, because the weather wasn't evil, the outdoor observatory was open.

Which means...(and my sister would freak out)...

No windows!

(view of the top from the top)

(awesome shadow picture)

I'm sure I will go again sometime.

Next time: at night.

The Tour Islanded On: Day 5 (last day)

Unfortunately, no monkeys on day 5. 

But by this day of the tour I was pretty much done.  I was exhausted from the entire journey and the let-down of not getting to see the east coast because of the typhoon put a slight damper on everything.

The morning of day 5 started with Samson showing us the news and footage of damage done to the east coast from the typhoon that we would have been in if we wouldn't have turned around!  Crazy!

So before we headed back to Taipei we stopped at a few small sites to see some interesting things, especially some cool architecture of temples and such.

We first stopped at a mini-temple which had some cool things and even cooler surroundings outside.

I love the design of whatever it is above.

(blurry picture but the tree was so cool)

We then went to a really cool looking building (I believe it was where the Dutch leaders lived when the Dutch used to own Taiwan a billion years ago...or something to that effect) that reminded me entirely of the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland.

It's definitely Haunted Mansion-y.

Millions of fish in this pond.

Tablets with Chinese memorials written on them.

After the Haunted Mansion it was time to go home.

It was a five hour bus ride back to Taipei (and I went a little crazy near the end of it...) but it was all worth it because the entire trip was great.

(the sun setting on Taiwan and the tour)

Once I got home I was so tired and sleepy.

And those (the last 5 posts) were all the highlights of the tour.  Thanks for following along the tour of my tour.  Overall the entire trip was epic and grandiose.  Taiwan is awesome.  It was a bummer that the east coast didn't happen but I'll just have to plan another trip to go see it soon.

Typhoon-less.