Our First Day

These are a few pictures from our first day of school. 

I am actually smiling because it really didn't go too bad. I think I even scared

my students a little bit and that was a big goal of mine. Scared students 

means they will be more likely to obey me (I hope). I can make friends later :)

It's a shame this picture is so dark because it is a good one. The building behind him is 

the school library as well as some auditoriums. It's huge! This picture also shows how

lovely the campus is. It's a little bit like a mini forest in some places and I am constantly

getting bit by mosquitos, but hey it's lovely. 

This one I just had to throw in. We went to dinner and on our way home we saw this 

guy scootering about. He is in a wheelchair and I'm not sure how this contraption works

but I think it's awesome that this is how he gets around. He was going so fast that

we could barely catch up to him for a picture. 

Hong Kong

We had a little surprise on Monday.

Our internet wasn't working Monday morning, which was a real shame because that is when we usually get to communicate with people. We went to the school office to see if there was anything they could do to help us. Instead we were taken to the visa office across town to get my visa renewed. I still don't have and ARC card or a work visa. It turns out that I had been in Taiwan 7 days too long and I was being forced to leave the country. So.... two hours later I was on my way to the airport.

This is the Kaohsiung airport where I flew out from at 2:10.

This is me with a whole row to myself flying to Hong Kong. The flight only took 1 hr 5 min and they fed us a full meal. Awesome.

This is the huge airport in Hong Kong. I got off my flight and had just enough time to get through security and get across the airport to make it to my other flight for boarding at 4:10.

Luckily, I had enough time to snap this photo just to prove that I really was there.

I was back in Kaohsiung by 6:00 and successfully navigated my way through the train system to get myself back in Daliao. Rob was waiting for me at the train station with umbrellas. We walked home in a little bit of a typhoon. It was an adventure for sure. By the end of the day we had accomplished a lot of things. None of which included getting our internet back :)

Cliche

There has been a pretty big storm moving through Taiwan the last couple of days. In fact, they even cancelled school on Friday just to be on the safe side with the kids. Thursday night the storm was really bad and the winds reached 96 mph at some points. Some of our doors and windows are not really air tight and the whistling from the wind was so loud. There was a door in our apartment complex that wasn't locked and it kept banging through the night. The next morning was pretty calm with just a drizzle and we went to the roof to get some fresh air from our stuffy apartment. Usually there is a pretty heavy layer of smog in the air that blocks our view of the surrounding area, but the wind and rain had cleared the air a little bit. We could actually see mountains!! The luscious green mountains that were so close but we just couldn't see them before. It was a beautiful site.

I couldn't help but make the obvious metaphor in my mind. Sometimes in life we get trapped under the layer of smog and negativity that keeps us from seeing the beauty around us. We just have to wait for the storm and trials to clear our mind so that we can see clearly the blessings that are always around us.

Finally Getting in Some Teaching

This Monday we were able to teach a class for some evaluation. From the classes that we had observed it seemed pretty straight forward and easy: just open the workbook and go over the chapter. It seemed kind of boring to us, but if that's how they wanted it done we would do it, and of course we don't mind taking the easy route here. We were not really given any instruction just the workbook chapters we were supposed to cover. I was a little nervous since this was really the first teaching experience/instruction I've ever had. The class went well except for one kid that fell asleep hard core in the back of the class. He was sitting right by the observing teacher and she didn't even wake him. We received some critique but nothing too helpful. I just had to laugh. It was more like she wanted a break from teaching her class than for her to actually observe us, but what do I know.

I started another AWESOME job this week. I am tutoring the principal's granddaughter. Pretty much the whole family works for the school and this girl is going to be like a little prodigy. She is almost two years old and they already have an English tutor for her. I just feel lucky I get to play with her for an hour a day. She is really shy though. She wouldn't even look at me for the first little bit, but afterwards we started playing just fine. She can already sing the ABCs and if I sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to her she will sing it back in Chinese. It has been really fun for me to teach this little girl and also the kindergarten classes. I have the best job.

Pay Day!!

So we have gone through some frustration with the school we work for because of some lack of communication and just disorganization on their part. We were under the impression that we could not get paid from the school until I got my ARC card, which is taking much much much longer than I thought it would, because we couldn't set up a bank account until that happened. However, the school finally realized that we weren't getting paid for the last two months and told us they had some cash waiting for us in the accounting office. Yvonne, our supervisor, was so surprised that we had made it so long without any money. Our penny pinching finally paid off because this little stack of bills was waiting for us.....

Never chew beetle nut. Always bring an umbrella.

I was itching to get out and explore and there is a morning market about a fifteen minute walk from our apartment that gave me a perfect destination. I think taking walks is an odd concept to people here because the only people I've seen walking around are the old people hitting themselves to boost circulation. It's an odd sight to see. Anyways, Rob wasn't in the mood and was busy with something else so I decided to go by myself. After all, I have been here for a month and I know my way around pretty well.

I didn't quite remember where the market was since we had only seen it once a while ago, but I knew the general direction and headed that way. I found a little inside market and started making my way around the various tables displaying fruits, vegetables, intestines, and the ever popular pigs feet. It was fun to be immersed in such a cultural thing. Some people would call out to me but I would just nod and smile hoping they would know I didn't understand their Chinese until I heard some shouting in English.  After turning I discovered an almost toothless man chewing beetle nut shouting "You are beautiful!" The Taiwanese are very open about what they think of you and I'm sure he wouldn't have minded if I bought something from him, but if you've ever seen someone chew beetle nut you know what a sight he was to see. It is a very red nut wrapped in leaves with cocaine on them. It looked like blood was dripping from his mouth. I thanked him and went hurriedly on my way.

I wanderer my way through the street markets and found myself at quite an impressive temple. 

This beauty just popped out of the neighborhood I was walking through. I stopped to take a couple of pictures when the sky opened up and it started to pour pretty hard. I hurried my way underneath a big tree where a Chinese man was waiting out the rain as well. He took no hesitation to rattle off something to me in Chinese. He was very concerned for my welfare. He ran out into the rain to get a board that I could put over me while I walked to a drier place. I tried to hold the board over him too (I was about a foot taller) but he wasn't having it. When we were underneath a little gazebo, he's still rattling off Chinese to me, he got a wet twig and started writing on the pavement. He wrote out "USA" pointing to me and then "China" pointing to himself. It was such a real moment trying to converse with this sweet old man. I started to write some more in English and he wrote out some characters. The rain eventually broke to a drizzle and he offered to drive me home but I politely refused and left him. 

I think I will be taking some more walks in the future. 

The Perfect Storm

Yesterday was pay day!! We still don't have a bank account here and I'm still without a work visa. But Hey! It was still pay day. Pay day inspires spending money. With the little money that I had made, working literally an hour a week, burning a hole in our pockets we decided to treat ourselves. We were prompted to go to a hot pot because it had been raining off and on all day, and we learned from our last experience, nothing beats a hot pot on a cool rainy summer day. The raining was off and on until we hopped on our scooter and were half way there at least. Then it was a full on shower. We were driving through rivers and ponds that covered the whole street, and the water came down in teaspoon sized droplets. When other scooters would pass us they would splash water up to our knees.

Luckily we were prepared with some rain gear that has been specialized for Taiwanese torrential down pours (picture below) and we only got parts of our body pruney. I kid you not, when we got to the restaurant my feet had been soaking so much that they were a little pruney. The whole time on the drive there and back I couldn't stop thinking about how lucky I was to be driving through a rain storm on the back of a scooter in Taiwan. How many people can really say that they've done that? Well, people back home at least. It was just something that I was happy to experience while I'm here and soak it all in. The culture, the rituals, the people, the food, the weather, the whole ambience of the place is so new and wonderful to me that I hope I can learn and discover it all.

I have no idea why I choose to get a pink rain coat (maybe so you can tell I'm a girl under there)
but I can at least say I was given the pink helmet. As goofy looking as the rain jackets are they are indeed practical. 

Free Time

In my opinion, people need to have things to do. It just makes our life so much more interesting and well, keeps us going. To have two months of essentially unemployment in a foreign country has been a very interesting thing. Yes, it is like a two month vacation but it also can be a little, I don't want to say boring, but less than exciting. Thankfully I have the ever adventurous Rob who plans some really exciting trips. I think we have done some really cool things while we've been here, and it has given us a lot of time to catch up on our list of books to read. Not to mention I've really learned a lot about Rob. I am surprised every time I learn something new after almost ten years of knowing him. I really feel lucky to have this time to spend with him.

 A lot of people have asked us what we do day to day and there really isn't an answer to that. We can do pretty much whatever we want. What would you do if you could have all the free time in the world? And be honest with yourself. I think it makes me lazier and Rob more motivated. The man plans educational hours for himself where he studies language and listens to lectures. (the man is a powerhouse) So if you have any suggestions for me... books I should read, movies I should watch, skills I should learn, or things I should look for in a foreign country please let me know. I'm all ears. At least for the next month because after that I'm pretty sure I will be stressed about teaching for ten months. 

Fo Guang Shan

This week we had the unique opportunity of staying a night at a Buddhist monastery.  Kaohsiung is home to the largest monastery in Taiwan, the Fo Guang Shan headquarters.  Fo Guang Shan is one of the largest Buddhist organizations in the world and specializes in humanistic Buddhism.  Also known as the International Buddhist Progress Society, Fo Guang Shan works hard to propagate the Buddha’s message across cultures by opening their doors to all and offering classes and workshops to the general public.

We arrived at the monastery Wednesday evening after Lauren finished teaching her class. Venerable Miolang, a nun who has lived in the monastery for about twenty years, greeted us at the gate as we rode up the mountain on our scooter.  I guess it would be fair to say she was surprised to see us roll in that way.  Ninety-nine percent of foreign visitors arrive on a tour bus or as part of a study abroad group.  She thought we were so weird, and we probably were, but, whatever.

We checked into the guesthouse, which offered much more comfortable accommodations than we anticipated. When you think about spending a night in a monastery, you have an expectation, and that expectation usually doesn’t include watching HBO in an air-conditioned room.  The monastics probably don’t live so lavishly, but they like to keep their guests comfortable I suppose.  We had much of the evening to ourselves, to explore the mountainside.  There are normally hundreds or thousands of tourists wandering the grounds, but most people had chosen not to visit this week because of the incoming typhoon.

Perhaps it was a wise choice for people to stay home during the typhoon because when we awoke early Thursday morning the roads outside the guesthouse and all over the grounds were blanketed leaves, branches, and trees that had been thrashed in the night’s violent winds.  We were invited to observe the monks perform their morning chants in the monastery’s main shrine (five thirty in the morning), and as we approached the stairway to the shrine, there was a miniature waterfall cascading down the steps.  It made for a dangerous but fun ascent.

Three giant Buddhas greeted us upon entering the shrine. As the monk and laypeople’s chanting filled the vastness of the shrine, it was difficult not to be moved by the awe and magnificence of the moment.  In sheer defiance of the brutal weather conditions these faithful few had gathered in solemnity to pay homage to and ask guidance of their revered spiritual leaders.

We really were fortunate to be there on a typhoon day because the hallways were quiet and the space was filled with sincerity.  There were no tour guides yelling into megaphones, and no foreigners high-fiving the Buddha or rubbing his belly.  There were, however, many foreigners there as part of a study abroad group and we were invited to join in on some of their classes.  I really enjoyed listening to some of the lectures, but I have studied a lot of world religions and I could follow along easily.  Lauren, understandably, did not find the lectures as interesting as I did and used some of the time to take a well-deserved nap.  I will admit that the material was rather dry.  I think Miolang was simply tired of having to talk to us in her strained English.  We eventually decided to sneak out of the second lecture and head to the calligraphy workshop where they teach how to use writing as a form of meditation.

When we finished our writing meditation, we said our goodbyes to Miolang and the monastery.  It was an eye opening twenty four hours.

This is Rob in front of the HUGE three buddhas in the main shrine. This is where
we witnessed the monk chanting in the morning. 

This bell is also in the main shrine and it is supposed to be the largest  bell in Taiwan.
I can't even imagine being in the same room as this when it is ringing and there is also
a drum on the other side of the room. A lot of noise. 

This was quite an elaborate room. Every wall is covered in little alcoves for Buddha statues, but you can
only see the ones that have lights in the picture. There is something like17,000 Buddhas in this room.

This picture just shows the evidence of the typhoon. People thought we were silly for even walking around.

This was our tour guide in the lobby of the hotel. She was wonderful to us and we had a great time.