Nick and Kristen write: We are home! We have been back in the States for a bit of time now, and we are very happy to be home. This will be our last blog (until Nick gets sent to some God-forsaken place again, which hopefully won't be for awhile). Looking back at our time in Taiwan and Asia, there were so many good and bad things we experienced. However, we will always be grateful for our time there, and enjoyed the experience very much. Taiwan is one of the most beautiful countries in the world - the natural landscape is unbelievably [View Full Entry]

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A Trip to Beigang, Puli and the Mazu Festival Nick and Kristen write: Nick's program was closed for a holiday from Wednesday - Friday of last week and so we decided to join their trip to central Taiwan for the Mazu parade. Mazu is the goddess of the sea that the Taiwanese worship, and this religious festival is one of their big holidays in Taiwan. Thousands of people make a pilgrimage to worship the deity. The trip was comprised of students in Nick's program who wanted to make the three day trip. There were about 20 of us, and we started [View Full Entry]

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Nick and Kristen write: We finally enjoyed a Saturday where there was no rain. We get so few of these, so we decided that of course we couldn't waste it. After thumbing through our beaten Rough Guide to Taiwan, we decided to make a day trip out of Taipei to nearby Wulai. Wulai is a small hamlet that is about half an hour outside of Taipei city limits. The nice thing about Taiwan is that you are only half an hour away from almost complete wilderness. The highlight of Wulai is it's waterfall. While it's no Niagara Falls, it's still pretty [View Full Entry]

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Nick and Kristen write: Thanks to the suggestion of some wonderful friends of ours, we decided to travel to Thailand. Bangkok, Thailand is an amazing place to travel, and one that everyone should visit at some point in their lives. Our trip encompassed four days of relaxing in 95-degree weather, exploring various wats (monastery temples) throughout Thailand, sitting and tanning besides a large pool with a bar (in the water) and taking a dinner cruise down the Chao Phraya River (or the River of Kings in the Thai language). Before leaving Taipei we were hesitant about going, bec [View Full Entry]

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Nick and Kristen write: Happy Chinese New Year! Xinnian Kuaile!!! It’s the year of the ox this year. The Taiwanese close everything down for a week of celebrations, and so Nick had a week off of school. Because we love to travel so much, we decided to go to Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to see more of Asia, especially non-Chinese Asia, which we get so much of here. We ended up spending three days in Singapore and 1½ days in Kuala Lumpur. For those that don’t know which part of the world this is located in, Singapore and Malaysia are [View Full Entry]

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Nick and Kristen write: We’re back from our second trip this month, and have much nicer things to say this time around. However, not to appease our Taiwanese critics who have told us to “go back to America” (we couldn’t care less what people who we’ve never met say) but because we actually had a good time in Kaohsiung and with its people. In all fairness we take back what we said about Taiwanese bad fashion. Bad fashion sense appears to be limited to Taipei. The rest of the country appears to dress normally. For those of you that don’t know, [View Full Entry]

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Nick and Kristen write: School is over for the semester and we have had some time to roam the island. The last few days we have seen some temples, museums and night markets that we have been meaning to visit since we first came to Taipei. Think of it as thinks on our to do list that we never got around to doing, but finally did. The strangest day last week was when we visited the Taipei Fine Arts Museum and Storyland Museum. We decided to make our way over there and then have dinner at the famous Shilin Night Market. [View Full Entry]

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Nick and Kristen write: Hi Family and Friends! We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving with their families. We decided to spend Thanksgiving in Hong Kong. We flew out for four days to visit Hong Kong and Macau! We left on Wednesday night and had a wonderful time! The airport in Taipei is interesting. We actually flew out of the Hello Kitty Lounge per the attached picture. The Asians (and particularly the Japanese) have an interesting affection/obsession for this cartoon and actually stood snapping pictures for the better part of 20 minutes while we were there. Kristen abs [View Full Entry]

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Nick and Kristen write: Just a quick entry this time - no pictures! It's interesting how different the weather is out here compared to back home. A few days ago it was in the high 70's and 80's with high humidity. Fairly warm by American standards. Today it was in the 60's, still a little humid. And the Taiwanese were out in their full winter gear - boots, winter coats, scarves, the works! We were kind of amused walking around in our shorts and short-sleeved tops and all! It's funny what people consider to be cold. I think they would probably [View Full Entry]

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Kristen and Nick write: Hong Kong!!! It’s a wonderful place to visit. Modern, cosmopolitan and very much like New York. We were there this past weekend. Hong Kong is everything Taiwan is not! What a great place to visit . . . or live! The skyline is beautiful. We felt very much at home in Hong Kong. There are actually different kinds of people in Hong Kong - white, black, Chinese, Indian, etc. Diversity is something you take for granted back home. It’s so nice to be around different people. It must be strange to live in a world where everyone [View Full Entry]

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