Yesterday Carolyn and I purchased a scooter from a reliable shop that our friends bought their scooters at. The shop is quite nice, they sell mostly new motorcycles and scooters but they have a few used ones that they will sell if they are in good shape. So I test-drove the scooter because Carolyn was too scared to. It took some getting used to, but I think I will get the hang of it. We bought it for $12000NTD which is around $400U.S. We also picked up two helmets that are the full head ones. Too many people drive here with stupid helmets like the ones that just cover the top of your head (what good is the top of your head if you are missing the bottom part?), baseball helmets, and construction helmets. Very few people have helmets as nice and protective as mine and Carolyn's.
So after we bought the scooter they said they had to get it inspected with the government so we could come back later to pick it up. When we came back later that night it turns out that the scooter was full of stolen parts so they wouldn't sell it to us. (Stolen scooters are very common here. Another common practice is that organized gangs will steal your car or scooter and ransom it back to you for money. The usual tactic to prevent this is to buy the ugliest and cheapest scooter possible, so it won't be targeted.)
They gave us our money back, paid for our taxi fares, and called a few local scooter shops and found another scooter that we would be interested in. They brought that scooter in today and Carolyn and I went back there and checked it out. It was nice as well, though the plastic body is not the cleanest or newest. I test-drove it again and we decided to buy it for $15,000NTD ($500US). We will go pick it up tomorrow and bring it home. We have a few nice back-roads near our apartment that would be good for practicing on before we start taking it on major thoroughfares.
Tonight for Christmas Eve we are going out with some American friends to an Indian restaurant called Bollywood. It's a nice restaurant and I like Indian food a lot, so it should be a good time. Tomorrow for Christmas Carolyn and I may go get a real Christmas dinner at a local restaurant called Finga's. That is still up in the air though. I will make another post tomorrow for Christmas and I will upload some pictures of our new scooter. Merry Christmas everybody!
Also: If your name is Bob, Luke, Joe, or Rithy, I fully expect that you will make plans to come visit me in the early summer. Tokyo--->Taipei--->Singapore--->???
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Monday, December 8, 2008
Thanksgiving and Bowling
I haven't updated my blog in a few weeks so I figured now is a pretty good time. Work has been busy on and off. My children's class just ended so I had to administer final exams. An adult class of mine is also ending so we had final exams yesterday. The result of all of my classes ending is that this week and next week I may have a lot of time off and less income. Overall I am still enjoying work, I really like teaching adults. Children are alright, but they can be really frustrating sometimes. My biggest problem with work right now is that my teaching hours fluctuate between 22 hours per week and 9 hours per week. So I am definitely not making the money I want to, and legally I can't get a second job. But on the plus side I now have plenty of time to learn Mandarin Chinese so I am going to try and find some tutors and I will teach them English if they teach me Mandarin Chinese. I need to do something productive anyways.
Two weekends ago some of my adult students took me and Carolyn out bowling at an entertainment place called Tiger. It was very fun. We first played a basketball game and it turns out the Taiwanese love this game so they destroyed me. Afterwards we bowled 2 games, and while I wasn't doing the best, I definitely wasn't doing the worst (Carolyn). My average score was probably 30 points below what it would be in the United States, so either I got really bad at bowling or there is something different about bowling here that is affecting my score.
After bowling we went to a famous Taiwanese tea-house called Chun Tsui Tang. They invented this type of tea called Bubble Tea, which is just tea with tapioca balls floating in the bottom. It sounds gross, and it definitely took me awhile to try it, but now that I've had it I kind of like it. There is something satisfying about drinking tea with a texture. Whenever I took a sip and didn't get a pearl I felt unsatisfied. We also had some traditional Taiwanese food and some Hong Kong food, and this odd fried thing with cheese and beef in it that tasted like a taco. As we were leaving this tea-house we were up in the car park area and Carolyn shouted, "Oh No, I left my camera at the tea-house!" It was 10:30pm and the tea-house had closed so we ran back downstairs to see if we could find it. One of my students ran back to the tea-house and was asking the employees if they had seen a camera when Carolyn discovered it was in her pocket! Needless to say she was quite embarrassed.
It was really nice having a chance to hang out with local Taiwanese. I feel like it's an opportunity a lot of foreigners in Taiwan don't ever get. In Taichung and Taipei there is a large foreigner population so we usually just hang out with each other, but by doing this we don't really understand the local culture as well. Having some native Chinese speakers around is also quite useful, and we tried a lot of food we would have never been able to order had we gone with foreigners. I'm excited because these same students (whose class is ending this Wednesday), are planning on taking me and Carolyn out to a famous traditional Chinese family-style restaurant. It should be fun and I will try to take pictures of the food to post on my blog.
For Thanksgiving we went to our friend Michael's house. He ordered 3 Peking Ducks from a famous restaurant nearby, and all the guests brought more food as sort of a pot-luck. Carolyn brought wine and french bread and I brought an awesome cake. The food was very good and the place was packed. I met a lot of foreign teachers and a few local Taiwanese so it was very nice. But knowing that duck would be served at this Thanksgiving party, two days before we went to a restaurant called PJ's and had a proper Thanksgiving meal there. It came complete with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, coleslaw, cranberry sauce, and some wine. It was very good and only about $7 US dollars.
This coming weekend I want to go to Tainan, the old capital of Taiwan. It has a lot of historical buildings including two Dutch forts from when Taiwan was a Dutch colony in the 1600s. I will try to take a lot of pictures as well, it should be fun.
Two weekends ago some of my adult students took me and Carolyn out bowling at an entertainment place called Tiger. It was very fun. We first played a basketball game and it turns out the Taiwanese love this game so they destroyed me. Afterwards we bowled 2 games, and while I wasn't doing the best, I definitely wasn't doing the worst (Carolyn). My average score was probably 30 points below what it would be in the United States, so either I got really bad at bowling or there is something different about bowling here that is affecting my score.
After bowling we went to a famous Taiwanese tea-house called Chun Tsui Tang. They invented this type of tea called Bubble Tea, which is just tea with tapioca balls floating in the bottom. It sounds gross, and it definitely took me awhile to try it, but now that I've had it I kind of like it. There is something satisfying about drinking tea with a texture. Whenever I took a sip and didn't get a pearl I felt unsatisfied. We also had some traditional Taiwanese food and some Hong Kong food, and this odd fried thing with cheese and beef in it that tasted like a taco. As we were leaving this tea-house we were up in the car park area and Carolyn shouted, "Oh No, I left my camera at the tea-house!" It was 10:30pm and the tea-house had closed so we ran back downstairs to see if we could find it. One of my students ran back to the tea-house and was asking the employees if they had seen a camera when Carolyn discovered it was in her pocket! Needless to say she was quite embarrassed.
It was really nice having a chance to hang out with local Taiwanese. I feel like it's an opportunity a lot of foreigners in Taiwan don't ever get. In Taichung and Taipei there is a large foreigner population so we usually just hang out with each other, but by doing this we don't really understand the local culture as well. Having some native Chinese speakers around is also quite useful, and we tried a lot of food we would have never been able to order had we gone with foreigners. I'm excited because these same students (whose class is ending this Wednesday), are planning on taking me and Carolyn out to a famous traditional Chinese family-style restaurant. It should be fun and I will try to take pictures of the food to post on my blog.
For Thanksgiving we went to our friend Michael's house. He ordered 3 Peking Ducks from a famous restaurant nearby, and all the guests brought more food as sort of a pot-luck. Carolyn brought wine and french bread and I brought an awesome cake. The food was very good and the place was packed. I met a lot of foreign teachers and a few local Taiwanese so it was very nice. But knowing that duck would be served at this Thanksgiving party, two days before we went to a restaurant called PJ's and had a proper Thanksgiving meal there. It came complete with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, coleslaw, cranberry sauce, and some wine. It was very good and only about $7 US dollars.
This coming weekend I want to go to Tainan, the old capital of Taiwan. It has a lot of historical buildings including two Dutch forts from when Taiwan was a Dutch colony in the 1600s. I will try to take a lot of pictures as well, it should be fun.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Visitors
We had quite an exciting weekend this weekend. Bob and Jennifer came to visit us so we had the opportunity to show them around. They arrived Friday night and were tired after a long flight and a day in Taipei so we just went to a pub called FM for the evening and then came back to get some sleep. Saturday morning we went to a great American breakfast place in Taichung called The Early Bird and got some excellent breakfast. Afterwards I had to go to work until noon so they just hung around until then.
At noon we all went to Dakeng Scenic Area to do some hiking. The weather was very nice, probably in the mid to high 70's. We climbed partly up but as it turned out Bob and Jennifer both had allergic reactions to something in the air so we had to climb slower the higher we got up. We didn't plan for this and I was worried that we wouldn't get down before it got dark or that we might miss the last bus. Well we made it down by 5:10, and the last bus was supposed to come at 5:25. It did come, but it came going the opposite way and it wouldn't stop and it didn't come back. So there we were, at the bottom of the mountain with almost no one else around, in the darkness, and howling dogs off in the distance. Our next plan was to call our Taiwanese school director and have her call us a cab (since we can't speak Mandarin). Well we got her number from a co-worker, but then my phone started flashing the low battery sign and no one else thought to bring their phone. So that option was out as well. Bob started walking towards a few people off in the distance and was going to try and convince them to call a cab for us. Instead, they motioned for him to get in the van, and he did. Then they stopped near us and I could tell that it was a family so I wasn't really worried that anything bad would go down. We got into the van and they agreed to take us to Taichung City, although they didn't speak English really so most of it was done through broken English/Mandarin and pantomime.
The van ride was very interesting and pleasant. The mother kept trying to have a conversation with me but she didn't speak English. I gave her my map and as we drove through Taichung she would point out the various tourist sites we came across. We also randomly stopped to take a picture of a streetlight. At first I thought they were pulling over to have us get out, but oddly enough they just wanted a picture of the streetlight. Afterwards, they turned on some music and the father started singing to it, and then the mother started watching a LCD built into the dash with the song lyrics so she could sing along as well. I was thinking we should maybe pay them for gas and the ride, but then I thought it may be rude because they are trying to do us a favor. So I decided against it. But when we did stop Carolyn tried to give them money but they refused 3 times, so she gave up also.
They dropped us off right in front of Sogo Department Store near our house and we were exhausted so we rested for it a bit. After our brief rest we went to find some food on a popular restaurant street called Gung-Yi. We ended up at an awesome hot pot restaurant (a hot pot restaurant has a large pot filled with broth in the middle and a fire underneath it, and they give you raw food and you put it into the pot to cook it yourself). We chose two different broths, one spicy and one rather bland (the spicy one tasted like Mexican food and Christmas), and we got beef, mutton, vegetables, and noodles. The food was very very tasty and it only came out to about $8 US a person. Then we went and got Cold Stone to finish the night, which is very expensive and in my opinion not worth it.
On Sunday we decided to go to Sun Moon Lake. We got up very early and stopped at McDonald's to get some breakfast, and then we went to the bus depot to catch the 9am bus to Sun Moon Lake. The ride itself is 2 hours and rather boring. We made it to Sun Moon Lake around 11am and the weather was perfect. It was probably in the mid 70's with blue skies and a nice breeze. We caught the around the lake bus right away and got off at Wenwu temple. I liked this temple much better this time because when it's sunny the temple looks a lot more colorful. Last time we went it was very polluted out so the colors of the temple weren't as dramatic. We took a lot of photos here and Bob and I got some hot dogs on a stick, which weren't bad but I wasn't a huge fan of the cinnamon and other various spices sweet sauce.
We caught the around the lake bus again and this time rode it to Syuezyang Temple (my favorite of the 3). It was again very peaceful and quiet. We looked around and took some pictures, and then we climbed up to see Cihen Pagoda again. Jennifer was having allergy-breathing problems again so she waited at the bottom for us while we walked up. Bob also had allergy issues so we had to take the walk up slowly. The pagoda was very nice and secluded, although a group of teenagers came up behind us so they kind of detracted from the solitude (each one of them had to ring the gong at the top, and there were like 15 of them). Bob also rang the gong at the top and had one of these teenagers take a picture of him doing it. After checking out the pagoda and surrounding area we walked back down, got Jennifer, and walked the path to the last temple. This last temple as I mentioned before is really nondescript so we stayed for a few minutes and then caught the bus back to Shuishe village.
We ate a late lunch in Shuishe pier at a touristy restaurant. The food was really not good and it was very expensive. I stopped at 7-11 to get a snack for the ride home because the meal left me unsatisfied. We waited around a bit for the bus back to Taichung. It came at 5:30pm and it was definitely a bumpy, shaky, fast ride. I thought the bus was going to fall apart. We kept hitting potholes at super-fast speeds and it would bounce people into the air. But somehow the bus stayed together and I am happy for that.
When we got back we checked out Sogo and Bob bought a souvenir. We then went to a Japanese Steakhouse because Bob wanted to go somewhere Japanese since he wasn't going to go to Tokyo like he planned. We went to The Rock, a steakhouse we've been to before. This time I ordered steak without sauce and it was much better. We got Ice Monster afterwards to top off the unhealthy meal. We then returned to our apartment because they had to get up early Monday for their flight.
As it turns out they were bumped from their return flight so they stayed the evening yesterday in Taipei. I haven't heard from them today so hopefully they made it on the return flight this afternoon (Tuesday).
Monday, November 17, 2008
Lukang/ Finish Him!
I haven't written a blog post in almost 2 weeks now so here is one to keep you updated on how I am doing.
I've been working a lot (almost like having a full time job!). I teach a 1 on 1 class from 3pm to 4:30pm, then I have to run to a different school here in Taichung and make my lesson plans from 5 until 7pm, and then I teach from 7pm until 9:40pm daily. And I work Saturday morning from 10:30am until 12:00pm . It's nice to be busy and have something to do, and it's nice to have money, but it will take awhile for me to get used to this work schedule.
Carolyn and I finally got around to getting a Blockbuster card so we've been watching a lot of movies and television shows. Last weekend we went to the final day of the Taichung film festival to see a Taiwanese film on domestic violence. It was most certainly a downer, but it was interesting nonetheless. After the film was over the theater had a question and answer forum with the Director, which was conducted entirely in Mandarin Chinese, so I felt pretty awkward just sitting there staring at everybody talk without being able to understand what they were saying. But I couldn't just get up and leave because I didn't want to be rude.
Last Thursday we went to pub quiz night at a place called The Londoner. For the most part it was fun, and the questions were interesting. It turns out I'm not too bad at anagrams, but I am very bad at music. The prices at the Londoner aren't too bad either and the guy who runs it is pretty nice.
On Sunday we decided to go on a day-trip to an old port city called Lukang (Lugang). We took a cab to the bus station (shack) where we were told to sit and wait for the bus. The bus appeared and the guy motioned for us to get on it, so we were on our way! The bus ride was a bit confusing because we didn't know where to get off, but as it turns out Lukang is the last stop on the route so we made it to exactly where we wanted to go on our first try (Not speaking Mandarin Chinese and having almost no signage in English makes our travels a lot harder than it should).
Lukang itself for the most part is an ordinary ugly, run-down Taiwanese city. However, the old part of town is quite nice. The old part of town felt like I was in Beijing, not Taiwan where they usually bulldoze historical buildings and put up corrugated aluminum tenements. We walked down this nice street called 9 Turn Alley, which housed many neat shops selling all sorts of random items. There were also a lot of people selling food in stalls along the way. And there is also a nice old temple sitting along the alley. This experience made up for the rest of the city, and while Lukang is not worth visiting unless you are living in Taiwan, we certainly had a nice time. One other interesting side-note, we ran into a small bus stop in Lukang with a minibus sitting outside of it and the words "Sogo Taichung" painted on the side. We ended up taking this bus home because it runs direct with almost no additional stops, and Sogo is the department store right next to our apartment building, so it was really really convenient.
Also, the weather is finally starting to cool off a bit. So instead of a humid 90 degrees it's been somewhere between the mid 80's and low 70's depending on the day. I can't argue with those temperatures! But I do miss snow, and I hear a lot of the Great Lakes States are receiving lake effect snow :( I will have to wait for next year, or perhaps if I make it out to Mongolia to visit Garrett there will still be some left.
I've been working a lot (almost like having a full time job!). I teach a 1 on 1 class from 3pm to 4:30pm, then I have to run to a different school here in Taichung and make my lesson plans from 5 until 7pm, and then I teach from 7pm until 9:40pm daily. And I work Saturday morning from 10:30am until 12:00pm . It's nice to be busy and have something to do, and it's nice to have money, but it will take awhile for me to get used to this work schedule.
Carolyn and I finally got around to getting a Blockbuster card so we've been watching a lot of movies and television shows. Last weekend we went to the final day of the Taichung film festival to see a Taiwanese film on domestic violence. It was most certainly a downer, but it was interesting nonetheless. After the film was over the theater had a question and answer forum with the Director, which was conducted entirely in Mandarin Chinese, so I felt pretty awkward just sitting there staring at everybody talk without being able to understand what they were saying. But I couldn't just get up and leave because I didn't want to be rude.
Last Thursday we went to pub quiz night at a place called The Londoner. For the most part it was fun, and the questions were interesting. It turns out I'm not too bad at anagrams, but I am very bad at music. The prices at the Londoner aren't too bad either and the guy who runs it is pretty nice.
On Sunday we decided to go on a day-trip to an old port city called Lukang (Lugang). We took a cab to the bus station (shack) where we were told to sit and wait for the bus. The bus appeared and the guy motioned for us to get on it, so we were on our way! The bus ride was a bit confusing because we didn't know where to get off, but as it turns out Lukang is the last stop on the route so we made it to exactly where we wanted to go on our first try (Not speaking Mandarin Chinese and having almost no signage in English makes our travels a lot harder than it should).
Lukang itself for the most part is an ordinary ugly, run-down Taiwanese city. However, the old part of town is quite nice. The old part of town felt like I was in Beijing, not Taiwan where they usually bulldoze historical buildings and put up corrugated aluminum tenements. We walked down this nice street called 9 Turn Alley, which housed many neat shops selling all sorts of random items. There were also a lot of people selling food in stalls along the way. And there is also a nice old temple sitting along the alley. This experience made up for the rest of the city, and while Lukang is not worth visiting unless you are living in Taiwan, we certainly had a nice time. One other interesting side-note, we ran into a small bus stop in Lukang with a minibus sitting outside of it and the words "Sogo Taichung" painted on the side. We ended up taking this bus home because it runs direct with almost no additional stops, and Sogo is the department store right next to our apartment building, so it was really really convenient.
Also, the weather is finally starting to cool off a bit. So instead of a humid 90 degrees it's been somewhere between the mid 80's and low 70's depending on the day. I can't argue with those temperatures! But I do miss snow, and I hear a lot of the Great Lakes States are receiving lake effect snow :( I will have to wait for next year, or perhaps if I make it out to Mongolia to visit Garrett there will still be some left.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Bank Robbing, Sun Moon Lake, and Massages
Here goes another post, I wonder how many people are still reading?
I have received even more work this week so I now teach 22 hours a week, which definitely helps financially. I have a one on one class with a 16 year old who is going to New Zealand presumably to study. It meets 1.5 hours every day, Monday through Friday, until January.
Every Tuesday night we go out with our co-workers to various locations to hang out and socialize. Last Tuesday we went to a very "unique" bar called The Party Animal. It had "interesting" paintings on the wall which I won't comment on, but maybe Carolyn's blog will. It has live music which was pretty fun, we got the band to sing Nirvana's Smell's Like Teen Spirit. They had the music down but the vocals were hilarious because they aren't very fluent in English and it's hard to figure out what is actually said in the song as it is. It was a fun night, very low-key and rather relaxing.
Friday was Halloween, and I was required to dress up for children's classes. Actually teachers were required to dress up for any children's class from Wednesday through Friday, but luckily my only children's class was on Friday. I went as a bank robber because I didn't have to pay anything for the outfit and it was very easy. None of the children in my class dressed up because they were rather old for it, so I felt even more ridiculous wearing a costume, but at least I wasn't wearing a giant popcorn outfit like a certain co-teacher of mine.
Taichung is having yet another festival, this time an international documentary film festival. I'm very excited about this because I like documentaries and it lasts for 9 days and the tickets are only $1 U.S. On Saturday Carolyn and I saw a documentary called Yasakuni Shrine, which is a very interesting film about this war shrine that is very controversial in Japan. Every year the Japanese Prime Minister visits the shrine, and because of this there are always protests in China/Taiwan/Korea, because there are war criminals buried there who committed atrocities in those countries during World War II. An equivalent (for Chinese and Koreans) would be if Hitler was buried in a church and every year the German Prime Minister would go to the church and pray there. The Japanese see it though as a sacred part of their religious/cultural heritage that also honors legitimate war heroes, and as a symbol that war should never occur again. Another reason why it's very problematic for Taiwanese is that during World War II a lot of native Taiwanese were forced by the Japanese to fight for them. Some of these Taiwanese were actually enshrined at Yasakuni as Japanese heroes, and for the families of these Taiwanese (where burial location is very sacred) there is a lot of outrage that the bodies weren't returned to Taiwan. Some groups of Taiwanese descendants go to Tokyo every year to protest that these bodies be returned to them. So far the Japanese government has done nothing to help them or clean up it's image.
On Sunday we went to Sun Moon Lake via a 2 hour bus ride on a bus that sounded like it was dragging a scooter underneath it. Sun Moon Lake is nice, though I'm not sure it should be treated as a national tourist attraction. It's more like a Lake Geneva where it's nice but you shouldn't go there if it's out of the way. When we first arrived in the late morning the weather was pretty nice. There wasn't a ton of pollution or fog and it was hot, but not too hot yet. We looked around the little town called Shuishe village at the northern part of the lake, and we took some photos in a little garden alongside the lake. Afterwards we went to eat lunch at a restaurant and then we caught the around-the-lake bus. The original plan was to take it to the first stop, Wunwu temple, but the bus went past it and we realized we had to ask the driver to stop whenever we wanted to get off. So we took it to the next biggest attractions, Syuenguang Temple, Syuentzang Temple, and Cihen Pagoda. We first stopped in Syuentzang Temple which was very beautiful and peaceful. This was far enough away from Shuishe village that there weren't too many people at it. This is also where I saw a giant spider in a tree but it was too far away for me to photograph it.
This is me at Sun Moon Lake. In the background is Great Mount Shuishe. As you can see the weather is pretty clear at this time in the morning.
This is a section of Syuentzang Temple. It was very beautiful and peaceful.
Afterwards we hiked up part of the mountain to Cihen Pagoda. It is great that you have to hike to it, because when we got there it was almost completely empty. It's pretty tall and when I was at the top I wasn't feeling very comfortable, and of course Carolyn picked on my fear of heights. I took some photographs from the top, and by this time in the day all of the pollution/smog had rolled in making the lake almost completely invisible. We hiked back down and went to Syuenguang Temple, where supposedly the remains of the monk from the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West is buried. I didn't get to see his remains or his tomb, and the Temple was more like a small building with not much going on inside or outside. So we caught the bus back and this time got off at Wunwu Temple. Wunwu temple is incredibly garish, with huge buildings and giant lions in front playing with large balls. I know this is not a fair comparison, but it wasn't an awe-inspiring building like the Temple of Heaven in Beijing or the Forbidden City. It was more like a recently built tourist-trap (packed full of tourists). Out of the three buildings I definitely preferred the subtlety of Syuentzang Temple the best. So we took the bus back to Shuishe village and waited around until the other bus was ready to bring us back to Taichung.
Here is a photo I took of Cihen Pagoda. I loved how nobody was there. It was a pretty secluded atmosphere.
This is a photo I took from the top of Cihen Pagoda looking down at Sun Moon Lake. As you can see during the afternoon the fog/smog rolled in obscuring the beautiful views.
Today I decided to get my haircut because it was getting way too long, so I went to a barbershop. Well it wasn't actually a barbershop, more like a salon. I have yet to see a barbershop, although I have seen barber poles (they are used to signal that the building is a strip club). So I told the woman that I needed a haircut, stupidly forgetting to ask how much one would be (the place looked very expensive/upscale), and she had me sit down in a chair. She put on the customary haircut cape and then proceeded to massage my head/neck/shoulders. I was very freaked out because I didn't expect it, but I didn't want to say anything because I had no idea whether this was normal or not. But then more customers came in and they all received massages as well, so I realized this was legitimate (though I was getting very worried about cost at this point). The biggest problem was that nobody spoke English there so this whole transaction was occurring in pantomime. The massage lasted a good 5 minutes, and then they washed my hair and proceeded to massage my scalp for another 10 minutes. The haircut itself came later and it was pretty normal, but at this point I was freaked out for many reasons. When it was over though the bill only came out to around $12 U.S., much to my relief and disbelief.
If you are reading this please continue to leave comments as it's the only way that I hear from some of you and I would also like to see who exactly is still reading this. I hope I am keeping it interesting enough to at least amuse the more patient (read "brain-dead") readers. :)
Just kidding.
I have received even more work this week so I now teach 22 hours a week, which definitely helps financially. I have a one on one class with a 16 year old who is going to New Zealand presumably to study. It meets 1.5 hours every day, Monday through Friday, until January.
Every Tuesday night we go out with our co-workers to various locations to hang out and socialize. Last Tuesday we went to a very "unique" bar called The Party Animal. It had "interesting" paintings on the wall which I won't comment on, but maybe Carolyn's blog will. It has live music which was pretty fun, we got the band to sing Nirvana's Smell's Like Teen Spirit. They had the music down but the vocals were hilarious because they aren't very fluent in English and it's hard to figure out what is actually said in the song as it is. It was a fun night, very low-key and rather relaxing.
Friday was Halloween, and I was required to dress up for children's classes. Actually teachers were required to dress up for any children's class from Wednesday through Friday, but luckily my only children's class was on Friday. I went as a bank robber because I didn't have to pay anything for the outfit and it was very easy. None of the children in my class dressed up because they were rather old for it, so I felt even more ridiculous wearing a costume, but at least I wasn't wearing a giant popcorn outfit like a certain co-teacher of mine.
Taichung is having yet another festival, this time an international documentary film festival. I'm very excited about this because I like documentaries and it lasts for 9 days and the tickets are only $1 U.S. On Saturday Carolyn and I saw a documentary called Yasakuni Shrine, which is a very interesting film about this war shrine that is very controversial in Japan. Every year the Japanese Prime Minister visits the shrine, and because of this there are always protests in China/Taiwan/Korea, because there are war criminals buried there who committed atrocities in those countries during World War II. An equivalent (for Chinese and Koreans) would be if Hitler was buried in a church and every year the German Prime Minister would go to the church and pray there. The Japanese see it though as a sacred part of their religious/cultural heritage that also honors legitimate war heroes, and as a symbol that war should never occur again. Another reason why it's very problematic for Taiwanese is that during World War II a lot of native Taiwanese were forced by the Japanese to fight for them. Some of these Taiwanese were actually enshrined at Yasakuni as Japanese heroes, and for the families of these Taiwanese (where burial location is very sacred) there is a lot of outrage that the bodies weren't returned to Taiwan. Some groups of Taiwanese descendants go to Tokyo every year to protest that these bodies be returned to them. So far the Japanese government has done nothing to help them or clean up it's image.
On Sunday we went to Sun Moon Lake via a 2 hour bus ride on a bus that sounded like it was dragging a scooter underneath it. Sun Moon Lake is nice, though I'm not sure it should be treated as a national tourist attraction. It's more like a Lake Geneva where it's nice but you shouldn't go there if it's out of the way. When we first arrived in the late morning the weather was pretty nice. There wasn't a ton of pollution or fog and it was hot, but not too hot yet. We looked around the little town called Shuishe village at the northern part of the lake, and we took some photos in a little garden alongside the lake. Afterwards we went to eat lunch at a restaurant and then we caught the around-the-lake bus. The original plan was to take it to the first stop, Wunwu temple, but the bus went past it and we realized we had to ask the driver to stop whenever we wanted to get off. So we took it to the next biggest attractions, Syuenguang Temple, Syuentzang Temple, and Cihen Pagoda. We first stopped in Syuentzang Temple which was very beautiful and peaceful. This was far enough away from Shuishe village that there weren't too many people at it. This is also where I saw a giant spider in a tree but it was too far away for me to photograph it.
This is me at Sun Moon Lake. In the background is Great Mount Shuishe. As you can see the weather is pretty clear at this time in the morning.
This is a section of Syuentzang Temple. It was very beautiful and peaceful.Afterwards we hiked up part of the mountain to Cihen Pagoda. It is great that you have to hike to it, because when we got there it was almost completely empty. It's pretty tall and when I was at the top I wasn't feeling very comfortable, and of course Carolyn picked on my fear of heights. I took some photographs from the top, and by this time in the day all of the pollution/smog had rolled in making the lake almost completely invisible. We hiked back down and went to Syuenguang Temple, where supposedly the remains of the monk from the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West is buried. I didn't get to see his remains or his tomb, and the Temple was more like a small building with not much going on inside or outside. So we caught the bus back and this time got off at Wunwu Temple. Wunwu temple is incredibly garish, with huge buildings and giant lions in front playing with large balls. I know this is not a fair comparison, but it wasn't an awe-inspiring building like the Temple of Heaven in Beijing or the Forbidden City. It was more like a recently built tourist-trap (packed full of tourists). Out of the three buildings I definitely preferred the subtlety of Syuentzang Temple the best. So we took the bus back to Shuishe village and waited around until the other bus was ready to bring us back to Taichung.
Here is a photo I took of Cihen Pagoda. I loved how nobody was there. It was a pretty secluded atmosphere.
This is a photo I took from the top of Cihen Pagoda looking down at Sun Moon Lake. As you can see during the afternoon the fog/smog rolled in obscuring the beautiful views.Today I decided to get my haircut because it was getting way too long, so I went to a barbershop. Well it wasn't actually a barbershop, more like a salon. I have yet to see a barbershop, although I have seen barber poles (they are used to signal that the building is a strip club). So I told the woman that I needed a haircut, stupidly forgetting to ask how much one would be (the place looked very expensive/upscale), and she had me sit down in a chair. She put on the customary haircut cape and then proceeded to massage my head/neck/shoulders. I was very freaked out because I didn't expect it, but I didn't want to say anything because I had no idea whether this was normal or not. But then more customers came in and they all received massages as well, so I realized this was legitimate (though I was getting very worried about cost at this point). The biggest problem was that nobody spoke English there so this whole transaction was occurring in pantomime. The massage lasted a good 5 minutes, and then they washed my hair and proceeded to massage my scalp for another 10 minutes. The haircut itself came later and it was pretty normal, but at this point I was freaked out for many reasons. When it was over though the bill only came out to around $12 U.S., much to my relief and disbelief.
If you are reading this please continue to leave comments as it's the only way that I hear from some of you and I would also like to see who exactly is still reading this. I hope I am keeping it interesting enough to at least amuse the more patient (read "brain-dead") readers. :)
Just kidding.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Dakeng pt. 2
I haven't posted to my blog in over a week now because nothing really interesting has been happening here. Last weekend Carolyn and I briefly went to the Jazz festival here in Taichung but I really don't like jazz so we didn't stick around too long. We did go to this nice park called Feng-Le sculpture park at night, and all the sculptures were lit up and they had live music.
This past week I've been mostly working or just hanging out. We opened bank accounts here, which was rather annoying. We waited at the bank for almost an hour until they finally called our number, and then the bank teller filled out these long forms for us and after being there for an hour and fifteen minutes we finally had bank accounts. But it felt like we sat there forever.
I've been assigned a children's class (13-17 years old), and another adult's class, so that puts me at 2 adult classes, 1 children's class, and a one on one. But I only work about 15 hours a week so I'm still not making what I want to, but hopefully I will soon get more classes.
Today Carolyn and I went hiking at Dakeng again. This time we went on trails 2, 3, and part of 5. We got much better views but it was really hazy out so we couldn't see very far into the distance. Trail 3 was very very long and by the time we were done we were very exhausted. What makes me feel worse is that we passed 3 dogs climbing up the mountain as well, 1 being a pug making grunting noises, and they all seemed to do it easily. Maybe they practice and train for it.
Here is a view from high up. It's a great view except for the haze. If it wasn't hazy today we probably could have seen the city where we live.
What's this? Another collapsed bridge. Every trail we have been on has a collapsed bridge due to landslides. That is actually a very steep drop by the way, although the picture doesn't make it look like it is.
Bobby, Jennifer, and Tricia will probably be coming here in November so when we do some sightseeing I will have more interesting things to post about.
Items of Interest
5. We live on a fairly large road so now again and again we hear parades going by in the evening. Well recently a parade came rolling through with people in large Chinese general outfits, and they were carrying what I presume to be a neon strobe-light religious statue (though Carolyn at first thought maybe they were parading around a pinball machine). They were setting off loud fireworks in the street (the exploding ones on the ground), and what was very strange was that they were shooting off Roman Candles in the streets. We were on our deck on the 11th floor and we thought we were going to get hit. The building across from us got buzzed with one. The following video is of that parade, but I didn't capture any of the roman candles in it. Sorry for the picture being sideways, I forgot that you can't rotate video easily.
This past week I've been mostly working or just hanging out. We opened bank accounts here, which was rather annoying. We waited at the bank for almost an hour until they finally called our number, and then the bank teller filled out these long forms for us and after being there for an hour and fifteen minutes we finally had bank accounts. But it felt like we sat there forever.
I've been assigned a children's class (13-17 years old), and another adult's class, so that puts me at 2 adult classes, 1 children's class, and a one on one. But I only work about 15 hours a week so I'm still not making what I want to, but hopefully I will soon get more classes.
Today Carolyn and I went hiking at Dakeng again. This time we went on trails 2, 3, and part of 5. We got much better views but it was really hazy out so we couldn't see very far into the distance. Trail 3 was very very long and by the time we were done we were very exhausted. What makes me feel worse is that we passed 3 dogs climbing up the mountain as well, 1 being a pug making grunting noises, and they all seemed to do it easily. Maybe they practice and train for it.
Here is a view from high up. It's a great view except for the haze. If it wasn't hazy today we probably could have seen the city where we live.
What's this? Another collapsed bridge. Every trail we have been on has a collapsed bridge due to landslides. That is actually a very steep drop by the way, although the picture doesn't make it look like it is.Bobby, Jennifer, and Tricia will probably be coming here in November so when we do some sightseeing I will have more interesting things to post about.
Items of Interest
5. We live on a fairly large road so now again and again we hear parades going by in the evening. Well recently a parade came rolling through with people in large Chinese general outfits, and they were carrying what I presume to be a neon strobe-light religious statue (though Carolyn at first thought maybe they were parading around a pinball machine). They were setting off loud fireworks in the street (the exploding ones on the ground), and what was very strange was that they were shooting off Roman Candles in the streets. We were on our deck on the 11th floor and we thought we were going to get hit. The building across from us got buzzed with one. The following video is of that parade, but I didn't capture any of the roman candles in it. Sorry for the picture being sideways, I forgot that you can't rotate video easily.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
I Climb
Here I am taking a picture break on the way up Dakeng Hiking Trail Number 2. This is when the trail is still easy enough to take pictures.
Be Careful Monkey.
Today (Sunday), Carolyn and I decided to make another attempt at hiking in Dakeng. Although we slept in later than we wanted to, we still made it to the bus stop by 11:15am which would give us enough time to make it to Dakeng and still leave time for hiking. After waiting for the bus for 35 minutes, the bus we needed finally showed up. But when I boarded the bus the driver told me to get off because I assume his bus was no longer in service. He turned the bus off and pointed at the next bus stop (so we assumed he meant we should wait at that stop for the bus). So we went there and after 45 minutes and still no bus we gave up and took a cab.
While we went pretty far, the cab only cost us about $11 U.S. Dollars, and it brought us all the way up to the base where the entrances to the hiking trails are (This was the most frightening cab ride I've ever been on by the way. He kept speeding around mountainous corners on one lane roads with no rails, we almost knocked a car off a cliff...). So we started hiking on Dakeng Trail Number 2, and the first sight we saw was the giant spiders hanging above our heads. Luckily we did not run into any spiders along the trail afterwards, but they were pretty disturbing nonetheless. At first the trail was pretty easy, and we ran into an interesting sign.
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, we did not run into any monkeys. The trail started getting steeper and steeper as we went up, with increasingly slippery wooden poles to walk on.
At this point the trail was at about a 45 degree angle, not too bad considering that higher up we were often climbing at about 70-80 degrees, and a few parts were almost like climbing a ladder. I have a mild phobia of heights and I was okay for the most part. I was worried though about the shoddiness of some of the path construction, at some parts I felt that the bridge may collapse at any moment and I might plummet to my death.
About 3/4ths the way up the trail we ran into something very interesting. Apparently there was a massive landslide that took out part of the bridge. The bridge wasn't fully out, but the left support beams were definitely not there. The bridge was leaning to the left, overlooking a giant gorge. Someone had taken down the "do not walk" sign and the tape. We stopped at this point to consider what we should do. We let two people pass us, and they managed to make it across. So we also went for it as well. Carolyn made it across ok, and so I attempted to cross after her (we went one at a time for fear our combined weight would collapse the whole bridge and send us to the bottom of the gorge). While I was walking across clutching to the right handrail, the floor-beams were giving way to the left and my feet were slipping from under me.
Pulling myself with my right arm however I made it across and did not die. Needless to say I was sweating a ton and was very terrified for my life.
We made it the rest of the way up with no problem, and stopped to rest at the little tent at the top of the mountain. There were no good views at the top though because it was covered in trees. I was disappointed because I wanted to take an excellent panoramic picture, but it was rather hazy out anyways so it wouldn't have been the best picture. At the tent we bought some power drink and some weird lentil type beans in a cold sweet soup. It was kind of refreshing, but I didn't have a lot of it because at this point I wasn't feeling very hungry. We decided it was best to take one of the other trails down because of the broken bridge problem.
So we took trail number 1 down, which definitely felt a lot longer than number 2, but possibly because I was very exhausted from trail number 2. 1/3rd of the way down we ran into a familiar problem.
It may be hard to tell from this picture, but yes that is another bridge that has collapsed due to a massive landslide. This trail luckily had a makeshift trail branching off at this point so we didn't have to navigate another collapsed bridge. Halfway down I snagged this picture which allows you to see the haze, and just how high up we are. Keep in mind this is only halfway up, so at the top we were much much higher.
We made it all the way down with no problems (except exhaustion) and found a bus stop to bring us back to Dakeng City. While waiting for the bus we noticed these very small gnats attacking us. For the most part they didn't hurt, but once in awhile one would bite a little too hard and sort of pinch me. I kept having to brush them off me. Carolyn also had the same problem, except she must be allergic to them as well because all of her bites became swollen for a few hours. Luckily they were just on the back of her arms and parts of her back for the most part.
Overall the hike was very fun and we had a good time. It was quite scary at parts and while the pictures make the trail seem rather tame, it was actually quite hard to get up. I found myself holding onto rope constantly so that in the event I should trip, I wouldn't fall down 200 stairs. What is interesting is that the two trails we used, Trails 1 and 2, are supposed to be the easy ones. Next time we will try 3 and 4, and perhaps 5.
While we went pretty far, the cab only cost us about $11 U.S. Dollars, and it brought us all the way up to the base where the entrances to the hiking trails are (This was the most frightening cab ride I've ever been on by the way. He kept speeding around mountainous corners on one lane roads with no rails, we almost knocked a car off a cliff...). So we started hiking on Dakeng Trail Number 2, and the first sight we saw was the giant spiders hanging above our heads. Luckily we did not run into any spiders along the trail afterwards, but they were pretty disturbing nonetheless. At first the trail was pretty easy, and we ran into an interesting sign.
Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, we did not run into any monkeys. The trail started getting steeper and steeper as we went up, with increasingly slippery wooden poles to walk on.
At this point the trail was at about a 45 degree angle, not too bad considering that higher up we were often climbing at about 70-80 degrees, and a few parts were almost like climbing a ladder. I have a mild phobia of heights and I was okay for the most part. I was worried though about the shoddiness of some of the path construction, at some parts I felt that the bridge may collapse at any moment and I might plummet to my death.About 3/4ths the way up the trail we ran into something very interesting. Apparently there was a massive landslide that took out part of the bridge. The bridge wasn't fully out, but the left support beams were definitely not there. The bridge was leaning to the left, overlooking a giant gorge. Someone had taken down the "do not walk" sign and the tape. We stopped at this point to consider what we should do. We let two people pass us, and they managed to make it across. So we also went for it as well. Carolyn made it across ok, and so I attempted to cross after her (we went one at a time for fear our combined weight would collapse the whole bridge and send us to the bottom of the gorge). While I was walking across clutching to the right handrail, the floor-beams were giving way to the left and my feet were slipping from under me.
Pulling myself with my right arm however I made it across and did not die. Needless to say I was sweating a ton and was very terrified for my life.
We made it the rest of the way up with no problem, and stopped to rest at the little tent at the top of the mountain. There were no good views at the top though because it was covered in trees. I was disappointed because I wanted to take an excellent panoramic picture, but it was rather hazy out anyways so it wouldn't have been the best picture. At the tent we bought some power drink and some weird lentil type beans in a cold sweet soup. It was kind of refreshing, but I didn't have a lot of it because at this point I wasn't feeling very hungry. We decided it was best to take one of the other trails down because of the broken bridge problem.
So we took trail number 1 down, which definitely felt a lot longer than number 2, but possibly because I was very exhausted from trail number 2. 1/3rd of the way down we ran into a familiar problem.
It may be hard to tell from this picture, but yes that is another bridge that has collapsed due to a massive landslide. This trail luckily had a makeshift trail branching off at this point so we didn't have to navigate another collapsed bridge. Halfway down I snagged this picture which allows you to see the haze, and just how high up we are. Keep in mind this is only halfway up, so at the top we were much much higher.
We made it all the way down with no problems (except exhaustion) and found a bus stop to bring us back to Dakeng City. While waiting for the bus we noticed these very small gnats attacking us. For the most part they didn't hurt, but once in awhile one would bite a little too hard and sort of pinch me. I kept having to brush them off me. Carolyn also had the same problem, except she must be allergic to them as well because all of her bites became swollen for a few hours. Luckily they were just on the back of her arms and parts of her back for the most part.
Overall the hike was very fun and we had a good time. It was quite scary at parts and while the pictures make the trail seem rather tame, it was actually quite hard to get up. I found myself holding onto rope constantly so that in the event I should trip, I wouldn't fall down 200 stairs. What is interesting is that the two trails we used, Trails 1 and 2, are supposed to be the easy ones. Next time we will try 3 and 4, and perhaps 5.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Pictures 10/11/2008
This is a picture of the celebration for Taiwan's National Day on October 10th.
And this is the night view from our apartment's deck. We have a pretty nice view.
And this is the night view from our apartment's deck. We have a pretty nice view.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Being a Mute
So I have been told by an anonymous source that I should make my blog posts shorter and more frequent instead of larger and rarer. I feel this is probably a good idea because I know that when I read long posts I get bored of them myself, even when it is my own post.
My life the past few days has been pretty boring, so I just want to elaborate more on my current perspective of Taiwan and teaching. I cannot downplay how hard it is to live in a country and not speak the local language. I find that I can't perform simple tasks such as asking the apartment security guard where to put our garbage, or ordering food at a restaurant without picture menus, or even following signposts that direct one to local tourist attractions. Yesterday Carolyn and I tried to go hiking in the mountains near Taichung. We made it to the base of the mountain by taking a bus (we got on the right bus on our first try!), but figuring out where to find the hiking trails proved to be beyond our ability. After walking for about 45 minutes up a road that had some signposts in English and some not in English, and even after asking a security guard we found on the way up, we still failed to find the trails and headed back because we wouldn't have enough time for hiking before it got dark. This was partly our fault that we didn't get there early enough. But it was also due to the fact that the only signs in English were at the base of the road, and then afterwards all of the remaining signs were in Chinese only. So walking up this road that lead up the mountain turned out to be the only hiking we were able to do yesterday.
The signs at restaurants, street signs, addresses, menus, and product descriptions are rarely translated into English here. In Hong Kong almost everything was at least poorly translated, but here it is quite tough getting what you want or where you want if you don't know the language.
Teaching so far has been a mixed experience. I have some great students and some downright awful students. Some students goof off in class, are disrespectful, and so forth, while other students try very hard to please me. However, in my adult class all the students are pretty awesome. I assume it is because they want to be there and aren't being coerced by their parents. This is why I hope I get more adult classes and less children's classes. It's not that I don't like teaching children, it's just that I don't like teaching very bratty children. I have substituted a few children's classes that are completely filled with very cooperative and fun kids. But the other classes are mixed and when I finish teaching them at night I am burned-out.
Carolyn and I visited this gigantic shopping complex the other night called Shin Kong Mitsukoshi or something like that ( I think it's Japanese). It is like a very large shopping mall with a movie theatre on the top floor, fast food one floor under that, a food court with Taiwanese food one floor under that, and fancy restaurants one floor under those. And under the fancy restaurants are 12 floors of fancy stores like Louis Vuitton and Gucci. So we just took the elevator to the food court and we bought Hakka food (the Hakka are the aborigines of the island, but they also live in mainland China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, and some other southeast Asian countries). I had some great chicken in a very spicy red pepper sauce with vegetables. It also came with an awful soup that tasted like really funky gym socks, something that I believe was chopped intestine still containing the contents of the intestine, and delicious steamed white rice. I didn't really dig into the soup or intestine, but the rest of the meal I would have to say was the most enjoyable local food I have had here so far. One strange thing that really frustrates me though (perhaps because I am an American and I like the convenience that American restaurants provide), is that almost every restaurant does not sell drinks. You have to either go to a restaurant that specializes in drinks, or find the KFC or McDonalds and buy drinks from them. So effectively you must wait in line twice, which in this crowded food court took forever.
My life the past few days has been pretty boring, so I just want to elaborate more on my current perspective of Taiwan and teaching. I cannot downplay how hard it is to live in a country and not speak the local language. I find that I can't perform simple tasks such as asking the apartment security guard where to put our garbage, or ordering food at a restaurant without picture menus, or even following signposts that direct one to local tourist attractions. Yesterday Carolyn and I tried to go hiking in the mountains near Taichung. We made it to the base of the mountain by taking a bus (we got on the right bus on our first try!), but figuring out where to find the hiking trails proved to be beyond our ability. After walking for about 45 minutes up a road that had some signposts in English and some not in English, and even after asking a security guard we found on the way up, we still failed to find the trails and headed back because we wouldn't have enough time for hiking before it got dark. This was partly our fault that we didn't get there early enough. But it was also due to the fact that the only signs in English were at the base of the road, and then afterwards all of the remaining signs were in Chinese only. So walking up this road that lead up the mountain turned out to be the only hiking we were able to do yesterday.
The signs at restaurants, street signs, addresses, menus, and product descriptions are rarely translated into English here. In Hong Kong almost everything was at least poorly translated, but here it is quite tough getting what you want or where you want if you don't know the language.
Teaching so far has been a mixed experience. I have some great students and some downright awful students. Some students goof off in class, are disrespectful, and so forth, while other students try very hard to please me. However, in my adult class all the students are pretty awesome. I assume it is because they want to be there and aren't being coerced by their parents. This is why I hope I get more adult classes and less children's classes. It's not that I don't like teaching children, it's just that I don't like teaching very bratty children. I have substituted a few children's classes that are completely filled with very cooperative and fun kids. But the other classes are mixed and when I finish teaching them at night I am burned-out.
Carolyn and I visited this gigantic shopping complex the other night called Shin Kong Mitsukoshi or something like that ( I think it's Japanese). It is like a very large shopping mall with a movie theatre on the top floor, fast food one floor under that, a food court with Taiwanese food one floor under that, and fancy restaurants one floor under those. And under the fancy restaurants are 12 floors of fancy stores like Louis Vuitton and Gucci. So we just took the elevator to the food court and we bought Hakka food (the Hakka are the aborigines of the island, but they also live in mainland China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, and some other southeast Asian countries). I had some great chicken in a very spicy red pepper sauce with vegetables. It also came with an awful soup that tasted like really funky gym socks, something that I believe was chopped intestine still containing the contents of the intestine, and delicious steamed white rice. I didn't really dig into the soup or intestine, but the rest of the meal I would have to say was the most enjoyable local food I have had here so far. One strange thing that really frustrates me though (perhaps because I am an American and I like the convenience that American restaurants provide), is that almost every restaurant does not sell drinks. You have to either go to a restaurant that specializes in drinks, or find the KFC or McDonalds and buy drinks from them. So effectively you must wait in line twice, which in this crowded food court took forever.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Longshan Temple and Our Apartment
This is me in front of Longshan Temple in Taipei. It's over a week old but I thought it was worth posting.
This is a picture of our living room. It actually looks nicer in real life. We have 2 loveseats and a nice half-fridge which will provide enough space for us. Anybody looking to crash at our apartment while visiting can take the 4 cushions from the loveseats, and the 4 backpillows and make a pretty decent bed.
This is a picture of our living room. It actually looks nicer in real life. We have 2 loveseats and a nice half-fridge which will provide enough space for us. Anybody looking to crash at our apartment while visiting can take the 4 cushions from the loveseats, and the 4 backpillows and make a pretty decent bed.
I'm a Teacher!......
Today, October 1st 2008, I am finally a teacher. I was extremely nervous for my first two classes scheduled today. Last night I had a nasty bout of insomnia and I couldn't fall asleep until 6a.m. I even wandered to 7-11 at 4a.m. hoping they would have Nyquil or some form of sleep aid, but apparently the 7-11s here in Taiwan have everything but medicine. I finally managed to fall asleep and I slept until a 2pm meeting with my school's director who helped me go over my lesson plans for my adult class.
I am beginning to sense how easy the adult classes are compared to children's classes. I prepared lesson plans for both a children's class and an adult's class and the children's class took a lot longer to prepare for. After my 2pm meeting I went home and took a 30 minute nap, had some food, and waited around until 6pm when I went back to school and spent an hour preparing for the children's class that I had at 7pm. At this point I was still very exhausted from not sleeping well, but I was still full of energy from being so nervous about finally teaching.
The children's class went alright, they were very little kids, probably around 7 and 8 years old. We played a lot of games and I was told to make a lesson plan based off of 1 page in the textbook. So I did, and then halfway through class my teacher's assistant informed me I was also supposed to make a lesson plan for the previous page as review. Needless to say, I am getting mixed information on how and what to teach in children's classes. So with the help of the TA I improvised and added more games as review, and while I didn't do as good of a job as I hoped, I don't think it went so bad for my first teaching experience.
The kids themselves were full of energy, a lot more energy than I could ever possess. They love to play games, so creating games that involve English is an excellent way to get them to learn the language. We played a few different games, such as one where I split the class (9 students) into two teams and then gave each student on a team a number 1 through 5. Then I would say an English word and call a number, and both the kids from each team with that number would have to run to the board, write the word, and sit back down and repeat it loudly before their opponent did so. The kids get very into it, and generally their teammates will run to the board with them and they will all shout to each other on how to spell the word. It's great because they end up teaching each other which reinforces what they are learning. The kids did get a bit rowdy though and because I was only a substitute for the real teacher I didn't know exactly how to discipline them. Luckily the TA was there and she knew exactly what to do. Overall the class went well and I did much better than I thought I would.
Afterwards I had to teach an adult class. I was only teaching this class for 30 minutes (they stayed after their previous class to join my 30 minute trial class). The lesson plans for adults at my school are all very well thought out and documented, so it's very easy to figure out exactly what to do each class. This class involved a lot of interaction between me and the students, and I had the students do some "mingling" where they are given questions and they walk around and talk to other students in English and ask them questions that pertain to the material. This is great because it gets all of the students talking in English and thinking about how to form sentences as well as gives them an opportunity to use the vocabulary and figure out new vocabulary. My director sat in on this class and gave me great feedback, and now I am pretty confident for my real adult class that I start tomorrow. It runs for 8 weeks and is 4 hours a week, so hopefully they enjoy my classes and learn some English from them.
Yesterday Carolyn and I left the Honeydew Fashion Hotel and got ourselves an apartment. We actually found the apartment two days ago, but we were having trouble with our bank accounts. Apparently both of our ATMs have a maximum daily withdrawal amount on them of $500. So we couldn't get enough money out for the deposit and rent, and food and other things that we needed, so we had to wait a day until we could get more money out. It was frustrating but it's understandable because if someone steals my ATM card I would rather have them only be able to withdraw that $500 maximum instead of more.
Our apartment is in a fancy high-rise on the main drag in Taichung. We live in an area called "Little Europe" apparently because it is where all the westerners live. It is in a great location with lots of good restaurants, shopping, and grocery stores. And we are only an 8 minute walk from our work, which will be very convenient when it is raining, and we wont have to get a scooter or bicycle. It is a studio apartment, but it is large with a decent sized bed, a nice western bathroom, a desk and armoire, a half kitchen (sink and pantry, but no stove), a living room area with 2 love seats and a table, and it has a small deck (we have a great 11th floor view of downtown) with a washing machine on it. I am very satisfied with the apartment. We only pay about $350 U.S. Dollars a month for it, which is actually kind of a lot for Taichung. The reason why it is overpriced is because we are in a great area. I am fine paying a bit more to be in a nicer area with a very clean apartment. And I justify it by telling myself that our 2 bedroom apartment in Chicago was $1175 a month, so comparatively this is a steal.
There is also a cool night market down the street from our place that we visited last night with some coworkers/friends. There was some crazy food there, but I stuck with the more conservative fried chicken kabobs and I tried some spicy squid as well. Carolyn went even more conservative with beef fried rice. Some other teachers we were with though ate various food such as chicken anus, duck's blood gelatin, and deep fried ritz cracker sandwiches filled with mystery substance. I had a pretty fun time and I look forward to going more often and trying some of the other food that I found to look appetizing. No chicken anus for me though.
I am beginning to sense how easy the adult classes are compared to children's classes. I prepared lesson plans for both a children's class and an adult's class and the children's class took a lot longer to prepare for. After my 2pm meeting I went home and took a 30 minute nap, had some food, and waited around until 6pm when I went back to school and spent an hour preparing for the children's class that I had at 7pm. At this point I was still very exhausted from not sleeping well, but I was still full of energy from being so nervous about finally teaching.
The children's class went alright, they were very little kids, probably around 7 and 8 years old. We played a lot of games and I was told to make a lesson plan based off of 1 page in the textbook. So I did, and then halfway through class my teacher's assistant informed me I was also supposed to make a lesson plan for the previous page as review. Needless to say, I am getting mixed information on how and what to teach in children's classes. So with the help of the TA I improvised and added more games as review, and while I didn't do as good of a job as I hoped, I don't think it went so bad for my first teaching experience.
The kids themselves were full of energy, a lot more energy than I could ever possess. They love to play games, so creating games that involve English is an excellent way to get them to learn the language. We played a few different games, such as one where I split the class (9 students) into two teams and then gave each student on a team a number 1 through 5. Then I would say an English word and call a number, and both the kids from each team with that number would have to run to the board, write the word, and sit back down and repeat it loudly before their opponent did so. The kids get very into it, and generally their teammates will run to the board with them and they will all shout to each other on how to spell the word. It's great because they end up teaching each other which reinforces what they are learning. The kids did get a bit rowdy though and because I was only a substitute for the real teacher I didn't know exactly how to discipline them. Luckily the TA was there and she knew exactly what to do. Overall the class went well and I did much better than I thought I would.
Afterwards I had to teach an adult class. I was only teaching this class for 30 minutes (they stayed after their previous class to join my 30 minute trial class). The lesson plans for adults at my school are all very well thought out and documented, so it's very easy to figure out exactly what to do each class. This class involved a lot of interaction between me and the students, and I had the students do some "mingling" where they are given questions and they walk around and talk to other students in English and ask them questions that pertain to the material. This is great because it gets all of the students talking in English and thinking about how to form sentences as well as gives them an opportunity to use the vocabulary and figure out new vocabulary. My director sat in on this class and gave me great feedback, and now I am pretty confident for my real adult class that I start tomorrow. It runs for 8 weeks and is 4 hours a week, so hopefully they enjoy my classes and learn some English from them.
Yesterday Carolyn and I left the Honeydew Fashion Hotel and got ourselves an apartment. We actually found the apartment two days ago, but we were having trouble with our bank accounts. Apparently both of our ATMs have a maximum daily withdrawal amount on them of $500. So we couldn't get enough money out for the deposit and rent, and food and other things that we needed, so we had to wait a day until we could get more money out. It was frustrating but it's understandable because if someone steals my ATM card I would rather have them only be able to withdraw that $500 maximum instead of more.
Our apartment is in a fancy high-rise on the main drag in Taichung. We live in an area called "Little Europe" apparently because it is where all the westerners live. It is in a great location with lots of good restaurants, shopping, and grocery stores. And we are only an 8 minute walk from our work, which will be very convenient when it is raining, and we wont have to get a scooter or bicycle. It is a studio apartment, but it is large with a decent sized bed, a nice western bathroom, a desk and armoire, a half kitchen (sink and pantry, but no stove), a living room area with 2 love seats and a table, and it has a small deck (we have a great 11th floor view of downtown) with a washing machine on it. I am very satisfied with the apartment. We only pay about $350 U.S. Dollars a month for it, which is actually kind of a lot for Taichung. The reason why it is overpriced is because we are in a great area. I am fine paying a bit more to be in a nicer area with a very clean apartment. And I justify it by telling myself that our 2 bedroom apartment in Chicago was $1175 a month, so comparatively this is a steal.
There is also a cool night market down the street from our place that we visited last night with some coworkers/friends. There was some crazy food there, but I stuck with the more conservative fried chicken kabobs and I tried some spicy squid as well. Carolyn went even more conservative with beef fried rice. Some other teachers we were with though ate various food such as chicken anus, duck's blood gelatin, and deep fried ritz cracker sandwiches filled with mystery substance. I had a pretty fun time and I look forward to going more often and trying some of the other food that I found to look appetizing. No chicken anus for me though.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Pictures from Taipei and Taichung
This is the Presidential Office Building in Taipei. I think it was built during the Japanese rule of the island. You can't see the army of security guards in this picture, but they are definitely there.
This picture is of Taichung Park. It's a nice pleasant park but the weather was very gloomy and I think you can tell in the picture. Maybe we will visit it again and get better pictures.
This picture is of Taichung Park. It's a nice pleasant park but the weather was very gloomy and I think you can tell in the picture. Maybe we will visit it again and get better pictures.
I like my pizza with clams, how about you??
Tuesday was officially our last day in Taipei. I'm going to miss it for many reasons, but for many reasons I am glad I will be living in Taichung. Our air conditioner started working again (we thought maybe the repair guy came to fix it while we were out sightseeing, which wasn't the case, it actually fixed itself) so that helps a lot in this awful humidity. In the morning we did some sightseeing at the Presidential Office Building. It was nice but we couldn't enter; the place was completely surrounded by armed guards and secret service members. I heard tourists could enter the main lobby and there would be an exhibition, but we couldn't find it.
In the evening we had even more classroom shadowing at a third school location and this time we were disappointed in the skill of the teachers and the participation of the students. The first few shadowing sessions were helpful, but we have scheduled for us +8 days of shadowing and it's getting very redundant. One teacher I shadowed was not enthusiastic and even verbally abused the children in English. The other teacher I shadowed who was teaching adults did a good job though, but I had a bad taste in my mouth from the first teacher.
After shadowing we searched for dinner, hoping to finally take in some local Taiwanese cuisine. Unfortunately, it's incredibly difficult to find actual Taiwanese restaurants. I am pretty sure I have not seen one yet. After an hour of searching we decided to eat at a Japanese fast food chain called Mos Burger. We both ordered hamburgers, and to my surprise it came topped with this sauce that is brownish in color and sort of tastes like curry. If Chef-Boyardee made curry for hamburgers it would taste like this. It was pretty awful and ruined the hamburger, but I was starving so I ate it anyways. Afterwards we went back to our apartment to pack and watch our Back to the Future VCD.
The next day we were to go to Taichung. We packed up our stuff and went to our school's headquarters where we met with the personnel director. She brought us to the bus station where for $4 U.S. we boarded a very nice coach bus headed for Taichung. Since all of the signs are in Chinese and the driver didn't speak English, we were told to watch for a store called "Sogo." The bus ride itself was pleasant. The landscape reminded me of Vietnam because it was a bit poorer and more rural than Hong Kong and Taipei. The bus took two and a half hours to get to our destination (apparently the high speed rail train takes 45 minutes, but our school wouldn't spring for the extra cost). We were confused on where to get off the bus but a friendly passenger helped us figure out which stop we needed. We then took a cab with all of our luggage to our school in Taichung where we met with the adult director (one of our two bosses) who is very nice. He was from Great Britain where he received his degree from Oxford. Afterwards he taught in Saudi Arabia, but then he came to Taiwan ten years ago and started working for our present school where he has taught ever since. He gave us a tour and pointed out some local restaurants, told us about the Frog (a mexican restaurant/pub), gave us tips on local culture and finding apartments, and explained what some of our job would entail. We also met the children's director of our school who was also very nice. She is a local Taiwanese woman who was much less talkative about her background, but equally helpful in telling us tricks about the local culture and helping us with apartments.
After this introduction we took a cab to our school's second (and older) location on the other side of town. This side of town is not nearly as nice, but still not bad. The hotel we are currently staying at (the Honeydew Fashion Hotel) is attached to our school and has pretty decent rooms and free breakfast (and as far as I know it is not a love hotel). After checking in we decided to look for local Taiwanese food for dinner. After searching for 30 minutes we were pretty hungry so we gave up and ate at McDonald's. After dinner we had a shadowing session for an adult's class at the old school connected to our hotel, which went alright. We were pretty tired so we didn't do much and went to sleep shortly thereafter.
The next morning we had breakfast in the hotel. The one thing I really miss and always miss when I am away from the United States is breakfast. The breakfast here is either Congee (rice that has been sitting in water longer than normal and has turned into a semi-porridge) or normal Chinese food which I am not fond of eating for breakfast. So I just had some toast with butter that tasted eerily similar to popcorn butter, and some coffee. We then left to do some sightseeing at a park called Taichung Park (see picture). The park was alright but the weather outside was gloomy so I was not feeling the sightseeing.
After walking through the park we were headed to a place called The Martyr's Shrine and Confucius Temple, but we had a really awful map and we never ended up finding these two sights. Our map was from a magazine called Compass, and it decided to leave half the streets of Taichung out, and then it misplaced a quarter of the streets it had included. Having walked for a long time in the sweltering heat without finding what we were looking for, we turned back to find a place for lunch. We ended up at a Japanese restaurant (apparently only Japanese restaurants are available in Taiwan) where we ordered some noodle soup. It was alright, on par with a package of Ramen. Unfortunately the price was not on par with Ramen.
Later on we went back to the new school where we did more shadowing (boo..) but we did get to talk with a lot of our co-workers which was pretty cool to finally meet them. They all seem pretty nice, which is a relief considering the mixed bag of teachers we met in Taipei. We were given several leads on where to find apartments so tomorrow (Saturday) we are going to make some phone calls inbetween classes and hopefully see some apartments.
Thursday evening we went to a Mexican restaurant/Pub called The Frog. It's supposedly a big hangout place for expats, but I only saw local Taiwanese there. Perhaps the large amount of foreigners visiting it has made it popular in the local Taiwanese community, or perhaps it is their tasty pizza. We ordered pepperoni pizza ourselves, which comes with onions. On the subject of pizza, there is a local pizza place down the street from our hotel that includes clams as a topping for pizza. Now when I say clams, I mean the clam meat still inside the shell. So the pizza comes with full clams on top of it, and apparently you just pull the clam shells off and eat the clam meat, and then the pizza? Anyway, the Frog was good, but it was also very overpriced.
Today (Friday) we actually had work other than shadowing. We did demo classes for our boss, and she gave us feedback on how it went. We were very confused on what we were supposed to do but after we finished our boss said we both did a good job. In-between the demo and our planned shadowing at night we had an hour for dinner. We walked to a restaurant that specializes in noodles and dumplings. I ordered the noodles, Carolyn ordered the dumplings. Carolyn really liked the dumplings, and I absolutely hated the noodles. I am not ready to give up on local cuisine yet (although it often smells like rotting trash), but my experience so far has been very unfortunate. It's strange because I am not the pickiest eater. I have standards of course, but I am open-minded when it comes to food. I loved almost everything I ate in Hong Kong. I love Indian food, Mexican food, Thai food, Korean food, Chinese food, and European food. But so far everything I've eaten in Taiwan (besides McDonald's), has been mediocre or downright awful. Now to be fair I still have yet to find an actual Taiwanese restaurant (I'm beginning to think they don't exist), but the types of food I have seen the Taiwanese eating, food that I myself have tried, makes me feel sick just thinking about. Perhaps I just need to start going to restaurants with the locals so they can help me pick out food that I might enjoy.
So we did more shadowing (wow I'm sick of shadowing) and we also had a bit of training on grammar and how to teach it. After work Carolyn got ice cream at Cold Stone, which apparently has a location right across from our school. I didn't know they existed outside of the Midwest. Tomorrow we have more work, and we are going to look at some apartments and try to get cell phones. On Sunday we have been invited by a co-worker to do some sightseeing, which will be nice to make more acquaintances here.
I suppose Carolyn and I are both officially teachers now. I start teaching Monday as a trial run, and Tuesday I begin teaching my very own first adult English education course. I have other classes starting the following week, and probably some children's classes later on. They are starting Carolyn with teaching children. My theory is that Carolyn comes off much more friendly and warm then I do, so they figure she will be better with kids while my seriousness will be more fully appreciated by the adults. Maybe I'm completely wrong.
Now I'm starting a running list of cultural acts or habits or sights here in Taiwan that I personally find very odd, and I suspect you will as well. Let me know what you think about them in the comments section.
1. People drive Mopeds/Scooters/Motorcycles on the sidewalk. I guess they figure because they park them on the sidewalk, why not drive them on the sidewalk? You have to get used to walking and jumping out of the way of a motorcycle zooming past you while walking on the sidewalk.
2. Stray dogs are everywhere. I think people feed these dogs communally as communal pets. It's probably not a healthy habit, but since most of the dogs aren't large they aren't as much of a threat to small children.
3. Garbage Trucks. The garbage man here does not pick up your trash for you. Instead, he drives by in his truck playing Fer Elise, similar to the ice cream man, and you have to run out of your house or business with your trash bags and throw it in his truck before he leaves your street. It is pretty ridiculous. Don't get him confused with the ice cream man.
4. The use of "byebye" by adults in Taiwan and Hong Kong. they say it when they are leaving their friends or relatives, even when they are speaking Mandarin. Boy I would love to wring the neck of the guy who first brought them that phrase.
(That is all for now. I will soon add more as I come across them).
In the evening we had even more classroom shadowing at a third school location and this time we were disappointed in the skill of the teachers and the participation of the students. The first few shadowing sessions were helpful, but we have scheduled for us +8 days of shadowing and it's getting very redundant. One teacher I shadowed was not enthusiastic and even verbally abused the children in English. The other teacher I shadowed who was teaching adults did a good job though, but I had a bad taste in my mouth from the first teacher.
After shadowing we searched for dinner, hoping to finally take in some local Taiwanese cuisine. Unfortunately, it's incredibly difficult to find actual Taiwanese restaurants. I am pretty sure I have not seen one yet. After an hour of searching we decided to eat at a Japanese fast food chain called Mos Burger. We both ordered hamburgers, and to my surprise it came topped with this sauce that is brownish in color and sort of tastes like curry. If Chef-Boyardee made curry for hamburgers it would taste like this. It was pretty awful and ruined the hamburger, but I was starving so I ate it anyways. Afterwards we went back to our apartment to pack and watch our Back to the Future VCD.
The next day we were to go to Taichung. We packed up our stuff and went to our school's headquarters where we met with the personnel director. She brought us to the bus station where for $4 U.S. we boarded a very nice coach bus headed for Taichung. Since all of the signs are in Chinese and the driver didn't speak English, we were told to watch for a store called "Sogo." The bus ride itself was pleasant. The landscape reminded me of Vietnam because it was a bit poorer and more rural than Hong Kong and Taipei. The bus took two and a half hours to get to our destination (apparently the high speed rail train takes 45 minutes, but our school wouldn't spring for the extra cost). We were confused on where to get off the bus but a friendly passenger helped us figure out which stop we needed. We then took a cab with all of our luggage to our school in Taichung where we met with the adult director (one of our two bosses) who is very nice. He was from Great Britain where he received his degree from Oxford. Afterwards he taught in Saudi Arabia, but then he came to Taiwan ten years ago and started working for our present school where he has taught ever since. He gave us a tour and pointed out some local restaurants, told us about the Frog (a mexican restaurant/pub), gave us tips on local culture and finding apartments, and explained what some of our job would entail. We also met the children's director of our school who was also very nice. She is a local Taiwanese woman who was much less talkative about her background, but equally helpful in telling us tricks about the local culture and helping us with apartments.
After this introduction we took a cab to our school's second (and older) location on the other side of town. This side of town is not nearly as nice, but still not bad. The hotel we are currently staying at (the Honeydew Fashion Hotel) is attached to our school and has pretty decent rooms and free breakfast (and as far as I know it is not a love hotel). After checking in we decided to look for local Taiwanese food for dinner. After searching for 30 minutes we were pretty hungry so we gave up and ate at McDonald's. After dinner we had a shadowing session for an adult's class at the old school connected to our hotel, which went alright. We were pretty tired so we didn't do much and went to sleep shortly thereafter.
The next morning we had breakfast in the hotel. The one thing I really miss and always miss when I am away from the United States is breakfast. The breakfast here is either Congee (rice that has been sitting in water longer than normal and has turned into a semi-porridge) or normal Chinese food which I am not fond of eating for breakfast. So I just had some toast with butter that tasted eerily similar to popcorn butter, and some coffee. We then left to do some sightseeing at a park called Taichung Park (see picture). The park was alright but the weather outside was gloomy so I was not feeling the sightseeing.
After walking through the park we were headed to a place called The Martyr's Shrine and Confucius Temple, but we had a really awful map and we never ended up finding these two sights. Our map was from a magazine called Compass, and it decided to leave half the streets of Taichung out, and then it misplaced a quarter of the streets it had included. Having walked for a long time in the sweltering heat without finding what we were looking for, we turned back to find a place for lunch. We ended up at a Japanese restaurant (apparently only Japanese restaurants are available in Taiwan) where we ordered some noodle soup. It was alright, on par with a package of Ramen. Unfortunately the price was not on par with Ramen.
Later on we went back to the new school where we did more shadowing (boo..) but we did get to talk with a lot of our co-workers which was pretty cool to finally meet them. They all seem pretty nice, which is a relief considering the mixed bag of teachers we met in Taipei. We were given several leads on where to find apartments so tomorrow (Saturday) we are going to make some phone calls inbetween classes and hopefully see some apartments.
Thursday evening we went to a Mexican restaurant/Pub called The Frog. It's supposedly a big hangout place for expats, but I only saw local Taiwanese there. Perhaps the large amount of foreigners visiting it has made it popular in the local Taiwanese community, or perhaps it is their tasty pizza. We ordered pepperoni pizza ourselves, which comes with onions. On the subject of pizza, there is a local pizza place down the street from our hotel that includes clams as a topping for pizza. Now when I say clams, I mean the clam meat still inside the shell. So the pizza comes with full clams on top of it, and apparently you just pull the clam shells off and eat the clam meat, and then the pizza? Anyway, the Frog was good, but it was also very overpriced.
Today (Friday) we actually had work other than shadowing. We did demo classes for our boss, and she gave us feedback on how it went. We were very confused on what we were supposed to do but after we finished our boss said we both did a good job. In-between the demo and our planned shadowing at night we had an hour for dinner. We walked to a restaurant that specializes in noodles and dumplings. I ordered the noodles, Carolyn ordered the dumplings. Carolyn really liked the dumplings, and I absolutely hated the noodles. I am not ready to give up on local cuisine yet (although it often smells like rotting trash), but my experience so far has been very unfortunate. It's strange because I am not the pickiest eater. I have standards of course, but I am open-minded when it comes to food. I loved almost everything I ate in Hong Kong. I love Indian food, Mexican food, Thai food, Korean food, Chinese food, and European food. But so far everything I've eaten in Taiwan (besides McDonald's), has been mediocre or downright awful. Now to be fair I still have yet to find an actual Taiwanese restaurant (I'm beginning to think they don't exist), but the types of food I have seen the Taiwanese eating, food that I myself have tried, makes me feel sick just thinking about. Perhaps I just need to start going to restaurants with the locals so they can help me pick out food that I might enjoy.
So we did more shadowing (wow I'm sick of shadowing) and we also had a bit of training on grammar and how to teach it. After work Carolyn got ice cream at Cold Stone, which apparently has a location right across from our school. I didn't know they existed outside of the Midwest. Tomorrow we have more work, and we are going to look at some apartments and try to get cell phones. On Sunday we have been invited by a co-worker to do some sightseeing, which will be nice to make more acquaintances here.
I suppose Carolyn and I are both officially teachers now. I start teaching Monday as a trial run, and Tuesday I begin teaching my very own first adult English education course. I have other classes starting the following week, and probably some children's classes later on. They are starting Carolyn with teaching children. My theory is that Carolyn comes off much more friendly and warm then I do, so they figure she will be better with kids while my seriousness will be more fully appreciated by the adults. Maybe I'm completely wrong.
Now I'm starting a running list of cultural acts or habits or sights here in Taiwan that I personally find very odd, and I suspect you will as well. Let me know what you think about them in the comments section.
1. People drive Mopeds/Scooters/Motorcycles on the sidewalk. I guess they figure because they park them on the sidewalk, why not drive them on the sidewalk? You have to get used to walking and jumping out of the way of a motorcycle zooming past you while walking on the sidewalk.
2. Stray dogs are everywhere. I think people feed these dogs communally as communal pets. It's probably not a healthy habit, but since most of the dogs aren't large they aren't as much of a threat to small children.
3. Garbage Trucks. The garbage man here does not pick up your trash for you. Instead, he drives by in his truck playing Fer Elise, similar to the ice cream man, and you have to run out of your house or business with your trash bags and throw it in his truck before he leaves your street. It is pretty ridiculous. Don't get him confused with the ice cream man.
4. The use of "byebye" by adults in Taiwan and Hong Kong. they say it when they are leaving their friends or relatives, even when they are speaking Mandarin. Boy I would love to wring the neck of the guy who first brought them that phrase.
(That is all for now. I will soon add more as I come across them).
Monday, September 22, 2008
Taipei 101 and Chiang-Kai Shek Memorial Pictures
This is me in front of the Taipei 101 building. We were still at a distance from it so it doesn't look like the tallest building in the world, but it is.
This is me at a park next to the Chiang-Kai Shek Memorial Hall. In the background is the main hall for the memorial. It is quite enormous.
Here is the CKS Memorial Hall up close. Inside is a gigantic bronze statue of Chiang-Kai Shek along with an exhibition of his belongings.
This is me at a park next to the Chiang-Kai Shek Memorial Hall. In the background is the main hall for the memorial. It is quite enormous.
Here is the CKS Memorial Hall up close. Inside is a gigantic bronze statue of Chiang-Kai Shek along with an exhibition of his belongings.
Broken Air Conditioner = Love Hotel ??
Because of work I am a few days behind in my blog post. Therefore I will summarize what I have done from Saturday until tonight (Monday night).
Saturday morning Carolyn and I were up early due to jetlag. We first went to Mr. Brown's Coffee, which is a coffee chain that I've only seen in Taipei and Hanoi. It's a pretty nice little cafe with good coffee and free internet. After uploading my last blog post we headed to Da'an park (the center of the city, and the biggest park in Taipei) and walked around watching people do Tai Chi. The park is quiet and peaceful, there are a lot of trees so we could hide from the scorching sun and relentless humidity. We also did a bit of shopping at a local grocery store, and we spotted a very out of place Sizzler, perhaps the last Sizzler in existence. We went back to our dorms after this amazing find and rested until our 11:45am work.
At 11:45am we had our first chance to shadow teachers at our school. We got a pretty good view of what our jobs entail, along with the working conditions and the hours. We sat in on two classes, and both classes I would say were a learning experience. What is interesting is that the students (some as young as 5) attend classes on Saturday from the afternoon until the early evening. In addition to their classes during the week, they also attend night classes at least twice a week, and sometimes every night during the week. Because this is very exhausting for the children one of the main skills an English teacher at a private school like ours must have is to be entertaining. The classes mostly involved games and semi-entertaining CD's, and depending on the skill of the teacher the children were either entertained or bored out of their minds.
After class we decided to travel to Taipei 101 (currently the tallest building in the world), where we walked around the mall it has on the lower floors and ate in the food court. We passed on the skydeck because we know that when anybody else comes to visit us we will end up doing it, and we don't want to pay $20 each time. The mall in Taipei 101 looks a lot like malls in Hong Kong and me and Carolyn were feeling very underdressed for most of the stores this mall had. After Taipei 101 we went to a sport's bar called Tavern nearby where we tried a beer called Taiwan Beer. Carolyn was indifferent to it, I found that it was too sweet for me. It tasted almost like beer soda pop, like they added sugar to it or something. Afterwards we took a cab home and passed out from exhaustion/jet lag.
Sunday we had the entire day off for sightseeing, and we did end up doing a lot. We were given our first ride in the MRT subway on our way to the Chaing-Kai Shek Memorial Hall. Taipei's subway is much nicer than the L, it's cleaner, it's wider, it's smooth-riding, it doesn't smell like urine, and you aren't nearly as likely to get stabbed on it. As far as Subways go, it's the second best I've been on (Hong Kong's is the nicest/newest, Japan's is 3rd, Beijing 4th, every other city somewhere in between, Chicago last). You also get a cool little plastic token that looks sort of like a miniature poker chip. It is used as a ticket, it must have an electronic sensor in it because you put it against a reader in order to enter the subway, and you put it into a slot in order to exit the subway.
So we took the MRT to the Chiang-Kai Shek Memorial Hall, which is pretty gigantic and imposing (see picture). Surrounding it are two large Chinese style buildings, one is a concert hall and I don't remember what the other is, and there is a large courtyard for military parades, and a large gate at the end to top it off. Inside the CKS Hall sits a giant statue of the Generalissimo himself in bronze, along with old artifacts from his life, including some bullet-proof Cadillac Fleetwoods, his chairs, his clothing, and pictures of him with various dignitaries. There was also a nice art exhibition on two of the floors with some excellent paintings.
Our next stop along the MRT was the Longshan Temple, a very nice multi-denominational temple built in the 1700's. The neighborhood it sits in is pretty seedy, very near the night market called "Snake Alley." I am starting to get bored of seeing temples however because while they are all interesting to look at, after seeing so many they lose their appeal. We walked to the botanical garden from the temple and toured it as well. I have nothing interesting to say about it, which I suppose in itself speaks to it's quality.
Afterwards we took the MRT north to a restaurant called "Green Leaf" which the Lonely Planet recommended. I also have nothing interesting to say about this restaurant, except that like a lot of Chinese restaurants, when you order meat, expect most of it to be bone and gristle.
We made plans to visit the Shilin Night Market, which is supposed to be the biggest tourist attraction in Taipei. After dinner we travelled to it and I must say it was definitely not what I expected. The markets I visited in Hong Kong sold items of some worth that one may be interested in purchasing. Here the market was mainly composed of carnival games, restaurant stalls (I must mention this nasty nasty food smell I can't put my finger on, but has haunted me throughout my travels in China. It made it's presence quite clear at this night market, presumably coming from a food stall somewhere), and small stands selling items no one would ever want to purchase. Perhaps I am upset because I was expecting the market to be something that it was not, but when your expectation is that it'll be at least semi-interesting, and then it turns out not to meet that expectation, I think you have a legitimate right to be upset. After looking around the original market location we walked down some small streets where all the people were streaming. This was a mistake because one could barely walk it was so crowded. There was nothing to look at except people. And of course the only people at this night market were teenagers, making the whole experience that much more frustrating. It is odd that in such an overpopulated city, the best thing teenagers can think to do on a Sunday night is to go shove themselves into the cramped, smelly streets of the Shilin Night Market.
Luckily we escaped this place as soon as we could and travelled back to our apartment. However, the worst experience of the evening was just around the corner, for as we entered our steamy 90 degree apartment I tried turning on the air conditioner, and of course it wouldn't turn on! It broke on us, and we had no one to call to come fix it. So the only thing we could do to fall asleep was to go rent a hotel. The Lonely Planet recommended a very affordable hotel a few blocks away from where our apartment was, so we booked a room and showed up there within 30 minutes. As we were getting our room key a young couple came down the elevator and paid for their room and turned their keys in. At the time I was thinking, hey that's odd, it's like 10pm, why are they checking out now? Then on the way up the elevator I began to think, hey maybe this is a love hotel (a hotel used for one night stands). Well the picture of semi-nude women on our hotel room wall was a telling sign that this was indeed a love hotel. But it had air conditioning and was actually very clean (cleaner than our dorm) so we still stayed the night.
On Monday we again visited Mr. Brown's in the morning, called our boss to get the air conditioning fixed (which did get fixed, but not until Monday Night), and had lunch at KFC. We spent the afternoon at an electronics bazaar where I found a digital camera for less than $100 (hopefully it doesn't break).
We then shadowed again at 4:45pm and this time the shadowing went much better. All the teachers I shadowed were excellent and very informative. All of the students were very fun and entertaining as well. One teacher said I will definitely like Taichung because it is much cleaner, it has more trees, it is cheaper, and it is less polluted. Hopefully he is right.
Saturday morning Carolyn and I were up early due to jetlag. We first went to Mr. Brown's Coffee, which is a coffee chain that I've only seen in Taipei and Hanoi. It's a pretty nice little cafe with good coffee and free internet. After uploading my last blog post we headed to Da'an park (the center of the city, and the biggest park in Taipei) and walked around watching people do Tai Chi. The park is quiet and peaceful, there are a lot of trees so we could hide from the scorching sun and relentless humidity. We also did a bit of shopping at a local grocery store, and we spotted a very out of place Sizzler, perhaps the last Sizzler in existence. We went back to our dorms after this amazing find and rested until our 11:45am work.
At 11:45am we had our first chance to shadow teachers at our school. We got a pretty good view of what our jobs entail, along with the working conditions and the hours. We sat in on two classes, and both classes I would say were a learning experience. What is interesting is that the students (some as young as 5) attend classes on Saturday from the afternoon until the early evening. In addition to their classes during the week, they also attend night classes at least twice a week, and sometimes every night during the week. Because this is very exhausting for the children one of the main skills an English teacher at a private school like ours must have is to be entertaining. The classes mostly involved games and semi-entertaining CD's, and depending on the skill of the teacher the children were either entertained or bored out of their minds.
After class we decided to travel to Taipei 101 (currently the tallest building in the world), where we walked around the mall it has on the lower floors and ate in the food court. We passed on the skydeck because we know that when anybody else comes to visit us we will end up doing it, and we don't want to pay $20 each time. The mall in Taipei 101 looks a lot like malls in Hong Kong and me and Carolyn were feeling very underdressed for most of the stores this mall had. After Taipei 101 we went to a sport's bar called Tavern nearby where we tried a beer called Taiwan Beer. Carolyn was indifferent to it, I found that it was too sweet for me. It tasted almost like beer soda pop, like they added sugar to it or something. Afterwards we took a cab home and passed out from exhaustion/jet lag.
Sunday we had the entire day off for sightseeing, and we did end up doing a lot. We were given our first ride in the MRT subway on our way to the Chaing-Kai Shek Memorial Hall. Taipei's subway is much nicer than the L, it's cleaner, it's wider, it's smooth-riding, it doesn't smell like urine, and you aren't nearly as likely to get stabbed on it. As far as Subways go, it's the second best I've been on (Hong Kong's is the nicest/newest, Japan's is 3rd, Beijing 4th, every other city somewhere in between, Chicago last). You also get a cool little plastic token that looks sort of like a miniature poker chip. It is used as a ticket, it must have an electronic sensor in it because you put it against a reader in order to enter the subway, and you put it into a slot in order to exit the subway.
So we took the MRT to the Chiang-Kai Shek Memorial Hall, which is pretty gigantic and imposing (see picture). Surrounding it are two large Chinese style buildings, one is a concert hall and I don't remember what the other is, and there is a large courtyard for military parades, and a large gate at the end to top it off. Inside the CKS Hall sits a giant statue of the Generalissimo himself in bronze, along with old artifacts from his life, including some bullet-proof Cadillac Fleetwoods, his chairs, his clothing, and pictures of him with various dignitaries. There was also a nice art exhibition on two of the floors with some excellent paintings.
Our next stop along the MRT was the Longshan Temple, a very nice multi-denominational temple built in the 1700's. The neighborhood it sits in is pretty seedy, very near the night market called "Snake Alley." I am starting to get bored of seeing temples however because while they are all interesting to look at, after seeing so many they lose their appeal. We walked to the botanical garden from the temple and toured it as well. I have nothing interesting to say about it, which I suppose in itself speaks to it's quality.
Afterwards we took the MRT north to a restaurant called "Green Leaf" which the Lonely Planet recommended. I also have nothing interesting to say about this restaurant, except that like a lot of Chinese restaurants, when you order meat, expect most of it to be bone and gristle.
We made plans to visit the Shilin Night Market, which is supposed to be the biggest tourist attraction in Taipei. After dinner we travelled to it and I must say it was definitely not what I expected. The markets I visited in Hong Kong sold items of some worth that one may be interested in purchasing. Here the market was mainly composed of carnival games, restaurant stalls (I must mention this nasty nasty food smell I can't put my finger on, but has haunted me throughout my travels in China. It made it's presence quite clear at this night market, presumably coming from a food stall somewhere), and small stands selling items no one would ever want to purchase. Perhaps I am upset because I was expecting the market to be something that it was not, but when your expectation is that it'll be at least semi-interesting, and then it turns out not to meet that expectation, I think you have a legitimate right to be upset. After looking around the original market location we walked down some small streets where all the people were streaming. This was a mistake because one could barely walk it was so crowded. There was nothing to look at except people. And of course the only people at this night market were teenagers, making the whole experience that much more frustrating. It is odd that in such an overpopulated city, the best thing teenagers can think to do on a Sunday night is to go shove themselves into the cramped, smelly streets of the Shilin Night Market.
Luckily we escaped this place as soon as we could and travelled back to our apartment. However, the worst experience of the evening was just around the corner, for as we entered our steamy 90 degree apartment I tried turning on the air conditioner, and of course it wouldn't turn on! It broke on us, and we had no one to call to come fix it. So the only thing we could do to fall asleep was to go rent a hotel. The Lonely Planet recommended a very affordable hotel a few blocks away from where our apartment was, so we booked a room and showed up there within 30 minutes. As we were getting our room key a young couple came down the elevator and paid for their room and turned their keys in. At the time I was thinking, hey that's odd, it's like 10pm, why are they checking out now? Then on the way up the elevator I began to think, hey maybe this is a love hotel (a hotel used for one night stands). Well the picture of semi-nude women on our hotel room wall was a telling sign that this was indeed a love hotel. But it had air conditioning and was actually very clean (cleaner than our dorm) so we still stayed the night.
On Monday we again visited Mr. Brown's in the morning, called our boss to get the air conditioning fixed (which did get fixed, but not until Monday Night), and had lunch at KFC. We spent the afternoon at an electronics bazaar where I found a digital camera for less than $100 (hopefully it doesn't break).
We then shadowed again at 4:45pm and this time the shadowing went much better. All the teachers I shadowed were excellent and very informative. All of the students were very fun and entertaining as well. One teacher said I will definitely like Taichung because it is much cleaner, it has more trees, it is cheaper, and it is less polluted. Hopefully he is right.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Initial Pictures in Taipei 9-18-08
This is the Xingtian Temple in Taipei. It looks empty on the outside but it's packed on the inside.
And here is me in front of it. I look pretty washed out because it is so bright outside.
And here is me in front of it. I look pretty washed out because it is so bright outside.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Mercedes and AIDS
So I am sitting here at 3am, wide awake, finally having a chance to write something for my blog. Getting on the flight was quite easy, although watching everybody else board before you makes one quite nervous. The United employee at the baggage check said I shouldn't have a problem getting on the flight, but during the entire 20 minutes Carolyn and I sat there it kept running through my head "we won't make it on! We won't make it on!" Well we did make it on the flight, and the flight itself was not so bad. I have to say it was the smoothest flight I've ever been on with minimal turbulence. We had two meals with pretty good food and 7 movies to choose from. But by the end of the flight the combination of being stuffed, bad movies, lack of sleep, and being on an airplane started to make me feel pretty nauseous. It was nice to get off the plane in Tokyo's Narita airport, although by that point I was feeling very sick. Carolyn wasn't feeling well either, so we both took turns watching the baggage while the other got up and walked around. The second flight from Tokyo to Taipei was very crowded but we still managed to make it on. (Although Bobby was under the impression that we wouldn't, and thought we had to wait a day in Tokyo). It actually would not have been so bad having to spend a day in Tokyo, we could have done some sightseeing, but at that point I just wanted to find a bed to sleep in because I hadn't slept for 18 hours.
Landing in Taipei was also easy and getting through customs did not take long. We were picked up by a woman from our school driving a black Mercedes-Benz (it turns out 90% of cars at the airport I am pretty sure were Mercedes-Benz, it must be the car to pick people up at the airport here in Taipei). She brought us to our dorm where we were shown around the apartment. Nobody else was living in the dorms, although we could tell it was recently inhabited by a group of messy foreigners. Our room itself is not so bad, it has 2 beds, a large closet, and a separate bathroom. But the communal living area is very messy (we found a dead cockroach on the floor), and the bathrooms with the showers are wet bathrooms, so when we shower half of the bathroom gets soaked. Even though I was completely exhausted and ready for sleep when I reached the dormitory, I decided to shower because I smelled awful and the insufferable heat was not helping (when we stepped out of the airport we were engulfed in the heat and humidity, it was like jumping into a 90 degree pool). After I showered I did fall asleep right away and I managed to sleep until 6am.
We didn't have anywhere to be until 10am so we both got ready and went for breakfast. We had McDonald's, which is embarassing when there is so much good Chinese food around, but we were in a hurry because we needed to find a place to get small passport sized photos so we figured McDonald's would be the fastest. We did find the passport photo booth and arrived at our work destination an hour early, so we surfed the internet there until our meeting with the manager of personnel. The manager was very nice and knowledgeable. It turns out her family was from Shanghai, she was born in Hong Kong, she was raised in New York City, and now she lives and works in Taipei. We were given a 2 hour lunch so we ate at Carolyn's favorite Japanese fast food chain Yoshinoya. The food was very good and very cheap.
Afterwards we went to a temple called Xingtian temple in Taipei. It was a very nice place, very large and crowded. In mainland China you rarely see people at the temples because it is either not allowed by the government, or the people do not show their religious beliefs because they are either afraid of persecution or because it is not fashionable to do so. Or perhaps Chairman Mao's crusade to turn the people into atheists was actually effective (Probably not). After visiting the temple we walked past the headquarters of our rival school "Hess" and finally glimpsed more foreigners in Taipei, presumably teachers.
We returned to our school's headquarters where we met with the manager of personnel again. She brought us to the hospital for our mandatory health check (you cannot teach children in Taiwan if you have TB or Aids). I was a bit worried about getting my blood drawn in a foreign country, but it was reassuring seeing the nurse remove the needle from it's wrapper in front of me.
After the health exam we took a cab back to our dorm where I decided to lay down for 10 minutes before we went out and did some sightseeing. This was not the best idea because it turns out I was much more tired and jetlagged than I originally thought. I fell asleep until now (3am) and now that I'm awake I am feeling very awake. Carolyn seems to have fallen back asleep luckily, but my sleep is much more finicky than hers. I probably wont be able to sleep until tonight, so it looks like I will spend another day completely exhausted.
Landing in Taipei was also easy and getting through customs did not take long. We were picked up by a woman from our school driving a black Mercedes-Benz (it turns out 90% of cars at the airport I am pretty sure were Mercedes-Benz, it must be the car to pick people up at the airport here in Taipei). She brought us to our dorm where we were shown around the apartment. Nobody else was living in the dorms, although we could tell it was recently inhabited by a group of messy foreigners. Our room itself is not so bad, it has 2 beds, a large closet, and a separate bathroom. But the communal living area is very messy (we found a dead cockroach on the floor), and the bathrooms with the showers are wet bathrooms, so when we shower half of the bathroom gets soaked. Even though I was completely exhausted and ready for sleep when I reached the dormitory, I decided to shower because I smelled awful and the insufferable heat was not helping (when we stepped out of the airport we were engulfed in the heat and humidity, it was like jumping into a 90 degree pool). After I showered I did fall asleep right away and I managed to sleep until 6am.
We didn't have anywhere to be until 10am so we both got ready and went for breakfast. We had McDonald's, which is embarassing when there is so much good Chinese food around, but we were in a hurry because we needed to find a place to get small passport sized photos so we figured McDonald's would be the fastest. We did find the passport photo booth and arrived at our work destination an hour early, so we surfed the internet there until our meeting with the manager of personnel. The manager was very nice and knowledgeable. It turns out her family was from Shanghai, she was born in Hong Kong, she was raised in New York City, and now she lives and works in Taipei. We were given a 2 hour lunch so we ate at Carolyn's favorite Japanese fast food chain Yoshinoya. The food was very good and very cheap.
Afterwards we went to a temple called Xingtian temple in Taipei. It was a very nice place, very large and crowded. In mainland China you rarely see people at the temples because it is either not allowed by the government, or the people do not show their religious beliefs because they are either afraid of persecution or because it is not fashionable to do so. Or perhaps Chairman Mao's crusade to turn the people into atheists was actually effective (Probably not). After visiting the temple we walked past the headquarters of our rival school "Hess" and finally glimpsed more foreigners in Taipei, presumably teachers.
We returned to our school's headquarters where we met with the manager of personnel again. She brought us to the hospital for our mandatory health check (you cannot teach children in Taiwan if you have TB or Aids). I was a bit worried about getting my blood drawn in a foreign country, but it was reassuring seeing the nurse remove the needle from it's wrapper in front of me.
After the health exam we took a cab back to our dorm where I decided to lay down for 10 minutes before we went out and did some sightseeing. This was not the best idea because it turns out I was much more tired and jetlagged than I originally thought. I fell asleep until now (3am) and now that I'm awake I am feeling very awake. Carolyn seems to have fallen back asleep luckily, but my sleep is much more finicky than hers. I probably wont be able to sleep until tonight, so it looks like I will spend another day completely exhausted.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Fresh New Blog
Hey everybody, I am setting up this blog so everyone can see what I am doing instead of me having to e-mail everyone individually. My flight leaves Chicago on Wednesday, so I should be in Taiwan Thursday night. After I settle in there and take some pictures I will add more posts to this otherwise empty blog. I am not looking forward to the long flight but I am very excited about traveling again!
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