Spa Day!

If I had to guess what Taiwan would be like when I signed up for the trip back in June, I probably would have guessed that I would be eating a lot of rice noodles, looking at a lot of temples, wandering through massive crowds in the city, and exploring the Asian jungle. Call me crazy.

Ha! Most of it turned out to be true. What I didn't anticipate was a lovely afternoon of hot towel neck massages, scalp massages, manicures, and blowouts...

...all for about $20 USD.

Impossible? Not here. The salons here really know how to do things right. I think they even washed my hair for about 15 minutes straight. I didn't even know hair could be so clean! We walked into the humid evening with luminous, straight tresses, carefully manicured fingers, and supple muscles.

Am I prone to exaggeration? Maybe a little bit! But this place was seriously amazing!

This weekend we're off to Taroko Gorge, a national park that is supposed to be beautiful. We board the train early tomorrow morning...I'll post some pictures for everyone and tell you about my trip on Sunday! Have a great weekend, everyone!

This is WAR

Bzzzzzzzzzz!...is the sound in my ear as I wake up at 3 am. Swat the mosquito away. Pull the covers over my head. Pull my t-shirt over my face...anything to get the nasty, bloodsucking monster away from my apparently sugary sweet blood. But to no avail. I wake up and put in my contacts only to discover six quarter-sized, swollen bites on my face (one SMACK dab in the center of my forehead), five dime sized (but doubly protruding) bites on my neck, and about five additional bites spread over my arms and legs.

The moral of this story? Don't wear shorts and a t-shirt to bed in Taiwan.

However, the remedy is equally unexpected and effective: meat tenderizer and water. I have been wetting down each bite and rubbing a generous amount of meat tenderizer all over each bite, which somehow shrinks them down overnight. The AC is now on full blast (brrrrr!) to eliminate humidity. I have DEET lotion all over my face (which I'm sure is GREAT for eliminating blackheads and avoiding carcinogens!). I'm wearing pants, socks, gloves, a hooded sweatshirt, and a scarf to bed.

I'm armed with bug killing spray to attack impostors.

Am I inhaling my weight in bug killing chemicals as I lay in this tiny, airtight room? Probably.

Goodnight, everyone.

"Well it IS a private school..."

...said a student I talked to at TAS. But have you ever even heard of a private school with both AP and IB programs, an indoor rock climbing wall, an Olympic sized swimming pool, and honor societies for at least 8 different nationalities?

Since I haven't had the opportunity to post for some time, I'm going to go ahead and give everyone a quick overview of what I have been up to at Taipei American School, the school I have the opportunity to observe/student teach at while I'm here in Taiwan. If you want to know more about the school, here is the official website: http://www.tas.edu.tw. I've been working with Mrs. Rowe, an eighth grade Humanities teacher at the school.

This school is incredible! The students are incredibly thoughtful, intelligent, and eager to learn. Whenever we talk to each other after school, there are countless stories of overhearing students discussing politics, literature, and even math outside of class! Just the other day, I overheard two students in a heated discussion about the political situation in India while they were at lunch. In fact, the school has to establish rules to force students to put their laptops away (each student in the Middle School and Upper School has their own school laptop) and get some fresh air during breaks, or students would probably spend all day studying. Many of these students have set goals to attend Ivy League schools, so academics are of utmost relevance and importance to them.

Perhaps the most astounding part of the school is the amount of quality extracurricular opportunities that the students have! Even in Middle School (the level I'm working with this month), kids can participate in Model United Nations, many different styles of dance classes, Toastmasters (public speaking), cooking club, breakdancing club, drama, community service club, and many other activities. The opportunities in the Upper School are even more extensive! The funny part of all of this is that the kids here don't seem to realize that it's abnormal to work on group projects via internet, to receive electronic worksheets while sitting at their desk, or to be able to special order a protein shake from the Fitness Cafe on their way to gym class.

No wonder teachers love to teach abroad! This school is amazing, and teachers live very comfortably here compared to in the United States. While I'm not sure that I could stand to live so far from home, it's definitely a great option for teachers who love to travel!

Taipei Eye

After a fun-filled evening at a TAS teacher's housewarming party, we headed to Taipei Eye, an "artistic performance celebrating the culture of Taipei" (according to its description).

With such a general description of the performance, I really had no idea what to expect. To be honest, I wasn't particularly excited. It had been a long week, and all I really wanted to do was sleep! However, I'm so glad we went! I took about 100 pictures/video during the performance, so what you'll see posted here are only the very best ones. If anyone wants to see more when I get home, I would love to share them!

The performance started out with lions, which actually looked more like a cross between a puppy and a dragon. They reminded me of the dragons we used to see on movies about China in elementary school--you know, the ones with the long, elaborate costumes with a bunch of people underneath? Maybe that's a horrible way of describing it. In any case, these costumes were amazing!!! There were two (a white one and a yellow one), and each lion had two people inside of it: one person standing up in the front, and the other person crouched down in the back. The person in the front was even able to control the eyelids of the lion, and the person in the back could wiggle the lions tail. They looked so real that I kept catching myself forgetting that they weren't actually animals...the actors did an amazing job of moving in an animal-like way and giving the lions convincing, lifelike personalities.

Perhaps the most awe-inspiring part of the show was when the lions jumped onto the platforms at the front of the stage. There is a video at the bottom of this post (the first video)!

There were also some great acrobats at Taipei Eye. I couldn't believe how much energy they had--they probably danced and tumbled for almost half an hour straight. The choreography was pretty unrelenting...they just kept jumping and leaping and flipping! It may not have been perfect, but they were on stage for so long that I couldn't believe they could even make it through the whole thing, especially while keeping their elaborate costumes, makeup, and hairstyles intact! There are some highlights in the second video on this post!

So basically...if anyone ever decides to endure the 13 hour flight, the 90 percent humidity, and the pesky insects here in Taipei...go to Taipei Eye! Yes, it may be incredibly touristy, but it is a great opportunity to know more about the culture here and see a great show!

My life is officially complete...

My accomplishment today was one requiring refined knowledge, concentration, and motor skills. It was one I never originally thought possible; I spent much of my childhood attempting to master this task, but the goal always seemed just barely beyond the limit of my abilities.

I mastered the claw vending machine.

Yes, you're thinking that I'm ridiculous. I didn't really even expect to get anything out of the machine, but there were so many claw machines with such ridiculous items in them, I simply couldn't resist. My prize? A croissant keychain, a very necessary and useful item to bring back home. I should shadowbox it or something for posterity.

I also tried a new food today, which was met with much more success than the squid! I had a shaved ice sundae. Of course, for those of you know about my sweet tooth, this shouldn't come as much of a surprise. Basically, I had a pile of shaved ice with some sort of milk and banana flavoring in it, sliced bananas, a strawberry, a scoop of chocolate ice cream, and lots of chocolate syrup! Yum! It looked normal-sized in the picture, but when it came it was so huge that Jeannette and I decided to split it instead. They also had lots of beautiful fruity ones that I'll have to go back and try later!

Here are some pictures of HUGE food...fat carrots and the most gigantic green onions I have ever seen!

I can't resist -- I have to wrap things up with some more funny English signs that we discovered today...

Because bubble tea makes you HAPPY!

Underwear found in a claw vending machine...weird.

Because we always refer to milk as lactic acid...

Just because it's a sports drink doesn't mean that "SWEAT" is ever an appetizing product name!

Tomorrow is my first day at TAS (Taipei American School) -- wish me luck!

101, Squid, and "Happy Endings"

The past two days have been so much fun! We went to the top of the tallest building in the world (Taipei 101) and we could see the whole city—it was so cool! Here are some of the best pictures I took:

I also had a very interesting eating adventure that left me a little weary of the food here. We thought we were just eating pork and chicken, but it turned out that we got a whole bunch of raw food that had to be cooked in boiling soup that sat on our table (each of us had our own little stove and pot). It was basically like Mongolian fondue. Things started out relatively normal – just a few unidentifiable vegetables and some raw meat…

…and then a bunch of unidentifiable seafood...

Everything was so pretty, it had to be delicious, right? And when you’re in a foreign country, you’re supposed to be an adventurous eater, right? So…when everyone else started eating the squid, I decided I needed to also. I picked up the squid (which, by the way, was staring at me) with my chopsticks, dropped it in the boiling soup, and watched its rubbery tentacles flail in the water. Apparently “the head is better than the butt,” so I bit right in…and fought back the immediate gag reflex. I somehow managed to swallow it, but since I was trying to avoid biting into it (mystery juices were coming out in every bite), I swallowed it almost whole. Obviously, I felt sick for the rest of the day! Luckily, Pepto-Bismol made my life a whole lot better and I felt normal by the time I woke up this morning. If I can eat seafood that still has eyes, I guess I can eat just about anything here and be okay within 24 hours.

One of the most entertaining parts of being here has been reading all the English signs. I think a few too many people are just using a Mandarin-English dictionary and directly translating to make all the signs and billboards around here! Here are a few of my favorites…a lotion ad (I'm not sure if it's supposed to be inappropriate?), a random billboard, and a clothing store.

Thankfully, lots of useful signs also have English, so it’s pretty easy to find our way around in the city. I don’t know how Chinese tourists manage in Spokane – pretty amazing, if you ask me! Our languages are so different…everything I hear people say here (with the exception of thank you, sorry, goodbye, and American) just sounds like complete gibberish. The people who try to speak English to us are lifesavers!

Well, it’s about time to try and find some McDonald’s or Subway or something else that won’t make me need to bust open the Pepto again. Have a great day, everyone!

Day One

What a crazy first day! After being woken up from some incredibly overly cheery flight attendants at about 4 am, we ate breakfast (french toast with a tomato garnish...what???) and landed in Taipei around 5:30. Of course, since it was around 1:30 pm at home, we all felt great! An adorable little bus came and picked us up at the airport. Here is a picture of the inside...it definitely made me feel like we were in Asia!

We headed straight for the Chinese Youth Center, the hostel that we're staying at. Now, I stayed at a hostel when I was in Spain when we went to Granada for the weekend, and that place was pretty sketchy (we kept our stuff in lockers, stayed in a room with 16 strangers, and had to listen to an Italian couple...well...you know...all evening), but this hostel isn't messing around. Our room is great, and we have a huge shower (with lots of hot water) and internet in our room...and a great view! This is what we see out our window:

After we made it to the hostel, we left our bags in the lobby -- which seemed unsafe to me, but apparently that's a normal thing to do here (???) -- and headed to check out the school. The school here is ridiculously nice!!! I'll talk more about it after school starts though!

By this point in the day, we were pretty exhausted from walking around and sleeping on a teeny tiny plane seat for 13 hours, so we went to get some food! We ate at a place affectionately known as "Shaved Noodles" by our hosts (we don't know the real name of the restaurant) because the place makes their own homemade noodles every day. The food was amazing, and the pop cans we drank out of were entertaining, to say the least...

Just a normal sight around here...apparently so many people ride bikes that they have to stack them on top of each other!

To sum things up, here are some lessons learned so far...

• Always check your TravelCard PIN number BEFORE you leave the US...
• On a similar note, always tell your bank if you're going to Taiwan for a month BEFORE you leave the US! They get confused.
• Cab drivers in Taipei are nice until your directions are incomprehensible.
• Even if you don't think you will be, you will still be jet lagged. Don't fight it.
• Even if they cost a fortune, phone calls home make everything better!

I miss everyone back home! I'll try to update again as soon as I can! :)