One More Day (like from Les Mis)

We're about 34 hours from Sarah's arrival in Taiwan. I have a limo ready to pick her up upon her arrival. The Taiwan government is considering a police escort from the airport to the apartment, but haven't confirmed this yet. For reference (and the new readers), Sarah now has her own address label to the right. Yes, it looks very similar to mine but now has her name on it so she can get mail at the apartment! Should have a cell phone number for her by this weekend sometime.

It's definitely back to summer weather in Taiwan. 95 degrees and 66% humidity (the after shock of the Typhoon with higher humidity). Heat index of 102. No, I don't miss the snow, but I do miss the "normal" summers I've been used to in the midwest my whole life. But I do think I am sweating less than I was a month ago.... my body is probably getting a little more acclimated to the heat.

As July comes to an end, my other thoughts are on some of the things I read online:

Jamie Lynn Spears is getting married in Mississippi. I thought they were from Louisianna? Even so, if you had that kind of money in the family, wouldn't you want to get married somewhere... ANYWHERE... besides Mississippi? And what is up with McCain comparing Obama to Britney in his latest advertising? We're supposed to take McCain serious?? Another waste of money in politics as usual.

Pudge going to the Yankees.... seriously? Like they need any more reasons to be hated! I'm still surprised they didn't sign Bonds in the offseason just to make even more people hate him. And when are the Twins going to make a solid move by the deadline? They're playing well, let's get a team to move up to the top. Braves have thrown in the towel for the season already. Sorry, not used to that but I have a feeling the next few seasons will be like this.

China tries to "fix" pollution issues 2 weeks (less than that) before the Olympics. Sorry folks, this stuff takes 10-15 YEARS to fix, not days. I think overall this will be good for China to get in a different mindset (maybe not) and the world to learn more about China and not rely on textbooks that describe China from 1980s. Hopefully most people will also learn about the history of Taiwan and understand that Taiwan is NOT the "capital of Thailand". Take the time to learn about Southeast Asia geography (take you about 15 minutes) - this area will remain in the news for the next many years.

One other thought to share - not all Western Cultural influences are a good thing to see here. Sure, I enjoy seeing evidence of Hollywood films (Batman is a huge success here, even on the IMAX theatre here) or Pepsi in every 7-11 (all 2600+ of them), but when I see the latest craze of small dogs being carried around by young girls.... I get a little frustrated. Yeah, there are miniature dogs here that fit in purses, or are too small to walk themselves so the woman carries it everywhere as she shops. Hoping this fad passes quickly and we can laugh about it 20 years from now just like we do with the Jams we wore in the 80s.

Hope you all enjoy your Thursday! Mine is complete and I'm off to continue watching Back to the Future III complete with Chinese Subtitles!!!

Wednesday - No More Typhoon

So by my count, 58 hours till Sarah arrives in Taiwan. Please keep her travel in your prayers for the next few days. We have outlawed Typhoons till after she arrives. We've also planned a HUGE 2 weeks of games in Beijing starting in August where the world's finest athletes will compete for prizes.... all of course in Sarah's honor.

Been a busy week - both at work and getting ready for Sarah. I have to "de-Bachelorize" my apartment. Putting the dirty clothes in the hamper, making the bed, putting clothes away, put the dishes back where they belong..... I think she'll be impressed. I have just about everything ready for her so she can quickly be acclimated into Taiwanese culture!

Otherwise, nothing new comes to mind today to share..... sorry to disappoint this week.

Enjoy this video in the meantime, sent to me by Eddie:

Babys, Weddings, and a Typhoon!!

Congrats to another Dickinson grandkid born this past weekend. Congrats to Erin/Carlos and of course Auntie C!!!! Diego is a healthy looking baby and we welcome him into the family!!! Hopefully he takes after me and becomes a CYCLONE instead of a Husker:(

We had a Typhoon hit us today. So remember all those "Snow Day" moments growing up where you go to bed knowing you don't have to go to school the next day? Well that was me on Sunday night knowing that the government called off all offices and functions for Monday due to the Typhoon coming our way. So I enjoyed yet another day of "working from home" but the bad part is not a lot of places/restaurants are open either. Luckily I had stocked up on some food on Sunday at my trip to the store. How bad was it? Well a lot of rain and some higher winds, but not really anything to close down everything - but then again I only saw what I saw outside of my window all day:) Here is a radar picture of today's Typhoon Fung-wong. I'll see what I can do to name the next one "Typhoon BigShow"!!



Taipei is on the northern part of the island so we didn't get the eye of the Typhoon.

This past weekend I went to a wedding of a colleague. He is actually the one who invited me with him to the Church I've been attending. It was a Christian Ceremony but was all in Taiwanese:( Don't worry, even some of my peers from work that I went to the wedding with had trouble understanding all of the traditional Taiwanese. They all speak primarily Mandarin (like main land China). I've posted pictures on the right (or here for the directionally challenged). The main sanctuary is very nice, much more traditional Christian Church compared to my English Service sanctuary on 9th floor. This one is on the 10th floor of the building from last week's photos. So imagine building a place like this on the 10th floor of a building! Not sure what the other 8 floors below are for:) But David came in wearing a white tuxedo (which looked very sharp) and when he walked in, the crowd started clapping and cheering:) The music was pretty typical of US weddings (Pachabel, Wagner, finish with Mendelssohn) BUT I have to say that I actually enjoyed the Wagner Wedding March in this wedding since it was played on Piano (not on Organ as the other 99% of the weddings) and was played by our Church pianist who has her PhD in Piano performance.... so the Wedding March played as a performance on piano is actually a very pretty piece. She played some other pieces throughout that were played extremely well - I enjoyed that part. There was a performance from the "Adult Choir" (that's what I'll call them... in the robes in the pictures), and two songs from the "contemporary choir" which didn't wear robes and were a little younger in age. Everything in the service was in a foreign language - even the hymn that we sung. By the 2nd verse, I had figured out the translation linguistics on the right so I was able to kind of sing along. My IBM peer Joseph stopped and stared at me when he figured out that I was singing in Chinese!!!

Other parts of the ceremony to note:

• The bride and groom each wrote their own personal vows and read them to the other person with the microphone - I like this MUCH better than using the standard church vows that are usually used.... much more personal.
• At the heavy urging of the congregation, about halfway to the back after they were "official", David picked up his bride and carried her the rest of the way! It was actually pretty cute.
• Yes, I was the only "minority" in the congregation - I was also the tallest one there so I stick out.
• Lots of group photos afterwards (including one for David and his work colleagues... there were only 4 of us at the actual ceremony though - many showed up for the reception)
• I figured out some of the stories in the Chinese Bible thanks to some of the pictures (one included in my pictures) - they were all printed right to left and top to bottom. Kind of puts a new twist to the Tommy Boy line of "Top to bottom, left to right, a group of words together is called a sentence"....

At the reception, the hall (part of a nicer hotel on the North part of Taipei.... near the IMAX theatre that I just found out they have here) was very fancily decorated. Probably over 300 guests at the reception (maybe 200 at the ceremony??) and the food was in full force! There were lots of songs and presentations (video of pictures - pretty standard now a days) - and even a video of a friend of theirs who wrote the couple a song! On his second (pre-recorded) performance, about halfway through the song, David joined in and sang the melody for his bride as the guy in the video played the guitar and sang harmony.... so a rather unusual performance but one that was done very well! A sort of Karaoke-style done well for a wedding reception:) What a great idea!!!!!!!!

We had some appetizers which included mushrooms and muscle... the muscle kind of sucked, haven't liked it now the 2 times I've tried it. They also brought some Seaweed stuff to eat, some Shark Fin Soup (no joke) which I am told is rather pricey and very elegant! It actually wasn't half bad to tell the truth. Shrimp, Sea Cucumber, Pork..... to drink there was a ton of red wine accompanied by Orange Juice, Guava Juice, Mango Juice, and Cranberry Juice.... It was a very plentiful wedding. Our group had lots of toasting going on to each other and to the happy couple when they were close. Luckily only a few were staying sober enough to drive home at the end of the night.

Well I enjoyed my first Taiwanese wedding - I will most likely attend another one in November (with Sarah of course) that I believe will be a non-Christian wedding.... probably Buddhist... so that will be interesting to take part in.

Hope you all had a good weekend. The storms here have passed and I might actually venture out to see fresh air for once today!

Sarah arrives in Taipei this weekend! Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers!