June 7th

Today was a big travel day. We had a six hour train ride from Hualien, which is on the north east cost of the island, to Tainan, which is on the south west coast of the island. For this trip we could have taken either the northern route through Taipei or the southern route through Kaoxiong – they are both about even distances. We decided to do the southern route since we would be traveling back up to Taipei later anyway. We bought our tickets the day before, so luckily we were all able to get seats on the same train car together; unfortunately, we were kind of spread out within that car. Besides trying to keep Asher and Agnes entertained, it was a really nice train ride. We had a ton of beautiful views of the mountains, the ocean, smaller villages, and farmland of crops that we don’t grow in America. I really enjoyed it. In fact, I think I have enjoyed every train ride that I have ever had in Taiwan. You get a really comfortable seat with lots of space, the seats recline way farther than they do on airplanes, you get to see lots of different parts of the island, and they are very convenient. Pretty much every city and village in Taiwan with a population over 30,000 I think has a train stop. The main train route just goes around the entire perimeter of the island and then there are smaller lines and subways in the more metropolitan areas. For the people here, it really is the main form of travel if you are going to a city that is more than an hour a way. I wish that trains were more convenient like this in America. There have been a couple times that I have looked into doing a train for a long trip and either they did not stop near where I needed to be or they cost a similar price to an airplane ticket. I guess there are areas that are starting to do them more and the subways in cities like DC are great, but I wish that traveling by train was a little more convenient in the US. 

I said that I have always enjoyed the train rides in Taiwan, but as I was writing this I realized that that is not entirely true. I remember my very first night on my mission with my companion in Taipei. We flew in to the island in the late afternoon. We had a dinner with the mission president and a really inspiring devotional. Then we met our new companions who took us to our first areas. I remember getting on the train that first night. As missionaries, we always did the super cheap tickets where you don’t have a seat and you just stand in the space by the bathrooms between two of the train cars. The train ride was only 30 minutes long, but I remember that the standing space was really crowded, I had to keep an eye on all of my luggage, I wasn’t understanding anything anybody was saying, and I was feeling kind of worried about what missionary work in this strange country was going to be like. I was excited because everything was so different, but also overwhelmed. I guess that wasn’t the most fun train ride, but I remember enjoying all of the rest of them on my mission. 

We got in to Tainan at about 5 pm. We had a 2 mile walk from the train station to the place where we were staying. Right away we could tell that Tainan was a much bigger city than Hualien. Just stepping out of the train station I also noticed that more people were speaking Taiwanese. Taiwanese is a branched off variation of one of the dialects that was spoken in China back before Mandarin Chinese became the official language of the country. It was brought over to Taiwan by some of the initial immigrants from China in the early 1600s. But then it has transformed over time and has been influenced by the dialects from the indigenous people on the island. It is a spoken language without a real written part to it. It is estimated that about 70% of the people in Taiwan know the language. On my mission, Hualien probably was the place where the most Taiwanese was spoken. But it was really only spoken to the elderly individuals. Here in Tainan I have been hearing it a lot more. Whenever people speak to me they always speak Mandarin, but more often (maybe 10% of the time compared to just 1% of the time in Hualien) when I hear people talking to each other it is in Taiwanese. 

We somehow made it without any complications – which was really surprising considering that I had Asher on my back with two suitcases in tow, Rebecca had Agnes in the stroller and a backpack on, and then all of the rest of the children had their own suitcases and backpacks. 

The apartment is much smaller than our Hualien one and is just a studio style place. We were guessing it is probably about as big as our Master bedroom/bathroom/closet back at home. The people that are renting it to us were really nice in showing us around and setting up a couple extra floor beds instead of a couch. 

We went out for dinner that night to a street recommended by our landlady. We just found a small street shop that seemed like it had the most people eating at it. We ordered a curry, some duck soup, a beef broth soup, and a vegetable dish. It was very hot and crowded on the street though and I think we were all just ready to be in bed.

On our way to the train station.



The public bathrooms are all really interesting. The have separate places to use the bathroom for men and women, but they have a common sink/mirror area.



On the train.




Really pretty views out the train window.









You can see in this one a giant bird house sticking out above the trees. These seemed to be pretty popular by the farmers in the south. It looked like they would fly their doves in certain patterns and to certain places and things like that.


Here is our apartment.


Here we are at the dinner place. This is what most of the restaurants look like.


A nearby temple was doing a celebration with fireworks.


Here is the temple.