Sunday, September 30, 2012

Full Moon Festival


I smell BBQ but I’m not at Arrowhead stadium or Bryants. I taste beer but I’m not at Harpos. Fireworks exploding in the air but I’m not at Lake Viking. It’s not Independence Day, so why is everyone celebrating like it is.

Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, that’s why.

To the Taiwanese a full moon symbolizes happiness of family gatherings. So that’s what they do. You cannot find a street in Taiwan that does not have a family gathered around a small grill, drinking beer, and setting off fireworks. All things I am very familiar with, but it doesn’t seem familiar at all. Something about it is just different.

Most days walking around Taichung all you see is overworked people overworking. Parents working several jobs, or jobs with long hours. Going in at 7am and leaving at 8pm isn’t uncommon. The kids have it even worse. School from sun up to well after the sun goes down. When I asked some of my grad students (high school aged) what they liked to do in their free time, they responded that they have no free time. They aren’t lying. After school they go to another school, then to a cram school. After that, hours of homework. On weekends, more school.

(Any politician wondering why America is falling behind on test scores just needs to spend one day in Taiwan. It isn’t because our kids are dumb, or our teachers suck. It’s because we let kids be kids.)

So it is such a refreshing change to see everyone with their families. Smiling. Laughing. Having a good time. It’s a much too rare occurrence here.

But fireworks and grills aren’t the only things burning. Have you ever heard someone say, “I am burning through money”? Well here it has a different meaning. They burn money to keep the ghosts away. Legit. I’m not even making this up. Taiwanese believe in ghosts and are insanely afraid of them. So it only makes sense to burn money in an attempt to keep them away, right?

People also carve pomelo’s during this holiday. Kind of like carving pumpkins on Halloween.



Random things:
-Friday was Teachers day in Taiwan, because it was Confucius’s birthday. So my kids gave me a ton of treats and cards.
-A new teacher took over one of my grad classes, so I got my Friday nights back. YEAH
-Next weekend I am going to a BBQ at the owner of my school’s house. Should be a pretty good time.
-In two weeks I am going to Hong Kong. (Gosh, living in Southeast Asia is so awesome.)
-I ate chicken feet today. Looks super gross, actually tastes good. I probably ate 10-15 of them. Nobody else would try them….Chickens!!  haha It was very gelatinous, and the skin was a crazy texture, but I would recommend them.
I painted this on my scooter helmet....as if people don't stare at me enough already.
-Go MIZZOU! 

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Working on the weekend

Twice a year I have to do a storytelling at the cultural center on Saturday morning. Well this was my weekend. So naturally, there was a trip planned to Kenting that I couldn't go on. Kenting is at the southernmost point of Taiwan. Beaches, surfing, swimming, snorkeling ect. It is supposed to be very nice. Every teacher went on the trip except me and the girl I did storytelling with, Amy.


A short story even shorter, my weekend consisted of; riding my scooter, storytelling, eating, sleeping, cleaning, and getting up at 3:30am to watch Mizzou get whooped. Extremely boring. Other than story telling and cussing at the Mizzou game I don't think I even spoke English.

Every week I usually have something to write about....... not this one. Sorry, maybe next Sunday will be more exciting.

Here are videos of me riding my scooter in the mountains, and pictures of a golf course I found. (But it's way to expensive for me to play there)





Holy sand trap




 Sorry it is sideways. It's not easy to scoot and film at the same time.


Monday, September 17, 2012

Hualien


A 5 hour train ride was all the separated me from a completely different world. I traded in my scooter helmet for a rafting helmet. Instead of scooter exhaust, I smelled the ocean breeze.

Our train left at 6am on Saturday morning, so naturally I went to bed after 1:30am. I’ll sleep on the train, right? Wrong! It was standing room only, so I spent the whole ride leaning against a wall next to the bathroom. Let me tell you, I was not a happy camper. On top of that, I got motion sickness and spent most of the day with an upset stomach and headache.

After we checked into our hostel we took a bus to what we thought was an Aquarium. Well, it actually ended up being a children’s amusement park. But who cares, we still had fun riding mini rides. The log ride was especially fun. Viking Voyager would be jealous of this ride. The coolest part of the amusement park was that it was on the side of a mountain overlooking the ocean. Pretty cool views.

Later that night we went out to eat. Bad food. Bad service. Awesome Location. Right on the shore. Massive waves crushing the coast. I think all teachers need to take monthly trips to the ocean. Rather than listening to kids screaming for direction that you just gave 3 times, all you hear is water hitting rocks. Loved it.

Early the next morning we bussed up into the mountains to a rafting company. They went thru the whole safety talk, only it wasn’t the same as back home. Instead of sitting properly, you straddle the raft. Then when you hit rapids, you stop paddlin’ and duck down inside your raft. If you know anything about rafting, you know this is insane. Oh and they suggest wearing long sleeves and jeans. Our paddles were half the size normal paddles and we had the most ridic life jackets and helmets.

But who cares, im in the mountains, in the middle of the forest, on a clay colored river. Life is good. So the first half of the river was spent splashing all the other rafts. We kept getting in front of the pack(of probably 200 people) because it was much nice not having a bajillion boats around us. It was easy to do because Taiwanese are lilly dippers. Im not sure why they even gave them paddles. Another odd part was they didn’t give each raft a guide. Instead they had motorized rafts that they would push the boats. Annoying and dangerous. Not a fan!

After lunch is where it got really fun. So they hooked all of the boats up and pulled them down the river. This is because the rapids were much tuffer in this section and the Taiwanese don’t know how to raft. So after one set of rapids, where the boat directly attached to us flipped and sent 8 startled people down a raging river, we decided to break loose. The guides weren’t fans of this. But oh well.

We had 8 people in our raft. The 6 originals, and 2 Taiwanese that we saved. Only 2 of use had ever really been rafting before. The river went from maybe an easy class 2 to a difficult class 3, with maybe a class 4 rapid or two sprinkled in there. So, without a guide, and a lot of first timers in the raft I was quite impressed with how we maneuvered down the river. Apparently so were the other rafters.

As we wove our way back and forth between a few boulders we emerged into a clearing. There awaited at least 100 rafters and guides all cheering for us, doing synchronized claps. They were truly impressed that we navigated our way down. From then on, we became celebs. Every boat tried to get near us, splash us, take our picture. They all wanted to say “Ni hau”( hello) to the white people. It was a whole lot of fun.

We got picked up just before our raft got to the ocean. From there we took a bus up the mountains and along the coast. This coast looks just like the Oregon coast only less developed and bigger waves. Very pretty.

Then another 5 hour train ride back to Taichung. Went to bed. Woke up and it’s Monday morning. Yippeee!! (sarcasm)

Here are a bunch of pictures and videos from the trip. I haven’t looked thru to delete the bad ones so sorry if some of the pictures suck. Also, some of the videos may or may not have us doing the gangnam style dance. We may or may not be making a music video.



Bottom of a bubble tea. The bubbles are sick nasty.

Hostel lobby

Reppin COMO

In Taiwan, when storage lockers go abandoned, the treasures within are put up for auction. 








I do what I want. Nobody tells me what to do. Whats that? Hold your bags while you ride the ride. Okay :-(
















Long line of rafters















 Quick sand. Real. Life. Quicksand











Sunday, September 16, 2012

Come back tomorrow

I just got back from a trip to the east coast of Taiwan about 15 minutes ago. Too tired to write anything right now. Ill post tomorrow with tons of pics and some good stories.

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Refuge


Down a long winding road. In the mountains. Into an unmarked entrance. Thru a squeaky gate. Along a dark slippery path. A river easing its way down the mountain on one side, an vacant unlit hotel on the other. Unknown shadows rising above us in all directions. Deep bass thumps echoing out of a run-down building. Where the heck am I?

On Friday I got my first big kid paycheck. If I were to make the same amount of money back in the states, I would be poor. But not here. Foreign teachers have salaries comparable to doctors and lawyers. I should be out in some fancy shopping mall, blowing my money on things I don’t need. So how did I end up in this place…I don’t really know.

Smoke in the air. Colorful wallpaper crumbling off of the wall. A makeshift bar, with drinks that I decided I should pass on. Everyone seemed like they knew each other. In this public place, everyone was close friends. I still have no clue where I am or what is going on.

A Taiwanese band. A girl doing a dance routine to a song from Chicago. Dj’s playing songs that have no beginning or end. Outside, an abandoned amusement park. What is going on? I truly have never been to or imagined a place like this exists. I couldn’t decide if I like this place or want to leave asap.

This place, they call “The Refuge”. It used to be an amusement park. Its abandoned now. They have events here called Lovestock (aka hippie fest) and is used as a bar on weekend nights. If you asked the Taiwanese government, Im sure they would say this place does not exists. After a late late night of dancing to some really bizarre music, I decided it’s places like these that make living in this country fun. Things that would be deemed a safety risk in America are the local hangout.

Okay so I lied about this weeks title being “the life of a celeb”. But I went somewhere very……unique, so I had to write about it. Maybe some other week.

Weird stuff I ate this week: Squid ink break, banana like fruit I found in the jungle, some crazy fruit that tasted like coconut and pine trees(idk the name), and fried quail eggs on a stick.

I do not have to work until 4 on Tuesdays, so we scooted to Dakeng scenic area and hiked up some foothills. Next weekend we are traveling to the other side of the island to whitewater raft.


Here are some random pictures from this last week.

View of Taichung from the hill/mountain





Amy, Sarah, and Chris




A mountain temple

Would not suggest eating this, very bitter.

The crew

Cool view of Taichung. The city goes on forever. I live on the very left of the picture.


I took a bunch of pictures of the steps to try and show how steep they are, didn't work. Wouldnt want to fall down them, thats for sure.





Some lizard who wasn't scared of people.


The spider was as big as my hand.






Squid ink bread. Pretty darn tasty