Vlog 6 & 7

Mailing Address

Here is our mailing address if you would like to send us something.

Faith Church 1F, #140,
WanDa Road, Taipei, (108) Taiwan R.O.C.

We love you all!

Fun Times In Taipei!

We are writing this blog from inside a little Tea House on Youth Street, which is next to a huge amazing park, drinking two huge ice coffees (by huge we mean bigger then a Starbucks Venti). Just so you know the ice coffee here beats any ice coffee we have had in America. Any who...

As we are thinking over all the great stories we could tell just from the last three days, we do not know where to start.

Here is a list of funny things we have discovered here in Taiwan
1. They play club music in nice stake houses. (Back Street Boys could rock my world forever)
2. Apparently, if you are going to walk 4 hours or more in a day... heels are still a must.
3. Microwaves are bo hau (not good) for your body.
4. 6 year old kids are brilliant.
5. Traffic laws are just a suggestion. (the lines on the road mean nothing, so speed up or get out of the way)
6. The locals consider Taipei to be a small city... I guess we are crazy to think 2.6 million people is on the larger scale, for a city. weird...


We love it here! It is pretty and the people are so nice.

We love you all and will post more later about our fun times. Please continue to pray for us and for all the people we will meet.

One Month Honeymoon

This entry to the blog is very over due. It has been a crazy month! Laura and I are one day away from being married for one whole month. The last month has been a month of glorious fun and relaxation. I will start at the beginning. After we got back from our honeymoon in Ashland, where we saw Brian Regan and spent a whole day at a spa, we met Laura's family at Green Peter reservoir. This is where Laura's family has been camping every summer for the last 18 years (I am not sure of the exact number of years they have been there, but 18 sounds close). This was a new adventure for me since this was the first time I have braved the wild outdoors with the Bodenstab family. Also, coming from the style of camping my family does, campground and motor home, but I was excited non the less.

The week was a week of complete relaxation. The common schedule for the day was as follows: We would wake up whenever we felt like it, then eventually we would make our way down to the main camp area. The morning was usually full of sugar cereal and reading. After the delicious breakfast, Mark would head out in his boat to catch us lunch on the beautiful lake. Meanwhile, we would all stay in the camping area and read, talk, swim, play games, or take naps. Eventually mark would return with fish for lunch. Lunch was always so good. Laura's family likes to eat their fish on crackers covered in cream cheese with a good helping of lemon pepper (if you haven't ever had it, TRY IT). Then after lunch the routine would continue with reading, talking, swimming, playing games, and/or taking naps. We would do this till dinner time which was different every night. We would then read more or play games until it got to dark to see and we would start a fire and who's ever designated night it was would lead a devotion around the fire. That is really the week of Green Peter rapped up in a nut shell. The picture though is not really important except for one time I was reading and a little inch worm fell on my book and we liked him or her so I thought I would make him or her famous in our blog.

So after the week of camping, Laura and I spent a week with Laura's parents in Roseburg. We went shopping a little with some of our wedding money, went and picked cherries/raspberries/blueberries, read, and took naps. On the Monday before we left, we were invited along with Laura's parents to go play golf with some of the people from Laura's church. It was a lot of fun. Laura's parents played with another couple while I play with two other guys. This might sound like a great day, and it was, except for one small thing we forgot..... Sunscreen... We played a whole 18 wholes with no sunscreen on. We came off the course with tan lines so bad it looked like we had just been spray painted pink. The good news is that I don't know if I have ever hit my driver better then I did that day. At the end of the week though we were sad to leave Laura's family, but we were excited to spend time with mine.

The first week that we spent with my parents was spent camping at Laevenworth. This is the same place that my family has been going camping for the last 13 or so years. The camping schedule was close to the same as Green Peter. We read a lot, swam, took naps, and ate. The only difference is the showers that we would take in the mornings, but we were around more people there than we were at Green Peter, so it was more of a curtisy for the people around us. We went shopping in town, went to a movie (we saw Wall-E, it is good), and we saw a great play called Sugar. We also went golfing, which was a lot of fun because I love golfing, except for the fact that on this day of golfing I did not hit my drive the best I had ever hit it. Also, for some odd reason my golf balls seems drawn by some magical force to the trees on the course. As you can see in the picture I was ready to kill the trees because of this mysterious force I could not explain.

After our week in Leavenworth, Laura and I were able to go spend some time in Seattle (courteous of her loving aunt and uncle, which we cannot thank enough). While in Seattle we walked enough to kill a person. While walking around we went and visited Pike St Market and bought some of my favorite little doughnut at the market. Also, if you are ever in Seattle and find a little soup stand in some building (I cannot remember the name of the place) get some soup there. It is really good! We basically did all that we possibly could without spending too much money. I think our favorite "adventure" that came from this great trip was on our last night...

We were sitting in a nice little coffee shop and saw a nice flyer that advertised for a cinema called SIFF Cinema. The key feature to this cinema is that it plays "classic" old black and white movies. Laura and I now understand that a "classic" movie might mean something totally different to differnt people. The first trailer to the movie was all in French, this is when I turned to Laura and said... "This movie better not be in French." To make a long story short, we improved our skills at watching a movie and reading at that same time. To top that, the movie did not make any sense at all! If you do not believe me, fly to France, ask them for their most confusing movie ever, and watch it.

Sense then we have been relaxing with my parents at home and getting ready for our move to Taiwan. If you would like to see the rest of our picture from our month long honeymoon check out http://picasaweb.google.com/LauraRCarpenter/OneMonthHoneymoon. Also, we did one more thing before we left Seattle, and that is why I leave you with our most recent Vlog.

Vlog 4

Vlog 3

Vlog 2