Long overdue vacation

Hi to all of our readers! Sorry it's been so long since the last entry. I've been sick and working and still more sick. And there hasn't been much to report in a long while, but we finally had a real vacation last weekend.

We had Saturday off for the first time in a couple months, so several people hired a van and we went to Hualien for a couple of days to see the famous Taroko Gorge, which is the place you're supposed to see if you spend any time here. And we could see why.
























The most important thing was being out of the city, and not working. Maybe not in that order. It's hard to tell; but the views were just terrific.

I am trying not to have just blank shots of trees and rocks, but it's hard to go from a feeling of isolation at work for a couple of months in a crowded and busy city, to something in nature that inspires awe, without getting a little stupid about trying to capture the memories for the next month or two and the rest of your life.


















This's a big topo map in the visitor's center. We're in the dark line running up the middle, but the details are a little fuzzy. The little red light near the bottom is a town, so this park, which's most of the topo map, is really big. It's not Yellowstone, but it's plenty big for a couple of days.

As Marie said, "it lived up to the expectations" and I agree.


















We started on a local hike up the river. We were frequently under these overhangs.

Over the weekend I was struck by how in Washington, the conservation corps would go out with shovel and chainsaws to cut trees and keep trails open along the sides of mountains. Here, apparently the trail crews just use dynamite, or artillery. I'm only basing this on how much rock has been cut out, which was an immense amount.
























Marie always looks at me suspiciously when I'm obvious about taking her picture, but she's still cute.


















We also got to meet the locals, like this caterpillar. The long, black antenna are the front. It's hard to take a decent photo of something this small. I think I was still too close. Once you got over the initial shock and surprise, he was kinda cute and fuzzy.


















The water of the river next to the trail was this electric blue where it was deep enough. Fay jumped in. It looks like it should be freezing, like it's meltwater off a glacier, but there aren't any glaciers in the neighborhood, so it's cold, but even Marie put her feet in.


















The entire gorge is a protected park, but it's also kinda like an Indian reservation in the States. The aboriginal people who have lived here for hundreds or thousands of years (I'm not sure of the time) are allowed to use this area to live and grow crops for a living. They grow this plant, which looks a bit like a fern to me, for sale. It's a cultural food so it's making a comeback, apparently.


















Another of the locals. I first thought this was a flying ant. Later I saw a sign warning of poisonous wasps, so that was probably this guy.

I remember when I was little, my dad had a new video camera and he was showing some video of a buffalo in Yellowstone Park. And as we were watching, the video zoomed in until the huge animal filled the TV and it took a few steps towards dad and the camera. Then dad said, "right about here I checked to see how close I was."

I put my foot down next to this guy for comparison, and he started for my foot, but slowly. So I put the camera up, focused, and took the shot. But as the camera takes the shot there's a second where it blinks and there's a blank screen. So I couldn't see the bug around it. I thought of my dad and the buffalo, but on a smaller scale. Smaller creature, much much closer. But I got the shot and I left, if slightly quicker than I might have.


















We started up on the bridge behind us and we walked down a stairway to this trail.

Today was a really easy time. We'd gotten up early to leave Taipei. We still got stuck in traffic, but it wasn't too bad, especially since we had a driver. The drive there is pretty uncomfortable, 'cause it's a very twisty road and even if you don't have to worry about motion sickness, you're always being rattled around like a bingo ball. It's just uncomfortable for several hours. If we visit again, we're going by train or even plane.

In the Gorge the trails are largely made for walking. There isn't a lot of elevation so it's not really much of a hike, which was nice. We found comfortable spots along the way to rest and just watch the scenery and unwind. We played in the river a little, but mostly it was just another place to stop and go, "oooooo, ahhhhh."


















Back up on the bridge there are these lions every few meters. You can just barely see another one behind Marie. The funny thing is, they're all different. Each one is unique, if only by a little, so someone decided to spend some time and money on this bridge.
























This was on our way out of the Gorge to Hualien for the evening. I just loved this tiny little strip of town on the side of the mouth of the Gorge. It reminded me of Virginia or maybe some place in the Olympics. I also think I liked it 'cause of a dearth of traffic. I just love when there isn't traffic.

We spent the night with Adele and Michael. Adele is a coworker of Marie's (and Cat's, Alanna's, and Fay's, so I was the oddball, yay), and she made a terrific Taiwanese-Chinese dinner. Then we crashed on the floor and showered there in the morning. Michael works in Hualien for the Taiwanese Air Force. She visits him on weekends, or something like that. But it was a very nice visit for us.

The next day was much busier. The first thing we did was drive back to the Gorge. Hualien's a decent sized town-city. It's not nearly as big as Taipei, but it's not insignificant. But it's a drive from the Gorge.


















On our way we passed through this cemetary. I mention this partly because the place is amazing and partly because this's the reason we had Saturday off. The translation is "Tomb Sweeping Day" and I've kinda assumed it's like Memorial Day or maybe Day of the Dead. People visit relatives' and ancestors' burial places.

You can see some Christian influences but most everything here, and there's a lot of here, is decidedly not. It's all above ground, and some of these tombs are big. Some aren't, but there's quite a range.

On the left you can see a bunch of rocks holding yellow paper down. Fay called that "underground money" I think. Money for the ancestors and spirits, I gathered. She mentioned there's a collective burning at some point.


















If you look really closely, you can see that the tombs all face different directions. Apparently, there's a Feng Shui expert who knows which way the tomb is supposed to face according to when the person passed away.

But we spent most of our time tooling around finding these walks to go on. They weren't really hikes, but they were still quite impressive. We were also quite pleased that there weren't many people visiting. I thought it'd be busy, since it's a holiday and this place made me think of a junior U.S. parks program. But I guess Marie and I went through Mt. Rushmore just a week before the official summer opening, and it was hardly busy.

I don't think this has the total traffic a place like Mt. Rushmore or Glacier National Park or Yellowstone has, but it's still obvious a lot of work has gone into it, not the least of which is all the tunnels blasted out.


















These signs are about every fifty yards, I'm not kidding. They're very frequent, and obviously in two languages. Tho', as Marie pointed out, they don't want you to linger, but they want you to read the signs. I didn't get a photo of the paragraph long explanation on why you shouldn't linger. That was really funny.

But really quickly, you get kinda inured to the signs.


















Then something like this kinda gets your attention and I realized something hit hard enough to dent a quarter-inch galvanized pipe railing. I took the photo and de-lingered myself.



This was one of the walks we took in the late morning. This's a canyon called Tunnel of the Nine Turns. It's really neat 'cause it used to be a major road through the Gorge, but as other highways made this obsolete, and more people came to visit, they closed this road to all but pedestrian traffic and they dug a bigger road for park traffic farther in the mountain.

It defies comprehesion, how narrow and steep the walls are. It's hard to figure out where to not take photos. It's one of those places where you think the next thing you see is the epitome of the experience, and the next. I love digital film.


















This was one of the rock falls they decided not to clean up. They just put a railing around it and called it good. You can see the rest of the tunnel behind Marie. And on the left is where this smaller tunnel reconnects with the traffic tunnel.
























I think this's one of the best illustrations of A: how ridiculously sheer this whole place is yet absurdly high, and 2: how much they like tunneling. The straight edge in the lower right is a series of columns they put in where they blew out the side of the tunnel. I think, instead of installing expensive and complicated-to-maintain ventilation equipment, they just blew holes out the side of the tunnel. Some of them are yards deep.

I also wonder about how much weight is on one of these tunnels. Even more so when we were walking through several unlighted tunnels. That really discourages lingering.


















This's the other thing they like to do. These little pavilions for no apparent reason. The red is kinda associated with a temple, but there's just a little bench under there. But the weird thing is, there's no way to get to this thing. There used to be a parking lot next to it from that road, and there was a stairway up to it from the left, but they're both blocked. So I don't know how long this little thing's been just sitting there, unused. It makes me wonder about other buildings I see that don't seem to have any access.


















We stopped in the village of Taroko for lunch. I should've taken a photo of the village itself, but I was more interested by where the village was located. Dead center in the photo is another of those tower-pavilions, but this one is definately part of a temple. I nearly got locked in it later in the day.

The rest of the village looks like six buildings transplanted from Taipei. Tho' this parking lot seems to be for a motel to the left that was reminicent of a Holiday Inn, which had bathrooms Cat declared to be, "the nicest bathrooms I've ever been in!" I think she said.


















This was lunch. That's egg and shrimp right there, mushrooms in sauce to the left, then cabbage, then kung pao chicken, which is pretty similar to what we know from the States, then the greens they grow on the other side of the Gorge. Remember the plants I said looked like ferns? That's them, cooked. They kinda have a minty flavor, but that might be the spices, but not bad. Then mountain pig. Mountain pig is gooood.

We all shared this, with a bowl of rice for each. Just spin the table and pick up what you wanna try. This was a combo meal. It was supposed to be for five people, and it fed the six of us. So I feel better about how Chinese recipes say they feed six people, or two Americans. 'Cause this was supposed to be for five Chinese, and it more than fed two Chinese and four Americans.
























This was the high point of the whole trip. We walked a mile or two, through several very long, very dark, very wet tunnels to get to this point. We were on our way to the Tunnel of the Water Curtain.

That's a suspension bridge in the background.


















Here it is, up close. Alanna had a little trouble with it, but she made it there and back. And it was worth it.


















See the bridge above the falls? That's where we came across. See the people? That's how big this thing is. And the noise was amazing. The noise in my video was just rapids. This's a full-bore waterfall.

But I was thinking, "it's really impressive, but it doesn't look much like a curtain, and there were a lot of tunnels, but I was expecting them to be more related." I got way more than I expected.


















This's about as close as I ever want to get to the edge of total fear. We walked through a couple more caves and I led the way into this cave while everyone else was on a potty break.

If you can see the faint light, that's the light from the guy's flashlight. You can just see the shape of the guy to the right of the light. I tried a flash in here, but there's so much water, the camera focused on the water on the lens.

This cave is an outlet for an underground river. The faint streaks you can see running through the light is a waterfall IN the cave. It's like a firehose, several actually, right there ahead of me. Imagine enough water to come up to your shin and five feet across, every second.

I didn't want to step into the water. I could've cared less about soaking my sandals, but I didn't want to walk under that torrent of water. And it was dark. I didn't even think to turn around, which was just as well 'cause I'd already passed a turn that meant there was no outside light.

I moved forward by the light of this guy's flashlight, and by staying on the blocks to the right of the downpour I managed to only get my jacket shell wet, if completely, and my camera (in its case, in my jacket) was undrenched.


















After the run through the cave, the other side was really anticlimactic. It was beautiful and impressive, but you half expected to see the Land That Time Forgot and dinosaurs roaming in the distance and so forth. It was that kinda experience.

This's the crew. That's our driver, Hank, in the blue, then Fay, Cat, Alanna, Marie, and me.

The fun part was going back through the cave.

This time, we did it without light.

The noise was absurd and ridiculous and amazing. Complete and utter white noise blocking anything else. I was the first through, thinking I could help others, somehow. But I got in and realized there was nothing I could do. I got drenched just hugging the wall, and I didn't want to slip 'cause then I might end up on my back in the water. And at one point I was completely blind; there was absolutely no light. I couldn't do anything but feel desperately for the wall and inch the next step forward, which would've been okay, but every other step there's a drip down your neck or spray of water from the hose on your right. It was really distracting.

The worst part was when I could feel myself turning a corner and there was no light from the other end, and more turning and no light and more turning and still no light! It's the longest fifteen seconds I can remember.

Finally out and starting to dry, the walk back was, as usual, much shorter.


















More locals: bats hanging from a cave ceiling. This amused me 'cause a guy with a flashlight must've heard something so he spotted them with his light. But then he left. I pulled out my camera and was literally shooting blindly (pardon the pun) and waiting to see what appeared on my camera's monitor. Love digital. I took a couple of photos with nothing in 'em before I finally found this group again. Kinda my own echo location.

So, those're the highlights. We had a really good time, and I realize now that we let too much time go by without a vacation. So hopefully we'll be able to come up with another little adventure in the next few weeks.

You too can teach in Taiwan!

So we've been here well over six months now. I thought I'd mention a few things for the general population that might be interested in coming here to teach and see some of the world (and, it occurred to me later, it's a pretty good job when there are none in America.)

First off, this place is good for flexibility. There're always schools looking for teachers, at least for kids. We've heard the adult departments are taking a hit from the economic slowdown-meltdown.

If you've read our other blog mariekeithinarmenia.blogspot.com you can see how we spent two years trying to join the Peace Corps to do the third-world thing and be socially helpful and the like, and were rejected. But just two weeks after finding out PC didn't want us, we were on a plane to Taiwan with jobs lined up. It's good for sudden changes and travel. Very good for that.

It's also good 'cause you don't need any training. A college degree and a passport from an English-speaking country is it. It's kinda the new Eastern Europe. Of course, we wanted to see Europe, or South America, but Europe can now demand (and get) people with TEFL certifications and experience teaching English as a second language and other abilities. South America doesn't pay.

Not that I had to get paid for this, and Marie certainly didn't care; Peace Corps only pays you about $6,000 in a readjustment fee, and that only if you complete the two-year stint. But most of the programs in South America pay you enough to live there, and that's about it. If you wanted to travel you might actually spend money.

There were several groups offering to place teachers in South America but they frequently had a "processing fee" or something that was frequently a thousand dollars or something. This was only a problem 'cause Marie and I'd spent several thousand bucks on testing and shots and such for the Peace Corps. And we're getting a little older, so we're looking to buy a house or something when we get back and we couldn't do that unless we actually made money over the next year or so. This sort of thing, like PC, would be fine and great for a person out of college, say, interested in seeing the world cheaply.

Other countries like Taiwan are Korea, Thailand, China (yup, China), and Japan. But Japan has it's own special niche. They don't require special training or degrees, but they work about a year in advance, it's called the JET program. Like Europe, so many people are interested, they've got a backlog of people interested in going there and getting paid to do it. And they pay very well.

So that's a little how we ended up here: it pays pretty well and they'd take us immediately with no special training or education. We could've gone to China, which supposedly has better pay 'cause fewer people want to go and spend a year or more there, but they'd just had the latest crackdown on Tibetans for the Olympics, and I wasn't sure I liked the idea of arriving somewhere that might actually say, "Welcome, give us your passports." So we didn't do that.

I think it's important to come here knowing what you want to do, 'cause it makes a difference. In the case of Marie and I, we came here with the intention of spending some time in another culture, learning another language, and so on. We didn't have the intention of roaming around Asia. We wanted to spend a long time in one culture, to try and get to know more than a tourist's view.

So it isn't so bad that we got our jobs through Reach to Teach, which's sort of a headhunter group for teachers. They find a job with a company like Kojen or Hess or some other large school here in Taiwan, and then that school will pay to pick you up from the airport and put you up in a dorm for a week. That puts you in a financial hole right from the start, but you sign a year contract anyway, and if you complete the year, then they waive the fees (like 10 or 20,000 New Taiwanese dollars, which's only about $300 to $600 or so). At the end of the contract, they also give you a bonus of another 6,000 NT, so it can be close to a grand, U.S., that you'd give up if you break the contract. I think there's also something about giving up two-weeks pay if you break the contract. Sorry, I can't find the contract at the moment.

Oh, these details aren't on the contract Reach to Teach faxes to you. The details about breaking the contract show up once you're in the country and at a school's offices. So they do something of a bait and switch, knowing, now that you're here, you're less likely to balk at these details.

So the point is, if you're determined to come here and spend some time, then getting a contract can be okay, especially if you have little experience traveling and you don't know some Chinese already. If you aren't sure what you want and you think you might not want to deal with the problems of a for-profit school, then you should look into pretending to be a tourist. Find a decent hotel, learn the subway, bring a map to point to in a cab. If you're living here, I don't know if you still have to sign a contract the first time, but they don't have nearly the financial leverage if they didn't help bring you here. This'll make it easier to split if you only want to be here for six months or if the politics of the office gets to you.

The school also vouches for you in getting an ARC (alien residence card or something like that) and technically, if you quit, your ARC is immediately revoked and you have a week to get outta the country. But having gotten into the country, many people lurk under the radar, tutoring or whatever. And if you can find another school (and they're all very willing to poach other schools' teachers) then they pick you up and you get your ARC through them. There might be problems tho', if you let your ARC lapse, then try and get a new one. I dunno.

But don't feel bad if you do this or if you switch schools. Kojen isn't supposed to use foriegn teachers with kindergarden-aged kids, but they do it all the time. Occasionally, foreign teachers are actually herded out the back door of the school. So Kojen and other schools are doing illegal things on a regular basis anyway; everybody knows it, it's just accepted.

I should mention the visa. Visa's for Taiwan are easy. In fact, it's almost Canada easy. You get on a plane here, they write one out at the aiport, BUT that visa can't be extended. It's a tourist visa, 30-days: come, see the sights, eat, leave. If you think you're going to be a teacher, you need a two-month visa, those can be extended indefinately. They cost like $160 or so, but, as my brother in the State Department pointed out, that's just the reciprocal cost of what the U.S. charges for a visa.

Anyway, a visa can take some time, but mostly it's the cost and writing a letter saying you want to see the Taroko national park, and the beaches at Kenting, and Taipei 101, and Danshui, and the sunrise at Alishan and you don't think 30 days is enough to do it all, or something like that. We stopped at the Taiwan outreach center in D.C. (they don't officially have an embassy to placate mainland China) and we had our visas the next day.

So far, working here reminds me of working as a contractor for Microsoft. They pay you well, and there are even perks, like these bonuses you get when most of a class continues to the next session. This happens every three months, new class sessions, but they take months to get around to paying the bonuses. But it creates a nice little extra trickle of cash after you've been here four or five months. Each bonus is 400 or 500 NT, but it's enough for a good dinner or drinking session for a person. You can even have an okay meal for two.

But even thinking like a contracted employee (and an editor at that), I didn't see the stipulation in the contract that we would provide a minimum of 18 hours a week. NOT that Kojen would provide 18 hours a week, but we would be available for 18 hours of teaching a week. I think I've grumped about that before, but it's pretty important. My boss hired me 'cause she needed a new teacher to replace an outgoing person, two months from when she hired me. So for two months I was teaching about five hours a week and the occasional subbing.

Teaching 15 to 18 hours a week is a pretty comfortable, if simple, existence for one person, but under ten is underpaid.

Housing is something else. In Reach to Teach's literature they mention the school will help with housing. Maybe they're referring to the dorm they give you for a week, and can stay in for fairly cheap after that (if you yell at them loudly enough, otherwise they'll try and kick you out for the next teacher) but can be kinda crummy so you don't wanna stay there forever, but we had the idea that they would have someone who was a sorta real estate person, to help with long-term housing.

There is no specific help for finding a place to live. None. Other teachers at your school will probably help, but they have their own lives and problems. The Kojen main office's idea of helping was telling us about tealit.com, which's a popular site for foriegn nationals and English speakers to sell stuff, look for jobs and apartments, etc. So you're really on your own for finding a place. I suggest deciding what kinda person you are, first.

I work with a guy recently outta college, who isn't phased by all-night traffic. He lives near a college campus for 7,000 NT (apiece) with two other roommates. Marie and I are into our second careers. We live in the Wan Hua (Whaa) district for 14,000. But we live by ourselves with more space in a well-furnished apartment, and it's not nearly so noisy here. We don't have the array of shops here, but they aren't really far away.

And on money, Kojen (locally pronounced Kuh-JEN) was one of the last hold outs that paid every two weeks. They just ended that this month. They do allow new teachers to get advances for the first three months, but it's better to show up with cash.

We heard from Reach to Teach that we should bring about $1,500 apiece. Marie and I thought, as a married couple, we wouldn't need it. And besides, we had assurances from our bank in the States (Wells Fargo) that our ATM cards would work here.

We brought more than a thousand in travelers checks and it took us five or six different banks before we found one that would exchange them. And one of the hundred-dollar bills I had, had a marker blot on it. I watched that bill go around the bank office and be inspected by at least three different people and I really wondered if they'd reject it. We also couldn't find a bank that would work with our ATM cards, until we found MegaBank, which, ironically, has the fewest offices in Taipei.

Cash, while not so secure, is safest. On the up side, it is incredibly safe here, personally. Marie has never felt insecure on the streets here. I'd say the only risk of bringing cash is you might mislay some of it.

Taiwan is very modern, in places, which results in an extremely cash-centered system. Our credit cards work at all big stores and restaurants, but they all cost 20 to 50 percent more than buying from a local vendor or mom 'n' pop shop. So cash is cheaper as well as more flexible. But buying in these big, chain stores is the only way to get some tastes of home. So far, the best deal is 25 NT for a donut that tastes like a donut from Mister Donut or Dunkin' Donuts. That is just way too much donut. If you buy one off the street it's like 12 NT, but it also doesn't taste quite right.

And about time off: they talk about taking time off and you can certainly get vacation time, but don't expect to have weekends to see the country. We knew coming in that we'd have to work Saturdays, but we thought, and were led to believe, that we'd have Tuesdays off, so if we could cover Monday, we'd have a three-day weekend to travel the country. Right now, we're both working six days a week. I know some people are working less, some more, but many people were expecting to have two days off a week, even if they weren't one-after-the-other, but didn't get it. So it's taking more effort and organization than I expected to even leave the city and see some of the rest of Taiwan.

The best advantage here is Costco. If you want chips, cheese, or cereal at a reasonable price, find the Costco here first thing. Cheese here is hard to find, and priced like it's exotic. Cereal isn't very popular. It's easy to find, but it comes in small packages and they can be very expensive. But don't waste money and get a membership in the States. The fee here is 1,200 NT, not even $40, and they're very helpful in signing up. Five minutes and you're hip deep in gallon jugs of soap and cases of Red Bull. Oh, Costco's the only place to get Red Bull, according to a coworker. And American-cut t-shirts.

This unexpected, but I think of this as part of the fun of traveling. The local t-shirts are cut so that if you move your arm away from your body your sleeve hikes up to show off your shoulder. If you want a shirt that lets you raise your arm above your head before you're showing armpit hair, you gotta find the right cut, and Costco is one of the places, relatively cheap, that you can find that cut. I had no idea.

This's just a short-list and descriptions of some of the benefits and unexpected problems we've had with this adventure. Right now, with a global economic recession and near catastrophe in progress, it's looking pretty good. Marie and I aren't saving a lot, but we're saving some, which makes me think that going to South America would've been even less financially beneficial than I first thought.

It's been a dull couple of weeks; we're just getting back into the regular teaching routine after having that week off for Lunar New Year. But we're talking about taking a couple days to see some of Taroko national park. So hopefully we'll have another adventure soon.

But in the meantime, a photo for the cultural humor:


















This woman's jacket does say, "High Nice," above that "Jacket Rarely," and at the bottom "Always Start From Now."

I could almost see the last line being some marketer's idea of a tagline, except none of the rest of it makes sense, unless you count just throwing out words you want to be associated with or like the sound of, and that still doesn't explain why you'd want your jacket to be a jacket rarely. But the Puma symbol, even with the little registered trademark symbol, I think perfectly explains the translation confusion, and the habit shops here have about just using images and logos regardless of trademark copyrights. Personally, I'm all for infringing, but it's pretty bizarre to see this.

This sorta thing is pretty common. My current theory is this's where a lot of typoed shirts go. I've seen some bizarre typos on what look like school track sweatshirts and such that I think Taiwan's just an outlet for mistakes. Kinda the Land of Misfit Clothing.

More soon, and if there are questions about visiting or teaching here, I'll try to answer them, either here (if I can make the answers funny) or in an e-mail.

Through all kinds of weather

Actually, no, the weather's been great here. Too warm, really: mid-sixties to seventies. I think I'd enjoy it more but it has this tinge of the sauna that was last summer. It also worries me every time it gets into the seventies that summer will be here in about April and I don't wanna think about dealing with the heat we had from the moment we stepped off the plane until somewhere in October. Or was it November. It was long time, anyway, and I don't want it to be longer.

We've gotten some cards lately from grandparents. Thank you Grandpa Gipson and Grandma Ewen. It's been great to get things from home. And Grandma had to send hers twice. Even when e-mail is common and we talk to friends and family almost as much as we used to, it's really been nice to get something in the mail. Especially 'cause we can actually read it.

Grandma asked if I would mention something about the classes I teach, so I will. I'm still considering getting photos of some of my kids. There isn't the paranoia here that would require me to get permission from each child's parents, but still. I'll see if anyone's interested in seeing these kids.

I have about a hundred kids a week, right now, little more. Their ages are from about seven up to about thirteen. I have two younger classes, we call them M-classes. M-2 and M-4. They're seven or eight. I have a couple of middle classes, called K-classes, K-10 and K-11. And a couple of older classes, A-classes, A-4 and A-9.

The kids are all pretty stereotypical from what I know in the States. M-classes are still excited by learning much of the time. They're also dumb enough that they don't realize they're learning when we play a spelling game. So that's useful. But they're the loud ones, very prone to screaming. It takes a lot of energy to keep their energy moving in the right direction.

K-classes are my favorite. They're middle of the road. They don't have the energy of really little kids, but they aren't as deliberately disinterested or lethargic as the teenagers in A-classes. They also have the more interesting material. I can have actual conversations with them.

In M-classes we have a TA: a Chinese-Taiwanese teacher who grades homework and helps if things get really out of hand. But I like the independence of K-classes. I have to grade all their homework myself, but I don't have a TA in that class I feel like is looking over my shoulder.

A-classes are the hard ones for me. A teacher here told me, "you have to be their friend" and unfortunately, I'm not that kinda guy. And it's hard to be friendly when the kids see it as their job to stymie my job of teaching them. That's my Friday-night A-9 class: classic we-don't-wanna teenagers. Middle-schoolers, actually, aged thirteen or so. I have another class about that age on Saturday morning, which I like better. I think the early hour keeps 'em quiet. I have to spend energy motivating them, making 'em talk, but it's easier to move them in the direction I want when I don't have to stop them from going in another direction first.

I don't feel like I'm cut out to be a teacher. Certainly not at these age levels, anyway. But it's had the advantage of not being boring like my other jobs. Things always change, so I'm not going to the same job every day. It is funny tho'; the common complaint around my office is how people say they like teaching, but they hate the prep work, especially the grading. Marie and I agreed we could do a lot of grading, especially if we didn't have to teach. It's correcting really simple English, so it's like the easiest editing we've ever done.

We do have books for lessons, so much of a session (usually we teach two- or three-hour classes) is pre-programmed: teach this phrase and these words in this way, use this game, and so on. It would get boring, but the kids won't completely settle into a pattern. There's always a troublemaker or six, depending on which class.

That's a look at my week. If there are more specific questions (grandma), feel free to add a comment and I can answer it pretty quick.

Ogres have layers, onions have layers

And so does culture shock. Sorry, no photos this time. Rather, an odd realization: culture shock seems to be a bit like being on a diet. It's not like you get used to the culture shock, or the differences in the culture, or whatever, and it goes away. You see differences, you figure out why they bother you, you might even find some way to work around the problems, but they never actually go away. You're always going to be hungry, no matter the good intentions of the diet.

This's, I think, the most homesick I've ever felt since I was about four and first stayed away from home and the familiar. It's kinda like I've begun to feel the 16,000 miles between where I am and what's familiar.

But it's not a real acute homesickness, it's like a faint nagging that something's not right.

I was just talking to my brother, Neil, and he was kinda agreeing that it comes in waves. It might never go away, or there might be a lightbulb moment and suddenly everything's okay.

I've noticed that I'm currently struggling with a little claustrophobia and the unexpected nature of this culture. In Taipei there's almost never a building less that three stories, most of them have more, so any view of the sky is pretty abbreviated.

I remember thinking in the States, in moments of panic about moving around the world, the other side of the world will still have blue sky and sun. And that helped, but I get here, and they don't have as much sky as I was expecting and, indeed, counting on. So that's new, different, and a little hard to live with.

The Chinese-Taiwanese culture also seems to run in nearly direct opposition to my American timing. Where I'm expecting people to be fast, like in the subway, people seem, frequently, almost indifferent to getting anywhere. There also isn't quite the reluctance to bump into people, here. So if I'm not in a hurry, it seems like everyone else is 'cause I keep getting these little pushes.

It does make for a sudden camaraderie with my brother. It hadn't occurred to me before but, now, with a few months in a really foreign country, instead of Canada, I understand my brother's time in Russia a lot better. We can talk in more depth about both our experiences.

But right now I'm wondering about this feeling that I'm just not cut out to be a world traveler. I like being a world tourist, but spending many months here, it feels a little like the wonder has worn thin, and I'm just treading water, waiting for the next change to come along. Which's why it was good to talk with Neil about this, 'cause he pointed out that it can take some time for the out-of-place-ness to fade.

Or, Marie and I've wondered if it's more a matter of being in such a different place. Here, we're still even functionally illiterate. In Europe, we'd learn the written and spoken language almost simultaneously. But the written language, here, is so far from English that it's a completely separate project to learn to read much of anything.

The interesting thing, now, is that much of our lives is familar, and becoming boring, and I think that's why I'm struggling more. Without the wonder that usually offsets the frustration, the daily work is just annoying.

I noticed that when we went to the Lantern Festival in Pingsi (Ping-see) the other weekend, it actually made the rest of the boredom more bearable. So in a fit of irony, it seems the way to prevent feeling out-of-place, frustrated, and culture-shocked in a still relatively new country is to continually find new and different places and experiences.

Yes, I lied, there are photos.


















This's Fay. You've met her before. She's organized several outtings we've been on. She called us around 2:00 on Sunday to ask if we wanted to go to Pingsi to see the Lantern Festival. Marie and I'd talked about going, but we'd need to figure out the other train system here.

The metro is pretty user-friendly and intuitive. The inter-city system is less so. So we were pretty happy when Fay said she wanted to go, 'cause she's native and knows the system and the language.

The funny part is the trains are like Amtrak. They have the big seats but they don't assign seats, necessarily, and they overbook. So for a couple of stops we, and many other people, would just stand around in the isles like it was the metro.

The other amazing thing was how long we were underground. There is a complete second set of tunnels for these trains, separate from the metro. The tunnels here would make an ant colony simple by comparison.


















I'll appologize now for all the shots out the window. Mostly, I'd forgotten about greenery and not seeing buildings ALL the time.


















There were some neat buildings, but I liked that they were in the distance, for once.


















In this case, I was amazed we'd fly past this temple-like place at, like, sixty m.p.h. Or maybe, even after months here, I'm amazed they build things so close to roads and tracks.


















I think the only disappointment was that it was so overcast and misty. I liked it too, but sunny would've been interesting.


















This illustrates the thing I still don't get. Middle of, basically, nowhere. They build this mid-rise apartment complex. How unexpected.

So when we arrived, it was dark. We waited a long time in Rueyfang to change trains. Then the spur to Pingsi was really slow. But the first thing was this sight of these tiny lights in the sky over the city.


















Of course, this doesn't illustrate it very well, but it's the best I have. The really amazing thing is to know that each little point of light is actually a small hot-air balloon the size of a mailbox. And very quickly, they go...
























from this...



















to this...
























to this. It was really amazing. And there are another twenty lanterns that the camera couldn't pick up, so maybe 40 or 50 total, but there was a steady stream all night. But on Saturday (day before we came) and Monday (day after), which are the big days for reasons I don't have, the local government pays to send up like 2,000. So we didn't get to see the big event, but at the same time it was fun to see what people just want to do. Maybe a little like seeing backyard fireworks versus some corporate sponsored project.

Marie mentioned that frequently, when you go to do something, or see something, the actual event isn't the most fun, amazing, interesting thing. But it was like seeing real and really big fireworks for the first time. The lanterns were the most interesting, fun, and, amazing part of the trip, tho' the grilled Chinese hot dogs on a stick were pretty dang good.


















Pingsi seems like a pretty small, and relatively boring, town; but for a couple of weeks a year, every shop is selling these lanterns.


















They're so into this and it's such a part of the local culture that their storm drains have lanterns on them. You can faintly see the train and the mountains, and the holes are depictions of lanterns.


















This's what they look like before they're blown up.


















Then you write wishes, like New Year's resolutions, but bigger, and more hopeful and expectant than just "I'll lose ten pounds," on them.


















Then they attach these lighter fluid-soaked papers to the base. They are real hot-air balloons.


















Then you light the thing and the lantern fills almost instantly with hot air. And I mean hot, you almost can't keep your hands on the thing for long. They're a combination of crepe paper and plastic, so they're not as slick as the rain gear Marie and Fay are wearing, but they're not prone to falling apart in the rain.


















Then you let it go and it runs into a telephone wire and burns up until it falls to the ground.

It's not a good way to feel like you've sent your wishes on their way, so you go back, buy another and try again. The second one made it.

Sorry about the spots in the photo. It was raining. More thanks to Karl, this camera works in all kinds of weather and conditions.


















You know you've arrived in a place when you can set out for a place far from home, like Pingsi, like Fay, Marie, and I did, and run into someone you know from back in Taipei. Cyndy (in black) came out with a bunch of people from her school.

Going home was much easier, a classic case, I suppose, of knowing where we're going and how long it would take. We even got good seats on the train. And tho' it was pleasant to watch the lights of the countryside roll past, we were amused by the curtains.


















I mean, are these the curtains of a professionally run transportation company? Marie mentioned, "well, at least they're all the same." Yeah, in this car. Maybe we're getting cynical about how things are run here.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun. We got home about 10:00 or 11:00, but I don't think we were really exhausted. It was a really good way to shake off some of the culture-shock blues.

The ends of the earth

Okay, a couple more photos of the temple on this very bright, warm day. From two days ago.


















This's way outside the outer wall of the temple. The yellow things are the lanterns. Each one is way bigger than your head. And the crowds were, if anything, worse than the other evening, when we thought they'd be worst 'cause it was New Year's Day and we figured, like Christmas, most people would do this on the day. But no, it's a stream of people for at least a couple days.


















This's my favorite photo. I can't believe the smoke shows up so well. It's all from the incense sticks (of which you can see many) that people stick in there as part of the prayer-offering. This also gives you a faint idea that, no, the crowds haven't really diminished.

Marie pointed out that she just heard that this temple is a combination of Buddist and Daoist religions, which means praying to one god or many elements or god-like deities as your religion dictates. I'm gonna rely on my very scant knowledge of eastern religions and Wikipedia and claim Daoism (Taoism) is a little more like a polytheistic religion because it involves praying to elements to help with the path of life, and Buddism is more about asking a venerated person for enlightenment. But the point is, one temple, two religions, no waiting.


















This's a clearer shot of one of the altars, call it. It's a room which people pray to or at least in front of, but we've never seen anyone go in there.


















It has a large person-like figure in it, and someone has set up offerings in the room, but if I didn't understand the rules of giving food and offerings to the temples, the deities, or the universe in general, I really don't get it now, 'cause in the lower left of the picture, those are in fact...



















Choco Pies.

I have no problem giving Choco Pies as offerings, I was even telling Marie, imagine being a deity who likes Choco Pies but none are ever offered 'cause people think you're supposed to offer fruit and flowers, natural things of the earth. And this's not to make fun of anything, it's really just grappling with something completely unexpected and (as far as I can work out) illogical. It's just such a surprising thing to set up IN the altar-space for the deity-element. Especially since there are so many gorgeous flowers and fruits presented on tables; the Choco Pies just stand out as representative of a materialistic and industrialized society. Or maybe that's my western perspective screwing me up again.

But on to the ends of the earth, the earth being our island.


















This's in Danshui (dan-shuway) or Tamsui (tam-sway). This place is just amzingingly packed. This was down one of the streets, so everything was really compressed but it was literally staggering as you bumped into people with every step. Even for here, this's packed. I will never, ever have a problem with crowds in the States again.























The crowds were probably caused by so many people having a vacation and a warm day. It was high 60s, maybe even low 70s. Many are still wearing big, fluffy coats, but whatever.

I did want to mention, I felt bad about calling fifties cold, 'cause then I read about the ice storm affecting like 17 states and people are trying to survive without heat in sub-freezing temps. We're not nearly that miserable. We're not threatened, we're just uncomfortable. We're wearing long underwear, socks, and even sweats to bed recently. But thanks to the flat sheet from Heather, the clothing is for the cold bed and getting up in the morning, not for staying warm in the night. Try it. It's amazing how much heat a flat sheet keeps in.


















This's the real reason we came. They have this great boardwalk right next to the Danshui river which lets out into the Pacific ocean. You can get on a boat for a tour of the river, maybe even out to the ocean for 50 NT. We didn't go 'cause it was so hard to even walk a half mile or so along the boardwalk and then the line for the cruise was amazingly long.

This was worth it to see some of the place. The last time we went up there it was raining like mad and it was all we could do to find a specific restaurant, let alone walk the boardwalk. So, now we just need to find a happy-medium day.

Our next adventure was kinda like using an arbitrary point and learning to find our way around.

We've been to the ends of like four or five different points of the subway line. The Xindian line ends at the gorgeous riverside park with the long footbridge. The Muzha line ends at the Taipei Zoo. Danshui is the north end of the Danshui line. So we were thinking about going to Yongning, which is the end of the Nangang line. We've had good luck finding interesting things at the ends of these lines, but a couple (like the Nanshijiao line) end in industrial parks. Not good. So we decided to try for a specific place. Specifically, the Taiwan Nougat Museum. I am not making this up.

The station where we got off was just another urban collection of stores and traffic. Tho' Marie and I did decide that it seemed more suburban, for Taiwan, anyway. Fewer high-rises, wider streets, more green space especially in the middle of traffic. But it was still very commercial and as we headed for the museum, according to the map, it got very industrial. I think we passed an industrial sewage plant, and I know we passed a Nissan cargo truck dealership-maybe manufacturing plant.

So it was all very foreboding, and twice Marie asked, "will we recognize the museum when we see it?" So it was very gratifying, after passing blocks of shut businesses in dull taupe colors, to turn a corner and see:


















The really funny thing was, this whole time we'd been worried about going in the right direction, 'cause the street signs way out there kinda quit using any semblance of English. But we'd seen a bunch of these cute little cows, and we'd had no idea what they were for.


















But when we saw this cute little guy in front of the cheerful bright, red building we put two and two together and realized they were markers to find this place.



















And because it's the year of the Ox, and that seems to be their mascot, Marie insisted on getting a kiss from the cow-ox-water buffalo. Actually, she first said I should get up there and get a kiss, but I said no. You want one, you get one.

The down side, we didn't actually get into the museum. It's still a major national holiday, so the place was closed up, but we were very pleased with ourselves to find the place, even if the company was doing everything they could, with the cute little cow-markers, to make the place easy to find. We overcame our illiteracy and found what we were after. Maybe in a couple of weeks we'll go back for the tour.

Finally, on our way back Marie took this photo of the truck dealership.


















It's just a riot to decipher these phrases, which are even spelled right and not technically wrong, I guess, but the marketing people are just cracked. I'm assuming this's talking about the dependability of the trucks. Marie was thinking it was referring to the dependence on the employees. Either way, this's not the way to say it.

So it's been a couple of fun days. It's been really great to stay up late, get up late, not worry about when we're going, just go when we're ready.

But I will say, the fireworks are getting on my nerves. We avoid most of the noise by going to bed late. At least they haven't really kept us up. But this morning at six a.m. some son of a motherless goat let off a string that lasted for two minutes. It's not even a party neighborhood, but it is a celebrating neighborhood, very religious or old school culturally. And apparently a working neighborhood where people, even on their days off, get up early enough to light massive strings of fireworks. Sigh.

But that's been about the only neighborhood problem. We only have a couple more days off, then back to the moderate but unbroken grind. Oh, well, we've spent a fair amount of money, so it'll be good to get back on the pay wagon.