KTV Glory

Tonight I went to KTV (karaoke) with my workmates. It was so much fun. There was a huge group of us. We sang a mixture of English and Chinese songs. I of course could not sing the Chinese songs. But when I recognised something (the Chinese was on the screen) I sang that :D

I had a great time. It was so much fun. haha. The following pics were pinched from facebook. Molly took pictures, which is good as my camera died. I needed new batteries.

Molly and me.


Shirly, Me and Richard (one of the other NST's at my branch- he is leaving at the same time as I am, he's off back to the UK to study)



Paggy and Minerva


A big group picture.

Update to follow

Sorry for the lack of posts recently. I have been really busy. I shall update soon.

Promise

xxx

Scooter brakes...smoking galore

When I was driving about at the weekend I noticed some resistance from the front wheel. It was smoking at one point. I think because I was going too fast. I was panicking not knowing what was wrong.

When I got back to Nantou I took the scooter to the mechanic's. Turns out the brake needed replaced. I can't recall what he said was wrong. It only cost me a couple of hundreds NT$ for it to be fixed. Very cheap. Glorious :D

Now I feel safe whilst driving. Yay!

Nantou Annual Gods Celebration

When I got back from Chunghua and was getting ready for work, there was a hell of a racket outside. Some kind of parade was going on. I took a couple of pics. There were dancers, they were so good! Pretty too :) I found out that the whole weekend was a celebration for the Gods of Nantou. There was also a night market that stretched the whole street in front of the main temple. I checked it out after work with Minerva and Melody. It provided me the opportunity, via encouragement from my two good friends, to try stinky tofu. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Though I wouldn't eat too much of it, as the taste builds.



The God of Nantou.


Some pics of the night market.

Draw a lot and win a puppet :)




A guy who fixes your 'unlucky' freckles or moles.


Stinky tofu stand.


Minerva and me.


Me eating the stinky tofu. Haha, Melody's look of disbelief.

Water park near Chunghua

Today a few of us went to a water park. Well, it is a place that has a big swimming pool, a wave pool, a big pool with various slides. I didn't do any swimming. We took a lot of food with us and had BBQ. There were big areas, where you could book a place, where you could cook your food and relax.

It was great relaxing and having a laugh with my good friend. There was Chien, Noel, Nicole, Megan and Anthony. Some pictures to follow.

After that we went back to Anthony's for a movie night. I used to do that a lot with Zach. It was a regular Sunday thing we did. Go to Anthony's for movies, so it was good to do that again. We watched 'repo man' and some rom com I can't remember the name of. I crashed there and then headed back to Nantou in the morning.

Saturday relaxation with good company

Today I was going to go to Taichung and meet up with Renee and Geoff. Then I decided to have a quiet night in and a mini-adventure tomorrow. But then I got an invite to Anthony's. He was having a gathering at his.

So I scooted through to Chunghua to hang out with folks there. It was a shame as Renee and Geoff were leaving for Hawaii on Monday. I didn't get the opportunity to meet up with them before they went away :(

But I had a great night and stayed with Noel and Nicole. They are awesome :D

Awesome dreams

The past few nights i've been having great dreams. The other night I was dreaming about being in a spaceship. I heard about a myth of a planet that was trapped in another dimension. Haha, the whole planet was turned/swallowed into a mask. It was bizarre. I found it and wanted to find out more, but was eaten by the mask. I met the people who had been trapped for centuries, but hadn't aged.

I loved it. So cool :D
It was the first dream of a proper space adventure without characters from Sci-fi shows I watch being in it.

Burning the candle at both ends

I am really busy at work this week due to my Tree House performance day. There is so much admin involved in the program, planning, buying/making of things and making sure you get everything done in class.

They are on their review unit...had their big test today, even though it's meant to be on Friday. But Friday is performance day- where we put on a show/I do a teaching demo of the next level- so minimal teaching can be done in the first hour- that is used to practice and have fun :D

There are also lots of report cards to write and thank goodness for Vickie because she is helping me translate what i've written. She has also been making folders for each of the students. They show what written work/pictures and other things they have done in this level. They also put in photo's of them.

I'm so blessed to have so much help at work! I'm stressed and have not getting to bed as early as I should be. haha. That's me as always...but I need to get to bed now.

I'm also a little sad to have the performance day on Friday because that will be the last time I see them :( The class is a huge handful but they are awesome kids! I will miss them. They don't know that i'm leaving, which is a shame. I can't tell them because we don't know who my replacement will be. The parents will want to know all the details about the new teacher...which we don't have.

Far away friends

My great friend Chien has been back in Taiwan for a week and she planned to meet up with folks in Chunghua Saturday night. I scooted there later on in the evening. It was so nice to catch up with her and everyone else :D

We ended up at a 'party', I thought it would be in some field or area near the big Buddha, turned out to be someones house party. A subdued one, required by the time and neighbourhood. I met a couple of new folks there and had a good relaxing time. We got in rather late...about 5am. So I got to bed about 6am.

I stayed at Noel and Nicole's with Chien. In the morning their dad made Wun Dun soup. Soup with dumplings, it was so tasty! It was really cool to be in a real Taiwanese house. Sounds odd to say but it's true. Most people I know here are foreigners and live in places that would normally house a large family.

After that we had some girly shopping time on yellow brick road (a shopping street dubbed that because the path is yellow). Then we had an early dinner at Tea works. I had the best fruit tea i've ever had. Yum.

I scooted back to Nantou after that. It's nice to relax on a Sunday evening. Not having to drive back on a Monday morning from somewhere else. I'll be able to get a lot of work done in the morning, I have a LOT to do. I could also do with having an early night and getting a good nights sleep.

English Club

I taught the first class of the new program today. It was good fun. A class of 12 of various ages. The first class was to create a 3D map of your vacation. One group chose Taiwan, the other chose Japan. There was a list of 12 they could choose from.

I compiled some pictures for various countries for my class. When thinking of what Japan is famous for I naturally thought of Ninjas...haha. This came up in the image search.




A pic of the 3D maps

Developments at work

So on Tuesday I had training for a new program that is starting shortly. In my branch I start teaching it this Saturday. It is really different and i'm looking forward to teaching it. Though it is a class that is taught later on a Saturday, so I don't finish work until 6pm. boo. But it is taught every second Saturday, yay!

I was in the first of two training sessions. My boss asked me to stick around, so while she was training the second group I got some much needed work done. I subbed at what will be my new branch in Taichung tonight, so I did the lesson plans for those classes. One was an Open House and the other was a regular class.

Anyhoo, after she was finished she asked me if I would be interested in teaching kindy. I'm always caught off guard if not given time to think about things...that's why I prefer e-mails. go figure. So I said yes. I thought I was just being asked about the possibility, turns out I accepted the job. haha. That's communication for you.

But after some thought I think it will be great! I met with the area manager tonight after teaching. She wanted to meet me and talk to me to see what i'm like. I hope she thinks i'm suitable. I will start the kindergarten class on the 9th August. There will be a week or so cross over with my still teaching at Nantou, so I hope to have an apartment sorted in Taichung for then. It will be a week of commuting a lot. Though I think i'll get the bus back and forth and leave my scooter in Taichung. Life will be easier and less stressfull then. Also, it's always great to have a snooze on the bus :D

So i'll be teaching kindergarten in the mornings Monday to Friday and teach some classes in the evening. Betty (my awesome boss) says she will keep my evening schedule light to start with and try and make sure i'm not teaching Saturdays in order that I have some time off. I'll be so thankful if that's the case :D

The class i'm taking over has 20 students...a big class, but they are going into their third and final year of HESS kindy. So they will have good English anyway and I won't have to wipe any bottoms. That's good. I'll also be making a lot more money. Always good.

Well, that's all the recent news from me :)
Love to all.

Hippy Loving

This weekend was a 'festival' called LUVstock held in an unused amusement park in Dakeng [Address: 台中市/北屯區/東山路二段151之2號 /東山樂園]. I wanted to go last night but I was too tired to go. So Renee, Geoff and I checked it out after having a late breakfast at the early bird.

The park was really creepy, very scooby doo like :D There were folks playing acoustic music because it was early in the afternoon. There weren't many people there but it was nice. We hung about for a wee while and then explored an area we thought was part of a temple on the opposite slope. It turned out to be part of the amusement park. It was all overgrown, so we were careful when walking because early on I saw a baby snake. Not the good kind...

Sleepy Saturday

I didn't do much Saturday. I was so tired but I did chill with Renee and Geoff which was really nice. I also did a little research for finding an apartment and found a good website to check out again.

I had an open house in the morning for HLS (the main classes I teach). It went really well I think. I had a lot of help from Shirly, a great co-teacher.

After that I had my usual class. We had so much fun. Today I used poker chips, gave each student 5 of them. Each time they answered a question or asked one etc we played paper, scissors, stone for one. If they lost they gave me one of their poker chips. We used that in a variety of ways throughout the class. They loved it :D

Taiwanese fruit- Chinese Pear and Litchi

Here's a couple of pics. The big fruit is a Chinese pear, very tasty. The smaller fruit is Litchi (or lychee) 荔枝: Lìzhī. Litchi chinensis is the sole member of the genus Litchi in the soapberry family, Sapindaceae. It is a tropical and subtropical fruit tree. The fruit is also very tasty, a floral taste and is very sweet.

Water lilies

The main reason for my foray to Jhongshin village was to go on the road that leads to Caotun to take pictures of the beautiful water lilies that grow there. They are stunning. They are very popular with many people, as I often saw folks taking pictures when I passed by on the bus when I was journeying to Chunghua or Taichung.













If I were to stand in the water where they grow, they would be taller than me. Pretty cool methinks.