New News

It's a new year....2009! Hopefully a new commitment to writing on this blog and sharing stories about my experiences here. I feel like I say this every 4 months or so...so all I can say is that I will do my best.

Here in Taiwan I am gearing up to end the first semester and head for New Year's break. This is the most important holiday here in Taiwan, and is the only source of significant vacation in the school calendar. Starting January 21, we will have vacation until February 2nd. This break will provide a good time to relax and take a break from the busy school year.

For this new year's vacation I am going to visit Beijing, China. I am really excited because this will be a chance to see the old and the new. The old, historical sites of the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square will both be walking distance from my hotel. I also plan on traveling to see the Great Wall, hopefully being able to walk and spend significant time there.

New things: Beijing is a modern city, one of the biggest in the world, and has recently been re-modeled because of the Olympics. I hope to see some of the new sites that were put up for the Olympics.

Another highlight will be the chance to see snow (hopefully). I have not seen that wonderfully cold and cruncy powdery substances since the Februay 2005...just before I went to Puerto Rico for student teaching. While I don't miss the cold of an Iowa winter, I do miss the chance to see and play in the snow.

While I look forward to the Chinese New Year vacation, I have some exciting news to share from here in Taiwan. First, we have a new restuarant here in Chia-Yi...Subway! It all came out of left field when one of the teachers was driving in the city and saw the sign up advertising the reastaurant, and upon a closer look it was discovered that it would be opening in the next week. And sure enough, the end of December brought fresh, tasty, subs with the marvelous smell of the fresh baked bread. In the 3 weeks that it has been open, I have gone 4 or 5 times...delicious!

Finally, the other news is that we finally have a Pastor here at Salvation Lutheran Church. Pastor Alex Wu will becoming to serve as our pastor this spring. We have been vacant since August 2007, so this is such a blessing and we are all excited to have Pastor Alex as our pastor.