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!
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Sunday, September 23, 2007
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!
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!
Monday, September 10, 2007
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!
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!
Friday, September 7, 2007
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.
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.
Sunday, September 2, 2007
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.
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.
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