Were We Last Left Our Hero (... It Rained)

Good gravy it has rained a lot recently. I apologize for missing my usual posting day but I was a bit preoccupied. You see were our hall is there is a missionary home right on top of it. A missionary sister named Huey (awesome) invited me, Dylan, and a load of other twenty somethings over to eat dinner and play ping pong. So I kind of had to go to that sorry. I was a blast by the way. I really wished I had some pictures to show for it but, alas, I don't. But you can be assured that we got our butts handed to us. Huey is pretty cool though. She is a Taiwanese sister who lived in the states with her husband for a number of years before getting accepted into the missionary field. She first served in Guam and just so happened to move back home where the need is greater. Cool huh? So we played (me and Dylan) against her, her husband, two Chinese sisters, and two Japanese brothers and got curb stomped every time. At least they all seemed to be having a good time. By the end of the night Huey was drilling us on Chinese while we were playing. That is, by the way, one of the greatest ways to learn.
So I have had a lot of adventures and I feel the best way to really show them off is with pictures so be warned; there will be a lot of them.
First off I want to share a little story that happened last week. To preface it, at the two day Dylan and I found a cool arch that was begging to have me stand under it. Dylan said, "This is like the perfect cover for an album." I replied, "Yes, we will call it  Mason Moore and the awkward Ukulele." If you view Dylan's blog at tangdetaiwan.blogspot.com you may remember this. One of my good friends Matt decided this was to good to pass up and went ahead and made me an album cover...

Available in English...

and Chinese!

I really got a kick out of that. Because just look at me! Can you really get more right on? I'm awkward, and I have an Ukulele.
 Prior to the event at the missionary home it was a pretty nice day for service. Last week was pretty gorgeous (sorry mid-west) and service was pretty nice.

Another day in service with team Taiwan.

But of course no week would be complete without me getting lost on the way to service with the group. On Wednesday of last week I had planned on meeting up with everyone. I didn't really know the exact location though but I thought, hey, that's why I usually just go with Dylan. Dylan has been hear a bit longer than I have and knows more land marks than I. But, alas, he was swamped with homework. Now to be completely honest with you I really did not want to go by myself. I was totally content with staying back at home watching youtube all morning. But then my conscience had to go and make me feel like a bad person. So I just decided to go. I had a rough idea of were to go; a subway stop, an exit number, and a bridge. But as I started out I realized that the group was farther away than I had time to get to them. I was going to be late and that meant that I wouldn't see them when I got to the bridge. So after exiting the subway station I tried calling someone who I thought would be out. But my signal keep dropping. Also my wifi wouldn't work so Google maps wasn't an option. So I just stated looking in random locations. About twenty minutes into my search I started to get frustrated. So I said a quick prayer that amounted to, "I will give this another ten minutes and I'm going home." So right at the ten minute mark right as I through in the towel I see a sister from my hall. So thankfully I got a little bit of time in that morning. Plus, it was fun after all.

I bet you thought that story was funny. Well you haven't read nothing yet. The next day me and Dylan wanted to go out in the evening to meet with another group. As you might have induced our groups meet in the actual territories. This can make finding them problematic though. The plan was Dylan would head out after school and meet the group at a Starbucks (they totally have those in Taiwan) and I would meet everyone as well. Dylan gave me the address and I again had a rough idea of were it was. So guess what viewers? That's right, I got lost again. You see in Taiwan they have an address system with a bit of a learning curve. There are street names, then those streets are divided into areas (as in area 1, 2, 3, etc.) In those areas are numbers that make up the collective areas. So you can have area 1 be 1-45, area 2 be 46-90 and so on and so on. Well there are also lanes to keep in mind. Every street has, in one of its areas on one of it's numbers, a lane that can be as long as 1 to 325 or as short as 1 to 20. On each of these street signs (in Traditional Chinese characters) is the place were that streets lane begins. I didn't know all this until the end of the night. If you think you could have figured all of this out please feel free to mock me. But if you are like the rest of the world (if your not a map savant) just try and imagine how confusing that would be. The address was on a lane and I quickly knew I was lost. So I called Dylan and asked for directions. Dylan then revealed that he had made a tiny blunder himself; he had told me the wrong street. We were seriously on the other side of town. We decided to meet up and just try and find the group anyway. So after a while we did run into each other and started the long, long (seriously long) trek to the service group. All in all we were an hour and a half late meeting up with them. Yes, that's right, we had walked for an hour and a half. But at least we could feel stupid together. Isn't that really what friends are for? But once again the service time was well spent.

On to the next adventure! On Friday we had meeting night and just about everyone showed up. By everyone I mean close to 200 people. Seriously, our congregation is huge. Someone told me that they are experimenting with splitting the congregation in two but they still like being together. Below is but a slice of the figurative pie that is my congregation.

Need I even say it? Good grief that is a lot of Chinese people.

I got to meet a lot of new people. And I got to know a bit more about some others. Take my good friend Xie for example...

Xie

I found out he really likes to sing. But enough about that for right now, we will get to him later.

I really have come to really love my congregation hear. I really speak some very poor Chinese. But they really don't seem to mind. Everyone still comes up and talks to me and makes me feel welcome. 

We aren't even close to all the stories I have to post. We also had a very nice meal that is definitely worth a mention. I could tell you all about it but I think I will have Dylan's face tell you just how good it was.

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang.
That some good sushi.

My other roommate Harry just recently got extra money in and decided to treat us to a really nice meal. Dylan had heard of a sushi restaurant close to our house that is just dynamite. Let me tell you, the hype didn't do it justice. Just look at the plate I got.

This was seriously $9.00 USD.

The fish was probably the best fish I have ever had. My mouth felt so happy. It just tasted so smooth. It had that wonderful oily texture that only really fresh fish can have. My throat had no flem in it when I finished it. It was just fantastic. I guess that's what island fish tastes like. Remember I'm from Nebraska and we are as land locked as you can possibly get. This was a big deal for me.

Dylan and I still felt that we hadn't really done anything touristy though. We have done some really cool things but we haven't been sightseeing or anything yet. So Dylan one day announced that we should go to Taiwan's most famous museum (don't ask me the name it is in Chinese).This is the famous museum that has all of the artifacts that the Republic of China saved from the Communist Revolution. It promised to at least be a cultural experience so I figured, "Sure, why not?" It proved to be a pretty big day though with lots of new sights.

There is something seriously wrong with that bench. Think about it.

I apologize ahead of time. The order of the pictures doesn't necessarily follow the narrative. But it is getting really late for me and I want to finish telling these stories so my conscience can be cleared.

Anyway, we both  found out to our disliking that no pictures were allowed inside the museum. So I "didn't" take any pictures inside the museum. The pictures I have come from another museum were it is totally OK to take pictures of the artifacts. Oddly enough this museum has complete facsimiles of the same artifacts the other museum has. Imagine that. But I "didn't" take pictures inside; that is against the rules. The museum was pretty cool though. It had lots of ancient jade sculptures that must have taken a tremendous amount of skill to make. Old swords were inside, ancient calligraphy, and other cool things were everywhere. It was a lot to take in though. I'm sure glad there was another museum with perfect facsimiles of the real artifacts or else I wouldn't have been able to take pictures and remember the surroundings. After the museum we both were pretty hungry and it was getting late. We were thinking of going home we were close to the biggest night market in Taiwan. It just seemed to cool to pass up so we delved into the night market.

It really was a huge place. We were looking for food but got lost in a whole district that was all clothes. It wasn't until we did a total loop around the place we found all of the food stands. The food district was just completely packed to the brim with hungry Asians. We really couldn't decide on any one thing thing though. But it was then that I saw the most magnificent Xiao Long Bao (little pork dumplings with soup in the center (delicious)). We both got those and just died. Right next to there was a place that sold special bubble tea (milk tea with tapioca pearls in it you suck out with a big straw). So we totally had a complete meal that only cost about 3.00 USD. I love Taiwan. On our way out we saw a Ukulele store so I had to check it out. I am by no means Jake Shimabukuro but I can play a few songs. The Ukuleles were really nice also and the  really expensive ones were only like 160.00 USD which a very good deal on a high quality musical instrument. The shop had a gay guy and a Taiwanese girl in it that probably do nothing all day. So my playing the Uke might have been the highlight of there night. I know this because the gay guy asked to take my picture so, yeah, that happened. That night was pretty fun.

A small piece of the largest night market in Taiwan.

Is this not the best billboard ad you have ever seen?

Inside some museum there was a face copying machine that made a little you and put it in a CGI cartoon.
Here are Dylan and I as a British dandy and an American revolutionary. Dylan is the dandy unfortunately.

Ancient calligraphy. 

Sword in a jade scabbard.

The small rocks are ancient weiqi (or go) pieces.

This is where they put the people who take pictures inside the museum.
Thank the lord I found that other museum.

And hear is the famous Museum. It looks like the palace from Enter the Dragon doesn't it?

I have one more story to tell. This happened to us tonight and let me tell you, it was amazing. If you remember Xie the singer in one of the pictures above the story starts with him. Today in service he was the person I worked with. We had a great time. I usually feel a little awkward in service working with someone who doesn't speak my language while, visa versa, I can't really speak there's. But today was encouraging because I actually had some laughs with Xie. This let me realize that my Chinese is actually improving. Well after service was over he invited me and Dylan to do something. Dylan looked at me and asked if I wanted to go. I really didn't know what Xie said but I was still like, "I'm in." So we cement a time and part ways. Dylan asked me later if I really knew what we were doing. He seemed surprised when I said know but the way I see it is that we are in a land were a knew adventure could spring up at anytime and I need to be ready to catch them all. He kind of laughed at my credo and said that we were going to Karaoke, Chinese style. I was all for this but as you can imagine I was also hoping there would be a lot of drinks at this place. So we met up with Xie later at the place fully (well, sort of) prepared for Chinese Karaoke. We follow him upstairs and see our stage. A small for with a TV, two mics, a computer, and one other guy. That was it. It is always challenging to not laugh at something like. I know that those two guys probably do that all the time. And you know what, that may be totally cool in Taiwan. But to us Americans that is just gold. To our surprise though we had a pretty good time. Trying to sing a song in Chinese it kind of fun. An added bonus was hearing the horrible Karaoke versions of songs like 'Born To Be Wild' (a synth-pop version by the way), and 'Strawberry Fields Forever.' Also amazing and horrifying to see are all the music videos that Taiwan kind of just through together. My personal favorite was Michael Jackson's 'Beat It' (a Taiwanese girl just blowing bubbles for three and a half minutes), 'Thriller' (a nice white couple enjoying a hotel and the random places of Taiwan), and Lynard Skynard's 'Sweet Home Alabama' (random shots of Australia). Xie really, really likes singing too. Seriously he put his little soul into it every time, what a guy. Me and Dylan couldn't help but get into to. I guess we are officially nerds both by American standards and Taiwanese standards.

Freddy Mercury

This was our group and our room.
You know I'm laughing even while writing this.

My boy Xie rocking the mic.

Well that's it. All our latest adventures. It is past midnight hear and I need to rest up for the next great adventure. So see you  next time. Same Bat-Time, same Bat-Place.