Back to the Basics

I've come to realize that I'm one of those people who love the basics. When I read, I often pick up the classics: basic. When I go shopping, I pick clothes with bold colors and classic styles: basic. When I think of a great day, I think of a day without a schedule, involving such things as sleep, good coffee, good books, good company: basic. In fact, in most things, from daily activities to theology, I'm a big fan of Occam's razor.

It's somewhat of an ironic fact about me, really: I love details, I love finding tiny errors and correcting them--I want to be an editor, after all; yet, at the same time, what I long for is simplicity.

Which means today was lovely. After an early wake-up call and trip to the airport to say goodbye to Kaitlin, who had an unfortunately long trip home ahead of her (it's midnight here and we left for the airport at 6am, but she still has another 6 hours to go, by my count), I slumped home on the MRT and went back to sleep for a few hours. When I awoke, I was met with the happy news that Rachel had waited for me to go to Costco, and at Costco I found some good ol' fashioned American basics like cheese, wheat bread, and chips and salsa. To round out my trip, I couldn't resist going for one of Costco's signature hot dogs. Pork instead of beef here, but still SO good.

I then got home and discovered that my rotisserie chicken had gone back a little too basic, in my own humble opinion:

It had a head still. True reaction.

I spent the rest of the afternoon preparing for my first tutoring session tonight, with a young man named Hal whose father is a homeroom teacher at Hanmin. And, by preparing, I mean writing out a general outline of things we should do, and then re-reading the first chapter of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and writing a bunch of reading comprehension questions on the content. Nothing more basic than one of my favorite books of all time!

Except perhaps the tutoring itself. I arrived at the cafe early and grabbed a cup of delicious coffee, and when Hal got there, we got down to work--on his writing and almost solely his writing. It was so much fun! I spent three years in college as a writing tutor, doing what I could for students' full length papers in little half hour segments; working on others' papers is a matter of course for me. But half hour sessions are not nearly enough to fully address all the issues in a paper, as I learned today, as Hal and I took a full hour and a half to pore over his two paragraph practice test essay.

It was glorious: all the skills I've honed over the past few years, but expanded out into a fuller time frame that allowed us to take a piece of writing from draft stage through a full work-up of structure and grammar (subjunctive mood played a key role in today's lesson) to rewrites of specific sentences to re-copying the whole thing in corrected form, allowing Hal to walk away with an example for future works. I loved it: back to the basics of English tutoring, and tutoring itself.

At home, an HBO series of Matt Damon movies (I caught the very strange and confusing second half of The Talented Mr. Ripley, and then the entirety of the also confusing and certainly not basic but, for me, intriguing The Adjustment Bureau, which led to an abortive convoluted theological conversation with Analicia which did, in fact, help to inspire this post) served as a nice break from some of the ridiculousness they've been showing lately, and after it finished I had the treat of listening to a podcast by the great Judah Smith, who always challenges me with his fantastic ability to bring everything back to the utmost basic of Christian faith: Jesus.

I love complex thought; I love teasing out inconsistencies and exploring convoluted new notions. I love experiencing new things. But that's just it: even when I'm delving into extraordinarily complicated notions, I do it with the intent of smoothing out the wrinkles and revealing the bigger picture, clean and pressed through the action of delving. I see complications as a juicy challenge on the way to clarity.

Because, to me, as much fun as labyrinthine experiences are, all those in the maze really have the same goal: to get out of the twists and turns--to get back to the basics.

Forgotten Race, Forgotten Day

My alarm went off this morning at 5:40, but Kaitlin and I had been up, off and on, for most of the night, thanks to the joy that is a hostel full of late-night incomers who are not so great at keeping quiet. We were not exactly awake.

We packed up our stuff in the dark, discovered we couldn't actually check out early like we'd thought we could, so we left our stuff at the back of the main room and left one set of keys and a note on the front desk, then headed towards the MRT. The plan was to try to make it in time for the last shuttle bus to Brittany's race at 6:30am or, failing that, to just go ahead and take MRT all the way there.

After all, I reasoned, the race was at Tamsui Gate 6, so all I would have to do was go to the Tamsui MRT station and then just follow the crowd. At Jiantian, we saw a white guy in running shoes get off and I wondered if he was going to the race. But that couldn't be, I reasoned--the shuttle was at Shilin! We got to Shilin a few minutes later, just as the last shuttle bus would certainly be pulling away. No problem, we thought, we'll just shoot for the backup plan!

About 20 minutes later, we pulled up to Tamsui and got off. There, we discovered precisely one thing: there was no race there. It was utterly deserted, and even the Starbucks was closed. Not only that, but no one there had ever heard of a race--a race which was being held on a closed-off portion of the number 1 expressway.

How was this possible? I do not know. But when I asked information, at the MRT station, where the race was, she directed me to the footpath by the river. "If you want to, you can race there..." she said. When I assured her that Kaitlin and I had not, in fact, come to Tamsui with the intention of finding a good racetrack to see who was faster, she tried to direct me to a gym. I gave up.

After a call to Rachel that revealed that, not only were we at the wrong stop, but that even if we'd gotten off at Shilin we would have been at the wrong stop--Jiantian had the shuttle, after all, meaning both that the guy with the running shoes had likely been going to the race and that we could have made the last shuttle easily.

Instead, we got to explore Tamsui a little bit, then we were the first people in the door at Starbucks before we headed back to Jiantian. Once there, we flagged down a taxi--who had no idea about the race. Seriously?? The expressway was closed! This guy was a taxi driver, working less than 10 minutes from the race, and he somehow had no idea what was going on.

The next cabbie, fortunately, did.

(Did I mention yet that this trip stretched my Chinese abilities further than they've ever been stretched before? Because it totally did.)

We got to Brittany's race around the time she'd estimated she'd get in, and waited with Analicia, Rachel, and Rakitia (a friend of Brittany's who lives in Taipei) until Brittany crossed the finish line. She made it!

A convoluted getting-back-and-making-plans process followed, but soon enough Kaitlin and I were heading on MRT to meet Brittany and Rachel for brunch at a Western breakfast place. It was easy enough, just one stop away.

Except it wasn't. We hopped on the train, got off at the next stop, and then realized something: we were in the wrong place. My first thought was we hadn't gone far enough, so I pushed my way back through the crowd and the closing doors to see---Kaitlin on the other side.

After some frantic gesturing and an anxious wait at the next stop, Kaitlin and I were reunited, and we found a train going back to where we went wrong. Right around then, we got a call from Rachel--saying she and Brittany had also taken the wrong train. Lack of sleep is never great for things like navigation...

It was a day of forgetting and having things forgotten, things that had no cause to be forgotten. But, as a result of them, today won't be!

Travel time

There is a very simple reason why I did not blog yesterday. It wasn't because I didn't have computer access: I did. I was traveling at first, flying from Singapore to Taipei and then train-ing from Taipei to Kaohsiung and MRT-ing from Zuoying to Cultural Center.

When I finally trudged up to my apartment, I collapsed onto my bed, fully clothed. I then realized I should probably change my clothes and use the restroom, so I did, and then collapsed into bed again. It was 3pm.

I slept until 10am today. Thus, no blog. Surely you see why.

...a sleep-deprived postscript

It's a funny thing about blogging the morning after you've stayed up all night about the day before: you're pretty well assured that, a) you will have forgotten some of the key points of the day before, and b) you won't be alert enough to make anything new and interesting happen later in the day.

Also, c) your memory will be shot, with less than pleasant circumstances.

So, a!

• We were on the news last night! While wandering around Taipei 101, Karina and I spotted a news anchor getting ready to do a live broadcast so, after briefly contemplating photo-bombing, we decided instead to wait off to the side and watch her do her report. She got the go-ahead but, a few sentences in, the camera swung around to show the crowd! AKA, us--the only ones cheering for the camera, as Karina mentioned later. I hadn't noticed, I was just too excited to be on TV.
• And, speaking of photo-bombing, that was a massive theme with us. Karina, Brittany, and Rachel will be all over strangers' Facebook profiles soon, likely tagged as "random foreigner who stood behind us, smiling, for the entirety of the timed photo session." Because yes, they did that.
• In our stroll to find a way home, we passed Sun Yat Set Memorial Hall, marking another Taipei landmark that I've "visited"! Also, both it and the road for almost the entirety of our walk was absolutely TRASHED. I feel for the poor city workers who must've stayed up all night making it presentable again...and seriously, at the memorial?? Disrespectful in the extreme.
• Also, the rest of our day yesterday, since it actually didn't start at 7:30: Karina and I went to Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall to check out a carnival which had some sweet break dancing, then went to Tamsui, walked around a bit, had Starbucks at a 4-story store the line for which stretched out the door and down the street, and, of course, hit up an epic photobooth.

b!

• Yeah...today, we checked out of our hostel and got on a train. For seven hours (gross!). End of story. Except that...

c!

• My complete lack of a brain due to lack of sleep led me to forget my camera at the hostel. I discovered this, of course, not when we were eating right downstairs, and not before we got on the MRT, but after we'd traveled a good 6 or 7 stops to Taipei Main, left the MRT area, walked across the massive terminal to find food, ordered our food to take on the train with us, and only had 40 minutes before the train would leave. Fortunately, a couple phone calls to the hostel owner (thanks, Karina!), a load of panic, and a mass text later, Emily volunteered to stop by and pick it up for me (you're my hero!). And right around then, I realized that...
• Due to my camera panic, I hadn't gotten the bagel sandwich I'd ordered and paid for to take on the train. Stupid one-track mind and unfortunately-timed remembering...

But that was my day! And now I'm going to sleep.

Strollin'

When I bought my scooter in September, it opened the world of Kaohsiung to me--and simultaneously shut it out. Whenever people here talk about scooters, one of the first things out of their mouths is "It's so convenient!"--and that's true. A little too true, really: scooters make it incredibly easy to go from point A to point B, without seeing any of the points in between.

I was reminded of this today, as I traversed Kaohsiung, scooter-less once more. My trip to school was longer and more complicated, true, but as I went I got to look around and see my fellow commuters, both Taiwanese and (gasp!) foreign, and remember that I lived in a community beyond that of annoying people who pull out in front of you without bothering to notice that you're even there. (Fun side note about scooters: YOU CAN SEE when people don't look.)

My trip back was even better. My lovely co-teacher, Patty, drove me to the department store near Central Park where the Western supermarket Jason's is located (Being in Jason's felt like HEAVEN, surrounded by American goodies and English signs!), and talking with her and being able to look around on the drive was great. I didn't find what I was looking for at Jason's (Graham crackers and instant vanilla pudding = fail, though they had six or seven varieties of Jell-O...), but I wasn't able to say no to a package of double fudge soft baked Pepperidge Farm cookies. Mmm...I'll be visiting again.

But quite apart from the food, going through the Christmas-bedecked department store down to the busy grocery store in the basement, and then walking the several blocks back to the MRT to go home, was great. It was absolutely glorious out, not too cold or too hot, and I enjoyed my stroll so much that, after I got home and had dinner, I went out again and went on a good 45 minute walk to the bank and to a local baking store (where, incidentally, I found some decent substitutes for Graham crackers and instant vanilla pudding in Digesta biscuits and custard powder).

It was on this walk, actually, that I realized that I rarely walk around my neighborhood any more. I have my established routes, to and from places I like, and that's about it.

But why? Again, I blame the scooter. Well, that, and my flat feet and months-long failure to remember to wear good shoes.

Hopefully, I'll have my scooter restored to me soon. But when I do, I hope to remember that Kaohsiung is larger than the few main streets I routinely traverse--and that the smaller streets are well worth being opened up with a quick stroll.

Why Today Didn't Suck (though it could have)

I had a pretty good day, all things considered. And, by "all things," I mean my scooter breaking down on my drive home. Here's why:

1.) My scooter broke down on the way home, meaning I wasn't in any sort of a hurry and didn't have the panic of having to call my LETs and hope they picked up.

2.) It broke down next to the airport, meaning I just had to wheel it (an admittedly long way) into the parking lot, and I had a safe and easy-to-find place to park it, and then an easy access point to MRT to get me home.

3.) I had an amazing and relaxing (after the rowdy first period, that is) day at school. I taught my students vocabulary (donkey, camel, stable, manger, shepherds, wisemen, angel, gifts), told them the nativity story (no problem with teaching religious stories here!), which involved sentences like "The angel told the shepherds, 'Hey, there's a new baby down in Bethlehem, and he's God's son. You should go check it out!", and then watched Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, sans the nonessential parts, until the end of class, when I gave them all candy canes. Pretty wonderful teaching day for everyone--the kids loved it, too!

(and, for your viewing pleasure...)

4.) My dinner involved experimentation with whatever food I happened to have handy, and so turned into a light veggie pasta consisting of grape tomatoes, onions, green peppers, olive oil and spices. Quite yummy, and so pretty to look at!

Hmm..less yellow in person...

 5.) Fonda took care of my scooter problems, passing my keys off to a mechanic and informing me that I might have it back tomorrow. AND, if there's any day to be scooter-less, tomorrow's it: class doesn't start till 1:30pm, giving me plenty of time to tackle the lengthy and cumbersome MRT route.

So yeah. Not a bad day. :)

Last Day, in Taipei

Today was complicated. After the others in our hostel woke us up all night (and turned the lights on twice!!!), we started out the day tired. We soon found ourselves, Starbucks in hand, in a cab with an extremely talkative Chinese driver who pushed me to the limits of my Chinese conversational skills (I said 好 a lot, and he knew enough to end many of his monologues with　你聽不懂, not that it kept him from trying.) headed towards the National Palace museum.

The morning of looking at ancient artifacts was great; next, we hopped a bus and, several MRT transfers later, had lunch back near the hostel and retrieved our bags.

That's when the trouble began. We couldn't find an MRT entrance with an escalator or elevator; when we finally lugged my mom's big bag and our two smaller ones to the train and made it to our stop, we discovered that the directions the hotel had given us were crap. Seriously.

An hour and a half later, we admitted defeat and hailed a cab to take us to our hotel--which ended up being maybe five blocks away. Fail. But that didn't begin to cover our charming discovery once we got here that our reservation was for the wrong night. Last night, to be specific. EPIC fail. Fortunately they had an open room, but at this point we were both so frustrated and stressed that we proceeded to waste the next hour or so just sitting and recuperating.

We finally rallied ourselves enough to venture to Taipei 101, and we explored the observation deck for a while, and I then discovered my new favorite place in Taiwan, Page One. AKA the home of the largest selection of English books in Taiwan. Heavenly.

We were both too tired for our planned night market adventure at Shilin (sadly...) so we went back to our hotel, bought food on the way and planted ourselves on the bed to watch It's a Wonderful Life. Couldn't make it all the way through, though--after all, we leave the hotel at 5:30am tomorrow morning!

Annnd, on that note, I'm going to bed. Tomorrow should be easier, but also much sadder, as I have to say goodbye to my mom and send her back to America...it's been a fun trip!

Mud

It's become a sort of paradigm with me that, on days which I actually have something exciting to write about, I have no time in which to write about it. Today is one of those days.

In sum, I went with Karina and her LETs to mud springs, where we got to live out every kindergartener's dream: smear mud all over ourselves.

The trip there was pretty epic itself: we left my apartment at 2pm and got to the springs at 6pm, though we weren't going too far, just a bit north of Tainan; in the process, we used four different forms of communication, including MRT, walking, train (not HSR, just regular train--my first time here!), and car. In addition, both MRT and train cars were more full than we had ever seen them (looked like Taipei!), so we were standing for the entire first portion of the trip.

When we finally did reach the mud springs, though, it was fantastic. They had a bowl of mud and a mirror for you to watch where you smeared the thin, blue-gray mixture all over yourself, and then you entered the mud spring pool, which was already mud-colored and the perfect temperature in which to bask and let the mud do its glorious thing on your skin. Needless to say, a series of wonderful mud-related photos also followed. (Unfortunately, said photos are on Karina's camera, but I'll add them when I can.)

UPDATED 11/18: PHOTOS!

Bekah: "I can't believe I'm actually doing this..."    Karina: "I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M ACTUALLY DOING THIS!!!"

When we recovered from our childhood ecstasies of playing in mud, we moved on to the other pools (which did not have mud in them), our favorite of which was tinted blue-green and smelled like tea, or lemongrass, or some such herbal mixture. It was heavenly.

After the mud springs, we headed down the most adorably quintessential Chinese/Taiwanese street on a winding street which reminded me, by turns, of Huangshan in China, the area around the Great Wall in China, Kenting in Taiwan, and Maokong in Taipei. (Please note that only one of those links shows what I really mean: a twisty green road with little shops along either side--same at the Great Wall, and also at Maokong, with tea shops.) It was all of these things and none of them, a mystical place shrouded in mist and serving up some delicious roasted chicken and fried rice, once we picked a restaurant. Fabulous.

Well, after all that, our long journey back began; I walked in the doors to my apartment a little after 11:30pm and, of course, I have class tomorrow. So, epic day though it was, that's all for now! It's just one of those days.

***
Bonus moment: I've had this song stuck in my head in the best possible way, and feel like sharing it with ya'll:

Double 10

I will never be able to do justice to the fantastic day I just finished living, and I won't even pretend to be able to do so when I begin writing at 11pm and have to work tomorrow morning. I just returned from the swankiest, largest gathering of highly influential people that I have ever attended, or am likely ever to attend.

Let's just take a second here to break it down.

The reception was held at the Taipei Guest House, an official building which looks to be on par for niceness with the White House, though on a much smaller scale. To get there, Karina, Rachel and I (and Tom, who hung out with us for the morning) took the MRT, but we left a full hour early for the 10 minute journey (you never know what holiday traffic could bring! Tom was an hour early to the 6:30am flag raising ceremony and still couldn't get close enough to see), and so got to join the swelling group of fancy-dressed foreigners drawing stares and unasked-for photos every thirty seconds or so. I haven't had that much attention since China!

The entrance is a massive arch guarded by security personnel and set off from another archway covering a road, which they had closed for the event, and decorated like so:

Inside, we walked a red carpet with other dignitaries as black cars guarded by police escorts and adorned with dual flags (one Taiwanese, one from whichever native country the inhabitants were) zoomed past to another entrance. The building itself was gorgeous,

and, once inside the actual door, we shook hands with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and his wife--our hosts for the evening. We crossed through the house and into the park behind (between two lines of waiters holding trays of drinks for you to choose from) to the sound of drums, and found the whole place to be swarming with people and filled with food, drinks, and waitstaff every few feet to take your empty dishes and/or glasses. On the pond, native drummers/dancers were performing; everywhere, people in absurdly high positions mingled, mixed, and sampled a plethora of food dishes, ranging from typical Taiwanese fare like bubble tea to Western food like a Haagen-Dazs ice cream station and foreign foods like a Thai station.

We spent most of the time just wandering, but once we realized the President had entered the building, we dropped our food (pretty much literally) and sprinted to join the throng. Karina and Ari (one of the Yilan ETAs) were by far the most successful of the group, jostling to the front and both shaking the President's hand (three times, in Ari's case) and getting photographic proof that they did; Rachel managed to be in front and shake his hand, too, and I was literally right behind her wondering if there was any way I could leverage my arm over her shoulder to shake his hand without it being obscenely awkward. Well, at least I got photos.

We actually lost Karina and Ari in the press to meet President Ma, and later found out that they'd made the very smart decision to ask Dr. Vocke who we should be on the lookout for in the crowd--and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus were both there; Ari got to meet Rumsfeld, apparently. But we did get to meet some cool people; Brittany got an invitation from a Fijian lady to come visit her in her country (yes please!), we talked for a while to the wife of the diplomat from Swaziland (who also invited Brittany to stay with her in Taipei), and I had a great conversation with a Taiwanese-American guy who works in immigration in California (at first I thought he said he worked at Universal, but must have been San Francisco or something...) and had a friend who was a professor at Oregon State. Small world!


In a very small nutshell, that was my evening. It was fantastic. However, it is now almost 2am, and I teach tomorrow, so I can't do much more on here. I'll be adding more pictures to the album I made for the weekend, though; here's the public link if you're interested.

Happy 100th anniversary, ROC/Taiwan!

The Little Things

Two meanings hidden in the title, there. The first one is quite prosaic: this blog will be a "little thing." The other is more contemplative, though cliche: it's the little things in life that make the difference.

Again, a double meaning: little details are often those that make any given day memorable and special, and little details are often those that cause, for me, a pang of homesickness.

To elaborate briefly on the latter. This weekend in Taipei has been full of little reminders of home, little things which remind me of different features of the Northwest, or of people there whom I love. The rain and clouds, and the cooler temperature: Oregon and Washington. Hiking in the rain: family camping trips with Mom. Hot springs: Belknap, and Dad's inability to overheat.

A pot of hot milk tea: an afternoon in Anna's cottage in Seattle with homemade Chai. A crazy bohemian shop full of tie-die: downtown Eugene with Erin and Sarah. Modern Toilet: Melanie made me promise to eat there while I was here. "Jar of Hearts" on Tom's phone: Elizabeth and Annika. Taken together, it's amazing how a vibrant, bustling Asian metropolis can consist of so many small reminders of life in the Pacific Northwest. I've noticed this phenomena in Kaohsiung, too, but this weekend has had more moments like this than normal. I haven't hit any real culture shock since I've been here, and I haven't hit any homesickness ruts, but I have had a constant smattering of these little moments that remind me of the people and places I've left behind for a while.

But the little things work for the positive, and for the here and now, as well. The smell of waffles haunting our stroll down by the river at 淡水 (Tamsui); Karina's notebook of quotes from the weekend; our awkward foreigners-in-two-piece moments at 新北投 (Xinbeitou Hot Springs); debating when (and where) the sun would set while riding the gondola up 貓空 (Maokong); eavesdropping on the ladies switching between Mandarin and Taiwanese at the table next to us at dinner as we admired the gorgeous night view of Taipei; finally getting our waffles at the tea house on top and almost missing the last gondola down; Tom almost getting caught in the closing MRT doors (his face made it funny, not horrific, I promise); Karina running into a descending metal gate as Rachel and I yelled that it was closing; realizing that, in a mere two days, we'd used up our $400NT EasyPasses by riding the MRT lines from end to end.

And that was my day, in a nutshell. Tomorrow is the National Day, and we have stuff early in the morning, so now it's off to bed for me--since yet another little thing that I treasure is sleep.

Touristy Things

Given my well-documented love of mornings, especially on the weekends (please sense the sarcasm), it was just wonderful to be out of the house this morning by 9am, ready to catch a train at Zuoying by 9:55. But that's what happened! We (Rachel, Karina, and I) were in Taipei by 11:30, ready to check in at our hostel (a full 8 hours ahead of what we told them originally) and do some serious exploring.

One of the from-the-train vistas

And that's what we did. Armed with several guidebooks, Karina had put together a list of things to do in Taipei, and after a bit of conversation (including where I could go to buy shoes) we had a game plan: go to 陽明山 (YangMingShan), do a little hiking, check out the hot springs there, then come back into the city and go to 士林夜市 (Shilin Night Market), which is the most famous night market in Taiwan (and which, incidentally, sells shoes). We had lunch, got a call from Tom, who we invited to join us, and then set out for the mountain. The sky was cloudy as we descended into the Guting MRT station.

We met Tom and hopped a bus for the mountain top, but as we boarded we noticed something: raindrops. As it turns out, we seem to have a personal raincloud following us on our travels, much as you might see in an old Looney Toons production, but without all the moping. (It was our own fault, we decided, we'd jinxed it: getting of the train this morning I'd said it would be a good weekend if, just once, I got cold, and Rachel wore her bathing suit under her hiking gear) By the time we reached the place to change buses, it was really coming down. By the time we made it to the top (standing in the back of both buses for most of the time, balancing precariously on our feet as they weaved back and forth on crazy switchbacks), the mountain was also completely engulfed in fog. 

So, naturally, we decided to go hiking. We'd already trashed our original idea of hiking to the hot springs, so we were instead in the volcanic region of the park, at the dormant volcano's peak--or near it. To get to it, we'd have to hike 1.6km up the side of a mountain, in the rain, in the wind, on a slippery rock path, surrounded by sulfur, with no just-in-case hiking supplies. This, naturally, is what we set out to do.

We made it about halfway before we realized that we wouldn't have time to complete the hike before the last bus left the mountain, and so turned back, still in the rain, to catch another series of buses down. But before we did, we had a momentary lapse of cloud cover, and could at least catch a glimpse of the crater across the parking lot! But, all too quickly, it was gone.

Quick, clarity!

Out the bus window

So we were back on the bus again. We'd given up on the hot spring idea for the day entirely (which saddened me to no end, given that we were now wet and cold), but soon we were warm again and roaming about the night market. After what I can only describe as the easiest, fastest, and most painless shoe shopping experience of my life, we had accomplished our only hard-and-fast objective and were just taking in the sights like the other swarms of tourists.

And then we went to dinner--at Modern Toilet. For the uninitiated, Modern Toilet sells food and ice cream--in toilet shaped bowls. I wasn't feeling great at this point, so I ordered just ice cream and orange soda (thought it was water, but oh well). The drink came out first (an oddity in Taiwan), and it was in, well, a blue urinal.

Then came the 'ice cream.' Turned out that the ice cream I thought I was ordering, the simple pile of soft serve they are famous for, was not what I had ordered. What I had ordered was this:

Shaved ice with kiwi sauce,  chocolate soft serve, vanilla ice cream, raisins, mango pieces, and kiwi jellies, with random marshmallows etc sprinkled on it

 For a size comparison, here it is (a little depleted) next to what I meant to order, and which Rachel got after her meal:

Aww, look, the cute little baby toilets are gathering around the mama!

Anyway, after that we walked around some more, did a (very little) shopping in some of the stores around the market (one of which smelled and looked like it belonged in downtown Ashland, OR--smoky, tie-died, faux-exotic, belly-dancing...), and even managed to run into Emily, Lydia, and Samia, who were doing the same. Another fun moment came when we saw a stream of illegal street vendors running away from a police officer--and by running, I mean they were quickly but precisely wheeling their entire livelihoods down the middle of a crowded walkway, while a police officer strolled after them several blocks behind. (Clearly, they're really serious about this whole endeavor...)

We were all ready at this point to call it a night. So, after a brief stop-in at one of Tom's regular places, where he ordered stinky tofu (which we all then had to watch/smell him eat), we headed back for the hostel. Here, we discovered it had been taken over by middle-aged and older Taiwanese people, which was a bit of a shock given that hostels are normally for the young and are usually dominated by out-of-country people. I'm guessing, though, that at this point all the hotels are booked, and you take what you can get!

So that's it for now. Tomorrow we're going to chase Karina's ritual of taking photobooth pictures in every Asian country she visits, then actually go to the hot springs. Undetermined after that--we might meet up with another alum from my high school, but who knows--but hopefully the weather will realize we don't live in a cartoon, and hold for whatever we end up doing. 

Which will, inevitably, be touristy things.

Taxi!

Considering my other non-Taipei, non-USA weekends since I got here, I did a remarkable amount today. But it wasn't quite intentional.

The day began with me looking at my clock and thinking "Huh, 10 o'clock. Not a bad time to get up!" Seconds later, I looked over and saw that it was now 11 o'clock.

Once I was up, though, I immediately set into cleaning mode: our apartment decided to set up weekly cleaning people, rather than divvy up weekly chores like we did at my last house. And this was my week, and I hadn't yet completed probably the biggest and most important of my cleaning jobs: sweeping and mopping all the common areas. It wasn't pretty, and it certainly wasn't fun (take all the joy of normal cleaning, then add 15* and humidity), but it was rewarding to see the outcome: clean floors, for about 5 minutes. Se la vie, I guess.

Anyway, after that, Rachel and I set out to try to find a way to spend $2,500NT. That may sound like an easy task, but ours was actually more complicated--the reason we were trying to spend money was that the gym we're planning on joining, Fitness Factory (for the record, not the gigantic one with the rock climbing wall and pool pictured; we're going to a smaller, cheaper branch off of Sanduo), is having a promotion in which, if you spend up to $2,500NT at once at one of their partner stores, you can deduct that amount from your joining fee of $2,500NT. So, really, it's a question of "Do you want to give us $2,500 and get nothing, or spend $2,500 somewhere else and get something?"

Big surprise, we chose the latter.

But it was not an easy task! We visited Fitness Factory on Tuesday, found out about the deal, and were given a pamphlet listing all the partner stores. It was, however, written entirely in traditional characters, which neither Rachel nor I can read. (We could read "SUBWAY," but $2,500NT worth of sandwiches is a bit extreme...) So we (and by we, I mostly mean Rachel) spent the week asking various Taiwanese friends what the places on our pamphlet were, and where we should go. With the help of Chialing, as well as Rebecca and Karen (Rachel's LETs), we got some translations and narrowed down the list to a few contenders.

And this morning, we clutched our little green pamphlet, grabbed a cab across the street (and down a ways, since the guy in the cab directly across the street was sound asleep in the driver's seat), and asked him to take us to a car store. Now you may be thinking "Cars? But you don't have a car.." which is true. Our thought was that they might also sell scooter stuff, and we have both been hankering for a better scooter helmet.

Turns out, though, that your thoughts were right--nothing doing. As Rachel pointed out, we could have gotten Ferrari bumper stickers for our scooters, but I really can't say that's something I'm in the market for.

So we hailed another cab and asked him to take us to our back-up place--a jewelry store which turned out to be right around the corner from the gym. It also happened to be a tiny little section of a department store, with prices beginning at $40,000NT. Next!

We hopped another cab and asked him to take us to either of two watch stores on the list; whichever was closest. He agreed and set out, but as we looked closer at the address on the pamphlet, we realized that even the "closer" one was in Zuoying--by the HSR station, quite a ways from where we were. *sigh* One $200NT cab ride (spendy for here, but dirt cheap by US standards) later, we finally found the store, and discovered we'd finally found somewhere to spend our money. I walked away with a great watch and a pair of cheap clear glasses (for scootering at night), and Rachel walked away with a pair of cheap clear glasses and a pair of "designer" (we're not sure if they were telling the truth...ever hear of Martini?) sunglasses. I was actually a bit disappointed, though, because they gave me a discount, meaning my total was less than the $2500 allowed. Never been disappointed about a discount before! But now I have to pay a good $420NT to join, which is unfortunate.

Anyway, since we were in Zuoying and I'd promised Karina a visit today anyway--she lives in Zuoying now--we took the MRT down to meet her puppies. They are absolutely adorable! She adopted them off of Cijin Island a few weeks ago, and though she's since discovered she can't keep them--she's taking them to Taipei next weekend to become animal therapy dogs--it was so much fun to see the little pups and watch them play. Their names are MoMo and ChiChi--combined into "Mochi" their names mean "an unspoken deep understanding" in Chinese--and they were born at almost the same time that we got to Taiwan, Karina says. I do wish she could keep them if only for that reason--they have the same amount of history here as we do! In any case, though, it was lots of fun to see them, and to see where Karina and Esther live now.

We then grabbed another cab and went back to our apartment, where Brittany (who had been at a Taiwanese engagement ceremony of the friend of one of her LETs all day) was waiting for us to go to Kaohsiung Sky Tower 85--the landmark building of Kaohsiung, which we hadn't been to yet.

So we hopped in yet another cab and went to the 85, as it's usually referred to around here. At the top (or, rather, floor 74, where the observation deck is), we enjoyed some great views and an....interesting....Tokyo photographers exhibit, before grabbing dessert (caramel apple cheesecake for me; Haagen Dazs for Brittany and Rachel; Karina didn't want anything) and heading home.

For Karina and I, anyway--we walked to the MRT and went our separate ways. Brittany and Rachel grabbed another cab and went shopping.

And that was my day! Did some application work when I got home, which I should have done all day, and now I'm sitting here doing this. At least it doesn't require a taxi!

"Where are you from?"

I started teaching today! And I absolutely love it--today was my 'long day' of 5 periods of 6th graders, but even so, it was fantastic! I got there at 9:30, left at 3:00, and had a delightfully short and apparently short 5 and a half hours in between.

I was teaching with Alison at Han-Min today, and the next lesson in the textbook was, conveniently, "Where are you from?" It was the perfect tie-in from me to the lesson and back again. The first thing Alison and I did when we entered the classroom was introduce ourselves (mostly me introducing myself, since they've had Alison for a week now), and then Alison asked them if they had any questions for me.

And, at least three times out of the five, they did: "Where are you from?"

Bingo.

We taught them the six vocabulary words in the book, "the UK," "the USA," "Japan," "Taiwan," "Taipei," and "Kaohsiung"--all of which they pretty much knew (go figure with the last three)--and tried to explain the joyous complications of the US and the UK. (Do you know what the USA stands for? The United States of America! Did you know you can say "the USA" or "the US" or "the United States" or "America," too? Then came the part where Alison and I were baffled trying to explain how England relates to the UK, other than to say it is a part of it and not a country on its own. Oh, geography and politics.)

Then we plunged into asking them for other places they knew in English. Without fail, they produced Canada, Australia, China, New York, London, Tokyo, Singapore, and a handful of other countries and cities around the world (of which there were dozens, ranging from Canberra (Australia) to Madagascar to Chicago, depending on the class), and we used those to challenge them. The ultimate challenge for the final game of hangman, which I stumped them with every time, was the word "Oregon," which they of course had never heard before. But it was a nice way to end each class, with a new fun fact about where the new teacher was from and a new vocabulary word!

So here's a lovely cultural difference between America and Taiwan: in Taiwan, the teachers get treated like celebrities and/or royalty. And not just me as the foreigner--Alison seems to consider it as a given that the only things she ever carries away from class are her water bottle and maybe a book (despite carrying a portable microphone and book full of teaching aids from room to room), and that the class (or at least, most of the classes) will stand and bow when we walk in, and again when we leave.

And this is 6th graders! Sure, they still do some of the standard 6th grade stuff like whisper and laugh with their friends during class, but they aren't blatantly disrespectful or rude to their teachers or, that I've observed so far, even to each other. In the hallways, they greet every teacher with "Laoshi hao," which is more or less "Good afternoon, teacher." Amazing! Granted, it's early in the year yet, but I'm liking what I'm seeing.

Recess happens in the hallways here...

...as well as on the track.

And is still pretty orderly!

And Alison and Maggie are beyond sweet! We all share an office, together with the other subject teachers (science and English), and they have gone out of their way to make me feel at home. They are constantly telling me to make myself, at home, sit down, use the computer, and offering that I use their things. Today at lunch, they BOTH got me coffee, unbeknownst to each other until Alison came back from the store and saw the coffee already sitting on my desk. Alison even made me a bag decoration out of native Taiwanese-style beads. And gifts aside, I can't imagine more supportive LETs--I feel so blessed to have them in my life; I hope I can be as much of a blessing to them as they are to me!

Getting to and from Han-Min today was actually kind of fun--I knew where I was, and how long I had to be there, and despite the stares I still get, I feel like I belong in Kaohsiung. When I run across other white people here, I'm tempted to ask them if I can help them find anything--but then don't because, truth be told, I probably wouldn't know how to find what they're looking for, my sense of belonging aside. The MRT ride was infinitely better than last week, since I'm riding at off-peak hours, meaning I can actually sit down and relax (what a difference that makes) and, as I did this afternoon, write.

This afternoon was pretty much amazing. I got out of Han-Min at 3:00 after a great afternoon teaching great kids, boarded the MRT, sat down and drafted my application essay. Just, you know, pumped it out. To be fair, I'd started it during nap time (ah, nap time! We get an hour and a half for lunch and/or napping--it's brilliant), but still, I wrote the bulk of my essay on the train; I wasn't quite finished when I got off, though, and the creative juices were still flowing, so I meandered off to the Starbucks two blocks from my apartment--today was first time I've visited, though, for the record--and plopped down to finish it. When I got home, a full day of work and an application draft down, I shot off a few important emails before dinner--I love being this productive in a single day!

Tomorrow I will be presented to the entire student body at Han-Min at 8:00am--hence the early posting on here. Hopefully I'll be sawing logs by the time my normal (late) posting time comes around.

Settling In

Today was a long day; to be honest, I'm a little surprised I'm still standing. I'm pretty sure that the sole reason that I am is the coffee drink I had for dinner (iced coffee with ice cream--delish!).

I spent all day today in my schools--from 8:00 to 1:00 at Cing-Shan, then 1:30-4:30 at Han-Min, then dinner with Maggie and Alison. I was observing again, and adding to my list of English names in my spare moments.

I've been learning a lot about my LETs' teaching styles, and getting more and more excited about teaching with them. They are each very different in how they teach, and even in how they prepare, but they are all great teachers, and wonderful people to co-teach and hang out with. It's going to be a great year!

This morning, (after a normal-time wake-up, thank goodness), Patty picked me up from the MRT and took me to Cing-Shan's student assembly, where (together with all the other new teachers) I was introduced to all 200 or so students, who greeted me with the standard "Laoshi hao," and then, at Patty's prompting, "Good morning teacher Bekah." Then the principal introduced me; then Patty introduced me; then they handed me the microphone. What was left to say? I don't know. I said good morning and that I was going to teach English with teacher Patty, then filed off the stage. I think I messed something up, because they laughed, but I don't know what! Oh the joys of not speaking the language.

Outside the classroom at Cing-Shan--it was super humid today, and fogged up my camera instantly.

So after that I was a superstar at Cing-Shan--every recess found kids in our classroom talking to me, or hiding behind their friends and refusing to talk to me. Several of them have pretty good English, too! And they're enjoying teaching me little bits of Chinese, most of which (Hello, thank you, etc) I already know.

Also, to continue the name-change saga, I changed "Boy" to Danny, and "Car" to Carl; "Wall" became Walt, "Wug" became Will, "Happy" became Harry, and "Jeach" became Jesse. Handed out a few names just because kids wanted to change them, too; it was fun to get a Liam and an Ella, a Shay and an AJ. Still let Boss slip through, though, and let a girl be "Ettie"--what she was saying sounded like Eddie, so I thought this was closer, anyway.

In the afternoon, I explored Han-Min and observed Maggie and Alison teaching--it is so different form Cing-Shan! At Cing-Shan, like I said, there are about 200 students, and Patty and I have an English classroom. At Han-Min, though, there are 2,000 students, and Alison and Maggie and I rove around to the various home rooms, and have a central office to spend breaks etc. So different! I think it will be nice having a mixture of the two, though--the intimacy of a small school at Cing-Shan and the bustle and fun of a big school at Han-Min.

My desk at Han-Min! More pictures later ;)

Of course, when I got to Han-Min, it wasn't quite bustling--it was still nap time. I love that we have nap time in the schools here--an hour and a half for lunch and nap, technically--and I can't wait until I actually get to utilize it. So far I've been in transit and/or preparing for a lesson in that time, but soon I'll be on a normal schedule!

After observing Maggie and then Alison, we each lesson-planned for next week, and then they graciously took me out to a DELICIOUS dinner--I had fried chicken with spicy and sour sauce, and we talked, among other things, about how little I eat and how tiny Taiwanese people are, considering that I can't even begin to keep up with them eating! (Main lunch-time topic at Cing-Shan, too, where I ate until I was bursting, ate some more, and then was asked if I wasn't eating because I wasn't used to the food yet...) Alison told me it's because a lot of Taiwanese women eat only 2 meals, which makes sense when I think about it. Maybe I should follow suit.

Alison and Maggie at dinner--Patty couldn't come because her son had piano lessons

Anyway, then I headed home and learned that Rachel bought a scooter today! I am itching to join the ranks of scooter owners/drivers--if only I had passed my test already! Oh well, I guess--a few weeks on the MRT won't kill me. It will, however, make me much more tired on a regular basis: I left the house today at 7am, and got back at roughly 6:45pm. *Sigh*

We're setting up Chinese classes now; I'm trying to see if I can take the "Basic," rather than the "Beginning" class, and maybe hire a Chinese tutor to catch me up to where others in the class may be. In the end, I think this will be cheaper and allow me to learn more faster.Also, it looks like neither Cing-Shan nor Han-Min have a lot for me to do in my extra 15 hours every week, so I have enough spare time for hardcore studying of Chinese--I'd love to come out of this year fluent, or at least conversational! Hopefully it will work out.

Well I'm exhausted (it is 2am, after all, and I've been up since 6am), so I'm going to go pass out now.

Firsts

A lot of firsts today, beginning of course with it being both the first of September and my first day in the schools. Fortuitous, I thought.

This morning I awoke to my alarm, turned over, turned it off, and laid back down to let the fog clear. *Ugh, 6:40am is way too early. Hold on...SIX forty?!?! I have to be gone by 7!*

So yeah, that happened. After all my careful planning and all the attention I paid to get to bed early, have food and gifts ready to go, set the alarm to allow for a full twenty minutes earlier than I usually do, just so I wouldn't make Maggie wait for me--I screwed up by a FULL HOUR. So I scrambled to get dressed, get my teeth brushed, makeup on (introduced in a big meeting to all the teachers and principals from both schools today!), shoved a piece of bread down my throat, gulped some OJ and coffee (still a necessity), and headed out the door 5 minutes after I should have.

Try as I did, those five minutes would not be retrieved. I sped-walked across the Cultural Center to the MRT station, remembered that I had to buy a ticket (my MRT card went missing about a week ago), and then had to deal with the machine spitting my money out repeatedly like the Pepsi machine I would have kicked back in middle school. When I finally got my ticket, I found out that I had missed the earlier train and would have to wait another couple of minutes before I could get on. Perfect.

So, long story short, Maggie had to wait about 7 minutes for me, which just so happens to be roughly the amount of time we were late to the all-teacher, all-administrator meeting she was taking me to. Shoot.

Anyway, they introduced me, then had me tell a little about myself (Hi, my name is Bekah Graham; I grew up in Eugene, Oregon, which is on the West side of America, and I went to school at Seattle Pacific University in Seattle, Washington, where I studied English. I don't know Chinese yet, so if I make a mistake, please correct me. I'm so excited to be here and meet all of you!), I shook the principal's hand, and then Maggie whisked me out the door to where Alison was waiting with a helmet for me; we walked straight down to her scooter and she drove me from Han-Min to Cing-Shan (also written Qing-Shan; pronounced Ching-Shan).

Once there, the routine was roughly the same to start out--Patty rushed me up to the conference room where the presentation of new teachers was already underway, and soon I was on stage. This was a little different, though, because Patty had translated the short self-introduction I had written for her earlier (I understood bits and pieces), and the principal read it out. So there went my spiel, all of my most important personal information already laid out for the watching crowd. Then they handed me the microphone. I basically recapped my name, that I was learning Chinese, and that I was excited to be there, and we moved on to the long meeting, which was of course all in Chinese. So I sat in the back next to Patty glancing through the pamphlet she had given me about the school and my weekly planner.

Somewhere along my rushed trip between my three LETs I had managed to give Maggie and Alison the gifts I brought for them, delicious jam from Detering Orchards and Theo chocolate with hazelnuts, but in the rush, I realized then, I hadn't gotten a chance to give the principal at Han-Min his gift. So, to be safe, I asked Patty at the end of the meeting if I could give my gift to her principal. He graciously accepted, and Patty and I moved on to talk to the other English teacher at the school (though it was mostly them talking, in Chinese, about curriculum), and then she took me to her classroom (she has and English classroom--yay! Alison and Maggie have to move around to the home rooms), where I was able to give her her gift, too.

Here's the classroom at Cing-Shan!

From the back of the classroom, where our desks are--it's huge!

Patty (R) and the other English teacher trying to fix the SMART board

The principal came in and gave me a spectacular gift of a complete lunch set--stainless steel lidded dish, chopsticks, spoon, carrying case, a water/tea bottle, and a coffee/tea mug. It was fantastic--and I was glad I gave him his present already!

And then, after all that rush, it slowed down for a while then. Patty didn't have any classes until after lunch, in fact, so she and I lesson-planned for next week (moon festival--woo!) and then just sat around chatting for a while while she shared her breakfast with me (by the way, almond milk: chalk another one up for drinks I love in Taiwan. I think I'm going to buy some to add to my coffee in the morning to make it more filling...and tasty :) ).

Then she took me on a tour of her school, which I wish I had taken pictures of--there's a super lush green courtyard between the "old building" and the "new building" (we're in the new building), and a big double-layered cover for the central part of the courtyard. It's to ward off the sun, which I think is funny because we have similar structures in the Northwest to ward off the rain. She also introduced me to most of the classes and their teachers--sometimes during recess, and sometimes in the middle of class. Either way, the response was uniform: dropped jaws and stares, while whispers of "Meiguoren, Meiguoren!" Ta shi Yingwen laoshi?" ("American, American!" "She's an English teacher?") circled around me. Also, almost without fail, one of the students or teachers would say I was beautiful--this is, by the way, probably one of the most awkward things to respond to when happening in quick succession and you are pretty certain they're just saying that because you look different, and just so happen to have blue eyes and lighter hair. My standard response was a little laugh and "Thank you?"

One adorable kid, I think he was a first grader, literally just stood and stared at me, eyes huge, mouth hanging open. It was probably the cutest thing I've ever seen, even if he was looking at me like I had a third eyeball. I didn't even care. Made me wish I got to teach younger grades.

So after lunch, which the school is graciously paying for for me, and which I ate together with Patty and several of the administrators, none of whom really speak English but all of whom were anxious to give me more food, Patty and I went back up to her classroom to prepare for the 6th graders. I asked her what she was teaching (today was strictly observation for me), and she said she was just going to arrange their seats and get their English names, and that should take most of the time. If there was extra time, she had a worksheet for homework that they could start filling out to introduce themselves.I'll be honest, I thought there was no way arranging a seating chart could take 40 minutes.

Which just goes to show you, I've never taught 6th graders before.

Our first class was CRAZY! Patty did finally get them all into their correct seats and get their English names written down on the seating chart, but it did take the whole class period. As for me, I got to deal with the entirely new experience of being hit on by 6th grade boys; one of the more rambunctious one, whose English name is Jack, was continuously leaving his seat and coming to where I was sitting, where he would ask me, in English and Chinese, if I had a boyfriend. Ohhhhh joy.

The only really productive thing I did in that class and the following was help adjust names--and boy, did we have some great English names come through. In that first class, we still have a Howard, Betty, Wilson and Wendy; one boy wrote ADDP on the board, though, and Patty asked for my help to find a boy's name that started with C. So ADDP became Cory, and I became inspired: how many normal English names could I come up with?

The second class just kept 'em coming, with Henna, Bel, Doris and Cosby all in attendance. I thought one kid but down "Kiln," but I was happily proven wrong--her name was "Kim." But it was in this class that I met----Box. And he was determined to keep his name that way! I don't know why, and neither does Patty (apparently his name back in 3rd grade was Bob), but eventually I persuaded him to change it to Max, which is infinitely better, and still has the cool "x" factor (sorry, bad pun). Here again, Patty asked for a boy's name that started with "E," and so a boy became Evan. I was liking the whole naming thing.

The next class brought even weirder names, but because Patty had taught them already this week, I didn't get to see a list--she just told me later that their ranks included Monkey, Bear, Red Bean and AKA. So I spent the majority of that class period compiling a list of normal English names that should (hopefully) be fairly easy to use--I'm going to try to persuade some of the more unusually-monikered kids to change with my big *American* list. Patty also informed me that she is going to give the 1st graders their English names on Monday, so I'll be giving her a copy of my list, and hopefully preventing another generation of Taiwanese kids with laughable English names! Hoorah!

After school we did a few projects, and then Patty drove me to the nearest MRT station at Kaohsiung International Airport, which would be a bit of a walk, I think. It also earns the dubious distinction of being the first subway stop I've seen since I got here that *looks* like a subway--that is, somewhat dirty and sketchy. The ride itself confirmed it for me: if possible, I'm getting a scooter. 45 minutes on a train crammed full of giggly high schoolers after a long day is just too much, especially when you top it off with having to walk another 10 minutes once you get 'home.'

So yeah, that was my day! And it starts again tomorrow at 7:50 back at Kaohsiung airport, so I'd better go to bed now. Bedtime moving up every night, it seems! Yet another first.

Whiplash

Today I returned to the chaos that was our apartment in transition mode--Karina moved out, Analicia moved in, and I faced finishing unpacking amidst the piles of stuff I'd bought from Ikea minutes before I left for Taipei and home. And then, to top it all off, this evening our shower decided it would no longer be turned off.

So yeah, that was fun.

We kicked off the excitement today with helping Karina hurriedly shove things into whatever bags we could find--she hadn't really finished packing--and then carrying said items, in the rain, down to the waiting van. When we'd finished that, we moved on to Analicia's previous apartment, picking up her stuff and transporting it over to ours--itself a lengthy process--interspersed with determining what other items could be taken from the old apartment to ours and apartment C, and which came with it and had to stay. Then, after watching Esther and Karina drive away to their new apartment in the van--Esther was sitting in a desk chair trapped between a pile of stuff and a table in the back, since they ran out of room--we returned to our own place.

As a side note, it turns out that Esther and Karina will actually be living in the city! Hooray! They'll be in Zuoying, which is fantastic because it's on the edge of the city (so easy for them); but still inside it (so easy for us); and the biggest bonus of all is that it's RIGHT next to the HSR/train/MRT station! Which is great for them and for us--easy transport anywhere, inside or outside of the city. Makes visiting much easier. :)

But back to today--the rest of the day, Analicia was bustling back and forth between the living room where we'd set her stuff and her new room, which she was deep cleaning and rearranging. All this inspired/shamed me into finally delving into my own stuff a couple of hours later, and now, I'm proud to say, all my bags are unpacked. (Though I still have cleaning and a bit of rearranging to do, and yet another Ikea/Carrefour trip to make--partly for returns and partly for a few things I couldn't/didn't get last time I went, like a comforter and bed risers.)

So around 11pm, Analicia goes to take a shower. A few minutes later, I hear her calling my name, and then she appears in my doorway.

"So, this is kind of embarrassing, but how do you turn the shower off?"

It wouldn't turn off. Not for her, not for me, not for Brittany--the dang thing was STUCK! We called Fonda, but she didn't answer. We tried a few times, and finally got a hold of her on Facebook. Soon, our landlord, a handyman, and Samia (for protection and translation, Fonda said) showed up at our door.

Our landlord is great! We hadn't met him before tonight, but he speaks pretty good English, and he is upfront and energetic. He introduced himself: "My name is Michael; I'm the landlord--you pay me." While explaining to us that he and the handyman were speaking Taiwanese, he told us that Taiwanese is the most pure form of Chinese, and that if you read a poem from the Tang dynasty, you would be reading Taiwanese; he went on to tell us that, if we called 911, we would reach Mr. Cheng, the handyman. He's a real character.

So, while Michael regaled us with stories, advice, and a request for a list of our names and what we'd found in the apartment that needed fixing, Mr. Cheng quietly turned off the water to the shower. He and Michael showed me how to turn it off if we need to in the future, and he promised to come back tomorrow around 10am to fix it. Which is great--it means I HAVE to be up before then! Requirements help me to adjust to the jetlag whiplash I've been experiencing. (Seriously--I got in last night at 1:30ish and couldn't sleep; when I did, I slept till 2pm and was still tired. And I'm awake again now.)

So that was today! Some crazyness, some exhaustion, but also quite a bit of accomplishment. Maybe some day soon our apartment will actually look like we live in it, and aren't just in a constant state of transition...

Loving Taiwan

Today was glorious. It began at 11:30, first of all, which was a welcome change after this sleepless week. In fact, that's an apt description of this day as a whole: a welcome change after a sleepless week.

The morning/early afternoon was pretty chill, which was perfect: Karina and I met Brittany's co-teacher Sophie to pick up a book for her, then got lunch at a curry place down the street and browsed in the stationary/ "teacher" store next door. She got some pretty cool foam pointers--one's shaped like a pointing index finger, and the other is shaped like a fist. On paying for it, she immediately "punched" me, and I told her now we have two people to worry about in the house! (Brittany bought some slapping hand pointers a couple days ago, and now she loves to sneak up behind people and freak them out with them.)

Then, around 4:30, Samia, Lydia, Rachel, Karina, Emily and I met up with Evelyn, Fonda, Chialing and Andrew (who had all scootered/biked there) at the MRT station nearest the ferry to Cijin. We took the ferry (itself an adventure for Rachel, who had brought her own bike along and had to board with the scooters) and, once on the island, rented bikes for the rest of us (including Samia, who didn't know how to ride yet) and set off down the shoreline, armed with cameras and water bottles.

It was fantastic--we saw the sunset the whole way, and partway down the trail, we saw some stray puppies and stopped to play. (Don't worry, it's safe here--Taiwan has absolutely no rabies.) Here, for your viewing pleasure, are some of the sights from along the way.

When we got back, we were sweaty and it was dark, but we loved every second of it anyway.

We got back to the area around our apartment at 8:25, just in time to make it to our 8:30 dinner reservation at the Thai restaurant around the corner. We've been trying to go there for a few days now, but last time we tried, there were 9 parties in line in front of us. So, we figured, it had to be good.

And we weren't mistaken. We ordered 9 dishes for a table of 10, and we polished off every dish and were wishing we had more room in our stomachs so we could order more and keep eating. Hard to say what was best--the Phad Thai (usually don't like Phad Thai, but this was DELICIOUS), the melt-in-your-mouth coconut chicken curry, the uber fresh and delicious ginger fish (we stripped it to the skeleton and kept picking at scraps)--the list goes on. I will be going back there.

Then we went home and began deep-cleaning our kitchen. Time to start treating this place like we actually live here! It's nasty now, but hopefully soon our whole apartment will be clean and cozy.

This day was fantastic. I'm so glad to be living in Taiwan!

Marathon day

I'll be honest, this is mostly a post just so I can continue to say I blog everyday. I'm exhausted. Today consisted of a long string of workshops on teaching theories and practical games and tips which, combined with the fact that I stayed up late last night reading and kept waking up this morning out of fear that my alarm wouldn't go off, means that I am now melted onto my couch. And, incidentally, stuck to it, courtesy of the constant heat-and-humidity combination here that turns my skin into glue. :)

This morning, I accidentally exacerbated that effect because, as I discovered, drinking hot coffee and drying your hair in a rush before going out to walk to the MRT is not the best way to lower your body temperature. It was fun, though, to know that we can now get ourselves to Sanmin unaided--nice little walk to and from the closest MRT stations, but definitely doable. Feels like I live here now!

We passed the morning with the wonderful Professor Spring, who taught us various teaching theories, with help from Tiffiany on a few. One odd effect of our prolonged 3-hour session indoors was that we actually got cold! By lunchtime, we were all clamoring for the heat and humidity, just to get away from the air conditioning.

And we did! After we ate, Karina, Samia, Lydia and I went out in search of fruit juice; after a long search down several streets, we finally found a little fruit stand that also had a blender, but no watermelon. So today, for the first time ever, I tried papaya! I really can't believe I hadn't tried it before--PAPAYA IS SO GOOD! The papaya milk (木瓜牛奶) I had at the stand was beyond delicious, and I got to listen as Samia read the peach labels to the owners, explaining which fruit was from the US and which wasn't, and explaining the "-ty" and "-teen" number endings in English. I love that I can pick up some words I hear in conversation now!

Next up was a long afternoon session on games, taught by a previous ETA and by two LETs, Sunny and Winnie. They were all GREAT, and I'm super excited about all the simple but wonderful games they taught us, but by the late afternoon my lack of sleep last night was not helping me to pay attention. 

After we finished, we started scooter practice! I was really excited, and was one of the first people on one, but I discovered it's not quite as easy as it looks. In fact, my first time on the scooter, I never made it further than a couple feet before stopping again.

Of course, it made it all the more difficult that, not five minutes after we went out there, the playing field in which we were practicing was invaded by school kids, cutting our viable space in half and making us all terrified that we would run into one of them. New drivers + kids used to playing around experienced drivers = BAD idea!

In any case, I blame my initial attempt partially on that; in addition, I tried starting with a turn, which didn't work well, and I tried to balance before the scooter was actually moving--bad idea. It never tipped, but it wasn't great. Fortunately, the second time around, when the kids left and Andrew showed me all the finer points of balance and getting started, it wasn't too hard. Of course, it remains to be seen if I'll ever be comfortable driving it in Taiwanese traffic!

Anyway, I'm tired and I've already written much more than I'd planned tonight. More later.