I am one, procrastinated step away from finishing my junior year of a Bachelor’s of Business Administration degree. I have spent over 2,160 hours in class with the same group of awesome classmates, hailing from all over the world. This core group of students has welcomed transfer students and said goodbye to others. We’ve sat through classes that ‘never ended’ and learned about the 2008 financial crisis more times than can be counted. We took finals that were worth 40% of the grade and finals that were worth 10%. We’ve had teachers with perfect English and teachers with ‘no’ English. And now I am realizing that we, classmates, have spent more time together than we have left before we part ways. In fact, some of my classmates are already finished with us and will be traveling to different countries next year as exchange students.

Here in Taiwan it is quite common for people to remain close to their high school, or even junior high school, classmates throughout their entire lives. Many of my Taiwanese classmates spend weekends throughout the year, going back to their home city to visit with a group of high school classmates that planned a get-together. A fifty plus year old Taiwanese man we know went on regular walks with one of his high school classmates up until his untimely death. While these are only two examples there are countless others.

I am understanding more and more why this is the case. Like my current university program, Taiwanese high school students spend every day and every class with the same group of students. It is bonding to say the least. Everyone knows exactly who the slackers are and who the hard workers are. Everyone knows who is getting into playing guitar and who is getting into partying. Everyone knows everything about everyone.

At first, I think it was pretty strange for us as foreigners. But I have to say that after three years of it I have really come to enjoy it. There are definitely the clicks and groups and all that. But at the same time there is definitely an overall togetherness amongst us. I am hopeful that this bond remains even after graduation. Next year won’t be the same with Gina and Jennifer and Ken and the rest of my classmates who will be exchange students away in their various locales.

While I disagree with educational philosophy and practices here in Taiwan in many regards, I have become a big fan of grouping students into classes that remain together throughout a program’s duration.

Where does a former Governor who lost his Presidential primary and now works in cable television go? Do you give up? … Taiwan! Seriously, I’m not joking.

Mike Huckabee came to Taiwan the other day. The London International Group brought the Guv to Taiwan to “promote his new book,” and besides the paying guests they invited a bunch of college students to fill up the rest of the room. I was one of those students. Gov. Huckabee gave a speech and even did a Q&A time. It was fun to see my classmates reaction to his ability to stay on message and not answer anything he didn’t want to.

First of all I want to know if the 6 plus security guys were secret service or private security? Were we Americans paying for all of them to pick through my backpack and raise eyebrows at my coffee thermos? What is a primary loser doing with secret service?

On another note, our cat has ringworm so Emily and I spent time today wiping everything down with bleach water. Isn’t life fun? It is a good thing Emily is around. She is the best at staying motivated to clean. The other three of us in the house are pretty laxidaisical in that whole area. I have such a wonderful wife. If she weren’t here, I probably wouldn’t do anything but just hope that the ringworm would go away. “The key,” I would tell myself, “is to pretend there is no ringworm. That way they’ll get bored with the lack of attention and find someone else’s cat to bother.” I’m good at conjuring up reasons why things do not need to be cleaned. Emily, on the other hand, was online for a few hours this morning, finding all this home-remedy information and then spear-headed the whole effort. Like I said before, I have a wonderful wife…can I get a holla?

My good friend, Benni, is back in Taiwan for the month after a year in California. He has come back to graduate and then flies home to Germany. I was lucky enough to grab lunch with him today and hopefully we’ll get a little more hang time before he heads out. I guess this is the downside to having friends and classmates from all over the world. When they go home it’s not just a few hours away, it’s several nations away.

Both Emily and I have been slow in realizing that we are just two weeks and change away from leaving for summer break. So stinking crazy! Thankfully God has provided a sub-letter/cat-sitter for our room and we are also trying to work on living and working arrangements for the summer with email. Dear Lord please make Your plan known.

*This post has been updated with a few pictures*

So much has happened since my last post. My problem has been that since so much was happening I kept on meaning to post but then I would be overwhelmed by how much there was to talk about so I would put it off only to be faced with a bigger problem as there was even more to talk about. I’m finally biting the bullet but alas I have compromised with myself and it will be an abbreviated bullet.

So after my birthday Emily and I left for vacation. We are trying to save money for a trip home in March for a wedding so this year’s vacation was not a jaunt off to some other east-Asian country (like the Philippines in 2008 and Korea in 2009) but instead a trip around our own Formosa (one of Taiwan’s many names.) After thinking about what we could do we decided upon a moped trip around Taiwan. Setting out with with one other friend Rachel, on her own moped, Emily and I piled our big backpack, our tent, and ourselves onto our moped and fled Taipei. We traveled down the west-side of Taiwan’s mountainous center stopping only one night to stay with friends near Nantou before completing the journey down to our friend’s house in DongGang, a coastal town south of Kaohsiung (Taiwan’s second-biggest city).

Rachel and Michael on a rare picture break…we drove 8 or 9 hours a day!

We stayed and hung out with Laura, our DongGang friend, for about a week and camped for a few days on Xiao Liu Chu, a small, coral island not far from DongGang. It was warm and sunny. We camped out on the beach and read and we even went snorkeling in the surf. It was fantastic and a great departure from the much colder north.

Campfires on Xiao Liu Qiu (小琉球)

The black beach in Dong Gang (東港). We’re not sure if the sand is black because of pollution or because of…nature.

Emily celebrated her birthday while we were in DongGang. I took her to Kaohsiung for the day and we hiked and road bikes and had fun together exploring the city. She’s a quarter-century old if you can believe it.

What we discovered during our hike on Kaohsiung’s  (高雄) Monkey Mountain – an ancient tree with pterodactyl-esque nests tangled in the top. Jurassic Park, anyone?

Megan, my sister, joined up with us the day before we left DongGang. Now there were four of us on two mopeds for the trip back to Taipei and oh man were we funny looking all packed on to our tiny, little 125cc scooters.

We took off north and hopped on Hwy 20, Taiwan’s southern cross-island road. There was a ton of road damage from mud-slides and it was very precarious in spots…it’s a very good thing that no mothers were on the trip is probably where I should leave the description. We came across many construction crews repairing damage and were even held up by one that hadn’t completed a little dirt trail to connect each side of the road from where a bridge had collapsed. Emily’s pictures will be invaluable for you all to see and get a better idea of what I’m talking about!

Three generations guard the family food stand near Mei Nong township (美濃)

There’s an awesome story behind this picture. We came upon a part in the road that was absolutely impassable, until this dude talked to the man in the backhoe and sped up the operation a little…they worked out a sort of ramp and helped push our scooters up! He came up with this pose himself, by the way.

We made it through eventually though and camped at LiSong, a natural hot-springs that LonelyPlanet says is Taiwan’s most beautiful hot-spring. It was very beautiful but oh man was it a hike to get down to it at the base of a ravine. I’ll leave that story for Emily to share.

After a few days there we took off up the east coast of Taiwan. The mountains and the east coast of Taiwan are so beautiful; so untamed compared to what we were driving past going south on the west-side.

After a night at Hualien’s Formosa Backpackers Hostel (recommendable) we headed into Taroko Gorge for a few days of camping and hiking. Another great story and another one I’ll leave for Emily.

Hiking up to Lian Hua Pond (蓮花池)

Aboriginal hospitality (ie liqueur, songs, and a raging fire)

After leaving Taroko we continued to head west and north through Taiwan’s mountains. It was slow going and very foggy in places. We stayed one night at a place called Wuling Farms and while it was a nice place we arrived too late in the day to truly enjoy it. Plus, we were pretty far north at this point and as we were camping we were less enthused about being outside and “doing stuff” due to the drop in temperature.

Snow! Snow! Snow!

Wuling Farms (武陵農場)

Our last day driving from Wuling Farms to Taipei was the most grueling. It was cold, rainy, and foggy and we were way up in the mountains in the middle of these clouds that were causing the rain and the fog…and we were riding on mopeds…brr.

We finally made it back to our house last Friday evening. Since then we’ve been hanging, reading, and enjoying each other’s company. Megan had to leave to head back to her home on Kinmen today. Monday Emily and I start school.

Vacation is over.

“Oh my gosh” is how I feel about our ride back to Taiwan.

The wedding turned out great. Emily spear-headed the programs, favors, and kicked butt in general being the sister leading up to the big event. She was literally awesome and I’m not just saying that because I’m her husband. I was a gofer. I think the job suited me. My favorite jobs were the ones to help Chris. Being a recent groom myself I remembered a few things that, if remembered, add a lot to the day. It was also great to see and hang out with extended family all the way up from TN and FL in addition to the usual suspects. We are so blessed to have such wonderful families and it’s so wonderful to be able to be with them.

After the wedding day we had a great time at church and then a few days down visiting with my family. I can’t say how great it was to hang with my littlest sister, even if it was just a few days. Emily and I were even able to go to The Strutt for open mic night and hear the ghost of Johnny Cash. It was rad!

I must also mention the goodness of beer in the USA as compared to Taiwan. While in Michigan I was able to enjoy Bell’s Two Hearted (Thank you Chris) and Short’s Huma Lupa Licious (Thank you Dan). Is it wrong for me to enjoy good beer so much that I include it in blog posts but leave out how good it was to have ‘future plans’ conversations with my dad, mom, and sister? Anyways, those are two great beers and I thoroughly enjoyed each sip! If you have never had a good IPA then I suggest these two.

So Wednesday we went to DTW to fly away. No problems. We sat next to Brent, a very interesting and interested guy. We had quite a good conversation on our flight to DFW and I hope he enjoyed it as much as we did. It’s not everyday that you sit next to the guy who wrote the code for Alltel’s cellular instant-messaging service.

Dallas is where the trouble started. We took off okay but Emily and I both started to feel gross as we flew to LAX. When we landed we were tired and pretty much zombies. However, we woke up as we walked to the international terminal. Why it was freezing in SoCal but not in Michigan is something we should all be pondering. We got all checked in and to our gate. However, it was freezing there too as one of the other departure gates had their door to the outside open forever. I’m sure the two of us freezing, gross, and zombie-like, sitting and waiting for our departure time made for the ideal picture. Unfortunately we didn’t take any.

Now is where the story gets strange. The “boarding” started for our Malaysian Airlines flight. We walk out the boarding door onto the tarmac level and got put onto a bus. Bear in mind it’s the middle of the night and we had already been flying for five hours. They drove us along the tarmac way out into the fields of the airport and pulled up at this little “one-gate” terminal building. Our airplane was parked at it and all the normal service vehicles were scurrying around it. We walked into the the building at the ground level and trudge up the ramp, which accounts for the entire building, up to the airplane walkway thing. We boarded and it started to feel like a normal flight. It was so weird though. We were already really whacked out and then we rode a bus into the fields of LAX to an airplane parked at a tiny little building? I wish there was a function to get incredulity written into these words. If I was a conspiracy theorist I would start thinking they were loading the plane with weird, secret stuff and wanted to do it way far away from the normal planes or something.

So we settled in for the fifteen hour flight and Emily and I both pretty much just zonk out. I woke up as the steward was serving a meal. He kindly asked me which choice I’d like and I just stared up at him in a daze not comprehending what was happening or what I should do. After waiting a moment he moved on and I went back to sleep without a meal. Emily never even stirred. And then, the turbulence. Oi vei it was the worst turbulence I’ve ever experienced on a flight. It would come on and the captain would hastily squawk over the PA for the “cabin crew to be seated” and then the plane would start doing crazy stuff. It felt like we were diving sometimes and other times like we were being pushed back and forth by giants. At one point Emily and I heard something crash in the galley. And it would only stop for a little bit and then come on again. It seemed to go on like that forever and I became glad I hadn’t eaten dinner. Nausea with an empty stomach is better than with a full one right. During the turbulence it also got extremely warm in the plane. I would be all bundled up in my blanket and hat and sweatshirt and then shed them all during those bouts of craziness. Finally, it let up and Emily and I were able to enjoy the next meal and a few movies before landing at TPE.

Our friend, Wally, was so kind to pick us up. He drove Emily to her school for her test (yes, Emily went to class for a test straight from over 20 hours of transport) and then took me to our apartment in Taipei. We were so grateful.

Now? Now we have to deal with jet lag and homework before classes on Tuesday. It’s good to be home.

Tonight, Michael and I felt the biggest earthquake since we’ve been in Taiwan, a 6.4! At the time I was at a friend’s apartment, on the seventh story – the grand piano was rocking back and forth and the heavily laden bookshelves swayed. The whole building was moving like it was made of jello. The two other women and I grabbed our things and tried to get out the door, but the locks wouldn’t come open and the door was stuck in its frame. This was after more than 15 seconds or so, which is a really long time in earthquake-land! Finally we got the door open, but by that time the heavy rocking had stopped. We waited through the aftershocks, then took our coats off and went back to practicing for tomorrow’s Christmas service.
Michael was in our bedroom at home, in a much older apartment, and said he actually held up his hand in belief it would protect him from the falling ceiling.
What a night!

MAJOR EARTHQUAKE STRIKES TAIWAN; FOUR INJURED, MINOR DAMAGE IN TAIPEI AND NEAR EPICENTER
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS (CP)
TAIPEI, Taiwan — A large earthquake struck Taiwan on Saturday night, causing some injuries and damage in the capital of Taipei as well as damage near the quake’s epicenter.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the 6.4-magnitude quake was centred off the eastern coast of Taiwan, about 15 miles (25 kilometres) from Hualien. It struck at a depth of about 30 miles (45 kilometres). The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center did not immediately issue any warning.
Buildings shook in the capital for over twenty seconds after the quake struck.
“It was the strongest quake to hit Taiwan this year,” said Kuo Kai-wen, head of the Seismology Centre at Taiwan’s central weather bureau.
Local TV reported at least four people in the capital had minor injuries, most resulting from falling debris. The reports said traffic Taipei’s subways and the island’s high speed railroad was suspended.
TV stations also reported that windows were blown out in a Hualien hotel and that there was minor property damage in Taipei.Taiwan is located in one of the most seismologically active areas of the world and registers a large number of quakes every year. Earthquakes frequently rattle Taiwan but most are minor and cause little or no damage.
However, a 7.6-magnitude earthquake in central Taiwan in 1999 killed more than 2,300 people. And in 2006 a 6.7-magnitude tremor south of Kaohsiung severed undersea cables and disrupted telephone and Internet service to millions throughout Asia.