OMYGOD! My sister's husband Johnny made us the best falafels I have ever tasted in my life! They were different than what I was used to; hard and crunchy, very much like dried ramen noodles, and by far one of my favorite things ever... I still crave them. Is the hard/crunchy version a Lebanese thing? I like.

I couldn't believe how fat people were in Canada. I started to believe it, though, after seeing advertising for things like the Baconator. Honestly, 8 pieces of bacon?? It's no wonder people are literally poisoning themselves with this crap. I shouldn't be one to talk about fat, though, as I gained nearly 20lbs in three weeks on that trip! I never did get a Baconator, though... :-(

Fashionably late?

Four months in between blog posts could be considered obscene by most standards... sorry, and oops for that! Life was pretty mundane and ordinary before we went to Canada. Then we went to Canada for our Great Big Road Trip and were just way too busy to blog or email or even facebook. Then we got back to Taiwan and have been busy getting our apartment set up and getting back into the swing of working again. 

Speaking of gettting back into the country, well, we're here, and that's big news because we were pretty stressed out that Rob wasn't going to be allowed to re-enter Taiwan because of his declined work permit issue.  He was able to come into the country using his old permit, which had been officially cancelled, but because the immigration department downtown isn't networked with border patrol, there was no question; there was no reason for them to suspect it might be canceled. The only problem is that now he is working and living here illegally, which only means that the next time we leave, it'll be for good. That's ok, because I think we're done with this Taiwan experience. Next stop: England!

Our road trip was totally awesome! I'm posting a bajillion photos from it (we took just over 2000) and I'm going to let them speak for themselves for the most part. This blog post will be mostly landscapes and us, and I'll do another one of mostly people. We had a brilliant time in Canada. The highlight of the trip was definitely seeing our friends and family, but unfortunately it was bittersweet: there were so many people we tried to cram into three weeks that most people got around an hour with us. We constantly felt rushed and that we were ripping people off, that somehow they deserved to get more time, and we're sorry that we couldn't see everyone we wanted to. Believe me, we tried!

Now that we're back in Taiwan and life seems to be back on track, I'm going to try to blog every Sunday. We'll see how that goes. Rob and I both ate so much in Canada that we each gained about 20lbs, and I was thinking of starting a side blog to document our fat loss, but then decided nobody wanted to see our fat sweaty asses everyweek, and that a few before and after pics would do the trick just fine!

Enjoy the pics and stay tuned for more!

xoxo

This is sick...

I can't believe how low people stoop sometimes just to get attention.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6571361.stm

happy trails

I went hiking the other day with my friend Kim, whom I used to work with at a school called Alpha Beta, which was a ridiculous experience worthy of their name. Anyway, I'm getting back into the swing of exercising now that I've officially hit the four month mark for surgery recovery. Doc said six months until full recovery and exercise, but he said walking is an excellent start and that I needn't wait the full 6. I've been hiking up the mountain on my 2 hour lunch breaks twice a week for the past few weeks, and I'm starting to really get my energy back up. I had forgotten how much exercise contributed to my well-being before. Now to keep the momentum going...

There are some pretty extensive trails on YanMing Mountain up in Tienmu fairly close to my school, so we took a bus to the base and climbed the 1800 steps, which annoyingly only got us about two-thirds of the way to the top! There was reprieve from the 32 degree heat in a shaded trail at that elevation, which had no incline to speak of and that headed straight into the subtropical forest. A beautiful marked wide trail wound itself under a tall, cool canopy on the side of the mountain. There was a national park-ish sign nearly 100 meters in that warned us to be wary of the Macaque, a small and sometimes vicious monkey, which the sign claimed is endemic to Taiwan. I'm sure they didn't mean the monkeys are like a disease to Taiwan, but they did say not to carry fruit with you, or look at them, or raise or eyebrows, or smile: you'll get your butt kicked!

For all of you who know and love the perimeter trail in Smithers, you would have loved this: it's merely a subtropical replica. Aahhh, perimeter trails...

Here are some pics from the hike. I really wanted to get a shot of an orb spider, which are shiny and bigger than my hand, but they all seemed to be in hiding that day.

cheers