Raspberry Jam

Okay so, I actually wrote this post about a week ago... sorry it has taken so long to post.  I  realized it had been awhile since I had posted and just wanted to share some small occurrences and adventures.  I just about decided not to post it because I have a new post in mind, but decided what the heck, I might as well.  Very soon I will have another post about my most recent adventure! But in the mean time, enjoy these smaller moments that were on my mind earlier last week. 

Jenny and I

I have freckles on my arms and my face.  Fairly normal and common back at home right? Yes, but not so much here in Taiwan.  Last week Roy (one of my cute little MK students) took my hand, turned it over and proceeded to try and count all the freckles on my arm.  He skipped a bunch of numbers to quickly reach one hundred and then started pointing at the ones on my face to try and count them also.  I thought it was pretty funny.  Then a few days later one of my basic reading students Jenny, also took my hand, pointed to a freckle and said "What this?" I told her they were freckles she laughed and tried to do the same as Roy and count them all.  Then she showed me that she had one freckle on her arm also.

Another difference from the people here in Taiwan is my hair.  A cute little boy named Wade was playing with my hair one night.  He's like 2 or 3 and seemed to just enjoy it.  My friend Heather, who is his teacher and has curly reddish hair says he does the same thing to her all the time. 

Fung Yuan night market

 We are called beautiful practically everyday.  Let me tell you, this is quite a confidence booster.  When we go to the night markets we get complimented in many different ways.  Just in one night we were given free Indian food from a man who thought we looked Russian and after talking to him for a bit he wanted to do a language exchange, a boy ran up to us and said "I want your telephone!" and ran away, we were given some tomatoes by a man (who we think may have been drunk), earlier the same man gawked saying "oooohhh" as we walked past, and also the common and simple someone saying beautiful and pointing to us. 

Jessica, one my fellow teachers, had her birthday at the end of July and in the evening we went to a cafe that was amazing.  Just look at my desert!

Fruit Honey Toast

It was so delicious!!

 In Taichung there are some beautiful botanical gardens that our little Berhan family took a Saturday to go and visit.  If I just talked about them you'd probably be bored out of your mind so (if you aren't already), so I'll share the photos I took instead. 

 

Some huge fish!  

and some small fish

By now you are either confused at the title of this post or completely forgot about it.  (Did I make you go back and look at it?) Last Saturday Kaylee and I went to A-Mart to buy a few groceries.  I found all I needed and was waiting for Kaylee to choose some milk when I spied some raspberry jam above some shelves in a box.  Seeing that jam got me really excited, because I haven't been able to find any raspberries or raspberry jam anywhere, not even at Costco, and raspberries are pretty much my favorite fruit ever.  There was a bit of a problem though, the jam wasn't stocked on the shelves, it was only to be found on top with other random boxes.  Once I told Kaylee what I had found she also got really excited and we now had a quest,  find someone and ask them, in Chinese, to help us.  I found someone and Kaylee asked him/gestured for his help, and he tried but was a little confused thinking that we were asking for the strawberry jam which was already on the shelves.  Soon we had about four people over trying to figure out what we wanted and how to help us.  It was a bit ridiculous, but it was worth it.  In the end I was able to happily leave the store with my raspberry jam. :) Now if I could just find some ranch dressing...