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…

One of the benefits of living far away from our family is that when we are home there is a fair amount of attention paid to getting quality time with everyone. I have to say that one day in the last few weeks has stood out to me. A few days ago my brother drove over to Lansing for a business meeting I had tried to arrange. Unfortunately the meeting ended up falling through but my brother came anyways to spend one last day with me…side note: Newmind is a fantastic company and you should definitely consider hiring them to fill the CIO role of your small to mid-sized company providing the edge you need to compete! Over the past few years the time my brother and I have spent together has mainly been in the context of full, family gatherings. This day together was different, in a great way, because it gave me a chance to see my brother work his business magic, getting to tag along to his appointments as well as the opportunity to do the whole confide in and be confided in thing. Him driving away that night was one of only two times I’ve felt like having a little cry this time around the goodbye tree.

Yesterday we boarded our flight in Detroit and officially began our journey back to Taiwan for year number three. We had a huge portion of our wonderful family there to see us off. It’s great having people that care so much about us and that we care so much about too! Goodbyes are hard though.

We were again on Frontier Airlines out to LA and I again was not impressed. The pilot on the flight from Detroit to Denver seemed to forget that there were passengers in his plane and decided to fly without so much effort given to making large, graceful, unnoticed turns or being that discriminating when it came to the angles of ascension and its opposite. I also felt a few instances of actual fear about the fact that we were flying on September 11th. Up until the flight I hadn’t really thought about it at all but somehow being in the plane with that less then perfect pilot made me a bit antsy. Out to Denver Emily took the window and I sat between her and Terry. He turned out to be a middle-aged guy from West Bloomfield that now split his time between there and San Diego. Terry told me how he’d been to thirty countries because of business. Flying once a month had made him quite the airline expert and Terry explained to me that Northwest and US Airways were the best money can buy. So there you go folks. Now you know. Towards the end of the flight I learned, because his leg was killing him, that he had a bullet in his hip. My immediate thought was to ask him what it was doing there but for some reason I held my tongue and now I’ll never know. The flight from Denver to LA wasn’t nearly as eventful. Our rowmate was a very elegant, middle-aged woman who read and slept the whole time. We did not speak one word to her nor her to us…that is unless Emily snuck in something that I didn’t hear. Another nice thing about that flight was the pilot seemed more of the nice and easy does it variety.

Upon landing our scrumptrulescent (how can Will Ferrell ever be thanked enough) friend Genevieve was extremely prompt in picking us up and delivering us to Pasadena where we are staying for a long weekend before the transpacific flight.

After unloading and declaring our hunger we were taken to In-N-Out Burger. It was excelente! Our friend Kevin showed me how to take a bite of hot pepper (they are complimentary additions to your meal should you ask for them) and then a bite of burger making an oh so good combination of excelentayness in my mouth.

Today we decided a walk around downtown Pasadena would be fun. During the walk Emily and I bought what we believe is our first jointly purchased piece of art. Wally Pacholka sold us a print of one of his photographs at a wonderful discout for which we are extremely grateful, being the poor students we are. Here it is:
Isn’t it beautiful. Actually the right-side is a little cut-off here but you get the idea. By the way it’s not digitally mastered or anything. It’s the real deal and we think it’s pretty cool. I also picked up a copy of J.B. Phillips’ Your God Is Too Small at Cliff’s Books for a dollar and ten cents off the bargain rack…and it is even a hardcover.

Once all the walking was finished we came back to the pad and watched the tail-end of Michigan’s win against Notre Dame and the entirety of the USC vs. Ohio State match-up which I have to say was one heck of a game. I of course sobbed uncontrollably (not really) and hung my head in shame (it’s just so embarrassing) upon seeing the ESPN ticker’s report of the CMU vs. MSU game…woe is me.

And thus ends the day.

Emily and I are a week into our summer job. This summer we have been fortunate to get jobs detasseling corn thanks to my dad who, in his words, “badgered” our new boss until he agreed to employ us. Thanks dad! Our new boss is an Amish gentleman named Levi Bontrager who runs a 200 person detasseling crew. Not only that but my little sister is doing it with us so we’re having lots of fun!

Unfortunately though the weather hasn’t cooperated. Normally the season starts around the beginning of July and goes really strong for 3-5 weeks and ends. This year the planting didn’t happen until later because its been such a cold summer and even now, towards the end of July, different fields are becoming ready to be detasseled at different times. Because of this we’ve only worked 4 days during the last week. Not only that but the four days have been half-days so its really more like two, short days of work. Its kind of a bummer because we could’ve used these days to visit more people but as it is we work from the early morning until around noon and then a trip up to Lansing or Milwaukee or Kalamazoo or (insert a place here) isn’t as justified. Oh well…we are very grateful to even have summer jobs to begin with.

I’ve been reading The Odyssey and it made me think how great adventure and travel narratives are. With this in mind I’ve created a category in the sidebar appropriately titled “travel.” All of our posts from our Philippines and Korea vacations are there along with posts about our travel back and forth between Taiwan and America. While they are adventure and travel narratives they probably won’t become quite the classic that Homer wrote though. I guess a lot of our posts about Taiwan would be considered of the adventure/travel variety as well but I just don’t think of Taiwan that way…it being my home and all. Maybe I should create an “exploring Taiwan” category for those or something.

Anyways its been fun reading The Odyssey. I feel like I understand a lot more than otherwise having taken that Classical Mythology class first semester of this past school year. It hasn’t been a page turner for me or anything but I’ve enjoyed it. Its crazy to think that the same story I’m reading was told at dinner parties before Jesus Christ even made his earthly appearance. Part of me thinks its still read only because its so old but then another part of me thinks there’s got to be more to it then that.

Thanks to Dan & Roberto (two friends) my computer is back on Windows XP and I’m able to use my video editing software again! I’ve already taken advantage and put up more Korea footage. While its not as flashy as the other “Michael and Emily go to Korea” videos its up and you can watch it here.

One more thing I must mention is food. The other day I had my first Qdoba burrito of the summer and LOVED it! This evening I had scrumtrulecent Chili made by my wife and my mom who followed a recipe from my sister-in-law…the double-F: Family & Food! Life is good!!!

Today was quite a day. We began by packing and getting the house ready for departure. Once it came time to locate our passports we ran into difficulty though. Emily had lost hers. She researched what she could do on the interweb lickity-split and set off to the Taipei Immigration Office, then on to  the American Institute in Taiwan (aka USA embassy) and then back to the Taipei Immigration Office securing her temporary passport in the nick of time.

We decided to screw the cheaper option of taking the bus to the airport and took a taxi instead (I hate shelling out money) because of the time crunch we were now under.

Once we got to the airport we got through everything just fine with time to spare and boarded the Korean Air flight without any more problems.

After the million hour flights from the US to Taiwan this measely little 2 hour 20 min flight to Incheon International Airport outside of Seoul, South Korea was nothing.

After touchdown we got through immigration and customs no problem. Then we tried to use our credit card at an ATM to get some more cash as we only had a little bit. Here is where the next fiasco overtook us. Neither of us could get our credit cards to work in the ATM because we couldn’t remember our PIN numbers. So without much cash we got on our free shuttle from the Airport to the Airport Backpacker Guesthouse where we are staying tonight. After 2 minutes in the car we got to our hostel. It is really really really nice and is only $35ish USD a night for two people….I am very impressed.

I got on the internet and made some international phone calls on my cell phone (I am not looking forward to seeing the bill) to get the credit card situation sorted out. After talking to VISA representatives it seems as though I’ll be able to get cash without my PIN by going to banks and showing my passport. They also told me I shouldn’t have a problem using it for purchases so hopefully we’ll be okay.

Those few hours thinking we were stuck in Korea for the next week without any money or way of getting any was quite the stress-test though. Needless to say we recommend everyone to locate their passports and double-check their methods of obtaining cash before traveling by at least 24 hours if not more.

On a pleasant note: Its great here. Our plane got in after dark so I can’t really see much but stepping outside of the airport into the cold winter air made me feel like I was home. It was real winter air where you could see your breath and needed a coat. It felt great!

We are excited to greet tomorrow, fix the money situation and make our triumphal entry into Seoul.