taiwanese happy hands club? yes please

Awkward Taiwan anectode of the day:

I went to Taipei Main Station the other day and, as usual, wandered around aimlessly until I found what I was looking for, except I found something better: Taiwanese Happy Hands club.

What is the Happy Hands club?, those with little culture or little knowledge of classic movies like Napoleon Dynamite might ask. Here's a refresher:

In the middle of this train/bus/MRT station was a group of middle-aged Taiwanese woman performing a sign-language dance of a Chinese song. So much win.

As my life is becoming more stable and I am becoming more immune to the oddities of Taiwan, I find myself having less to write about my activities. The rest of this blog post is going to be dedicated to a part of Taiwan I have yet to describe: the night market.

The Taiwanese feel a great sense of pride for their night markets. These markets sort of help define what IS Taiwan. Just like you ask a Chicago tourist if they've seen the Sears (/Willis) Tower or a Paris visitor whether they've seen the Eifel tower, natives frequently ask if I've been to the night markets.

A night market basically is a clusterfuck of people and vendors in a giant, outdoor market where really cheap shit is sold. The biggest and most famous Taiwanese night market is the Shilin night market, where I have been to a few times, though there are also several local night markets that are much smaller. It's fun to visit on occasion and a must see for tourists.

You can find a variety of things at the night markets. There are many clothes and shoes stores that I've checked out. Food stands and sometimes actual restaraunts also are part of night markets, though after one rough night after eating night market food, I've decided to not partake in this aspect of the night market. Really, you can find most anything at a night market - I even saw iPads being sold. Sometimes they have weird combinations of stuff being sold at one store - today I went to a market in LuZhou that sold raw fish and shoes in the same store. I made a mental note of that place so when I'm in the mood for salmon and Adidas, I know where to go.

Entering a night market means you must leave American customs at the door. As many travelers know, what is deemed polite and inpolite by American standards does not hold true in other countries. For example, when I visit clothing stores, sometimes the sales clerks follow me and breath down my neck while they hold up ugly shirts they think I might like. In the States, a worker who follows your every move is one who thinks you are stealing. In Taiwan, it's someone who genuinely wants to help you and earn your money. It still creeps me out and generally makes me leave the store. Another difference is how the Taiwanese regard size. When I walk into clothing stores, the sales workers point out the clothing that is "big enough to fit me". Here is another huge culture difference. Here, stating that a customer is "big" is just as offensive as stating that their hair is brown, whereas you'd practically get a lawsuit for that type of action in the US. I've even had workers take clothing out of my hands that they think is too small for me. I try not to take it personally because this doesn't happen to just me. A friend of mine who has an athletic body that would be considered "hot" by our American perception was handed a plus size catalog upon entering a night market store.

When I get past the annoying store clerks throwing fat lady shirts in my face, I have purchased some awesome clothing items. By awesome, I mean awkward, of course. Taiwanese clothing shops offer so much ENGRISH. Engrish is bad translation of English by Asians.

Here are some examples of amazing Engrish clothing items I have bought.

We can't fly the world so bitch with multi-colored bananas. Makes perfect sense!

Let's gat it start in here! My friend and I bought matching shirts with this phrase; hers is white.

Though this hat has no Engrish on it, I still look like a tool in a bedazzled trucker hat made for obnoxious tourists. Of course I bought this.

I've seen some pretty interesting English phrases on clothing items here. From bad grammar and spelling or just awkward phrasing, the shirts can be pretty hilarious, especially depending on who is wearing them. Sometimes our kindergarten kids come in with innapropriate English phrases on their shirts. Ohhh, Engrish.

Though I'm laughing at the awful English -> Chinese translations, it works pretty terribley in our favor also. Many Taiwanese have told me about all the stupid Chinese tattoos we get that we think say "peace and love" when they really say "spicy chicken and gnomes". And tattoos are more permanent than a stinkin' t-shirt.

As this blog comes to a close I leave you with this piece of advice: beware long skirts.

typhoons, toilets, and one-eyed cats named potato

First on the agenda of blog-story telling is to tell you about a recent dining experience. A few Sundays ago, I ate at a classy restaurant called The Modern Toilet. I kid you not, this place is bathroom themed; you sit on toilets and eat on a bathtub.
Everything is served to you in a toilet and most of the menu is things that would look gross served in a toilet. I ordered curry.


I even got a urinal shaped water bottle as a souvenir! This has been used 0 times since the purchase because urinal shaped water bottles have a pissy design (buh-dum-CHING) that does not allow for efficient drinking. But how could I deny such a souvenir?

After the toilet themed restaurant I got a 5-month old kitten. Yes, I am now the proud owner of a one-eyed cat named Potato. Or ma ling shu, as she is called in Chinese (by me, when I pretend I speak Chinese).

Here she is, in her one-eyed glory.

Here is what she would look like if I got her an eye patch and she became a pirate.Here Potato is eating a french fry. Friggen' cannibal.

Last weekend I finally moved into my new apartment. I was living with another Hess worker at her apartment, but I didn't like the no AC + subtropical climate of Taiwan combination. Plus, it was an old apartment and I slept on the floor which meant I was covered with bug bites all over my arms and legs. Yes, I've gotten a total of about 8 of those huge, poisonous spider bites on my arms and had to go to the doctors again. Lovely. A Taiwanese girl told me she thought that I had allergic reactions because the spiders were peeing on my arms, not biting them. Somehow, this didn't comfort me.

Anyway, I've moved into a dorm-room like apartment and have yet to be peed on by spiders. I say dorm room because the floor has 4 rooms. Only girls are allowed to live on the floor and I had to sign a contract that I wouldn't bring boys in at night because they might scare the other girls...I also had to sign that I wouldn't have any pets or drugs in the apartment. I've already brokenthese since I currently reside with Potato and her one-eyedness and I have a meth lab in the bathroom.
I actually don't even know what meth labs look like. I just googled it and I definitely don't have enough room for that shit.

It's also similar to a dorm room in it's size- it's tiny. I guess it's ok since it's just me (+ Potato (+ meth lab)), and I don't need a ton of space. It's one room connected to a bathroom. Get this - in the bathroom, the shower and toilet are in the same space. You can literally sit on the toilet and take a shower. I CAN SAVE SO MUCH TIME. I of course tried this out instantly but it's not nearly as much fun as you'd think.

I'm right next to the gym, which is fabulous because I can guilt myself into going more often. I've already increased my weekly gym goings by one; now I go once a week.

Potato has adjusted well, though at first she was very angry with me for moving her so much. I know this because she pooped in my shower. I guess I can't blame her, I'd probably poop in someone's shower if I were in a similar situation.

I'd upload some pictures (of my apartment, not the shower poop) but my battery is dead on my camera and I'm not totally unpacked.

Right after I moved into the apartment we had a typhoon. I'd say that the typhoon was similar to the whole toilet+shower combination - it sounds super exciting, but then it happens and it's kind of a let down. All that happened was that it rained a lot and was windy at times. I don't think we got the worst of the typhoon, but still, Taiwanese weather gods, I give you about a 3 on a scale of lame to badass.

Hmmm, what else to include? My life is becoming more stable and thus less blog-worthy. Besides a few random adventures here and there, such as going to a pet store and seeing a pig being sold, or getting flagged down on the street to do some English translation and getting paid with two bottles of Coke Zero, less and less random, awkward stuff is happening to me.

I apologize for all the toilet-themed stuff in this posting.

just chase that shot down with snake broth

I must interrupt this blog post with a plea to my home country. America, I leave you for one month, and THIS happens?
WHAT IS GOING ON?!?! WHY IS THIS NONSENSE HAPPENING!?!?! WHO WILL STOP IT!?

Now - back to your regular scheduled blog post.
What sort of shenanigans has Robin gotten herself into this week?

First of all, my schedule has completely changed. I originally signed a contract to teach only cram school classes, or buxiban classes, which means I teach classes that meet 2 or 3 times a week. These classes are separate from and take place after the elementary school classes the kids attend during the day. I teach a class called Tree House 1 which has kids straight out of kindergarten, or about age 7, and the oldest I teach are in a program called Step Ahead, and these kids are maybe 11 or 12 year old students. Although this was a change from the high school aged students I was used to in the States, I actually enjoy this age group quite a bit more than I do high school aged students. I felt like I was surviving these classes, and God forbid, dare I even say thriving in them. Of course, this means that something was to go wrong. And boy, did it. Last week Wednesday my boss threw me in kindergarten class. No; to call it kindergarten is not completely truthful by American standards - I am teaching preschool kids that are barely not babies.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.

First of all, these kids know NO English. Nothing. They barely know Chinese. They can't read, so I can't write things on the board. I can't discipline them because if I tell them to sit down, they just hear jibberish coming from my mouth and pay no attention. Some of them still don't understand that I can't speak Chinese, so they tell me things in Chinese while I stare blankly at them, just like they stare blankly at me when I speak to them. To say that teaching them is a challenge is an understatement. With older students, even my Tree House kids, I can see by the end of the 2 hour class that they have learned something (well, hopefully anyway). At the end of kindergarten, I have no clue if ANYTHING sunk with these kids. Also, my older students don't generally cry the whole class time for their moms.

Although it's hard, I do think they like me, mostly because sometimes I pretend to throw them in the trash. And I hit myself in the face with spongey hammers. This is how you get "in" with 3 year olds. I also have figured out that you can make anything fun in the world if you pretend it is. When I pull out flashcards, I make my face light up like I just won the lottery, and the kids think they are going to play the most fun game ever, when it's just flashcards. Suckers.

I have also learned some Chinese from my kids, such as the word for "pee" ("nyow nyow"). I'll let you figure out yourself how I learned this word.

Although it sucks teaching 3 year olds, they are absolutely ADORABLE. It's against company policy for me to post pictures of them, or I'd throw some up here. My cute little Asian babies... Like Dennis, who is this little chunker who has no clue what's going on in life. No clue. When we walk to the bathroom, he accidentally walks into other classes because he can't remember where he's going. His legs are so chubby that he is constantly falling over himself. He's confused about everything - when I say "good morning Dennis!" to him, he replies "good morning Dennis!" back. Oh, Dennis, Dennis the Menace, how much amusement you provide me...

I've been teaching kindergarten, or as they call it here, "kindy", for over a week. It's getting better, but I still have my doubts.

After last weeks adventures in pre-school teaching, I needed some weekend relief. I call it a weekend, but as I've mentioned earlier, I get ONE day off a week. :-/ Saturday night, I met up with some friends to go to "Snake Alley". Snake Alley is a night market in Taipei that used to be a red light district. We walked up to a booth where a man was poking a snake in a box. He was probably saying something awesome, but as we know, my Chinese is limited to "chicken breast" and "pearl tea", and since he did not mention these two things, I was S.O.L. for understanding.

We entered the restaurant, if you can call it that, and ordered snake stuff. Out of the group of 8 of us, only 4 dared order anything. It was the 4 girls too, go figure - the boys wimped out. For 150NT$ (4.50US$) we each got snake soup with snake chunks in it, a shot of snake venom, and a shot of snake blood.
You read that correctly.

First we dared eat the snake soup. I nibbled on the snake, which was bony. I don't know how, but somehow it tasted just like I imagined snake would taste like. One girl compared it to chicken, but I don't really think it was chicken-esque.

Here I am, looking extremely brave before I eat some snake.
Nom nom nom I iz eat snake

Then came the snake venom. I was quite scared to take it, though we decided that if it was awful, we could chase it with the snake broth. This, somehow, did not comfort me. The venom was mixed with some sort of alcohol. It didn't taste much different then a normal shot - a normal shot with a side of badassery.

Then came the snake blood. The snake blood was much less harsh to take down and was almost... dare I say it... good? I promise I'm not going to drink it again or anything, but it wasn't that bad. It contained a pill that was supposed to counteract the venom/blood combo in your stomach so you don't, you know, drop dead in the middle of snake alley or anything.

The next day, I finally got to do some hiking. 2/3 of Taiwan is covered in mountains and you can see them outside of the city. I've been itching to do some hiking, even though I'm not a big nature person. Two others and I decided to venture to Yang Ming Shan national park, where there are mountains, scenic look-outs, hiking trails, waterfalls, and hot springs. We didn't find any of that, but we did find... a milk pond? WTF is a milk pond!?

Milk pond?!

Actually, the only hiking we did was on the side of the road to the visitor's center. Let me tell you, that was work in itself! All that fried Chinese food + extremely hot weather + Robin hasn't been utilizing her gym membership = Robin drenched with sweat before she even starts "hiking".

We then did some extreme mountain climbing and where we sprinted up 90 degree angle mountains and jumped off of waterfalls to get to the next stop. Or maybe we rode the bus to next stop, I'm can't really remember.

The views from the bus and the few lookouts we made it to were breathtaking. I would have loved to explore more, but in typical Taiwan fashion, we got rained out.

For the first time in a while, I actually felt like I was in a foreign country. Since I work so much, I forget sometimes that I'm half-way around the world and there is a lot to do, like munch on snake and climb mountains. I'm sure I will do some more nature-related shtuff in the future, it's just I only have one day off a week (Sunday) to do any exploring, and I generally am not feeling up for hiking (aka:hungover). Eventually I'll do some more.

Since I just figured out this blog post how to embed youtube videos onto the blog, I will leave you with this closing note. If I could summarize my trip thus far into one video, it would be this:

how i didn't ride the magic school bus in taiwan

I've decided that traveling and living abroad is a roller coaster with crazy, intense highs and lows. Some days I absolutely adore Taiwan and love the adventures that have come with this new chapter of my life. Other days I wonder what I was smoking when I signed up to live in a country half-way around the world where I don't speak the language and don't know a soul. Actually, I'm not sure if a roller coaster is the best metaphor since I love the adrenaline rush of a plummeting roller coaster and that's not really my point... maybe Taiwan is one of those old, rickety wooden roller coasters that jerk you around and you only enjoy at some points? A roller coaster that jerks you so much that the photo stand workers have to delete the picture they snap of you mid-plummet because certain parts of you may have popped out of your tank-top amongst the intense jerking (a true story, sadly)? Whatever the hell the metaphor is, the moral of the story is that Taiwan makes me become bipolar.

The manic / top of the roller coaster feeling is amazing. Although much of my blog posts are filled sarcasm and mockery of the randomness of Taiwanese culture, I hope readers can tell that I'm mostly really enjoying myself. I ADORE those awkward moments, like when I went pants shopping with a friend and when he asked for a new pants size, the owner showed us her potty-trained rabbit who lived in the store. Or like the student I met yesterday who wanted his English name to be "whale". You can't find weirdos like that in the States. Well, we have plenty of weirdos, but you know what I mean. Taiwanese awkwardness is a new level that I am thoroughly enjoying exploring.

I also *think* I like my new job. I think, but I'm not 100% sure. I do like teaching better here than I did teaching Spanish in the USA while I was student teaching. Maybe it's because I teach younger students, maybe it's because teachers are much more respected here than in the United States; whatever it is, I enjoy teaching more. I'm getting the hang of it more as I approach my third week of actual teaching.

I don't even mind that I got bit by a poisonous spider and had to go to the doctor's to get injected by who knows what to regain circulation in my fingers. Now that the bite is healed, it's kind of funny. Like really, WTF, I'm just about the only person I know who'd get bit by a poisonous spider. I got bit in my bedroom too, not even some place exciting like a crazy safari or at some lab where they accidentally created Spiderman.


However, the roller coaster cart has to come down sometime / jerk you around / bipolar meds stop working / [insert other idiom for feeling upset]. There are some really low lows here too. After spending a fantastic night in Taichung, for example, I hopped on the bus to LuZhou. Mid-bus ride, the bus driver stopped the bus and yelled something in Chinese. He forced everyone to vacate the bus and left us in B.F.E. Mind you, this is around 10:30pm, when that bus could quite possibly be the last bus. We could have been in Japan for all I knew. Ok, not Japan since the bus was not driven by Miss Frizzle and it did not suddenly gain powers of extreme awesomeness to fly across the ocean (Magic School Bus anyone?), but you catch my drift. I was lost. I blindly followed most of the group onto another bus that passed by that I did not recognize. The bus also does not usually say where it is stopping in English. I kind of know the Chinese symbol for LuZhou: if you squish your eyes, it looks like a computer and a side-ways injection. I searched for computer/side-ways injection but didn't find it. I probably looked absolutely terrified because someone extremely kind asked me in English if I knew where I was going. "Absolutely not". She tried to ask the bus driver and look on the maps for me, but since I only knew one street of the intersection of my bus stop, I couldn't give her much information. She ended up telling me to get off at a stop "in LuZhou". I figured I could take a taxi from there.

Even though I was in LuZhou, I was so frustrated. Recounting my tale now, this seems not-so-bad, but during I was absolutely terrified. Here I was, poor white girl who can't speak Chinese, clutching her weekend belongings, practically shaking, scared because she has no idea where she is and it's too late for her to be walking alone with no sense of direction.
Here is the stupid part. The bus actually dropped me off in a place I have walked by at least 20 times on my way to work. In the darkness and my confidence that I was 100% lost, I didn't recognize it. At this point, I was literally sobbing in the middle of the street in my frustration.

I hailed a taxi to drop me off at my school, because I had that address written down in Chinese (this is how complicated things are here. Unlike Spanish or German that you could butcher a "donde esta el metro?" and people would know what you mean, the tonal language of Chinese is much more complicated. Anyone who isn't at least at intermediate Chinese skills has to show non-English speakers the actual Chinese characters because chances are, they won't understand you). The taxi driver said something to me in Chinese that was probably something to the extent of "you dumbass, you are on this street right now". The meter started at 70NT$ and stopped at 75NT$ one minute later (equivalent of a 15 cent difference), when he dropped me off down the street. Then I handed him a 100$ and he ripped me off with my change, just to kick me while I was down. Thanks.

The moral of this story is I really want to ride the magic school bus now, and also that stupid stuff happens that probably wouldn't happen back home because I (usually) know what is going on. Had I gotten lost in Holland, I could have called someone, looked up google maps on my phone, stopped at a gas station and asked directions, etc. I don't have those options here. I'm on my own and when I'm fucked, all I have to rely on is luck. Additionally, I'm out of my comfort zone, so minor disturbances become major here. Everything becomes extremes, and in this case, it was an extreme suckfest.

The point of this blog was not to complain and for you to offer me "some cheese with that whine" (uhhhhh cheese I miss you so badly whydidiremindmyselfofcheese), but just so you can have a more complete picture of my life here. Yes, I am living in extreme awesomeness, but it also extremely sucks sometimes.
It could be worse; I could be starting classes now.
Suckers.

my classroom management involves lady gaga, what of it?

Ni hao.

I joined a gym yesterday. I felt so proud of myself. It's quite cheap - it was 100$ to start up and 30$ a month after that. Today I joined a yoga class conducted entirely in Chinese. Weird. It wasn't bad - I had no clue what was going on a lot of the time, but I just watched the instructor and stayed in the back.

After training for forever and observing for the past week, I finally started teaching today!!

I had two classes. The first class was Step Ahead 12, which are students about age 9-10. They were really well behaved and almost too quiet. Until, that is, I brought up Lady Gaga. That got them talking, and singing Bad Romance. Nothing like Gaga Ooh La La to break your kids out of their shells.

The second class I taught was Kid's Club 7, which were students about 7-8. They were a little noisy and naughty, but not terrible. THEY ARE ADORABLE. Especially cute little Reggie, who sits in the front and punches himself in the face all the time because of his severe ADD he must have. I pulled them outside to give them oral tests, and one little girl said after her test, "teacher Robin, you are very beautiful" (pronounced boot-ee-full). Aaaaw, 100% for you, little girl! The kids stare at me all the time like I'm some freak, but it's just because I'm so tall, have blue eyes, white skin, and light hair. I'm glad this girl took me for beautiful instead of freakish, as I suspect the others do.

After teaching, I treated myself to pearl tea, which is my new guilty pleasure. The tea man knows me and the other girl at my branch by face and we just order "the usual". Pretty awesome. I doubt there are many white girls that come to the tea stand, considering the entire menu is in Chinese.

Day off tomorrow... woohoo!
Hasta luego bitches

doritos and boxed wine = pure classiness

I'm currently sitting in my new apartment, eating raamen noodles with chopsticks and sipping coke zero out of a bottle with a straw. That's how they do it in Taiwan; every time I purchase my 20 ounces of delicious soda (which happens A LOT, if you don't know me) at a 7-11, the cashier gives me a straw. I usually just leave it on the counter, but I decided to embrace the Taiwanese way and suck down my Coke with a straw, and I kind of like it.
Straw = metaphor of embracing Taiwan's culture?
Meh, I'm too tired to work it out.
All I know is I love Coke Zero.

So back to where my last post left off...

Friday
Friday was absolutely fantastic.

Saturday was MITT2 (my training group)'s only day off, so we ventured to the Taipei brewery on Friday night to celebrate being half way done *cue Bon Jovi song*. It was fabulous. The place was packed with locals and our group of 40-some white people stuck out terribly, but whatever; we're used to it.

One of my coworkers, Alex, bought a mini-keg of beer and had each of us stand under the keg to pour beer into our open mouths. This was funny enough, but then he started getting the Taiwanese locals to join in. Some denied it, but some people actually tried it! I was cracking up; the Taiwanese are so reserved and conservative, but they were letting their hair down tonight, especially after seeing how much fun all the crazy drunk white people were having.

chug chug chug!

Awesome.

The brewery hired a band to play. I think they were supposed to be a hard-rock / punk-rock band, but seriously, who can take a band that sings in Chinese seriously as a hard-rock band? Also, the guitarist looked like Jesus. Asian Jesus. Check the poster.

We crazy white people started dancing on the tables to the band, who started playing some English music. Classic hard rock songs, of course, like Lady Gaga and Avril Lavigne. We got some of the locals to join us, but most probably thought we were crazy. They kept taking pictures us. I can only imagine them uploading them on facebook and the comment they write underneath. "Look! Drunk white people acting ridiculous! WOW!"

Someone who frequently goes to the brewery told us it is NEVER as crazy as that. I don't care how conceited I may sound, but we MADE that brewery amazing.

We went to a club after. It was okay, nothing too snazzy.

Saturday
On my day off, I did something really special.
I got a shot.
At 8 am.
Fantastic.

I then went down to LuZhou, where I'm going to be working, to check out potential housing. I thought I'd be in a tiny apartment, but most of the places we viewed weren't much smaller than an apartment in the states and were cheaper than 300 US dollars a month.

How did I take my tour of LuZhou, did you ask? Oh, you know, straddling my future boss, a 50 year old heavy South African guy, on the back of a scooter. Yep, awkward. That's the popular thing here in Taiwan, scooters. They are fun, but the Taiwanese don't follow traffic laws and I'm constantly fearing death when riding on them.

Post-boss-straddle, I hopped on the bus back home and got pizza and watched Mulan. Yep, I watched Mulan while in Asia. Yesss.
LETS GET DOWN TO BUSINESS... TO DEFEAT.... THE HUNS.

During the Pizza Hut venture I almost lost my wallet, which included my license, bank cards, all cash I had on me, you know, my entire life. This story probably surprises 0% of people reading this.

Sunday - Tuesday
Sunday was not off, unfortunately. Hess training started once again. I died a little on the inside.

Wednesday
GRADUATION!!! Wednesday was day 9 of 9 of training. We finished by having a graduation ceremony, where we celebrated by drinking boxed wine and eating Doritos, which is probably the most classy way I have ever heard of for graduating in style.

Then we went over to a karaoke place, or KTV, as it is referred to here. I don't get what the big deal is about karaoke, but whatevs, I'll do it. It was fun for an hour or two, especially since I will not be able to see many of the friends I've made in the training group for a while. Why not spend our last moments screaming our little hearts out to Barbie Girl and Smashmouth? My favorite part about KTV is that they play these really awkward videos of white people from the 90s posing dramatically while the wind blows through their hair and they look angsty and stoic. I think that if this whole English teaching thing doesn't work out, I shall strive to find this job.

Our trainers went out with us too, which was awkward but I guess awesome. It felt kind of like when you're walking through Target and you see your high school math teacher buying laundry detergent and you feel extremely uncomfortable because math teachers don't buy laundry detergent, they just live in the classroom and do calculus. But then you realize that, eh, okay math teacher, you can buy some detergent because you are a decent person but let's not look each other in the eye and if anyone asks, this never happened.

We later went out to a Taiwanese club. I don't remember much at this point.

Thursday
I woke up still drunk (classy, eh?) and picked up everything dispersed in the hotel room. My boss picked me up in a taxi and dropped me off at the apartment I'm staying at. I'm living with a British girl named Amelia who has been here a few months. The apartment isn't great, but it's quite cheap. I don't know if I can handle no AC though... a;sdglkjasds;lgkajsd;

Since LuZhou, or LuChou, or LuJhou, or however the fuck the Taiwanese decide on spelling it, is a smaller city compared to Taipei, it has been a different experience. For lunch, I felt extremely adventurous and wanted a cultural experience of Taiwanese food so I walked over to KFC. Unlike in Taipei, where people saw my clearly not Taiwanese appearance and either didn't speak to me at all or attempted English, LuZhouians speak to me in Chinese. I never know what they are saying. I JUST WANT A DAMNED KETCHUP PACKET QUIT IT WITH THE CHONG WONG LING!? Seriously though, I want to learn Mandarin. I hate being here and not knowing it and it's such a waste to not attempt to learn the language.

People are staring at me more than they did in Taipei, mostly little children and old creepy men. Foreigners aren't common in Taipei and basically unheard of in LuZhou. So far, I've been in a good mood, and it's cute to wave at the kids who stare because they get so excited to see the giant, blue-eyed, hairy woman freak (they don't even have hair on their arms here...) acknowledging them. I can tell this is going to get old though.

I got a phone too. Every time I make calls, no matter the number, some angry lady picks up and yells at me in Chinese. Fuck. I can text people in the US though, so I'll put up my number soonish.

It's weird. Training felt more like a holiday - now I'm officially here. I have an apartment. I have a phone. I am getting a resident visa. What did I get myself into? I went into my school to observe a teacher today. I live about 10 minutes away walking distance and have to turn once to get to my school. It took me about 40 minutes to get there and I turned probably 20 times. Again, this should surprise 0% of people reading this.

I have so much to write about Taiwan, like the old people who do the macarena at 6am in the parks, but I'll leave it for later when less new stuff is happening.

Opposite of ni hao.

Brass monkey. that funky monkey

I'm failing miserably at keeping up with this damned blog. There is simply to much fun happening; I don't want to drag myself to the hotel to document it all!

Saturday
On Saturday, our training group had the option of touring Taipei. We went to Danshui, which is part of Taipei County. Taipei county isn't exactly Taipei, but the surrounding area. Taipei County claims to be less city-like, but it's Asia; it's crowded as hell no matter where you go.

Our group, still awkwardly attempting to get to know each other, stumbled on the MRT (metro) and made our way to Danshui. Our training group of 50-60 transformed into a giant stampede of white people storming through the tiny alleys. There were lots of shops and street food to visit, but it was SO SO hot that I couldn't enjoy it. I did, however, temporarily counter the intense Taiwanese heat by purchasing some soft-serve ice cream that was taller than the size of my face and only cost about 30 cents in American money.

Our group became sluggish and a few of us became antsy to explore, so we broke off and wandered around Danshui by ourselves. Most of the time was spent figuring out how not to die from dehydration because I kept sweating like I was Hitler at a Bar Mitzvah. It was still fun to explore my new home for the next year.

After Danshui left us with nothing to do, Luckily, my friend Patrick can speak some Chinese and we figured out how to get to the beach. I have absolutely no clue which beach we went to, but it was fun. We rented a little hut on the beach, ripped off our sweaty clothes, and jumped in the Chinese sea. It was really warm which scared me a bit at first, because warm beach water in Michigan usually means someone recently pissed in it. Based on how many people were jammed in a small amount of closed off beach water (again, this is Asia. Of course even the beaches are packed), I supposed this could have been a possibility.

We somehow found our way back to the hotel and organized a group to grab some Indian food for dinner. When in Taiwan... eat Indian food? Whatever; it was good. The restaurant didn't have a liquor licence so he let us bring in beers from the 7-11 across the street which shocked me because that would never happen in the States.

We had a free day the next day, Sunday, and then we were to start training on Monday, so we wanted to spend our last precious moments of free time doing something fun. A few of the guys in the group I was hanging out are gay so we decided to go to ... a Taiwanese gay bar? Of all things to do when in Asia, I go to a gay bar. I actually had a blast, they played ok dancing music (including Lady Gaga OF COURSE), I danced with a bunch of gay Taiwanese men who bought me drinks. Awesome.

Sunday
Nothing too excited happened on Sunday. If something did, I forgot it. I guess I could talk about the shitty breakfast the hotel has. One of the food items they offer is "french balls". I kid you not, that is the label next to the tater tots. So kids, on Sunday I ate some French balls and that's about all that happened.

Monday - Thursday evening
Training began on Monday.
DUN DUN DUN.

In some ways, I love it, because I've met a TON of awesome people from around the English-speaking world. I've become super close with some of them and will be sad when we aren't in the same hotel anymore.

Training is way intense and awkward. I'll write about it fully in a later post, because I haven't officially signed my contract with my branch, and knowing me I will say exactly what is on my mind... CLIFFHANGEROMG

Thursday evening

After 4 draining days of training, my fellow trainees went to drink beer and stuff our face with Taiwanese food at a restaurant. We go out every night because it's way cheap. That night, we each got two big cans of beer (=2 regular cans each) and a meal of good Chinese food for about 6US$.

We then went over to a 7-11 to buy more beer and went to a park to drink it. Sounds sketch, but it's actually legal to drink outside. Woohoo! There are 7-11s EVERYWHERE. One time I was trying to buy a sim card and I entered one 7-11 and the worker told me to go to the next one. I looked down the road and could see two more from the one I was standing at.

The group then stumbled into Brass Monkey, which is a bar that ex-pats (foreigners living in the country) frequent often. It was free for girls and had free alcohol for the girls... yay! We danced the night away and had a blast.