A Day at Taichung Port

Without any major trips planned for fall break, my roommate, Nichole, and I decided we would just do some small things around Taichung to celebrate the lack of teaching responsibilities. Yesterday we woke up and decided it would be a good day to check out Taichung Port. Neither of us had been there before but a few of our coworkers had and said it was nice.

At around noon we saddled up and took off on our scooters for the ocean. Taichung is inland about an hour so we had quite a drive ahead of us. Luckily, it was near impossible to mess up because we had to stay on Taichung Port Road the entire way out. And it was a beautiful day for a drive, so it was actually a great long scooter trip.

Once we got there, we realized that we were going to be stared at a lot throughout the day: we were the only white people in the entire port. I don't know why I was surprised by this. Taichung itself is not a huge tourist destination thus an obscure hours-drive-away attraction would logically have even less tourists which would normally bring the total to zero. We sort of stuck out. The good news is that Nichole and I are both fairly used to this by now, so we went about the port looking at the stalls and buying food like any normal Taiwanese people.

They had mounds and mounds of dried fish and squid and whatever else they caught in the ocean (seen above). You could buy live clams and mussels and shrimp (again, above). And of course you could buy seafood that was already cooked into something delicious, which is the option I went with.

My favorite discovery of the day was a stand of food that had absolutely no English on it. No numbers, no pictures, just Chinese characters. I normally stay away from these types of stalls, but I could see them assembling this sort of pocket of dough filled with almost all of God's sea creatures and then throwing it into a deep fryer. I had to try it. Without fail, it was amazing.

And of course, what would a trip to the port be without some squid on a stick? I couldn't pass it up!

After we had our fill of street food, Nichole and I explored a little more and discovered that they offered boat tours. Boat tours! I made it my life's mission to get us on one of those boats once I saw that, thus started a very funny and confusing process in which we made lots of Taiwanese friends.

We walked up to a ticket booth that had pictures of boats on it and some random numbers, but again, no English. So we just started holding up money and pointing to the two of us to try to get our point across. Soon enough, we had caused quite a ruckus because everyone wanted to help us get on that boat, even the random couple we accidentally budged in front of line.

After a confusing form that was all in Chinese and some more confusing conversations where we couldn't understand anything, a younger woman came over and started speaking English to us and told us the boat would leave in a few minutes but there was free fruit for us in the back. So we go check it out. They handed both of us a whole guava that had been crudely chopped and as soon as we had these piles of fruit in our hands, they were telling us it was time to go already. As you can see from the picture above, we were confused but laughing at the situation. Plus we got some free fruit out of it, so it was pretty awesome.

We were a little frazzled by this process but soon enough, we found ourselves in life jackets sitting on a Taiwanese sight-seeing boat in Taichung Port. Even though it is a shipping yard and really has no natural beauty, we still enjoyed our cruise around Taichung Port. All in all, it was a great Taiwanese Sunday!

Math Olympiads in Hong Kong

I was right, it was a whirlwind of a trip! I'll give you a quick rundown of our schedule in Hong Kong first: leave school on Friday at noon. Fly from Taichung to Hong Kong and land at around 4 p.m. There is a lady from the host school waiting to pick us up and we get on the shuttle train into the city. Another staff member greets us at the terminal and the kids leave for their homestays. I stick with the two ladies who picked me up and they take me to my hotel. Drinks, dinner, sleep. At 10 a.m. on Saturday I see my kids again (still alive! Whoo hoo!) and the competition starts. They work all day and I work all day grading the competition papers (yuck). At least there were cookies.

After the closing ceremonies, we pile back onto a bus and head to the airport. Get some noodles and some duty free shopping in, then board a plane at a little before 9 and land in Taichung at 10:20 or so. Parents are at the gate to pick everyone up and I go home! Whoa, was that an international trip or did I just blink and miss something?

Alright, that was exhausting just recapping all of that! In all actuality though, it was a really fun 36 hours in Hong Kong and we literally had no problems. There was one, maybe two, stressful moments, but nothing I couldn't handle. Which was a good thing seeing as how I was the only adult on the trip which made me nervous. Ok, so there was one moment when I freaked out a little bit.

I did get completely separated from them by customs because they had convinced me they didn't need an arrival card for Hong Kong since they were R.O.C. citizens. I believed them since most of them had been to Hong Kong before and just filled one out for myself. As soon as I was through customs, I look over to see the officer telling one of the kids that they need a card, and all of them panicked. I tried to help them, but I of course was already cleared through so I needed to keep walking. I was very anxious for the next five minutes, but sure enough they all figured it out and made it through. Thank goodness these kids are somewhat used to international travel!

As far as the math goes, it wasn't our best showing. Out of nine teams, we only took sixth. I was disappointed of course, and they were initially devastated, but I gave them my best teacher pep-talk: "there will always be that 'one' team who is going to beat you. It's sort of a fact of life, so all you can do is try your best and improve upon what you are capable of doing. I'm really proud of all of you! I don't care that we didn't get first! We had fun, right?"

So when that inevitably didn't work, I took them to Starbucks and there were finally smiles again. I think all in all, they had a great time and I really did too. It's not often that you can take a team of kids to a different country to compete in a math competition. By my standards, that's pretty cool!

The Eve of Departure

Tomorrow is D-Day....or should I say M-Day? M standing, of course, for mathematics.

After teaching for half a day, at noon I will board a bus with my four returning Math Olympiad students and head to the Taichung Airport. Destination: Hong Kong, where we will compete in the annual ACAMIS Maths Olympiad middle school competition. Last year we took 3rd place and this year, since I have all four kids coming back for a second year, I'm hoping we can do that if not better (keep your fingers crossed for us!).

At this time last year I was very amazed at the fact that I was solely in charge of four teenagers during international travel. I am still amazed by this fact. Although I consider myself to be a somewhat mature and responsible person and I learned a lot last year being a teacher in an international school, I still have only been responsible for myself throughout my entire life. Now at the age of 23, I am taking children to a different Asian country and I am the only adult in charge of their safety and well being. The only adult. Man it is weird to think of it that way.

The reality of the situation is, these kids are so good that I really don't have to worry. Last year the only problem I had was that they got a tiny bit annoying when I had spent 36 hours straight with them. Sure I left them standing in the middle of the Hong Kong International Airport terminal and told them to meet me at the gate at boarding time before speed walking away from them, but they were already in the secured area. I knew they would be fine! I'm pretty sure that is to be expected when you spend that much time with your middle school students.

This year I am expecting about the same. Especially since, just like last year, I am staying in a hotel while the children are staying with families from the host school in Hong Kong. This gives me a much needed break and then I'll be well rested and ready to go for the competition on Saturday. After a long day thinking about mathematics, the team and I will board a plane that night and head back to Taiwan.

It will be a whirlwind of a weekend but I'm really looking forward to it. You don't really get these types of opportunities teaching at a public school in Minnesota, so I'm trying to really take advantage of it. Just think, by this time tomorrow I will be sitting in Hong Kong- not too bad of a school trip, huh?!

Just Your Average High School Dance

Last night was the annual Halloween Costume Dance at our school. Although the students really enjoy it, for the obvious reason of they don't have study hall and they get to stay up later, I still feel as if the teachers enjoyed it more. While our students throw on some bizarre clothes and paint their faces a little, the teachers really commit to the characters of their costumes.

Last year I made the obvious choice of being a graphing calculator. This was an excellent choice because I was then able to dance like the sine graph all night and my fellow math nerd, Kate, would push my buttons and I could just yell out numbers. It was great. I still have the cardboard cutout hanging in my classroom and like to teach in it sometimes.

This year however, we decided to make more of an effort to tell a story with our costumes. The story we chose: the three blind mice and the butchers wife. An obvious choice since there are four of us girls that are good friends from last year, plus we figured the kids wouldn't get it so it would be funny.

True to form, the students thought we were the mice from Shrek because they have never heard the three blind mice nursery rhyme before. It was great to see them react to our butchers wife, Nichole, as well because they just thought she was crazy (we did make her carry around a fake butchers knife and three chopped-off mice tails complete with fake blood on them).

Us teachers led the Cupid Shuffle, did a little dance to "Bye Bye Bye" in the front of the auditorium, and managed to start a train or two. Like I mentioned before, I really think the teachers enjoyed it more than the students. Who doesn't love dressing up and dancing around like a high school kid again?!

KTV Madness

KTV, or the Taiwanese version of karaoke, is quite possibly the best idea for a Saturday to spend with friends. We all gathered (14 or 15 of us) at a local KTV near our apartment in celebration of Kate and Nichole's birthdays last night and had an amazing time. We did the same thing last year but somehow, this year was just much more epic!

If you read my weekend preview blog post before, you know that KTV is a much more enclosed karaoke experience. And for us loud, crazy American's, that is a very good thing. That way, we have our own room to yell out the lyrics to Boys to Men and Backstreet Boys. We all decided since it was such a success, we need to do it more than just once a year!

Teachers v. Students

Friday after school some of the faculty challenged the boys varsity volleyball team to a game. Although I hate to say it, the students won. Not without putting up a good fight though!

It was a ton of fun and a great way to wrap up my week:

My coworker Dan with the determination of some sort of vicious creature...and also the jumping ability of one!

The students weren't going easy on us either.

However we did have adorable score-keepers.

I set up some good balls when I was in front, even if my form is a little sloppy :)

I also had quite the serving streak (not to toot my own horn, but beep beep).

One of my favorite students, Johnson, going up for a block. Hey makes these faces when I teach him Algebra 2 as well!

We had a secret weapon, Kevin, who played for the mens club team at UWL. He is wicked good and was not going easy on the boys with his jump serve (let's just say I was glad I was not receiving them!).

Where did all the Motivation Go?

Today is Friday. It is my last prep period of the day before simply giving a test 7th hour to end my day/week. I have been productive all day so far and am completely planned for my Saturday classes tomorrow.

Needless to say, I currently find it literally impossible to even lift a pencil to my lesson plan book. Motivation is somewhat of a silly concept that doesn't apply to my mindset in any sense of the word right now. So let me procrastinate further by giving you a preview of my weekend!

This weekend should be epic by any means of measure. For one thing, we have been working for 12 days straight at this point (teaching Saturday classes will make it a lucky 13 days in a row) because of parents day last weekend. All of the teachers are dragging and in great need of a break. So tonight we have a little outing planned to downtown Taichung. It is the second weekend of the Taichung Jazz Festival in People's Park and a bunch of us are going to check it out. It should be a nice evening of music and friends outside in the beautiful weather Taiwan is experiencing right now.

Tomorrow I will teach only one session because my second session of Seniors are all taking the TOEFL exam (basic English proficiency exam that universities in the U.S. require for international students). Should be a pretty easy day of teaching and then I'm actually free until Monday at 8 a.m.!

To celebrate this real weekend, we are going to go to a KTV on Saturday night. KTV is the Taiwanese version of karaoke. I'm not entirely sure why it's called KTV but it's pretty funny because it's a little different than what you're probably visualizing. The Taiwanese are very reserved people when in public so the way a KTV is set up is like a hotel. You get a group of friends together and rent one KTV room for a few hours. Then you just sing in a room full of only your friends. It's not like the bad karaoke you see in bars in the States because you know all of the stupid people singing in a KTV- you are actually friends with them!

The best part about a KTV is that you can bring in your own food and beverage. So we will be enjoying some really classy 7-11 food (you know, like seaweed flavored Frito Lays) and Taiwan Beers while listening to the smooth sound of our coworkers/co-people try their hand at classic pop songs from the 90's. It should be great.

4:05 can't come soon enough! Look for pictures from this weekend in a few days!

Young Eagle

If you read my last blog post, you know that I am currently trying to learn the Chinese names of my advisees. Yesterday was no exception!

At lunch I practiced my three advisees names that I learned last week and took on the new challenge of learning Bill's Chinese name. It is a tough one too: Joung (pronounced like "rong") Show Ing. His tones aren't too bad, it is up, down, flat. So you basically say his last name like you're surprised to see him, the middle word like you're angry, and then the last word like you have no emotion in your voice. It gets a little confusing.

The best part about Bill's name is the meaning though. His name literally translates into something like "Young Eagle". I think it's pretty awesome because now we have two birds at our table: the Young Eagle and the Number One Finch :)

Chinese Names

Normally people are surprised when I tell them I teach students named Bill, Henry, John, Katy, and Wendy. I think people expect me to say weird, scary, hard to pronounce names for my Asian students. Then I like to tell people that I even teach a girl named Gwendeline (oh yeah, that's my favorite!).

In reality, they all DO have scary, confusing, hard to pronounce Chinese names. It's just that our students tend to pick English names once they enter American type schools with a bunch of foreigner teachers who can't pronounce any Chinese words. Generally they try to pick names that sound a little like their real names, but it doesn't always happen. Also, there is the occasional student who doesn't chose an English name: generally they are from Japan or Korea. I teach an Ayano, Ji Hoon, Song (Korean name), Chih Hao, and a Masami. All super fun to say compared to the other more American sounding names.

Recently, I decided I wanted to try to learn some of my students Chinese names however. I figure that I am living in Taiwan so I should at least call them by their real names! I started small by trying to learn my advisee's names. There are only five of them so I figured, how hard could it be? HARD! Chinese is so hard to pronounce I constantly rediscover!

I started with my advisee Vivi. Her Chinese name is Pan Wei Ting. You say the first word flat, like never changing the inflection in your voice, and both second sounds said with the second rising tone, like you're saying both words surprised. It's the tones in Chinese that make it so hard to learn!

Then I learned Henry's name: Chueh Yi (pronounced like a hard "e"). His name you say with the fourth, down, tone. You sort of have to act like you're angry to say the fourth tone- or at least I have to.

What's funny is that a;; of their names have meanings in Chinese, but not deep meanings like how you would imagine. Vivi's name literally means "hello, stop" and Henry's name is the exact same as "one" in counting in Chinese. His last name also means "finch" so I call him the Number One Finch now :)

I haven't learned all of my advisees' names yet, but I'm getting there. I like it because it's a fun thing to do at lunch and the kids really enjoy it- they can teach their teachers somethings too! They keep warning me that Rere's name is the hardest though, so I might have to work really hard on that one. I'm learning that one at lunch tomorrow so wish me luck!

Parents Day 2011

Last year for Parent's Day, I was freaking out a little bit. I had never had conferences with real parents before and I was only a first year teacher! What was also intimidating is that the parents of our students put their full trust in us to not only educate their children but to basically raise them too since we are a boarding school. I thought I was going to get yelled at when I told a parent their child was failing and I didn't know how to act around them!

This year, I was much more relaxed about parent's day at our school. If it was going to be anything like last year, it was going to be very easy. Thank god it lived up to my expectations! For two hours in the morning and another hour after lunch I sat in my room while parents filtered in with their kids. I told them exactly what was happening in class for their child and they normally said "Ok, thank you." No further questioning, no accusations like what I hear of some conferences in the States, just a simple check in on how their son/daughter is doing in math class.

On top of having easy conferences, the parents of my students this year came with gifts! One of my 9th grade students gave me chocolate and another student from that class came with a beautifully painted Taiwanese clay god to hang on my door for good luck. I also made one mom cry not because she was so upset, but because she was so happy: I apparently gave her daughter more confidence. How? I don't know, but then they took a family picture with me.

All in all it was a very good parent's day, but it has left me exhausted for the start of this week. It was an all day Sunday affair and if you read my frantic blog post from Saturday morning, you know that I was getting sick. Well luckily I think the Taoist god responded to my plea because I do not have strep. However, it is still your average common cold which means I'm just run-down a little.

Lack of energy from the cold and spending all weekend at work with students and parents have left me with little energy on this Monday. Luckily my lesson plans are all easy today so as long as no student is too loud, we shouldn't have any problems. Then it's bedtime for me at 8:45 tonight (I wish I was joking about that!).

Please God, Please Buddha, Please Taoist God, Please Don't Let Me Be Sick This Weekend!

Nobody likes to get sick. You feel crappy, you have no energy, and then there are the unsavory symptoms like sneezing and coughing and sometimes (gasp) a trip to the doctor for antibiotics if it's bad enough. I'm right there with you on that one, I hate being sick.

What I hate more than being sick though, is being sick at a time when you are too busy to get sick. This weekend is one of those times. I am on duty this weekend which means that after class today (Saturday) I will go with the kids to bowling activity, watch them bowl for a while, throw a couple of gutter balls perhaps, and then usher them all back onto the bus back to school. Rest for a few hours and then get them back on a bus to go to the night market from 6-10 tonight. Not too bad, just a long day.

The bad part is that tomorrow is not a normal Sunday: tomorrow is Parent's Day. A normal duty weekend I would have to show up at 1 and be in charge of children for a few hours. Tomorrow however, I need to be at school in nice formal dress at 9:30 and we are not going to leave until 4:30 or 5. Not to mention I need to have countless conferences with parents and be the face of the math department since I'm chair this year. And then I teach again on Monday.

This weekend is going to be a marathon to say the least. A marathon without the added evil of a soar throat which is exactly what I woke up with this morning. I am praying to whatever deity will listen to me right now to just make this a common cold or even better, maybe just a soar throat from over-use (I was yelling a lot last night because we played Cranium at the Family Mart).

What I'm most nervous about though, is strep. I got strep throat at exactly this time last year and I am having a mini panic attack as I type this that it is a creepy deja vu thing going on this year. This weekend is just not the time to get strep throat! I have no time to rest and I need to be presentable and personable tomorrow!

Ugh, please God, please Buddha, please Taoist god, please don't let this be strep!!! :( I'll keep you posted...

Milk Tea = Best Invention Ever

Asia is well known for their tea. The Western world gulps down coffee like the caffeine-shakes are going out of style but us Asians prefer the milder caffeinated beverage. I personally enjoy almost any type of tea: green, black (which the Taiwanese call "red" tea), Jasmine, you name it. What I enjoy more though, is combining tea with milk. Who ever did this first was a genius.

In Taiwan there is a surplus of two things: 7-11 convenience stores and tea shops. You can walk down any block in any city in Taiwan and run into both of these things (or if not a 7-11, at least a Family Mart or Hi Life which are basically the same thing- what you think of as gas station convenience stores in the U.S. minus the gas). Now these tea shops are not the dimly lit, smokey rooms you are probably imagining. They are like the Starbucks of Asia. They are awesome and that is a fact.

The Taiwanese have combined all sorts of teas with all sorts of delicious flavors and put them on ice. You can get Passion Fruit Tea, Ice Cream Milk Tea, Bubble Milk Tea (the topic of many raving blog posts of mine last year, it is like pure crack cocaine), Kumquat Juice and Green Tea, Green Tea with Lemon, Green Tea with Honey, ANYTHING! And funny enough, they are all amazing!

I have become recently obsessed with two new types of teas: Green Tea #8 and Green Milk Tea. The #8 Green Tea is exclusive to one particular tea shop named 50 Tea (they really like numbers apparently) and it is a mix of green tea with kumquat juice and sweet plum juice. Very refreshing and delicious.

Milk Green Tea is a mixture of milk (shocking I know) and Jasmine Green Tea. If you've never had Jasmine tea before, it sort of tastes like potpourri. It is an acquired taste I'm pretty sure and I have been busy acquiring it. Something about putting the flowery taste of the Jasmine and milk together and shaking it over ice is the most satisfying drinking experience I have had for a while. I crave it at odd hours of the day and I fear the day that I leave Taiwan for good because I think I may go through withdrawals!

For now, I shall enjoy my amazing iced tea concoctions and do so often :)

Grocery Store Run-In

When you are surrounded by Chinese all day, it is difficult to comprehend English when caught off-guard. This is the lesson Nichole and I learned today.

After teaching and attending the faculty meeting after school today, we traveled home via scooter and dropped off our bags at home. After a quick costume change, we were back out the door again to hit the grocery store for dinner supplies. We generally always walk to the closest grocery store which is about 3 short blocks down the street from us. I think thus far we have been the only white people in there on each visit.

Tonight I was standing next to Nichole seriously pondering which type of odd, leafy green to buy for our salad (we never can find spinach here), when there was gibberish coming from our left. We're pretty used to locals trying to talk to us in Chinese, and we've gotten pretty good at smiling and nodding and then saying "I don't know! Sorry!" in Chinese. But this woman wasn't speaking normal Chinese.

I looked over and literally blinked a few times before I realized it was a white woman talking to us. And that wasn't gibberish she was speaking, it was English! I think she had to repeat her initial greeting four or five times because we both just looked at her like a couple of deer in headlights.

I guess that when you aren't expecting to understand something, you simply won't. Even your own language can seem foreign when you are out of place somewhere.

Taiwanese Saturday

There are just some of those days when you are living abroad when you stop and think, "wow, I really DO live in a foreign country, huh?" Yesterday, Saturday, was one of those days. It started normal enough; taught my kiddos SAT Math Prep and had a pretty good time doing so. Then went to lunch in the dining hall and sat with my advisees. Standard Saturday for me.

The "Real Taiwanese Experience" started after that. I chose to go with the 11th grade students on their afternoon trip even though I wasn't on duty this weekend. Why, you ask? Well, my friend Kate was on duty and assigned to that trip so I would be with her. Also, all my other friends were required to work with seniors on college applications that afternoon so I had no one else to hang out with. AND the 11th graders were going to Lukang, the coolest Saturday trip we do!

Lukang is a small fishing village about an hour and a half from Taichung. I guess it is sort of a tourist trap but it's actually pretty nice for foreigners because it has some historical buildings lining the main streets and great little shops that you don't really find in Taiwan too ofton. So all in all, a pretty nice place to experience some of the charm of Taiwan.

Last year I had been to Lukang once while on duty but I was pretty excited to go again because you can also buy some delicious food there! So Kate and I walked around the narrow, winding streets of Lukang on Saturday afternoon and had some of our favorite 11th grade students guiding us around. I really like to take advantage of opportunities like this because it completely turns the tables on my usual teacher-student relationships; it's a really cool way to let the students teach us something about their country and culture.

After a fried oyster pancake, traditional peanut "candy" (not like candy really, it was like a weird wispy almost cotton-candy-esk wrapping around a pocket of peanut powder/paste....sounds weird, but it was pretty delicious), and a cup of the self-proclaimed best iced jasmine milk tea in Taiwan, we boarded the bus again. Kate and I got a good chance to catch up on the bus ride, so all around it was a very nice afternoon.

That evening a group of us teachers decided to go out to dinner then. There were quite a few of us which I always enjoy because then we really have a great gang of Americans on scooters driving around the city! When this happens, we both intrigue and terrify the locals. It is awesome.

Last night we weren't heading into Taichung though, we were heading out and up. With one of the new teachers riding on the back of my scooter, our gang traveled up the mountains surrounding Taichung for about 45 minutes to a restaurant on top of a super high ridge overlooking the city lights. There we had dinner at the Mushroom Palace. Now we're not really sure what the name of this place actually is, but since they serve any and all kinds of mushrooms that are grown on that mountainside, we thought that would be an appropriate name for the place.

After a wonderful dinner of traditional mushroom hotpot, we decided to check out a pseudo-underground bar that we had been hearing about for a while. In the same area of the city, out in the foothills of the mountains around Taichung, there is an abandoned amusement park. This is the site that a few crazy foreigners have created some sort of hippy cooperative including a bar called The Refuge. This is were we went.

To say it was bizarre is probably the understatement of the year. The actual bar is pretty normal, big on the inside with your standard bar stools and pool tables. I mean, its pretty weird to be in a room with almost all foreigners and be able to understand the conversations around you, but you get used to that. It really gets odd when you start exploring the grounds because you can walk in the dried out lazy river, check out the old zip lines (not go on them, I'm pretty sure that would be certain death), or go explore in the odd African safari themed statues. It has a creepy, scene-from-a-horror-film feel to it, and all the while I was concerned that I would run into one of the seven poisonous snakes in Taiwan. Have no fear, we didn't see any wildlife besides the bugs out there!

It's weekends like this one that really reinvigorates my love of Taiwan. It is easy to forget you are living in a foreign country when you teach all day and come home at night only to grade more, plan more, and go to bed. It's the weekends that remind me how cool of an experience this is, and I still love it!

I Love Living Off Campus

Last year I had 160 roommates, most of them under the age of 17. This year has been a big upgrade since I only have 1 now and she is not in high school. It is so incredibly nice to live off campus in my own apartment this year it is almost indescribable. But let me try anyway! Take Monday for example, just your average day but living off campus made it a great day.

Monday I taught all day and left school at about 4:30 in the afternoon. That's right, I got to actually leave and not come back until the next morning! Nichole (my roommate) and I stopped at a grocery store on the way home and then proceeded to cook dinner. We made a honey-dijon chicken bake with stir-fried veggies as a side. I had only a hotplate last year, food like that didn't exist in my world!

Then at 7 p.m. when we were well fed and ready to relax a little, I was actually able to surf the web. You see, last year once 7 rolled around and all the kids were on their computers, there was no way I could even get online because the wifi was so slow. This is a big improvement.

Not only could I surf the web but I was actually able to Skype with my friend Abbey at 8. Conversations during my evening time were clearly out of the question for me last year (for the same slow wifi reasons as I previously mentioned) so it is a real treat for me this year to talk as long as I want with people at night. Last year I was forced to wake up at 5 a.m. or so just to talk to people. I sleep much more now!

That night I was able to relax, unwind, get a little planning done, and most importantly regain my sanity for the next school day. Living off campus is awesome. I knew it would be great, but I couldn't even comprehend just how amazing it would be this year. I feel like a real adult now!

Sunday Walks

This year I have been making it a personal goal of mine to get to know Taichung better. I figure that since I'm now living in the city and not on a school campus, I should get out and explore as much as possible. Since our schedules at school are so crazy, I generally try to accomplish this goal on my Sunday mornings.

Every weekend thus far, I wake up on Sunday, put in my contacts, and start walking. I explore the local markets, local stores, local tea shops (yum!) and today, the local temples. I started walking today at about 9 a.m. and just got back to my apartment at noon- it was quite the walk!

First I stumbled upon a temple that is about two blocks from my apartment. It's tiny but the top is beautifully painted.

Two blocks further down I ran into another previously undiscovered temple much bigger than the first.

Next I walked further South into the city and saw on my map that I was getting close to the Taichung Confucius Temple and Martyr's Shrine. I had never been there before so I set out for it. I was really glad I did because once I got there, it was like an instant escape from the bustling city streets. The temples were medium sized temples with really nice, big grounds. And best of all, there were English signs explaining the different parts of the temple!

Finally, on my way home I came across somewhat of an obscure temple. You can see it from very far away because it is pretty tall, or at least taller than the average temple, and it's very unique. It seems like there is a very old temple that they wanted to preserve so they built a huge, modern temple serving as somewhat of a shelter over it. It's a little hard to tell from this picture, but I really liked it because it was so different.

After 3 or so hours and close to a dozen temples, I finally ambled home. It is amazing what you can find when you just follow your feet out of your own front door....or should I say front gate past the doormen and parking attendant. Because that's what I did this morning.