Taiwanese Gameshow!

I was on a Taiwanese Gameshow!!  On Monday night, after coming home from work, I saw a group of people hanging out in front of Uncle Sam's.  I checked it out, there was a cameraman and people holding lights.  Being a white person, I stand out.  I get asked by someone if I want to go inside, I told her, I wanted to know what's going on.  She explained to me, that it's a gameshow.  You get to play rock paper scissors against a Taiwanese celebrity and if you win, you get a sandwich for $1NT or $.03 US.  She asked if I wanted to play, I said yes and she took me to the front of the line, which is pretty sweet.  I called Jennifer to come over and check it out.  She got to play too.  Anyways, when I played against a celebrity, they asked if I knew  Chinese and I said in Chinese "Where's my newspaper?"  They said to the TV, "why does he know how to say that?  Oh, I know!  When he comes downstairs, he asks the people at the front desk, 'where's my newspaper?'"  To make a long story short, I beat some taiwanese girl celebrity by throwing rock.  They filmed me playing, ordering the sandwich in Chinese and eating the sandwich.  It was really cool.  I'll get to watch it on Friday.

Canada

A belated Merry Christmas to all of those who are reading this!  Last week, I flew to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada so I could meet up with my family and go skiing in Whistler/Blackcomb.  I hadn't seen my family in about 6 months, so it was great to see them.  I spent six days skiing from morning until the mountain closed for the day.  As much as I ate, Jennifer still said that I came back skinnier than when I had left.

I flew EVA Air, there and back on a 747-400 and I was on the upper deck baby!  It was still economy, but it was better than economy, because I didn't feel as squished as I normally feel.  On the lower deck in economy, it usually 10 across, but on the upper deck it is 6.  There is also some extra elbow room if you're sitting by the window because they have a storage bin on the side for your carry on luggage.  And if you're lucky enough to get a exit seat, you have about 3-5 feet of leg room!  I wasn't lucky enough for that, but its okay.  Normally, I don't sleep on airplanes, because it is hard for me.  But, on the flight back, I took two ambiens and I slept for half the flight.

For the things that matter.  Whistler/Blackcomb was awesome.  It was icy and rocky, and not all of the slopes were open.  It was especially icy on all of the popular runs, but if you're like me and you look for runs that are out of the way or aren't open yet.  Then, you're bound to find something amazing.  I found a lot of runs that were closed, but still had a lot of snow on them.  My family and I had a blast on these runs, well you'll have to ask my Dad for his opinion.  But, I think he had a good time.

Never before have I scratched my skis up this bad.  It is unbelievable how bad my skis are scratched up.

A couple things worth mentioning: I almost lost my wallet.  It fell out of my pocket at a sports bar.  I realized this once I returned home, but some girls found it.  One was from Jersey (the island) and one was from Seattle.  I ended up buying them and my Dad a shot of Jagermeister.  I tried to get a shot of Yukon Jack, but they didn't have it!!!!  It's made in Canada!  One thing that I did find was Brahama!!!  Brahama is amazing, it is a Brazilian beer and I could buy .5L for a dollar in Russia.  I bought a 6 pack and took that back to Taiwan with me.  Second thing.  My brother John and I decided to go out one night, unfortunately for us it was a Tuesday night.  Not many people are out on a Tuesday night.  But, we fonud one that looked like there was a party going on.  There was, but we found out a little bit later that it was for a mutual friend of everyone's in the bar that had died a year earlier.  That was awkward.

On Christmas Day, my mom and I did first tracks, this also included breakfast, too.  It was great to be one of the first people to carve up the mountain, especially on Christmas Day.

All in all it was a great vacation.  It was great to see my family and it was great to go skiing.

Highlights

Here are some highlights from the past couple of weeks. 

Club couple of weeks ago, a girl with braces tried hitting on me, lucky for me, my boy Graeme came in and took her off her feet.  That same night, I got hit on by an Asian guy, kind of creepy.  Also my friend got in trouble with a bouncer for trying to talk to a girl.  Whoa!  Best line of the night:  "What are you doing here? You're not Asian."  "Oh, I'm on vacation"

Last Saturday, there were tons of people outside of the Football (Soccer) Stadium near Yuanshan MRT, and there were people lined up all around the stadium.  There were tents as well.  So naturally, in best English.  I ask them, what's going on here?  Taiwanese girl, "Mayday is coming tonight"  

me: who is Mayday?

girl: (shows me a picture) this is the drummer, this is the bassist, guitarist, singer

me: are they good?

girl: yeah!!!!

me: ok thanks a lot

girl: my friends and I have an extra ticket, do you want to come with us?

me: nah, its okay

girl: are you sure?

me: yeah, thanks though

Oh yeah and they looked about 16 and they had braces.  Awesome.  I should've tried to get two tickets.  Me at a Taiwanese rock concert would probably be sweet.

A week ago, saw a commercial being shot at some intersection, with a guy in some animal suit.  Earlier this week, the band that owns a cafe/sandwich place nearby, Uncle Sam's, came and officially opened it up.  They're called 6655 or something, we asked some lady and she looked at us as if we were crazy.

Updates: I leave for Whistler tomorrow and I am so excited!!!  But still have a lot of things I need to do.  For example: make sure my Christmas play is perfect, got in trouble over that recently.

Hong Kong and Macau

On Nov. 22, Jennifer and I ventured to Hong Kong and Macau for three days.  We left very early in the morning around 5 from our apartment to the airport which is a $900NT cab ride away (around an hour drive).  We flew Thai Airways, which is phenomenal!  Our flight was an hour long and we received a meal both ways!!  On the way back we were served wine with our dinner!!  We stayed in Kowloon which is where a lot of foreigners live, our hostel was very sketchy, occupied one floor in a 12 story building.  We didn't have any windows and there was still hair on the bed!  But they gave us clean sheets.  To be honest, I didn't go to Hong Kong for the hostel so it didn't bother me too much.  Hong Kong is a very accessible city, we were able to get from the airport to our hostel with ease, although we had some difficulty communicating because Jennifer doesn't speak Cantonese.  Everything went swell.  To get to the city we took the Airport Express which is a train that runs on the metro line to different areas in the city and only makes 4 stops.  Interesting note: taking the taxi from station to the hostel, we saw kids playing ice hockey!  It wasn't very expensive around $15 or so.  And it was very comfortable.  After arriving in Kowloon, a lot of Indians came up to me trying to sell me custom made suits.  It was odd at first, but then it got a little annoying especially when it happened everyday I was there, a couple times each day.  But the sketchiest thing I saw was two people walking towards each other and passing a note spy style.  As in they didn't look at one another.

Day 1

After arriving and checking in, we took the MTR (subway, in Taiwan its called the MRT) from Kowloon to the Central Station.  It was very easy for me to acquire Hong Kong dollars because there are ATMs all over the place.  

Hong Kong has a cool currency, in Hong Kong, the currency is issued by the government and three separate banks: HSBC, Bank of China (Hong Kong) Limited, and Standard Chartered Bank.  So each note looks a little different depending on who issued it.  But the coolest note, was definitely the $10HK, it is made of plastic!!

Anyways, we walked around Central for a bit, looked at the Ferry Terminal, walked through a mall.  It seemed as if we weren't in Asia anymore.  From there we took a bus to Stanely on the other side of Hong Kong island.  On the way we wanted to stop at Repulse Bay, but we weren't sure which stop it was, however, we were able to spend some time there on the way back.  In Hong Kong, the buses are all double deckers like the ones in London, they even drive on the other side of the road.  Thats good old British colonialism for ya!  The drive to Stanley was unbelievable!  The views were amazing!  Hong Kong is not a flat island, in fact it is mountainous.  So the driver was driving around tight turns on the side of cliffs.  The water is an amazing color!  It is a teal color, very cool.  Once in Stanley, we walked through the market, there were probably more whites than Asians there.  The market was interesting, but nothing stood out.  There were tourists from all over, I heard Russian and French while I was there.  Stanley is also on the sea, it was very beautiful!  There were junks in the water and restaurants on the boardwalk.  Interestingly enough, we couldn't find one that served Chinese food.  So we had Western food instead.  After walking around there, we headed back to the bus and took it to Repulse Bay.

Repulse Bay, is located on the side of a mountain.  Not much there, more for the cool views of the sea than anything else.  But we did run into an Asian wedding, the odd thing about it was that the bride and groom were not speaking in Chinese to the crowd, they were speaking in English.  We walked around the beach and no one was in the water, it was in the 70s and in the late afternoon.  But it was mostly Asian tourists who were there.  Asian tourists usually get off the bus, walk around for ten minutes, take pictures and get back on the bus.  The beach was a little rocky as well, but it was very cool looking.  I'll upload pictures soon.  After that, we got back on the bus and headed back towards Central.

However, Jennifer and I got off at the wrong stop, and became a little lost.  It was entirely my fault, but we found out where we were and took the MTR to the next place we wanted to see.  The Tram.  In Hong Kong, there is a tram that goes up to the very top of the city, up to Victoria peak.  It goes above all of the skyscrapers and gives you an excellent view of the city.  I was hoping that we would be able to get to the top before sunset, however, we didn't arrive to base of the tram until well after.  Because there was a trail that I wanted to walk around that would have given us even more cool views of the island.  Oh well.  The line for the tram was extremely long.  But it moved fast.  One of the things we noticed is that old Chinese women think that they have priority over everyone else because they are old and so that gives them an excuse to cut in front of people.  Especially if they have a baby with them.  Some old Chinese woman and her family tried to push Jennifer and I out of the way while were trying to board the train, but I managed to box them out.  The ride up to the peak is very cool, it takes awhile, but the angle at which the tram goes up is ridiculous.  It had to have been above a 50 degree incline at some spots.  They could've made an incline, like the one in Pittsburgh, it was so steep.  After taking in the extraordinary views of the city, we ate a western meal at Burger King.  It was ok, I hadn't had Burger King for I don't know how long.  Up on the peak there was a lot of souvenir shops, but one thing that caught our attention was the EA Games area where you could play on an Xbox, PS2/3, Wii, Computer, or a PSP.  We played on that for a little while, it was dope.  After walking around all day, we were exhausted, so we took the bus back down to Central and took the metro back to Kowloon where we slept in our jail cell.

Day 2

We woke up at a reasonable hour, around 8 and were out by 9.  My plan was to go to the Macau Ferry Terminal and look at the timetables.  To get there we walked through a very cool park where we saw people doing Tai Chi, there were a couple people doing it with swords.  Sweet!  Before entering the terminal we walked around the outside which offered excellent views of the harbor.  We had breakfast inside, I had some Thai food and Jennifer had some Vietnamese.  It was pretty good: noodles, soup, spices, egg and chicken wings.  All in the soup.  We then purchased our tickets to Macau.

According to people that we talked before we embarked on this journey, it was a must to take the Star Ferry across the harbor, from Kowloon to Central.  We did that and it provided us with some more views of the city.  One thing we noticed about the architecture of Hong Kong apartment buildings is not only do they all look the same, but they are extremely thin and tall.  We were wondering how they would stand up to an earthquake?

The plan for the second day was to go to Lantau Island to see the giant Big Buddha, Po Lin Monastery and the Path to Wisdom.  It took awhile to get there, we also stopped along the way so Jennifer could buy some clothes at an outlet, because of that I was able to see a DeLorean DMC-12.  What is a DeLorean doing in Hong Kong?  We took the metro to around the airport and then we took a bus, crammed with people up to the top of a mountain, driving on single lane roads.  It was awesome.  The Giant Buddha is the world's tallest outdoor seated bronze Buddha.  In order to reach it, you have to climb up a couple hundred stairs!  While we were there, Jennifer ran into a couple old Chinese women who thought that they could cut the line to the bathroom, which infuriated some women.  Jennifer told me that some women started screaming at the old women.  I wish I could've seen that.  We did see some white people swing dancing at the base of the mountain which was odd for me to see, not as odd as seeing a bull, which we saw as well.  The Path to Wisdom was definitely the coolest site, it is an outdoor replica of the centuries-old Heart Sutra, one of the best known prayers that is revered by Confucians, Buddhists and Taoists alike.  The sutra is displayed on wooden pillars placed in the form of the infinity symbol, a sideways 8.  This is to symbolize the idea of immeasurable splendor and infinity.  On the walk back we saw some people playing rubbing their hands up and down the side of a bowl to make the water splash from the vibrations.  I gave it a try, it's harder than it looks.  That took up most of the day.  Once we returned back to Central, we took the ferry back to Kowloon, where we walked to the Avenue of the Stars which faces Hong Kong Island.  From there we watched "A Symphony of Lights," a spectacular light/laser show synchronized to music.  Where buildings are lit up and some buildings have lasers that shoot across the harbor.  It was neat, but would've been better if it was a clear night.

After a quick rest back at the hostel, we went back over to Hong Kong Island and headed towards Lan Kwai Fong where the best nightlife in Hong Kong is.  While we were there, we went to a British Pub and had some dinner and beer.  We walked around and that was about it, on account of the fact that we were tired from so much walking and we had to get up early the next day.

Day 3

On the last day, we got up early and headed towards the Macau Ferry Terminal by way of the park we walked through the day before.  The ride to Macau was very smooth, fast and comfortable.  Wide leather seats in economy!

For those of you who don't know, Macau was administered by Portugal until 1999.  It has the highest population density among all the countries/regions in the world.  All of the signs are in Cantonese and Portuguese.  Some have English.  Macau is the Las Vegas of Asia.  There are casinos all over the place.  Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time to visit any casinos.

Before I say anything else, let me say that the roads in Macau make no sense.  Its like an infant trying to connect the dots for the first time, it's not going to be a straight line, its going to go all over the place.  For example: for us to turn right one goes straight onto an onramp that goes left then turns around and goes another direction before finally going right.  Why can't you take a right turn?

One of the main reasons I wanted to go to Macau was to see the old Macau, which resembles a lot of old European towns but with an Asian accent.  The first thing we did was to check out the Grand Prix Museum.  Every year in Macau there is the Grand Prix which runs the around most of, if not all of Macau.  Right next to that museum is the Wine Museum, which tells about the history of wine and even lets you sample some that are made there.  I had a white port, it was amazing!  Jennifer had a red port, a little bit better than the white.  It was cool!  We then took a bus to the old town, where we had lunch and saw an old Catholic church.  There was an old woman inside who was very nice to us.  She told us we had to put our things at the back of the church, I was a little skeptical because I thought that someone might steal them, but then she told us to leave our food and water at the back of the church.  That was fine.  I said a prayer and Jennifer walked around the church.  After my prayer I got up to walk around and the lady asked me if I had brought my camera, I said I did.  She told me to take as many pictures as I like.  I thanked her and after taking our pictures on our way, she said, "God bless you and have a safe journey home."  I thanked and said, "God bless you too."  She was a very nice lady.  After leaving that church, Jennifer found a place that sold ramen and was immediately hungry.  SO we ate some ramen, it was quite good.  Then we were off to St. Paul's ruins.  Basically all it is the front of a church, the rest of it burned down during a fire.  But what is really interesting about the area is the architecture.  You have old European architecture, with some Asian flare.  Then surrounding it is modern architecture with a casino influence.  We then made our way for St. Dominic's and the surrounding square.  It was very cool.  The colors and the style of everything really made me want to visit Portugal, and I still do.  By then it was time for us to head back to Hong Kong because we had to catch our flight.  So we were able to get on the right bus after some searching and made our way to the terminal.  We got our passport stamps, but not where we wanted them, this guy was on a mission to put the stamps wherever he wanted.  Oh well, Jennifer and I thought it was a little funny, and we would probably do the same in his situation.  The ferry on the way back wasn't as comfortable as it was on the way there because of different seats and the ride was bumpy/choppy.  After arriving back in Hong Kong, we grabbed our stuff out of the lockers and made our way towards Kowloon station on the Airport Express.  The great thing about the Airport Express was we were able to check in to our flight at the station, which meant no lines!  It was great.  So all we had to do was hop on the train and make our way to the gate.  When we arrived into the international terminal, we were astounded by how weird the roof was.  It was ovalish with tons of bumps all over the place.  We ate dinner at a Heineken bar, which I didn't know existed, I thought Heineken only sold beer.  I was wrong.  Before I hopped onto the plane, I bought a book called, The Adventure Capitalist, by Jim Rogers.  I have since, finished the book and it is a fascinating read about how he travels around the world in a custom Mercedes hard top convertible with his girlfriend/wife for 3 years.  He also provides insight into each of the nations' economies.  On our flight back to Taipei, I was wondering what Thai Airlines would give us.  Not only did they give us dinner, but they also served us wine whenever we wanted on the flight.  It was awesome!!!  That concludes my trip to Hong Kong/Macau.  You can find pictures here

In Trouble Again?

Where's Waldo?  This is me with the bride and the groom at the wedding I crashed a month ago.  The other picture is of Sun Moon Lake.

Let's hope not, but last week Jennifer and our boy Andrew P. each received a talk from our boss.  Well actually she's not our boss, just the head English teacher.  Our boss doesn't talk to us.  They received talks because they didn't write their lesson plans for the last couple of weeks, I haven't either.  And so I am eagerly awaiting when I will receive my talk.  In other news,  Lost has consumed my life, it's a drug.  However, I have found that it is becoming a little bit predictable now that I am half way through the third season, but we'll see.  Last night I watched Transsiberian, it was a bit intense on the emotion side, but all in all it wasn't a bad film.  If you are weary about visiting Russia or traveling on the Trans-Siberian railroad, you probably shouldn't watch it.

Over the weekend, Jennifer and I went to Citizen Kane to hang out for a Reach to Teach Event, it was a really nice place to go and hang out, while drinking a couple beers.  I had a San Miguel, which isn't bad it was only 100NT a beer.  After that my friends and I went to Luxy, the same one where we saw Flo rida (Florida).  One of our co-workers had her birthday party there.  She talked to the owner and was able to secure a table, alcohol and cake!  I was more excited about the cake myself, I love cake!  It was a lot of fun!  I spent a lot of time in the Electronica section, the rest of the time was situated around Francesca's table.  I had my first conversation in Mandarin, if you can call it a conversation.  I went with Jennifer and my friends upstairs and started talking to these people who had another table.  They invited us to sit down and eat some fried chicken with them.  It was mighty tasty.  I started talking to this guy, the following is a transcription:

Taiwanese dude: hey man!  Come sit! (in English) (motions for me to sit down on his couch)

Me: ok (in Mandarin)

Taiwanese dude: My English is shit.  (in English)

Me: I know little bit Chinese...... (in Mandarin)

Taiwanese dude:  Eat!  (motions to fried chicken) Drink! (motions to a water jar full of Rum'n'Coke)

Me: Ok, thank you. (in Mandarin)

Me: How old are you? (in Mandarin)

Taiwanese dude: I (shows fingers 3 and 2)

Me: 32? Wow, I'm 22. (in Mandarin)

Taiwanese dude: You know Chinese?! (in Mandarin)

Me: a little bit (in Mandarin)

Taiwanese dude: 你 鞎 咰  

Me: huh?!

Taiwanese dude: 你鞎咰

Me: Jennifer what did he say? (in English)  

(Taiwanese dude says something to Jennifer)

Jennifer: He says you are very handsome (in English)

Me: Thankyou (in Mandarin)

Taiwanese dude: Eat!

Me: I don't want, thank you (in Mandarin)

Unfortunately, thats all that happened between that dude and me, I left him and sang happy birthday, I also had to call a night pretty early that night around 1:30am because I was exhausted from the week and getting up at 6:00am to teach earlier that day.  But from what I heard, I don't think I missed too much, one of our friends woke up the next day on the sidewalk, lying in his own puke.

On a lighter note, this week has been relaxing for me, because I am back to my old schedule of getting up early in the morning to work out and then go into work at quarter to one.

Highlight of last week, going to T.G.I Fridays!  Jennifer's Mom and her friend took us there because they heard that I was craving some Western food.  Man!!!! It was sooo good!  I had some ribs with a southern style mustard bbq sauce.  So good!  The meat just fell off the bones!  Just like it's supposed to.  One of these days, I think I might have to write a post on the Taiwanese mentality, I'm still in the beginning stages of understanding it, but luckily I know someone who does.

Big news!  I am going to Hong Kong this weekend!!!!!!  I am so excited!!  We leave on Saturday and we come back Monday night.  My hope is that we'll be able to fit in Macau as well!  At the moment, we don't really know what we're going to go see.  I'm going to do some research on that.

Taipei below 70 degrees and Veteran's Day

It's been awhile, I know, but I've been really busy working and watching the Lost series.  Honestly, I don't know how people could've waited an entire week to see the next episode, the suspense is unbelievable.  Anyways, Happy Veteran's Day!  Yesterday was the first time it has been below 70 degrees during the daytime and I saw some crazy things.  Everyone is all bundled up as if it's 40 degrees, but it's only 68.  Yesterday, I had kids wearing fleece to school and a couple kids were wearing three layers!  But, what definately to the cake was a girl who had brought in gloves, GLOVES!  HA!  I immediately had to ask my kids if it was cold, most of them said yes.  So, I explained to them, that they don't know what cold is.  I told them that -30 Celsius (-22F) is cold.  But, they gave me a good reason, they said, "Teacher, you're from a cold place."  Touche students, touche.  In other news, my school is going to have a Christmas play, so it can be more American.  My class is doing Frosty the Snowman, while Jennifer's class is going to narrate the story.  That should be interesting to watch, but unfortunately, I won't be there because I'll be skiing with my family at Whistler!  I cannot wait.

      These last couple weeks have been pretty crazy, for example: 2 weekends ago Jennifer and I crashed a Taiwanese wedding.  Well, not really crash because Jennifer's mom took us, but I definately felt like I was crashing it when I am the only white person there and I have no idea what's going on but I had fun anyways.  That weekend I ate a lot of seafood.  I had sushi, raw salmon, abalone and some other things.  Couldn't really taste the fishyness of it because I smothered them in soy sauce and wasabi.  I also tried eel, crab, shark fin soup and maybe some other things as well.

     See the wedding was located in Taichung, a 2 hour train ride (not highspeed train) from Taipei, that Jennifer and I had to stand for most of it, but the scenery was really cool!  After the wedding was over, Jennifer and I went on a roadtrip with her mom, her grandma, her grandma's younger brother and her grandma's younger brother's wife!! HA!  It was awesome!  We drove to Sun Moon Lake, the biggest lake in Taiwan.  The brother thought that it would only take 30 minutes to get there, but instead it took almost 2 hours!  Oh, well no worries.  Again the scenery was amazing!  Unfortunately, when we arrived, there was a layer of fog over the lake, but it still looked beautiful.  There was also a temple nearby.  Grandma didn't want to stay and she wanted the front seat because her back was in pain, so I moved to the back seat.  They were worried that I wouldn't fit.  But, instead of going back, we drove around the lake some more and went to a harbor area for tourists and walked up and down.  It was lovely to say the least.  Then we drove back to Taichung where we ate and took the train back to Taipei.  It was a lot of travelling for one day, especially when we got home around 1am.

   This past weekend, Jennifer and I went out with our friends Andrew, Andrew, Andrew and Graeme.  We had such a great, crazy time.  We had dinner at a restaurant and then we went to a club, called Posol.  We bought a table, it was about $1000NT/per person except for Jennifer, she got in for free because she's a girl.  Ah sexism, why can't I get in for free?  It was a fun night to say the least.  I talked with Alberto from San Salvador, he's really cool.  We had a few laughs about saying puta because he asked me if I could speak Spanish.  I told him that I could only say puta.  It was a good time, but I had to call it a night pretty early (around 2:30amish).  On Friday, I took the Foreign Service Exam at the American Institute in Taiwan.  It wasn't bad, I won't know for 8-10 weeks if I failed or not.  I was the youngest person in the room of 6 people and a cool thing was that there was another David Mitchell from somewhere in Pennsylvania was also registered.  He didn't show up though.  I am interested to see how I do.  Thats all I have for now.  I am still looking for someone who speaks Russian to hang out with.  We'll see.  Tchao!

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.

Another Typhoon!

These weeks have been going by quickly, I can't believe October will be here in a couple of days.  This week, nothing big happened.  But on Friday after my last class was over.  I showed one of my students my Chinese notebook and all of the girls in my class went crazy.  They looked at the characters I wrote, took my red pen and they corrected my work!! I thought this was really funny!  Then they wanted me to speak to them in Chinese.  All the girls were laughing so hard!!!  I didn't end up leaving class until twenty minutes after class was over.  On Friday night, Jennifer was really tired, so she went to bed and I watched a Polish movie, Katyn.  I highly recommend it.  It is about the Soviet shooting of over 10,000 Polish officers in the Katyn forest.  On Saturday, Jennifer and I went shopping at Wufeng Pu, an area known for its cheap shopping.  I bought a t-shirt and a saddle bag that can be a backpack.  Saturday night was a lot of fun, I didn't go to sleep until 7am Sunday morning.  First, Jennifer and I went to the Taiwan Beer Factory, which is set up like a Beer Hall.  There we met up with our friends Andrew, Sam and Graeme.  Andrew's roommate, Dan and Graeme's roommate, Daniel were there too.  After that we were planning on going to a club, but since me and a couple other people were wearing socks, we went to a 7-11 type of store, and I bought a pair of black socks for $60NT.  After that we took a taxi to I don't even know where.  We went to a restaurant instead of the club because the cover charge was $800NT, even though it was an open bar.  At the restaurant, we had a couple beers and we were all talking, having a good time, when the people sitting next to us lost a bet with their friends and they had to come over and talk to us.  After that, we went outside and talked to some people from South Africa and they ended up being from the same city as Graeme, so they talked for a bit.  We then stopped at another convenient store and I bought myself a triangle, which is a triangle of rice covered with seaweed and had pork inside of it.  It was so good.  After that, we went to KTV, which is where people go to sing karaoke.  So we sang karaoke for awhile until about 5:45am.  At that time, we decided to go home.  I wanted to see the sun rise, but little did I know that a typhoon was coming.  We took the metro home and when we reached Yuanshan station, we decided to take a taxi home because the buses weren't running or something.  So we ended up getting home around 7am.  I then went to bed.  Sunday, I didn't do much, I watched TV because we had a category 4 (same as category 4 hurricane) typhoon going on outside.  But today I don't have work, at least I don't think I do.  The typhoon has weakened to a category 1.  The highest wind gust recorded during the typhoon in Taipei was 92mph!  But thats all I have for today.

Another week gone by

So another week has gone by and here is what has happened in the last week.  Last Wednesday, I bought Rosetta Stone, the online edition for Mandarin.  With the online version, I get access to all 3 different levels and my subscription is for 12 months.  I think that it is a very good deal!  $300 for a year!  So far, it is pretty good.  However, the next day my mac died.  I ended up taking it to a company that does mac repairs.  I walked 3 miles to find it and it wasn't very hard to find, I was actually lucky to find it on the first try because from the outside it looks like an office building.  Even when I went inside and the guard told me to go to the 3rd floor, I was still a little skeptical.  But everything went well, except for the fact that I lost all of my data.  Lame.  SO after that I went to an electronics store and I bought an external hard drive so I can back up all of my data.  Why didn't I do that earlier? So I fixed my computer and everything is going swell!  On Friday, Jennifer and I went out to dinner at our favorite dumpling place.  It was soooooo goood!!!  On Saturday, we did not do much during the day, we veged out.  But, we were planning on going to a Mongolian folk music concert, however, we didn't buy our tickets before hand, so only the expensive tickets were left.  So instead, we tried going to the Hyatt to see if it had any Western beers, nope.  Then, we walked to Taipei 101 and had dinner at a food court nearby and wandered around outside while looking at some shops.  Sunday was a lot of fun because we went to the beach!  On our way to the beach, we ran into a fellow teacher and friend Graeme, from South Africa, and his group of friends.  We asked if we could come along and he said the more the merrier!  So we joined his group and we went to a beach called Baishawan, which means "white sand."  But don't be fooled, the sand was not white, it was dark and there was trash everywhere, most likely from the recent typhoon.  It was very windy, so I took the initiative and built a wall to protect us from the sand and other people helped me too.  I found a chair, but it broke when I tried to sit on it.  At the end of the day, we went to a shop on the beach and drank a beer each while watching the sun go down.  Then Jennifer and I went back to Dazhi and looked for a place to eat.  We were disappointed, but we would've been happier had we known what the menu said.  Oh well.  This week nothing big to report.  Started a new unit with my classes.  I am registering for the US Foreign Service Test.  Thats all for now.

BBQing in a Category 4 Typhoon

This week was another good week.  I taught 14 hours, I started teaching a class where a couple of the kids didn't even know English.  I had to give two of them English names: Brian and George.  I found out on Friday that Brian left my class for good so he can play table tennis.  That class is a good class, there are six of them and they are 7 and 8 years old.  My TH 5 class was good this week, I found out that they are really lazy.  For example: I made a web of what happened in a book we read last week on the board and none of them knew what to write.  But this week, when I did that, they were all able to write something.  On Wednesday, I went out with a couple friends from work to a bar where they give the first 400 people 4 free beers, and there isn't a cover charge!  It was a lot of fun.  On Tuesday, I joined an exercise club that is a 10 minute walk from my apartment.  The cost wasn't too bad, but in a couple months I can renegotiate my contract.  They have a pool and they are open from 7am-11pm.  I have gone twice this week and I love it!  On Friday, Typhoon Sinlaku arrived and my school in Dazhi was going to have a bbq but that was canceled due to the typhoon.  But, Jennifer's school in Tienmu was still having the bbq.  So we went and bbqed outside but under a roof during some intense rain.  It was a lot of fun.  I tried chicken heart, it was pretty good.  It tasted like regular chicken meat.  I also ate a lot of chicken, pork, and some beef.  After teaching on Friday, a mother of one of my students gave me a bag full of treats because today is Moon Festival.  People worship the moon and eat mooncake while looking at the moon.  But this year's Moon Festival isn't a good one because of the typhoon, it won't be a clear night.  (As I am writing this, I am watching Belorussian TV, they're doing a show about modelling)  This weekend I have been inside watching TV because there isn't a lot to do during a typhoon.  Unlike the last typhoon, which wasn't very strong.  This one is.  Every night I've heard the wind howling, things being blown over by the wind, and the rain falling in every direction.  But today the wind hasn't been howling at all.  An interesting note about the typhoon is that it is very slow.  Regular typhoons move at about 16-20km/h whereas this one is moving at 6km/h.  Yesterday the storm wasn't moving at all, it was stationary!  The area called, Neihu, which is located right next to where I live has received over 200mm of rain since Friday!  Today I bought a Russian TV series called "На Безымяннои Высоте" I haven't started watching it yet, but I will soon.  Oh, one of the parents complained that my hair was too long.  So today, I spent $100 NT to get my haircut in a supermarket.  I got it cut real short, so hopefully, the parents will be fine with it.  Well this is all I have for this week.

Another Week

I got my 14 hours last week, but most of them were office hours, where I get paid half.  But this week I will be teaching another class.  Last week was pretty good, my kids are really fascinated with my hairy legs, its kind of weird.  Every class I have my kids ask me one question.  I get questions like, "how old are you?" "Do you like me?" "What do you like?"  One of my kids, Valerie, said "Teacher David, I don't like you because you have a girlfriend."  The Chinese Teacher and I looked at each other and thought that it was sooo cute.  Jennifer better watch out!  Another girl in my class said that I smell good.  On Friday, I went to Club 49 with Jennifer, Andrew and his roommate Dan.  It was a lot of fun, but next time I don't think we should buy a bottle of whisky, I'd rather drink some beer.  On Saturday, Jennifer and I went to a mexican/country kitchen restaurant.  I had a real hankering for mexican food.  It was really tasty!  But then I ended up eating some fried chicken and having a chocolate milk shake.  On Sunday, Jennifer and I went to the Chang Kai Shek Memorial Hall, it was really cool!  I saw Chang Kai Shek's bulletproof Cadillacs.  There are 89 steps up to his statue, one for each year of his life.

My Apartment

 bathroom
 shower
 kitchen

 Jennifer's bed

 TV
  Couch, Totoro, table
 my bed, my room. I get a desk!

2 Months

I've been in Taiwan now for two months!  Everything is going pretty well, except for the fact that my school has me only teaching one class a week right now, that means I'm teaching 6 hours a week.  My contract guarantees 14 hours/week.  So if I don't get paid for 14hrs this week, dudes are going to get blasted.  This week was good, I taught kindergarden, TH3 (2nd graders) and TH5 (4th graders).  Most of them are really fascinated by my hairy legs, the kindergardeners pet my leg hair!  TH3 and 5 are really easy to deal with b/c they all listen well.  While I was running on Thursday, I ran through a film set or something, I must be living in a really good area!  This weekend, all I really did was go to Maokong Gondola, which was on Saturday.  Jennifer was tired on Friday, so I just listened to music (mostly Doom Metal).  What was interesting about the Gondola was the fact that it is exactly the same as any ski gondola!  It was the exact same size too!  The people in our gondola were freaking out because they were afraid of heights and the little boy that was with them was helping them out either, he was telling them about what was coming up ahead.  Jennifer and I got off at one stop and we went to the monkey trail, which went up to Monkey Mountain.  We were hoping to see some monkeys, but we saw squirrels instead, and everyone knows how much Jennifer likes squirrels :).  We then took the gondola up to the next stop and walked around.  We saw a temple and some tea houses.  We were going to go to the tea museum, but as luck would have it, it was closed by the time we got there.  We went to a tea house, they were really expensive for the local tea.  So I got some of the Japanese green tea.  It was pretty good.  But the thing I wanted most was a good beer.  This is really hard to find in Taiwan.  On the way back home, I wanted to find a bar/club that I had seen on the way back home from Tainan (the place is located around Zhongshan Junior High School MRT) but I couldn't find it.  Jennifer was really tired from walking all day, I was a little bit tired, but I could've looked for awhile.  Oh well.  Yesterday, Jennifer and I didn't do much of anything, we just watched TV and surfed the internet.  It is becoming harder and harder to get tv shows over the internet.  Maybe there are new sites that have popped up.  I did find out that Fender is making a David Gilmour Signature Series Stratocaster.  It debuts September 22nd and comes at a price of $3,999.99.  I'll have to look around to see if it is really worth it.  If it is, I have a lot of saving up to do.  Because this is something I really want.  I might have to start looking for extra work if that's the case.  I am thinking about giving private English lessons to people around my apartment.  I'll just have to send out a flyer.  Tchao

Another photo shoot and a weekend in Tainan

On Friday while I was running, I saw another photo shoot.  But this time the woman was wearing a dress and was standing by a wicked sweet Ferrari.  And there were people taking pictures of her.  Friday night, Jennifer and I went to Tainan by way of the High Speed Train.  It is so expensive $1,415NT per person for a 2 hour train ride, and at that price you didn't receive a reserved seat.  It was a fun ride, we couldn't get the train we wanted b/c it was too full.  So the train people had us line up and we were able to get seats on the next train which came 20 min later.  Jennifer's dad picked us up at the train station and took us to his apartment.  His apartment is so much nicer than ours!!  On Saturday, he drove us around Tainan, I saw some temples, one was really big.  I'll post pictures sometime.  He showed us the beach and then told us how when he was kid, he and his friends were arrested because the coast guard thought that they were from mainland China!  Jennifer was fighting a cold all week and it wasn't getting any better, so her dad took her to the hospital while I napped at the apartment.  Later in the day, he took us to meet a friend of his and his family.  The father is a swim coach and one of his daughters has the fastest time in Taiwan for her age for some event that wasn't important to me, like maybe the 200m Butterfly.  Anyways I told him my best times and then he started calling me Phelps for some reason, by the way I am in no way even remotely close to any of Phelps' times.  I think it was because I am white, an American, and a swimmer.  They took us out to eat dinner as well.  I had sooo much to eat.  I was so full.  I can't describe the food, but it was good.  Then the swim coach said I could come swim with them in the morning and he was going to prepare breakfast for me.  On Sunday, I arrived at his house, and they gave me fried dumplings, other fried asian food, salad, mango and soup.  Probably the worst stuff you can eat before you swim, unless your Phelps.  And he kept calling me Phelps, he said that he needed to make sure Phelps was fed before we swim.  Swim practice was good.  I was slow, remember I haven't had a real swim practice since the end of January.  So I was slow, it was in a 50m pool, too.  But at the end, I wasn't tired.  I wasn't even hungry, because I ate so much for breakfast.  But the coach said he'll call the Taiwan national swim coach, who is in Beijing right now, to see if I can swim with their team!!!  Awesome, that would be sweet!  After that we went with his daughters to get some shiao long bao, which is a steamed dumpling with soup and meat inside.  They were so yummy!!  That is my favorite food so far in Taiwan.  After hanging out with them, Jennifer's dad drove us back up to Taipei, which took around 5 1/2 hours.  It is good to be home, but I am a litte sad that I didn't get to see all that much of Tainan.  But, I know I'll be back again.  I like Tainan a lot, it reminds me a little bit of some European cities that I have seen.  I also want to say that we found out that our company is taking advantage of us by only paying us the hours that we teach, and they don't include the hours that we go in to prep or help out after class.  Jennifer's dad told us that this was normal in Taiwan, but then we talked to some people who came over to her dad's apartment and they said that we were being taken advantage of.  Good thing I have been keeping track of how many hours I've spent at the school.  That's all for now.

Bank Accounts and a Photographer in the park

This week, I've done a lot of exploring.  On Monday, I opened up a bank account all by myself.  No help from Jennifer at all, even though they did speak a little English.  I had to open up another account because my school said that I needed to open up a bank account at a certain bank.  Then on Tuesday while I was running, I saw the weirdest thing.  I was running along and I see this guy in a suit and a girl in a bathing suit.  I thought that it was a father taking her daughter to diving practice or swim practice, but still it was a little weird to be seeing a girl in a bathing suit in the park.  But as I got closer, she went back into the car and the guy in the suit was wearing a backwards baseball hat and had a camera around his neck.  Then another girl came out of the car, until then I thought that the girls were young b/c they were short.  But anyways she comes out wearing a regular bathing suit that's got a thong  and is see thru.  Oh and they're standing right by a port-a-potty.  So I'm thinking to myself, this is really weird let's get out of here.  And thats it.  Later that day, I walked wondered around the town and into the Neihu area.  I came across a swimming pool, that will probably let me swim in.  I also came across a bike shop.  I looked at some really sweet bikes.  One weighed only 7kg!!  But it turned out to be way out of my budget, $138,000NT or over $4,000!  The area is really nice too!  The apartments looked to be really expensive too.  After work today, I went to the American Institute (the closest thing the US has to an embassy) where I added more visa pages to my passport b/c I did not have a full empty page left.  I was rather happy with myself for being able to get there on my own, I mean if I had to use the bus and the metro it wouldn't have been anything special, but I had to use the taxi.  I tried giving the name of the metro station which is Zhong Shan Junior Highschool, but I don't know how to say Junior Highschool.  Luckily, I wrote down the name of the metro stop on a piece of paper in Chinese characters and he was able to get me there.  I did have some difficulty in finding the American Institute because they go by sections in the address system here.  So I ended up walking a whole section out of the way.  But I realized what I did wrong and quickly went on the right path.  On my way back home, I was going to try to walk from the metro station back to the apartment, but people are not allowed to walk through the tunnel that goes underneath the river.  I quickly caught a cab and told him in Chinese what road I wanted to go to.  Everything went well.  This weekend, Jennifer and I are planning on going to Tainan for the weekend to see her father.  We will be taking the High Speed Train, I am excited!

Curry!

I have come to the realization that I love curry.  It is so scrumptious!  Jennifer and I have made this for dinner almost at least once a week.  On Friday, after work, Jennifer and I took a train up to Keelung, the total cost for tickets was  only $86NT!  There was a ghost festival going on.  They light up lanterns and let them float away out into the ocean.  It would have been marvelous to see, but they did that on Thursday.  We heard about from the security guard at our apartment.  But we spent a couple hours there walking around the town.  Over the weekend, Jennifer bought some food for an offering to the spirits, because this month is very unlucky in Taiwan - all the bad spirits are roaming around and so people burn fake money and offer food to the spirits.  This weekend I tried infusing some vodka.  Jennifer bought a bottle of Finlandia and so I poured some honey into a bottle and then filled it up with vodka.  It has been a success!  The vodka completely absorbed all of the honey and it is now a golden color.  I can't wait to try it with other things as well.  I found out all about this at: http://www.wikihow.com/Infuse-Vodka-With-Flavor

Right now I'm reading a fantastic book, The Happy Isles of Oceania: Paddling the Pacific by Paul Theroux.  As you can guess he paddles a canoe around the islands of the Pacific.  He starts in New Zealand then to Australia, New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Fiji, Vanuatu, and others.  Oh and Michael Phelps is my hero.  Not only did he get 10 Gold Medals in Beijing but he also eats a whopping 10,000 calories a day!  Read about it here .  Alright time to go.  I'm planning on putting up those pictures of my apartment soon.

Maps!

So almost another week has gone by.  Time flies rather fast on this side of the world.  This week I started teaching a Kindergarden class that has 14 boys and 4 girls.  It hasn't been too bad, because they behave most of the time.  But I am only a sub for that class b/c the teacher is on vacation.  I starting teaching 4 graders in two weeks.  I have to decorate the classroom.  Maybe I'll use some ski posters?  Probably not.  That definitely won't fly.  Also in the news, the Russo-Georgian Conflict is concluding/at an end.  We won't know for a couple days.  But in all honesty, Georgia got pwned!  They attacked South Ossetia and when you attack a bear's cub you should expect to hear from the mother.  One of the reasons why Russia moved into Georgia is b/c they are still mad over Kosovo's independence from Serbia.  Abkhazia and South Ossetia deserve their independence more than Kosovo did.  Anyways back to what I am doing.  I've been running these past two weeks and I've noticed that I've gotten a lot slower.  I think the heat and the humidity have a big effect on how I run.  Or maybe I've just gotten out of shape.  Today after I ran, I used Google Earth to find a pool.  I found an outdoor pool in what looked to be a university campus.  I was right.  So I walked over a klick (that's 1Km) to get there.  And it was indeed a pool and it looked like I didn't have to pay.  So I looked at the sign just to be sure, however, it said that I needed to show my student ID.  Well, I have 2 student IDs.  So I looked around just be sure and then proceeded to walk into that pool.  One lady looked at me as if I was supposed to give her something, so I quickly pretended that I didn't see her.  Then a guy walked by me and I did the same thing.  I jumped into the water and swam a couple laps, it felt great to be in the water again.  After watching Phelps and the rest of 4x100 meter relay I was so psyched up to swim.  Ten minutes after I jumped into the pool I saw some white people!  I get a little bit excited when I see white people outside of work.  Yesterday, when I opened a bank account (in the wrong bank for some reason), I saw some white people and said to them, "Hey, what's going on guys?"  All I got was a "hey."  But the white people who showed up were German and I didn't really want to start a conversation with them, it would've probably started out like this: "Sprachen zie Englische?"  But I did see them show their id cards or something to that lady.  So after I finished swimming, I was toweling off and that women comes up to me and draws a rectangle in front of me with her finger in the air.  I say "Ok" and proceed to take out my 2 student ids (my International Student ID and my St. Olaf one) and she looks at me and I say "alright" and put them away.  I take it that I just made her really confused and I was probably intimidating.  And the whole language barrier worked to my advantage.  See in Taiwan they assume you do not speak the language.  But I should probably find another pool.

Anyway about the map.  Jennifer and I bought a world map on Sunday and then placed it on my wall in my room.  I then underlined every country that I want to go to, and then I started marking out the Trans-Siberian, Trans-Caspian, Trans-Aral, Trans-Mongolian, Turkestan-Siberia, and the North Caucus Railways.  I came to the realization that I could take a train from Vladivostok all the way to London if I wanted to.  Well it wouldn't be direct.  I would have to buy a train ticket in Moscow to Paris and then from Paris to London.  But it is possible.  I have pictures of the apartment now.  I will put them up a little bit later.  

Olympics

Well, I can't really watch them b/c Taiwan has awful coverage.  Uber Lame!  And the internet isn't helping me too much either.  This week went pretty well.  I got paid, I was hoping for more but little did I know that in Taiwan they only pay you for what you were scheduled to teach.  So the punch card is absolutely useless.  The Kindergarten class that I taught this week was awesome, but there were times when they weren't listening to me.  I also taught a 1st grade class this week, that was ok, I didn't like them very much because they did not listen at all.  It was pointless to yell at them b/c they still continued talking.  I even made them stand in the corner.  But I did learn some card tricks this week.  I had to for my 1st grade class.  This week I'll be teaching only kindergarten, but my class will be huge, 18 kids!  14 of them are boys, so I need to lay down the law.  Thursday was Valentine's Day in Taiwan.  Go figure.  So Jennifer and I went to a Russian restaurant, well it was a Russian themed restaurant.  It was expensive and but it was really good.  They even had some Russian beer, Балтика.  It was good to drink, reminded me of Russia.  I even took the beer mug that it came in because it was a Балтика one.  On Friday, Jennifer, some of our coworkers, and me went to the only Latin Club in Taipei maybe even Taiwan.  It was a bubble theme.  Open Bar.  Cost = $300NT or $10.  We got there pretty early around 10ish, we left around 1ish but it people weren't even dancing yet and we went to get some food.  I don't understand why people have to start dancing so late.  I mean the bus system shuts down at 11PM!  And the metro shuts down at midnight.  On Saturday, Jennifer, the teachers, and I all went out for lunch.  The company paid for lunch and a couple of the female Chinese Teachers are pregnant so they kept ordering food that is good for pregnant women, which is evidently fish and shrimp.  We have made friends with a couple of the teachers.  So far there is Sam, he is a new teacher like us, he is from Seattle.  Decided he needed a break from working at a drug rehab place.  Then there is Francesca, she is from CA, just graduated college.  I really wish I could watch the swimming events.  This is so lame.  Today we went to go to the gondola but it was stopped b/c of the weather.  I tried squid.  It is ok, tasted like fish.

Curry!

Sunday was rather relaxing, we did not leave the apartment until 5PM.  I talked to my good friend Abraham on skype for a good 1.5 hours and then watched some tv.  In the afternoon our real estate agent, Rock, came in and helped us set up a password for the wireless internet so no one can steal it.  Later, Jennifer and I went to Taipei Main Station because it is almost Valentine's Day in Taiwan, yeah Taiwan is weird like that, and the Taipei Metro Authority or Transit Authority whatever it's called has a deal where if you give them a picture of you and your partner and $1500NT then you get four $500NT metro passes!  And the picture of you and your partner will be on the pass.  So we did that and around 7, we met Jennifer's cousin Kevin and his girlfriend Candy.  She was not able to pick her English name, she wanted Ambrosia.  They took us out to eat curry!  For $270NT we got a salad, soup, main course, and a drink at the end.  I had an omelet with rice and beef along with the curry sauce.  It was really yummy, but next time, I'm going to go for the fried chicken in the curry.  Kevin and Candy are really nice and cool.  After dinner they showed us around the area a bit, (for awhile we didn't get home until 11) they showed us the old American Embassy.  It is now a bookstore/coffee shop/movie theatre.  At the coffee shop there was some Russian written in the comment book, so my hopes are up as I am still looking for the ever elusive Russians in Taiwan.  The great thing about the movie theatre is that it is free!  Quick history lesson, the United States stopped having an embassy in Taiwan (ROC) when Taiwan had to leave the UN and the "One China Policy" was adapted.  So now that embassy is in Beijing.  I found out from Candy that she is an airline stewardess for Thai airlines and so she is based out of Bangkok.  So we have a place to stay if we ever go there and she also told us that we have a place to stay if we go to Beijing or Hong Kong b/c her sister has places there.  We also have a place to stay in Tokyo b/c Jennifer's uncle has a place there.  Jennifer and I have been thinking about going to Tokyo around Thanksgiving b/c that is when her uncle will be there.  Now I must go to bed because I have to work tomorrow morning.

A relaxing Saturday in Danshui

Today, Jennifer and I went to Danshui to be touristy and check out the Fisherman's Wharf and a Portuguese Fort, named Fort San Domingo.  It was really interesting to read about the different countries that were trying to take over Taiwan (named Formosa by the Portuguese).  

We also went to the former British Consulate building that was conveniently located next door.  On a weird note, there was a band playing in the courtyard between the fort and the consulate building.  They were mostly foreigners and I think that they were a ska band.  The fort was really cool except for the passageways were a little bit low.  After messing around with the fort we went to the Fisherman's Wharf.  While we were there, we saw a couple signs that were pretty funny.  The men's bathroom did not say men at all, it said Gentle.  There was a sign for a fire hydrant, but there was a mop there.  While we were walking up and down the wharf, I found a Belgian beer to drink, Duvel, it was pretty good and at 8,5% alcohol, I felt pretty good too!  For dinner we went to a fried chicken place.  For $50NT you get a piece of fried chicken that is about bigger than your face!  It is really good but after eating all of it, I don't really want to eat chicken for awhile.

So I started my blog late....

This is me at the zoo.

yeah I am finally starting this thing.  So I have been in Taiwan for 1 month and 3 days and it has been getting better and better.  Today I received my Alien Resident Card (ARC) which means that I can live in Taiwan legally until next July.  I can also come and go as I please.  I also am entitled to health insurance and I might even be able to vote!  The teaching situation is a little weird.  I'll get back to that later on.  So far I have survived my first month and my first typhoon.  The typhoon was rather disappointing, it was windy and little bit rainy.  That's it.  But I did have the day off.  On Tuesday, I did have to hide from the government.  I was teaching my class and the Chinese teacher (CT) comes into to tell me that I have to go hide.  So my fellow teacher, Sam, and I go hide in the stairwell of the adjacent apartment, which so happens to be conveniently connected to the school.  We hid so well that the teachers had to call us on our cell phones to find us.  They told us to hide.  Apparently, it wasn't a big deal.  It was only the fire department checking in on the building.  I have an apartment, which has a chandelier for some odd reason.  But everything is good.  Pay day is next week and the Olympics start next week!