OUR LUCK HAS CHANGED!

Like I’ve mentioned before, because of Typhoon Morakot, my hospital stay, the earthquakes and us losing our camera, some people here are concerned about our luck. I’m happy to report, though, that our luck has changed! This past week we won 400NT (about 12USD) from the Taiwan Lottery! :)

To win money from the Taiwan Lottery you don’t have to buy a ticket, you simply have to save your receipts. Every receipt in Taiwan has a lottery number on it. We’ve been told the government decided to do this in attempt to motivate merchants keep quality, accurate records of their sales and in an attempt to keep people from throwing receipts on the ground. Regardless of the reasons behind this lottery, we think it’s pretty fun!

(If you’re interested in more details about the Taiwan Lottery, you can visit this site:
http://www.tealit.com/article_categories.php?section=living&article=lottery)

KAOHSIUNG

Phil and I spent this past Saturday and Sunday in Kaohsiung City. This was our second time being there, but we didn’t get much sightseeing in during our first trip. Kaohsiung City is the second largest city in Taiwan. It’s located right on the ocean, about two hours south of Douliu. The city is the industrial hub of Taiwan. We’ve been told that not so long (10-15 years) ago it was very dirty and not much of a tourist destination. At this point, though, the people of Kaohsiung City have made major strides towards cleaning up the area and promoting some of the really great things they have to offer.

We spent Saturday afternoon on Chijin Island. This small island is part of Kaohsiung City. You can easily see Chijin Island from the coast...it just takes about five minutes on a ferry to get there. We went to a lighthouse, saw a Matsu (the goddess of the water) temple and hung out on the island’s black sand beach.

(These are pictures of the ferry we took to the island. All the ferries here seem to have room for scooters!) :)


(A view of Kaohsiung City from from the ferry.)










(A view of Kaohsiung's nature park reserve from the the lighthouse on the island.)

In our eyes, the weather on Saturday afternoon was not “beach weather”. It was warm (not hot) and cloudy/hazy. This was a perfect day to spend on the beach in the eyes of most Taiwanese people, though. People here do not like to get tan. We’ve been told this is the case because they want to look like “foreigners”. Phil and I find this ironic since most “foreigners” prefer being tan over pasty white. Despite the fact that, in our opinion, the weather was not “beachy”, we really enjoyed our time on Chijin Island!

Saturday evening we headed to the Kaohsiung 85 Building. This building was the tallest in Taiwan until Taipei 101 was built. We were hoping to see the sunset from the view deck, but we didn’t see much because of the haze. We were able to enjoy the lights of the city once it got dark, though.

From the Kaohsiung 85 Building, we headed to Love River and enjoyed a short boat cruise.

We ended our night out on the town at a restaurant called The Happy Buddha. We had found this restaurant online before heading to Kaohsiung and we were really excited about it because it had an English menu and offered some foods we hadn’t had in awhile, such as tacos. Well...it didn’t quite live up to our expectations. We ended up visiting it on the last night it was open for business. So, because of this, the once extensive menu became very limited.

I ordered the veggie tacos which, on that night, consisted of very stale taco shells, a little bit a cheese, a lot of lettuce and a few black olives. Phil got the cheese pizza. Along with the shredded cheese on top, it was supplemented with chunks of sliced cheese....not so good. The funniest part of our experience there was reading the description of the pepperoni pizza in the menu. It said, “Even the pickiest eaters in the world like pepperoni pizza.” This statement definitely put Phil among the pickiest eaters in the world, since it’s probably what he would have ordered if it would have been available. (Not that cheese pizza is any better!) :)

Sunday morning we headed to the city’s nature park reserve in search of Monkey Mountain. This is a mountain that’s supposedly full of “wild” monkeys. We’ve been told the monkeys have lived among tourists their whole lives, so they’re pretty domesticated. Despite this fact, we wanted to see them! To our dismay, we weren’t able to find the hiking trails that led to the monkeys....big bummer! We did enjoy the hike we went on and the things we came across (temples, etc...) while we were in search of those trails, though!

Please know that we will be thinking of you all during this upcoming holiday season. We hope you have HAPPY THANKSGIVING this Thursday! Enjoy all the food and time with family and friends for us!

RECENT EVENTS AND ACTIVITIES

English Drama Competition

My (Annalicia’s) school took part in an English drama competition on October 28^th. We got third place out of seven schools. One of the local English teachers at my school came up with the script for the play this summer. She combined a few different stories and some of her own ideas. The drama was called, “The Seven Suns”. The students who were in the drama practiced extensively from the first day of school until the competition took place. I tried to upload video of the performance, but it didn’t work...bummer. I guess just pictures will have to do for now.

Halloween at Yunlin Elementary School

Halloween is not a holiday that’s really celebrated here, but in attempt to expose students to some of the traditions that take place in English speaking countries, my school had kids dress up in Halloween costumes on Friday, October 30^th. There were some pretty great homemade ones!

Dongren Junior High Sports Day

I was told on Monday, November 2^nd that I would not have class on Tuesday, November 3^rd because of Sports Day. I was told I could just walk around and watch for a little bit at a time. Also, the students would like to take pictures with me and there was going to be a lot of food to eat. It kind of sounded like it was going to be similar to a track and field day.

The day started at around 8:00 am with the students listening to various speakers for about an hour and a half. The games started at around 9:30. I saw the students do the 100M Dash, High Jump, Potato Sack Racing, and my favorite; a relay race that had the students run to a bat, put their forehead on the bat and spin around, and then run back. So two of the events I saw were track and field-esque. The Potato Sack Race and Bat Relay had me a little confused. It turns out that it wasn’t suppose to be like track and field, it was a celebration for the school’s birthday (3 years old). That made more sense to me.

After all of the festivities were done, each class had all of their parents bring in food to eat for lunch and everyone just walked around and ate food from different classrooms. There are 15 classes in the school and about 35 students in each class. That means that about 525 parents brought in delicious Taiwanese food. :) My co-teachers wanted me to walk around and eat at the 7^th and 8^th grade rooms (10 rooms). I thought I would just go into each room grab a little food take a few pictures and move on. Nope.

When I entered the first classroom everyone erupted into celebration. The students and parents formed a crowd around me and started putting food on my plate (most of it did not interest me). :) It was pure craziness. I didn’t have much room to move and new items just kept finding their way on to my plate. I could only eat a little bit because everyone kept wanting me to smile for their pictures. I thought that maybe someone would want a picture with me, but no one did. Most of the pictures were taken of me just holding my plate. I can just imagine some student saying to their friend; “Look! Here’s a picture of our English teacher holding his plate. See that glutinous rice ball stuffed with meat? I put that on his plate!” Even as I was leaving the first classroom there were still people trying to get pictures. I left with a plate full of random food and wondering if all of the classes would be like that.

I don’t know how to accurately paint a picture for you for how crazy it was. Whenever I entered a classroom, everyone clapped (like I had just done something they would never see in their life again), screamed (literally every student screamed and maybe even a couple of parents), and I think I even remember seeing a couple of students jump up and down with excitement (not lying). After the applause and cheers they busted out their cameras and started battling for the best position to take a picture. It wasn’t like this for one or two classrooms, this happened in every single one.

At first I was stunned by the reaction and felt a little bad because I hadn’t done anything to deserve such a reaction, but by the time I visited the third or fourth classroom I was convinced that I was a celebrity! :) When I visited the last class I had a mom hand her baby to me (after all the hootin’ and hollerin’ of course) and was so excited that I was holding him that she snapped pictures from every angle. This is when I had the most pictures taken. Not only did the students and their parents take pictures, but students from other classrooms and their parents came and took pictures. I think I held the baby for a good 15 minutes and after every picture (every picture) they would cheer. The only thing that kept me from holding the baby longer was the baby. He wanted his mom and that was the end of my photo shoot. My co-teachers escorted me out and back to my office.

I have to say it was more fun than I thought it would be. At first I was a little overwhelmed by all the pictures, but after awhile I just gave in and decided to have fun with it! It’s hard not to get a big ego when you go through something like that. Fortunately, my big ego only lasted until the end of the school day when I realized there wasn’t a limo picking me up to bring me home, I still had to catch my bus! :)

Our Costco Run

Can you believe it? There are Costcos in Taiwan! We were so surprised to find that out when we first got here. The closest Costco to us is in Taichung (a city about an hour north of Douliu). Last Saturday (November 7^th), we had plans to meet up with some other foreign English teachers in Taichung, so we decided to visit Costco as well.

If you don’t know, Costco is an American wholesale foods store that sells everything in bulk. Therefore, we had a problem...without a car, how were we going to get everything we wanted to buy back to our apartment? The only solution we could come up with was brining our luggage on wheels to pack everything in. And, that’s what we did!

We rolled our empty luggage behind us as we walked from our apartment to the Douliu train station (about a 25-30 minute walk...usually we bike). We carried our luggage along as we hung out with our friends. We took a taxi to Costco and had the taxi driver give us a very suspicious look as he lifted our empty suitcases into his trunk. We put our luggage in our cart as we shopped around an extremely busy and very familiar looking Costco store (it looked just like the ones in the U.S. and sold many of the exact same products). We had the clerk who checked us out load our suitcases with all the things we bought. (We lucked out with our clerk...he spoke English, so we were able to explain our situation to him.) Finally, we took a taxi to the Taichung train station and a taxi back to our apartment once we arrived in Douliu. What a process! :)

Sports Day at Yunlin Elementary School

This past Tuesday (November 10^th), my school also held a Sports Day. Just like Phil’s school, my school put this Sports Day on as a way to celebrate its (16^th) anniversary. This Sports Day took place in the morning and was also similar to a track and field day in the States. I got to help with it a little bit. It was fun to be back in my P.E. teacher role!

Phil claims I’m not as famous as him because my Sports Day experience was quite as crazy as his. In these moments, I like to remind him that I got to run in a relay race and helped my team get first place...out of three teams...my team consisted of school staff members, one team consisted of students’ parents and the other team consisted of students...elementary students...so maybe our victory wasn’t that impressive...maybe he is more famous than me...on second thought, I don’t think so! :)

The following picture is of some of the members of my relay team. Thumbs up in Taiwan means first place. (Touching your pinky finger with your thumb means last place.)



The following picture is of me and one of my co-teachers, Peggy. Peggy is really fun and speaks excellent English! She has been a big help to Phil and I since we arrived. Peggy's son is currently a foreign exchange student at a high school in Iowa.



The following picture is of me and a woman named Rebeka. She works in the office with me. She doesn't speak English, so our communication is often very unique. Despite our language barrier, we have developed a fun relationship! Rebeka is very spunky and kind!

For a few hours in the morning of Sports Day, the view of the mountains was really beautiful!

Yunlin Elementary School’s Anniversary Celebration

Like I mentioned above, this past week marked my school’s 16th anniversary. On Wednesday night (November 11th), there was an outdoor entertainment show as another way to celebrate the anniversary. I was told that usually this event takes place indoors at my school, but because of H1N1, they didn’t want to have a large group of people gather in an indoor space on the school’s campus.

The outdoor show was very fun! I found out I have some very talented students. Multiple Yunlin Elementary School students showed off their musical, dancing, Kung Fu and acting abilities. I was really hoping to post some videos of the event, but again, I can’t seem to get them uploaded. (A few quick things to note: One of the dances performed by the kids was the “Sorry, Sorry” one! :) Also, do you recognize anyone in the stage backdrop? That’s right...Phil and I made it on there!) :)