Cold Spell

Just a quick update on the weather. Many times people ask me if it gets cold in Taiwan. I always reply that cold is relative to a location, these last couple of days have provided a perfect example.

The temperatures the last 3 days have been in the upper 60's with lows in the upper 50's. Now some of you sitting in Iowa or Minnesota might not think this seems very cold. However, here in Taiwan we do not have heated buildings. You can buy a little space heater for your room, but the house is never fully warm when you enter it. So it is more of perpetual state of coolness, and yes, you can add more layers, however once become cold it is hard to ever fully warm up.

Transportation can add to this, as I usually ride a bike or scooter to get from place to place. I recently have been reflecting that I prefer to ride a bike in the cooler weather. First, a scooter can get quite cold when the temperature is lower and the wind is rushing against you. Second, on a bike my body is working, and this keeps my lower body much warmer than on a scooter. So while you are outside longer on a bike, you stay overall warmer. Plus when I arrive at my destiniation there is no heat to warm me up. Thus I have decided for the time being I prefer to ride my bike.

One more thought on the weather. The other thing that made the last days worse was the rain. I have found there is nothing worse than a cold rain. I think we will get some warmer weather in the coming days, but before long it will stay cooler for the winter season.

Colder weather is not all bad though. This morning I woke up and Kevin had made some hot green tea. So I enjoyed a couple mugs of that before heading into the office. I must say I have grown to enjoy tea a lot more since coming to Taiwan, and cooler weather makes the hot stuff even better.

Ok, enough talk about the weather.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everybody! This past week I had a chance to celebrate Thanksgiving a couple of times. In addition to a phone conversation with my parents, I had many different activities here in Taiwan to remember how God has crowned the year with abundance.

On Saturday evening we had a huge Thanksgiving dinner. Matt and Dee Dee, hosted the dinner, and over 85 people attended. I enjoyed turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, bread, and peacan pie. It was a wonderful time to give thanks for the many blessings (especially food and friends) that God has given me.

Thanksgiving was also celebrated in my 10th grade (Senior 1) classes this week. In all 6 classes we did an activity to help the students remember things they are thankful for. First each student wrote down five things they were thankful for, and then they had to go around the room and ask all of their classmates to share one thing each person was thankful for. After getting an answer from each classmate, the students then had to ask 5 people to explain why he or she was thankful for the thing they shared.

To end the activity each student wrote 4-5 sentences explaining why he or she was thankful for one of the items on his or her list. The students really enjoyed the activity because they could walk around and interact with their classmates. I thought it was great because the students could reflect on the many blessings they have in life, and they could also practice speaking in English.


Finally Friday Night was a time to watch a little football, as some of the other missionaries and me all sat down to watch an online archived showing of the Packers-Lions Thanksgiving day game. All in all it was marvelous week of remember all that God has provided.

Now to get ready for the intensity that is preparation for Christmas...

Bike Trip

I just returned today from a bike trip to another city. Earlier this semester, I had gone on a trip with 3 friends to TaiChong, a city 80 km north of Min Hsiung. This weekend 7 of us traveled down to Tainan, which is a city 70 km to the south. We set off Saturday at 11:15 and finally arrived at our hotel at 6:00 pm. We had several water breaks along the way, and got lost in Tainan for about 2 hours, but God kept us safe and we eventually reached our destination.

After bathing and changing (because I was REALLY gross), we all went to eat at a wonderful German restaurant in Tainan. I enjoyed some cheddar stuffed German sausages, with deliciously fresh bread. Then in the evening we just crashed and went to bed by 10:00. After a day of biking, it is amazing how well one sleeps at night.

This morning we went to a Lutheran church, that I had been to before as part of traveling song and skit group. After church we set out to bike back to Min Hsiung. In the course of biking, we eventually split into 2 groups. I was traveling with Matthew and Michelle. About 30 minutes into the way home Matt's leg was bothering him, so we decided it would be best to take the train the rest of the way.

The three of us went to the nearest train station, only to find out that that train station would not let us take bikes on the train. A nice man who spoke English well helped us to ask if there was anything we could do. The person at the ticket counter informed us that the Tainan train station would allow us to bring bikes and store them on the train. So we rode back to Tainan, and caught a train to Chia Yi. We then had the 3o minute ride from the train station to Concordia, and our trip as complete.

In total riding time was close to 7 hours. We rode over 120 kilometers, averaged 17.3 kilometers per hour of riding, and burned almost 1600 calories from biking. What a great chance to get away and put in some heavy excerising.

Pictures from Halloween

Kevin as a hippie



Michael as Dumbledore



Me as Severus Snape



Going Trick or Treating

October Recap

Already November…wow!! Well October came and went, at it was filled with a lot of wonderful activities. During the month, I took a bike trip to another city, participated in the school’s track and field day, and hosted a Halloween party.

The bike trip was on a school vacation day. Me, Kevin, Michelle, and Michael took a bike trip to Tai Johng, which is about 80 kilometers (50 miles) from our school. It ended up being quite a journey. We set out at 8 am, and ended up at our destination, a Chilli’s restaurant, at about 2:30. We stopped several times along the way to rest and re-hydrate, but we also got lost a couple of times and had a exhausting journey through the hills. In the end we were beat, and decided to take the train back instead of attempting to bike back.

Every year, the school hosts a track field day. During this day students compete as classes in various individual and relay races, and also events like the high jump, tire roll, and three legged race. It is always great to be able to see my students outside of the classroom and especially when I have the chance to cheer them as they compete.

During field day, the teacher’s also have the chance to compete. This year I ran in the 4X100 meter relay, representing the English office. I also ran in the 1500 meter race, tire roll, and the large group teacher’s relay. My team got 3rd in the 4X100, 3rd in the tire race, and I got second in the 1500. My favorite races were the tire roll and the large group teacher relay. For the large group relay, we had 30 teachers, and each one ran 100 meters. We competed against some of the Junior 2 (8th grade) classes, and ended up winning the race. It was really enjoyable to be able to be on the large group team and cheer on many of my fellow co-workers.

Finally, the end of October brought Halloween and the Hanson Manor Halloween Party. Kevin, Michael, and I all live in the Hanson Manor and we hosted an evening of events for Halloween. We had two parties for the night. The first one was a kids party, which lasted from 6:30-8:30 pm. We invited families from school and church, and had activities such as “pin the nose on the Jack-O-Lantern”, decorating Halloween cookies, and went trick-or-treating. I think the kids enjoyed trick-or-treating the most, as they went to the houses of teachers who live at school, and filled up their bags with candy. To end the evening we watched “The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown”, which is a classic show for Halloween.

Check out the following link to pictures from the children’s party:

http://picasaweb.google.com/mattwasmund/HansonHalloween

Beginning at 9:00 we hosted a party for adults. We invited friends from school, church, and Friday Night Bible Study. There were a ton of snacks and drinks, and most people wore costumes. We gave away 2 prizes for best costumes, one to an American and one to a Taiwanese. After a summer of Harry Potter reading, I decided to dress as a character from the book: the highly controversial Severus Snape. All in all it was a great night of fun.