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!