Last few weeks in Taipei.

I can't believe we only have two more weeks in Taipei! I finished teaching on August 14 and Alan has two more weeks. Right after Alan finishes, we hop on a plane to Jakarta, Indonesia to start our 3 weeks of traveling. We will spend a couple days in Jakarta, exploring the city. We already have a gracious host on Couchsurfing.com to take us in...he was even nice enough to say we could stay with him the night we arrive--our plane LANDS at 1:30 AM and with immigration and getting baggage, etc we won't get to his place until close to 3.

After Jakarta, we plan to visit Bali and the Dili Islands. They look like some of the most incredible beaches I have ever seen and have great scuba diving! I'm going to get my JR PADI certification bumped up to a full diving certificate and Alan is going to get certified as well. It will be nice to get out of living in a huge dirty city (even though i love you taipei!) and spend some time on some beautiful beaches.

Since pictures are more interesting than writing, I'm going to post some pics with captions to show you what we have been up to the past few weeks.


This is a video I took of Sean, Ryan and Max singing "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" on our last day of school. I though it was so adorable I just had to share! They really got into this song, as you can see.


Arthur (Captain Hook), Ben (Chief) and Oscar (Peter Pan) after our play.


Alan and I with my student Wade and his mom Nancy.


With some friends at a beach about an hour outside of Taipei City.


Teacher Darren with a cutie from our school Tin Tin--hiding behind her monkey!


With my Taiwanese co-Teacher Mia. Such a lovely lady...i will miss her.


Sylvia! Check out those chubby cheeks and dimples!


Minnie, Natasha and Sylvia on the last day of school.


Out with some friends in Taipei. Juliana and I doing the Asian "victory" pose!


Alan and Kyle doing the V. Doesn't Kyle do the best impression of a cute Taiwanese girl?


Kyle, me and Juliana


The girls, minus me. I was taking the picture.

Thailand for Alan

The title of this blog is misleading. The last time I wrote, I was in literary tears as Bayly and her parents explored Thailand. I had a chance to visit Thailand with Davis (Bayly's brother) during my week lay over between last semester and teaching art this summer in Taipei.

Running, out of breath, feeling as though I was trapped under a boat and I couldn't quite swim far enough in any direction to find air, and this is the first hour of my trip. Davis and I barely made our flight to Bangkok with a little help from the kind staff at the Taipei airport. We weren't allowed to check our bags so we had to bring them on the plane. In my mind, this was an awesome start because I hate sitting at airports for to long. I like to people watch, but I got to do it in fast forward this time as we ran though the airport to our gate. The funniest part was that two other people came in after us, so I guess the airport staff was kind of messing with us by telling us to run as fast as we could. Oh well, we made it!

Bangkok is not for the wimpy traveler. The second we walked out of the security area we were bombarded with, "Taxi, taxi, taxi, where are you going, need a hotel?" We landed at 2 am and there were still plenty of hungry cab drivers. We paid 400 baht for a 250 baht cab ride, but we were happy to be dropped off at our door step. I forgot to call the hostel, as per the emailed instructions, for the late night code into the building. We knocked loudly and after five minutes some other people that were staying in the Hi-Sukhumvit (good place) let us in. We woke up the staff, and they told me that I booked for the next night. Apparently, 3am is still considered the day fore and not the next day (even though it is clearly after midnight). On top of that I booked Davis and I a cozy double bed. The staff was cool and hooked us up with twin beds in a dorm style room and the next night gave us our own room. We spent the entire next day seeing temples, markets, and riding in a really cool long-tail boat through the canals of Bangkok. We were treated like royalty by our guide that was provided by a friend of my Uncle (THANK YOU!!). We went out at night, and had a blast in the Bangkok nightlife. I thought overall the city was a little dirty and so touristy that most the people were so familiar with travelers and would try to take advantage of you. The temples were amazing and I’m glad I went, but Bangkok isn't the Thailand I would grow to love throughout the next week.

Chiang Mai- VISIT this place! First of all, its about a 10-15 minutes easy ride from the airport to the main part of Chiang Mai. The sun beat down on my brow like a Mike Tyson punch from the 80's. I saw a thermometer that read, "Freakin’ Hot"! Davis and I were famished and had no idea where to eat. We stumbled from shadow to shadow trying not to melt and eventually found a restaurant with rotisserie chicken in the front window. We entered the glorified tent and proceeded to have the best meal of our travels! We went back a day later and enjoyed the food again! We spent our days walking around markets, ruins and temples. We also went white water rafting, trekking to waterfalls and aboriginal villages, and we rode an elephant. We heard the best rafting is 3 hours north of Chiang Mai, but we didn't make it their because our trip was short, and our rafting trip was relaxing and fun, but not exhilarating. Riding an elephants is kind of scary...like driving with some of Bayly's friends! Davis and I shared a moment on the back of the elephant that most people can't say they've experienced (not like that). We met 2 guys and 3 French girls on our rafting experience and had a good time in the mountains with our new friends.

We had plans to go to a smaller island with less tourist stuff going on, but after talking to tons of people we said lets go straight for the heart, and we went to Ko Phi Phi. Flying into Phuket was great! Imagine you are flying into Jurassic Park, and you get the picture. The islands looked amazing and water was some shade of blue that Crayola hasn't even mastered yet. When we got to the pier and we had perm-ma smile we were so happy to finally being going to the beach! It was about 2:45 on a perfect day, blue skies, fluffy clouds, the smell of ocean in the air, and the last boat to the island leaving the dock RIGHT IN FRONT OF US! We missed the 2:30 boat, and had to spend the night in Patong Beach. We made the best of it and had some beers and shared a sunset (again, not like that). In the morning we caught an earlier ferry to Phi Phi and when we got there we found a cool hut (with AC) and made our way to the beach. That night we went out to some beach bars and saw people jumping through fire hoops and jumping ropes on fire! The next day we saw the hung over Brits and Aussies with burn marks on their backs and legs (idiots)! We took a boat ride to "The Beach" and spent some time swimming where Leonardo DiCaprio did in that famous scene from the movie. We went kayaking and our kayak almost sunk...that was fun. We went snorkeling and I saw some cool stuff: Clown fish with Anemone, sea snakes, eels, goat fish, damsels, tangs, and some amazing coral. During our last hour on the beach at Phi Phi, I was shopping, and Davis was at the beach and happened to run into the 3 French girls we rafted with in Chiang Mai! That's like meeting someone in upstate New York and seeing them again in Panama City Beach the same week...crazy.

Overall, traveling through Thailand was great! Davis and I being of the same mind-set pushed each other when we knew it mattered and we both were on the same page when it was time to chill. Imagine the best meal you've ever seen in your life and all you can have is a few choice bites, and you'll be able to imagine our experience in Thailand. I know I want to go back, and I'm currently taking donations!

If you have 3 weeks - 6 months and you want to go to paradise...Thailand is the place.

I wish I could have had Bayly with me, but we are going to explore Malaysia and Indonesia together and I'm thankful for that!

" I want to buy a map of the world and put little pins in for each place I’ve gone, but first I'll have to visit the top two corners of the map so it will stay on the wall" -Mitch Hedberg

Thanks for reading. -Alan

Not in Thailand

I was left all alone... Bayly, Meryl, and Jeff are in Phuket on an amazing journey through Thailand. I'm sure Bayly will blog you all about it! I stayed behind in Taipei because the culture here frowns about taking vacations. Once you sign a contract they expect you to come to work every day without fail, and I've honored my part of the agreement...reluctantly.

This time alone has proven to be difficult and lonely at times. Yet, my loneliness also blossomed into a resplendent rediscovery of traditional wood and ink artistry. I'm sorry Bayly, but I've decided to rekindle an old relationship. Yes, my love for reading books was tarnished and neglected, but after 1200 pages, thousands of words, and a bit of the midnight oil, I’ve once again polished and refurbished my thirst for reading. At times it was almost out of control! Reading while walking down the street, on the subway, while eating, and the most treasured moment in the “office” became all I could do.

I found myself in a dark corner, the smell of freshly published novel lye thick in the air. I looked over my shoulder as if being watched. The shelves tightly packed with volumes of unknown authors, like the all to familiar feeling of standing shoulder to shoulder with strangers on the subway. I cautiously searched for novels recommend by trusted friends, but soon became discouraged at the lack of availability of some of my more coveted choices. The building itself stands 20 stories high, the first four floors all books. I felt like Algernon, trapped in maze, but without the benefit of increased intelligence. Where was this coveted “cheese”! Feeling small and helpless I decided to ask for assistance. In a book store of all places I ran into a language barrier. I scribbled the names of the authors I was searching for, and the bookworm employee feverishly typed, what had to be at least three times as many letters as I had written on the scrap of paper, into her computer. No, after no and another no was all the employee could tell me. I was on my own, four floors deep into the maze. I wandered from section to section in hopes that I could bump into one of the novels I so desperate needed to curb my book addiction. After what seemed like hours I found a copy of a book that was on my most wanted list. It was incorrectly alphabetized by the author’s first name. Victory! I turned and began to walk to the cashier, it was only moments, but the anticipation of my new novel was making each step feel slow and cumbersome. The cashier spoke in slow motion and time moved like a sloth on a humid summer day. Finally, the receipt brushed my finger tips and I grabbed it quickly. I ran outside the book store and sat on a bench that probably could have used a decent cleaning. I trust the book into my face, fearing a paper cut each time I flipped to the next page. I read fifty pages before my mind would allow my body to leave the sanctuary of that filthy bench. Reading all the way home I read until exhaustion. Satisfaction over took me as I drifted to sleep with literature still swirling in my mind.

BTW... Love my job, but know realize how truly difficult life can be for teachers when they have children that do not care. I'm truly sorry for any of my teachers that I might have offended, annoyed, or ignored while I was student. Teaching is a difficult profession and deserves much more respect than it receives.

Cheer Friends! -Alan

Parents visit and Taroko Gorge!!!

Very exciting week. Mom and Dad come Friday to visit. This weekend we will visit Taroko Gorge. Taiwan was nicknamed Isla Formosa(Beautiful Island) by the Portuguese--and Taroko is one of the main reasons for this.

After Taroko, a week in Taipei with the parents and then off to Thailand. We will be visiting Bangkok, Chang Mei and Phuket. Unfortunately Alan can't come, because he has to work but I told him I will be happy to go back with him when we finish working in August!

My little boys in class are coming along very well. Sue brought them some adorable monkey stuffed animals that they love. They beg me to take them home every day.

Wade, Aaron, Sean
Sean, Aaron and Max being camera shy
Aaron
mare Aaron...
Sean hamming it up for the camera

Next photo is of my ADHD student Wade--swinging his monkey around with my camera case around his neck!

if we have any readers left....

I apologize again for my sporadic blogging! You've probably given up on us by now but if not, thanks for checking in. We are getting quite settled into Taipei and have met some really wonderful people here.
Tonight I went out to dinner with my co-workers to a hot pot restaurant. Hot pot is basically a big pot of broth cooking in the middle of the table, and you order different vegetables, meats, tofu, seafood etc etc and cook it in the broth. Normally i'm not much of a fan but this restaurant was quite good. AND they had unlimited Hagen Daz ice cream for dessert!
Sue and Micah (Alan's Mom and Sister) came last week to visit. They stayed in a hotel on the National Taipei University's campus because my very helpful and generous friend Olivia (who goes to school there) offered to book us a room. You can only book a room if you are a student and the place is much cheaper than a regular hotel. Sue and Micah's visit seemed to be doomed from the beginning with finding out before they even boarded the airplane that they weren't going to be able to go on the second portion of their trip to China because they didn't get a visa. So after canceling their trip and loosing hundreds, probably thousands of dollars, they had to book a new flight home from Taipei. Right after booking that flight they hear word that Alan's grandmother, Nana, is doing poorly so they had to buy yet another ticket home the next morning to be with her. On top of that, we were planning on going to the beach in Kenting but the trains were all sold out so we had to cancel that portion of the trip as well. Ugh! International travel is amazing but can be the most frustrating thing as well.
It is good that they got home because several days later Nana passed peacefully in her sleep. RIP Nana...you taught me how to play Mah Jong, brought some New York to the South, and were a loving- and loved woman. We will miss you dearly.

teaching, hong kong, and other things...

I am now closing in on my 5th week of teaching and I feel like I have been at it for months already. I started off teaching a class of 5-6 year olds for three weeks. Their previous teacher, Bryan, who is an American, got deported for visa issues. So I took over Bryan's class until the end of the semester and then took over Julie's class of 2-3 year olds at the beginning of the semester. Julie is a British teacher who is now moving to Egypt to teach. I will miss having her here because she has a great British sense of humor and has a funny way about just being very direct and realistic about everything. She is also the only other western female teacher in the school. My other co-teachers are Darryn (British), Matt (Australian) and Eugene (Canadian). Each teacher is matched up with a Chinese teacher for their class and I lucked out and got a sweet woman named Mia.
Last week with the little ones was quite challenging. I had already been at the school for 3 weeks so I knew the basic routine but I was starting over with a whole new group of kids and a completely different age group/level. Two of the boys (I have all boys in my class right now!) Max and Sean have been at school for over a year so their English is quite good. The other two new ones Aaron and Wade are a handful. Aaron is very much attached to our school manager and the whole first week he wouldn't leave her side. Wade is just rambunctious and will just jump on a group of children sitting nicely and cause mayhem. It is quite incredible though to see their progression because you can see improvement every day. It is also pretty incredible to teach someone their first words of a language. When they remember something I have taught them, it makes all the frustrations of crying, jumping, running away from me, etc not matter so much any more. Overall I like teaching a lot and the kids in the school are very funny. One little precious girl named Sylvia (if she goes missing you know who to look for!) is one of my favorites. I know you're not supposed to have favorites as a teacher, but she's not in my class so she can be one of my favorites. Yesterday she showed me something and I said to her "That's good sweetie" and she said "My name's not sweetie, it's Sylvia!". Too cute! I guess they don't know pet names in English yet.
If you'd like to check out Teacher Bayly in action you can go to our school's web site http://www.babyhome.com.tw/album.php?mid=240234. Click on the English tab up top right. Then click on "Album" then the Red tab in the middle. Then scroll down until you see "Blue Class" which is my class. There will be tons of pics up of the last few weeks as the Taiwanese LOVE their pictures!
Last weekend we went to Hong Kong to renew Alan's visa (pics to be posted soon!). It was a fun trip, although quick, as I had to leave after work Friday after work and had to come home on Sunday. We thought Alan had to go to the visa office and apply for a new visa since his was expiring but it turns out we just had to leave the country and come back. So he had to stay an extra day in HK and it turned out for no reason. Overall, HK was fun. You can buy cheap chinese type souveniers and the vendors are much more willing to haggle with you on the price than in Taiwan. We also went up on the 360 degree lift up to a Buddha statue. It was pretty foggy and cold up on the mountain but it was still cool to see the huge Buddha statue.

OK better get back to work...I'm in the middle of my bi-weekly reports. One of the less fun things that goes along with teaching...all of the side paperwork!

Water's Edge -7M3

Imagine, night has just fallen; many people standing near water’s edge with little paper lanterns. The hand crafted lanterns lifted into the sky with candles inside to light their way. The candles seem to reflect on the water's surface; the reflection speaks of an older time, ages ago, when the ancestors of the lanterns did the same thing. As the lanterns lift into the crisp night air they take with them sadness, happiness, and memories of a year’s passing...We tried to go to Yilan for the last day of the lantern festival, but when we got to the train station we found out that our group left early; we did RSVP late. The lantern festival in Yilan is supposed to be breath taking and we missed it...DOH! Well not to worry. We decided to go to Yilan, but this trip was for the beach. The train ride take about 1.5 hrs, not to bad for a day basking the warm sunlight on soft sand. The landscape was beautiful and we passed through a lot of little towns. I'm not sure if the train stations were created because people lived there or did the people build little villages around where the train company decided to put stops...either way. At many of the stops, villagers stand at the open doors and peddle sack/box lunches. An old man sitting next to me got one, and it looked good; rice meat, some veggies. He ate it and enjoyed, although I'm not sure how he chewed with two teeth on opposite sides of his mouth. We got to the beach station and walked into a quite world, not much going on there for a beach town; ohh yeah it is winter here. So it was about 10 minute walk to the beach. We walked down an alley with a brigade on our left to stop typhoon waves, and cute houses on our right. The houses all had gardens in front of them with irrigation. You walk down like 10 stairs to the garden and backup them to the house, this was another form of protection should the water of the ocean get over the 15 ft wall of concrete. None the less each house had a small garden with mostly cabbage, bokchoy, lettuce and other winter greens, I guess. We walked through the yard of a school; a very beautiful school. From the front is was a concrete building, but it was U shaped with an open court yard in the rear with an ocean view, a large green field and a basketball court with 9.5 ft rims...hehehe made me feel good to jump up and grab it. We walked though an area of of buildings; some were restaurants, some were surf board rental stores, but they all were closed. When we got to the beach it was rocky. Correction, the beach was rocks, but there was about 20 feet of pebble sand. One of our group members was going to surf but decided not to as the waves were smallish. We walked back through the school, past the station, and into a small village to find lunch. Thank goodness we had a Taiwanese friend with us, because there was one restaurant, not menu's and no English. She ordered for us, we shared dishes in a family style and had a wonderful lunch. Went back to the rocks, ahem I mean beach for a little while and just appreciated the fresh air. Taipei is wonderful, but 1 in 5 people wear a smog mask, and its not just a fashion statement. All in all, this trip was a nice get away and cost next to nothing. BTW...we found out we got off one stop to early and the actual beach was just around the jetty and we never knew it! An excuse to go back! The title of this post is a good song by 7mary3.