Dragonforce: The bird of freedom

The past few days have been filled with so many different and funny things that a blog post is feeling fairly daunting right now. But that's ok, because I'm gonna write anyway. This was my first Christmas away from home, and the fact that it was in a foreign country made it that much more strange. Christmas is sort of celebrated in Taiwan but it's not a big deal. On Christmas day, the school was open all day and we had to work over 10 hours that day. That was pretty sweet. Hmm, well, at least we got paid. Leading up to Christmas, they had two different assemblies for all of the older students at school. Well, they all of the classes divided up into two large groups and then they competed in 6 competitions. At the end of it, I had the privilege of dressing up as Santa Claus and parading around on stage, handing out presents to all of the students. Everyone in the audience knew it was me playing Santa immediately thanks to my fairly bright and noticeable green shoes. The competitions were a great time to watch though and very entertaining. My favorite was the arm wrestling competition in which two of the students were in a battle to the death kind of match (I'm sure that's supposed to be punctuated somehow) and one of the kids' noses started to run and they were both sweating. The match was called a draw after about a minute. Bear in mind, they were both about 10 years old. Very funny. The competitor who was my student just happened to be wearing this very tight and awkward looking white, long-sleeve shirt that day too. It was really funny.

Christmas night, we hosted a white elephant gift exchange in which I ended up with a mouse pad with the words "Bad Batz Maru." I'm not sure what that means at all, but my old mouse pad was starting to get moldy from some wine I had spilled on it so it was a badly needed gift. We opened the rest of our gifts from family and such the day after Christmas and that was great. My roommates were very nice and got me gifts and I made sure to kindly not get anyone anything return. They told me not to feel guilty but now the dozens of people who read this know that I do. However, Christmas is over so I'm making no attempt to make amends.

Today, I spent the day with little Brian's family. It started off with our usual tutoring, but at the end of the session, Brian felt compelled to start making a list of verbs, a list that eventually grew to 70 if you can believe that. It was pretty impressive and he knew how to spell of the words, except "throw up." After tutoring, we hit the road. Our first stop was a strawberry farm. Apparently, strawberry season is in the winter here so dozens of families were out in search of the perfect berry. Then we went out to eat where I again faked saying that I enjoyed everything I ate. I've never really enjoyed the Taiwanese food here but I don't want to say I don't like it so I just try to be as nice as possible. I heard in a movie once that lying about food is not a bad lie. Anyway...

After lunch, we went to a little amusement park. We rode the go-carts, during which Brian and I totally smoked his dad and sister in the race created in our minds. Then we took turns operating miniature tractors they had set-up to move sand around in a sand box. It was an extremely dangerous set-up though because it was directly adjacent to another ride and if you extended the arm of the tractor fully, you could easily hit nearby people. I didn't see any accidents but they were for sure waiting to happen. Then we did the bungee-jump sort of thing with the trampoline and the harness and ropes on either side that let you do back flips and such. It was a lot of fun, especially since it was my first time on that, but since then my head has not felt right. That pretty much sums up the day with them.

Once I got home, I discovered that my roommate Sam had been out riding his scooter for a few hours in the pouring, cold rain and he returned home drenched and borderline hypothermic. He's gonna make a full recovery though so don't worry. Other than that, I head for Australia on Thursday night so I am eagerly awaiting that little trip.

It's almost hard to believe how soon my Taiwan experience ends. I'm still trying to put all of the pieces together from this whole experience but I think it will become more clear in the months following my departure. More on that later! Check Flickr for new pictures!

Fun with Fubon

This morning, I ran the Fubon Taipei Marathon. Well, the half marathon part of it. It was a lot of fun! After I woke up at 5:15 cursing my alarm, I hopped in a cab and headed to Taipei City Hall. The start was quite the scene. It was dark and basically all of the signs were in Chinese. Luckily, I was able to navigate to the bag check somehow. I checked my bag at about 6:45 and the race started at 7. There were still hundreds of people waiting behind me to check their bags. Once I got to the start however, I was WAY back in the pack. The race started on time, with the elite runners going first. They had athletes from Ethiopia and Kenya brought in so it was the real deal. The grand prize was $1.3 million NT, which is about $40,000 USD. Not too bad if you ask me.

Anyway, the race began like any other race in Taiwan: 8 guys standing in a line with some corny music playing and then simultaneously firing 8 guns at once. It took me about 4 minutes to cross the finish line though. Then, once I did, I had to pass thousands of people. I spent more than half of the race passing large groups of people. I'll know next time to arrive a little earlier. Ha ha. The race itself was nothing too interesting. It was basically a big square around Taipei, sticking to all of the major roads. Before I knew it, it was over! I'm guessing I ran between 1:25 and 1:30 but not sure yet because it was chip-timed so I'll be curious to see what they say. The reason why it went well was because race officials were holding motivational signs such as "Insist!", "Fighting", and "Bravo." I made sure to do all three of those things.

Afterwards, I hung out by the finish line waiting for the elites to finish the marathon. I ran into 2 different hashers that I knew. The finish line was quite the scene. Announcers on multiple stages were constantly chattering in Chinese, with a little English sprinkled in. They kept on talking about Christmas too. I'll put pictures up shortly.

Yesterday was Principal's Christmas party for the kindergarten students. It was a 6 hour work day in which no one got paid and I only had one task to do that took an hour. The rest of the time, I took a ton of pictures of the kids in their costumes. Very cute. It was a very over-the-top spectacle that I'll remember forever. 'Nuff said.

Wolfie's Dream House

Yesterday, I had the privilege of co-haring at the China Hash. It was a lot of fun and a real rush. The lead hare was Sheep Shagger, and fortunately, I did not get to see why he's named that. He's actually a guy from New Zealand who I found out used to live in Aspen, CO. Small world. Anyway, when 2:45 came around, we were off to set the course for all of the hash's brave participants. I basically just followed him for the first 30 minutes or so and carried the flour because he knew where the course was. At one point, I could see and hear people about 100 meters away from us but they were on the other side of the valley so we weren't in real danger of being caught, although that would've been pretty funny. After about 40 minutes, then it was my turn to do the haring by myself. This was a lot of fun, and luckily I remembered where to go. The only issue was at the end when I was running through a bamboo farm and the owner was out there harvesting and he got very mad at me. I just disregarded his comments, mainly because I had no idea what he was saying, but it sounded angry. The issue was after, when the other runners followed my trail, and the farmer got more and more frustrated. He actually swung at a guy with a big scythe! Then the police came and luckily the whole matter got sorted out within 15 minutes or so. It was pretty crazy! The other funny thing was that the initial checkpoints we set up at the beginning of the run were so close together that people were getting very confused and roughly half of the people turned back because they couldn't figure out where to go. Oh, the hash.

It was the GM's last day so the down downs and bash afterwards were going to be especially raucous, but I ducked out early because I amazingly found 2 other hashers that live in Linkou. We hopped in a cab for about 45 minutes and how much would you guess that cost? Less than $30 US for a cab ride that long. Pretty cheap huh? And that cost was split 4 ways. Anyway, I think that pretty much sums up the day pretty well. Haring was something I'd wanted to do since I joined the hash so I'm SO glad I got the opportunity finally!

Election time/Annoying circus parade campaign

It was break time at Principal today when all of a sudden, about 30 pick-up trucks drove by with pots and pans clanging and men shooting off fireworks and chanting. There were flags everywhere, loud honking, more chanting, and singing/ranting over a mega-phone. "What is that?" you think. Could it be a major holiday parade? Or a strike? No, it's just the local townspeople campaigning for their favorite political candidate. It's somewhat of a spectacle and way more over the top than it seems like it should be but it's Taiwan and nothing is quite what it seems. Or at least, what you'd expect. There are political ads all over town right now, all of men holding one fist in the air, as if to convey the message of perfect leadership. If only I had some photos or a video of what happened today...

Oh, a scavenging we will go!

Today, my roommates Dan and Lauren coordinated a scavenger hunt through the streets of Taipei. It was a "photo scavenger hunt" meaning each team was given a list of things to photograph. Some of these items included: a goat, a pack of stray dogs, sleeping people, kissing people, dancing people, hugging people, someone taller than you, and a group of at least 7 people all wearing glasses. There were probably about 30 items in total. Our groups were divided into boys and girls. My brash and confident "man group" was convinced that we had won the event but we still lost, even though the girls group got a large point deduction for being late.

We asked 3 different cab drivers to dance with us, all of whom declined. We stood in front of various people to get photos of them inconspicuously. We had to walk like ducks as a group in the middle of a very crowded and prominent crosswalk. And the proof of all these deeds was captured on film. Some choice shots will be posted on Flickr shortly. It was quite a day and a very interesting way to experience Taipei!

This morning, I once again had the privilege of tutoring little Brian and it was fun, as always. This time, we did play about five games in a row of Jenga and it was really cute. He kept on saying "it's not so easy" and "scary" if I was moving a precarious piece. Nicole, his sister, tried to play also but she's two, so sadly each game she participated ended disastrously after a few moves.

New pictures!!!!

I just posted about 100 pictures from the last few weeks so check 'em out...more to come soon!

Sugar Pie Honey Bunch

I'm alive! I realize it's been quite awhile since I wrote something on here but I've been busy. Most importantly, my parents just came and visited Taiwan for 10 days. It was a lot of fun! They enjoyed all the different smells, tastes, and sights that Taiwan has to offer. The most memorable part for me was visiting Taroko Gorge. This is a national park on the east side of Taiwan and it was amazing! It's a massive gorge made entirely out of marble, meaning that when the river created the gorge, it didn't slowly erode it into a V-shape, but rather it's straight down. So the gap between the two sides of the gorge is the same at the top and bottom. The pictures we'll make it easier to understand! It was a great time though and I am SO glad that they came to see everything.

School this last week was a nightmare. We have Christmas presentations coming up and our bosses have given us absolutely no direction for what we're supposed to be doing, but they've been able to get mad at us for doing what we're doing. The whole thing is just a mess but it will be a huge relief when it is over. Afterward is the kindergarten Christmas performance which I'm very excited about and I'm sure it will be a very surreal experience.

Now my mind is blank. I'm going to post a ton of pictures so those will do the talking for me. Enjoy!

A marathon weekend / Ape shall never kill ape

It's only noon on Sunday but it has already been a marathon weekend. I just got home from Taipei after doing a 10k. Let me start from the beginning of the weekend though. Yesterday, at 5:20 AM, my stupid alarm clock went off and I sluggishly began to pack my bags and head for the door, ultimately bound for Taipei. I hopped in a cab and gave the driver directions written in Chinese to the starting line of a local 5k. He acted like he knew where to go, but on the way, he made about 5 different phone calls, clearly asking for the same address over and over again. However, we did eventually find the starting line. It was located right along one of the two main rivers that run through Taipei. I arrived at about 6:15 and started jogging around. At roughly 6:35, every race participant was asked to take part in a warm-up routine which was led by a little Jazzercise- type lady. Surprisingly, everyone in the crowd was really into it. It was pretty fun to watch, but also really really goofy. The race was supposed to start at 7, but at about 6:45 after the dance routine ended, everyone went to the line and suddenly the starters fired their guns. I was about 100 meters away from the starting line stretching. I freaked out a little and then sprinted into the middle of the pack and the race was off! It was an out and back course on a narrow one-way road which the officials made sure not to close so it was bustling with cars, scooters, and pedestrians.

I was stuck near the back at the beginning but I slowly moved my way up, and then suddenly at about the mile mark, I was in the lead! Then the lead grew, and grew. After another 15 minutes or so of agony, the race was over! I had won! Pretty crazy! I clocked myself at a little over 20 minutes, which could've been accurate, but if it was, that's my slowest 5k time since freshman year of high school. I think it was a little long, but then again, I've been training pretty poorly so I wouldn't be surprised if that was an accurate time. My closest competitor was about 20 seconds behind me. As a reward, I was given the same thing as everyone else in the race: two hand towels, an assortment of decorative soaps, and an XL shirt that was yellow and had a little man on it with LOVE written in big letters.

After the race, I started chatting with the only other foreigner present, Dragan. He was Serbian and he'd been living in Taipei for 10 years. He was an interesting character who told me I needed to improve my form but he complemented my Chinese. After this, I lazily roamed through the streets of Taipei and eventually made my way back home.

In the afternoon, I was bound for Taipei once again to go with my friends to Daan Park, which is Taipei's equivalent of Central Park, but it pales in comparison (Kelly, that Central Park reference is for you). However, on the way I had to pick up my race packet for the race I did today. The man I spoke with told me their office was located beside Taipei 101. I thought this would be a fairly easy task, considering that Taipei 101 is the tallest building in the world (or close to, you get the point). He also told me it was in the World Trade Center. When I arrived in that general vicinity, I found that there were 3 World Trade Centers. After roaming back on forth on the same streets and asking multiple cops where to go, I finally found the building I was looking for. The first door I tried was locked, and it was dark inside. I went to the other side of the building and found a usable entrance. Once inside, the elevators weren't working so I took an escalator to the 2nd floor. Then the escalator didn't work but the elevator did so I took that up from the 2nd to the 3rd floor. I noticed that there was a large expo going on on the 1st floor but nothing going on above that. The building was a giant convention/expo place, so each floor contains dozens of rentable store fronts, so I knew the "address" I needed to find. There was no one around however and most of the lights were off. I walked down a long dark corridor, took a right and walked down another long, dark and abandoned corridor to suddenly find an office bustling with 5 guys inside, working tirelessly on preparing for the race. It was strange.

Which leads to this morning...another race. I woke up yet again at 5:20, this time, hitting the snooze button an extra time and being more annoyed than I was the day before. I hopped into a cab again, but this time the cab driver did not have to make any calls. That's a good thing. I arrived at the start line about 45 minutes early, and this time the race started on time. Of course, there was a 10 minute pre-race dance routine. They didn't supply us with any pins for our bibs for some stupid reason, so a fellow racer lent me one, so I had my bib just sort of hanging on my shirt flopping around. A cop also tried to help me staple my bib on to my shirt but that didn't work. It was the effort that counted. The race itself was pretty boring. Just out and back on a highway. I felt so-so but sadly, I think I ran my slowest 10k since like middle school. If that's not a wake-up call to get in shape, I don't know what is. My time was roughly 42 minutes. Nonetheless, I was roughly 30th out of at least 1000 people, so needless to say, the race scene isn't quite like it is in Boulder.

After the race, there was a 5 minute drum show which was pretty cool. Then I roamed around the Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall and adjoining garden and pond. I saw a laughing club there. I'll post a video later so look for that.

Well, I think that was about it. I'm tired from typing now, and doing everything I just described. I hope you liked it!

Jail or Mail?

I just posted about 150 pictures from when Kelly visited last week. Check them out!

About a week ago, I noticed a sign posted in our elevator that looked like a "wanted" sign for a man. Of course, it was in Chinese so I didn't really know what it was for. It had a picture of him that looked like a mugshot as well as his height, weight, and birthdate. In my apartment, every time our door opens, there's a chime that sounds. However, our neighbors door chimes all the time randomnly and is clearly audible from my room. So after I saw this sign in the elevator, I started to get very paranoid at night when I was in bed, and I repeatedly heard this door chime. I was thinking "oh geeze, this criminal is in my apartment right now and this is not good." After being freaked out for like a week, I walked into the building one day and saw this "wanted" man standing in the lobby with a doorman's uniform on. He's a new doorman in the building and they posted his profile in the elevator. Yep, that's it. I was pretty freaked out for nothing, but it's pretty funny.

Anyway, yesterday was the day that Principal celebrated Halloween. It was a pretty insane and surreal day. The kids were really, really cute. I'll be posting pictures shortly. The highlight was when we took to the streets with the kids to go trick-or-treating. They don't really celebrate Halloween in Taiwan. Just sort of. We toured a hair salon, as well as a Blockbuster, Mos Burger (Taiwan's McD's), and bakery. At each stop, we sang two halloween songs in English. I don't think any of the workers at the places knew what was happening but they gave kids candy anyway. At all of these stops, that's when I had some surreal moments in my head. It was pretty crazy!

Later in the day, we were supposed to play halloween-themed games with the older kids. However, we were given a list of games to play and nothing to play them with. This was a bit of a disaster but luckily the kids had a lot of candy to eat to fill the time. There was also a moment yesterday where I was hanging out with one class, admiring each other's costumes and what not when I got a call from my boss and she told me to go to another classroom. I walked in with my costume on and everything and all of the kids were sitting quietly in their chairs, ready for their science class. I walked in completely unprepared and annoyed that no one warned me about this. Luckily, I was teaching the colors "blue" and "purple" to 3 year old kids so it was pretty easy to whip together a lesson plan. In other words, the day was a whirlwind and it was chaotic and poorly organized and cute and hyped out, but overall, it was a great day and I had a lot of fun!

Maokong Madness

Yesterday, I was a proud participant of a real humdinger of a Hash in Maokong, right near the Taipei Zoo. The hash was supposed to have a "bonus" race at the beginning from an MRT stop up to the beginning of the hash itself. The organizers promised cash prizes as well as other great gifts for the participants. They promised also that it would start at 1 PM sharp and of course I arrived late, as I often do. But at 1:01, when I did arrive, the lone organizer there told me I was the first one. Then a few minutes later, another guy showed up the race was born. However, no one else after dared to show their face so it was a head to head battle between me and Robert from Germany. His hash name is escaping me right now, but it's really inappropriate so use your imagination. Anyway, we started the "race" off together but a very steep staircase we had to climb for what felt like about 5 minutes proved difficult for my opponent so I took the lead from there. I was able to complete this race in 35 minutes, one minute faster than the guy who had set the course up. Anyway, this race did have a pretty fun route. It ran along a river for the first 10 minutes or so, then ascended a massive staircase, before getting to a stone trail that wound through the jungle until reaching the beginning of the hash. We hung out there before the run began roughly 90 minutes later.

The run started late because two of the hares had gone on their scooter to fix part of the race course and proceeded to crash into a car during this. The owner of the car happened to be a lawyer, so I'm sure they'll be paying for ALL of the damages. Anyway, this delayed the run for like 15 or 20 minutes. Then the madness began. The run was hared by 3 guys who had never hared before. They had co-hared previously with an expert but never by themselves, so that's where things got iffy. The first half of the run went straight through the jungle. The trail was completely bushwacked. Most of the runs we do utilize existing trails and roads but this one, not the case. But yeah, we went through some very cool terrain and did plenty of river tracing. It felt like dusk the whole time we were in the jungle because it was that thick that not much light got in. At the second to last check, things got interesting. About 15 or 20 hashers gathered on a ridge after finding a check, but after searching desperately for 15 or 20 minutes, no one could find the next part of the trail anywhere. This search involved everyone running back and forth on the same trail, but going a little farther at each end each time. I ended up following a guy who said he knew how to get back without flour marking the way. After running about a half mile from the check, we found the next flour marking. In other words, the mark that was supposed to be around 100 meters from the check ended up being 800 meters away, explaining why no one found it. Then, we followed this way down before somehow joining the beginning of the hash again and we started re-tracing our steps. After making a U-turn and cursing, we made our way back to the beginning. The run in all was over 90 minutes long.

It was an amazing experience though. Although the organization and marking could've been better, it was a great day overall. The weather was perfect and it was great to be so secluded in the jungle. There were about 90 people who showed up to the run. Oh, I almost forgot. During Down-Downs, the hares brought up me and Robert to collect our awards for the "race" we did at the beginning. They gave me $1000 NT which was nice, as well as a pretty cool photo of a big bridge in Danshui. Robert, being the biggest loser as the hares so kindly put it, gave him a bottle of vodka to ease his sorrows. We also got certificates proving our participation in this massive race.

High-Speed Trains and Turbo-Prop Planes

It's been a few weeks since I've posted anything but I've been busy. Kelly was in Taiwan visiting me for the last week or so. She left last night and now I'm definitely experiencing some post-trip blues. But I'm not here to tell you about that. I'm here to tell you that our trip started with Kelly coming to Principal for the day to meet some kids. They had a lot of fun with her there, even though they mostly just stared and were confused by her presence. The highlight was when she sat to Catherine, a 5 year old girl, who spoke Chinese to her the whole class. That was pretty funny and cute. She had food on her face and everything. That night, we went out to sushi with all the other teachers from my school. Good eats!

The next day, we went to yoga which happened to start that day with like 30 minutes of dancing which was pretty fun and goofy. After, we got lunch with little Brian and his family. Afterwards, they took us to Taipei 101 and we went to the top. We also went to Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall in Taipei which was pretty striking. There was a large festival of some sort going on there with a huge parade which was a lot of fun to see!

That night, we hopped on a turbo-prop plane and headed for the Peng Hu islands, which is an archipelago off the west coast of Taiwan. The flight was only about 50 minutes long. Once we arrived, we stood out front of the airport waiting for out pick-up from the "Dream Homestay". After about 15 minutes of wondering if anyone was actually showing up, a van pulled up and a woman ran out with the name Ryan scrawled on a lid from lunch box. We nodded that we were indeed the only foreigners on the whole island and they rushed us off to their home. I had been expecting to go to a big hotel, but that's the moment that I found out what "homestay" means. The owners names were Ken and May and they were really nice and accommodating. We stayed in their house that had 5 guest rooms total, although no one else was staying there when we were. We went to a little restaurant nearby that night where we had fried rice and a whole fish that was cut into pieces and floating around in soup.

The next morning, we were driven to the local pier, where we hopped on a boat for an all-day boat tour of the surrounding islands. This was a lot of fun although we were definitely ready to get off the boat by the end of it. We toured Chimei island, and we were supposed to rent a scooter and cruise around. However, we thought we'd be able to handle the challenge of driving a scooter, but after failing to make it out of the parking lot, we were told to get on the tour bus with everyone else. We also toured Wangan island, and two others I can't remember the name of. One thing that was strange that both Kelly and I noticed was how mellow the islands were. We hardly saw anyone the entire time. Not sure what everyone does there...

The next day, we spent lounging around on the beach basically all day, as well as biking around for a few hours. This was a lot of fun. Check the pics! The next phase of our Taiwanese adventure was going to Tainan, which is on the southwest coast of Taiwan. The plan had originally been to go to Haulien and visit Taroko Gorge, which is one of Taiwan's premier travel destinations, but an impending typhoon changed our plans. We had the pleasure of taking the high-speed train to Tainan which was a lot of fun. We were actually both a little nauseous initially because of how fast it went. It covers the entire length of the island in about 90 minutes. In Tainan, we stayed in a really nice hotel and checked out some of the local temples and what-not. I feel like that pretty much sums up that last week. It was a whirlwind but we had a great time and got to see a lot of Taiwan. I'll post pics soon. Ta ta for now!

It's so cold! It's glacial!

I spent this whole last weekend with Brian and his family celebrating Taiwan's Moon Festival. It's basically equivalent to our July 4th. One thing that's really popular to eat are moon cakes, which are apparently what fortune cookies are based on. I've been told that fortune cookies are an American invention. Moon cakes are similar in the sense that they're sweet, but they don't have paper inside. They usually have a bean paste or rice filling. They're pretty good. Anyway, the Taiwanese people celebrate the Moon Festival by barbecuing a lot and shooting off a lot of fireworks. So on Saturday, very very early, Brian and his family picked me up to head toward Frank's parents' house. Frank is Brian's dad. On our drive down, we stopped by Sun Moon Lake. It was gorgeous! It's the most well-known lake in Northern Taiwan and a very popular destination for tourists as well as the locals. I couldn't quite figure out what you're supposed to do there exactly, like if you spend a few days there, but it was at least fun for the few hours we spent there. I posted a bunch of pictures of it so check those out to get a better idea of what it's like. We had breakfast there, and then did a short hike. Then we drove to the other side of the lake where we did a half-hour long hike to a really cool temple/pagoda on top of a mountain overlooking the lake. This was very cool! Again, check the pics!

After Sun Moon Lake, we drove through some various Taiwanese towns I had never heard of. On our drive, we went by a large river where the big typhoon last month did some serious damage. A quarter-mile long section of road had completely collapsed into the river. That was pretty crazy to see. After that, we drove through the city of Jiji which was struck very hard by a large earthquake in Taiwan about 10 years ago. We saw a temple that had completely collapsed during that earthquake and it has yet to be re-built. There's a picture of that too on Flickr. Anyway, after a bunch of driving, we finally arrived in Changhua, where Frank's parents live. His parents were really nice and lived in a pretty cool 4-story house, one floor of which I had to myself for our night's stay. We had a nice dinner consisting of traditional Taiwanese foods. After, we sang some KTV as a family, which was really family. They are all obsessed with Michael Jackson here. It's really funny. After that, we went to a night market and played little arcade games which the kids really enjoyed. I did too! The go-carts were the highlight. They had part of a parking lot blocked off with little go-carts inside that you put a 10NT coin in and they drove around for about 90 seconds. It was pretty unsafe, especially for little kids, but oh well. Our group made it out unscathed. That night, after we got back, I was sitting and watching TV when the mother came in and said "ok, here's your towel and soap for your shower." I was thinking, "um, ok, I didn't ask to take one but what the heck..."...so I learned another thing about Taiwanese culture at that moment...they bathe right before they go to bed every night. When I do that, I wake up and have a huge afro.

The next morning, we went on 12-km bike ride which was a lot of fun. We went to a little farmer's market where they clearly hadn't seen a foreigner in a long time and I had all the salesman coming up to me and giving me free fruit. Now that I think about it, I only saw 3 foreigners the whole weekend. We went to some pretty remote places farther South where English teaching is not nearly as common and thus, foreigners aren't really necessary in those parts. Anyway, the bike ride was a lot of fun. We went back and had another big meal before hitting the road to Lugang. This is a famous town in Central Taiwan that plays hosts to a massive temple that's at least 100 years old. It was the most ornate and detailed temple I've seen so far in Taiwan. There were a ton of people there worshipping away and this was a real joy to see. See pics! Then we drove back to Linkou via frontage roads that took a long, long time but we made it back safe. The main highway was completely backed up, probably for the entire length of Taiwan, due to the Moon Festival. It was quite the weekend!

Man-Q: Your Life Style

Today, I completed a full marathon in Miaoli. My plan had originally been to do the half-marathon but through some peer-pressure, I agreed to do what I thought would be impossible considering my current fitness level. It actually turned out to be a great day! We woke up at 4:30 AM to get our free breakfast, which we had been told would be a grand spread, but instead was a pastry and a sandwich with some whole milk, all in a little plastic bag. I ate the pastry. We wandered down to the finish line by 5:30 or so where our contingent of a dozen foreigners were paraded in front of the locals like monkeys. The race was considered "international" because Carrier, a fellow hasher, recruited about 12 other hashers to pretend that they'd just come to Taiwan for the race. It was a little goofy but the whole thing was free too so that was nice. We had a great hotel and free meals and the works. Anyway, at the start line, the only thing I could see in English was "Man-Q" which is apparently some sort of shampoo. I had been told it was an energy gel but I found out the hard way that it most certainly was not.

There were about 7,000 people who competed in the 10k, half-marathon, and marathon. I'm not sure how many people were in the marathon but Jacob and I finished in about 260th place in a time of roughly 3:57. Our goal had been to break 4 hours. Since I hadn't planned on running the marathon, I decided to be Jacob's pacer, although I think if I had taken off on my own, I probably wouldn't have run much faster. The race itself was out and back on a highway. So it was not the most interesting course, but the race went by surprisingly quickly. The weather was perfect: about 55 degrees and drizzling. Had it been a hot day, the outcome of the race would've been a lot different. Jacob and I were able to chat until about the 30K mark. We both started and stayed as relaxed as possible because both of us were not quite sure of how fit we were. Jacob started to hit the wall pretty badly the last 1oK or so but other than that, the race went smoothly. Apparently, we got the biggest cheer of all the participants when we crossed the finish line! We had a ton of people throughout the race saying "Go Go" and "Ja Yo" which is the same thing, but Chinese.

The winning time of the half-marathon was about 1:27, which really is not that impressive, but the winning time for the full was 2:29 which is very respectable. Apparently, the winner won $100,000 NT which is roughly $3,000 US. Well, I hope that's a pretty good summary of the race. I'm feeling very tired right now and my body is very achy. I'm really dreading waking up in the morning because that will be much more painful! I'll blog about the pain if it's significant enough. Ha ha.

Chicken Needs Beer to Have Less Chicken S#*&

This past Sunday, I had the privilege of going to a water park in Bali, which is a town just northeast of Linkou on the coast. I went with all of the teachers from school and we were there celebrating Jade's b-day, a former Principal teacher. The pictures I'll post will give you a better description of what it looked like, but it was awesome. It had relatively short lines, fun rides, and it wasn't too crowded. The highlight of the water park itself was the fact that all the lifeguards were male and they all wore tiny pink Speedos, which was pretty comical. And no, they weren't what you're thinking they are perhaps. That's just the uniform for some reason. They had a very prominent wall in the water park covered with photos of the lifeguards posing...very strange. It was a little Chippendale-esque. So yeah, that was all good and fun, but the cab ride home was the best part of the day. We got a ride back from Mr. Hwong, who had so kindly driven us there as well. In the cab, we tried to have a conversation with him and then I made the mistake of asking him if he liked music. He had a DVD and TV built into the car and he turned it on to the Taiwanese equivalent of MTV and it was all these teen girls dancing to techno music with strobe lights and everything and then Mr. Hwong started dancing. Bear in mind he's probably about 55. Then he kept saying "nice to watch" and "dance dance" in Chinese. It was really funny. It was also sad though during the conversation because we kept asking him if he did certain things or what he liked and he said he worked from 6 AM to 1 AM everyday driving his cab so he didn't have time for anything. He's never even left the main island of Taiwan. It didn't seem to bother him though. He was a jolly guy and we may enlist his services again shortly.

The other funny thing that happened was today! I was going to go get a blood test from Frank, little Brian's dad at a nearby hospital. He told me where to get the bus and he said it would be about a 10 minute drive. After being on the bus for about 20 minutes, I started to get concerned. Once we got to "the end of the line" after 30 minutes, there was definitely not a hospital in sight. I had no idea where I was. I asked the bus driver where we were and how to get to the hospital. He said something in Chinese and I had no idea what he said, but he said he was going back to the same place he started, so I stayed on the bus. In other words, I rode on the bus for an hour for no reason. Once I got back to the starting point, I found where I was supposed to be waiting about 100 meters away. Apparently, there's a spot where all of the buses stop but one, and that 'one' was the one I needed. Not sure why they separate them like that but oh well. I'm going to try again next week. Believe it or not, I was able to do all this during my lunch break and I wasn't late going back to work. The reason why I'm going to get a blood test is because I'm curious to see what it says and I suspect I may be anemic, but it could just be in my head. I feel more tired and fatigued than I think I should, considering that I'm sleeping pretty well and eating well too. Oh well, more on that later.

The other big news is seeing the dust storms in Australia. Kelly said she was coughing all day today and that was from staying inside. She said in Brisbane, she can't see more than two houses away. The pictures in Sydney looked really bad too. It's something like the worst dust storm they've had in 70 years. Anyway, I'm rambling. I'm going to post some pictures! Oh and by the way, the subject line of this blog is taken from a pair of sandals I saw at the water park.

Iron Tasty: For protection, for power, for health

Two orders of business for the day. The first: tonight I went to buy some iron pills because I'm feeling a little depleted. I went to Cosmed a few blocks from my house. I went inside and luckily the first person I talked to knew English. I told her I needed liquid iron. The first thing she showed me was some flowery box that I was guessing was some sort of tea so that didn't really look like the right thing. Then she said she had one more thing. She showed me a product called "Iron Tasty" and it had the outline of a woman drawn on it. The box was pink and clearly for women. However, I bought it because I guess that was my only option. I'm going to show the box to my Taiwanese friend Tony to have him tell me what's in it before I start taking it. The box is completely in Chinese and I don't want to start taking estrogen by mistake.

The other thing: the Hash last Sunday. I'll give a quick rundown. It was at Fulong Beach again on the Northeast side of the island. It's our last beach run of the year because it's getting colder and rainier. The run started up a steep staircase and then we got on a road which we ran on for about 5 minutes. Then the first check came and a guy found the right way and plunged into some thick jungle. After running down this for about 2 minutes, we ran into the hare putting down the flour. There was some arguing in Chinese and then we turned back and had to basically start the run over again. Apparently, the trail had been marked incorrectly and we missed a 30 minute loop we were supposed to do first before we got to the part where we saw the hare. This was kind of funny and has never happened on a hash I've been on. Anyway, the rest of the run was pretty fun but very muddy and not that runnable because much of the jungle we ran through was just too thick. The highlight of the run came after at Down Downs. They brought me and my friend Andrew up to the front and started making fun of me, saying how I'm always bringing young guys along with me. Mark, the GM, asked us who was Martha and who was Arthur? I wasn't exactly sure how to respond to this so at that moment, a fellow hasher behind Andrew de-pantsed him completely in front of the whole crowd. I was quick enough to dive into a cat pose and avoid humiliation. Andrew wasn't too concerned about it because he leaves on Monday and will probably never see any of these people again. But yeah, that was pretty funny. My friends Dan, Lauren, and Jade from school came along to the hash too. It was their first one and I think they had fun. They were definitely a little confused by the whole thing but they might go again so that's what's important.

We did skip the bash at the hash because Dan, Lauren, and Jade didn't want to drink so we went to a dive of a restaurant a few blocks from the bash. I ordered "fish" which was a whole fish, completely blackened, and brought out on a plate of juices and odd vegetables. But, I was hungry and managed to eat the entire thing by myself. At the end of the meal, Andrew posed the question "could you have pictured yourself eating something like this one year ago?" I said no way, and then laughed and realized just a simple thing like that was a fairly significant experience. Now that I think about it, I've been a very very picky eater my whole life and now that's clearly changing. I'll try and post a picture of that shortly. I had a moment at the restaurant that again, made me realize this has been a pretty unique experience! More to come...stay tuned!

Welcome to Venice

It has been a hectic week and I wanted to write a blog sooner but had I done that, the hecticness would've been reflected in my blog and thus, made my hundreds of readers crazy as well. Last Sunday, I went on an amazing hike with little Brian and his family (pictures will be posted shortly). We climbed Seven Star Mountain on the outskirts of Taipei. The hike started at the base of a large, natural sulfur spring which was pretty cool to see, and it smelled terrible of course. The hike began at an elevation of about 800 meters and climbed to about 1,120 meters total. It's the tallest mountain in Taipei County. The hike itself was composed mainly of steep stone steps, with of course very, very few switchbacks. For some reason here, hiking trails are constructed straight up mountains, so I guess the hike is shorter but it's much more intense. Then again, I was hiking with Brian who is 6 years old so it wasn't that difficult. I was able to hang, just barely. At the peak of the mountain, it was extremely foggy so we didn't have a good view of anything but it was fun being at the top nonetheless. There were a ton of Taiwanese people just laying around. The most peculiar thing I discovered on the hike was on the descent. While we were going down, I saw a little side trail that cut into the tall grass that was on either side of the trail. I walked down the trail with Brian for about 20 feet, and then we got to a clearing with a bunch of, hmm shall we say, remnants of human occupation in the area. So yeah, instead of having bathrooms along the hiking trail, they just had these clearings that you could duck down in the grass and completely concealed, but no attempt was made to conceal the "business" being done there. That was a first for me. After seeing this one, I noticed trails just like these every few hundred meters.

After the hike, I went out to dinner with his family. Our appetizer was tofu and pig intestine. I picked at this dish and ate one bite of each thing. Then Brian's mom said "foreigners usually don't like this food" so I guess I made it pretty obvious that I didn't like it when I only took one piece of each and then moved on to another dish as fast as I could. I got a bottle of what I thought was apple juice to drink for dinner. It actually was apple juice, but at the bottom, it had Jello-like chunks of apple flavored gelatin or something so that was a new one for me too.

I could've sworn there were some other highlights from the week but they're escaping me right now. Last night I moved out of my apartment and into a new place with Dan and Lauren, two other teachers from school. The rent is a lot less now and it's a really nice place, plus I think it will be good for me to live with other people. Sometimes in a tiny little studio apartment, the walls felt like they were starting to close in. Anyway, the name of the building is Venice and it's pretty swanky. I'll put up pictures of that too. The funny thing about moving last night was when my landlord got there, we couldn't really communicate at all so I called my neighbor Tony and had him come translate and moderate the exchange. I tried cleaning the apartment but not that much because it wasn't that clean when I moved in, but I was worried the landlord would say I had failed the cleaning test, but that was not the case. She did burp loudly about 6 times in half an hour while surveying the apartment, so that was funny. Thanks to the help of Brian's mom, I was able to get back over half of my security deposit for breaking my contract.

Ok, well I'm out of stories right now but this weekend promises to be a big one. I'll post pictures shortly and another blog in the next couple of days. Oh last thing I just remembered...because of the H1N1 epidemic or whatever you want to call it, all of the students have their temperatures taken at school a few times a day, of course using the same thermometer in all of their ears without ever cleaning it. Then after they're done, the teachers are expected to use the same dirty thermometer to take their temperatures. Even when I go to my Chinese class in Taipei, the doorman of the building stops me and takes my temperature. I've heard that about 50,000 people in Taiwan have the swine flu, so they're doing their best to prevent it from spreading more. At our school, if 2 or more kids have a fever and are sent home and later develop swine flu, then their whole class is cancelled for 5 days. So, it's not bad at our school but I guess it has the potential of getting there. I've been washing my hands after every class just in case. It is pretty crazy though that if any kid has a fever, they're sent home immediately. But at the same time, I've heard that H1N1 is transmitted through mucus, and ear wax is a mucus, so why is it that they test all the kids at school...like 200 kids, with the same thermometer and never clean it? I'll leave that to you guys to ponder.

Jaywalking leads to regretting

Yesterday was quite a day! It started with a run through Linkou and as I ran by a few blocks of restaurants, I couldn't help but notice that I was associating all of the scents emanating from the restaurants with scents from a landfill or a hot spring. After showering and cleaning off the ridiculous amounts of sweat your body produces in sweltering humidity, I went to the neighborhood photo shop where on of the salesman speaks English. While he was ringing me up, he asked if I was married. I said that I was not. Then he said, "why not? You are so handsome." I chuckled and told him I was very young. He said he was 32. Then I asked him if he was married. He said, paraphrasing, "I like Taiwanese girls but they don't like me. I am too fat, I have no money, no car, and no house." So in other words, he was not married. It was pretty sad actually but awkward too because I didn't really know what to say to him. I told him to be patient and something good would happen eventually.

A little later on, I hopped on the bus with Josh to go into Taipei. The bus was basically full so we had to sit separately. I sat next to a little lady that was mumbling to herself during the entire bus ride and she kept putting her hands together and praying. The only thing she was carrying was a little clicker, like the ones they use to count people in a bar. If she hadn't been about 4 feet tall, I would've thought she was a terrorist. Anyway, that was pretty funny to see. Josh and I went to a movie theater near Taipei 101 and saw the new flick "Inglourious Basterds." This was fun to watch and very entertaining, and violent. Very violent. The funniest part of the movie was when we first arrived and there was no one in line for the movie. We got there about 10 minutes before the movie started and there was not a soul in sight. We sat down inside and we were the only ones in there about 5 minutes before the movie was supposed to start. Then, about 3 minutes before, people just started flooding in like ants. They all sat down in about 5 minutes and the movie began with a packed theater. That's about all I can think of right now from yesterday.

I am off to the Hash. There will be an update from that later!

Merlin, it's ok...don't cry

Well, school is finally in full swing, and boy has it been a trip already. Each day, it feels like there are enough stories to write a book. I remember a 7 year old student dancing like Michael Jackson, complete with very suggestive hip thrusts. One student leaves his chair about every 3 minutes when he decides to fall out of his seat and face plant and then start crying hysterically. His name is Merlin, but in his class they say it "Mer-leen" which is really funny. I'll post a picture of him. One student likes to get out of his seat, lay on the ground, and kick his arms and legs in the air. My boss calls the trouble children "popcorns". I'll try and post pictures in the next few weeks of all the new kids.

On Sunday, I went to the Hash in Muzha. It was a really hard run that began with a long, steep descent which of course we had to ascend on the way back. It was brutally hot that day but it was still a lot of fun. I got the new teacher Sam to go with me. He said he wanted to go again so that was a relief. One girl did get lost on the Hash and about 4 search parties were sent out after Down-Downs to track her down. Apparently, she thought the run was too hard so she just went home and decided not to tell anyone she had gone and she also left her bag at the beginning of the run. That was quite dramatic. However, on Saturday a fellow hasher died during the Taipei Hash. I heard that he had gotten lost and he fell somewhere and broke his neck. His body was not actually found until the next day. The Taiwanese "Ghost Month" is going on right now so a lot of bad things happen. So yeah, this weekend was a bit of a sad weekend.

The cutest thing that happened this week was a few days ago when my ring broke accidentally in class. I showed the broken pieces to the class and Lucien (a boy) came up to me and said "it's ok" and he patted me on the back. On Tuesday, I taught a P8 class which has like 14 year old students and when I walked in the classroom, they all started laughing at me and snickering to each other. That was a pleasant welcome. What was funny was that their material was hard enough that I was second guessing myself about if their answers were right or not. There are a ton of rules about English that I've long since forgotten and it's funny to compare conversational English to proper English.

It rained last night and while I was walking to and from the store, I slipped at least 6 times on the 10 minute walk. The sidewalk materials here are just horrible. What were they thinking when they built them? It rains here all the time, so why do they paint the concrete on exposed entryways to buildings, or why do they use marble tiling on major sidewalks? Also, at lunch today at the all-you-can-eat buffet, they were serving what looked like pigs' tails but I can't be sure because I definitely did not taste them.

My running has been going well. I've been into the routine of going to bed early and getting up early. I'm supposed to be doing a marathon in a few weeks but I'm still not sure about it. I've been running between 30 minutes a day up to an hour and 40 minutes a day. I am feeling better but still not in the shape I want to be. Much like the guitar I borrow from school. It says it's the "Finest Guitar in the World" (and the is spelled "th") but it most certainly is not. Maybe that's why I like the guitar so much. We have something in common.

Oh, last story and then I need to end this rant. Last night, I went to sushi with the new teachers, Sam and Josh. When we first sat down the waiter came up to us and said something in Chinese and I didn't understand him at all. Because Josh and Sam don't really know any Chinese, I became the official spokesperson for the group so when the waiter spoke, Josh and Sam just looked at me. I told the waiter "wait a moment" in Chinese and he just shook his head. It became very awkward and silent. Then he chatted with his fellow waiters and then he said in English, "what do you want?" Later in the meal, I ordered dessert and I wanted the pudding dish with the red fruit sauce. I tried to explain this by saying what I thought was "red" in Chinese but again, they just stared back at me blankly. Clearly, my Chinese classes are paying off. Ha ha. At the end of the meal, I wanted to tell the cashier that our group was paying separately and again, I was met with completely blank stares. The whole ordeal was pretty awkward but I asked my teacher today how to say some new things so hopefully this situation will be avoided in the future.

First Day of School

Today was the first day back at school. There are two new teachers starting this semester. Josh, who is from Saskatchewan and Sam, who is from Maryland. Sam actually went to Bowdoin College and majored in Economics, just like someone in my family. I only taught two classes today. They were fairly difficult though because it was the kids' first day of class in an English school, period. So they don't know any English. I haven't taught a class like this before so it should be interesting. The best part so far was having to teach the kids their own English names. My favorites were Bong, Ting, and Merlin. When they got out of class, the kids lined up in a single file line and walked while holding the backpack of the kid in front of them. It was like a cute little train.

I'm about to go on a run with Sam so I think depending on how serious of a runner he is, I may have found a new training partner so that's exciting. Oh, one other thing. At school, during break they decided to do some landscaping. All of the trees that were completely full and mature, they cut the branches off basically back to the trunk. It's really ugly and I'll post some pictures later. I don't understand why they did it, but now there's an ant infestation in the school and the administrators are saying cutting the trees is the cause. Oh, Principal.

I went to bed last night at about 11, and then proceeded to wake up at 1,2,4,5, and finally got out of bed at around 6. Adjusting to the time change is about what I expected it to be: difficult. Anyway, I'm feeling more upbeat about things in general now so get ready for some more positive posts in the future!

Home sweet home

I got back to my apartment about an hour ago and the reality of being in Taiwan is hitting me all over again. I'm feeling fairly negative right now but that's due to lots of jet-lag, as well as missing everyone back home after spending three great weeks with everyone. This next week will get me back into the swing of things. New classes, new students, re-adjusting to the food again, and re-adjusting to the new time zone again. It's all part of the experience. Nothing else to say now...expect a fascinating blog soon though!

Dodgeball? How do you play that?

Today at school, we had a dodgeball competition with 4 different classes. Going into it, I thought it'd be pretty funny to watch a bunch of little kids pelting balls at each other. I was wrong though. When the game started, one ball was brought out. All of the kids were told to stay inside of the square as 6 teachers surrounded them. Then we threw balls one by one at the scared kids huddled in the corner of the square. One kid did cry because he got hit in the face, but overall it was quite an underwhelming game. I'm not sure if this was the school's first time playing dodgeball or if this is how they always play it but it was strange.

Tonight, I went to Brian's house and had dinner with his parents and three doctors from the Chang Gung hospital. Frank, Brian's Dad, heads up a unit at the hospital and apparently has his disciples eat at his house often. They invited me because their guests spoke English. It was a little awkward the whole night because the main reason we were all there together was because we spoke English even though I was the only native speaker. Maybe I'm thinking about it too much, ha ha. The three women were from the Phillippines. They've been in Taiwan for 11 months and are leaving next month. After a delicious dinner, we played Wii Tennis and Bowling. This was pretty funny. Brian's parents were very excited about getting us all to play a kids game. It was a fun night overall.

Other than that, I'm getting very very anxious about going back to the US and that's pretty much all I'm thinking about. I'm honestly getting a little bummed that I'll have to come back here. I've definitely been enjoying my time here but I feel like I've gotten comfortable enough with everything that the whole experience isn't quite as exciting anymore. Maybe it's my problem and I need to diversify more to spice things up or something. The doctors tonight did tell me that their second half of the year has gone a lot faster so that was good to hear. In a way, it is kind of silly to live life like that, just hoping that it goes faster so you can be somewhere else. So I am trying to live it to the fullest while I'm here. I'm doing my best to supress any negative thoughts and instead I'm trying to make the best of it. I was told that the 6-month mark is one of the hardest periods of being away so that could be what I'm feeling. I'm getting too whiny. I better stop this blog, ha ha. I promise good posts in the future so don't give up on the blog yet. Ta ta!

Night markets and hashing...again!

Well, I'm here to update everyone on my life and write another fascinating blog! Yesterday, I went to the Hash in Pinglin. It was a great run! It took about 80 minutes and there was actually a ton of actual running involved. It was a "runners' " run. We had to cut through like 8 rivers and run over a TON of rocks. Of course, it was raining so everything was really really slippery. I only fell once though so that was impressive. When I got to the end, I thought I was going to be the first man in but one guy was already there. Cam had been there for 20 minutes. Apparently, he had gotten straight through all of the checks while the rest of us were bushwhacking in circles. It was still an amazing run, probably one of the best I've done. It was also the last hash for 5 hashers, two of which are from Colorado and one is a CU alumni. It's a small world. And, on the run I met a girl who is roommates with a friend from Boulder way back when. That was a real shocker!

On Saturday, I spent the day with Brian and his whole family. I drove with him, sis, Mom, and Dad to meet up with his grandparents in Hsinchu. It's a city about 1 hour south of Linkou. We went to the harbor in town and rented bikes. We rode along the coast for about an hour which was a ton of fun. The highlight was when we first arrived at the harbor and there was smoke billowing from the water. A boat was on fire! There were about 30 firefighters surrounding it who put it out in about 15 minutes, but it was still very entertaining nonetheless. Afterwards, we went out to eat at the Hsinchu night market, which is over 100 years old. The food was pretty typical. There was also a temple adjoining the market and I went inside and made a wish in the Buddhist manner. You hold two halves of a wooden egg together, and drop them on the ground. If they land on opposite sides, then your wish will come true. But, I can't tell anyone my wish...but it's coming true so get ready!

Other than that, this is the last week of school for the semester so I can't wait for it to be over. I did add about 20 pictures to flickr so check those out too!

Here's some soup in a bag and a straw. Enjoy!

It's been a whirlwind last few days. Yesterday, I took two teachers from my school, Chris and Kelly, to the hash. They really liked it! It was a pretty awesome run that ended on Fulong Beach on the east coast of Taiwan. At the end of the run, everyone took off their shoes and jumped into the ocean for a swim. Very refreshing! Before the run, I guy came up to me and said "hey, I heard you're the new fast guy." He was an ex-hasher back in town for a few days so he was reliving his times of glory. Apparently, another hasher had been talking me up to him for the last few months. Unfortunately, during the run I had some "intestinal" problems that hindered my performance greatly and thus, put out quite the lackluster showing. Oh well. It's only a hash. Still, I felt disappointed I hadn't put on a bigger show for this guy. I was clearly over-hyped, much like a lot of big-budget movies. The point of the story is that Chris and Kelly said they wanted to do another Hash, so it was a successful Hash overall!

This past Saturday was my K3B class graduation. This was pretty cute/comical, and I'll post some pictures and videos to give you a better idea of what it was like! The highlight of the show was definitely when they started playing "My Happy Ending" by Avril Lavigne. I am not sure where they found ANY of the music that they did for the show, but that was part of the fun. The ceremony itself took almost 3 hours. Remember this is for kids graduating from kindergarten at like the age of 8. The earliest graduation I can remember was from high school and even that wasn't 3 hours long. It was a little over the top in that sense. Each class performed a 15-minute long skit, followed by a group song. Then they handed out awards to each student. Then all of the teachers at the school said a few words about the students, followed by another group song. The picture taking/gift exchanging after was the highlight. Each class participating came up and gave their teachers bouquets and gifts. I ended up with about 6 bouquets of flowers and multiple stuffed teddy bears. I proceeded to pawn most of my gifts off, realizing that most of the gifts would go to waste inside my bachelor pad.

Other than that, no real big news. I saw Indiana Jones 4 on Saturday and was fairly entertained. It was not quite as good as the original ones but still pretty entertaining. I watched it with two other teachers from school, Dan and Lauren. I'm potentially going to be changing apartments in the next month or two. More on that later. I'm getting excited about my return home to the US in less than two weeks. It's gonna be great!

Oh, last thing...the title of my blog refers to a funny incident on Saturday. After running on the treadmill, I went into the courtyard of my building and my doorman Mr. Sen was talking to a woman who is apparently my neighbor. While I attempted to have a conversation with her in Chinese, another woman came down who looked like her mother or aunt or something, and she was carrying a clear bag with a clear liquid inside and a straw sticking out. I asked Mr. Sen what it was and he said "whiskey". Then the woman handed me the bag and said "for you." I was thinking "oh great, this should be interesting." I took the bag from her and took a sip through the straw. It turned out to be warm soup broth, not whiskey at all. Then I tried to hand the bag back to the woman and she insisted that I drink the whole thing. I didn't particularly enjoy the soup but I had to oblige because it was a gift. So there I was, sitting in the courtyard in my tiny running shorts attempting to speak Chinese to 3 Taiwanese people while drinking soup out of a bag with a straw. It was just one of those moments....

Now that I've been here for almost 6 months, a lot of the culture shock has worn off, but there are still moments like this that make you realize that you're living in a foreign country.

K3C, please welcome our new student, Steel, to class!

It's hard to believe it's really been a whole week since I last posted. Time actually feels like it's going really slow right now but in terms of blogging, it's flying by. The last few weeks of school have been a bit like pulling teeth and the whole school just sort of feels tired and ready to be done. The older kids at school just finished their final tests last week but they still have 2 weeks of school left, so we basically play games and review with them for no real reason other than to sharpen their English more I guess. I have 13 actual school days left this semester so that's pretty cool. Also, hard to believe the first semester is actually over. In a way, it feels like I arrived in Taiwan only yesterday. I'm also glad the 6 months are already over. During the first few weeks here, I met a lot of people that talked about how they'd come here to teach for a year and they ended up staying for like 3o years. I was definitely not sure what was going on during that period of time so I got worried and thought to myself that there would be a remote possibility that I'd want to stay longer. However, as I near the 6 month mark, I can safely say that 1 year will definitely be enough for me! Actually, I had made up my mind a few months ago. It's been an amazing experience so far and I don't regret any of it one bit, but one year will be enough. Anyway, enough deep thinking for the day...

On Saturday, I went to a pool party with Andrew and his friends. This was pretty fun but also kind of lame. It was at the Taipei Country Club, a few miles away from Taipei 101. It was basically a foreigner hang out, but with a lot of drinking and Taiwanese kids mixed in. It was really nice to swim though and escape the oppressive humidity! I did run into 2 fellow hashers, and I met a guy who was interested in doing the hash so hopefully my words of wisdom persuaded him to try it out. After hanging out there for a few hours, we walked back into Taipei, which took about an hour and a half but none of us were in a hurry to get back for anything. They were gonna head to a club later but I learned that they have a dress code at all of the clubs: pants and shoes required. I had neither so I went home. One of Andrew's friends was a guy from LA visiting for a month. Apparently, he got a 1580 on his SAT when he was 13 and he graduated from Berkeley at age 16. Pretty impressive. He was a bit eccentric too though. But yeah, he was like an "ABC" Doogie Howser. Overall, it was a pretty good day.

Yesterday, I hung out once again with Brian and his family! I tutored him for an hour and then we drove into Taipei and hiked a mountain overlooking 101. This was a great hike, and it wasn't too long so the kids handled it well. At the top, there were at least 20 photographers hanging out waiting for the sunset to capture the perfect skyline picture. It was pretty picturesque. The only thing that seemed funny was that they were all taking the exact same picture. The sunset didn't actually turn out to be that good because there were hardly any clouds in the sky so it was missing that dramatic effect. After the hike, we drove to Maokong. This is a little mountain village that can usually be reached by a really cool gondola ride, but that operation is closed down temporarily because one of the steel supports was sliding down the mountain! Not too safe. We ate dinner at an open air restaurant overlooking all of Taipei. It was pretty stunning! My picture of it on flickr isn't that good though because I had my little camera and it's hard to hold it steady for night shots. It was another great day out with an authentic Taiwanese family! All part of the experience! More later...

I added about 25 more pictures/videos from the weekend's events so check them out!

Dedicated to the country selling hot dogs in packs of 10 and buns in packs of 8

Yesterday, I went to the hash with my friend Andrew. This was no ordinary hash though. It was the July 5th "America Day" spectacular! There were patriotic costumes galore, as well as like 30 new runners, and over 100 runners total in attendance. It was quite the run! The trail itself actually would've taken about 40 minutes, but because our whole group got lost at numerous checks, it ended up taking more like an hour. But this hash had something that I had never experienced before on a hash...swimming! That's right. We had to swim three different times through a river. Actually, you really only HAD to swim one time, but swimming was easier in the other sections because the rocks were so incredibly slippery to walk on, it wasn't even worth it. But yeah, the first water section began with a jump off of a 4-foot tall ledge straight into the river. I had no idea how difficult it really is to swim with shoes. We had to swim probably about 20 meters. Then we ran along the river bank which was covered in rocks, and then back into the rivers, where it was probably only three feet deep, but most people just got on all fours and sort of slithered through the river over the rocks like salamanders. It was pretty comical to watch I'm sure! Then we ran in the jungle again for 5 minutes or so, before getting lost in a tea field for about 15 minutes. After finally finding the right way, we had to once again swim across another river! Yep, it was quite the day!

The down downs went really well and were a lot of fun. The GM is English and he proceeded to make fun of America a lot. This was pretty entertaining, and he pointed out some pretty ridiculous things about the US. Then again, things like that can be said about pretty much anywhere I think. There was a moonwalk competition between Michael Jackson and John Dillinger which was pretty entertaining. Unfortunately, there was a lot of drama during the bash that kind of made the rest of the night kind of sour. Luckily, there was a great fireworks show at the end that the hare coordinated, as well as lanterns we wrote wishes on. We then lit them and they sailed into the sky at least 1,000 feet up. This was pretty striking to watch. However, my point and shoot camera was not good at all at capturing this moment. Overall though, it was a great hash! The swimming was very unique and I thought to myself "only in Taiwan!" On on!

I Win You!

I spent this Saturday in the same fashion as last: touring Taiwan with a real Taiwanese family! I had the pleasure of tutoring my student Brian again, and then spent the whole day with his family. Brian and I first read books for an hour and then we had a family lunch that his mom made. Then we played a drumming game on Playstation 2 that was a lot of fun even though none of us really knew how to play it. After screwing around on that for about an hour, we drove into Taipei where Brian took a math class for an hour. While he was there, I went with Frank (the dad) and Nicole (the sister) to the Core Pacific City "Living Mall." This building was truly an architectural marvel located just a few blocks away from Taipei 101. It's difficult to describe it and do the building justice but it's basically a giant ball set into an L-shaped building. I'll post pictures of it shortly for you to be able to see it better. It has a fairly grandiose atrium inside as well as glass elevators, and tons of escalators to allow for many different, interesting vantage points throughout. We wandered around there for an hour or so before heading back to pick up Brian from class. On our way back, we did buy another authentic Taiwanese dish whose name escapes me right now, but it was another icy soup dessert like I had last week, only this time it had noodles in it too.

Then the family and I went to Bali, a little town right on the Danshui river just a few miles from Linkou. We rented bikes and rode along the river for about an hour. This was a lot of fun, although it was very very busy and I'm amazed none of us got into any crashes. It was a relief to be by a river and near the ocean to escape the sometimes insufferable heat Taiwan has in the summer. The highlight of the day bike riding was watching Brian ride with training wheels. Whenever we got to a quiet part of the trail, all you could hear was his training wheels scraping on the ground on one side until he tipped back and started scraping on the other side. Training wheels are just kinda funny. Ha ha.

After Bali, we went to a "western" restaurant in Linkou which was actually pretty good. I knew all of the names of the dishes which was refreshing. The only thing that was strange about my meal was the sauce on the Fettucini Alfredo. I'm about 99% positive there was not any actual cheese in the sauce, but oh well. The whole meal, 5 courses in all, cost about $7 US so that's tough to beat!

When I got back home, I went over to Dan, Lauren, and Jade's house where we proceeded to try out KTV (Taiwanese karaoke) to see what it was like. It is EXTREMELY popular here. It was actually a lot of fun! We got to try it on the top floor of their 15-story building, and we had our own private movie theater basically, as well as a balcony with a lawn and real grass. I don't think I've walked barefoot in grass since I've been in Taiwan so that was cool. Also, come to think of it, today was the first time I've ridden a bike since coming to Taiwan. Anyway, KTV was a lot of fun. We sang some Disney classics, some '80s classics, and other songs of that nature. I definitely wanna try it again in the future. So in all, this was a pretty eventful day and I'm feeling a little tired. I'll put up some pictures soon of the day's events. 'Til next time...

No, my name's not Kevin. It's Heaven.

I had some spare time tonight so I uploaded about 70 pictures to my flickr account. There's more of Australia and then a bunch more from Taiwan. I hope you like them!

New Pictures

I just added 60 pics or so to my flickr from Australia so check 'em out! More on the way from Taiwan!

I'm not afraid of bats! I'm afraid of my mother!

It's been almost one month since I wrote a blog so get ready! It's been a pretty crazy month. I think the last time I blogged, it was a few days after I got back from Australia. Since then, my sister and friend Dylan came and visited me for one week. It was awesome! I am so glad they came and got to see what it's actually like out here. For me, one of the hardest things about being out here has been trying to convey to people with words what it's like in Taiwan so it was great that they came and got to see it for themselves. They had a lot of fun and will potentially visit again in the future. The first day they arrived, we did some sight-seeing around Linkou which was fun. Although it is really dirty here, it's pretty interesting too and having them see it all for the first time sort of made me realize how unique it is here. After cruising around town, we met up with my cook from school and she took us on a hike in Yang Ming Shan national park. Unfortunately, it rained pretty hard so our plans were changed slightly. We ended up running/hiking on a road in the pouring rain. We did see a ton of little frogs and a green snake, which my friend thought was probably a pit viper. Apparently, they bite a lot but they're not poisonous. We also went out to eat after with a group of about 10 Taiwanese and that was a pretty cool experience.

The second day they were here, we went to Wanli to a Hash run. This was the usual for me, a crazy Sunday. But for Emily and Dylan, I think it was the highlight of their trip. I remember my first hash, and it completely blew my mind. The hash run was actually a little disappointing compared to some of the other ones, but it was still fun and the bash afterwards was awesome! The whole group was in a good spirits because Emily and Dylan were there and the Hash always likes when new people are there. And we convinced Dylan to eat part of a chicken's foot. Afterwards, we went and sampled betel nut where Dylan proceeded to pass out for about a minute. Drama ensued when one of the hashers broke a light by accident on a storefront and the shopkeeper came out and demanded we pay him 7000 NT (about $230 US) to replace the light. After a lot of arguing, we gave him 1500 NT and then he called us his brothers and said we could come back anytime. Yeah right! It was crazy but...only in Taiwan.

The next 5 days they were here, I had to teach so they did a lot of sight-seeing on their own. They saw a lot of temples and other touristy things like that. We did check out the Shilin night market which was very cool, for the second time. We also had the privilege of going to the top of Taipei 101. It's a very striking building and it had a great view at the top. One thing that was a little strange was feeling the building move occasionally. It was a little unnerving. There was a cool informational video talking about the construction of the building that played in the observation area. We did go at night though so all we really saw was the glow of the city. Going up there during the day would be more interesting, but unfortunately the air is hazy here often so it's tough to go up on a clear day. We were lucky enough to have the cook from my school host us that night as well. We really lucked out!

Dylan and Emily also came and observed me at school. That was a lot of fun and the kids really liked them. The highlight of the day was probably when they helped me make clay airplanes for the kids in two of my classes. It was adorable, ha ha. So I'm not sure exactly what they thought of Taiwan in general, but I can safely say that I am SO glad that they came and I had a great time with them.

On to more current stuff...today was my first day tutoring Brian from my K3B class. I am going to tutor him once a week for the rest of my time here in Taiwan. He's the cutest kid in my K3B class and he's really funny too. We read books for about an hour today, and then his family took me out on an adventure for the day. We went to Keelung on the northeast tip of Taiwan. This was a gorgeous area and I'll post pictures soon to better describe everything. We ate at a restaurant first, where I made sure to crack open a prawn and have the inner juices explode all over my arm and shirt. Then we went on an hour long-ish hike along the coast. This was very scenic! I felt like I was in Hawaii! Unfortunately, it did sort of drizzle the whole time, but it wasn't that hot as a result so that was good. (At this point in the blog, carpal tunnel is setting in, ha ha). Then we went to Jiufen, a small town on a hillside close to Keelung. This was a very unique town with narrow streets and shops stuffed in every imaginable crevice of the city. This was very cool and a very authentic experience. I ate a Taiwanese dessert that consisted of ice cubes floating in a soup, accompanied by sweet chunks of vegetables and beans. It was pretty good, but kind of odd at the same time. Apparently, it's a very popular dish though...when in Rome. We did see a fair amount of tourists though, but not white people. They looked Chinese but they were speaking English, so they were probably ABCs (American-born Chinese) on vacation. Come to think of it, I think I only saw two white people today total, and we were in some very touristy places. Oh well. There were a lot of cool shops and scents and scenery so that was great to see! Afterwards, we headed to the Keelung night market....crazy! I thought Shilin was crazy but this was crazier for sure! There were so many people. It was ridiculous. You could barely walk. Again, I'll add pictures to better describe it. I did eat two more dishes that Keelung is famous for...when in Rome. I had "pow pow bin" or something like that, which is basically Italian water ice. I also had some fried sandwich filled with mayonnaise, tomatoes, cucumbers, sausage, and eggs. It was pretty good at the time but I felt sick after (and me typing about it now is not bringing back fond memories). I got home at about 10 PM. So yeah, that was the first day of tutoring...11 hours with Brian's whole family, 3 popular authentic Taiwanese dishes, 2 popular tourist destinations, and a partridge in a pear tree. Also, Brian's sister is 3 I think and she was so adorable. She kept calling me "Mister Ryan" all day, but that's practically the only English she knows. It was quite a day, to say the least. And the plan is to do something like this every week, but more on that later. I'm tired now and not sure what else to ramble on about. I hope this makes up for the last few weeks of time off, but hey, it's been busy. Yeah yeah, we're all busy.

Last thing, in the running world...Galen Rupp is amazing and Dathan Ritzenhein is back in the game. Perhaps Alan Webb too. It's very exciting stuff! I did attempt to sign up for my first race in Taiwan, but unfortunately registration is closed because they gave out all the entries already. Now the next race in Taiwan isn't until October. Oh well. Now I'm actually going. Goodbye!

(fill in the blank) Chicken Platoon

Well, school was pretty entertaining today. My boss wanted me to help her choose a song for the upcoming K3 graduation ceremony. She said she wanted the song to sound joyful but also have meaningful lyrics related to graduating. She had narrowed it down to 2 songs for me to choose from. I listened to the first and it was some passionate love song with lyrics like "if you fall, I will catch you" and "you're the only beauty in this world" so I didn't think that was too fitting. Then the next song was about someone dying. I'm not sure how my boss carefully chose these two songs but she did. My co-teacher Dan and I are thinking we're going to play "Good Riddance" by Green Day on our guitars while the students sing. That's a pretty common song for occasions such as this.

Later in the day was rehearsal time for the upcoming Drama Night we have next week. This was very entertaining to watch because many of the kids are like 15 years old and they have to sing these really slow love ballads and dance on stage like ballerinas. My class is singing "YMCA" which is pretty funny to watch. That song is like 5 minutes long! Oh well, I'll put up videos of the final performances next week. Get excited...

I did put up about 70 pictures so far from Australia if you want to check those out! I'm probably gonna end up putting like 200 more pictures up so get ready. Then again, the pictures are of an amazing place so maybe you won't mind. Oh and the last thing...in my K3B class today, while I was talking to the class, one of the kids got out of their chair and came up and started sniffing my arm for about 15 seconds and then he said it smelled good. It was very odd and funny to think about. Oh and one more last thing...I've finally decided that the bathroom at school smells like a zoo stall. And there are a lot of random bugs in it. And the funny thing is that the cleaning lady cleans the bathroom like 3 times a day. She must be using dirty water. After having been in Australia for a week where the air was clean, now I notice even more how horrible the air is here. It just smells bad pretty much everywhere. Emily and Dylan, get ready to experience that!

Bats, Bats, and More Bats

I'm back in Taiwan...already. First of all, I can't believe how amazing Australia was, and second, I can't believe that the trip is already over! But hey, at least I got to go so I shouldn't really be complaining after all. So yeah, Australia was awesome! I'm not sure what I expected to see, but I was pleasantly surprised. The fam and Kelly and I spent the first few days in Brisbane. We got to see Emily's school campus, which was huge and very beautiful. We made sure to have Emily take us to all of her classes to make sure that she was actually going to school. We also saw a few different art museums and ate a lot of great food. That was one of the highlights for me: the food. It was all very, very good, but also very expensive. A lady at the airport told me that wages in Australia are typically pretty high though to help offset the high price of food. She said a job that might pay around $8 an hour (like a retail job) in the US would actually pay about $15 USD per hour in Australia. It seemed like every meal we had cost like $100. It was a nice break from the Taiwanese food though.

The weather was pretty much perfect the whole time we were in Brisbane, except for a few rain showers. The city of Brisbane was very nice. It was very clean, modern, and filled with lots of friendly people with very entertaining accents. The roads in Brisbane are a lot like San Francisco because of all the hills. The next part of the trip was definitely the biggest treat of the vacation: North Stradbroke Island, or Straddie to the locals. This is an island just a few miles off the coast of Brisbane. It almost felt like I was in Hawaii, but it's far less developed which I really liked. There were no high-rise buildings. And not many people for that matter. Because it's winter in Australia, it's kind of their slow season (what a rough winter huh? 75 degrees as the high). We stayed in a very funky hotel that was set back into the woods off the main road. It took about 2 minutes to walk to the beach. We did a lot of lounging on the beach, some hiking, and again, lots of eating. One thing that was pretty crazy to see was the bats, aka Flying Foxes. One night, we witnessed a mass migration of at least 1,000 bats flying down the coast. I would say these bats have at least a 2 foot wingspan...they were big. I had never seen bats this big before, and definitely not this many at once. My mom and I were also lucky enough to see 2 kangaroos in the wild. Needless to say, the rest of our party was quite jealous. I'll be posting some pictures shortly because they're gonna do a much better job showing you what Australia was all about. All I'm trying to say is that I'd highly recommend a visit!

Today was my second day back to school and I'm definitely having a hard time adjusting and getting back into the groove. I'm missing everyone now but luckily the kids keep you busy enough that you can't think about it too much. I have one highlight from today that was pretty memorable. It was the third field trip of the year today. We drove south into Taoyuan to the National Taiwan Sports University campus. We attended some sort of Firefighters' Benefit or something. It started with 8 guys dressed as women in bikinis, lifeguards, and people who looked like they belonged to a bomb squad. They were wearing one piece, white plastic suits. They must've been very hot. It was around 80 degrees today and very humid. They did some sort of dance combined with a life-saving demonstration. It was very odd. Again, a video or picture would better describe it. Once they did this, more guys came out with sheets to make ocean waves and the guys in the plastic suits put on monster masks. Then another life-saving demonstration ensued, followed by a 3 song dance sequence which included "Thriller" by Michael Jackson. Then the monster people ran around a chased and scared all the kids.

After this were the boat races. They had 3 boats with 4 firefighters in each racing across a pond. This was fairly anti-climactic because one team won convincingly. The capper for the day was when all of the kids were allowed to catch baby catfish out of a baby pool. There must've been at least 500 catfish in this pool. It was pretty gross but a lot of fun too. I caught 5 and now I have them in a bowl in my room. Of course the next challenge will be trying to find fish food somewhere near my house. Luckily, I have that little "language barrier" I have to contend with. After we got back to school, I had two science classes in a row where we experimented with different kinds of paper and how they reacted to water. One of the students thought it'd be a good idea to put the pieces of paper on their face and of course, their fellow students followed suit. Before I knew it, I had 15 kids roaming around the classroom with 6 pieces of paper stuck to their faces. They all looked like Uncle Sam.

To sum this rambling up, I'd like to thank my parents for an awesome trip to Australia, thank Emily for being our great tour guide, and thank Kelly for being there with me to experience it all. Now my mind is spinning trying to gather my thoughts and also try and sort through the hundreds of pictures I took so I can post them on flickr for the many blog fans I have to enjoy. 'Nuff said!

Who is as kind as a deer in your class?

Tonight at school I had the pleasure of doing phone-testing for two classes. My boss promised me it would take about two hours to call 30 kids. After being on the phone for three, I was able to get a hold of 21 kids. They said I can make up the other nine when I call for "two" more hours on Thursday night. Some of the questions which I found interesting were as follows:

Who is as kind as a deer in your class?
What do you use to dry your body?
How do you put out flames?
How did Warthog like his meat?
Make a sentence with the word "creep"

Bear in mind that I was asking all of these questions to kids I called at home late at night. It did seem a little awkward and strange to me but it's part of the experience. My favorite response of the night was when I asked a kid what his Mom looked like. He responded "My Mom looks like a dog." He was dead serious. I had another kid take about 2 minutes to find his textbook, and then while he was reading to me, he put me on hold for a minute while he did something. I gave him a bad score as payback so there!

On Sunday, I participated in yet another hash. It took place in Pinglin, which is a large tea-producing area in the mountains outside of Taipei. It was a gorgeous run, cutting through tea fields at the tops of lush mountains and scampering through thick jungle vegetation. Unfortunately, the bus I went on arrived around 30 minutes late so our group was WAY behind everyone. We did have to deal with a torrential downpour that lasted for at least 45 minutes. It was pretty crazy but a lot of fun too. It was definitely another one of those "this'll be a story" moments. Unfortunately, you really had to be there for the full effect. I did find out that earlier that day, the Taipei 101 stair climb was held and I'm pretty bummed I missed it. That would've been pretty cool to try, but probably absolutely horrible during it.

On Saturday, I went to the Baishawan beach again with Andrew and a few of his friends from Honduras and El Salvador. It was pretty fun having the opportunity to practice my Spanish for a day. In a way, I wish I was learning Spanish instead of Chinese because it's a lot easier, and then I wouldn't be wasting all the Spanish I studied in high school and college. Oh well, there's always the future I guess. Anyway, it's Tuesday night and I'm leaving for Australia on Saturday to see Kelly and the fam so I'm very excited, anxious, and agonizing over how slow time seems to move when a big trip approaches. Isn't it funny how that happens?

I have two more facts about Taiwan I'd like to share:

#1: Every cop car here always has its blinking lights on. Always! They do turn the siren on when there's actually a problem, just so you know the difference. Luckily, ha ha.

#2: At the beach on Saturday, it was totally packed. But then I was puzzled by the fact that first of all, you can't really swim in the ocean because of strong rip tides that surround the ocean. And second, Taiwanese do not like getting tan so they practically avoid getting sun exposure at all costs. This of course prompted the question: why are the Taiwanese flocking to the beach? Perhaps for the same reason we all go to the beach...to do absolutely nothing but feel like we're doing something. But ain't it fun? I'm looking forward to it in Australia. G'day mates!

Paintballs, Rock Walls, Fun For All!

I went paint balling for the first time in my life with my fellow foreign teachers on Sunday. It was a lot of fun but I don't see why I would do it again. The first game, we played 4-on-4, guys against girls. We played inside of a square field with about 16 little fence walls on each side. The second game, we played inside of a more rugged course. This one had berms with trees planted on them as cover. There was also a flag in the middle that one team had to race to grab. The third game, we played against a group of 12 Taiwanese that were there also. We lost pretty badly but it was still fun. After paint balling, we also had a barbecue. During this, one of the Taiwanese came over and he wanted to meet us. While I was attempting to talk to him, one of my friends said "he wants to arm wrestle you." I was thinking, yeah this is just what I need. So he beat me soundly in arm wrestling, as well as the drinking competition that ensued.

We also played a lot of the miniature basketball game, and they had a rock wall which I horsed around on too. That was fun but I'm definitely not a natural like someone in my family...Dad. After that, we went a rode some go-carts. For me this was definitely the highlight of the day. These go-carts seemed like something that'd be illegal in the US but I'm in Taiwan so that's convenient. They had 250 CC engines which were very fast and loud, but it was awesome. I had an epic showdown with my friend Chris but he took me down in the last few laps. We're no longer friends. Well, I'm just joking but I am indeed bitter about the loss. It was a cut-throat competition.

We did have a driver from the paintball place that drove about an hour to pick us up in Linkou, then he drove us to paintball. After paintball, he drove us to the go-carts about 15 minutes away. And then he drove us back after that, another one hour drive. Apparently, because it was Mother's Day, they weren't as busy as usual so he had the time for us. He did make sure to run every red light he could while driving. Oh, Taiwan. One cop did stop him and he made a joke or something and then the cop let us go. It must've been a good joke!

Other than that, no real significant highlights. Well, at school today, a student got his head stuck in a railing for about a minute. That was pretty funny. I'll potentially have a big weekend this weekend so perhaps some good stories are on the way. In less than two weeks though, I leave for Australia so there'll be good stories after that for sure. In the meantime, try a round of paintball or climb a rock wall...

I did post a bunch of pictures from paint balling so check those out!

What does that woman have? She has nothing

Today, I got lost. I got new directions on how to get to my Chinese class in Taipei that are much quicker than the route I'm used to taking. I was happy on the way there because it saved time. On my way back, however, I assumed that the bus would take the same way back to Linkou but that was a bad assumption to make. I walked to where I thought the stop would be and I didn't see anything. I walked down the street for about a minute before realizing I wasn't going to see another stop for awhile. I walked to the nearest bank, and luckily the security guard spoke English. He got together with three bank tellers and they drew a map for me explaining where the stop would be. I thanked them, and then went on an 8 minute walk down the street. When I got there, again I didn't see a bus stop. I walked up to a cop and asked him if he spoke English. He shook his head, so I started pointing at buses and said "Linkou" repeatedly. He told me directions I thought I understood, but while he was talking, a Taiwanese woman came up and said "do you need any help?" Then she started telling me new directions. While she was talking, another Taiwanese woman driving on her scooter stopped, got off, and also asked me if I needed help. The first woman then walked off as this new lady was trying to help me. She said the bus stop the others were referring to was there like 6 years ago so she wasn't sure if it'd still be there. She told me to go the nearest MRT station and ask them where the bus stop was. She even wrote down in Chinese what I needed to know, and she gave me her phone number in case I needed help. I thanked her and walked to the MRT station. The information desk lady didn't really speak much English and she told me to go to a bridge and the stop would be there. I had just come from a bridge so I went back to where I had been. I went back there and wandered around for a few minutes before finding a bus stop....but it was the wrong one. I had been out of class for about an hour at this point. I was hot, confused, and frustrated, although mildly entertained at the same time. I waved a cab town and he drove me home. The cab cost me $470 NT. The bus would've cost me about $45 NT. Oh well, these things happen. Now that I look back on it, I cannot believe how nice all of the people were. Too bad, their work was for naught. Maybe something was lost in translation...

The title refers to a page in my textbook for teaching. I added a picture of it. It's really funny, but strange too. Why are they teaching this?