Pier-2 Art Center - Taitung, Kaohsiung, Taiwan

Continuing our interesting journey in Taiwan...

One of the fascinating places that we visited was this Art Center in Taitung. At this place, we saw sculptures made of steel and looked misshapen yet they had a special meaning. 

We saw sculptures of anime characters and super-heroes like Spiderman and Ironman. People came in droves to take photos with these sculptures.

Many young people come here to show off their anime costumes and dress up as Disney characters. A pair of young ladies dressed as Elsa and her sister in the "Frozen" movie!

This place really jolts your eyes and your mind. Some sculptures like Transformers are larger than life. Some sculptures seem to stand out of nowhere...here are some pictures and you will see why.....

A great testimony - God hears our prayers

Is the government having financial problems? Why are they not calling the medical and pharmacy graduates to do their training at government hospitals? Why is the list of training companies for pharmacy graduates so limited?

Why are people who graduated last year still waiting for their placements at government hospitals? Some of these graduates have no choice but to work at retail pharmacists for only RM1k a month! How to survive in KL what with rental, transport and food!

This is the question on the lips of many of A's friends who graduated with her last year. There were about 80 pharmacy graduates and about another 200 odd medical graduates. 

Most if not all of her classmates are languishing at home waiting for the government to place them in hospitals to do their internship so that they can get their pharmacy licence. Much like a doctor, a pharmacist also needs a licence to practice. This seems to be ultimate goal of pharmacy graduates. Many will not settle for less.....

My daughter was getting frustrated. "Mum the longer I wait the more rusty I become. I will begin losing the knowledge I have of the drugs and medicine that I learnt in my course! A job with a pharmaceutical organisation will keep me on my toes and I will be continually learning new things!"

Say what you may, my youngest girl have always had a sense of mission in her chosen career path. She sees being a pharmacist as not just a job but a mission to help people.

Imagine how great it would be if she were to tag along with me to Sarawak for missions. She would be busy treating people with all kinds of sickness and prescribing the medicine to help them!

However her initial stint at Health Lane, Kepong was a failure as all the aunties and uncles communicated to her in Cantonese. She shed tears when she could not communicate with them or help them with their ailments. You see, A (like my other 2 children) are bananas - yellow on the outside, white on the inside! Chinese on the outside but English speaking!

She quit after about 2 weeks and became very depressed. She was a go-getter who was used to employers lining up to employ her and not the other way around. Also to be jobless is unthinkable for her. She was always do something - Uber or Grabcar or whatever part time job she could lay her hands on.

So I prayed and prayed and prayed. I asked my prayer partners to agree with me on this matter.

God heard our prayers and gave her a really good job at PayPal. Yet, it was not her heart's desire. She was solving customer's problems online and was excellent at her job. In fact she was so good at her job that she won several awards. At one time she was earning about RM5k a month!

She continued applying for a pharmaceutical company that would be able to provide the training for her to get her licence. Also the PayPal job required her to work on Sundays and also late night shifts. Sometimes she would be coming back so late that I really worried for her safety....

Once again, A asked me to pray for her to get a job at J & J. There was only one opening but there were 200 applicants lining up for that one job!

A said something to me that struck a chord in my heart - "Mum, if I get this job everything will fall into place for me. Pray that God will give me the job!"

That really moved me to pray for her. I got my pastor's wife, my life group members to pray for favor for the job.

A cleared the first interview easily. They said that she was passionate and had an excellent attitude.

At the second interview the MD asked why HR did not source for a first class graduate! 

Though A made it to the Dean's List twice in her final year semesters, she missed the first class by a few points!

She kept on asking me to pray for her as she really wanted the job! Once again I fasted and prayed for her and got people to agree with me!

God is great! He heard our prayers as A got the good news just 2 weeks ago! She got the job!

A may not be first class but our GOD IS FIRST CLASS!

Fengxia night market

Claimed to be the largest night market in Taiwan, Fengxia night market was established in 1963. Its location is near the Fengxia University. At weekends the place will be teeming packed with students and parents....

This place is just teeming with all kinds of Taiwan street food, the likes of which we will never get in Malaysia...the smells, the sights, the taste of the food all bring us to the uniquely Taiwan experience...

The variety of sausages, fried cuttlefish, fishball, chicken balls, innards, fish, meat balls are just mind-boggling....

The food sold is uniquely Taiwan...the bubble tea is simply yummy, the fried nuggets just scrumptious...

Fengxia entrance

Vendors call out to you to try their unique food....so much variety...

Stinky taufoo...I just love it....actually it was not as stinking as it should be...pop it in the mouth...

Gigantic fried squids, prawns, crabs...

It was at Fengxia that the father got 'lost'. The instructions were for us to wait opposite Watsons. However the father waited at Watsons. 

Slowly the tour group members returned from their shopping but we were wondering where the father was. After waiting almost 20 minutes, I started praying for his safe return. I tried calling him but could not get connected as he was using a different service provider that was not recognised in Taiwan....

Somehow he saw us opposite the road and came over. God is good!

A found some very nice stuff at this night market. I found some striped casual pants that I could wear without looking frumpy. Only about RM20 per pants....

Taiwan - Yehliu Geological Park

Another fascinating tourist attraction is the Yehliu Geological Park....

The famous Queen's head is only found in 2 places in the world and one of them is in the Yehliu Geological Park.

It is a natural rock formation that was formed as a result of the weather and the seawater coming up to land eroding and washing over the earth after many many years. Soon quaint rock sculptures with shapes and stories of their own were formed over the years. They look so sentinel and surreal from far.

From far they looked like mushroom-shaped rocks but if you look closer you will realize that each of these rocks have definite designs that were unique to them....nature is the best sculptor.

When going into the Yehliu Park, one has to be very careful especially when it came to posing with the rock formations. Henry told us that in the past some eager tourists hoping to get best shots would stand really close to the edge of the sea (there is no wall that separate the park from the rough seas) and be washed away by the thundering ocean...we were warned to keep a safe distance away when taking photos.

Just Sleep & Mioali Flying Cow Ranch

Small but neat and clean...breakfast is delicious with porridge, salads and Taiwanese delicacies....love it!

So unique is this hotel called Just Sleep....in this room for e.g. there are some mathematical equations written in something like permanent chalk on the walls....makes me feel like I was Einstein or something.....

Taiwan is an interesting place. I can only describe it as a cross between Hong Kong and China. I love the hotels especially the quaint boutique hotels known as Just Sleep. When Henry our tour guide told us the name, I thought he was joking!

I love Taiwan for its night market, the beautiful rough seas, the Geo park, Taiwan 101, the shopping, the street food and Sun Moon Lake!

My all time favorite must the the one night stay at the Flying Cow Ranch at Miaoli. The farm hotel was rustic yet comfortable. The bed was soft and downy and the the room look like home with its wooden floors and clean white sheets. However it was not a place to be cooped up in the room. There were lots of fun things to do here. 

The dinner was unique. How many of you have eaten steamboat with its soup base as cow's milk? Yes, Miaoli is a cow farm and what else do they serve with the steamboat ingredients but cow's milk!

The fun thing about this place was also the activities that they had planned for us.

Our tour group took part in a night activity. We were given a soft pencil case made of canvas and stickers of animals. The artwork was to glue the pictures onto the white canvas. It looked easy but when our stickers refused to stick it became rather frustrating for us to figure out what went wrong.

However it was all in good fun - even if some of us ended up with animal pictures that didn't quite stick!

We had a very restful sleep in the farm. Breakfast was in a small but charming farmhouse with farm fresh food. We had eggs, porridge, salads, fruits and vegetables that fresh and organic.

We felt sad to say goodbye to Miaoli because there were so many parts of this farm that were just begging to be explored. From our bus we could see an expanse of green rolling field that seem to go on forever.... 

Always buy travel insurance

The last time my daughter got dengue in Japan, we did not buy flight insurance for her. Now the wiser we bought insurance for all our children during our last trip to Taiwan. In any event it was a compulsory purchase.

I want to thank God that we did so!

The brother who was stopped at the departure lounge from boarding the flight to Taipei but who was eventually given a fit to fly letter was the subject of insurance claim. We filed the letter from the doctor and all the necessary papers through the tour agency.

One month after the unfortunate event, we received the good news that our claim for full refund has been approved. To God be the glory!

This is a lesson well learnt...always buy travel insurance. A small sum to pay for protection against any emergency or unexpected flight complications!

Best of Taiwan - 26 Nov to 2 Dec

Last year our family of 4 decided to make a trip to Taiwan with a tour company.

As we did not speak Mandarin we thought it would be good to sign up with a tour group that would take us from airport to Taiwan and back again. We have traveled with this tour company before and their services were satisfactory and reliable.

However it looked like the trip was dogged with problems from the start. A had to leave by 30 November as she had to start her new job with a month's training. We bought an extra return ticket for her as she had done very well in her finals making it to the Dean's list twice!

However the biggest shock was when our son was stopped at the Malaysian immigration. They said that he had infected eyes because of that he could not board the flight to Taiwan. They were afraid that whatever he was having was going to spread to the other passengers. Begging and pleading did not help. The plane was delayed because of him!

I had to rush to the departure lounge to give him money to take the cab back home. We were furious with the authorities who asked him to see a doctor to get clearance for his eye condition before he could fly. It was 30 minutes before departure - how could we possibly do this? All of us were already seated in the plane. 

In the end, I was stopped by the T and A from foregoing my trip as well otherwise it would have been a double loss of funds! The son later told us that he went to see the doctor at the airport who gave him a clearance letter to fly but there was no flight. I was wondering how could he possibly be cleared to fly when the doctor certified him as having conjunctivitis?

Anyway nothing was going to stop us from enjoying ourselves. Despite the initial disappointment we are ready for a good time in Taiwan. We flew to Taoyuan with 26 tour mates.