Elder Thomas Jensen: 搬家天

Chinese New Year began yesterday! But as it will carry on the rest of this week as well, I will write more about it next week!

New Year Decorations lighting up all the streets here

This is our apartment, refurbished hotel.

We have mastered the mosquito hunting tactics.

Our apartment has a funny little ecosystem of its own. As we are working on killing all the little blood suckers, the ants come in and devour their carcasses. Roaches come in summer and mosquitos in winter, but ants year round.

There were some other epic occurrences this week! And good news is I survived them all!

First off and least interesting, I found the best restaurant in all of XinZhu. It is a Singaporean place with the best tasting curry ever. Literally all I've ever wanted lol. But the interesting thing about this place, and I forgot to snap a picture which I'm pretty bummed about, is that Taiwan is SUPER tiny for how many people live here and you have to take advantage of every little bit of land you can find here. So along the street, this is literally this little patch of dirt, like 5ft by 5ft, like nothing at all, completely cultivated with cabbage, spinach, and other little tasty vegetables. Probably no wonder the Singaporean restaurants veges tasted so fresh?

The second was two days before Chinese New Year, I'm not sure what happened, but my throat lit up bright red with soreness. It's incredibly inconvenient to have swallowing troubles right as you prepare for the holiday of the year for the best food. And to be better off, because of the holidays, there were no people on the streets, like at all. It is amazing how quickly this place becomes a ghost town. Spooky almost. But either way, with the throat throbbing and no people to talk to, I wanted to call in sick. But fortunately for me, my companion is super excited about always working, so I never said anything for fear of making him slow down. We kept going hard. And funny as it is, it really does feel so much better when you just stick it through the pain and work anyways. There were some many small moments I would've missed if I had called in sick. Life is short. Get out and live it. We can recover from our illnesses and weaknesses in the Spirit World.

My mother is a shining example of how to live life. Making it to the top of the Rockies and across the ocean only weeks after surviving the gnarliest surgery ever. I'm lucky to have such a role model of a mother aren't I?

The third and best of all was to start off a great Chinese New Year, we had a pretty intense rumbling in the earth. That drum roll to usher in the New Year must've been too loud or intense or something? I was sleeping Friday night and had an intense nightmare when I was being shaken ridiculously hard. I woke up thinking it was my companion, but realized my whole bed and entire room was bouncing around like crazy. So there I was, laying in bed, shaking harder than I have ever before, when the thought occurs to me, "I really ought to jump under that desk in my room. Or under my bed. Or just do something when the ceiling falls then it won't crush me." As I'm considering my next move, I roll over to look at Elder Gray and first see what he does. He is sound asleep!! Snoring away!! I keep watching as we are both bouncing up and down waiting for him to flinch. Not a thing. Then I lay back down. I think when you are sleepy, your logic isn't as good. I reasoned that my bed was at least warm and comfortable, the ceiling was only dry wall, so nothing too intense if it were to collapse, and then if Elder Gray did eventually get up, I would then consider moving. So I went back to bed and enjoyed the remaining 3 or so minutes of super intense tremors watching the lights on the desks and ceilings shake like crazy.

It was when I woke up in the morning and heard just how intense it really was that I think I learned my lesson that if I'm ever back in the that situation again that I probably ought to get up and get to safety just in case.

Next earthquake I will duck for cover, don't worry.

Fun experience.

I'm super excited for a fun New Year! Hope you all are as well!!!