More bloomin scooter saga

I collected it before work and it was working.

I leave to go out tonight and low and behold it's not working now. grrrrrrrr. I am in quite a foul mood now, but it will pass.

I'll just see how it is tomorrow. The guy did say the electrics are bad, so I have to use the kick start all the time. Which I tried for quite a while.

If it's not working tomorrow I will have to take it back.

I'm not sure he did anything to it anyway as he only charged NT$100...which is £2. So it must have been a case of tightening something.

I'm hoping it's only not working because of the bad weather. We'll see.

Scooter saga part 2

My scooter has been out of commission for a while now but I hadn't put it in to the garage to get it fixed. Mainly because I don't know how much it will cost. However, i've decided to put it in and hope for the best. So after work last night I pushed it to the garage as there is no traffic at night. Today, before work, I will go there and point, attempt to explain and hopefully get it fixed.

Wish me luck :)

I went along this morning :) The man was nice...I shall return tomorrow to collect a working scooter...hopefully.

Dinner, singing, exotic plants and cute puppies

This Saturday I joined Zach for dinner with his boss and family. It was really nice. They took us to a Japanese restaurant. It gave me insight into etiquette at dinner when you're with the main guest. Zach was said person as it was a dinner to celebrate his birthday this week. There were a lot of toasts and a LOT of delicious food. The interesting thing was the drink of choice was red wine...which I drank out of politeness...and had no allergic reaction. I was just a bit merry after the dinner :D The previous post about ganbei was info for you as I had to do that a couple of times at dinner. The grandpa (father of Zach's boss Chris) very much enjoyed doing ganbei. haha.

After that we met with a few folks (awesome friends); Chien, Megan, Noel, Anthony...for KTV (karaoke). Noel's sister and partner joined later. It was so much fun! :D
I think this is us singing Mambo No. 5. Left to right: Zach, Me, Chien then Noel.


On Sunday we headed through to Taichung. There was Megan, Anthony, Zach and myself. We went into the greenhouse at the science museum...which is a tropical forest with lots of gorgeous plants. I had been in before but the lads hadn't, so it was a good choice. There are also giant fish in a tank underneath which are pretty cool!

Then we had a wander around, Megan took us to 'bark park' where folks have gathered up a lot of strays and try and find a good home for them. A really nice thing to do methinks. They were mostly puppies which were so cute! Oh man, the temptation was so great to take one home with me.






We also wandered around a department store to kill some time. We met Chien there and she joined us for a while. After that Zach, Anthony and I joined others for a late dinner at a restaurant. I can't remember the name but it was an American chain methinks. It was good. I had been there once before. I had fish and chips...which to be honest I won't have again.

Still, a glorious weekend. Next weekend is the festival of Matsu (or Mazu) the Goddess of the sea who protects fishermen and sailors. I have asked for Saturday off so I can go through early and see the whole thing in ChangHua. No doubts lots of pictures to follow next weekend. Great stuff!

Ganbei

Ganbei is a phrase used meaning 'empty cup'. When drinking someone says it and folks have to down their drink.

The trick is to have as little alcohol as possible in your glass to start with :)

Teacher being taught

One of my favourite students Jim was teaching me Chinese today. Not that i'll remember. I'm a terrible student!

A hobbits tale...

This past weekend was brilliant! First I met with Zach in ChangHua then we headed through to Taichung to meet Renee and Geoff. We went to a place for dinner and then relaxed with watching movies.

Sunday was a whole day dedicated to Lord of the Rings with breaks for American style food (not all of it was). I will include some pictures of the strange things Geoff (a fellow Brit) and I endured. Lol. It wasn't that bad. I quite liked the biscuits and gravy....wait until you see the pictures. They are what can best be described as scones with a bacon creamy sauce. Sounds awful to British ears who only know of Jam and clotted cream with such bakeries, but once you get over the initial 'What on earth is that?' it is rather nice.

Monday was spent not doing much. We went to the art museum in Taichung. Unfortunately we didn't have time to go round it all, so I will definitely put in another visit. There was of course some weird stuff but also some great pieces as well. Then we watched Clash of the Titans, not something I would go and see again. Once was enough. lol.

Edit: Here are a couple of pictures.

Biscuits


Some left over 'gravy'


Biscuits and gravy


Yummy pie I got on Monday.

More work fun

My regular class had a quiz today so I printed a colouring page for them so they could chill out a bit afterwards. It was also a lesson mainly of games to review the necessary vocabulary and sentence patterns. It was a good day today. Fridays are great!

A new addition to the class. She is a lovely little girl who works well and is always polite.












A review game for a different class. They had to tell me about the things on the board, once they had they got points.