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...