Rice Paddy

Just a quick post this morning before I head out for the weekend. A couple of the girls that I met at orientation last week and I are venturing to Taipei to see what all we can find!

I went for a walk last night and found myself here where this video was taken only about a 10 or 15 minute walk from my house. It was so serene and quiet, and it's hard to tell in this video, but the amount of dragon flies buzzing around between the fields and the small road were amazing!

Enjoy! :)

Taiwanese Street Show

This will just be a quick post of mostly pictures for two reasons. 1. I'm sleepy! 2. (and more honestly!) I have no idea what is going on in these pictures!

Apparently this is some type of traveling theater troop that goes around singing and putting on shows. I clearly understood none of it! haha, but I decided to go out and see what was going on since I was able to hear them from my {closed} bedroom window from about noon until I went to bed at night. These pictures aren't the best, but it was still interesting to watch! :)

Taiwan Apartment Tour!!!

Here it is, in all it's glory! May I introduce you to my new "apartment"! 

Although this is by no means a "standard American apartment" (or anything close to  my 2 story 2 bedroom townhouse from Ohio :(  ) this is pretty typical (if not considered large) for a Taiwanese apartment. I am living on the 3rd floor of a couples home and enter and exit through their front entry way to get to my apartment. It is located in the small farming community of Xinfeng within Hsinchu County. I am only about 2 miles from my town's center (though I am by no means in the town!) and 6 miles from Hsinchu City, but they take about 9 minutes and 30 minutes respectively to get to each by bus and/or train.

I can't say my little room feels like home yet, but I'm sure it will come! (I can't lie I've already scoped out several stores sell paint and various art supplies...so these walls won't be bare and lonely much longer!)

I found a church!!!

Before coming to Taiwan I was a little worried about what I was going to do about weekly masses. I had already talked to my priest back home and he gave me a book of prayers and the parts of the mass in English in case I ended up having to go to mass in Chinese regularly, but truth be told, I was just worried about finding a Catholic church period! Most of Taiwanese practice Taoism or Buddhism with less than 5% of the population practicing Christianity (let alone Catholicism!) Needless to say, I wasn't 100% sure what I was going to end up doing for the year.

As I continued to research I discovered that there were a decent handful of Catholic churches in the larger towns (aka, not mine!) and some of them even claimed to offered mass in English!! I was determined that I was going to find one! Fast forward to Saturday morning, I was looking online for what I could find (side note, I'm not sure what people did traveling before the internet! lol) and found a large Catholic Cathedral that offered mass in English twice on Sundays!! Downside, google maps claims it will take me almost 2 hours by bus to get there...I'm all about going to church, but that's a lot of travel time.

I was determined to find something better! I continued my research and found that there is actually one in my town! (I live like 2 miles outside of the town of Xinfeng although my address is still technically in Xinfeng). Excitedly I hoped on the bus (and surprisingly even knew which stop to get off on!) and in less than 10 minutes I was at the church!!! To my surprise it was not only a Catholic church, but also a Catholic school! It took me a little bit to actually locate the church...you'll see why momentarily!...but when I did I couldn't have been any more excited!

The church is TEEENY and sits about 100 people although we packed that baby church to the point that there was standing room only! I had to giggle to myself though, out of the 100 or so people in attendance, all were Asian (mostly Filipino) besides myself and the priest from Africa! Needless to say it was great to find mass in English, and I look forward to going back again!

A Little Bit of Chicken Fried

Hi, my name is  Tracy...and I LOVE food! Now I'm  not saying that I love food simply because I need food to eat, or I have several favorite foods...no, I'm saying I love food simply because eating is one of my favorite  past times! What could be better than thoroughly enjoying something that you have to do?!?! (disclaimer:  it is 11:00pm here and I've had a long day, please don't judge me for my corny writing and love of food at this hour!)

Now that I have my heart on the table ;) I'm sure it has become obvious one of the many reasons I was so excited to move to a foreign country for a year...a whole year of new foods! Of course I had eagerly and extensively research the Taiwanese cuisine before hopping on that god awful long plane ride, but nothing, and I mean NOTHING, could have prepared me for what the spontaneous side of me decided to do Thursday evening.

If that video wasn't quite graphic enough...I know I get the heebie jeebies just watching it over again, I'll tell you...I.ate.chicken feet. CHICKEN FEET. Like that animal that I don't even like to eat if it has bones or skin still on it and I decided to pick up one of it's boney and scaly legs and take a big ole bite out of it!

Now to be honest, this video is bite #2...there was some disbelief among the spectators that called for a second bite. But now the honestly is going to really poor out. I was dreading this. I thought they looked gross, felt even grosser, and the concept of eating an animals feet made me a little squeamish...BUT, they weren't that bad. {i said it} the chicken feet were  not that terrible. Imagine you were a dog and your owner just gave you one of those big rubber chickens to play around with...yeah that's pretty much where this poor guy's leg ranked, somewhere between part chicken and part rubber. I'm not saying that I'm going to sit down and gnaw on some chicken legs in lieu of my popcorn while I'm watching TV (I swear they told me that was common here!), but if my life depended on it...I'd take another bite!