KuaZhang

Title means ridiculous. the one word I would use to describe Taiwan. Ridiculous. It is so backwards here. I'll describe to you my typical (or atypical however you look at it) ride from the house to the chapel. Get on the bikes and immediately pedal out into the middle of the street which is often packed with cars and ride between all of them to get to the sidewalk where theres not so much traffic. Bicycles have no laws here, they count as both pedestrian and vehicle so we literally ride everywhere and anywhere. Get on to this super fast road and just start pedalling like a mad man as all these crazy scooter drivers fly past you on both sides hahah. stop at street lights and cross onto the sidewalk and continue on. Red lights don't stop no one here haha. proceed to ride with the cars and then onto some of the these crazy sidewalks and alley ways until it finally opens up into where our chapel is. DaBuFen of lights here (most) are like the light panguitch utah where all four just flash red and its just a right of way thing. but in a city more dense than NYC. its fun because it somehow totally works out. I have never seen anyone get hit!!

So biking is literally the biggest thrill of my life. But to further illustrate the kuazhang-ness of this place this morning on our way to get breakfast and supplies and such, we see this stopped car in the middle of the intersection not moving anywhere. haha and its super busy right? well after breakfast we see the cops come pick up this guy who was the driver and take him away in the car. and they just leave the car sitting out there in the middle of the intersection!!! like 30 min has passed in the time that we first saw the car sitting out there till when we saw him get taken away. and all the while none of the traffic has slowed down one bit hahahha everyone just carries on dodging the car somehow always missing it. It's nuts. The cops didn't do anything about the car. thats what I find the most hilarious. It could still be out there for all I know too.. Taiwann.......

Food this week has been interesting and funny again. we tried this good looking pork place, but turns out the ONLY thing they had on the menu was pig foot, which really isn't all that super good hahah. But we stuck it out and I straight up ate the fattiest meal of my life which was terrible but an experience none the less!!! Found roubao, for those who know, it is manna from heaven. for those who don't, go get some so you know what I'm talking about. I burned a whole in my stomach this week eating dumplings and hot and sour soup. I told them I wanted them to make everything as absolutely hot as they could. It made me cry to say the least hahah and I LOVE SPICY FOOD, so the fact that I admit it made me cry should tell you just how friggin hot those dumplings from hell were hahaha! 

our biggest fail yet hahaha

We attempted to make cookies in our apartment this week. major, major fail. Turns out Taiwanese people havent invented the oven yet there are only friggin woks and rice cookers so Elder Willes thinks itd be a great idea to try cooking only big cookie cake in the rice cooker and I didnt have any better ideas so we just went for it. It was like those cookies that are not even half way through baked so they're like in that nasty in between. And also all the oil unseparated itself for some reason so it was straight up in olive oil all messy and gross and such. But I stuck it to the man and ate it like a champ. It may have made me slightly sick but Im not crying about that!!

I may have also thrown up in my sleep :-) but not your average throw up. I guess I caught it and kept my mouth closed so it just went up into my sinuses and burned those bad since my stomach was still chuck full of all those hot peppers from the dumplings earlier that day hahaha. couldn't win for losing.

Mom everyone here thinks you look too young to be my mom. they always guess sister haha.

I got to go up to Taibei for another meeting with everyone from my generation of missionaries. It was fun to see everyone again. Everyone is still doing super well!

this is the train I stood in for an hour straight going up to Taipei! and I LOVED it!!

Shi Zheyang. ("Is this way" meaning thats all for now!!)

Love you all! Keep smiling!!

金長老
Jīn ZhǎngLǎo
Elder Jensen

bakeries are the greatest thing in heaven but I always wonder where the bread balls are coming from when shipped in on these trucks.

just your typical Miao (temple, shrine) around these parts

this pic is supposed to look much cooler with Taipei 101 chilling in the background but because of lighting I was very disappointed.  None the less check out those 15 or so of the 100 billion scooters here!