Taiwan: 026

Today was Saturday! Hoooooraaaay! Okay, so the day started off a little rocky. My alarm went off and then I fell back asleep and my eyes snapped open 2 hours after I had meant to get up. Whoops. But it's okay, it's not like my day was ruined. My class this morning went fast and I really love those kids, so it wouldn't have been too awful anyway.
And you know what the best part of the day was? Go on, guess. Really. Try to guess. I want you to try to guess....
Did you guess?
If you guessed that trying red bean ice cream was it, then you are completely wrong.
The best part was that we all got to go to the Taipei temple! So awesome. It made me really miss the Salt Lake temple though. I love that place more than anywhere else, but hey! I am super super super glad we got to go because it was wonderful. And beautiful. And peaceful. And all that other good stuff. It was really small. Holy smokes, the baptismal font was so teeny. And there was almost no temple grounds. I'm not complaining, just stating fact :)

Me, Veronica, Jessica Stoker, and Kendra. Please pardon our hair. We had just finished with baptisms.

 

The stake center/distribution center next to the temple

Afterward, all of us that did baptisms went down the street to get something to eat. I got this really good mango shaved ice with kiwi, strawberry, mango, and Taiwanese pudding on top. Mmmmm :) AND we ate at a tasty dim sum restaurant too! I didn't take any photos of the food, but here are some of the street we walked down:

 

Jessica Stoker. She teaches at the other ILP school on the other side of Taichung from Feng Yuan.

Miss Heather

Okay, confession: you know how as a kid the world is just amazing and everything in it is interesting and magic is real and every single thing in existence has it's own special kind of beauty? Well, I never really grew out of that, and I feel a little bit drunk with so many new things to see and touch, and hear, and smell, and taste and...learn. Everywhere I go there are so many amazing things to see (colors, new plants, people, architecture, food, clothes, shops, culture, etc) and my brain is on overload. Even at home where so much is familiar I get so excited over the smallest things, so I feel like a little kid that has just been given free reign of a gigantic toy store/ice cream shop. It's wonderful and I am completely enchanted by this place.

Day...how long have I been here?

20 days!
Holy cows!

Tomorrow I will have been here for three weeks! It sure doesn't feel like it's been that long.

It's the second week of classes, and can I just say something? Well I'm going to because you can't really stop me: teaching is way easier when I am using my own lesson plans! And it probably helps that I am getting used to the kids and the way things work around here. I don't quite love it yet, but I like it a little bit better than last week. I am trying to focus on the good things, so: I love the secretaries here. They are awesome. And really nice. And helpful. And patient. And are giving me a little bit of time to adjust before they start telling me all the things that I'm doing wrong ;p And my writing classes are going really well. There are some kids that I really love having in my classes already and one or two that I am praying really hard to understand. And love. Praying works. I already used that tactic on one of my "kindergarten" kids. Um...we had another child come to kindergarten today so now we have six! Zip-a-dee-doo-dah! This is good news. Now we have two groups of three and it is a little bit easier to stretch out the lessons. My "self and world exploration" lesson went swimmingly today. I didn't have to work really, really hard to get them to use the language, they just wanted to, which means it was more fun for all of us and none of them were bored out of their minds. The little girl that doesn't speak very much English yet is starting to pick up on the more important phrases quickly which makes my life (and probably Rachel's too) a whole lot easier. And I suppose I should mention my elementary students too. I really love those kids. They can get a little bit rowdy, but that is to be expected of ten year old kids. They are really cute and just as smart.
Veronica came into my room this afternoon after AK (afternoon kindergarten) and told me that they were paging me downstairs. I thought I might be in trouble or something. I don't know why. As far as I know I haven't done anything to get into trouble but...you never know! I ran down there and got a good surprise instead: a donut! The parents (I think) of one of my elementary students and his little brother had brought a "Mister Donut" for each of their teachers. How nice is that? I feel like I owe them a card or something now....
Anyway, I bit into and it was not what I was expecting. But it was so good! It was kind of chewy and the frosting was strawberry flavored. Delicious!

Okay, going backwards...
Yesterday was Sunday, which means I haven't posted for a whole week! I think.
Here is our church:

 

I don't know how they did it, but there is actually space for grass and real landscaping around the building, which is pretty much unheard of here, but they did it, and I love it! I get so giddy on Sundays. Yesterday I noticed that I was grinning most of the time we were there and everything seemed extra funny or just made me extra happy.
Dear Lord, thank you for making it possible for me to go to an English speaking branch.
Oh! And the choir of the other branch that meets in our building is singing at stake conference in October. They invited our ward to sing with them. So we're learning "The Iron Rod" in Chinese. Yes, we are that cool. :)
While waiting for the bus home from Taichung I turned around to find another potted plant collection. Only this time they were succulents. I LOVE succulents! They are so neat looking.

And these are some of my lovely roommates waiting at the bus stop (left to right: Rachel, Kylie, Veronica, Sara):

 

I took the photo and said "Veronica, you look..." She was like "Awesome." I think I was looking for cool and detached, like a celebrity or something. But awesome is probably a better description :)

Saturday night Jessica, Rachel and I went to the orange chicken restaurant again. This time I actually got the orange chicken. It was soooo delicious. They were really busy and didn't have any seating, so we got takeout and came home and ate on the roof. It was totally amazing.
This little boy was so cute. Just chillin'

 

The restaurant (Rachel in front):

 

Jessica and Rachel

 

I'm not sure what day it was, but Rachel and I were at A Mart. There are tons of things here that we have no idea what the flavor is or what the food is at all. Rachel was taking photos on her ipod so that she could send them to her friend to figure out what they were. Here is one of the items we found:

What would you think it was? It was about the shape of a package of ramen noodles and I thought it sort of felt like that, but I was waaay off. We have now been informed that it's dried seaweed. Please tell me what wizards playing go have to do with dried seaweed?

Tonight Heather, Rachel, Jessica, and I were all sitting in our room and I found this photo. I was like "Rachel, you know the seaweed with the wizards on it playing that game? What game are they playing?" Jessica was like, "What are you talking about?!" I think it looks like Dumbledore playing checkers against himself like that Pixar short with the old guy who beats himself at chess. Pixar rocks.

And here is the best part of the post; my roommates are gnomes.

 

 

 

I know that's a lot of photos, but I couldn't choose just two, they all crack me up. I love how Veronica's face is pretty much the same in all of them, hahahahaha :D

A week ago I realized that I hadn't drawn anything since I got here. Not even doodles. So I decided to sketch something really quick. It's not too wonderful, but I  think I need to make it a goal to sketch something daily. I think it will help me feel less stressed because it's a good outlet. And because it just makes me happy. Maybe I will share every once in awhile...

Love you all. Peace out.

SundayMonday Happenings

I didn't post yesterday. I have a feeling that it is going to get harder to post regularly. I teach classes until about 9 pm Tuesday through Friday, so there will not be much time for blogging during the evening, but I will do my best.
Yesterday we rode the bus to church again. It takes about fifty minutes to get there once you add together the time it takes to get to the bus station and the actual bus ride. it's not too bad though. I am so glad that there is an English speaking branch here. It is definitely helping me to feel less homesick. Everyone here is so kind and patient and helpful, but being surrounded by a language you don't understand and feeling like an outsider all the time can take so much energy out of you.
Anyway, on the way to the bus station we have to cross over the train tracks. The chain-link fence on the bridge has locks and writing all over it. I guess that people go there to "lock their love." It's really pretty cool looking.
Some of the locks...

And my favorite...

 

"Spend more time with happy people and you'll discover happiness is catching."

And if you are a happy person already, then you get to help others learn to be happy! Life is good. Life is beautiful. I love it here. I feel home sick, but I think I will feel homesick when I have to leave here too.

I found this quote and I really love it:

"Being happy doesn't mean that everything is perfect. It means that you have decided to look past the imperfections."

Today while Rachel, Heather and I were at the grocery store one of the ladies that works there came up to us and said "Beautiful! You are beautiful!" We actually get that kind of thing from people here pretty regularly.  Like I've said before, and I'm sure I'll say it many more times, the people here are awesome. I really love them.

Love you all! Hope everyone is doing well. If you want to see photos or hear about anything in particular leave a comment any time and I will do my best!

Today I Smelled Stinky Tofu.

Saturday!!! Woohoo! So, I taught my elementary class this morning. It has five kids in it and only two showed up today. Then one threw up. And she had her hand over her mouth so it looked like an explosion and it got all over her. Doesn't that story sound familiar, Susannah? Anyway, I felt really bad but I didn't even know she felt sick. She just sat there quietly, and then out of nowhere...puke! But otherwise it went well. After that I went and took a nap because yesterday was a long day and today was a sort of early morning.
Tonight I went with a bunch of the other teachers to the "teacher store." Yet another place that I do not know the actual name of. We call it that because you can get a bunch of different school supplies and such there and teachers get a discount. It was so cool! Of course I am a nerd and love school supplies, so maybe you wouldn't agree with that opinion :)
After that we dropped our bikes off at the school and walked over to the Feng Yuan night market. It is definitely not as exciting as the night market in Taichung, but it has more games. It's cute and small townish. One problem though: there was a lot of stinky tofu. That or one stand selling the vile stuff was enough to stink up the whole market. I have said that when it comes to food I will try everything at least once. That is not completely true anymore because there is no way I'm getting anywhere near that stuff. I am not exaggerating when I say it smells exactly like crap. The smell was so strong in some places that I came dangerously close to throwing up. Sooo....I will be steering clear of any stinky tofu in the future.
I did see some awesome things at night market though. For example...

A Giant Sponge Bob!!! Woohoo! AND...

A guy with a yellow thing around his neck! Just kidding. It was actually the large spinning, glowing Pikachu that was so exciting.

This guy was my favorite. He posed for the photo and I didn't even ask :D

I am naming him Squidward. Because Sponge Bob is on my mind and also because he was selling squid on a stick. Not because he is grumpy and unsociable and plays clarinet really badly.

This is the squid:

This is me holding the squid...

 

this is me still holding the squid, but also eating the squid...

And this? This is me STILL holding the squid but also enjoying munching on the squid tentacles...

 

I was not really as disgusted as you might think after having seen that photo. It was actually really good! Until it got cold. Then it wasn't really good anymore. Don't eat cold squid.

And here is Kendra eating some of my squid. She didn't make any funny faces :(

Ooooo! This lady was cooking quail eggs or something and I wanted to try some but then she started putting weird stuff on them and I decided to get squid instead. So, I will have to try them next time.

 

There was a table full of CANDY! I am a sugarholic, but you should all be proud of me because I only bought three pieces...because THEY WERE SOUR!!!! I found sour candy in Taiwan! People, this is the first sour candy I have seen since I got here (except for all the sour candy papa-san gave me to bring, but that is an entirely different matter).

Chicken feet is also a popular dish with the older generation over here, or so I am told. We saw some nice raw ones in a bin tonight. At first I thought they were deformed rat tails:

Yum!

The blue and yellow truck in this photo is one of many trucks that drive around playing advertisements for various businesses very loudly throughout the streets:

And this is a small group of scooters. They are everywhere! I can't wait until I receive my ARC and can get a drivers license! I found out that I can just rent a scooter for a month at a time. How awesome is that?! I'll tell you: it's extra super awesome.

Also, while I am on a roll with this whole typing and photo thing, I have a couple photos of the potted plants that are everywhere here. There is no dirt to grow things so people just plant flowers and trees, and shrubs, and other such things in pots and stick them out on the streets (there aren't really sidewalks here), on their roofs, on their balconies, pretty much anywhere they can find room. Bougainvillea seems to be rather popular.

 

And Rachel, happily posing by the greenery:

 

We ended our night with a bing-sha. Strawberry-mango style. Bing-sha is the healthy version of Jamba Juice. I hate to say it, but I think they might actually be better than Jamba Juice. Sorry Jamba.

 

Oh, Kindergartners, You Might be the Death of Me

Today was my first day teaching. Yay? Okay, it wasn't that bad. I really liked my junior high writing class. And one of the kindergartners gave me a cute picture.

Rachel and I are supposed to have 17 kids in that class, but only five showed up today. We had to split them up into two groups so then we only had two or three at a time. They were all pretty cute, but one of them had waaay too much energy and another was kind of a mini terror. But I think that's relatively normal for eight year old boys (why do they call this kindergarten??). I really hope that class gets better because we have it five days a week for three hours each day. Help.

I'm pretty excited for my junior high writing classes. I think they are going to be a lot of fun, even though they still make me nervous. And I couldn't get them to talk very much. When they finally did it was so soft I couldn't even hear them. I swear I'm going deaf. I am so getting my hearing checked when I get back to the states. Anyway, they are really cute, smart kids and I am going to learn a lot from teaching that class.
Sleepy time. I have to teach a second grade class in the morning :)                           

Day 8 Part 2

Today was a busy day! Training consisted (at least for me) of reducing stress and confusion over lesson plans, class procedures, and classroom management. It was a very productive day and I definitely feel more prepared for Friday (when we get to start teaching, yay! ^_^).

After training I got to talk to Kiri about the second grade class that I have inherited from her. She had so many good things to say about those kids. I am even more excited than before to work with them. It is definitely going to be a good experience for me, and I hope for them too.

Rachel and I also rode our bikes over to Hahu (the bakery I briefly mentioned here) and picked out some more tasty treats.

I bought this cute Hello Kitty cookie...thing. It was more like shortcake, only not quite as light. It had a strawberry jelly and vanilla frosting center. Yum!

And here is Rachel with the cute turtles that live at the school :)

Day...008?

Yesterday we all went out to dinner at the orange chicken restaurant. I'm not sure what it is actually called, but it was so good! I went a little overboard and ordered too much, but ended up sharing, so everything got eaten.
These are some of the girls I'm living/teaching with. Haha, not the best photo of some of them, but not awful either :)

(Veronica, Heather, Sara, Rachel, Kendra, and Kylie)

Sweet and sour fish, egg flower soup, and fried pork dumplings, yum :)

There are a lot of funny ways they use English over here. My milk container says "Born in Taiwan," and there is a lingerie shop chain over here that is actually named "Easy," ahahahaha :D I don't actually have a photo of the second one, but the photo I do have is the same concept, it's just a brand instead :P