10/10 in Wulai

This is going to be a long post, I have a lot to say.  Last week was amazing!  First of all I've been contemplating about what I want to do after this year in Taiwan.  I am not sure yet, but I've been thinking about either working in Russia or the US.  I've thought about working as a tour guide and have sent e-mails to a couple companies.  Basically, I'd be a tour guide and lead a group around Russia for 3 weeks at a time.  I think that would be a lot of fun.  I've also thought about maybe trying to work for GE, because they have offices everywhere, even in Ashgabad, Turkmenistan.  Who knows where I'll be next year.  Last Thursday, while I was teaching my little kids, I kept thinking about working in Central Asia and Russia for some reason.  I don't what it was all about.  I was in the middle of teaching, and these thoughts of working there just came into my head.  I thought it was weird.  This week, I had my TH5 class give their speeches.  This was the first round and my CT and I picked a couple of students to go to the next round.  Some of them were pretty good, others not so good.  One girl made up her speech right on the spot, I was very impressed with that.  Their speeches were about their pet/s.  I told them that if they didn't have a pet or if they didn't like their pet, they could make one up.  I said it could be anything that they want.  Even a T-rex.  So there were some cool pets.  I helped them write their speeches by giving a sentence, but they would have to fill in the blanks.  It went like this:  I have a __ his/her name is ___.  He/She is ____(color).  My pet likes to _____.  My pet likes to eat ___ (here I even said that they could put in Teacher David, the kids loved it).  I like it when my pet ____.  I don't like it when my pet ____ (here I offered poops in the house and snores loud).  So again some of these pets turned out to be really good.  A couple students said that their pets did their homework for them or cooked cookies for them.  It was really neat!

Anyways so last weekend, Jennifer and I along with some friends from work: Andrew and his roomate Andrew, Graeme and his roomate Andrew, and Francesca all went to Wulai.  They went on scooters, however, Jennifer and I didn't have access to any scooters, we went by way of public transportation to Wulai, a small town about 1,5 hours north of Taipei by public transportation.  After we arrived, we had our friends Graeme and Andrew Putt come pick us up on their scooters.  

As a side note, Graeme and his roommate Andrew are from Cape Town, South Africa.   Andrew Putt and his roommate Andrew are from Colorado.  Francesca is from California.

The scooter ride from Wulai to the resort that we stayed at was unbelievable, but first we had to stop at a convenience store to buy some alcohol and food, cause we were hungry.  My friend Graeme bought some chicken butt, which is actually chicken butt.  I tried some, not that bad.  It tasted like chicken but it was definitely not the same, a lot more fat and a lot chewier.  Not sure which butt cheek it was, might've been the left.  But I would prefer chicken heart over chicken butt any day.

The scooter ride was amazing!  It was so beautiful!  For those of you who don't know, Taiwan is mountainous, tropical and very green.  I saw some of the most beautiful scenery that I've ever seen since I've been in Taiwan.  We drove by a waterfall that is over 80 meters high and we were constantly going through tunnels and turning corners.  It was amazing!

After we arrived at the resort, called Da Nan Resort.  We payed 900NT to get in for the weekend where we had to opportunity to listen to live music for three days, a bar open 24 hours a day, and a BBQ.  However, as most people would think, the food and drinks were pretty pricy.  We slept in tents, which we bought at Carrefour!  It was supposed to fit three people, but it barely fit two!  There were people from all over, but mostly the States, Australia, Canada and South Africa.  The nights were crazy with four pools, one of which was a hot tub.  We found out that the only food that they were offering were hamburgers and hotdogs.  This is for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  As one could imagine, I had my fill of hamburgers for the weekend and probably for the last couple months.   That night we all went crazy, going around talking to people from different places, I talked to this one guy from the states who worked in the Peace Corps for two years in Armenia and loved every minute of it.  I later talked to a Canadian for a long time about hockey, mostly about the Pittsburgh Penguins.  He was telling me that this isn't their year.  We'll see, I was very dissappointed to hear him say that, because he is also a Penguins fan.  I tried to fool some Australian girls into thinking that I was from Russia, but for some reason they were not fooled.  They didn't think it sounded very authentic.  Whatever.  I met a Norwegian, woman from France who was here with her Irish boyfriend.  It was a pretty good night, I chatted it up with my boys for a long time about a lot of different things.  I ended up going to bed around 3ish, and I quickly fell asleep on the concrete floor.  Let me add that it was not a very good sleep, but it was sleep nonetheless.

Day 2

I get up at 7:30 to pee, when who do I see, my friend Andrew Putt also up, he tells me that he is going to wake everyone up.  Thinking that it was a good idea, I say sure.  After relieving myself, I think, no this would not be a good idea.  I am crazy tired.  I return and tell Andrew, "Dude, I'm going back to sleep."  I wake up later in the day around 11ish, and everyone else is also up.  We talked about the previous night and what the plans are for the day.  After hearing that there was going to be a tequila volleyball tournament, we all became very excited, even though most of us are hungover from the day before.  We arrive at the pool and watch with curiosity as two people make a volleyball net out of some rope and a metal fence of some sort.  We didn't stay to watch because the water looked very cold and it was very warm.  Probably the coldest it has been since I've arrived in Taiwan, because I was wearing a sweatshirt.  Graeme was telling us that the French teacher, Guillaume, from our school lives around Wulai.  We try calling him, but he doesn't pick up.  So we hop onto our scooters and drive into Wulai.  Let me tell you, Wulai was a lot of fun.

Wulai is not big at all, but we walked up and down the main strip and saw tons of people selling food, there were games that we could play.  A couple of my friends and I played a game where we shoot balloons with an airsoft pistol.  I won a Chinese made stress ball, let me say that the stress ball is awful, doesn't relieve stress at all.  I've probably already been poisoned by it.  Anyways, we ate some Taiwanese sausages, which were really tasty because they allowed you to brush on some of their grilling sauce.  Very good.  We also ate some fruit, I think it was guava that was coated with some brown sugar.  Man that was very tasty.  After finally getting a hold of our friend Guillaume, we were able to meet up.  We realized why we weren't able to get a hold of him after we heard that he went to bed at 9:30 am.

He took us to some hotsprings right across the river.  It was so crazy.  Here we are, a bunch of white folks going to the local hotsprings.  We walk in and everyone looks at us, let me say that I felt really out of place.  But, everyone was very friendly.  They kept trying to talk to us, and Jennifer was there so she could tell us what everyone was saying.  We quickly changed, and went to the showers where we dumped old laundry detergent buckets over our heads with hot water.  That was the best part, Graeme, Putt and I were having so much fun with pouring water over ourselves that we forgot about everyone else.  We went back to them and they were already in the hotsprings.  There were two different pools, one was very hot and the other was maybe luke warm.  I could not stay in the hot one for very long, but then moving to the other one made me feel cold.  Then this older fat guy with missing teeth tells us to go into the river.  So Putt pretends like he is going to jump off a 20ft cliff, and the fat guy is telling him to go, you'll be ok.  But Putt declines and says no you go first.  So we all ended up jumping off this 20ft rock into a freezing cold river that had a pretty fast current.  It was a lot of fun!

For dinner that night, Guillaume took us to a restaurant where you can order a whole chicken, except for the inards.  they serve you a whole chicken, with its head and feet still attached.  Then you wear gardening gloves to tear apart the chicken.  It was pretty good.  After dinner, Guillaume invited us to his house where we listened to some music and drank some coffee because some of us were very tired.  Guillaume's house was very cool and big and he only pays $7,000NT/month for it!!  That's a steal!  Guilaume being the hospitable guy that he is drove some of us back to the resort and dropped us off.  But that wasn't the last we saw of him.  He proceeded to drive into town, hit the cash machine and returned.  That was an even crazier night.  At one point we were all walking from the hot tub to our tents when we see a Jagermeister truck with some Jager representatives standing around.  We ask them for a shot of Jager, and they leave and the Jager girl comes up and gives us shots.  As she left, I quickly asked her if I could get a Jagershirt and she said, "No, this is mine," So I looked at her hat and quickly asked, "How about a hat?" and she said "Okay."  All of my friends and I were completely surprised.  It was sooooo awesome!!!  So naturally, I wore it for the rest of the night, even in the hot tub.  That night, I was talking to South African Andrew for a very long time.  We were talking mostly about South Africa because I wanted to learn about it.  There were a couple times when this annoying girl took my hat from me, but I quickly took it back and told her to go away.  It wasn't Jennifer, she was already asleep because she was suffering from a cold.  I later found myself talking to a black dude from the states, I think Detroit maybe, and an Asian or something.  I don't know what we were talking about but I do remember that the guy from Detroit was cracking up at everything I said.  I think I might've said that rap from other countries like China and Taiwan is uber lame or something.  I might've tried to be gangsta and he tought it was really funny.  I don't know.  I was also walking around with SA Andrew and I was introducing myself as being from South Africa.  I told people that I was from J-burg, short for Johannesburg.  I think people bought it.  Francesca almost blew my South African cover, when she asked me why I was talking with an accent.  I don't know if she approved.  Then at one point I was in a cabin with some people, I don't know how I got in, but in walked Putt.  We were all talking.  And then I ran into Guillaume again, he had returned and he took Graeme and Francesca and myself down to his car where we listened to some great French music and drank sake.  It was way cool!  Then I finally decided to call it a night and went to sleep around 2ish.

I did try talking to Guillaume in French, and later he said that my French was good and that I just need to practice more.  

That was my weekend, a lot of drinking with some sightseeing.  It was a long trip back to our apartment.  Jennifer and I were really tired.  We just had to vege out for the rest of the day.  This was the most fun I've had since I've arrived in Taiwan.

October

October is finally here, but unfortunately autumn doesn't come to the island of Taiwan.  Well, it's the second week of October, and there are a few things coming up.  Speech contest for my TH5 students and Halloween Party.  For the Halloween Party, I was assigned to provide the music.  So I am using some Pink Floyd (off the Ummagumma album), Sun O))) & Boris (off of the Altar album, very dark), and Ulver (from the Silencing The Singing (EP)).  

I am going to try to find more music to put on it but for now thats what I have.  I didn't write a blog last week, so I am trying my hardest to remember what happened...oh yes.  Two weekends ago, we had school on Saturday (10/4) because we didn't have school on 10/10 (Taiwan Independence Day or something).   I spent the day cleaning the apartment while Jennifer went off to her second class.  Jennifer's dad came in and visited us for a bit.  He took us to dinner and we met up with one of their cousins.  He was pretty cool, unfortunately, I don't remember his name.  That night we ate Taiwanese cuisine.  Taiwanese food is generally spicier than regular Chinese food.  They use peanuts more as well.  I tried oysters that night, they were fried but I don't really want to eat them again.  The next day, Sunday, Jennifer and I ventured over to the far side of town to go to the Nougat Museum.  I know what you're thinking: Nougat museum in Taiwan?  WTF mate?  It was pretty cool for a nougat museum.  Being tourists and all, we went through the backdoor and not the front.  Whoops.  Ah well, because of that we didn't have to pay admission, I think.  In the Lonely Planet book on Taiwan it says that there is an admission fee.  But it was interesting, we watched a documentary on how to make nougat.  I didn't understand it because it was in Mandarin with Mandarin subtitles.  Jennifer told me a little bit about it.  I don't remember though.  While walking through the museum, we saw the different instruments that they used to make nougat.  

I should mention that on that the walk to the museum from the metro station was interesting.  I don't know how to describe it, let's just say that it was kind of bleak.  Warehouses all over the place.  But, something that was interesting was a restaurant where you fish for your food.  It's only a pool of water but you're given a reel.  I thought it a little bizarre.  So I took a picture, I'll need to get that off of Jenn's camera.  But, the walk to the museum, bleak as it was, had cow statues every so often to tell you that you were going the right way.  We did find a credit card on the side of the road.  I didn't turn it in, instead I destroyed it.  Yeah.

But back to the museum.  We took some cool pictures there, they had those rice patty hats, so naturally I had to wear one.  And there was a gong, so naturally, I had to hit it.  I'll post pictures at some point.  At the end of the tour, we were able to sample the nougat that they make.  It was pretty good.  Jennifer ended up buying some.

We then proceeded to go to a SOGO, which is a fancy mall in Taipei.  I had to buy a swim cap because I broke mine earlier in the week while I was swimming.  What happened was: I adjusted my cap and it snapped.  So I thought, "what do I do now?"  I put the pieces on the side of the pool and continued swimming.  The next time I stopped, the lifeguard looked at me and gestured to put my cap on.  I showed her the broken cap and then continued to swim.  Next time I stopped, she went and got a swim cap for me to wear.  So anyways, I had to buy a swim cap and they are expensive now, $310NT or $9.52.  Thats all for that week.