Fran and I wish each of you a very special time with family and friends.
Psalm 100:5 For the LORD is good. His unfailing love continues forever,
and his faithfulness continues to each generation.
Nov 222006
It’s late and I didn’t take a picture today so I’m going to take the easy way out and share our latest family portrait with you.
Nov 202006
Anyone who visits Taipei notices pretty quickly the sidewalks. They are different than those of America. First off, I’m not talking about the one you find in neighborhoods. Those don’t exist here (neighborhoods – as you know them – OR sidewalks).
The sidewalks we have here are (mostly) covered and run along in front of shops. The covering is actually the 2nd floor and up just jutting out over the 1st floor. Almost all of the 1st floor street facing “apartments” are retail.
Each building along the block is completely independent of the others and can basically do whatever they want – especially as it relates to the sidewalk out front. Some are marble and very nice (but very slippery in the very wet climate here) and some are, well, not so nice. But NONE of them are the same height as the next one down the block. It makes for many stumbles. If this situation existed in America there would be a constant stream of lawsuits against shop owners for allowing such an unsafe condition to exist. Here, it is “watch what you’re doing!”
Suddenly, many of the sidewalks in the downtown area where I go to work each day are being dug up. Wendy, our receptionist, says that they are trying to get them more even. I’ll let you know how it turns out.
Here you can see the work in progress and some of the workers taking a rest (siesta). This is in front of the building where I work on the 3rd floor.
The weather has really been up and down lately. I thought for sure that winter had arrived (consistently less than 80 – 85 degrees). we’ve had several days when it was cool and wet. However, today was a bright sunny and warm day. I caught this shot as I was waiting to do the u-turn on the main road so that I can turn right into our lane. You can see four taxis, a bus, a dozen or so scooters, and of course the tallest building in the world – The Taipei 101.
Nov 162006
Tonight, after prayer meeting, a small group of us went to dinner together. Most of the women in the group also needed to get things that are on their Thanksgiving cooking lists. So it was decided that we would walk over to an area called Shi Da (Sure Dah). There is a fairly large campus nearby so there are a few stores & eating places that feature “western” things (western being north America – not cowboys).
Anyway . . . . we ate at Grandma Nitti’s. Someone told her if she would put Grandma in the name the foreigners would come. Fran & I had (american) breakfast food for dinner. Afterwards we walked a couple of blocks over to see if Mammi’s (a store with some imported things) had any of the needed ingredients for the Thanksgiving feast.
A couple of days a week – I get to watch one of my favorite cooking shows while I eat lunch. The chef is a fun European named Jamie Oliver. Well, last week after BSF Leaders meeting – I went to lunch with a few of the other leaders, and I found out that a couple of them love to watch this fellow too. I told them about trying to buy some fresh rosemary after watching his show because he just reaches over and pinches it off the bush in his kitchen to cook with it. I never found any and ended up buying a bottle of dried rosemary. Well, today, Bess brought me my very own rosemary bush. After class today, I got on the elevator and a gentleman on the elevator asked me what it was. I lifted it up for him to smell – and then as I got off – he said “make rosemary bread”. It has brightened my kitchen and sure does smell good.
Nov 142006
Fran and I have been talking a lot lately about weight loss (& how to achieve it). Today while on my way to a book store I looked up and saw this gym on the 2nd story of an office building.
Ministry of Gymnasium ? ? ?
Nov 132006
(Part of) BSF’s Taipei Evening Men’s class
