Birthdays and Typhoons

It's Saturday and I am not at work because of the typhoon, and figured it was a good time to update ye olde blogg.

We've been busy teaching this summer, as kids are not in their public schools in July and August, so they have more time to be at their English cram schools. While I often think it must be terrible to be a child in Taiwan, where you are at school from morning until night, and throughout the summer, I suppose they don't know anything different. I was telling another teacher that I feel bad for the students that I teach on Friday nights from 7-9 p.m. because they are in English class on their Friday night, and she just looked at me and said, Randi they don't have "Friday nights" it's just like any other night for them. It made me a little sad because I remember the promise that Friday night held for me as a child and as a teenager, it was the beginning of the precious weekend where there was so much possibility strictly because it wasn't the weekday and I didn't have to be in school. But again, I suppose if you don't know any different it doesn't matter.

Our students are adorable and Wes and I enjoy trading funny stories about what happened in our classes. Wes got his hand peed on this week when he was tying his student's shoe . . . My student offered me a cold french fry that miraculously appeared from the depths of his desk and into his sneezed on, marker covered 7 year old hand . . . ah, the joys of teaching.

But, no teaching today because there is a typhoon! Here are some photos from the top of our apartment building . . .


Oh yeah, and we buzzed Wes's hair.

And here is my favorite tea that I buy from 711 almost every day.

Let's back up here a bit. We've been staying busy with teaching but we've also been spending time with some pretty wonderful people and enjoying living in Taipei. We were really excited about the National Palace Museum . . .

The museum was nice, although I think I am spoiled by the Smithsonian. We were able to see the acclaimed "jade cabbage" as well as some really incredible water colored landscapes. All in all we were satisfied with the museum, but didn't feel overwhelmed with awe.

About a month ago, I was invited to one of my co-teachers houses out in the suburbs of Taipei for a Taiwanese BBQ. It was filled with lots of unidentifiable meats and intestines, but they did have a lot of vegetables and gave me my own vegetarian grill. It was really interesting to get out of the city and to see what the typical Taiwanese household is like. Eve and her family are really kind and generous people and it was nice to spend time with my co-workers outside of work.

This little girl was a neighbor of Eve's who wouldn't walk past the edge of the porch. Apparently she's a thief and she slips into Eve's house and steals food . . . which I found amusing.
Here are some of my friends that I teach with.
This is Eve's son. He just might have the greatest cheeks I have ever seen.


What can I say, we had fun.
My favorite thing to bbq is bamboo shoot. It's incredible.



We have a really great hiking trail that is about a 5 minute walk from our house. It's mostly stairs and it's really beautiful and full of lizards and butterflies.


There are a lot of other strange and wonderful finds along the trail . . .



Maybe even a little creepy.
This is random, but one of my favoriet MRT Stations is in Xinpu because of the discoesque lights that are outside of each exit. Every 3 seconds the lights change to a different color.
One thing about living and teaching in Taiwan, is that the "foreigner" friends you make here tend to leave. Two of my friends Mitch and Jason both left to go home to B.C. and the the US respectively. I miss having them at work because they liked to talk about strange science facts. Just short of Bob Grunau (my favorite friend to listen to space sounds with), I don't have too many friends who like being complete science nerds.

Here are some photos from their going-away party.


For my birthday, Wes and I celebrated by going to Fulong Beach on the Sunday before my birthday.

This is how Wes lays out on the beach . . .
So, most Taiwanese people are afraid of drowning in the ocean (especially during ghost month, which it was). They all herd together like cattle in roped off swimming areas. Leaving the entire beach to the foreigners who are just crazy enough to swim in the ocean that is not roped off.



I feel like Wes and I have finally gotten over the hill of struggles, and are really starting to enjoy and take advantage of living here. We've been here for 7 months now and have learned a great deal, as well as laughed a lot. Hopefully our visa, employment, electricity, and cockroach issues are behind us . . . now we just have to survive this typhoon.

Luckily we have Zombies and awesome neighbors (Jim and Kelly) to play with . . .