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.
