rainbow balls and nips galore

Recent news:

1. I set fire to my pillow.

2. I ate some rainbow balls.

 3. I grabbed my nips.

4. Since I'll be in India (and Malaysia) in less than a week, I began practicing choreographed dances like Jai Ho from Slumdog Millionaire and this dance. 

Based on all the movies I've seen about India (aka just Slumdog Millionaire), it seems that people bust into spontaneous dance, so I must be prepared.

5. I won $200 in the Taiwan lottery!! Except surprise, 200 Taiwanese dollars is equivalent to less than 7 US dollars. Oh well, I'll take it... This is how the lottery works: each receipt has a unique 8 digit number on it. Every 2 months, the Taiwanese government announces which numbers win money. They do this because otherwise companies evade taxes and don't tell the government how much money they make. If the receipts have lottery tickets, people will demand receipts from the companies. I'm satisfied because I'm 7$ richer for no reason at all.

4 days until Patrick and I leave for Kuala Lumpur... YAY YAY YAY!!!

even the sea mammals are good at math here - it must be all that tovigorafing.

I'm pretty sure I rarely post anything on this blog unless something weird happens.Yesterday qualified.

It started out as a normal, harmless trip to a different part of Taiwan. It's been a while since I ventured out of Taipei, but with the holidays, I got 2 Saturdays off in a row (the only 2 Saturdays I've had off in 5 months) and my liver was begging me to spare it one weekend, so a friend and I jumped on a bus to Yehliu, a tiny city located in Northern Taiwan. A few weeks back I attended a "barbecue" at a wine shop and befriended probably the only Spanish-speaking people on this island. They were in Taiwan because they were professional divers and worked at "Ocean World" in some diving show. Really, I feel like I'm the only one I know who goes to a wine shop in Taiwan for a barbecue and ends up friends with the only latinos in a 100 mile radius who happen to dress up like bees and dive from 75 foot things at Ocean World for a living. 

They lived in Yehliu and invited us to see their bee show. Ocean World started out with an aquarium with some of the ugliest underwater creatures I've ever seen in my life, along with some cool features, like being able to pet giant turtles and be electrocuted by ... things (I opted out of the electrocutions from unknown sea beasts).We were then escorted outside to watch our diver friends perform in the show.

First up were the seals. Just your average performing seals who get down and funky to Michael Jackson, make-out with their seal trainers and then get offended and shield their virgin seal eyes when the seal trainers try to strip for them.  

Then came the divers, full out in their bee costumes.One guy had (quite large) fake bee boobs that he shoved male member's of the audience face in while shimmying. Yep. Why bees? I don't know. The real question I want answered is not only why bees, but why transvestite bees? Do gender-confused bees prove to be more aerodynamically awesome when diving? 

The whole routine was in Chinese, which made it both awkward and amusing. They then performed a three-stooges-esque skit filled with so many stupid sound effects it would have put old school batman to shame. The Taiwanese entertainment industry loves their awful sound effects. During their TV shows the producers get paid on commission for how many sound effects they can play in one show and get extra bonuses for awkward placements. Their bosses also threaten to fire them if they don't cut into commercials in the middle of important speeches. Seriously, this one time I was watching the holiday classic Final Destination 7 and a knife was literally in the process of plunging into someone's throat and it cut into commercials. Knife plunge, dancing vitamin bottles, then BOOM knife in throat; no transition whatsoever. It did make for a better viewing of Final Destination 16 or whatever it was.

Amidst the bees strutting their stuff, they did some legit cool dives. 

After the questionable sea-lion show and the bee-porn, the show producers were like, "what else could we possibly add to make this better? hmmm.... DOLPHINS DOING MATH OF COURSE!" 

Not to be all stereotypical, but come on. It is Asia, after all. Of course even the sea mammals are good at math.


The show ended as all good shows do with a staff dance to a song from a Korean boy band. 
If interested, watch below.

On a completely related note, I purchased myself these zebra print leggings in attempts to feel more Taiwanese. I bought them 50% as a joke, 10% because I like them, and 40% because I am trying to persuade myself that I like them because it's Taiwanese when I, in reality, find them 86% hideous. I haven't worn them yet. I promise to report any and all unusual activities when wearing said leggings, such as being hit on by any zebras that have been freed from the zoo.

Along with zebra print leggings I also purchased this gem for a Christmas present for my little sister.

I leave you with this advice for the new year: It in natural that a thould fall in love are such a beautiful. Also, I hope you get plenty of fresh are and feel tovigorafed, as I often do.

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.