One of our Taiwanese friends, Rainy, works at a salon and gave us manicures as a birthday present! It was very sweet of her, and it was fun to get our nails done, just polish though, no fakies. Since our real birthday was Friday and everyone has to work Saturday mornings, we didn't do much that night, just went to the bar in the park for a few drinks. We went out Saturday night, which was also St. Patrick's Day! Peja, a Taiwanese co-teacher of mine, said he had never heard of this holiday before, but was all up for going out to celebrate with us! First we went to a restaurant with a group of like 15 people.. I didn't even realize I knew that many people here! It was really nice. Some of our friends from Taipei came down, and Nate from Taoyuan.
Some sides of the table at dinner.
After supper we stopped at The River to have some Guinness and Jameson. Jinger, the bar-tender gave us some supplies to make balloon... things, so we made some hats and accessories to give us more green. Then we went to Search where dancing and fun times were had. There definitely weren't too many people wearing green, but a few other foreigners out that were dressed for the "holiday."
I was scheduled to have my first Kindy field trip two weeks ago, we were going to visit the park and have a picnic! I didn't get my hopes up much, because it's always raining, I didn't think it'd be much of a plan to go to the park when it's all wet. Of course it was raining the morning of our trip, but later in the day it got quite sunny and warm, so we opted to let the kids bring their packed picnic sacks, which were just full of sweets and candies, outside to the play area and eat out there for a while. I think they enjoyed it? Now the weather has improved a lot and we've been without cold, rainy days for like a week! It's obviously because I finally went out and bought some new rain gear... I haven't had to use the full set once since I purchased it, but that's fine with me! (Please don't rain tomorrow now that I've spoken about it!!)
Here's a part of my class sitting together. There's 18 kids total that I must chase after each day. We're called the Kangaroos!
To the right is Rice. His parents don't want to change his name to something like Brice, because they say "but he loves to eat rice." As apposed to EVERY other Asian child? I love that although he lacks the motor skills to do the Asian sign, he's still trying!
Yesterday afternoon Greta and I decided to go shopping in an area near one of the universities in Jhongli. Helen had taken us in the fall, and we haven't been back since. We were like "yea, we can remember how to get there, it won't be hard to find." We set out on my scooter together around 3 pm, and after driving around in every direction where we thought it could be, after ending up in different towns, and after fighting through crazy afternoon traffic, we felt defeated and set back for home. Oh, then I took a "wrong" turn, and there it was! It was so simple and right there all along! We shopped for a few hours, I got some jewelry and a "dress" that turns out to fit me as a shirt, as it usually happens when I try to buy dresses here. You rarely can try the clothes on, and I don't know why I even bother with dresses anymore! What's worse is that it looks just awful as a shirt and I'm sad. Perhaps I'll just mail it home to my 5 foot friends!
Onto today. This morning around 10 am Greta and I went to play badminton with a few of my co-workers. The other foreign teacher at my branch, Daniel, and his wife came, as well as two of my Taiwanese teachers, Helen and Cindy, and then three of their friends. Helen and Cindy are bad ass badminton players! They were on the team at university and their skills definitely surpassed mine! Greta and I were the worst players there, but it was still fun to play. Then we visited our fruit lady. She has this fruit stand and makes delicious blended drinks. She doesn't speak much English. I think today she was trying to tell us how she thinks Greta and I are sisters.. but I can't be sure. I don't speak much Chinese. Then I watched Jurassic Park, for the first time ever, and then we went to see The Lorax! We had to see it in 3D cause the 2D version was only in Chinese. The effects were actually pretty good in this one. I was slightly saddened by the lack of Dr. Suessyness, as in there wasn't all the rhyming and such, but it was a cute movie. And doesn't he say " I am the Lorax, I speak for the trees," more than once in the book?
Anyways, Tyler will be here in less than 2 weeks and then some more adventures shall be had!!
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