Weekend in Taipei

I managed to make it to my friend Kurt's place. I was rather soaked by the time I got there and I got a little lost, as I often do, whilst navigating to his apartment. My excuse, I only got turned around because I was attempting to avoid the crowds of Shida night market (found around the corner from exit 3 of Taipower mrt station).

I dropped my stuff off and we went to a 'pub' called 'On Tap' for food and drinks. It was decently priced and had a good selection of food. We didn't get in until about 3am. haha.

Saturday, a lie in, obviously. Then we checked out an apartment Kurt may move into. We then headed to Ximen to grab a bite to eat. I think we left exit 2 and directly opposite the exit was the old theatre. Which is still in use. It was a lovely building, which behind has the gay area. Lots of curious shops in the plaza behind the theatre.

After that we went to the computer market (around the corner from Zhongxiao Xinsheng mrt-sorry I can't remember the exit number but in every mrt is a map of the surrounding area that shows points of interest) so I could get an external cd drive. We checked out the farmers market, the same as last time which is literally right next to the computer market (which is in a building). Kurt was on the hunt for honey and was successful.

View around MRT at Ximen.


On the Saturday when Kurt and I went to Ximen there was a little market with various goods around the theatre.


The old theatre.


Plaza behind the old theatre.




This is what you call Chinglish apparently. (picture of the menu at the American style restaurant in Ximen)


Haha. I had a submarine for lunch :)


Cute salt and pepper shaker.


Random street view.


For dinner we ate at Shida night market, grabbed some munchies and stayed in watching movies. Sad, but we watched Naruto movies. I love Naruto, so I was extremely happy, even if they were terrible. The first one was, but the quality and story lines improve with time.

Dinner from Shida night market. NT$120 for steak, noodles and egg.


On Sunday, more movie watching and then grabbed food at a great place called...

I navigated my way to 'King Bus' station. They have more regular buses to places like Taichung, Chung Hua, Nantou and then other places south of that area. In fact they are just about hourly if not more so. Glorious! (location to follow).

What a kerfuffle! The woman who sold me the ticket at the desk said it was for 17:20 even though it said 18:20 on it. She did say in Chinese, but I know enough to understand that and I asked her to repeat it about 4 times in different ways, just to make sure I understood what she said. So of course the bus driver didn't want to let me on. Thankfully the person next to me spoke english so he helped. The driver let me on. Then there was someone who claimed I was in their seat. Which I was, but they had a written ticket. So the driver put me in a random seat. Then a woman higher up than the driver came on the bus. She wanted to make me get off, thankfully she spoke english and I explained the situation. I think she felt she had no choice, so she put me in the only free space. Thank goodness. I really didn't want to hang around for another hour. It took me long enough to get to the station in the first place.

Then, arrived in Nantou. Back to my apartment. I was meant to meet friends but I was so exhausted I couldn't drive anywhere, so I went to sleep instead.

The Return Journey

My return journey was an adventure and a half. It wasn't so bad really. First off, the man that helps you check-in changed my seat so that I had an aisle seat on my long flight to Shanghai. Wonderful!

The security check in Amsterdam looked through my hand luggage. haha. I was expecting it because I had a lot of gadgets in there and it was pretty full. He seemed a bit confused. I think they thought they saw something on the x-ray but couldn't find what they thought was there, so he had to let me go. He spent a long time taking things out and checking them. I of course had nothing illegal in my bag. Actually, it was reassuring that they stopped me. There were a lot of people who walked through the scanny thingy and the light turned red, I don't know whether that meant someone walked through or it was meant to be an alarm, but they hardly ever checked the people.

On my long flight, it was so nice being able to get up and walk around whenever I wanted. And so I did. I've been noticing pain in my hips when I walk, it also gets extremely painful if I sit for long periods. So it was great to be able to stretch and walk about.

I was sat next to two elderly German folks who are retired but now teach in China. How cool is that? They work for a school that has 18 branches in China. They were nice. I didn't sleep much so I was really tired later on.

I had a little trouble in Shanghai. I didn't have a boarding pass because it was too early to check my luggage in Edinburgh and me being me, I didn't have my print out of my internet booking. After landing, I went to the airline desk to ask about what to do to transfer. She told me just to go through immigration, collect my bag and then re-check it. Simple. Well no. At immigration, after a long wait, obviously they didn't want to let me pass without proof that I was not going to leave the airport without a visa or that I had proof of a transfer flight. It took a while, but with my terrible Chinese and their little English, we got there in the end. They were wonderfully helpful. Bless them, and must have checked some kind of computer system to see if I was there. Then I got a stamp in my passport and was allowed to go on my way.

I collected my luggage and then waited an extremely long time to re-check it. A warning to others, queuing is not in the nature of folks of this region of the world, so it took a lot longer than required to get to the desk. Luckily there was a mouthy woman shouting in Chinese about how bad the service was. Not a usual thing for a Chinese person to do, but thanks to her someone opened another check-in desk.

After I got my boarding pass I was allowed to leave the transfer hall and enter the general airport area. Where I could have easily left the airport. I thought that was funny.

Got on the airplane, slept a little thankfully, then arrived in Taipei. On the bus into the city there was a man who vomited quite a lot on the floor. Nice. No one said a thing. Then he moved seats so he wouldn't have to sit with vomit at his feet. lol. I had to inwardly laugh at that one.

It was raining heavily when I arrived. I am very glad I had my umbrella handy. I took it with me to the UK because I thought I would need it in Scotland, which I didn't.

Apparently it had been raining the whole week in Taiwan whilst I enjoyed a rain free Scotland. Something strange there. haha.

Shanghai airport ceiling at departures. haha. I thought it was great :D

There and Back Again

I have returned after my visit home. It was amazing. It felt like a long time, but it also flew by. As is the nature of any vacation.

The first few days were spent relaxing and enjoying the company of my family without thinking of going out or doing anything. On the Thursday my nephew and I went for a glorious walk up East Lomond Hill. It was quite muddy in areas and there was snow in some parts. It was great, even though it was cold. The views were amazing. Photographs will follow soon. He fell over and I laughed my a** off. haha. Then of course I fell over. haha. It was so funny. We were both so mucky. When we made it into Falkland I popped into the local store to visit my wonderful friend June. It was a brief hello because I knew i'd see her again. Then we went to a local pub and got some grub. I purchased scampi and chips, yum! Matt got a burger that he didn't really enjoy, so to make up for that I got him a slice of chocolate cake.

On Friday I took the bus to St Andrews. I visited many good friends. It was wonderful. My friend Andrew is part of a saxophone quartet, they had a free lunchtime performance, so I went along to watch. It was fantastic! It was so much fun being back and hanging out with everyone. I stayed the night with Penny. Jen was very generous and let me sleep in her huge comfortable bed whilst she stayed elsewhere.

I returned home on Saturday morning. My sister had organised an evening in Freuchie to have a few drinks and a catch-up with my Freuchie friends. That was also great fun! It was nice to relax over a glass of wine.

Sunday was family Sunday lunch, which I always enjoy and miss greatly!
I also headed through to St Andrews again, I was collected by close friends and dropped off the next day.

I don't recall going anywhere on the remaining days. Though I did have a lovely catch-up with June over a cuppa at her place on Tuesday. My wonderful friend Matt stayed and drove me to the airport on Wednesday morning.





East Lomond Hill.


A view from East Lomond of Freuchie Village.




West Lomond Hill.




View of the Firth of the Forth.








Falkland Palace in the background.

Hours and hours of flying...

I decided to visit home a couple of weeks ago. My boss gave me an extra week off work before the official vacation time given at Chinese New Year. So here I sit in my living room at home in good, cold, Freuchie (in Scotland).

I left my apartment in Nantou at 11am on Saturday. I arrived in Freuchie some time past 12pm on Sunday morning. I had travelled for about 34 hours. I managed it. There was a moment on the long haul flight where I wanted to scream, but all was ok.

I was in the middle seat, the guy on the aisle seat slept the whole way and breathed on me the whole time...with not exactly the freshest breath. So it was not a great experience. I'm going to try and get an aisle seat next time. I hardly sleep and it would be nice to be able to get up and walk around. I was in a lot of pain yesterday and still a little today from being sat down for so long. I walked around and stretched as much as I could. But I need to do that a lot more.

I arrived home and my mum got the shock of her life. It took her a few moments to realise it was me at the door. haha. I was here in time for Sunday lunch. So my first day back I got to see my Grandad and auntie, which was really nice.

I'm certainly not looking forward to the return trip. But my return flight is next Thursday. I will arrive back in Taiwan on the Friday, so it will give me plenty of time to sleep and recover from the long trip.

Some views of the descent to Edinburgh.


Scotland through the clouds.




Between cloud layers.

End of the semester for TH

My one class that I get three times a week has a longer schedule than most other English classes in our company, so there was a lot of stress in regards to performance day. This is when the kids show off their english skills. But you're basically asking a bunch of 6 year olds to behave, when they know full well they've completed everything and there's no homework...you get crazy monkeys :)

Here are a few pics of the PD and some revision before the final test.

For one revision exercise the kids had to unscramble a question, write it, then the next pair write the 'Yes' answer, then the next two the 'no' answer. The fastest team wins a point (for each stage). Haha, after looking at the pictures, these pictures were of a spelling exercise. I did both, the kids love it because they get to write on the board.






Some looking at their TH1 Pack. Vickie put together a portfolio of work and activities they had done, including photos.




I made speeches for the kids, where they filled in the blanks to tell us what they do and what they like. I paired them up, some told us about themselves, others told us about the person they were partnered with.

Elbe and Winnie. Title: My name is...


Wilson and Joe. Title: My name is...


Angus and Jeff. Title: My friend is...


Winnie Liao and Jean. Title: My friend is...


Benson and Elvis. Title: My friend is...


Vickie showing the new materials for the next level.

Annual Work Banquet

The end of January marked the end of the financial year here in Taiwan, and so the Annual HESS Banquet was held. It was on the 31st Jan in the Splendor Hotel in Taichung. That was the Banquet for our area. Entertainment was provided by other branches. I had a great time. Though, admittedly, I did not like the food at all! There was this dish called 'glutinous rice' that both smelled awful and tasted even worse. It made me quite nauseous. But I was polite and ate what I could. Needless to say, I was darn hungry afterwards. It wasn't the company's fault though, you can't hold HESS responsible for the hotel.

The entertainment was fantastic!

Opening entertainment.


The Owners Parents.


















Videos to follow, they take quite a while to upload.