May 29th

Today we went to Liyu Lake. I remember going there once as a missionary to knock on doors in the area and I remember that it was really beautiful. We caught a bus there in the morning. On the way to the bus we got some more steamed buns for breakfast and some egg tortilla wraps that I sometimes make at home. The bus ride took about 45 minutes, but it was a really pretty drive through the mountains and farming fields.

The first thing that we did when we got there was rent some dragon shaped paddle boats. We decided that we would go around the entire lake in them. Those boats were super slow – so slow that people were walking faster than we were going even when we were moving the pedals as quick as we could. We spent a couple hours in them and it was fun to see the different parts of the lake. The whole time though the children just wanted to jump in to the water to cool off, but all of the locals told us that the water was not clean enough for swimming.

After we finished with the boats we decided to walk around the lake. It was a really nice walk. At the far side of the lake it went right through the jungle. This meant the walk was a little more humid, but it was also in the shade. We saw a ton of butterflies and a lizard. We also saw signs for snakes and monkeys, but we didn’t actually see any of them. About half way through there was a well with a hand pump for water. I had the children stick their heads in to cool off while I pumped it. A man who was sitting there saw us and he said that the water was good to drink if we wanted to. He even took a big drink himself to demonstrate. So I let the children start to drink it as well. Then he started to tell me how much he likes the water and how he goes swimming in the lake every afternoon. I started to get suspicious of whether the water was drinkable given that everyone else told us not to swim in the lake. Just then the water started to turn brown and so I quickly had the children stop. I guess we will see today or tomorrow if we should have been drinking that water or not. In the early afternoon we caught the bus back to Hualien.

We found a park and played for an hour or so while we waited for a restaurant that we wanted to try to open up. Then we walked the two miles to that restaurant only to find out that it is closed on Tuesdays. So we made our way back to our favorite dumpling place. We also got some bubble smoothie drinks and some custard pastry desert things. It was all really delicious.

At the lake on the dragon boats.








We saw a team that was really practicing for the dragon boat races that are held in a couple of weeks. The team all had individual boats that they went around the lake in 5 or so times. Then they all got in their practice boat together and practiced starts and things like that.


Ethan getting a little too close to a giant spider.








These lizards really blend in to the jungle. I am surprised that Rebecca spotted it.


This was a cool house right by the lake.


The bus ride back to Hualien.





On our way back from walking to the closed restaurant we saw this McDonalds. It had play equipment and a spa. We were tempted to stop.

May 28th

When I was out walking on Sunday I came across a Buddhist temple that was really impressive. So today, we decided to go to it as a family. We got breakfast on the way – more steamed buns! The temple was really cool. The buildings had so many intricate carvings and statues and things like that. When we first got there I realized that I had taken my parents and older sisters to that temple when they came to visit at the end of my mission. While we were there a lot of the older people were talking to us about how beautiful our children are and how amazing we are to have six of them. They then invited us to a special prayer ceremony that they were going to do. It was pretty neat. They sang and danced and I was really glad that the children got to see some of the different ways people worship in different religions. We were there at the temple for a couple hours and then we went back to our apartment.

I had my presentation at one of the universities in the afternoon. It was a really neat university. It was a very tropical and huge campus. I imagined it would be fun to be a student or professor there. My presentation went well and it was fun to talk with the students and faculty there.

Afterward, one of the faculty members (the only foreigner – he is from Greece and actually teaches his psychology courses in English there) and a few of the clinical psychology graduate students took us out to eat at a nice restaurant. Since they were driving me there straight from the university, Rebecca had to find it by herself. She was nervous to walk it with all of the children, but she amazingly navigated the Chinese streets all on her own and even got there before I did. The dinner was really delicious. The faculty member ordered way more food than we could possible eat, including lots of fried noodles, dumplings, beef and chicken dishes, pork belly, mushrooms, tofu, and a few vegetable dishes. The children didn’t like the food as much, but they did a good job trying lots of things and being polite. Agnes especially filled up on a huge plate of noodles. It was really late by the time we finished and walked back and everyone quickly fell asleep.

Eating our morning steamed buns.


The front gate of the first temple.




These lions had stone balls that were carved inside the mouths so they were impossible to get out.
















I think most of the children have now successfully used these types of toilets.




The prayer ceremony that they invited us to attend.


These ponds all had lots of large colorful koi in them.






Dancing in the park.


Some rice fields on the edge of town.


Banana trees.



This is the social science building at Dong Hua University. It was an amazing campus. Very large and very tropical.


A few of the attendees after the presentation. They always like to take pictures with their presenters.

May 27th

This first Sunday in Taiwan allowed us to take a nice break. We had church at 9am. It was a ward that I had previously served in, but in a completely new building. When I served here there had also been an English speaking ward. I thought we might just go to that one, but it turns out that they don’t have it any more. I think the children were all a little nervous about that, and they kept asking me how they say yes or no so that they could respond to questions. I kept teasing them with this though and said that the teach would probably ask “who is going to be baptized?” and they would respond “no” and then the teacher would ask “who drinks beer?” and they would respond “yes”.

When we got there I saw a couple of familiar faces, but it had been so long that I was expecting not to remember very many people. I was hoping to see two members in particular that I had taught, but when I asked around I found out that one of them had moved and the other one had been attending regularly until recently. She had just sent me a letter and I so I decided that I would have to try to go visit her.

After sacrament meeting we told the children that they could attend the primary classes together. There was actually only three other children in primary, so they all attend together anyway. One of the members who recently returned from a mission in the United States volunteered to attend primary with them and translate. They really liked that.

Rebecca and I attended Sunday School and then Elders Quorum/Relief Society. During those meetings I was surprised that I only was understanding about half of what was being said. It was surprising because I had been doing really well with all of the conversations that I was having with people in stores and on the street, but I guess the lessons were going a little deeper. The members also just expected that I would be fluent because I was a returned missionary, whereas people on the street I think use simpler words because they don’t expect me to be able to speak Chinese. In Elders Quorum, my lack of fluency ended up being kind of embarrassing. The discussion was on ministering and how to do it and I was surprised at how similar the conversations were to the ones from our Elders Quorum back in Idaho. The problem is, they kept on asking me what I thought or how we are doing it in America. I understood the general topic of the conversation, but I think kept missing some of the details of their specific questions. So sometimes I think I responded in a way that didn’t really fit what they were asking. And then that made me nervous which made it so I had a harder time understanding and speaking. Oh well, I am excited to be able to try again next week.

After church we all came back to the place we are staying. Rebecca and the children hung out there for the afternoon and I decided to walk to that individual’s house who I had taught. It was three miles each way, so it took me a while. When I got there it looked like no one had been there for some time. I knocked on her neighbors’ doors to see if they knew anything. They said that she does still live there, but she travels a lot and it is never certain when she is going to be home. I was sad that I didn’t get to see here, but am glad that I at least tried.

We ended the night with some ice cream that we had stocked up on the day before.

Outside of the church. It was a pretty nice building. There are three wards that meet in it and it is also the stake center for the area. If I am remembering right, when I was here 20 years ago it was just a district. It did have three wards, two Chinese and one English speaking.

May 26th

Another early wake up! Based on how things turned out yesterday, we planned to spend the afternoon back in our place again. In the morning we decided to go to a temple. We were just going to get some breakfast on the street along the way. We ended up getting some more breakfast hamburgers, some egg tortilla things, and a giant slice of toast with a corn and ham mixture on top.

The temple was right in the jungle on a hill just outside the city. It looked like it was damaged by earthquakes so we only got to walk through the jungle around it. It was extra humid in the jungle and I was dripping sweat the entire time. We found another small park as well as a pavilion that had older adults dancing. It sounded like they were dancing to some traditional Chinese songs, but also songs like Rasputin. They did a partnered dance moves (e.g., waltz, foxtrot) to all of them. Rebecca and I commented on how well older people are treated here. They are very respected of course, but also there is just a strong community of them where they are out at the parks doing activities all day long. Grandparents are often the ones who raise the children here until they go off to school and they seem to love taking the children to the parks and on walks and things like that.

I had a lunch planned with some of the people from the university that I am presenting at, so Rebecca and the children stayed back at the apartment and had ramen noodles. The ramen noodles are a little fancier here with multiple packets of different kinds of sauce in each package. The guy who took me out to lunch took me to a restaurant that mixes Taiwanese and Filipino foods. It was right on the beach and seemed like a place that he goes to often. As he was bringing me back to my place, he stopped by the ice cream shop that he considers the best in Hualien and purchased enough scoops for our whole family.

After eating that ice cream, we headed out for dinner. There was another dumpling place that we had walked by a few times and we saw online that it had really good reviews. We got a ton of dumplings and potstickers and Rebecca also got a plate of Taiwanese vegetables and tofu from the restaurant next door. We spent the rest of the evening walking around that smaller, but much more authentic night market and looking at the different foods and clothes and toys that they had to sell. The children saw a lot of things that they wanted to buy with the money that they had been saving up for the past 6 months, but you have to use cash at the night markets and I haven’t figured out how to get more cash here yet. We stopped by the supermarket on the way home again and got two more things of ice cream – one for today and one for Sunday.

This was the temple. It was really pretty overrun with plants and everything. As I walked up around it I saw that it had some damage from earthquakes and signs not to enter because of the damage.






Christian walking through the jungle.





You can see the city of Hualien in the background. Hualien is not a very large city, only about 100,000. Still, the people live very close together and walking through the city feels like walking through downtown New York.






The children's new favorite place to eat. We ended up getting 30 potstickers and 30 dumplings and it still wasn't enough for everyone.

May 25th

Everyone woke up pretty early this morning – maybe 4:30 or so. We stayed at our place until about 7am and then went out for breakfast. Just down the street we found a steamed bun shop. We tried a taro bun, a meat filled one, and a brown sugar one. Then across the street we found a place that sold breakfast hamburgers. These hamburgers have a ground pork patty pounded pretty flat. They also have an egg and then some type of vegetables. Usually the vegetables included shredded cucumber, but these ones had lettuce on them. Then there is the special sauce which is a translucent type mayonnaise. Sometimes they also put ketchup on them. We allowed the children to pick if they wanted a hamburger or another steamed bun. Christian and Julia picked steamed buns, but the rest of us had hamburgers. 

We then walked about 2 miles to the beach. That walk almost killed us! It was so hot and humid. We brought five or so water bottles, but we used them all up on the way to the beach. We were able to stop by a morning market and pick up some different fruits (dragon fruit, lychee, and pineapple). After resting a little in the shade, the children and I went down to the shore and played in the waves. We had a lot of fun, but I was dreading the rest of the day with the children being all wet and sandy. 

Our original plan was just to stay out until the evening and go to a night market, but we decided it was just too hot for that. So instead, we decided that we would walk back to the place we are staying and then come back out in the evening. On the 2 mile walk back we did get lost again briefly, but the missionaries happened to show up and they helped us get back on track. We did stop at a supermarket right next to the place where we were staying and bought a carton of ice cream that we ate first thing when we got back. We rested for a while and waited out the afternoon heat. 

Then at about 5 we went back out and walked all the way back to the beach for the huge night market. The night market was pretty fun, but also kind of touristy. Rebecca commented that it kind of reminded her of a fair, which isn’t the way the traditional night markets are. We did get some soup filled dumplings (like 40 of them), a giant corn dog, a hard folded crepe thing filled with cheese and brown sugar, and a large flat fried chicken piece. We ended up staying out until about 9 pm that night.

At the morning market.




At the beach.








At the night market sharing the crepe thing. You can tell that Julia is kind of tired and grumpy by this point.






We got one of those big flat fried chicken things that you can see at the top of the food cart on the sign. I really need to do a better job at taking pictures of the food. But it is all just so yummy that it is half-way gone before I think about it.