A Recipe for Disaster

I'm a big fan of Bakerella's adorable baked creations. So last year, when she posted these adorable Easter cupcakes, I vowed that I'd make them for Easter this year. I mean, how hard could they be? It's just cupcakes with Easter candies arranged on top. I can handle that. (On a random note, Easter has the best candy. Just saying.)

For the last few weeks, I've been eagerly awaiting Easter's arrival so I could finally make the cupcakes. I bought cute Easter-themed baking cups and pastel-colored sprinkles. I stockpiled Easter candies and spent too much money on minature Easter bunnies. I could just imagine the gasps of delight and awe when I gave them away to my adoring friends. And everyone would clap their hands together and exclaim, "Oh Liz! You're so amazing!"

Yes, I realize that in my daydreams, I'm quite delusional.

Anyway, I just finished making my Easter masterpieces and they are anything but that.

In fact, they're an Easter trainwreck. Now normally, I wouldn't come onto my blog to boast about my failed baking experiments except that my expectations were so very high and my results were so very poor that I couldn't help but laugh over my pathetic cupcakes.

I started out by making the cupcakes out of a Funfetti cake mix I've had lying around forever. I figured Funfetti was a festive way to go for cupcakes. Plus, cake mixes are just easy. The cupcakes baked up moist and fluffy, so no problem there. On to the frosting.

I've got a bit of a frosting complex. I've never found a frosting recipe that I've really liked. But then the Pioneer Woman posted the best frosting recipe ever and I figured if PW said it was good frosting, it had to be great. I don't use two sticks of butter on just any frosting.

The ingredients were easy enough and I followed the directions but instead of producing fluffy, whipped frosting, I got a big bowl of runny liquid. I tried to do damage control and add more sugar to thicken the frosting up, but it was beyond repair.

I'm still mourning the loss of those two sticks of butter. What a waste.

Instead, I whipped up a quick buttercream frosting and set about frosting and decorating the cupcakes. I couldn't find any Sour Patch straws like Bakerella had used in her cupcakes, but I thought that Twizzler's would be an adequate substitute.

They were not. The Twizzler's ripped through the cupcakes and started to push out the sides of the baking cups. So I had to ditch the cute Easter basket handle look. No matter. I had plenty of candy to use anyway.

Except that arranging candy on a cupcake is much harder than it looks. The bunnies that I had bought had to be shoved deep into the cupcake to stand upright and the other candies either looked oddly large next to the bunnies or just plain funny.

Eventually, I just got lazy and laid the bunnies straight on the cupcakes like this.

Sadly, I think this cupcake with the pastel-colored bunny sprinkles turned out the best of all of them. How pathetic is that?

Oh well. I'll still hand them out to my friends and I'm sure their kids will still enjoy them even if they aren't the baked masterpieces with the most amazing frosting ever on them. They still taste pretty good.

Not that I've already eaten three of them or anything.....

A mix of random nothings

Life is moving along in Korea though there's nothing extremely exciting to report on....just a bunch of little random tidbits.

-- Baby [some people have cutesy names for their unborn children but David and I like to keep it old school by just calling him Baby] continues to grow. . . . I think. After the excitement of seeing our little baby at our first doctor's appointment, I've lasped back into doubt that there really is a baby growing in there. (Hopefully our doctor's appointment tomorrow will cure me of that idea once and for all.) I'm starting to feel and look more pregnant (sorry, haven't taken any pictures of the baby bump yet) though it's always a tad disheartening that I go to bed with a nice little belly and it's gone when I wake up. I want to always look pregnant! My sister, now on her third pregnancy, says that feeling passes, but I love my little belly and I love being pregnant. I just want it to be much more obvious. (Especially so I can sit in the special seats on the subway for the elderly and the pregnant women without getting stares of disapproval. There really is a baby growing in there!) I think I've felt a few tiny movements but I can't wait until I can really start to feel the baby kick and move and I can't mistake it for gas bubbles.

-- On Saturday, David and I and some of our friends drove down to Osan Air Base, about an hour south of Seoul. (Sadly, it was my first time leaving Seoul. It was rather sad and dismal, but that could have been more a product of the yellow dust storm that blew in from China that day and made everything a sickly yellow color.) Going to Osan made me very grateful for the fact that we are stationed in a big city and not stuck out in the boonies where there is really nothing to do. (And I already have a hard enough time trying to find things to do here!) Osan does have two things to its credit though: 1) a better and bigger PX and 2) a Chili's.

We had heard that Osan's BX had a better selection of baby items but we were still quite disappointed in their selection of cribs, car seats and strollers. We did, however, buy a mattress for our future crib only now it looks like we won't be able to buy a crib while we're here since we can't find anyone who will ship a crib to an APO address (and the cribs we can order through the PX are twice as expensive and take 6 months to get here). So we may just try to borrow or buy a used crib until we return to the States. We did buy a few other baby items and I bought my first set of adorable onesies which I can't stop giggling over. Why are baby clothes so dang cute? And why do I have to wait 5 more months for a cute little baby to fill them up?

After shopping, we went to Chili's. There's nothing better than having a little piece of home when you live in a strange, foreign country where people think fermented cabbage is the staple of life. And even though I was full, David and I still had to order the molten lava cake because we'll probably never go back to Osan. But it was fun to spend the day with our friends.

-- David has started working shift work again this week. I forgot how much it sucks. The nights are reaaaaaaaaaally long and lonely without a husband to annoy.

-- I've been working on my baby quilt and other fun sewing projects for my Quilt Group. The quilt is looking really cute, if I do say so myself.

-- I re-read East of Eden for my Book Club this month. It's still one of my absolute favorite books. For those of you who have stayed away from John Steinbeck since The Grapes of Wrath, I highly encourage you to read it. I also read The Help. Another fascinating book, I couldn't put it down. I love good books.

Umm. I think that's it. Sorry. I guess my life is pretty boring now. But hey, I'm growing a baby here. I reserve the right to be boring. And to sleep. A lot.

Thank You Jesus

I've made no secret of my love for Lofthouse sugar cookies (the most glorious cookies in the world) and I've attempted on several occasions to recreate their deliciousness with very little success. For the last two months, I've had unbelievable cravings for those cookies but the commissary hasn't had them since the Christmas holidays. I go to the commissary every week and walk by the bakery hoping and praying that they would magically have the cookies, but each time, my hopes were dashed.

But yesterday there was a whole table set up with Easter cookies including my precious Lofthouse cookies. (They are quite popular during the holidays and often change their frosting color and sprinkles to match the holiday.) I bought two containers. I'm contemplating going back and buying more and freezing them because I've got 5 more months of pregnancy to go and the next major cookie holiday isn't until the 4th of July.

Anyway, last night at dinner, I was telling David of my rapturous joy at finding my Lofthouse cookies since they'd been gone since Christmas. I said, "I knew Easter would come through for me."

And then David replied, "You should thank Jesus for your cookies. If he hadn't been born and resurrected, you'd never get them."

So thank you Jesus for my Lofthouse cookies. This pregnant woman is very grateful.

(And I hope you don't think that's sacrilegious. I mean, I really love these cookies.)

For Cat Lovers Only

Apparently, there are people out there who don't like cats.....

No seriously. There are.

But I.

I don't understand these people. (And being allegric is no excuse, in my opinion.)

If I didn't have a husband to reign me in or a cat who was genetically opposed to sharing her domain with another member of the feline species, I'd be the crazy cat lady with 10 cats. My mother is to thank (or to blame?) for a love of all things cats. Our cats are members of our family and we've owned more cats than I can number.

And I love our cat. I realized last month that it was our one year anniversary of adopting Suyom and we're so happy to have her around. She's endlessly entertaining, adorably cute, and a great companion for loneliness. (This was especially true when David worked all his long hours and nights. It was always a comfort to have another creature home with me.) Sure, Suyom, like all cats, has her share of annoying habits, like spreading her black hair gleefully around the house (which is a pain to sweep up and finds its way into the most annoying places) or meowing in the middle of the night when she wants to play after sleeping all day long.

But Suyom has also grown more cuddly with time. She was never a very affectionate cat, preferring instead to be pet on her own terms, but since I got pregnant, Suyom has become surprisingly more affectionate. She used to sleep at the foot of our bed but now she sleeps next to my head and will often let me pet her (and myself) to sleep.

Suyom is a lover of boxes of all shapes and sizes and her rats (a few of which she has mercilessly destroyed).

Like me, she loves figure skating.

And preparing meals. (But mostly, she just loves sitting on things that she shouldn't. I think it's all done in an attempt to spread her hair everywhere she goes. Thank goodness I wear a lot of black.)

Finally, Suyom has some mad jumping skills. Every so often, Suyom just can't contain her energy and she has to JUMP. She mostly jumps against door frames but she can get pretty high.

I was finally able to catch her jumping on video but then I realized that I'd held the camera horizontially, so you'll just have to turn your neck to see it. (I naively thought I'd just be able to rotate the video but videos apparently don't work like that.) There's not really any audio to hear, so you don't have to bother with sound. (And apologies if it doesn't work. I've never posted a video before.)

Yup, our Suyom is a fun cat. I wish she'd let me have 5 more like her.

But I guess one Suyom is enough.

One More Thing to Spend Money On.....

My birthday was last month and this year, I asked for a sewing machine. I used to sew many, many years ago, in high school. I took "clothing" for two semesters during my senior year and I loved learning how to make my own clothes. I even made a fully lined jacket for my final project. It looked awful, but hey, sewing well takes a lot of patience (which I'm often short of) and practice. Unfortunately, I went off to college and then grad school and even though my Mom gave me her old Singer sewing machine from the 60's, I never learned how to thread the dang thing and so I never sewed. (And then I gave it to my sister since I didn't want to haul it around the country. That thing was not light.) But I've been itching more and more to pick the hobby back up and now seemed like the perfect time.

David and I looked at all the sewing machines at the PX, which had a grand total of three. Two Singers and one Brother model. I didn't want to spend a lot of money on a new machine, I just wanted something simple and relatively cheap to re-learn on and that would last me for a few years. If I find that I start to sew a lot, then I'll purchase a better machine. But for now, this one works just great. I decided on the Singer over the Brother after reading some reviews, but I feel a bit more loyalty to Singer (even though they use Brothers on Project Runway). It's got a bunch of crazy stitches which I'll probably never use but I liked this model better than the more basic, cheaper model. Plus, fun red.

So why did I want to sew again?

Aside from minor tailoring jobs, I'm not really interested in sewing clothes. I might get to that point again (to make basic skirts and pajama pants) but I really wanted to learn how to quilt and to do some fun home projects, especially for the baby. And as luck would have it, one of my friends in my ward decided to start a quilting group for all levels. She's an amazing sewer and had gotten back into quilting in recent months and decided that she should share her knowledge. We meet once a month to learn new techniques, to get pointers, and make goals.

My first project was sewing this practice square. When I started, I planned to sew a few pieces and come back to it. But I found I enjoyed it so much that I finished it that day. It took me about three hours because I got a little anal and wanted everything to match up perfectly and so I ripped out a lot of stitches. In the end it wasn't perfect, but I find that I like that better. That's a skill I need to learn--to not stress out over imperfections.

This month's project was to work on hand quilting. I didn't want to do it at first. I hate sewing by hand and I'm actually not big on the true quilting aspect of quilting; I like crazy patchwork with minimal quilted design. But after getting started on my square, I found that I really enjoyed hand quilting. It's strangely therapeutic and richly rewarding.

Here's what it looks like once I wiped off the marking. I have a second square which I was going to machine quilt but I like hand quilting so much that I'm going to do that one by hand as well. Then I want to dye these squares to match the nursery and hang them on the wall. (But I'll get to that in a second.)

We're also doing humanitarian aid projects and this will eventually be a colorful wall hanging to be hung in an orphanage or nursery. It's nothing terribly complex or special, but I did have to teach myself a bit about quilt math in order to cut things to the right size and to have my seams match up.

My big project that I hope to get started on in the next week is a crib quilt for the nursery. Shopping around for nursery items, I quickly realized that I did not want to spend a fortune on baby bedding and nursery decor when I could buy fabric and make it myself. And I could make it how I wanted it. There's a lot of cute stuff out there for babies, but nothing I was absolutely in love with.

I headed off to Dongdaemun with absolutely no idea what I was looking for, but at least I had picked my pattern (think boxes inside of boxes). Even though I'm pretty sure I'm baking up a little boy here, I was still a little hesitant to pick fabrics that were overtly boyish. I wandered through five floors of crowded stalls, looking through mounds of fabric and didn't find anything that I really loved. And then I saw it: a cream fabric with red, blue and brown stars. It wasn't blatantly patriotic, but it was close enough to invoke America to me. And I thought, "My baby is an American and it'll be American whether it's a boy or a girl so dangit, it's getting a red, white, and blue quilt!"

These are a bunch of the fabrics I've chosen (the main one is on the far right). I don't know if I'm going to use all the fabrics and colors, but at least I've got a good amount to start with. I plan on making a quilt and a wall hanging (and my hand quilted squares with the Celtic stars will look nice in the nursery as well). I've also been looking for other patterns and tutorials to make stuffed toys as well. I'm really looking forward to getting started. Hopefully, once I get going, it won't take me long. I've got less than 6 months to pull it all off. Whee!

As usual, I always welcome recommendations and tips. I know there are a lot of more experienced fellow sewers out there.

Welcome Baby Malone!

Now that our Taiwan trip has been documented for all posterity (and the internet) to see, I can finally talk about what I've been dying to talk about for 2 months now......I'm pregnant!

I don't think that should come as shock to anyone who frequents my blog since I believe all of you are my friends on Facebook as well and I already made an announcement there. But as always, the blog is a great place to elaborate on life's adventures.

But first I must make a Very Important Announcement. David would like me to assure everyone who has read about our Taiwan trip that the food in Taiwan is actually VERY good and that the only reason I did not experience culinary bliss there was due to my pregnant--and oftentimes very nauseous--state. Again, I repeat, the food in Taiwan is AMAZING but not if you are pregnant. Satisfied David?

Anyway, back to the fun, we're-having-a-baby stuff! (And I'm actually having a baby. I've dreamt I've given birth to a litter of kittens before, so it was a relief to see a real human inside of me.)
Here he is! I say he--and will continue to say he until proven wrong (which we won't be)--because David and I are 95% positive our little baby is a boy. I wasn't expecting to actually see our baby at our 12 week check-up--just to hear his heartbeat--but it was such a wonderful surprise when this image popped up on the screen. I can't feel him moving at all yet, but he was doing back flips and somersaults inside my uterus. It was also just so comforting to know that a baby was, in fact, inside of me. Those first 12 weeks it's so easy to doubt that there's really a baby growing in there (despite the nausea).

We're now headed into week 15, which means our baby is due on August 25th. (The doctor bumped our due date up a week.) While I wish I had more options for doctors and delivery--since we're restricted to the Army hospital here--I'm not terribly nervous about giving birth so far away from home and family since we have a wonderful group of friends here who have already been educating me on all things baby.

David and I are both very excited for our baby. Since arriving in Korea, I'd been feeling more and more ready to start our family but I knew that David was still a little unsure. Then, out of the blue, sometime in October, David told me that he'd been thinking about it and he felt that we should start trying for a baby in December and I agreed. So December rolled around and I got pregnant on the first try. (David will be forever proud of that fact.)

I found out I was pregnant for sure two days before Christmas but we decided to wait until my first trimester was over to spread the news. Apparently, the rest of my family also decided that November/December was a good time to get pregnant since my sister-in-law Elisa, my sister Cassy, and two of my cousins are all expecting babies in August/September. My parents are doubling their grandchildren in a one month period! At least our baby will have lots of cousins to play with.

I'm enjoying being pregnant so far. I haven't been terribly sick--I feel the worst at night--and I'm looking forward to feeling and looking more pregnant. Plus, it's been a great excuse to buy new clothes!

Taiwan: Day 7 and 8 (Taipei!)

Here it is, my friends: the end of this endless journey through Taiwan. David and I had planned to spend our last night (Friday) in Taiwan's capital city in order to visit the LDS temple there and to be closer to the airport for our Saturday evening departure. We rolled into the city around 2 o'clock in the afternoon and checked into the Cosmos Hotel which was situated smack dab in the center of Taipei, next to the Taipei Main Station.

It was a nice hotel, our rooms were clean and comfortable, though a bit on the small side, but perfect for our one night stay. My biggest complaint was that even though we'd had access to several English channels at our hotels in Yuanlin and Sun Moon Lake, our hotel in Taipei had about 3 English channels. Go figure.

This is the busy city street our hotel was located on. After freshening up a bit, David and I walked over to McDonalds to enjoy a nice lunch. (Have I ever mentioned my all-consuming love for potatoes? French fries are like manna from heaven to me.) We hadn't really intended to do much sight-seeing in Taipei, but it was still light enough outside to venture out to see Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, just a short walk from our hotel.

I wasn't expecting the area to be as large and grandiose as it was. But it sure was pretty. Here is the ceremonial gateway leading to the complex.

Inside the large park and memorial is the National Theater and the National Concert Hall.

I don't remember which is which. Oh well.

At the center of it all, is this monument to Taiwan's erstwhile leader Chiang Kai-shek. (Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan from China when Mao and his forces gained control. Chiang then instituted marital law in Taiwan and ruled Taiwan with an iron fist as he plotted to take back China. He died in Taiwan in 1975). Taiwan, obviously, has a bit of a love/hate relationship with the man and they attempted to rename this memorial the National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall but it was reversed last year. Taiwan also considers themselves an independent nation, but China has other things to say about that.

Here's the view of the entire complex from the top of the stairs of the memorial. There are guards inside, standing watch over the statue of Chiang Kai-shek and at 5 o'clock, while we were there, they had a changing of the guards ceremony and marched toward the center of the square to lower the flags.

Inside the memorial are several floors of exhibition and gallery space which we wandered through aimlessly before heading back to our hotel. We then decided to head to the Shilin Night Market to check out their wares.

Night markets are a big thing in Asian countries and a maze of alleyways and side streets are filled with things to buy and eat. We wandered through many different areas, selling anything from socks, clothes, purses, street foods, and puppies. (Yes, there was a whole section of pet stores.) There were even some arcade games available to play. We walked through the night market for quite some time, but didn't find anything worth purchasing. (I had really wanted to buy a wok in Taiwan, but we didn't pass by any housewares, just lots of clothing and hair accessories.)

We were quite hungry by this time and after wandering through rows and rows of food stalls, David eventually decided on some chicken meal that he liked while I could only turn up my nose. So on our way back to our hotel, I stopped at McDonald's for the second time that day. Even though I've seen Super Size Me, I still wanted more McDonald's again. But I'm here to tell you that it's never a good idea to eat there twice in one day. (But French Fries! They call to me.)

The next day, Saturday, was our last day in Taiwan. We planned to check out of our hotel in the morning and get to the temple to attend the 10 a.m. session. But between packing our bags, eating our breakfast and checking out, we were missed our window of opportunity. The next session wasn't until 1 p.m. so we had a few hours to kill. I suggested that we drive to Taipei 101, formerly the world's tallest building. (Stupid Dubai.) It wasn't very far away and I love big, beautiful architectural masterpieces.
It really is a stunning building. It's designed to look like a stalk of bamboo. There are offices in there, obviously, but there's also a large and fancy mall as well.

By this time, it was just a little after 10 a.m. and the mall hadn't opened yet and so the whole place was deserted. But the observation deck at the top of the building was open already (the ticket booth is in the mall) and after debating whether or not we wanted to pay that much money to ride an elevator 90 stories, we finally decided that we would. (I seem to remember that the tickets were in the neighborhood of $12 each.) I'm so glad that we decided to go up.

The views from the observation deck were extraordinary, like seeing this rainbow over Taiwan.

It really is amazing to be so high up in the sky and to see so much of a city. Luckily, the recent rains had cleared the skies giving us clear views and it was still early enough in the day that the deck was not very crowded. You receive an audio guide for free (in English) which then takes you through the construction and history of the building. We were also able to go up to the open-air observation deck which is only open on certain days. It really was really cool. And money well-spent, in my opinion.

After spending about an hour at the top of the building, we took the elevator down to ground level. We still had some time, so we went down to the food court to eat some lunch before heading to the temple. David ate more Chinese food, while I ate Subway. (I eat a lot of Subway these days.) We left with what I thought was plenty of time to get to the temple in time for the 1 o'clock session. After all, the temple was only a mile away from Taipei 101.

It took us 45 minutes. There was a lot of construction on the main road that we were trying to take and we somehow got stuck in a bus lane going the right direction while the rest of the traffic was going in the opposite direction. So there was no way we could exit the bus lane without risking life and limb, which we finally attempted to do, but we still arrived at the temple a few minutes past 1 p.m. We'd have to wait until the 2 p.m. session. I was quite anxious by this time because a) I hate traffic and have no patience for it and b) the 2 p.m. session would mean we'd get out of the temple around 4 p.m. which would make it impossible for us to get to the airport by 4:30 p.m. (when we needed to return our rental car or be charged for an extra day) and put us on a tight schedule for our 6:50 p.m. departure.

But we decided to go ahead and risk it and so we parked and decided to wait outside the tiny temple until the next session started. As fate would have it, as we came out of the big stake center next door, we saw Shuqi and Aaron sitting on a low wall in front of the temple. They had come from Yuanlin (about a 2 hour drive) for the 1 p.m. session but they had arrived too late as well. We waited together until it was time to go in for the 2 o'clock session.

I was very lucky to have Shuqi with me because she was able to help me rent my clothes and get everything I needed, which I don't think I could have done without her. Although it stressed me out, it really was a blessing that we didn't make the 1 o'clock. It's always so nice to have friends with you in the temple.

After the session was over, David and I quickly got this photograph of us with Aaron and Shuqi in front of the temple, said our hasty good-byes and high-tailed it to our car. We luckily found a quick way out of the city (the Taipei airport is about 45 minutes away from the city) and were on our way to the airport. We ended up taking surface streets to the airport, instead of the quicker freeway (we got off on the wrong exit) but we still managed to make it to the airport by 5 p.m. (we luckily did not get charged for another day on our rental) and checked in with plenty of time.

While I was quite happy to be heading home to Seoul, David was very sad to be leaving Taiwan, as demonstrated by his very, very sad face. He called all his friends one last time from a pay phone to thank them for hanging out with us (and often, for paying for our food too) and we were finally able to board our flight.

While the Korean flight attendants on our Korean Air flight were later serving our dinners, they spoke to David in Korean. And David had to ask them to repeat themselves about 3 times. Apparently, one week was all that it took to make David forget Korean and embrace Chinese completely. (But he's always preferred Chinese.) His Korean has slowly come back but he still misses Taiwan a lot.

I have to say that Taiwan is a beautiful country filled with very friendly people. I think it almost ruined Korea for me. Seoul is a rather uninspiring city. There are very few architectural and historic wonders and the city lacks a lot in aesthetic beauty. After the ravages of the Korean War, Seoul re-built itself very quickly and it just didn't have time to plan a beautiful capital city. It went for quick, utilitarian buildings and a boring sameness to their designs. There are pockets of beauty to be found, but Taipei reminded me what a real capital city should be like: wide avenues, parks, monuments and memorials, theaters and beauty. The thing that Seoul lacks the most is a feeling of history. Too many of their palaces and buildings were destroyed either by the Japanese or during the war and they lost a great deal of their history. Koreans spend all their time looking toward the future and very little time remembering their past. And though they have massive amounts of pride in their country, they always seem to want to be something that they are not (American, for example) and their entire culture is entirely focused on getting ahead and being the best. But the Taiwanese were more relaxed, much more easy-going and infinitely more friendly. But I think once we leave Seoul, we might discover a very different Korea.

Taiwan: Day 6 and 7 (Sun Moon Lake and Puli)

I know what you're thinking. I'm thinking the same thing. She's still not done talking about Taiwan?!? I know, I know. I've been a huge blog slacker and I have things I want to talk about that are not related to Taiwan but if I don't chronicle our vacation here, it'll never get done so I'm going to push through and finish our trip to Taiwan as quickly as possible.....that is, if I can still remember what we actually did.

We drove to Sun Moon Lake on Wednesday night, checked into the Full House Resort Hotel, and woke up Thursday morning, prepared to enjoy the beauty and scenery of Taiwan's most famous tourist spot. After eating a normal breakfast at our hotel (eggs, ham, and toast), we decided to drive around the lake and stop at any interesting spots along the way.

Our first stop was the Tutingzai Trail, a short trail that led through forest to the water's edge, and Taiwan's tiniest lighthouse. (Not as impressive as it sounds.)

This was the trail. Luckily, we were the only people on it. Along the trail, they had signs which explained some aspects of Thao culture.

After that brief excursion, our next stop was Syuanzang and Syuanguang Temples, nestled on mountain outlooks that offered a beautiful view of the lake.

That tiny little island in the center of the lake is called Lalu island.


Self-timers on cameras are a wonderful things. Otherwise, David and I would have no pictures of ourselves together.

Again, a view of the lake (and us). It had rained during the night (hence why it's so gray and overcast) but it was still a nice day and we were luckily spared from any residual rainfall.

At yet another stop, we saw more statues of the zodiac beasts (tiger, dragon, rabbit, monkey, etc.) and this sign which apparently says Sun Moon Lake in Chinese. All I know is that many people were trying to snap pictures of themselves next to this rock.

There wasn't much else there besides the statues and rocks and so we kept on driving. We'd already seen half the lake that morning and I certainly hoped that the other side of the lake would have more to entertain us with, otherwise it was going to be a short day.

This is near the village of Shueishe at the Longfong Temple. I'll probably get this wrong (since David is the Chinese-speaker in our family) but longfong means twins and is often represented by the dragon (above) and the phoenix (below).


Our next stop was Wunwu Temple, a very large and beautiful Buddhist temple that, again, offered great views of the lake. David was right when he said that after awhile all Buddhist temples would begin to look alike, but the Wunwu was a very interesting temple and probably my second favorite that we visited, after the one in Lukang.


The steps leading up the main entrance of the temple.

There were a ton of these golden balls hanging all around the temple. I believe they are used as a way to represent a wish or a prayer. I really liked them and so David asked one of the workers at the temple if we could buy one to keep even though we are not Buddhist and they kindly agreed. Now it's going to be an ornament on next year's Christmas tree. David and I like to collect ornaments from all the places we've visited and we hadn't found one in Taiwan yet so this was the perfect solution.

One of the cool things about this temple is that you could climb to the roof of one of the buildings to look out over the lake.

A man visiting from China took this picture for us. When he asked David how he came to speak Chinese, he explained that he was had been a missionary for the LDS Church in Taiwan and the Chinese man nodded his head and said, "Oh yes, the Mormons." We were both a bit excited that the Chinese are growing more aware of our religion even though we're not allowed to actively proselytize in their country......yet. But soon enough, I hope.


On our way back to our car, we passed this tour bus (one of many) but which I had to take a picture of because of all the tours I'd want to be a part of, it would definitely be the Cat's Family. Also, the cat looks like Suyom (who was I missing quite a bit by this point, crazy beast).

Wunwu was our last stop before heading back to our village and hotel. It didn't make for a very long day (we arrived home around 3 or 4pm) and we had no idea what to do with ourselves for the remainder of the day.

We walked around the little village and the docks but that only held our interest for so long before we returned to our room and started to watch one of the four English channels available to us. I ended up falling asleep at 8 o'clock that night and slept for a whole 12 hours. But hey, that's what vacations are for, right?

The next morning (Friday), we checked out of our cute little hotel, and drove to Puli to visit the Chung Tai Chan Montasery, a behemoth building tucked into a mountainside devoted to the study of Buddha.

Part of the monastery and the pretty pond beside it.

When David was a missionary in Taiwan, some missionaries got in good with some Buddhist monks and they were able to tour the entire building. But most visitors--like us--only get to see the first two floors which are mainly filled with various statues of Buddha and the history of Buddhism.


There's a museum next to the monastery as well, but we opted to not go in.

Inside the main entrance hall are four massive statues with four heads each that guard the entrance. We had a brief tour from a nice volunteer. Unfortunately, she only spoke Chinese so David had to translate for me.

After our visit to the Monastery was over, we got back into the car to head to our final destination, Taipei. Those exciting adventures--and the end of this dang trip--will be the last post.....hopefully coming up soon.

Taiwan: Day 5 (Lukang)

These Taiwan blog posts are boring even me (hence why it's taking me so long to post each one) but I want to document our trip so we don't forget everything we did. You can skip over the boring parts.

Wednesday dawned damp and rainy, the perfect weather for our trip to an old historic town in which everything is outdoors. We checked out of our hotel in Yuan-lin (of our three hotels, it turned out to be our favorite hotel during our trip) and drove about 45 minutes north to Lukang, another town in which David had served in for a short while. Lukang is home to some of Taiwan's oldest and most famous Buddhist temples and is also known for its old historic district filled with artisans keeping alive many old Asian crafts.

Our first stop was to Matsu Temple (also called Tianhou Gong), an old wooden temple built in the 1600's (according to the few sketchy sources I could find) and renovated in 1936. David promised me that once I saw this temple, all others would seem boring by comparison and he was mostly right.

This is the inner courtyard with stairs leading up to more rooms (I don't know the purpose of most rooms in the temples) and a fountain full of koi.



I loved these circular doorways.

This is the memorial arch welcoming you to the temple.

Dragons are a common motif. Go figure.

The fountain.

Like any good Buddhist temple, there were lots of statues, lots of gold, and lots of burning incense.

After visiting the Matsu temple, David and I wandered around the town a bit, killing time until we were scheduled to meet his friend Suman (Susan) for lunch. I tried my first bing sha (basically a fruit slushie) and it was absolutely delicious. However, it made me very cold.

As we walked down the street, we came upon these two cats, chilling on someone's scooter.
Once we met up with Susan, we went into a very eclectic little restaurant which served an odd conglomeration of Asian, American, and Italian food. While David and Susan stuck with the Chinese food, I ordered what they called spaghetti but whose sauce had very little resemblance to tomato sauce. I was, unfortunately, not feeling so chipper by this point and so David and Susan had a nice long conversation in Chinese while I stared into space and dreamed of taking a nap.

By the time we left the restaurant, the rain had cleared up a bit, and we walked down an old artists' street, filled with old shops. David and I had walked down the street before, but most of the shops had been closed. Now that the rain had ceased, the shops were opening up.
The small street was full of interesting buildings with old wooden doors and locks. It was quite picturesque.

David and I had hoped that we'd be able to purchase a large Chinese fan in Lukang. While we did find a few fan shops, none had the large fans we were looking for. We did, however, happen upon one fan maker/artist who had a large board full of pictures of Mormon missionaries. I don't think that he was actually a member of the church, but a large group of missionaries had visited his fan shop and had brought him pictures of the various temples which he used as inspiration for some of the paintings he drew on his fans. He showed us a few with what I thought was the Taipei temple on them and even some with pictures of Jesus. If his fans hadn't been so costly (about $40 for a medium sized one), I might have purchased one of the smaller ones, but we have our heart set on a big fan to hang on our wall. I guess we'll just have to find one in China.

We did, however, end up purchasing a paper lantern at another shop. It has birds and purple flowers drawn on it, along with a bunch of Chinese characters but David has no idea what they say. He thinks it's a proverb or something. Once I take the lantern out of its box, and figure out where to hang it, I'll take a picture of it. I'm just too lazy to do it right now. (Also, it's late, and I need to be done with this post or I'll never finish documenting this trip.)

When I finally couldn't stand walking around anymore, David and I said our good-byes to Susan and headed back to our car. (I sound like such a spoil sport but I was really cranky by this point, having spent most of the day in the rain while dealing with some fun problems I won't document here.)

From Lukang, we drove east about an hour or so to Sun Moon Lake, a beautiful lake surrounded by mountains in the center of Taiwan. It's one of Taiwan's most famous and beautiful locations and huge tourist magnet. Luckily, we were hitting it at off-tourist time and we reached the lake just as the sun was setting. Sun Moon Lake has several very ritzy resorts (which we couldn't afford to stay at) but the majority of the hotels and restaurants congregate around two small outposts: Shuishe Village, at the northwest corner of the lake, and Itashao Village, which sits on the southeast corner. Our hotel, the Full House Resort Hotel, was located in Itashao Village, which is the smaller and more intimate of the two, and boasts a lot of stores dedicated to the arts and crafts of Taiwan's aboriginal natives, who mostly still reside in the mountains.

I was very excited to stay at our hotel, having read many favorable reviews and seen pictures of the absolutely gorgeous all-wood bed and breakfast. It was a small hotel, with just a hanful of rooms, with rustic charm and filled with the artwork of the owner's artist wife. It took us quite some time to actually find our hotel, since, it being off-tourist season, most of the roads in the village were in various states of disrepair and we couldn't take a direct route. We eventually found our hotel, sitting near the water's edge and went inside to check in. The hotel was just as gorgeous as I had pictured and I was excited to see our rooms, so imagine my surprise when they led us out of the hotel, up the hill, and into some little faraway little rooms that reminded me of the cabins we sometimes used to stay in during Girl's Camp. I was very disappointed.

David questioned why we were being stuck out in the boondocks and we learned that when we had made our online reservations, we had selected these rooms (being the cheapest). Luckily, they still had rooms available in the main house and so we were transferred to a room on the second floor with a deck facing the lake. After bringing in all our luggage, David and I walked around the small village and finding nothing we really wanted to eat, we bought two bowls of ramen noodles at the 7-11 and went back to our room to eat them while watching TV. (Luckily, there were 5 English channels which showed either news or a random assortment of movies.)
The exterior of the hotel. It had a lovely garden fulled with all sorts of animal statues, tables and candles which they lit at night. Unfortunately, it rained through much of our stay so no one ever ventured out. During the summer, this is probably a happening place.

A side view. I love all-wood buildings. They have such charm.

Our deck.

And then view from our room.

Inside the hotel, on the second floor. There were three floors. The first floor is the restaurant and cafe, and the second and third are the rooms.

While the hotel itself was beautiful and charming, the rooms were nothing special. The second night, a very large and noisy party checked in to the room right above us and since everything is wood, we heard every step and creak. The beds were hard (but all our beds in Taiwan were hard) and the bathroom left much to be desired, especially the too short tub and the shower head which was the perfect height for people under 5 feet. You know that scene in Elf where Buddy (Will Ferrell) is trying to take a shower in the North Pole and he has to splash water onto his face and shoulders? That's kind of what showering there was like (though the shower head was detachable).

Still, I enjoyed our stay in our hotel, if only because it was so peaceful, quiet and charming there. But best of all was our breakfast: two heart-shaped eggs with ham, toast and passionfruit juice. Real food is so good.

Up next: Our Day at Sun Moon Lake.