praising jesus with leopard print cat sweaters

This past weekend I wanted to break from the norm and go on an outdoor adventure. My friend recently purchased a scooter, the Taiwanese preferred method of getting from point A to B. 

Straight out of Pimp My Ride, yo

Sunday morning we hopped on her scooter with no particular destination in mind; we just wanted to get out of Taipei and into somewhere nature-y. 

It was great fun for the first 20 minutes or so, but after that, it got boring because we kept getting lost and my butt became numb from riding bitch on the scooter. Finally we found a mountain and attempted to drive up it. Turns out, the mountain(s) we were visiting were located in YangMingShan Park, a place we had both gone before, as mentioned in my blog post "just chase it down with snake broth". 

We did get to visit parts of the park we had never seen before. It was really pretty and relaxing.

Sometime in between taking these pictures, we started scooting up the mountain. We stopped while going uphill and waited for a car to pass. Victoria started the scooter and started scooting up - but I stayed. And fell off. On my back, in the middle of the street. How embarrassing for me. Luckily, I was wearing a backpack and it broke my fall so the only thing I injured was my pride. A group of Taiwanese were walking by as the "incident" happened and they didn't know what to do - help me, laugh, or pretend nothing happened, so they just walked away thinking, "wtf" and/or "why didn't I videotape that so I could youtube it?"

I also fell in the water when attempting to take cool pictures. Very much not awesome.

Minus the falling-off-the-back-of-a-scooter and falling-into-a-lake incidents, it was a much appreciated break.

In other breaking news, Potato has been getting in the Christmas mood and feeling festive. She has recently obtained a leopard print sweater. Leopard print is, of course, known as one of the best ways to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

I think the leopard really brings out the color in her eye. 

we're going to india and malaysia!

Update: We're going to India and Malaysia!!!!
Jan 30 - Feb 10.
YES.


I bought a camera in Taiwan in August. It has all this crazy Asian technology that isn't released in the States yet. One of its capabilities is time travel pictures, so for your enjoyment, here are what the pictures of me on vacation in 3 months will look like.

Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)

fireworks in my honor in KL

Taj Mahal!!!

Me in front of the Taj Mahal. According to the time travel camera, I will accidentally turn Indian.

Me riding an elephant, hells to the yes (I'm the one in the red hat on the front of the elephant)

me after I find a dinosaur in India!
seriously though, what was this picture doing in google images under "india"? *cough* I mean camera of the future *cough*

I cannot wait!! :D

sometimes i really do read books with my ass

Well folks, it's been about a month since my last posting, even longer if you don't include weird crying llama facebook ads as posts.


Since October, a few noteworthy activities have occurred.


A few days ago I experience my first earthquake. My whole apartment shook, especially my bed, which I was sitting on at the time. I wish I could report that I automatically knew that it was an earthquake, but as I have never felt an earthquake, I started yelling at Potato (my one-eyed cat) for shaking my bed. About a half-hour later I found my facebook mini-feed blown up with statuses about the earthquake that apparently was measured at 5.7, whatever that means. Poor Potato, first she has that whole lack-of-eye thing going on, now she's getting blamed for earthquakes, what a rough life. I don't feel too terribly though because recently she sat on my computer and broke the keyboard. Now only half the keys work and I had to buy a keyboard to plug into the USB port. Potato, you little fucker...


All is well on the teaching front. I'm finding that I really really enjoy teaching my three year old babies. No, the curriculum is not challenging (we've spent the past 4 weeks talking about how to name blue triangles and green squares, it's not exactly intellectually stimulating) and yes, I do have to deal with some nasty stuff, such as students who barf in the middle of practicing our Christmas play or pee their pants in class. But my kids are absolutely adorable and precious and make me laugh now that they can communicate on a very basic level. I like to think of it as getting paid to hang out with 11 of my shortest and most retarded friends who think the phrase "smell my feet" is the most hilarious joke of all time. Really, I taught them "trick or treat, smell my feet" about a month ago, and they bring it up constantly, especially when the discussion has nothing to do with foot odor.
"Jimmy, what day is it today?"
"Smell my feet! AHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAH!!!"
"....."


Besides saying "smell my feet" all the time, they've got some good jokes for 3 year olds. As they are too young to read English or Chinese, sometimes I find random Chinese words and tell them it translates to "teacher Robin" (how they call me in school). They know I'm joking (except for one "special" kid, I'm pretty sure I've got him convinced) but find it funny every time. That's the nice thing about 3 year olds, you don't need to get new material for jokes because they NEVER die. I've pretended that I can read our story books with my ass since back in August, but it's funny every time I do it. "AHAHAHAHAH!!!! TEACHER ROBIN!!! NO BUM BUM!!! NO BUM BUM!!!!AHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Anyway, when I try to tell them that 所有網頁 圖片 影片 地圖 新聞 翻譯 stands for "teacher Robin", they correct me and tell me it actually stands for "roma romama, gaga ooh la la", which is a pretty good joke if you ask me. We exercise to Lady Gaga in the morning and my kids love it and sing it all the time. Nothing like some cardio to Bad Romance to start your day off right to learn English.


Let's make a list of things I have taught my children:

• blue triangle
• Trick or Treat, smell my feet
• ra ra ah ah ah roma romama ga ga ooh la la

What more could you ask for in an English education?


I have no life outside of teaching since the hours I teach are dreadful. I work mornings and nights AND have to work Saturdays. Sunday is my only day off, and I'd like to tell you I spend it mountain climbing and exploring Taiwan, I usually spend it napping because I'm hungover from Saturday night festivities. Hey, gotta enjoy the time here somehow.


I am, however, planning on going on vacation somewhere in Asia during Chinese New Year early February. A friend and I were planning on going to Thailand and perhaps to Bali (Indonesia). I am legit excited to ride me some elephants. He called me a few days ago to say he found cheap tickets to India, so we might look into that and save Thailand for another day. I'll keep you updated.


PS. For your viewing enjoyment, here is a photo I took of some Teletubbies in the MRT (metro) station. Why? I don't know. But whoever these mystery teletubbie aficionados are, I wish to befriend them.

random facebook ad

Ok, so this has nothing to do with anything at all, but I need SOMEWHERE to post this.

You know those ads that pop up on the side of your facebook? Mine turned Chinese recently, which is just as well since I despise those ads and usually X them out and mark them as offensive. Today this one came up.

Ok, what on earth is this advertising for?!?
I copied and pasted the text into google translate and this came up.

Phoenix! WASHINGTON mud horse as a pet is out of date, a number of recent
Watch young woman haunted day and night depths of flowers in full bloom.
Competing to get the Phoenix mount fly ...
"brilliant full text please click read"

Oh, okay, that clears things up...
WTF.

adventures in paragliding

This past weekend I went paragliding!!

Saturday night after work I jumped on a train to Taichung, which is a little over 2 hours from Taipei. Another Hess worker, Victoria, and I arrived at around 7:30. We signed up to go paragliding with a South African guy named Yuri who runs an adventure business in Taichung/Puli.

Yuri met us at the train station and took us out to an Aborigine pub. We sipped beers and Yuri ordered us "some meat" off of the menu since we didn't know what to order. The waiter brought out a mystery meat-like item and placed it in front of us. I felt hesitant but ate some of the mystery rubbery and spicy substance. We then found out later we ate snail. WHAT.

Oh hey, no big deal, just accidentally eating some spicy snail in Taichung...

The next morning we headed out before lunch to get in some paragliding action. Puli is located an hour away from Taichung and we arrived there around 1pm. There were at least 30 paragliders up in the air.Victoria went up first. They suited her up and they jumped off!

After an hour of waiting, Victoria and Yuri came back. I asked how the paragliding went and they told me the wind had died and they were only up in the air for a few minutes. I looked up in the sky and saw that there was hardly any paragliders left.

So we waited. And waited. And waited. After three or four hours had gone by and no one was able to stay up in the air, we were ready to head home to Taipei. We were dissapointed because Victoria went up for only a few minutes and I hadn't even tried it. We found Yuri and told him we wanted to return, but he wanted to wait another 30 minutes. We saw a few people attempt to fly but not stay up for very long so Yuri asked if I wanted to try it, knowing that we probably couldn't fly for very long. OF COURSE! (We had to pay him even if the weather was bad, so I might as well try it...)

Suited up and ready to go

I'm flyyyyying!

This is actually Victoria in the air, not me, but obviously I couldn't take pictures of myself flying. You wouldn't have known if I didn't tell you anyway.

One more thing crossed off my "shit to do before I die" list. Paragliding, done and done.

Here's the link to my facebook album to see more pictures.

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.