Merry Christmas!

Christmas greetings from Taiwan! While you all are opening presents by the tree, my Christmas day is just about over. It was a good one! I had lunch at Chili's with some friends (a lot of my friends went home or elsewhere for the holidays, but some were still here). Someone suggested Chili's half jokingly when we were deciding what to do , but we ended up deciding on that. They import all their food from the U.S. so it's fairly expensive by Taiwan standards, but it was completely worth it since it is just like home. After our meal, which lasted several hours since we had several courses, we did some shopping and then went to look at the holiday lights around Taipei 101 (the downtown financial district). We even came upon a nativity scene surrounded by 45 different pictures depicting Jesus' life. Some of the (very simplistic) pictures were very amusing, and we could only imagine how accurate the Chinese captions were.

Charlie arrives in less than 48 hours. I can't wait! We're off to Kenting on New Year's day for a few days. Kenting is a beach town on the very southern tip of Taiwan. It is also a national park, so there's a lot to do. Other than that we'll be in and around Taipei.

Hope everyone had a great holiday! And, as always, check out my "Around Taipei" album for my new pictures from Christmas.

Wedding bells-Taiwanese style and Christmas festivities

It sure has been an eventful couple of weeks for me. The week before last I was sick with a cold I couldn’t get rid of. (As I believe I mentioned in an earlier post, many thanks to extreme changes in weather from one day to the next, as well as kids coming to school sick). So I finally went to the hospital to see a doctor. Health care is very good here and I went to the best hospital in the city, which also happens to be two subway stops from my apartment. The doctors speak English there, thank goodness. So I got myself checked in found where I was supposed to wait and had to wait about an hour for my appointment. The doctor was really good and understood everything I was talking about. He determined that I basically had a bad cold, but that it could get worse if I didn’t take couple days off of work. (So I took last Friday and Saturday off and basically did nothing but sit in bed. It really sucked, but I did finally get better.) He gave me a couple of prescriptions, too, which you pick up at a counter right at the hospital. In total, my doctor visit plus two prescriptions was just under $14US since I get Taiwan national health insurance through my job. I was pretty proud of myself for handling the hospital visit on my own and having no problems.

The Christmas festiveness has started, of course. So far I’ve been to two Christmas events. Some friends and I had a gift exchange last week. We all bought gifts under a certain amount and then did that game where you pick presents based on the number you pick and then you can steal other people’s presents. It was fun and I ended up with some pretty useful gifts. This weekend I went to a Christmas party at a restaurant/bar which was the company party for the school company a lot of my friends work for. It was pretty fancy (white linen table cloths, I’m not used to that anymore.) I had two huge platefuls of amazing western food…Turkey, warm cranberry sauce, potatoes, French bread, vegetables, etc. It was so good!

I also went to a wedding this weekend! My co-worker, Esther, had her wedding banquet which was so much fun! She has actually been technically married for a bit and she and her husband, Scott, have a baby boy. But they had not had their wedding banquet yet. It was at a very nice banquet facility outside the city. I really didn’t know what to expect, but it was pretty much like any western wedding reception, minus the dancing, but with a few different traditions added in.

Tradition #1: Everyone gives the couple cash in red envelopes (red for good luck). There are people at the entrance taking the cash and marking in separate books (one for the bride’s guests and one for the groom’s guests) how much each guest gave. I thought that was a little bit tacky until I was told the reason behind it…that way when the bride and groom go to the weddings of their friends in the future they’re supposed to add on to that amount a little bit more. I like that idea! Too bad I most likely will not be getting married in Taiwan!

Tradition #2: I’m not sure if this is how everyone here does it, but for the opening the bride stood on a little stage in the back of the room while her husband sang a song to her at the front of the room. Halfway through the song he walked back to her and then they entered the room together. Then they did a toast with their parents at the front of the room. They didn’t have a wedding party, but later in the reception a couple of their friends gave speeches.

Tradition #3: Instead of the western tradition of tossing the bouquet, the bride gathers single friends (male and female) around her bouquet and each person grabs a ribbon attached to it. At one time everyone pulls at their ribbon and whosever ribbon remains attached is supposedly the next one to get married. That person turned out to be the toddler next to me who my friend was holding. It was cute because she gave a little message of good luck to the bride and groom in front of everyone.

Tradition #4: The bride changes dresses three, yes three!, times during the banquet. She wears one for the opening, one for the main part, and one for saying goodbye to the guests. Also, the brides friends traditionally get a box of cookies at the coupe’s engagement party. They did not have an engagement party, so the boxes of cookies were given out today. I got one and it’s really elaborate…I’ll be eating cookies for a while!

And of course the big thing was the food, ridiculous amounts of it! Fourteen different types of dishes and soups were brought to our table. They had everything from lintel soup, to shrimp, chicken, cod fish, other types of seafood, to different pastries and desserts. I was so full, I couldn’t eat everything I wanted but I attempted to at least try everything. So all in all my first Taiwanese wedding was such a fun experience! And as always, I have a lot of pictures posted from the wedding on my photo site in my “Around Taipei” album.

Charlie arrives next Thursday, Dec. 27. I can’t believe it’s almost here, I am so excited! I’m working on finalizing plans for our trip. My mom is coming for about two weeks at the beginning of February. I have just finalized plans for that trip. We’ll be going to Hong Kong for about five days during the time I have off for Chinese New Year. Well, that’s it for now. Merry (almost) Christmas!

80 degrees in December?!

You’d never know it was December in Taiwan, today at least. It’s nearly 80 degrees and sunny. I went on a nice run by the river park near my apartment. People were out biking, fishing and playing baseball. I’ve been thinking on and off about buying a bicycle. Recently I’ve been kind of off of the idea, but today makes me want to buy one again. Tonight I went to a barbecue with some friends. It was such a great evening for it! I am trying to get over a cold though because of the ridiculous weather. One day it will be 80 degrees and sunny and the next day it will be 60 degrees and rainy. So because of the variation in weather, probably not helped by the fact that I’m around little kids all the time, I’ve gotten a cold a couple of times already. And I never get sick at home, so it’s annoying!

We have a new roommate in the apartment as of last week. The guy who was living here moved to a different part of the city, and a girl, Kaitlyn, has moved in. She’s another American teacher, from California. So now we have all girls in the apartment…Liz from Kansas (teaching English and studying Chinese), Judy from the Dominican Republic (studying Chinese), Kaitlyn and I.

We got a Christmas tree for our living room. The Taiwanese go crazy for Christmas, so there are Christmas decorations in many stores. I even saw an entire store dedicated to Christmas downtown last weekend , complete with life-sized Santas and blow up decorations. Our tree cost about $4US. All the decorations are extremely tacky here. So we got the basic lights (they’re colored and blink) and Christmas balls. It’s not the classiest tree ever, but it makes it a big more like home and Christmas-like.

Charlie comes in just about three and a half weeks. I can’t wait! He’ll be here Dec. 27-Jan. 8. We are going to take a four day trip down the island. First we’ll go to Tarako Gorge in the central part of the island. It’s really beautiful and one of the most visited places in Taiwan. We’ll rent a car (which is super cheap) and just drive around, and probably do some hiking if the weather is nice. Then we’ll go down to a town at the southern tip of Taiwan called Kenting. It’s on the beach and another of Taiwan’s most popular destinations. I’m not expecting to be able to lay out on the beach, but it will be warmer than it is in the north. It’s actually a national park, so there’s a lot to see and do.

I started my language exchange this week. (I think I mentioned it before.) The girl I’m doing it with is a co-worker of a friend of mine. They work at Sony here in Taipei designing video games. Her English is good, she just wants to practice some conversation. She has a book with different conversation topics which we’ll go through, but we always have good conversation, so I don’t think thinking of things to talk about will be hard. I also told her I would try to find some articles on some of the newspaper sites I read (Washington Post, NY Times, etc) related to art, which she is interested in. So we can read an article and then discuss it when we meet. For my end, I just want to learn some basic phrases and simple conversation. I bought two basic Chinese books, so that way I can pick and choose some of the things I want to learn. Learning languages is not my forte, but I’d really like to be able to communicate better than I can right now! The other night I saw something in a store window and couldn’t find it in the store, so I pointed to it in the window and said “where” in Chinese, and that’s pretty much what my Chinese currently consists of (in addition to “hello,” “yes,” “thank you,” some numbers, and some terms in yoga class.) I'll let you all know how my Chinese is progressing! That's all for now!

Happy Thanksgiving!

My weekend was filled with Thanksgiving. Since we’ll all be working in the evening of actual Thanksgiving I celebrated with friends this weekend. It began with a trip to…where else? Costco. I was tasked with pie and wine given my very limited culinary abilities. So thank goodness for Costco Pumpkin Pie! It was my first trip there since I’ve been here (there are three in Taipei, and one not too far from my apartment). It’s just like home, from the one hour photo, to the free samples, to the made to order birthday cakes. For Thanksgiving dinner #1 on Saturday night dinner we had a group of about 10 of us at a friend’s apartment. We were actually able to order a pre-cooked turkey, and had pretty much everything you could ask for in a Thanksgiving dinner (stuffing, mashed potatoes, etc). And of course, pumpkin pie! We actually sat around a real table and ate. It was so much fun! I even have some leftovers which I will look forward to later in the week. Thanksgiving dinner #2 was Sunday night with some other friends and was also a lot of fun! So it was a whole weekend of good food and Thanksgiving.

In an effort to improve my Chinese a bit, I am starting a language exchange with a girl this week. She is a friend’s co-worker. She’s known English for about 15 years, so it’s pretty good, but she just wants to practice everyday conversation. I told her that I would like to learn some basics: how to ask for what I want in a store/restaurant, and be able to make some polite conversation with people. So we’ll meet one night a week for dinner and practice both languages. Language exchanges are very common here and I’ve been thinking about doing one for a while, but was always hesitant to just find someone online. So I am glad I found someone through a friend. I will definitely write later about how it goes and what I’m learning.

Last weekend I went to a friend’s going away party at KTV (karaoke). It was so much fun! There are several places throughout the city where you can go to do it. They’re all basically set up like hotels, so your group gets their own party room with room service, and your own karaoke setup. The Taiwanese are obsessed with karaoke, and it’s often how they spend their Friday and Saturday nights. It’s only $30US (total for the entire group) for the room for however long you want it!

Photos from Thanksgiving and KTV are on my photo site in my “Around Taipei” album. Happy Thanksgiving!

I’m turning Taiwanese, I think I’m turning Taiwanese, I really think so…

Ok, so if you don’t get the title, I just changed the words of The Vapors’ song titled “Turning Japanese.” The subjects of this post are yoga and acupuncture afterall, so I thought the lyrics were appropriate. I have just started taking yoga classes at a little gym/yoga studio in my neighborhood. Right now I have an introductory membership for 10 classes, but I’m pretty sure that I will continue it throughout my time here. It’s all in Chinese, of course. And I’m the only foreigner. I kind of get the feeling that they’ve never had a foreigner take classes there, ever! But that’s fine with me. They’re all nice and try to explain things the best way that they can with limited to no English speaking abilities. I didn’t want to go to one of the big gyms downtown because I wanted the experience to be in Chinese and with all Chinese people. So I’m really excited about it and I think it will be a good experience for me. They have basic classes and advanced classes. So far I’ve been to one basic and two advanced. The advanced is more my speed (I did take one semester of yoga in college.) But I am still no where near as flexible as the other women in the class! I did, however, do one crazy back bend that I never thought I could do in the last class! So I am going to try to go to the advanced class more often, but will probably also benefit from the basic class on the days I can’t make it to the advanced one. Classes are in the morning so it works perfectly with my late afternoon/evening work schedule. I will be going a few times a week. I have also been running some. Running in the streets is nearly impossible, so I have been going to Chiang Kai-Sheck Memorial which has a huge plaza and is two subway stops from my apartment. I have also been running at an area called Peace Park which is three subway stops from my house. It’s like a very miniature Central Park with ponds and fountains, places to sit and relax, playgrounds and some small temples. Running is a bit difficult with the awful air quality due to pollution, but I'm trying to keep up with it. Running for exercise is a fairly foreign concept here, especially for females (gain muscle? what?!), so you can imagine the stares I get as I run. As a Taiwanese co-worker told me last week: “Taiwanese girls get their exercise from shopping.” Enough said.

In other news, I got acupuncture for the first time ever last week. I went with a friend who speaks very good Chinese and gets acupuncture often. With the Taiwan health insurance card I have through work I paid the equivalent of $3US for acupuncture and a visit to the “chiropractor” at a modern medical facility. It was quite an experience. I didn’t go for any particular reason, just wanted to try it. I had four needles in my right shoulder and two in my upper neck. You sit there with the needles, under a heat lamp for about 20 minutes. (No privacy in medical facilities here, so I was in the front window, facing the street. So again, imagine the stares. A white girl getting acupuncture?!) It didn’t hurt at all and was actually a really cool experience. They say it’s supposed to relieve pain, but I didn’t really have too much pain other than tightness in my shoulder. So I’m not really certain about how it affected me, but I definitely want to go and try it again! Then saw the “chiropractor” who kept insisting on cracking my neck (by whipping my head to one side). I declined and he was mad and kept insisting, but I didn’t give in. (My friend translated through all of this, of course.) And he told me my back was very tight, asked me what time I went to bed and said that was too late, that if I went to bed earlier my back would be better. Anyway, he gave me a good shoulder massage which was painful, but I know it did some good. All the Chinese people were laughing at me because they knew I was in pain! The “chiropractor” kept telling me to “suck it up.”

Other random things…School is going well. The Halloween activities were fun. The office staff came to each class for “trick or treating” with the students. I added a bunch of pictures to my photo site under the new “School” album. I went to a really cool (and free!) art festival called the Open Air International Arts Festival which was held at Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall this past weekend. I saw an awesome acrobatics show on Sunday night. It was amazing! I am always adding to my “Around Taipei” album on my photo site, as well. There are some photos from the art festival on there, as well as some other stuff. So take a look! This weekend I’m going to have my first KTV (aka karaoke) experience in Taiwan. It’s a HUGE thing here. They have these super nice facilities where the lobby looks like you’re in a five star hotel. You rent out a room (with a stage, catwalk, etc) for your group. Should be an experience!

Finally, it's fall...a much needed update

It’s been way too long since I’ve written! Things have been busy. The weather is cooling off which is a very nice thing! I am no longer sweating all the time. The temperature has been in the lower 70’s during the day and the 60’s at night. You would think some of these people were in the Arctic because of how they dress though. Everywhere I see people in full winter clothing, winter coat and all. It’s pretty ridiculous. I think it’s not about them actually being cold, but having an excuse to wear different clothing.

Last weekend I went to a little town about one hour outside the city called Jiufen. It’s in the mountains and also right on the northeast coast. A long time ago it was a very small town with very few people, but when gold was discovered there in the late 1800s the population increased and by the 1930’s was known as “Little Shanghai.” For many years the town supplied gold to the Japanese empire. Now it’s a pretty touristy town with old teahouse and narrow streets and alleys. We were going to hike the main mountain in the town, Mount Jilong, but the weather was very rainy, so we decided against that. There’s a very long alleyway, Jishan Street, filled with shops, food stalls, and teahouses. It was so crowded due to the rain (because the street is somewhat enclosed). But the shops were really cool. We went to the Jiufen teahouse for traditional tea. The woman who served us was really nice and also explained how they make the tea, etc. The teahouse itself was really quaint and pretty and the courtyard of the teahouse had amazing views of the water. When we were doing in Jiufen we walked to the next town over, Jinguashi, which was about 2km down the road. It also has amazing views of the water. By the time we finally reached the town it was getting dark, so we didn’t get to see the Golden Waterfall. I really want to go back to both towns, however. The area was one of best places I’ve been to so far. Of course I posted photos and they’re in my album called “Jiufen & Jinguashi.”

Yesterday I went on a hike up the Tienmu Trail which is in the ritzy part of town, north of downtown. There are some teahouses at the top, so we had dinner at one of them. The place we ate at was so nice and had some fabulous views of the city. The food was also excellent. My photos didn’t come out too well because it was dark, but I’ve posted some in my “Around Taipei” album.

My school has decorated a lot for Halloween. And I get the vibe that dressing up is encouraged. Apparently teachers are already supposed to dress up at the end of this week since the kids don't all come to class on the actual day of Halloween. So I'm off to a costume shop with a co-worker friend tomorrow to try to find something. It's not really my cup of tea, but I don't want to be the anti-fun teacher and hopefully it can double as my costume for when I got out for Halloween on Saturday night! Pictures of Halloween at school to follow in the near future I'm sure. In the meantime take a look at the pictures I've added.

Happy Double Tenth Day!

October 10 (10/10) is Taiwan’s National Day. So I had yet another day off yesterday. We got last Saturday off, too, for another typhoon (the other typhoons have been kind of lame, but this one was really bad). Anyway, everyone has the day off on 10/10 and they celebrate it kind of like our July 4 with fireworks, etc. Some military planes have been flying over our apartment in the past few weeks (waking me up at 7am, I might add) practicing for the air show. So yesterday at 10am they all flew over. I was only able to get one okay photo. And last night as I was walking through the city we saw the fireworks show start.

For the day off some friends and I went to a town half an hour south of the city, Yingge (pronounced Inga), which is famous for ceramics. We also visited the next town over, Sansia, famous for the Tzushr temple. Yingge has a really nice and very modern ceramics museum. In fact, the ceramics festival is going on this month in the town so that was interesting to see, as well. The museum had some amazing pieces and was really interesting to walk through (and luckily all the information was in English, too.) Other than the museum we just did a lot of walking around the town. It has stores and stores and stores of ceramics. The best place was Yingge Old Street ,which despite it’s name was pretty modern and clean. That’s where most of the ceramics stores were. I got a set of beautiful plates for $9US!! (I keep saying I’m going to be SO cheap when I get back to the US!) I also bought a couple of really pretty vases for $3US each. My roommate got a beautiful tea set for just $18US. I think I am going to have to make it back there before my year is over!

When we (finally) found a taxi in Yingge we went over to Sansia. The Lonely Planet guide told us that if you visit just one temple in all of Taiwan, you should visit the Tzushr temple. At first glance we weren’t too impressed. The outside is kind of lame (not so colorful, maybe it’s just dirty, I don’t know) and the inside was much like Longshan Temple here in the city, except Longshan is bigger and brighter. So we were trying to figure out why the LP guide had steered us in that direction. (For my non-world traveling friends: The Lonely Planet guidebooks are, hands down, the best guidebooks ever and I buy one for every place I visit and they’ve never done me wrong.) We soon realized the reason they make such a big deal about it is for all of the traditional and very intricate carving and relief. It was amazing! All of the pillars have really beautiful carvings of birds, flowers, etc. The temple was originally built in 1769 and has been rebuilt three times. The last time was under the supervision of Professor Li Mei-shu, a Western-trained painter. You can see this and everything I’ve mentioned in this post on my photo site, of course!

We had another earthquake today at 11am. It was 5.5 on the scale and it’s center was near Taipei. I was sitting at my computer and definitely felt it! No damage or anything though so not too big of a deal, although there were some news reports about it. (I never thought I’d say an earthquake wasn’t a big deal!) So for those who are keeping track, it’s 3 typhoons and 2 earthquakes so far. Can’t believe it’s been 2 months already. Time is flying by! I keep forgetting to mention this in my posts but I’m learning a very tiny bit more Chinese. I now know how to count to 10, ask how much something costs, ask where something is, and some other really random words here and there. And it’s really exciting when someone actually understands me!

Finally, some fresh air! Wulai & Fulong Beach

Life has been pretty eventful since the last time I wrote. I've taken two trips completely out of the Taipei! As I said, I had two days off for Moon Festival. On Tuesday I went to Wulai, a mountain village in northern Taiwan, and the home of Atayal tribespeople. To get there we took a bus from the southernmost MRT station in the city. The bus ride was crazy 40 mins. traveling up curvy, mountain roads. On the way up we didn't get seats so that was a little rough on my motion sickness issues! When we got there we had some of the best Chinese food I've had here so far (fish, beef, etc). Then we wandered around the small village (which was really just one road of little shops.) For the remainder of the day we ventured into the mountains to see the amazing scenery. First, we saw Wulai Falls, an 80 meter waterfall. There's a cable car which takes you over the falls for the view but we opted out of that. It was gorgeous enough from the viewing area across the river. Then we ventured up into the mountains a bit more to the Neidong National Forest. We saw another amazing waterfall with multiple levels. We hiked up to the viewing areas from each of the levels. And then we began a hike which was a bit unnerving at times, especially when the path was about 1 foot across the ground was wet and quite slippery! It was interesting to see all of the elderly Taiwanese hiking the mountain just like we were. They're in such good shape; it's incredible! Anyway, the views were amazing and all the photos are up on my site.

I also had Saturday off, so my roommates, Liz and Judy, and I went camping on Fulong Beach (NE of Taipei.) We joined some former soccer teammates of Liz (all British guys and their wives and girlfriends), so it was a fun time! We took the train from Taipei to Fulong Beach which takes about 1 hour. We camped at the Longmen campground a short hike from the beach. The campground was so nice, I couldn't believe it! Camping is very popular with the Taiwanese, and this facility was really good. There were some families there, but also two big groups of kids (a group of both boys and girls, and also a group of Taiwanese Girl Scouts!) Admission to the campground is about $1.50 US and renting a tent is about $24 US (and when you divide that up between people it gets pretty cheap!) Each large camping plot comes with a wooden platform for pitching your tent. So it's a pretty good deal!

The area around Fulong Beach is beautiful. I love the look of the beach and mountains together, it's so dramatic looking. The water was cold but I got in. After all, it was my first time in the Pacific Ocean! The first night we were there we went to the more public beach area (where you have to pay to swim!) We didn't swim but took a bunch of pictures and hung out for a while. One interesting thing about the beaches here are that the Taiwanese don't wear bathing suits. They're really conscious of their skin (hence carrying their umbrellas on sunny days.) So when they come to "swim" at the beach (but really just wade in the water), they wear shorts and t-shirts. It's so strange! I had talked to some other westerners a few weeks ago who said when they'd been at the beach the Taiwanese actually came up to take pictures of them because they were wearing bikinis. Luckily the next morning when we actually wanted to get in the water we'd found out where the more private beach was, so there was no one around! The water was so clear and clean, it was awesome! One cool thing was the suspension bridge that connected the campground and the beach. It was built in 1993 and resembles the San Francisco Bridge, and you can definitely feel it moving as you walk across! We had a fire on the beach at night which was fun. The moon was almost full so it lit everything up so beautifully! It was such a fun trip and I hope to do more camping while I'm here. See my photo site for all the photos!

Happy Moon Festival!

Moon Festival, also known as Mid-Autumn Festival, falls on Sept. 25, so I have Tuesday off of work! I also have Saturday off because the kids have to make up their day of regular school on Saturday. From asking some people and researching it on the internet I've learned that there are several different versions of the myth behind the holiday, but basically the holiday celebrates abundance and family. There are so many versions, I can't even begin to list them here! Anyway, it's the second most important holiday here (next to Chinese New Year). Everyone gets the day off and families gather outside to "bbq" and look at the moon. Another big part of the holiday is the mooncakes, a traditional Chinese pastry which is only available around Moon Festival. I tried some at work and so far my favorites are the ones filled with red bean paste. I know it sounds weird, but it's good!

All is well in Taiwan. I can't believe it's just one week from October! It's going by so fast already. Teaching is good. We're getting another foreign teacher, an American girl, this week. I met her briefly on Friday. I'm glad that I won't be the only western female around the school now. I broke my streak of having no students cry in my classes. I had one student cry on Thursday because she couldn't answer a question and one four year old cry in the little kids class on Friday for no apparent reason. I try not to take it personally. In both cases the TAs pretty much deal with the situation but it's annoying because, especially in the little kids class, the other students get so distracted. In talking to other teachers and my roommates I think it's a pretty common thing to have students cry. Sometimes, though, I just want to be like "grow a backbone, kid!" I had one very interesting experience while teaching my advanced class on Saturday morning. Right now they're learning about nationalities (ie, so-and-so is from Greece, he is Greek, he speaks Greek.) So I was showing them where some of the places on their vocabulary lists were located on a map (U.S., Argentina, Brazil, Greece, Spain, Hungary, etc.) Well first I showed them where Taiwan was located and they first words out of their mouths were "So small! So small!" It really seemed as if they'd never seen Taiwan on a map before and that they had no knowledge of just how small it is. And this was my advanced class (mostly 12-14 year olds.) I couldn't believe it!

This past week was my birthday. I went out with friends to a bar downtown which was so much fun! Last night I had my first Taiwan club experience which was interesting. I went to Luxy, a very upscale club downtown. It was a lot of fun, too. The most amusing part of the night was the ridiculously dressed Taiwanese dancers who were on stage some of the time! They were wearing these huge, furry boot-like things! Many people wear boots here...I just don't understand it because it's so hot!

I've done a couple more touristy things since I last wrote. I visited Longshan Temple which is in the city. It was so cool! The colors are very vibrant and it was full of people praying, making offerings, and burning fires and incense. I also went to the "tourist" night market/Snake Alley. It's a huge night market and also a place where people go to eat snake for dinner. (I got that whole thing out of my system last summer in Vietnam when we had our feast of cobra, turtle, etc!) This reminds me, I'm not really sure that I've explained the whole night market concept. There are huge markets throughout the city with food stalls (and other products: clothing, shoes, etc). They open up at night and are filled with people (every single night of the week.) There's one about a 7 min walk from my apt. that I go to a couple of times a week. They have every kind of Chinese food you could want and also amazing fresh fruit juices. (I especially like the mango juice and the watermelon juice...just about $1 US!) I typically eat a beef and vegetable dish at one of the stalls which is about $3 US. The one by my apt. is huge to me but it's not even as big as some others I've been to in the city! It's pretty much what people do at night. I was joking with one of my roommates the other night about where Taiwanese go on dates. I said "What do you do? Go to the night market?!" (I was completely joking.) But he said that is what they do!

In other news...my first visitor is coming! Charlie just bought his plane tickets a few days ago and will be here December 27-January 8. We'll spend some time in Taipei, but will also travel around Taiwan for a few days. Well, that's it for now. I have posted a lot of new pictures on my photo site (photos of everything I talked about in this post, plus photos of my neighborhood!) So take a look!

Just another weekend in Taipei

Well I had another eventful weekend in Taipei. I went to my school company's "Summer Appreciation Party" at the Ambassador Hotel (a really, really nice hotel downtown). It was quite an interesting experience especially because I had no idea what to expect! Luckily I was dressed appropriately even though all I was told by my Chinese co-workers was was "no jeans" and that some of the girls there will be dressed like "hoochie mamas." All of the Taiwanese completely overdress, it was kind of funny to see. A party on Sunday afternoon and many of them look like they're going to a formal evening event (and the younger ones look like they're about to go out to a club). And they take pictures obsessively which is also kind of ridiculous! (I've added some pictures from the party to my photo site.) The food was awesome (mostly western, thank goodness) and the entertainment was okay. People from the different schools around the city performed. I had no idea our company had a branch that teaches Japanese, but those women did a traditional Japanese song and dance. And there were some singers and some other random stuff. But our table was towards the back so no one was really paying attention to what was going on anyway, all they cared about was socializing!

The other adventure of my weekend was riding the Maokong Gondola for the first time. It's a new cable car system that runs up some mountains in the outskirts of the city, near the Taipei Zoo. It just opened on July 4th of this year, so they're still working out all the "kinks." I knew this before I went (apparently it's been known to stop for 2 hours, lose A/C, etc), but I wanted to go anyway. So my roommate and I went with a group of teachers at night. Going at night for the first time was probably a good way to do it because I'm not so good with heights. The most amusing part of the ride was this
incident where our door didn't close after we went through one of the stops on the way up. Luckily we didn't get too far from the stop before they noticed what had happened but we were suspended there with a completely open door for quite a few minutes while they figured out what to do. It was especially amusing when the one worker who knew a bit of English yelled to us "There's a problem! Your door didn't close!" We thinking to ourselves "Seriously? we hadn't noticed." Well, after the workers ran around freaking out for a few minutes and even pulled the emergency button, they were eventually able to "rewind" us back to the stop we'd just passed. They whole thing was quite funny and we were laughing hysterically (probably both out of amusement and nervousness). Well, they weren't able to close our door, so we waited about 15 minutes for an empty car to come along. The most exciting part of that wait, besides all of the Taiwanese looking at us silly westerners with complete confusion, was when our broken car circled back down and a man jumped on top and tried to fix it as it was zooming through the station. Finally we got on another car and made it to the top! At the very highest point there are a bunch of traditional tea houses, so we had tea and dinner up there on the rooftop of one. It was really cool and the food was good (chicken, shrimp, squid, etc). The ride down was a lot less eventful. I can wait to go during the day and take some awesome pictures of the city!

I'm really thinking it's a good thing that I have good insurance...I've been here just barely one month and already I've survived a typhoon, an earthquake, and this gondola "incident." I think it's all downhill from here, right? :)

In other news, teaching is continuing to go well. It's definitely keeping me busy during the week! To all those who consider someone going to teach abroad for a year as "taking a year off," that's certainly not the case here! Yes, I teach 4 hours a day, but the lesson planning and grading makes for many additional hours! Teaching is definitely not something I would consider doing at home, but it's such a good experience here.

Well, don't forget to take a look at my newest photos. Enjoy!

And now an earthquake

A typhoon I can handle, an earthquake I can't, but I did survive a magnitude 6.5 one very early this morning. (See this article)

I was awake, sitting on my bed, and felt the bed start to shake. I honestly thought someone was under my bed so I jumped up and when I was still moving I freaked out a bit, walked out to the living room and everything was moving in there, too. And I could see and feel the building itself swaying. Oh man...No one ever bothered to tell me this is apparently a fairly common occurrence here. Taiwan has fairly regular earthquakes because it's on top of the area where two tectonic plates meet. (Thanks, Mom & Dad, for mentioning that little piece of information...) My friend who lives across town told me it actually woke her up! I'm glad I was awake already or that would have been 100x worse! I guess I better get used to it.

My first day trip out!

I finally have a photo site up:
http://picasaweb.google.com/annefloyd

This weekend I went up to Danshui which is a town along the water at the far north of Taiwan (where the Danshui River meets the Taiwan Straight which separates Taiwan from China.) It used to be a major fishing town, but fishing isn't so big there now. People from Taipei flock there on the weekends for it's Ocean City-like entertainment. (It's a 40 min ride from the city by MRT.) It has a boardwalk and everything that goes with it: arcade games with prizes, ice cream cones, cotton candy, caricature artists, junky trinket stores, and the list goes on and on. It was really nice to get out of the city finally (not that the air was too refreshing, of course, due to pollution).

After some walking around the boardwalk and town (we also saw Fuyou Temple, the oldest in the town) we took the across the river to another town called Bali. It was much of the same type of environment over there, but Bali actually had a little "beach" area (see my photos). The water is so dirty that it was kind of sad to see the kids playing near (and a few actually in) the water. The big thing to do in that town was to rent bikes and ride around, although we couldn't quite figure out why anyone would enjoy that because it was just so crowded. There were some pretty views though, especially of the emerald volcano Kuanyinshan which was the backdrop of the town. We decided to take a short taxi ride over to Bali's very new and modern Shihsanhang Museum of Archaeology. It was just built in 2003 and was much more sophisticated than I was expecting. It houses the remains of the Shihsanhang culture which is an extinct tribe of aboriginals who lived in Bali 500-1800 years ago. There was quite a bit of ironwork and pottery to look at. The building itself was really interestingly constructed. It's supposed to look like a whale coming up out of the water, something this tribe of people would have seen back then living along the water. The building also had a couple of really cool views of the surrounding areas. And the sunset was really gorgeous when we were taking the ferry back from Bali to Danshui. I took a bunch of photos today and have uploaded them to my album (listed above). I also put some pictures of my apartment up and promise some more of my neighborhood later this week.

Everything else is going pretty well. I now know how to say the following in Chinese: hello, thank you, mango and dumpling. My roommate is starting language classes tomorrow, so hopefully she can help me with some new phrases! It's still hard adjusting to living in a completely foreign place, and being completely in the minority. My neighborhood has pretty much no other westerners. So except for my roommates and the few other foreign teachers at my school I see no other westerners during the week. It's been nice to get together with other teachers on the weekends! One funny thing about teaching in such an environment is when I introduce new vocabulary to my students and then check for their understanding. Sometimes (even though they're not supposed to speak any Chinese in class at all) they will try to compare the word to it's equivalent in Chinese, so they actually start speaking Chinese to me. I just say "English, English" and they stop, but I'm amused by the fact that they think I speak Chinese. I guess it makes sense, everyone else they know speaks it, so why wouldn't I? Another teacher who teaches in a town just east of the city was telling me this weekend that she was working with some advanced students in class and one of their workbook questions was something like "describe the first time you saw a foreigner." These students said they hadn't EVER seen a foreigner until they came to the school to learn English. I thought that was really interesting.

Someone told me about this website this weekend: www.Engrish.com. It's mistakes that appear in Asian (mostly Japanese) advertising and products. I've only looked at it a little bit, but it's really amusing.

My first (typhoon free) weekend

My first classes went well on Thursday evening. I still have a lot to learn and figure out about teaching, but that will come with more time and experience!

I am exhausted after a great weekend of getting out to see the city! Friday I observed the Y class at school (3-4 year olds who were on their 9th day of learning English). They're SO cute and seem to be learning very quickly. That class is only one hour and nice because they have no hw or quizzes I have to grade! Friday night I met up with a girl I met at my temporary apartment (another teacher with my company). She was having drinks with people from the program she came over with at a (very westernized) bar :) So through that I met a bunch of other teachers and some people I will definitely keep in touch with! Saturday I observed one of the more advanced classes at school which wasn't too exciting, but it was good to see. Saturday afternoon I went on a hike up a mountain (about a 20 min motorbike ride away from our school) with two other teachers. It's funny here because it's just city, then mountains (no suburbs). So we pretty much walked up stairs the entire way to the top. AH! It reminded me how out of shape I am, but I tried to not look like too much of a wimp. There were a few temples at the top and AMAZING views of the city. I was kicking myself for not having brought my camera! But I think they go every week, so I will go again. After the hike one of the guys I went with took me to the night market by my apartment to get some real Chinese food. He actually speaks Chinese so he ordered me some really good food. Later that evening I met up with my roommate and some of her teacher friends at a Japanese BBQ place--you cook your own food in front of you. Too bad I'd already eaten dinner, I will have to go back and try it sometime.

Sunday I met up with a Taiwanese girl (a friend of a friend). She has spent a total of about 5 years in the US so her English is perfect, literally no accent, and she was an excellent guide around the city for the day. We ate brunch at Taipei 101 (currently the tallest building in the world). Then went to the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and the Sun Yat-sen Memorial. Sun Yat-sen is considered the "founder of modern China" and Chiang Kai-shek assumed the leadership after Sun Yat-sen died. He went on to lead the national government of the Republic of China from 1928 to 1975. Chiang Kai-shek's Memorial was under some construction so I will have to go back when that is over. We then went to afternoon tea at the SOGO department store (a very expensive store in downtown). I had the best tea I've EVER tasted there (Calif. Fruit Tea--amazing.) After that I met my friends, an American couple, for a real Chinese dinner. It was SO good. Whoever knew mango and shrimp (two of my favorite foods) could be mixed together to be an awesome dinner dish? So I'm definitely making up for not having eaten much Chinese last week (Okay, Dad?!)

I begin an almost full schedule of teaching this week. Tomorrow evening I have two classes. Well, I need to get some sleep after this busy weekend! Below are a few pictures from my sightseeing.


Taipei 101


Sun Yet-Sen Memorial


Shirley & I at Sun-Yet Sen Memorial


Changing of the guard at Sun-Yet Sen Memorial


Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall

Settling in...

I just moved into my new apartment yesterday and things are going pretty well. I begin my teaching tomorrow, so I am pretty nervous for that but I have the lesson plans all ready to go! I'll be teaching 23 hours a week (so 23 classroom hours) for 12 different classes. Sounds like a lot, but that seems to be the norm around here and I think once I get the hang of it it shouldn't be too bad. Our school structures it so that kids come once a week with the foreign teachers (ie: me) and once a week with the Chinese teachers. I've observed 3 classes now of all different ages and English levels. On Monday night I observed a class I will be taking over this coming Monday. They are 7-9 years old and, at that point, had been learning English for about 10 days. Their current teacher had them all come up and introduce themselves to me; they're so cute! Pretty much all they could say was "Hi, my name is..." and I said nice to meet you, but I'm not even sure they understood what that meant. They seem to be catching on pretty fast and are very enthusiastic. Luckily for that class (as well as many of the lower levels I'll be teaching) there is a Chinese teacher's assistant in the classroom with me, so I will be able to get them to translate, if needed. I'll be working mostly from about 5-9 pm during the week and then Saturday mornings.

So one funny story I was too embarrassed to write about and only told a few choice people last week was the tale of my first meeting with my academic director at my school. Well, I went into the little store next to school grab a bottle of cold water before I met with her last Friday. I was wondering why the water wasn't in the fridges being kept cold like in all other stores, but I was in a rush so I didn't think about it, and assumed it was water because it was in a plastic deer park-like bottle and stacked pretty high like water would be in a U.S. store. Anyway, I didn't take a sip until a break in the conversation with my AD and with one wiff I knew this was NOT water...it was rice wine. (I think I can hear you laughing from all the way across the Pacific.) Anyway, I said to her "This is rice wine, isn't it? Not water." (I'd tasted it in Vietnam, so I knew just what it was!) Luckily she just laughed at/with me and I handed it right to her to throw away. And I was trying SO hard not to look like them dumb American :(

In other news...I had my first motorbike ride on Monday. My landlord picked me up from the MRT station to go get my keys made, and I just assumed when she said she was driving that she was driving a car. I have no idea why I thought that because everyone drives scooters here! So that was a fun surprise! Today I learned how to take out the trash in my neighborhood. The trash truck comes 6 days a week at 1 and 7 pm. They circle around the block and play songs just like the ice cream truck which is very amusing, and everyone comes out to throw their trash in the truck. My roommate and I went out to it today and almost missed it so we had to practically run it down to get our bags in. Luckily I had him with me or I would have had NO idea what to do! I am currently waiting out a torrential downpour and thunderstorm in order to walk to the western style grocery store about 10 min away. I'm really excited for that! (Especially excited because today when I opened what I thought was cereal that I'd gotten the other day...it was "oatmeal" that my roommate and I are guessing I have to put in hot water and actually cook.)...Me cook? I don't think so!

My apartment is great and I was SOO lucky to find a place so near my school (literally about a 4 min. walk). Many teachers I've met travel far to their schools (like 30 min to 1 hour) on the MRT or bus. It's four bedrooms, mine is right off the kitchen. The building's front door opens to a small alley, and just up the alley people are cooking food for sale in little stalls all day long. So it's a very authentic Taiwanese neighborhood without a lot of other Westerners around it seems. We have washer and dryer (a dryer is not a guarantee in Taipei), wireless internet, etc. I share a bathroom with 2 of the others. The bathroom has no tub, it's just a shower head with the floor (Shannon, Colleen,& Mark--think our hotel in Siem Reap). The water drains easily and it's not really a problem. My roommates are Liz (from Kansas,just graduated from Rice Univ, and is deferring Med school at Tulane for one year to teach here) and James (from Minnesota, also a teacher). The other guy is leaving in a few days, and I think a girl from the Dominican Republic is going to be moving in. She is studying Chinese full time. I met her the other night and she seems just as nice as the others. (Maybe I can practice some Spanish again?) So I really am happy with this apartment. I got some bedding at Ikea (I even have a double bed for the first time ever!) I was able to buy the ikea bed, lamp and mini fridge from the previous resident for VERY cheap--just under $100. It also has a dresser, bookshelf, desk and nightstand. I will post some pictures soon (or more like have Charlie post them because I am technically inept at such things). Tonight I'm off to a new comedy club with Liz, so that should be interesting! I'll try to post this weekend to let you all know how my classes have gone!

An Update: I made it to the western style grocery store. I've never been so excited to see a regular grocery store! Of course, everything was still Chinese style and the packaging was in Chinese, but they had some things I recognized like bread, cranberry juice, & pasta! Also, a couple of random things I forgot to mention in my past posts: 1. an old man in an MRT station the other night motioned w/ his phone that he wanted to take a picture of me with it. I shook my head NO. Awkward! It wouldn't surprise me in a far out place, but in a city like this it did surprise me. I see maybe one to two other westerners around per day, but still. And 2. When I was getting my cell phone set up I had the English speaking customer service guy translate the contract I was signing into English. Most of it was very simple and straightforward. It was funny, though, when he came to the part about it being illegal to call sex lines. I didn't understand what he said at first, so I asked him to explain further. He said "You know, like when you call a number to get a friend." Oh man...I really had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing. I'm probably not doing the story justice, but it was quite funny at the time. Ok, well I think that's it for now!

Greetings from Taiwan

What an interesting 4 days it has been! First and foremost, I've already survived my first typhoon! Typhoon Sepat passed through yesterday (the worst one in years apparently), and I was stuck inside all day. The worst of it was not seen in Taipei (where I am), but some areas did get gusts of up to 120 m.p.h. I was only freaked out a couple of times when some large gusts were coming through and I could hear things flying & banging in the street below. I went to the school I'm teaching at for the first time Friday to meet my Academic Director and work on some lesson plans with her. I was supposed to observe 2 classes that evening, but they closed the school down early because of the weather. So I'll go back on Monday evening to observe. It seems as if I cannot make any big move from home without a huge storm coming through! (My R-MCers will remember Hurricane Isabel during our first week of school freshman year and having to go home for a week!) I was recounting this to my Taiwanese apartmentmate yesterday and she said "This seems to be a tradition with you. You're not going to France next month, are you?" (She's going there to study French.) I don't see her that much, but she has been very friendly and helpful to me with maps, advice, etc. There's another new English teacher coming to stay tomorrow, as well.

I am in a temporary place right now through my school company, and will be moving out in about a week to a great apartment I found on Friday right near my school! (4 min. walk to school, 1 min walk to MRT--their subway.) I am very excited about it. I'll have 3 apartmentmates (1 girl and 2 guys.) I have only met the girl (another American English teacher), but I believe the two guys are teachers, as well.

Getting around has been fairly easy so far even though I know no Mandarin. I've taken taxis a bunch, but finally ventured on to the MRT Friday without any incident. It's very easy and clean. Way nicer than the D.C. metro! I am a little surprised, however, at how hard it is to find people who speak even a little bit of English. It doesn't really bother me though, I've been able to get everything I need and find my way around (with some help from my Instant Chinese book---thank you, Scott Frantz!)

As far as the teaching goes, I will have classes in the late afternoon & evenings. The kids go to regular school and then come to us later in the day. I am not teaching preschool as I was previously told might be the case (yay to that!) I'll be teaching various ages from about 7 through teenagers. I have more training this week, and teach my first class on Thursday night. The teaching seems to be very straightforward and very much "by the book." There is a set formula of warm up, exercises, games, and review for all classes at my school, so that makes it fairly easy for me to plan! It is my responsibility to come up with activities and games to enhance the learning. (So to all my teacher friends back home who have offered, I may be calling on you for some ideas!)

In other news, I got a cell phone set up all by myself which I was very proud of. It's only .16/min to the U.S. so don't be suprised if you hear from me on birthdays & holidays! I've been using skype a lot, too. So if you have that and I don't have your username, let me know! In terms of food...I've been going to the night markets some. The fresh fruit is great, and they also make you fresh squeezed juice which is amazing! I am not crazy about Chinese food these days (I'm more into Thai and sushi), so I haven't eaten too much of it yet. I attempted to get some chicken from the market on Friday before the storm, but then I got scared of the way it looked and threw it away. Once I get into the apt. I will (maybe) start some "cooking." Today I am excited to venture out to the Dunkin' Doughnuts I found on Friday!

Well, that's it for now. I will try to post fairly often! Please email me, too. I want to hear from all of you!