Hello again! You might be surprised that I am updating again so quickly--and it's because of the fact that I am bored out of my mind and have been in bed for two days!! But before we get to that, I want to show you all of the fun things I did this weekend!
Friday was a hard day. Orientation was comprised of visiting 6 of the elementary schools at which 3 of us might be stationed (since we are all to teach at two schools, dividing 16 class hours between the two each week). That was grueling! Thankfully, one of the schools gave each and every one of us a blueberry cake, making this day less bad :). In fact, every single school tried to give us food and drink, so I felt so fat by the end of the day!
Later that night, we all banded together to cook food! One of my apartment mates, Mark, made a DELICIOUS Taro seafood dish which was probably the best thing I've ever tasted. If you want to know how to make it, go here to his blog and try it out!
http://maplesintaiwan.blogspot.com/
Here's a picture of the festivities! You can tell how awesome the food is by the look on my face!
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Me really excited about a taro dish!
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Next, after much pleading on my part, we managed to get everyone to go to karaoke! It was the first time I had ever arranged karaoke, so I was really pleased when I was able to understand everything the people said at the front desk and get a room for us! Then, however, I was stuck trying to come up with songs for everyone to sing since I'm the only one who can read traditional characters. I did manage to fit in a couple of Wang Leehom songs, one of which my roommate Paul very nicely sang with me haha... Here's some pictures of that excursion:
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Not sure if everyone is more excited about singing or the beer... probably the beer haha
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This is the computer--i was trying to find good songs, but there weren't that many in English...
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Saturday morning I got up bright and early (10 o'clock haha) and went for a bike ride!! I rode first to the bank to activate my ATM card, then rode for a while before realizing that I was heading in the wrong direction. It's been really hard for me because every where I've lived the main feature (mountain, lake, etc) has been to the east. Now that it's to the west (the ocean) I keep getting confused! In any case, I eventually reached the harbor, and took lots of pictures of the pretty scenery! Despite all of the containers and machinery, it's still really beautiful.
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| Right where I first emerged onto the seaside biketrail |
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| Gaoxiong's iconic Skytower, right along the biketrail |
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| A new dock which has been renovated into a seaside viewing area, really pretty!! |
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| More of this huge open space area |
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The ocean, of course! I sat right here and made notecards for like a half hour--the sea breeze was so nice!!
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The Ministry of Education gave us free tickets to go see the Anime convention! It was quite overwhelming. There were so many people that you couldn't even get to any of the anime. I liked the one in Taipei last year better. But it was still a good (exhausting) experience.
Next, Mark's Taiwanese friends came and we had dinner with them! We tried all sorts of fun dishes! And each plate was only 3 dollars, what a steal! Lots of fun speaking Chinese and learning about culture :)
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| On our ride back on the subway |
Sunday was full of funness... Mark's friends made a DELICIOUS lunch, and then we ate beijing duck for dinner--but it seems that it was the duck which led me astray because Monday I woke up feeling TERRIBLE and ended up having to go to the doctor. Apparently it was acute gastroenteritis, or food poisoning (or water, or something), so I've been in bed for a couple days now... Hopefully I will be up and at'tem tomorrow, ready to take more photos of more experiences!!
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