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!
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Saturday, December 19, 2009
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.
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.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
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!
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!
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