Recycle across the country!

Traveling 75 hours in seven days is probably the most traveling I have ever done. But this is what we’re in for as soon as we fly out of Taipei in August to go home. Here is what our insane itinerary looks like:

August 4-Fly to Lax
Still August 4 (in America)-Fly to Baltimore red eye flight
August 5, 7:00am-Arrive in Baltimore, pack up Uhaul truck
August 6-Drive to Tennessee
August 7-Drive to Indiana
August 8 or 9-Drive as far west as we possibly can and try not to get speeding tickets.

Because Aaron needs to be at school in California as soon as possible, my precious brothers will help me drive all of our stuff across the country. I’ve never had enough stuff to put in a Uhaul, and neither has Aaron but with our powers combined (plus the reimbursement of Aaron’s work), we get to get a truck! This truck will enable us to do powerful things, including fulfilling a lifelong dream, well maybe not lifelong, of finding and keeping as much free stuff as possible!

Let me explain. A couple years ago, I found out that there is a section of Craigslist for people to give away free stuff! I found some great stuff and gave them away as presents because people in Washington DC give away all sorts of treasures. Unfortunately, in Tennessee the only free stuff to be found is old dirt, firewood, or chestnuts if you pick them yourself.

Also, one of my favorite blogs is Design Sponge before and afters. Readers submit their project furniture, backyards, rooms, whatever, and some of the stuff is so inspiring. And thinking about how much we buy already and how much stuff already exists in this world, we want to live lives that reuse and recycle and breathe life into old things.



READ HERE TO FIND OUT HOW TO RECYCLE ANYTHING.

SO…in case you’re wondering where all this randomness is going, we are going to try to furnish our new apartment with a bunch of free and made-over things! It’s like a contest. Let us know if you’d like to join too. As we drive across the country, we’ll check the craigslists in advance to see if there’s any treasures to fill our near-empty Uhaul and then over the next few months, we’ll try and bring these babies up to 2010. So I’m inviting you to give me any advice or thoughts or challenges to try with our boatload of stuff, and we can’t wait to come back to America and try out our experiment!

Teaching at KEW-the Video...

Every week that we teach, our T-staff makes a video for the kids at the end of the week, and they do such an awesome job with it that they put it on youtube or vimeo for all the world to see. Here's a glimpse of what we do, and this video was made by Tristen, who is a super awesome creative genius of a guy.

Kuolai English Wilderness: Week12 from KEWstaff on Vimeo.

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Taiwan travel pt. 2

We made it to the magnificent Taroko Gorge the next morning and decided that we needed to hike our little buns off. One of the hikes that Aaron and I were familiar with is called Baisha falls and unfortunately was hit by a landslide a year or so ago, causing the park to close it to the public. After assessing and calculating our options and risk variables of being caught or being hit with another rockslide, we made the decision to hike it anyway.
This trail has been abandoned by everyone except national park workers for the past year and has the eerie yet peaceful feel of a ghost town. There was absolutely no one to be seen except some deserted tractors and tools.

The trail follows the river up to a beautiful waterfall and bridge and is littered with long dark tunnels along the way. As we were hiking, we felt extremely vulnerable, especially when someone would point out the evidence of mini-recent rockslides, or the fist sized rock that grazed David’s shoulder. By the 4th kilometer, we were safe, happy, and hungry for more dangerous adventure. The last time Aaron and I hiked this trail with the Dennis’s, we were caught by the park workers and sent back before we could explore the last tunnel of the trail. This time, we had free reign of all of it!
At the end of the last tunnel, we saw a sign for the “Cave Waterfall Curtain”, and saw a large stream disappear into a cave ahead. Like kids in a candy store, we bounded ahead , a little afraid but oh so curious about this curtain of water. Halfway through the cave, a curtain of water fell on our heads, soaking us. It continued to the end of the cave, which opened up to the sun, and the trail continued around the bend before it was consumed by the wild brush. This part of the trailed looked as if it hadn’t been traveled in years, and we felt ultra privileged (and lucky not to have been caught or been runover by a rockslide).
By the time we turned around to go back, it was nearing dusk and the oversized bats in the tunnels were waking up to begin their nightly feast of insects. Aaron chased them around with the flash of his camera and I’m sure they loved that.
We slept that night in a homely (and cheap!) little Catholic hostel in the center of the Gorge. It was a good day!

Traveling Taiwan pt. 1

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned about traveling is to BE FLEXIBLE. I like to know what’s going on and I love researching and making plans, but almost always, sometime happens that makes my plans fly out the window. Traveling around the island with Kelli and David was no different.
After we’d spent a few days exploring Taipei, Aaron and I decided to take our friends south to see the mighty Taroko Gorge. We took a stop on the way to jump in a river and by the time we had eaten dinner, it was pretty late at night. Because there is not much of anything between Yilan and Taroko Gorge on the east coast, we decided to be adventurous and try to find lodging in the outskirts of Yilan. Aaron’s nifty GPS has a search feature that finds restaurants, hotels, and other attractions, so we pushed the hotel button and found lots of interesting options.

The first option led us through rice paddies and farm houses. We pulled up to one of these large houses at about 9pm and saw a lot of people outside. I was not sure that this was a hotel but Aaron assured all of us that it was by the blue polo shirts that a couple of the people inside were wearing. Soon, our little van was surrounded by a half dozen people, perplexed at this van-ful of Americans.
“Hotel?” Aaron asked, and soon this family scrambled to find their youngest and most English-education family member. As soon as they figured out what we were asking, we all knew that this was not, in fact, a hotel. Just another multi-generational homestead. And then, this family did what I knew they would do. They tried to help us in every way possible. By writing down directions (in Chinese) to the nearest hotel and then telling us in great detail (in Chinese) how to get there.
Embarassed yet entertained by the situation, we rolled out of there in search of another “hotel”. About 2 minutes later, we did find a fancy looking house with a sign out front and knew that this may be our golden opportunity. There was a light on and I went inside to investigate. I called the number at the front desk and a sleepy woman answered. Here is how our conversation went:
“Way?” (what?) she said.
“Nee-how. Wo-yow, ee-ga hotel room” (hello, I want one hotel room), I said in very broken, very bad Chinese.
“Way?”, she said.
“WOO-YOW….WOE MEN, EEE-GAAA, uh, crap! I mean, ee-ga, ROOM! One Room!
Ingwon ma?” (me trying to ask if she spoke English, loudly and frustrated-ly).
“WAY?”
This time I panicked and hung up the phone. I remembered my ipod has a little dinky emergency Chinese phrase book so I brought it back into the building and tried calling again.
The second time wasn’t much better, only I had a robotic voice instead of mine, asking if she had a room available.
“WAY???” she said.
After a few minutes of her and robot voice, David and I heard a door open and a sleepy lady and her underwear clad husband come out, looking just as confused to see us as we were to see them. After a long awkward silence, I played my robot phrase one more time, showed it to them, and instantly, the man jumped into action.
He gave us a room, slippers, somehow communicated that breakfast was at 7 the next morning, and we were on our way. While Aaron and I are pretty much used to our enormous communication barrier, Kelli and David thought the whole thing was hilarious.
After a good night’s sleep at our new favorite bed and breakfast, we were ready to hit the Gorge.