California | Taiwaneers

Yes I’m Baack in Blaaack

Sep 202009

We have completed what has been one of our most fun trips between the USA and Taiwan and are now chilling at our home in the good ol’ Jhongjheng District of Taipei City.

Our visit in California proved to be fantastically cultural and extremely enjoyable…you can tell I’ve been in the US for ten weeks ’cause I’ve got such a big vocab to draw on.

We made last Sunday a beach day and our friends took us out to Newport Beach. The sun was great and the waves were awesome. We all did our fair share of body-surfing, sun-bathing, and frisbee. Later we went to the evening service at our friends’ church. Monday we went to The Huntington where I saw a Gutenberg Bible as well as Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales that had the Gutenberg beat by like 50 or a hundred years. The gardens there are huge and we only made it through a third or so before the place closed. It’s a pretty cool place! Tuesday we went to The Getty. Again we only made it through a small portion of this place because it is stinking huge. Incredible collection as well and thanks to the wishes of its founder, J. Paul Getty, they aren’t allowed to charge admission! I of course liked the French Impressionism section the best but they also had a bronze exhibit that was pretty incredible as well. Actually the whole place was magnificent and I would definitely go back.

Tuesday evening brought a mini-reunion for Emily and I. Some of our friends whom we had met in Taiwan were in Long Beach for various reasons and the three of them came over to Genevieve and Kevin’s house for an excellent meal of spaghetti coupled with lots of talking and catching up! That night definitely ranked high on the most fun of our summer list.

Wednesday was a relax day and that night we were driven to the airport, graciously given exit row seats upon request, and settled in for a long but good (remember my high endorsement from a few months ago?) flight on Malaysia Airlines back to our little island. No joke I even slept for several hours which hardly ever happens!

We lost a day coming over and Friday morning after landing we made our way by bus and MRT back to our home in Taipei. I had planned on being out of commission but I felt fine. I even went to my Friday afternoon class and got to say hi to everyone.

Well, since then we’ve been grocery shopping, cleaning the apartment, and in general settling in for another year.

Today we made it to church at New Hope and had a wonderful time worshiping God and catching up with friends.

Now its back to cleaning…

Back in Taiwan

Michael's Posts, Travel & Exploring, USA 4 Responses »

Sep 102008

At 5:35am this morning (Wednesday) our plane pulled up to its gate at Taoyuan International Airport and Emily and I arrived back in Taiwan.

After saying goodbye to the Muffett family in Detroit on Sunday afternoon Emily and I journeyed to Los Angeles where we spent 31 hours with Emily’s best friend Genevieve and her husband Kevin in Pasadena. We had a wonderful time seeing them along with Genevieve’s mom and siblings: Penny, David, and Caroline.

The visited included Del Taco, a trip down memory lane walking around Mimeistry‘s campus where Emily lived and studied in 2005-2006, Sorbet (I had orange & passion fruit and it was incredible), The Norton Simon Museum, and steak & risotto for dinner cooked by Kevin. This isn’t mentioning all the good conversation time as well!

I do have to ramble a bit about the Norton Simon…….WOW! What a great musuem. If you are ever in Pasadena or near it go. Their Impressionist collection was huge and included all my favorites. Van Gogh, Degas, Monet, Renoir, Cezanne, the list goes on and on. I was already fatigued when I finished that section and found out that other rooms had Caravaggio’s, De Goya’s, and more. Finally I made it into the modern section only to stumble upon a ton of Picasso’s along with a Duchamp exhibition. Sorry for the gushing but WOW! It was awesome!!!! Oh and I forgot to mention, our student id’s gave us free admission!!!!

Well anyway, we’re back at our apartment now getting acquainted with our new roommates Ken (Taiwanese) and David (French). We’ll be spending the next few days getting over the icky feeling one gets after 13 hour flights, adjusting to a 12 hour time difference between here and Michigan, taking care of odds and ends related to immigration, scooter, yada yada, and getting Emily all squared away with NTNU.

Hopefully we’ll get a chance to write a little more about the summer on here because it truly was wonderful. As you can see the layout of our blog is just a little different thanks to our friend Dennis. This new layout will allow us greater freedom as we organize and expand our site so watch for new things in the days to come.

That wraps everything up for now. Please feel free to make suggestions on things you would like us to write about, take pictures of, explain, etc. Thanks for a great summer! We miss all of you already.