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.

my english is so crap

...or the more crude version "my english is so shit" is a phrase we hear a lot here when people with English skills 100x better than our Chinese skills are apologizing for not being able to communicate something.

On another note, sorry for the long lapse in our blogging! We were bored out of our minds during Chinese New Year and got out of the habit of blogging because it didn't seem like there was too much to write about. We thought the Chinese New year would be filled with parties and parades, but aside from firecrackers going off at every hour of the day and night...CNY turned this bustling city into a ghost town. We did do a couple of fun things during that time that I can mention quickly...one being that we went to the Chaing Kai-shek memorial hall (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Chiang_Kai-shek_Memorial_Hall) which is beautiful Chinese architecture. In the basement of the hall there is a Modern art museum with an Andy Warhol exhibit going on. Even though we weren't working and had all this free time during the week, we stupidly decided to visit the exhibit on a Saturday. So needless to say, it was extremely crowded and I think it ruined it for Alan. All he could talk about is how bad people smell in large groups. It was pretty amazing to see his artwork though...all of the famous pieces were there from the Marilyn Monroe's to the Campbell's soup can and the Velvet Underground banana.

After Chinese New Year, I still had one week of vacation before my job started (which happened today). We decided to take a vacation from our vacation and headed down to Kenting Beach. Kenting is the southernmost tip of the island and is a national park on the ocean. It was absolutely beautiful! The one drawback is the public transportation-we are so spoiled in Taipei that we didn't think that we would need to come up with a form of transportation down there. You have to have a Taiwanese license to rent a scooter or car there (and they do enforce this law, unfortunately). So besides walking our only other real option was to take a taxi around which isn't all too expensive but they are few and far between. We stayed in a cozy and extremely nice and clean hotel run by a very sweet family. They would all eat dinner in the lobby every night and every night when we would be heading out to dinner, they would invite us to sit and eat with them. We refused their offers though because they didn't speak any English and we don't speak Chinese and so we thought it might be a little awkward. And also because I'm still a little scared of most food here and I was nervous of what they would be serving us and that I might not like it.

One thing the owners really helped us out with was setting us up on an amazing snorkeling trip. It ended up being about $12 each and Alan and I agreed that it was the best $12 we had ever spent. A guy picked us up from our hotel at 8am and brought us to a place with snorkeling gear. We wore wet suits because the water is still a little chilly this time of year. Then he brought us out to the beach and just pointed towards the ocean. We were both expecting some sort of boat to take us out to a reef but no. This wasn't a nice sandy beach either, it was a rocky beach of dead coral reef. Alan and I were both a little nervous. I had read things in my Lonely Planet book about how the current is really bad in some areas and that you shouldn't swim out too far. This guy was pointing us to swim out to a floating dock about 3o feet out. Once we got out there we were both put at ease quickly because it was very calm and there was amazing coral reef and all types of tropical fish. Alan, being the saltwater tank expert was excited to point out fish and pull me up to tell me what each of them are. It was nice to have such an informed guide!

After about an hour of snorkeling, another group of Taiwanese arrived. The guide could barely get half of them in the water so that made me feel braver than I had earlier. Once they got out in the water a boat came to pick us all up. The crazy driver took us out in the boat and then we all got on one of those hot dog looking rafts and got pulled behind. None of the guides or passengers spoke any English so we just had to go with the flow. But it was a really fun time and again--the best $12 I had ever spent.

Davis encourage Alan and I to sign up for couchsurfing.com to meet new people. We were a bit skeptical at first about the whole couchsurfing organization but I'm so glad we signed up. We went to a CS event this past Saturday and met some really great people! First the group met up for bowling, which I am horrible at but it was still a lot of fun, then we went to eat dinner in a hot pot restaurant which is popular here, then we all went to a club to watch a reggae band. Some people came for one event and most stayed for all 3 events, like us. It was really nice to go to a restaurant and have someone tell us what to order and what to do! The group was a good mix of Taiwanese, Americans, Canadians, Koreans and one guy from Singapore. All in all it was a fun night and it is nice to now have some friends to go out with! I met one girl who I really clicked with named Olivia. She is young, only 21 I think but she is the sweetest thing and offered to help me go get my haircut. I have been needing a haircut but have been afraid to go into the salons, thinking they would know no English and I wouldn't be able to communicate what I wanted them to do (Olivia told me I was right in thinking they probably didn't know English). So we're going Wednesday night to get my hair cut.

This weekend the Lantern Festival started so every night people send off lanterns into the sky with a message inside about something they want to achieve for the new year. (I think...I don't know too much about the Lantern Festival yet) Alan and I are going to try to go tomorrow night to watch the celebration. It is supposedly a sight to see.

I had my first day of work today but this blog is far too long already so I will write more about work...and the Lantern Festival soon!

Bayly

officially employed! and wide awake at home

So I decided to be responsible and stay in while Alan went out to Dub Reggae night at a local club. Here it is now midnight and i'm wide awake. My reason for being responsible is that i GOT A JOB! and i have to go in tomorrow morning at 8:45 to see the morning routine. The school is called Jump Start. After the Chinese New Year I will start on Feb 9. First I will be subbing for a teacher that is getting deported (long story) for three weeks in a class of 5-6 year olds. After that I will get my own class of lovely little 2-3 year olds. Right now there are only three boys in the class so it should be a piece of cake! Working with the little ones with fill the void in my life that is my little Binderman girls!
Alan and I went to the Shilin Night market last night and went on a fun shopping spree. Mainly we bought gifts for friends. It's a little frustrating shopping there for clothes as most of the clothes are made to fit a 16 year old girls body, although that is the size of most girls/women here no matter the age. NO boobs, no butts, no hips! Maybe it will be incentive to drop a few lbs. And the Taiwanese store owners are not afraid to tell you the clothes in their stores aren't going to fit you. The first time it happened to me I was almost in tears but now i am used to it as it is socially acceptable I am finding. We are so sensitive about weight back home that you would never have someone in a store tell you that the clothes in their store aren't going to fit you, but they're not afraid here.
OK going to lay down and try to make myself fall asleep.
goodnight! bayly

Lions, Tigers and a Bear of a Commute

A little over anxious to find a job I decided to go on an interview a little further out on the MRT (subway). There is a red,blue,green,orange, and brown line all going to different parts of the city. We live on the green. So I took the green line to the red, and switched to the blue, and then switched to the brown; already 30+ minutes into my trip. I was going to the Taipei Zoo stop on the brown line which is also the last stop. The train has to slow down as it twists and curves around mountains; only one tunnel through (I guess that was a labor nightmare). Over and hour later I arrive about 5 minutes late and call the school I am interviewing with; they are kind and offer to come pick me up from the station. 30 minutes later they show up... I am thinking to myself, "I don't care about the school, where the h-e-double hockey sticks am I?" So the car ride is only about 5 minutes, and that was a small victory. The school was nice the kids were nice, but I'm not sure I'm into the two hours and 8 sub-way switches. So it was a nasty rainy day or I might have walked around the zoo for a bit. The shining bright spot on this mini adventure was meeting the teacher's own child when they short bus came to pick me up from the MRT station. First the child was very cute, as most the children are here, and then he offered me something to eat...does this kid have instincts or what...he read me like a book. What he offered appeared to be beef jerky, and I'm always game for some jerky at 10am; who isn't? This jerky was not beef, and it was sweet and tasted more like a fruit roll-up, although it was clearly meat of some sort; oh well tasty treat non the less. To up the anti, this school that was practically in another city. To my surprise they had a single cup coffee machine that ground the coffee and drip brewed a fresh cup. Well I know most of you aren't excited, but to let you know if its not Starbucks here you are getting watered down espresso. So the school was nice, the people were nice, the coffee was great, but the commute was just a bear!

Did you know that DVD players on computers have region codes...me neither. So we found a great DVD rental store. It only took 3 trips there to figure out that it had a downstairs with most of the movies. We thought, okay its just a small rental store so they only have like 3 bookcases of new release and TV series....the down stairs hold most of the movies. The movie stores here focus on animated cartoons; about 60 (YES 60) bookshelves top to bottom are filled with animated cartoons. They don't stack them front ways like we do, these are on the shelves like books and are crammed into every bit of available space. I'm sure I could get into the cartoons, but Bayly probably wouldn't care as much. So DVDs have this regional code; America's is region 1 (of course); Southeast Asia is region 3 (FYI). I've located the regional code area on my computer, and changed it to 3...NOTHING happened. So most of the DVDs we were renting where not playing. Our neighbor was really cool and spent like an hour downloading this VLC movie player for us and told us that it should play most if not all the movies...nope. We've also been introduced to bit torrent so now I think we can cancel our ghetto blockbuster membership. I'm still not perfectly sure I have the region code or VLC player figured out...knock knock neighbor...you should have never given this mouse a cookie. =]

Stay tuned as I am starting to look at scooters....don't tell Bay!

ALinTaiwan

jobs jobs jobs and other stuff...

Sorry there hasn't been a post in a few days. Alan and I have been busy and most of our free time on the internet is spent looking for jobs and tying up loose ends from back home(ie trying to figure out how to get my ATM card sent over here).

We have both been on several interviews. I am meeting with a school tomorrow and they have already told me they will be presnting me with a formal job offer. Our two main options for work are 1. working at a "Cram school" which is an after school or after work program for school aged children and some schools are for adults. The hours are typically afternoons and evenings and depending on the school sometimes Saturdays. The other option is to work at what they call a Kindergarden school but is more like pre-school. The children can range from 2-6 or so and they are basically a pre-school where English is only spoken and taught to the children. There is a Chinese teacher in each class that handles most of the "babysitting" duties (ie changing diapers) and an English teacher in each class. I will probably be working in a Kindergarden class with the little ones. I was thinking I wanted to work with older children but the little kids are so cute and the schedule is much better...Monday-Fri 9-5 with weekends off.

So enough about jobs. Alan and I had our first social outing last night! Our neighbor Anastasia invited us to come with her to "movie night" at their friends apartment nearby. One of the guys living there, Dave, has a movie projector and we watched "Brazil" a strange but funny movie from the 80's. It was a nice group of people. They were mostly all Canadians except one girl was from San Fran. It was nice to just get out and have conversation with someone besides Alan or the principal from a school. Not that I don't love conversations with Alan...but some variety is definitely a good thing!

On Sunday Alan and I visited an area called Beitou. This area is only about a 30 minute train ride outside of Taipei. There are public hot springs there for only about $1 US. There are swankier private resorts with hot springs baths right in your room. We opted for the cheaper version for now and it was great! The pools ranged in order from very cold up to some pools so hot I couldn't even put my foot in. But there were tons of people in that pool, soaking away! There was also the Taipei Folk Art museum which we hiked to. We also visited the Beitou Historical Museum where a woman who worked there just came up to us and asked if we wanted her to give us a private tour! We were amazed as something like that would never happen at home where you have to pay for almost anything "extra." Our sweet tour guide was an older woman who kept apologizing for her English which was clear and perfectly descriptive. She told us about all of the original tribes of Taiwan and their local customs and what they were known for. I loved the tribe that was famous for their intricate bead work. I guess our guide could tell because after the tour she gave me a beaded bracelet that was the style of that tribe. I was in shock at the generosity of this woman (and have been by the taiwanese people since we got here).

Besides that things are moving along well. It's amazing we haven't even been here two weeks and we already have an apartment, job offers and we have learned so much about the way of life here.

Chinese New Year is coming up next week and the streets are already filled with red and gold lanterns. From what we have heard, Chinese New Year is mostly spent with family and close friends (like Christmas/Hannukah back home). Since we don't have family or Taiwanese friends here yet we will most likely spend the New Year celebrating just us or maybe with our new friends.

We found an amazing little soup restaurant right around the corner that is super cheap! About 4$ for a big bowl. At most of the restaurants we have to go by the pictures which are on most menus here. Alan saw a picture on this particular menu that looked like chicken wings and he got excited so ordered them for us as an appetizer. Much to his dismay, along came an order of chicken feet! Alan tried to eat one and when he spit it out after just a few seconds I decided against it. Alan is much more adventurous with the foods here so my general rule is that if something is too exotic for Alan than i'm not going to like it!

Well off to the market and to buy some things for the house. One custom here is that in a home or school even you don't wear your "street shoes" inside. So I'm going to buy Alan and I some slippers and shower shoes so we can keep this tradition in our own apartment.

much love back home...and if you're on skype let's chat...i'm baylym and alan is alintaiwan.

Bayly

Far away but closer then ever.

So moving far away from home hasn't weakened my contact. What I am finding is that I have more time to reconnect with people I haven't spoken with in a long time. That's cool. I'm having new experiences and remembering many from my past.

I've recently been informed that a friend of a friend lives here in Taiwan and has for quite some time. My potentially new friend has a Taiwanese wife and family and I'm excited to meet them and gain some much needed insight about our new home. More to come...

I found that ordering food from pictures is "more then meets the eye". I've gambled more on food then I have even gabled in a casino. Really i wouldn't mind if I ordered roulette style. I put my money on the chicken soup, but where the ball lands and what actually comes out of the kitchen are up to fate. Think to your self chicken soup....yummy. Wait, don't let your drool pool yet, because whats in the bowl is a little different that what you are thinking of. Most of the chicken is on the bone, so often you will receive a drumstick that is soggy from sitting in soup, and personally I'm not big on soggy chicken. Ohh, but wait, then you see what seems to be a cherry, and when you bite in you find a surprise, a seed, and it wasn't a cherry it tasted more like a fig. We'll the broth was good and its just lunch right. What better way to finish off lunch, but with a tasty pastry....right. Many of the "tasty" pastries are filled with mushy beans....not a fan. So of course the next time you go out...you roll the dice, spin the wheel, take a hit on 16, and hope you don't get snake eyes, land on red, or bust. With all this said, everything is label and the people are happy to explain what is in the soup...in Chinese. So as another stupid American who speaks no Chinese, I say as Jim Carey in Dumb and Dumber, "Whats the soup de jour?", assuredly FLO replies, "The soup of the day." and I happily say, "Emm, that sounds good, I'll have that".
I'm speaking of the times were you don't get what you want, but mostly you get more then your expect. I keep an open mind, and I have had some really good food and some really embarrassing moments asking what something is on a menu.

Another minor blunder is when your pre-paid cell phone cuts out and you have to find a cell phone store to recharge your card. A re-charge is like $10 for 100 minutes. No big deal, but the re-charge card needs to be entered...and guess what, the recording is in Mandarin. Again, my lack of language attempts to stop me from chatting on the phone, but another really nice and helpful Taiwanese person swoops down from the sky, changes into the tights and cape and saves me by calling the number and following the steps to re-charge me phone. Seriously, we couldn't find our way and we stopped at a Patagonia store and this lady called 411 and helped us, then a guy a 7-11 helped us figure out how to buy a calling card, and many other people are stop and ask us if we need help when we are standing on the side walk looking like we need help. Thank you to the Taiwanese people and the culture of acceptance and helpfulness.

I found a sigh that has a girl and a guy in a basketball gym and looks like a league. I'm pumped about taking my skills across the ocean. I'll be happy to rebound, pass, and be a token for any team. I'm sure my JCC scoring average of about 5 pts a game will translate into stardom here. I can't order soup so I hope they don't expect me to understand the coach telling me not to shoot or to play better defense. Maybe if I bring gator aid bottles and watermelon slices after the game they will forgive me.

The huge dork in me finally found a comic book store with American stuff. Voice of comic Simpson's comic book man, "Finally I am understood and appreciated". I think they are into war craft here, which is not for me, but it is still cool to see geeky stuff from home.

NO SPORTSCENTER IS STARTING TO HURT. I wake up at night in cold sweats hugging my pillow and praying for just one, "back back back back back" that I shunned as old and out of date. I miss all my friends at ESPN, and I wish I could be like Stuart Scott, "as cool as the other side of the pillow" about the lack of American sports, but I can't and I miss it! ESPN.com is great, but I need my 30 minutes of love. So if anyone wants to tape sports center and send me the file I will promise to download it and watch it everyday. Does anyone know how i can watch the current sports center online? Maybe a lil PTI, i don't wanna get greedy, but i need to know before the NBA playoffs start.

Please stay tuned as Bayly and I are really becoming more adjusted to the time schedule and will surely explore more cool and exciting places, but for now Taipei is a must see. If you need a vacation, Taiwan has it all.

Much love to my peeps.

photos

Ok if I did everything right there should be a slideshow of photos on the top right corner. You can go to our flickr page to see the photos upclose by clicking on the slideshow or by going to www.flickr.com/photos/ramblingmandarin/

Getting settled

So here were are almost a week in Taipei and it feels like in a way we just got here and also like we've been here for months. Everything you do here you have to think about and plan out, by the end of the day we're both mentally and physically exhausted. We settled into our new apartment which is near the Shida University. It's a very young, hip area with tons of restaurants, cool shops and at night the streets turn into a "night market" which are very popular here and all over town.

Our landlord "Joseph" is about as nice as we could have asked for. Joseph is from a smaller town south of here called Tainan but lived in Texas and went to undergrad and grad school so he speaks perfect English. He is a funny little man but so helpful and I know if we were ever in a bind we could call him for help. After meeting with Joseph and signing the lease, he showed us where a store we could buy sheets and blankets. I was very excited about decorating our new Asian apartment until I saw the selection we had to go with...bright pink Snoopy blanket or baby blue with grandma looking roses all over it. We opted for the blue rose print but flipped it over so it's just light blue. It was the Asian decorating motif I was imagining but it will do.

As soon as we got settled into the apartment, Alan got in Alan mode and immediately started rearranging furniture and making lists of things we need to buy. I curled up in our rock hard bed and yelled out my two-cents.

Now that we have a more stable living situation we are looking for teaching jobs. We are in a time crunch to find jobs before the Chinese New Year which starts in a couple of weeks. From what we have heard the whole island just sort of shuts down and there are festivals and parades and parties etc. A new session at the schools starts after the new year so we hope to have something secure by then.

I'm new to the whole blogging thing so be patient...still trying to figure out how to post all of our pictures. We also created a flickr account under the same name Rambling Mandarin. I'm not sure how to like over to that yet but I think you can look us up under that name on http://www.flickr.com/.

Tiny Rooms, Tiny Beds, Big Plans

As you may know Americans tend to be larger then Asians in general. Our first room at a hotel was nice, but most standard ping pong tables have more surface area. The bed was a double size, but it touched the left and right wall on either side, so the only way on to the bed was basically to jump on. So I jumped on the bed as I do in most hotels, and WHAM I found the ping pong table I mentioned. This bed was harder then the marble floors in the lobby, but welcoming non the less as I was as close to a deep state of hibernation and my eyes where glazed for an hour before I walked in the micro machine made hotel room. I hope I don't sound like I am complaining as I enjoyed the hotel, but had to adjust to the different environment. The night table had a master control for the lights, TV, and air conditioning unit.

Walking around the Taipei is great! Their are more mini marts and street food vender's then waffle houses in Atlanta. The unfortunate part is that most all signs are in Chinese. So you may think you just bought a wonderful pastry only to find a hot dog inside. HOT DOGS are every where and if you like corn dogs well then pack your bags and come straight to Taipei. You could have given me 100 guesses and I would not have said corn dogs were the most popular food in Taipei, but I swear its true.

We are now in a Hostel that is at the end of an alley and on the 6th floor of a building that looks like it was constructed in 1965 and left alone since. The people who run the hotel cook in the lobby where the interenet is available and I get hungry everytime I use the compouter. I can touch the walls from left to right while standing in the middle of the room and feel the breath of the people on the other side of the wall. It was so cold last night that I was hoping our breath and our neighbors would create some heat. TAIWAN IS NOT A TROPICAL ISLAND, at least in the winter. I left the one fleece on my bed before I left home and I tried to find a jacket, but apparently I am a 5xl or some godzilla size in Taipei. I put on a couple of coats and they were youth sized I think....or pre-shrunk twice over.

I think we are going to checkout Taipei 101 the tallest building in the world! I know its crazy, I'm on the other side of the world and I'm going into a building. We wanted to go hiking, but it is pretty cold and windy.

I know I'll come up with more interesting stories, so please bare with me as I get used to my surroundings and my new culture.

Alan

First impressions

Alan and I are only waking up to our third morning in Taipei but there is already so much to write about. Our plane ride over was not as difficult as imagined. The first leg (13 hours) from Atlanta to Tokyo sped by with the help of the individual TV screens where you can watch all sorts of movies, tv shows, play games etc. The Tokyo airport was amusing! We had a quick bite to eat of baked rice balls and miso soup. The second leg of the trip from Tokyo to Taipei was exhausting. We both fell asleep-hard-and took another even more tiring bus ride 45 minutes into Taipei.

We booked a room at the Rainbow Hotel beforehand (the name doesn't mean the same thing it would in the states...other options we had were Good Friends Hotel and Cosmos Hotel, so the name is a bad translation to say the least). Rainbow Hotel is located right in the bustling shopping district of Ximending. Trendy young students and everything you might want to buy or eat or drink can be found in this area. Alan and I wandered around and all we could say is that everything is so CUTE here! I will post pictures because there isn't a way to even describe the cuteness of things to be bought in Taiwan.

Our first night of sleep Alan woke me up at 3am and tried to convince me that the sun was about to come up and we needed to wake up! Needless to say our time clocks are off. The next day we walked all over Taipei and came back to the Rainbow for a quick break before dinner and both passed out until 10:30pm. Convinced we needed to still eat dinner and experience more of Taipei, we went to the Shilin Night Market district. We ate an interesting dinner at a Clay Pot "all you can eat" restaurant with a friendly waiter that tried to talk about wrestling (very big here) with Alan. The clay pot restaurant has a buffet of all different types of vegetables, sea urchins and tofu. You pick what you want and they cook it up in your own clay pot.

Everyone has been very friendly here as well. Not overly invasive friendliness, but if we need help or ask a question, everyone has been willing to help and never seem frustrated to speak English to us. The only time I felt nervous is when Alan left me for 10 minutes to use a bathroom in McDonalds. Standing on the street alone I got a lot of stares. The young people don't seem to notice or care but it was the older people who would walk by me and stop right in front of me and stare! It was quite uncomfortable but something I guess I will have to get used to as much as possible.

We spent yesterday in Danshui, a "suburb" of Taipei city on the river. There is a boardwalk with more cute stuff to buy. We took a ferry to the Fisherman's Wharf which was sort of a waste of time and money because it was freezing and nothing was open! Lonely planet describes it as a "nice area lined with coffee shops and cafes." I guess you have to take Lonely Planet's suggestions with a grain of salt or maybe we just went the wrong time of day.

More to come...

Bayly