The food, oh the food! The food is quite worth mentioning, because it's nothing like I've ever experienced elsewhere. Meats and vegetables are fresher than I have ever seen. The tastes are amazing, and utilized in ways I have never thought of, and has awoken taste-buds I didn't know exists. There are more vegetables to choose from here than I've ever seen in an American grocery store, and it looks like it was JUST PICKED five minutes ago, and is there right in front of you. Even the chickens are killed right there, and they put them in water to drain [View Full Entry]

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Ok so a lot has happened since I last wrote anything on this site. Melissa has finally arrived and we've moved to a bigger apartment. We've also eaten some fantastic food and explored some really cool parts of the city. First, the apartment. Basically I had initially agreed to rent the studio from Martin for a month. A couple of days before I arrived however he emailed me to let me know that his sister-in-law had in fact just let it out so I could only have it for ten days. Not wanting to leave me in the lurch he [View Full Entry]

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At some point around midnight or so I made it to LAX. I was feeling a little rushed, but not as much as when I left FL. Passed a bunch of airlines... still wondering if Malaysian truly exists... and there they are down the third row. Now I just have to hope that a series of events occurs that results in me boarding this plane. OK, my ticket is confirmed, it's looking pretty good until they say that having a one-way ticket is no good and i have to buy my onward ticket now. No problem, I'll go to Hong Kong... [View Full Entry]

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March 30 So lucky I checked my flight last night because they changed it on about 8 hours early. Which I was a little bummed about because I didn't get to do the last few things I wanted to do but was good because I was getting into Taiwan earlier. The flight was fine. I found the bus to take me to Taipei main center. Then I called Talbot the couch surfer guy I'm staying with and he picked me up from the metro close to his house. He is a nice guy. American teaching English here in Taipei. When we [View Full Entry]

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April 3 So today I headed out to hit a few beaches. First up was Fulobg beach. It want a great beach and it had a decent lil wave. There was a river mouth splitting the beach so the waves had some form to it and the wind was off shore. The water felt around 60ish though. I walked around here a bit then hopped back on the train and headed to Dasi beach. This was a tiny town not much there. The surf spot was about 1/2 k down the road in a lil cove area called honeymoon beach. The [View Full Entry]

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Hi All Today was my last day in Taiwan I fly out to Hong Kong tomorrow morning, so i finally went to the zoo which was ace, the sun was out in full and so were the people due to it being a public holiday. Taipei zoo is far bigger than any zoo I've been to in England and its ridiculously cheap Usually it cost $60 (1pound) but because today was Taiwan's independence day it was half price so it cost me 50p!!! They have loads of animals there from all over the world including Lions, Tigers, Leopards, Elephants, Wolves, Penguins, [View Full Entry]

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Kristen writes: Sorry it’s been a while since we’ve written you last, but it’s been busy here since that time. Nick has started school at National Taiwan University, and it’s been rather routine here since we’ve communicated last. It’s been a lot of homework and study for Nick, so he’s been focusing a lot on that at the moment. I am supporting him as much as possible. I’m very proud of him!!! I know a lot of you have been wondering and asking what I’ve been doing since I’ve arrived here. After working for almost ten [View Full Entry]

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Nick and Kristen write: Monday, September 22nd, 2008: On Monday Nick had a morning lecture on Chinese Phonetics that he attended and then in the afternoon we went to the National Palace Museum. Many people say that if you only have time to see one thing in Taiwan it's the museum. We were very impressed. Their collection of Chinese treasures was amazing ranging from their bronzes to lacquerware to 19th century Q'ing Dynasty era furniture. By far our favorites were the calligraphy and landscape exhibits. Sadly we have no pictures to share with you because the museum didn't [View Full Entry]

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The trip back to Taipei was a little longer and a lot funnier then the trip to get to Keelung. As typical foreigner behavior we tried to get to our platform early. Walking up to the ticket gates Amy put in her ticket....only to have it shot right back out the other end and onto the platform floor. It had to wait till a station worker came by to retrieve it for us. Luckily, a lovely old man came over and explained why we couldn't go through, and then we checked out tickets to see that they didn't have magnetic back, [View Full Entry]

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