劍湖山 and sniffles

When I left my apartment this morning, I knew three things:

1.) I was going on a field trip to an amusement park with my students;
2.) I wasn't feeling well;
3.) I was running inexplicably early.

The first was exciting, if mysterious, since, though I'd been told several times where we were going, I could never manage to remember the name. Still, an amusement park is an amusement park, and time with students outside of school is wonderful even if it didn't involve a free pass to a great Taiwanese attraction.

The second was just obnoxious. I made a quick trip down to 7-11 to pick up hospital masks, in case that was proper protocol for coming to school with a cold here (you never know) and two bags of what I know as cough drops, but which are here apparently considered candy--Ricola lemon mint drops (aka "herb candy").

The third is inexplicable still: I had been told to be at school by 7:24, so I was shooting for 7:20, and yet somehow managed to arrive at 7:05, after stalling and more than one convenience store stop. I met up with Maggie and we immediately began waiting, as the scheduled leave time of 7:30 came and went; when we finally boarded our bus at 8:00am, I had had ample time to wish I had bought breakfast in all my free time, rather than wait it out for the breakfast they provided, which turned out to be shredded dry pork sandwiches. (Not as bad as they sound, but there are still plenty of things I would have chosen over them.)

As the bus got moving, I asked Maggie, yet again, where we were going, and she told me 劍湖山世界, which is translated on their signs as Janfusun Fancyworld, though the characters should make it--and it is actually pronounced, from what I can tell--Jianhushan. So I guess I'm not the only one with problems with the name.

When we got there (after a beautiful drive through the Taiwanese countryside and a rest area reminiscent of those complexes found on toll roads on the East coast, complete with a Starbucks which Maggie and I took full advantage of!), I learned that this is not just a great theme park, but one located on a lush green mountain surrounded by lush green mountains. Absolutely gorgeous.

No photo-shopping necessary

Definitely one of the greenest theme parks I've ever seen

LOVE that view

The set-up reminded me at first of Enchanted Forest, in Albany, Oregon, but on a much grander school--if Albany looked like that (^), that is, which it doesn't. But it's the only other place I know of to so seamlessly integrate the natural environment--and geography--into the more modern buildings and rides. It was brilliant in this regard.

Maggie informed me that the first thing the teachers must do is have coffee/tea with the owner of the tour bus company who took us there. (Oh, there's another cultural difference for ya: no school buses here, and they use double-decker tour buses for just about everything that requires moving large groups of people! Much nicer than the States.) That's one tradition I was more than happy to take part in! Especially when we arrived at the place where we were going to drink the coffee, and found that it was...

Love at first sight. World's largest!

Inside, the different rooms--all part of a cafe--featured decor from all different parts of the world. So cool! Wish I'd gotten to explore it more.

Our table: Maggie with her rose milk tea (and leftover Starbucks from the road) and 2 of the home room teachers with their iced caramel lattes

Maggie and I! Our part of the cafe was decorated like the UK, from what I could tell...

Once we finished our drinks, we set out for the haunted theater attraction--never my favorite, but everyone else wanted to go, so I joined. It ended up being pretty tame: rather than reinvent the wheel, they had opted to recreate scenes from famous horror movies in each corner of a mid-sized maze. Also, Maggie and I were at the end of the group going through, so mostly we'd just hear screams up ahead and turn the corner in time to see the actor go back to his corner, or the animatronic monster shrink back to its starting position.

Then it was off to the rides! I think I may have earned myself a reputation as something of a daredevil as, in quick succession, I went on the Diving Machine G5 (not my video), the Sky Jet (where I had an audience of maybe forty or so of my students watching me) and the Crazy Coaster. All were a lot of fun, and all involved fairly quiet waits, seeing as how Maggie doesn't do roller coasters and the other teachers didn't speak English. Still a lot of fun, though!

the G5

Just caught it in time

Annnd JUST because they're adorable, I give you Fred and Brian. Twin brothers, and they're in the same class. And then I wonder why I can't remember names...

Not long after lunch--which we were late to, thanks to our roller coaster antics--it was time to head home. We piled back into the buses, turned back on our illegal copy of "Real Steel" (Hugh Jackman fighting robots movie), and headed home.

It was a great day, and it solved my first and third tidbits along the way: I now know that I went to j...n.shn....hm. Curse that name. Okay, it solved my third tidbit along the way: .....because...I...umm....huh. Not even going to try on the second one: my throat still aches, ricola notwithstanding. It didn't keep my from enjoying myself, but it does seem to be impacting my memory and sense of time! So I'm going to bed.