CNY, enter holiday.. almost!

     Since there is no Christmas holiday, we get our winter break during Chinese New Year.  This year we get 9 days off from work! Wooo-hooo!  We booked a trip to Beijing, China to get away for a while, but before leaving we had to get through til the end of the week.  The holiday started on Saturday, so after Friday classes we were free!   Wednesday was Parent's Night Performance for my Treehouse class which meets 3 times a week, so Friday was a typical American "bullshit" day in class where we did nothing productive. Many kids were missing from class as well.  After spending seriously allll day with my TH class on Wednesday, 6 hours to be exact, getting everything ready for their performance, I simply was in no mood to spend the 2 hour class time on Friday playing with them.  What could I do?  Make and print off a word-search for them to do, of course!  This entertained them for around 45 minutes, and no one even finished.  I did play a game with my class in the beginning for a while, before walking with them across the street to the Hi-Life, a convenient store, and letting them each choose an ice cream treat! Naturally as soon as one student picked something out, they all ended up with the same item.  After we were back in the classroom they were busy with their ice cream cones, and man are kids messy!  It was ridiculous how they can manage to just smear it everywhere.  They were very happy, and it was pretty adorable. Once they were done I shoved them off to the bathroom and let them deal with their messes on their own, it worked out.   

 A lot of them tried to hide from me once I pulled out my camera, there's one under the table! 

 The kids are trained from the age of baby to do that in photos.  The other is making a monster claw? 

 One poor boy said he couldn't eat ice cream, he had a push pop instead! 

                                        Just loving life!

Escapade to Hsinchu (sin-chew)

     Saturday (Jan. 14) was election day in Taiwan! That means for the past few weekends the main road we walk to work has been blocked off with a huge stage and tons of people cheering and speeches and concerts and lots of excitement to promote the candidates.  I haven't much of a clue as to how many or who was really running, I know one was a woman though.  So, no, I don't know who won either, or if the country even knows yet.  Let's just say I know nothing about their voting system.  Election day is considered a national holiday, so that means we got Saturday off from work!! A long weekend, of 2 days!  Originally we were committed to a group lunch with most of the staff we work with, but many have fallen ill over the past week, fevering and coughing, so it was decided to postpone the luncheon and let those rest, and keep us healthy ones away from the ill stricken.
        What would we do with our extended weekend?  We first thought of going to Kaohsiung, the 2nd largest city in Taiwan located way in the South.  It's about an hour and a half train ride on the High Speed Rail, round trip costing around 100 US dollars, or if we took a cheaper train the ride would be about 4-5 hours. We would have stayed overnight, probably in a hotel, and the thought of such an adventure made me tired.  I feel lame and sad for not wanting to go, but we're leaving for China in a week and I want SOME time to sit around doing nothing.  Instead we went to Hsinchu, the oldest city in northern Taiwan.  About a 30-45 minute train ride.
       Anthony, Greta, Abe, and I went on this trip together.  The basis for our desire to visit this city is from one of our classes, actually.  Our classes are based on levels, the majority of these levels are called Step Ahead, levels 1-16.  Each level has a corresponding book.  In SA11 the book is called "Beautiful Island" about a boy from America who visits his friend in Taiwan.  One of the places they go is Hsinchu, to see a huge gold Buddha statue.  We wanted to find the Buddha.
        We left around 1130, got to the train station and with the help of a nice man got our tickets from one of the machines.  Jumped onto the train, and into Hsinchu!  Off the train and into the city. The station itself in Hsinchu was quite beautiful, much more architectural than the station in Jhongli.

(This was taken at the end of the day, almost sunset.)

We set off into the crowds and first came to a roundabout with a little hut thing in the middle.  Traditional Chinese roofing.

        Across the street was a lovely park that captured our amusement for some time.  Hundreds of huge fish floating about, giant rats running about, turtles resting on stones, interesting people to see.  A much better park than ours.  I really wanted to get rice noodles for lunch, a traditional Hsinchu food, but didn't have any luck.  Well, I may have found some, but the lack of English menu's kept me from knowing if they were rice noodles or not.  We got some sandwiches and sat in the park to eat.

 

  There was a photo shoot going on, too.

      Then on to the temples!

No idea what this is.. rice noodles maybe? Probably not.

           The temples here were really large, winding with many hallways, lots of people praying and bowing about.  The first one, no giant Buddha, but still  many large statues and gods.  The 2nd temple had an indoor entrance to like a big food court.  Performances and music going on.  The temple was inside of this, and after wandering through it a bit, we thought it was a no go.  But then, into another room, and BAM! Giant gold Buddha! We took some pictures saying "cheese," just like Jason and Stanley from the book! It was an exciting time.  We tried to capture the look on Buddha's face. 

You can find these in all temples.  People pray and place incense into them.  

          Next we meandered through a market, trying to find our way to the Glass Museum and Flower Market area.  Roads led to more roads, and.. we decided we no longer knew where we were.  Alas, we came across another foreigner!  "Which way to the train station?"  Greta asked.  "Uhhh yea we're pretty far away from there,"  was his response.  Ok, so we were slightly lost. The man offered to help us, but luckily I always carry my little Chinese book with useful phrases, but more importantly it contains the Chinese writing for all of these phrases.  It's much easier to point and show sometimes.  We found a taxi and were back to the train station!  From there we knew how to walk to the Museum, which sadly enough was closed, due to the national holiday (the election, remember?).

 A princess like entrance to a zoo I think?  Near the Glass Museum.  A little kid climbed into the Cinderella carriage with Anthony and I, he was so cute and happy, wearing his yellow scooter helmet.


   

   Around here was a nature-y walk which led us to the Flower Market.  A lot of beautiful plants, I would have enjoyed purchasing multiple.  

 Bonsai Trees, sooo awesome. The biggest one was 8,500 NT, rather pricey.
 
      Once we had our fill of walking through the market, we decided to go head back to Jhongli..  Well this time we purchased our tickets ourselves and asked one of the platform workers which platform to find our train. 2B she said.  Well, lady, 2B was incorrect.  We rode the train from 2B about 3 or 4 stops until someone came walking through to check tickets, and when he asked where we were going, started waving his arms saying "no, no, no" when we told him Jhongli.  He instructed us to depart at the next town and take the next train going in the opposite direction.  Ohhh how silly we were.  Of course everyone was staring at us in our idiocy, one man started speaking to us in English, asking us if were on vacation.  Noo, we told him, we live here.

                            Lost and waiting for the train. 

Eventually, though, we made it back to Jhongli.  We ended the evening with some ShabooShaboo! Hot pot, Japanese style, very delicious!

 Our hot pot and dessert.  They always insist on making you choose a "free" dessert, we don't order this stuff. I picked purple rice porridge with bean sauce... why? Anthony got mango ice with jelly. Always jelly. 

Xin Nian Kual Le "Shee Nian Quwhy Luh" (Happy New Year)

Welcome to the new year. This year we decided to spend NYE in Taipei, where we'd be able to be dancing and have a rooftop view of Taipei 101 at midnight, which is when they shoot off fireworks. I heard the fireworks show was really something to see, and it was pretty neat. It wasn't so much a lot of fireworks, but the placement of them around the huge building, made it very cool, it looked like the building was gonna blow up! One of the teachers we work with, Abe, came in a different training group and two of the girls he met there live and work in Taipei. Apparently they live in this hostel, which was hosting a huge party. We figured we might as well go to the city and check it out!

      We started the day with work, of course, had a few hours break to get ready, and then met for dinner at a steak restaurant. Pretty fancy, huh! We ate and headed for the train station. This was the first time for all of us taking the High Speed Rail. Since it was New Year's Eve, and we were headed into a huge city, of course traffic was an issue. Usually we take the bus, but were advised to take the HSR as apparently no one uses it to get to Taipei because it's only an hour bus or normal train ride away. There's a free shuttle bus that picked us up near where we live that brought us to the station. On this bus ride I saw one of my older students. It was weird, kinda akward. I was more concerned about the guy she was with that looked just too old to be with her, alone! I'm not so sure how old she even is, maybe 13? What's she doing out on NYE by herself going to Taipei! The next week in class she said it was her dad... I don't really think so, he wasn't THAT old! Anyway so we got to the HSR station, and it was desolate. So strange. We waited about 15 minutes for the next train, and were landed in Taipei 20 minutes later. Next was making it through the MRT station (the subway) it was only around 8ish, so we were ahead of the crowds, and made it to our final stop without getting stampeded. We did, however, manage to see a man outfitted in a leopard print suit.  

     At the end of our travels, we met up with another friend who was coming to the hostel party with us, and we were en route, now by foot, to the location. Maybe 10 minutes walking, and we found it! Good thing for Robin's directions that she wrote down. We were some of the first people to arrive, as we needed to make it through the stations before it got too late, but there was a good group of people already there, and we started off by playing some games and hanging out. As it got later, more and more people arrived, from allll over, some were other teachers living around the area, some were people that just happened to be traveling and staying in the hostel, some local people from Taiwan, a whole mix. It was a fun place, and the rooftop view was really pretty! About an hour after the fireworks and everything, of course someone was hungry, and we set off for... McDonalds! Uhh, starting off the new year with fatty "meats"? Yup, I did.

      We walked out to a more populated street and found some taxi's to transport us, about 10 of us, and made it to a McDonald's. It was super busy, and we all got our food without anywhere to sit. Huddled around a small 2 person table, others stood outside. During this time at our table we started chanting "ee buy" nuggets which means 100 nuggets! Good thing they didn't place that order. Next we needed to decide where to go. We opted for a club. One of the other girls has been here for a few years and knew an area, off we went to the clubbing district. Many of them has super steep covers, since it was NYE ya know. We found one that wasn't charging, or at least didn't charge us, and in we went. We danced and had some more drinks crowded with people. Wellll around 330 we were tired and ready for an exit. 5 of us went out to find a taxi, which on a normal night, will cost around 30-40 US for an hour ride back to our town, but again, being a "holiday" it was double, so about 80 US. Spilt 5 ways though, it wasn't so bad. We made it home, and into our building. Gooood night. The next morning we made a brunch of pancakes, eggs, sauteed mushrooms, bacon, and mimosas! Delicious!


On the High Speed Rail to Taipei!

The view from the rooftop of the city and Taipei 101

 The fireworks!


But wait, the new year festivities weren't quite over yet. The following weekend, on January 7th, was the All Staff End of the Year Banquet. There are 2 that HESS (my school) hosts, one in the South for the people down there, and one in Taipei, for the North region. Everyone from the Jhongli area took a bus together into Taipei Saturday afternoon. The event started at 4 pm with a 3 hour long ceremony with school chants, videos to recap the year, speeches, awards, a lot of hoopla. After the ceremony is a huge dinner. They split everyone into like 5 rooms and you get course after course of food. There was for sure over a thousand people there, so probably at least 200 in each room? During dinner time is also an array of performances. This year, my branch decided to put together a song and dance show. We would be singing, including me, in Chinese, and dancing! There's only one other foreign teacher at my branch, who happened to be sick the day of and before the banquet, so it was only me and 5 of the Chinese Teachers from my school. We would be singing and dancing to a Chinese song.  Here's the youTube link the original:        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_oo6akiwE0

          Alright, so we made it through about an hour of the ceremony sitting in a packed auditorium, way in the back, might I add, before all of the foreign teachers from my branches, including a few of the Chinese Teachers, made a break for it. Apparently it's tradition to sneak out, go to the bar down the street called "the Tavern and get drinks/ drunk. It was obvious we weren't alone as we entered the Tavern and saw tons of other whities crowded around tables. This bar was amazing because it had more than only Taiwan Beer on tap, Anthony was excited to finally get some Guinness!

       After only being there about 45 minutes, I got a call from Helen. "Where are you! We are about to do a run through of our performance on the stage!" (If you're reading this, sorry Helen!!) Since we were on the menu for one of the evening's entertainment we needed to practice on the stage. I was unaware of this rehearsal, I wasn't just being irresponsible, I promise! So I left the bar, I only had 1 beer, no worries, and made it back before some of the others in my group were even ready. Our rehearsal went well, I remembered all the words to my singing parts.

       Once practicing was all over, everyone else trickled in from the auditorium/bar and it was time to eat! We were the last the set to perform, closing out the night! In the mean time I enjoyed some food, other performances, wine and beer. Waiting for my chance to break out into the role of Taiwanese Pop Sensation!

Our outfits were all put together, we were ready to go! We walked out across the stage, me with microphone in hand! Eeeeee. We had a lot of fans as all of the other foreign teachers I work with at my other branch and the Chinese staff were all there to cheer us on! It turned out to be a really fun experience. We had only started practice a week before the event, other groups performing said they had been working on their dance for 2 months! Let me tell you, we were just as good as them!

      At this Banquet they also gave out a variety of prizes, the tops ones: an iPad, a smart phone, a space heater, a camera, 10,000 NT, and a freaking scooter!! Sadly, no one in my room won any of the huge prizes, I would have really enjoyed that space heater! But I did win 1,000 NT (around 30 US)!!!! Yea yea! They also gave everyone a box of magnets with some note cards, and I ended up with a HESS thermos as well! When it was allll over, we were headed out, back to the bus. One last stop, on the way out of the lobby, there was a man proposing to, I'm assuming, his girlfriend. He had all these signs and a gave a long speech, in Chinese. Do they work for HESS? I'm not really sure, why were they there otherwise? She was crying and said yes, but it was weird, at the end he just kept kissing her head, everyone was chanting "kiss, kiss, kiss" but only into her hair went his lips. It was sweet to see, I think my first witness of an engagement! So THEN it was back on the bus, to Jhongli, where a bunch of us continued the evening dancing at SEARCH! Good start to the new year!        Please NOTE:  the video of my performance is being a huge pain in the ass to upload, soo maybe check back later and it shall be posted at some point! 

The YangMei Performers! 
I couldn't tell you why we are being... reindeer?

        Carolyn and I, singing sensations! With our blinged out head gear (ear muffs)

Gertie and I at the banquet

 First course, some sort of lobster.  With mayonaise. They smear, spread, spray that shit alll over everything!

My winnings of 1,000 NT!!

                                              Dancing about to start!

 Up close and personal with my ear muffs

 Another course somewhere along the way

The man proposing.  Quite the crowd gathered.  I wonder if she only said "yes" because otherwise people may have "boo-ed" her? 

I'm.... cold?

Yes people, I'm cold, in Taiwan. I'm embarrassed for myself.  Ashamed that a true Midwesterner can't handle the mild "winter" weather of a subtropical island.  But really, it's worse than you would think!  And what's winter without bitching about the cold?

     I was told that the coldest it gets is around 50 F, which is nothing right? Thus far it probably hasn't been much lower than that, but I'm not sure, I don't carry a thermometer.  But pair that with wind, constant blowing rain, not having a car and always walking outside, being damp alllll the time, and living in an apt with tile floors, did I mention there is no such thing as heat here?  Ok that's a slight lie, some of the larger department stores have heat, but the schools? No way. I get to school, after walking outside in the wind and rain for generally at least 20 minutes, and there's no heat inside.  I go into my classroom, where all of the children are wearing 5 layers of clothing, minimum.  Seriously.  It's insane how many clothes the kids wear, like 3 long sleeve shirts, a sweater, their uniform, a vest, a jacket.  At least their parents are just trying to keep them warm!  But then they bitch about it being hot all the time.  Hello! I'm not hot, I'm wearing a long sleeve shirt, the warmest thing I packed!  They generally get their way though as it's part of some Feng shui belief that with so many children in a room the windows must be open to circulate all of the energy and balance things out.  Fine, whatever, but I'm COLD! I don't want to have all of the windows open to create a constant breeze chilling me even more.  Eeehhh.

     Am I complaining? Yes.  I'm also being a bit over dramatic. but it is an issue.   Trying to sleep sometimes I shiver and shiver.  So I bought another blanket last week and some big thick sweatpants, it's much more comfortable to sleep now.  I know of many other foreign teachers who have bought space heaters, and even heat fans, so I'm not alone.  Don't judge me! You don't know!  Ok, I'm done with that.  Now onto Christmas Season!!

      As you may or may not recall, the school that I work at had a Halloween Haunted House for Halloween, we decided to do a similar activity for the Holiday's.  People know what Christmas is here, and they somewhat celebrate it.  It's mainly popular because the Taiwanese people love bright and shiny and flashy things, so naturally Christmas holds many attractive qualities to them.  Many stores had lights and Christmas trees blinged out with gold and red garlands and all sorts of things.  It was impossible to buy a string of lights that didn't flash around and blink.  At least we were able to decorate our apartment!  We also decorated at school and got things ready for Christmas House.

      This time I was in charge of the Story Room, where I had to put together a few story boards with the help of Cindy, one of my Chinese Teachers.  I decided to use the story from one of the old claymations "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" to tell them about how Santa came to be.  I think it was a hit, a lot of the kids seemed really into the story and we told it quite dramatically, so that was fun.  Other activities we had for the Christmas House was a balloon game, cupcake decorating, and they watched "Frosty the Snowman."  It took place on Dec. 24th, Christmas Eve.. which was kind a bummer cause I had to be at work til 4:30, but it wasn't so bad.  

  Little decorations a bunch of kids made for Christmas to hang on the walls! 

Cindy with one group of kids after our Story

 Me with another group!

Santa and Mrs. Claus handing out candy after the kids sang.

I'm an Elf, with the beautiful tree I made...

Santa and one of the Elves!  My "pin" says Santa is Coming!

      After the Christmas House I took the bus back and was home for 15 minutes before heading off for more Christmas fun.  Nate, my friend from college who lives here too, is dating a Taiwanese girl, named Rainy.  She is from Jhongli, where I live, and she decided to put together a big Christmas meal for Nate with a bunch of her friends and family.  They invited Anthony, Greta, and I to come along, too!  It was really nice to spend Christmas Eve with some other familiar faces.  We had a huge meal with chicken, roast beef, mashed potatoes, stuffing, deviled eggs, pasta, salad, soup, apple pie, strawberry pie, wine, whiskey.  It was good. After eating and hanging around we came home and ended our Christmas Eve watching some Dexter, did I mention I'm addicted to that show now?  

Most of the food at our Christmas Eve Feast

      The next day, on actual Christmas, we opened presents in the morning.  Santa found us all the way over here!!  I feel so lucky to have gotten so many packages from home!! It was lovely.  The 3 of us also exchanged gifts and I received a lovely clutch from Greta and an awesome new touch screen camera from Anthony! My camera had an unfortunate ending about a month ago, and although it still functions, the screen is completely cracked in.  Then Greta and I spent the rest of the afternoon shopping and walking around.  When we came home we had a supper of chicken pesto with spicy bratwurst.  Then we went to the park to takes pictures of the pretty Christmas lights they put up. 

     It was a pretty fabulous weekend, although we were all really missing home and our families.  Good thing for Skype, we were able to see Julius and Toby show us all of their thousands of Christmas presents, it was so cute.  And being able to talk to everyone was really great!  Welll I think that's all for now.  Next time you hear from me will be next year! ha, haha! 

Christmas morning, Santa was here!!

The glorious park with beautiful lights and people :)