Curry anyone?

Been reading so much about food in India, it inspired us and we made curry last night. Is it making your mouth water? It should be, because it was delicious! The hardest part was the rice because we don't have a rice cooker yet and the gas stove doesn't do well on a low setting. It was boiling over, the flame kept going out, rice was everywhere. Anyway, despite the fight it turned out wonderful. We added broccoli, carrots, mushrooms and fake meat.
And now, the next day, I'm going to have leftovers. Yum!

We're dreaming of a white christmas

But maybe not quite as white as last year...



Here is a picture of our weather today:


We are looking forward to weather that actually makes it feel like it is winter!

Baby it's cold outside

Ok, so maybe it isn't "cold", but it has been getting cooler. We've also acclimated to the warm weather so what used to feel comfortable is now chilly. What better way to warm up and feel in the christmas spirit than enjoying a cup of hot chocolate?


Unfortunately we don't have chocolate soy milk at the store down the street to heat up. But when I remembered my mom used to make us hot chocolate on the stove sometimes with cocoa power I knew we could improvise. With soy milk, hershey's cocoa powder from the import section of our grocery store, left over sugar packets and a pot on the stove we made our own hot chocolate - vegan style.

With warm mugs and A Christmas Carol on the tv we are well on our way to feeling "christmasy" in our new home away from home, though counting down the days until we spend christmas with our family and friends!

On the 1st day of Christmas Taichung brought to us...

A big blow up santa looking out onto the sunny skies.

And the oscar goes to....

Did you know there are awards for Taiwan blogs? I didn't either until last week. If you feel so inclined, you can vote for ours. Just click here or on the icon above. On this page there is a pink box with our vote count, right under that number is a plus sign. Just click on that plus sign to vote for us. And even though I know you all love us so much you want to keep clicking that plus sign, there are rules that say you can only do it once a day :)

Thanks so much for following our adventures in Taiwan!

Gecko love

I have a gecko family that shares my office with me. Normally they stick to the window area and hide when I get close, but lately they've been getting more adventurous. I saw one the other day sitting on my couch (maybe ready for his therapy session?) and this one stuck to the blinds despite my moving them and getting up on a chair to take his picture.

don't go to bangkok for three days

**flickr page is updated**

go for 13.  or 33.  we decided to head over to bangkok for thanksgiving with a couple of teachers from school and had an amazing time.  we were actually there for more than three, but it was three full days.  we got in wednesday night at 11pm and then left our hotel at 10am on sunday.  our trip was amazing, but way too short.  it took us a day to get acquainted with the city and then we had two full days to try and relax, site see, have drinks, eat, listen to music, and visit as many markets as we could.  next time we plan on going for a few extra days and getting out of the city.  when you go (not if, when), please please please buy nancy chandler's map as soon as you get there.  we didn't have it the first day and the people we were with weren't sure where we were going, so we spent a few hours walking around looking for temples and getting harassed by the ever so nice tuk tuk drivers.  alright.  here are too many pictures and if you want to see even more, click on the flickr link at the bottom of the pictures.

(click to enlarge)

instead of a bible in the drawer, we found a guide to southeast asia.  i like it.

 

water taxi was crazy.  wasn't sure what the plastic was for...

 

until the guy left and i looked over the side.

 

random temple while looking for the grand palace.  (i'm assuming it is a temple)

 

i love naps and so does this guy.  never pulled off the tree nap, but it is on the list.

 

at the grand palace.

 

these guys were allison's favorites.  they came in all different sizes.

 

more grand palace.  so much shiny gold.  too bad i forgot my sunglasses.

 

more grand palace

 

allison's favorite picture of the day.

 

more of allison's favorite little guys.

 fooling around with the color settings.

 

random statue

 

 we always forget to take pictures of the two of us.  not this trip.  no sir.

 

my delicious bananas soaked in sugar for 48 hours to the point where you can't tell they are bananas.

 

largest lying buddha in the world at wat pho.

 

so big.

 

 getting my fill of good luck.

 

more palace.

 

 vegetable soup for breakfast everyday!

 

 i drove a tuk tuk at 3:30am (yes, you read that correctly, i drove a tuk tuk.)

 

chatuchak weekend market - the granddaddy of them all.

 

 animals were kept in pretty small cages/tanks though.

 

 we saw lots of turtles and quite a few bunnies, dogs, cats, and other buddies.  it was pretty sad after the first few.

 

 traffic was insane.

 

 and by insane, i mean it was rush hour every hour.

 

we made it to cabbages and condoms!  they have some restaurants and resorts throughout the country that help promote social development programs.

 

they love their king.  so much.

 

annnnnd, to top it all off, we were able to see leslie and bryce for 10 minutes.  they had just landed at BKK and were heading to laos for a year or five.  due to an hour wait at customs for them, we almost had to bail so we didn't miss our flight, but it all worked out.

best (and only) trip outside of taiwan so far.  fun times.  now we get to look forward to our trip home!  we leave in 22 days and we're getting excited.

if those pics weren't enough for you (then you're crazy and you should just go visit bangkok), check out the rest of them at our flickr account.

bye!