Reflection of Summer

"Farewell, Season!  You were very beautiful and rich.  No other summer can compare with you.  Today I recognize this even though there have been times when you made me terribly unhappy and sad.  As something to remember me by, I leave you my adventures, littered all over the park and the lanes and gardens.  I can't take my age [twenty] back with me, that will have to stay behind here for good.  Now you're sinking amont the shades, and down to the underworld along with you goes all this [...]"

-Bruno Shulz, Autumn

Wrapping It Up

A paragraph on the last few days of and returning home from Taiwan:

As I mentioned before, we did a little more sightseeing to round out the trip. First, we went to Sun Moon Lake. Taiwan doesn’t have too many lakes, and this is the island’s largest, so not only is it a very pretty place to spend the day, it’s also special in that way, too. We took a boat around and visited several sights (including one that sold a woman’s very famous tea eggs). We also visited a church that Chiang Kai-Shek built so that his mother could attend when she was there. There was also a couple taking their wedding photos there, which will definitely turn out nice.

On The Menu

So now that I have returned home, I thought it might be fun to include a list of food that I ate in Taiwan that maybe I wouldn't eat in the US, most likely because they aren't as available. For example:

• Seaweed soup (warm and cold [the warm is better], special from Penghu and said to maybe help you get better if you have SARS or Cancer…)
• Mini squid
• Little fried minnow-like fish (whole)
• Octopus tentacles

Dear Taiwan...

Dear Taiwan,

Your air sucks.

And I would like to note that, like any good student of letters, I chose my language very carefully. I chose the word “sucks” over others that may seem at the surface equal because I do, quite literally, feel as if I am now “sucking” the air in with each breath.

Some Observations and Such

Since the last post not a whole lot has happened, except for a lot of hang out time with friends. About a day after the day that ended the last post, we got on a train to return to the other side of the island. We stayed in Jhongli for a day and hung out with some of our friends there and then made it back to Changhua, where we’ll be staying for most of the remainder of our time here.

I Woke Up to a Better View than You.

Rested and relaxed from a couple days in Jhongli, Eric, Levi, the family that leads the Jhongli Navs, and I woke up very early to catch our trains to Hualien on the east side of Taiwan. In between trains we had an hour or so to wait in the train station and actually ran into our friend, Peter, and some other guys in the Taipei Navigators as they were beginning a bike trip through the area. It also turned out that they would be staying in the same town that night. Talk about a chance meeting. After chatting a bit, we parted ways and my group continued on with the journey via the less physically exerting means of transportation.

Penghu? Peng-you!*

(*Sorry, lame wordplay)

Although it has been only a little over one week since I have arrived in Taiwan, it seems like twice that. Not in the way that it has gone slowly but because we have packed so much into one day that it seems like it had to have been so much more.

The trip started out with a drive to the Detroit airport at about 5:30 in the morning—less than 12 hours after I got home from Miami/Oxford. From there began a string of three straight flights: 1 hour from Detroit to Chicago, where I met my partner, Levi; about 12 hours from Chicago to Tokyo (the land, or at least the airport, of very sophisticated toilets); and then another 3.5 hours from Tokyo to Taiwan. This concluded with a couple hours’ drive to Changhua, where our leader, Eric, lives and where we stayed for the night (and where I got to ride my first scooter!). In the morning we left with the Changhua Navigators for the island of Penghu: another flight, only about 45 minutes.

Busy, Busy, Busy

Hello from Taiwan!

Sorry I haven't written much--I know there have been a lot of people eagerly waiting; sitting all hours of the day at their computers, hitting refresh every minute in hopes that I have updated....

Well here it is.

And a second apology: sorry it's not much....

We've been really busy on the island of Penghu with an English/Christian camp for the kids here the past two days and I haven't had much of a chance to do a lot on my own--like go on the internet! I'll try to let you know more later when we're back on the main part of Taiwan (2 or 3 days) but for now I have to go to bed because I'm getting up in 3.5 hours to see the sunrise!

I just wrote twice as many words for this post as I have done in my paper.

So here I am, Saturday night, melted Cold Stone sitting beside me, being...what's the word? Lame. Not that I'd go out or anything--it's summer in Oxford: staying in and going out are practically the same. But I am working on my final paper for my English class/studying for my Structure of Modern English final.

CORRECTION: I should be working on my final paper for my English class/studying for my Structure of Modern English final. (That was a change from a present progressive transitive verb to a present progressive conditional transitive verb, by the way.)

What does this have to do with Taiwan?

Introduction

Hello! Thank you for checking this out. As you might know, I am going to Taiwan quite soon (June 25) for a mission trip with the Christian organization The Navigators. It will last a little less than a month, which will be filled with many different forms of and opportunities for service. I’ve been told that we should have pretty good/frequent internet access, so right now I am planning to record a few notes, experiences, reflections, prayer requests, et cetera here. This is for my friends and family—anyone willing to read it. If you would like to make a comment and/or ask a question I would appreciate it and love to provide you with an answer. While the writing and recording is partially for me, this would be pointless if it were not also for others (what’s not meant to be shared belongs in a paper journal), as long as they are willing to read and want to know what I am up to, especially when I am literally half a world away.