07 December, 2009

Leaving Taiwan...



I’ve constantly been in thought throughout these last 3-4 months of traveling in S.E. Asia and now being in Taiwan. For many reasons, I have decided to head back to Portland rather than continue to look for, and sign, a year long teaching contract here in Taiwan. This will be the end of my 3rd adventure in Asia, it has been really great. Nolan and Phil will continue to look for teaching positions and plan on staying as they get a good job. They will do great here and will make great teachers. I will miss them and I wish them well.

If you would like to keep up with their journey, pictures and all, I would refer you to Phil’s blog: http://theseasiachapter.blogspot.com/

My flight for PDX leaves this Sunday morning. Because of the time difference, I will leave at 9:45am from Taiwan and arrive at 8am in Portland on the same day.

I’m really excited to see everyone much sooner than I had originally expected as I flew to Bangkok. My plan is to get a job working in the coffee industry, find a place to live, and maybe a vehicle to get me from point A to point B.

Thank you for taking the time to keep up with my blog and our journey. I do plan to continue to blog, but am unsure at this time what that will look like.

Blessings,
Jonathan William

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04 December, 2009

Night Market

Rice sausage....it's good. We actually gambled for these sausages - if you win, you win three sausages, you lose, you have to pay. Gambling for food seems like a better idea than for riches.
Here we are with our friend Luke and also with a new Taiwanese friend named Stanley. Stanley also helped show us around the market, letting us know what we cannot go without trying. We are currently staying at Luke's apartment, his friends are out of town. It has been really great getting to know Luke, who is studying Mandarin right now, as well as a huge blessing to have a place to stay while we are looking for jobs.
Headed back to the MRT.
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Night Market

Here is the Taiwanese Oyster Omelet. It was okay.

Chewy.....kinda doughy.
Here is our new friend Lawrence with Nolan. He showed us around the night market and also took many of these photos. We both have Nikon camera's, so we were sharing lenses and camera's, shooting photos at the market.
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Night Market



This is another form of the rice bun filled with all kinds of varietal wonders. The difference here is that this bun is baked with fire rather than steamed. These meat filled buns are a crispy goodness.
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Headed to a night market in Taiwan

MRT heading downtown

Steamed buns - these are really good. Some are filled with meat and others with vegetables.
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03 December, 2009

Noodles in Taiwan


Spicy Wonton
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25 November, 2009

Taiwan

We made it to Taiwan safely on November 20th.

We've been staying with some friends and connections here in Taipei. We are in a town called Danshuei, the furthest north stop of the MRT train from Taipei.

Things are definitely new and unknown. We are slowly figuring out how to order food and building a list of place that we can eat via pointing to a picture or food.

I'm sorry that I have not blogged recently since we arrived. We do not have Internet where are staying and have only recently found some good coffee houses with wifi. I've taken a few photos but plan to take more before posting them.

We are working with a recruiter to find jobs teaching English. Currently, we are preparing a teaching DEMO that we will use during interviews with schools. Tomorrow (Friday), we will be presenting our teaching DEMO to the recruiters we are working with. This presentation is in preparation for an interview that we have next week.

I'm having a really great time trying all the new foods available - there is such a wealth of options! The only issue, and cause of much emotional frustration for me, is the fact that I can only order a very limited array of foods because of my limited knowledge. I look forward to learning Mandarin and learning how to eat using Chinese characters!

The food is so different from Thailand. We've been eating lots of noodles. The noodles are much thicker than noodles eaten in Thailand. I've had some amazing steamed buns. Still a mystery to me, these buns are filled with any number of things from meat to bean paste, and steamed. The shell of the bun is a really soft, moist, rice something or other - it seems to me like the bread of China, and it's made from rice.

The food is wonderful and I look forward to posting pictures and descriptions as time and opportunity allow.

Blessings,
Jonathan

19 November, 2009

Chiang Rai

The mountainous country.

Goodbye Thailand. Hello Taiwan.

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Cooking Dinner in Chiang Rai



Preparing the Thai omelette, known as Kai Geow.

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Cooking Dinner in Chiang Rai


Daow with the vegetable that will go into the Tom Yum.

Thai omelette with vegetables, a vegetable stir fry, and Tom Yum Fish - a Thai soup.

Tom Yum Fish.
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18 November, 2009

Queens Garden

We had decided to visit the Queens garden long before we actually flew to the north of Thailand, it is a wonderfully beautiful place. One interesting thing that we discovered on this trip, while we were with the Akha people, was that this land for the garden was taken from an elder Akha man's family and tribe! A real example of the difficulties the hill tribe people's face when interaction with Thai society.

The garden is gorgeous, I doubt these photos can capture even a small amount of the beauty. By the end of this walk....I was thoroughly tired of taking pictures, ha, so enjoy the good ones that are posted here.




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Queens Garden




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Queens Garden




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