Happy Halloween!

I found these cute little butterfly antennae and a magic butterfly wand to use for the Halloween festivities at school. The students and teachers dressed up and the elementary schoolers paraded around trick-or-treating at the offices and played games on the playground. Then school was over and so was Halloween. It is not a Taiwan holiday so there's nothing to celebrate once you leave the KAS campus. I hope someone back home is saving me some candy corn...

This morning was dumpling morning and the cart was missing once again so we bought breakfast from the cart across the street:

We had a hash brown/chicken patty kind of thing and a couple sandwiches. I think the cook's idea with the sandwiches was to see how many different ingredients he could fit between three slices of bread. They were okay but we both hope to see our dumplings back next week.

After school we decided to get some exercise and headed out on our bikes. The plan was to head down to the docks and back on the bike path but when we got there it was nearly sunset so we stopped to watch the sun set over the ocean. 

I couldn't believe how many boats were waiting outside the harbor waiting for their turn to come in to port. It was a pretty amazing place to watch a sunset.

Back at the end of August I showed you pictures of my dumpling cart. You may recall we stop there every Friday for breakfast. I know, I complained about the sameness of life yesterday and now I'm celebrating doing the same thing every week. But this is a habit, a routine, a tradition! That is way different than monotony.

Anyway, the cart has been missing from it's usual street corner for two days in a row. We say good morning to them every day as we bike by but on Monday the woman of the couple that runs it wasn't there and now the cart is gone. I feel bad because I'm conflicted. I've been wanting to try the dumplings from the cart on the opposite side of the street but didn't want to be a two-timer. So now I'm kind of hoping "our" cart is gone tomorrow so we can buy breakfast at the other cart with a clear conscience. Brand loyalty is a hard thing.

Yesterday we left work with time for a bike ride before yoga and stopped by a coffee shop for a late afternoon pick-me-up. The coffee was really good, and expensive too, about what we would have paid for a latte at Starbucks back home, which is outrageously expensive around here. But another plus, besides that the coffee was really good, is that they had sheep statues just like my lovely sister.

I even know what the sign says - "Keep off the grass." And how do I know? Well, for one, what else would it say, right? And for two, it's written in English as well as Chinese.

There is a sameness to the days here that is starting to get to me. The work doesn't change - beginning mid-October we go for over nearly 7 weeks without a day off. There are no autumn holiday celebrations, no change in the store decorations to herald a new seasonal festivity - leaf-peeping, corn mazes, jack-o-lanterns and turkeys, those markers that move the calendar along.

And then there's the relentless sameness to the weather. Someone mentioned the other day how nice is was now the weather has changed and I thought, really?? This is the change? It's now in the mid-80's, which is less than what is was in August, I suppose, but 5-10 degrees over three months seems hardly worth mentioning. Last night when we walked to dinner (a fabulous meal of Korean food) there were a few rain drops. I remember it rained when Lee was away back in late September but I'm pretty sure there has been zero rain in October. It's just really dull.

One thing that does change are the aromas one smells in the city. I noticed on my way home yesterday that every block seemed to have a different smell wafting down the street. There were the inevitable scooter fumes and diesel trucks but also the five spice cooking, the incense at the temples, waffles and sausages from the food carts. (Yes, waffles. Who knew there were so many different shapes and different ways to serve waffles?!) Even the occasional flowering tree, although not on this particular route.

I took a slightly different route home yesterday because I wanted to stop at the Cookbox, the store that carries everything you might need for baking. Now that we have an oven I wanted to cook up some pumpkin bread (well, not pumpkin, but something very much like pumpkin and just as tasty). Unfortunately, every white powder looks the same and unless it's labeled in English, I'm out of luck figuring out which one I need. I have a friend giving me the packaging of the flour she got so I'll know what to look for when I go to the store tomorrow. The pumpkin bread will just have to wait.

This afternoon's faculty meeting was devoted to explaining the party that's planned for the return of the superintendent of the school next Monday. He was diagnosed with cancer late last winter and has spent the spring and summer in Maine getting radiation and chemotherapy and is now cleared to return to Taiwan.

The board of directors are showing up, all 600 students will be each receiving a rose, they'll be giving Tom cards and decorating his office. It's a big deal. But teachers are not the best learners. They are like herding cats so getting everybody to understand their roles for next Monday was a bit comical. Where are the cupcakes and do I have to eat one if I don't like cupcakes? If the kids are wearing their school t-shirts do I get to wear mine too, even if it's out of dress code? What if I want a rose and where are the cupcakes?

Actually, I'm exaggerating. This faculty is relatively attentive. The where-are-we-supposed-to-be-when part of any celebration is tricky and this is no different. One amusing note is that the two principals, who are both helping to plan the party, won't be on campus on Monday. They'll be at a conference and will miss all the fun. But they assure us it will all go off without a hitch. They guarantee no rain, which is no gamble at all since it won't rain here again until spring.

I took my first scooter ride last night. Lee was gone all day and evening so I went out without him to dinner with some friends and one of them, who lives in our building, offered me a ride home. The ride was both thrilling and terrifying and did not convince me that we need to buy a scooter any time soon. It's a pretty vulnerable feeling to be going the speed of a car in the craziness of Kaohsiung traffic. It's also pretty exciting and makes it quicker and more convenient to get to other parts of the city. There's also the added benefit of carrying space for things like groceries. But so far the bikes have been okay so we'll stick with them for awhile.

This morning we decided to head back out to the northern beach that we visited last weekend, this time on bikes. We wanted to try getting down to the port area on the western side of the city as an alternative to the bike path. We also got the chance to get in some hill work, something we never do in the city itself.

We had heard about the Kaohsiung zoo, a dismal place for the captives but a nice bike ride with views if you can handle the climb. The road was quite busy with bikers and joggers even at 7:30 on a Sunday morning and the hill was as steep as advertised.

We stopped at the entrance to the zoo but didn't bother going in.

 Further up the hill was the Buddhist Temple with a very happy Buddha.

At the top of the hill was the Martyrs' Shrine. It commemorated the Chinese who died fighting the Japanese in mainland China in the years leading up to 1945.

When you walk through the first building you come to a courtyard with the second building. It was stunningly beautiful, tucked up against the cliff edge overlooking the city.

The mouth of the harbor is between the hills on the right. The further hill is actually part of Cijin Island, an oversized sandbar that protects the harbor. It was a pretty smoggy day which you can tell from this photo of downtown:

After the Martyrs' Shrine we were rewarded with the downhill ride though National Sun Yat-sen University and out to Sizihwan Beach. There were busloads of tourists heading to the former British consulate and not one person on the beach. It was still kind of early but it was well into the 80's, plenty warm enough to want to be in the water. I just don't get it, why the Taiwanese don't make use of all this waterfront.

October flowers in Kaohsiung.

Yesterday was parent teacher conference day. I spent eight hours sitting at a table in the cafeteria and talked to mostly my middle school parents. I only have nine of them so it made for a pretty dull day. Lee had 41 parents come by his table.

One of the other teachers calls conference day the love fest. Parents are, without exception, grateful for the work that we do with their kids and not one of mine made any excuses for their children if they weren't doing well. The teachers I talked to all agreed that the question you get from the parents is, "What can I do to help?" The high school parents are less likely to come to conference day - the older the student the more they are responsible for their own education, maybe? If this were Lee's blog he may have more to say about some of the high schoolers and their lack of commitment to his classes. Maybe I should have him do a guest column.

Today Lee is spending the day with the 6th grade volleyball teams (boys and girls) at their tournaments in Taichung. It's 5:45 and he just walked out the door. He's hoping to be back by 8:30 tonight. It's not exactly how he'd like to be spending his Saturday but the coaching commitment here is a far cry from his days at Westminster. The volleyball season ran about 10 weeks, practiced twice a week for a little over an hour a day and Lee only went to one of their games since the various coaches take turns running practice and going to games.

He has now fulfilled his after school commitment at KAS, although he can always volunteer for more as the year moves along. We are required to do something with the students after school (once a week, 3-4:30) one of the quarters. I'm putting mine off until the last quarter and plan to offer weaving to the upper elementary kids. I already run a middle school weaving club, so I should be ready to face the 3rd, 4th and 5th graders by springtime. Hopefully I will have convinced the school to buy some looms by then. The middle school students helped me build this one and it's working okay.

Anybody who knows what a loom is supposed to look like, go ahead and laugh. Personally, I'm quite proud of it and made an even better second one.

Today marked the first of a series of coffee house type performances by the high school students. After school the kids set up the amps and mic on the patio outside the cafeteria on the edge of the playground.

It's hard to see so let me paint you a picture. Imagine a sizable courtyard that contains some large banyan and palm trees, a small stage, two basketball and two volleyball courts, a play scape for the elementary kids, and the first grade garden. On one side of this is the cafeteria where the high schoolers have set up their music while on the playground there are scores of little kids running around and a couple dozen parents sitting and chatting and ignoring their children. Then toss in marginally inappropriate lyrics and karaoke and you've Cadenza, after school entertainment, Taiwan style.

Here's a cool little video made by a company called Free Mai. It shows a few places we've been to - Kenting and Cijin, plus we've been to Pingtung and Sandimen but not to the places in the video. Taiwan is a really beautiful place to live (despite the shipwrecked tanker on the beach).

In case you're ever visiting Asia and you'd like to know about toilets here is your tutorial:

If the toilet stall is marked like this:

Then behind the door you will find a "western style" toilet, like this:

If the toilet stall is marked like this:

Then behind the door you will find a squat toilet, like this:

Everybody has their own preference for which toilet they prefer and there are pros and cons for both. Just remember to carry tissues with you because you will no doubt find bathrooms without toilet paper. Also, when using a squat toilet the toilet paper goes into the trash can, not down the toilet.

And one last thing. If you find a big red button next to the toilet it is probably not the flush button. Instead, it's probably an alarm to call for help if you fall and can't get up. I will not be telling you how I know this....

Today was a couple of firsts.

We had our first yoga class this afternoon. It was fabulous. It makes for a long day - about 13 hours from the time we left this morning til we got back from yoga - but it's well worth it. The instructor is a young woman from New Zealand (I think) and all the students are teachers at KAS. I don't think I've been as relaxed as I was at the end of class since I've arrived in Taiwan. We'll be going twice a week.

The other first was parent-teacher conferences. Friday is the scheduled conference day (no classes that day) but I needed to talk to a couple of parents early. The parents were very appreciative of the time and effort the whole school puts into their child's education but I'm not used to having an interpreter.  It's tricky figuring out the nuances of communication. I felt like the conferences went well I just need to learn the logistics of who to look at, the parent or the interpreter, and the proper protocol with business cards.

Happy Birthday to my beautiful niece Cady!

(It may not be the 20th yet where you are but it is here. Not too early to celebrate!)

Another weekend, another adventure.

This morning was bright and sunny and the flowers in our park were all abloom.

It was a good day to head down into the subway and explore a new part of the city. The subway system is new, clean and very convenient. There are only two lines, one running north-south, the other east-west. At the station where the two lines cross there is a beautiful glass ceiling called the Dome of Light. It's pretty impressive.

We were heading down to the harbor to visit the former British Consulate building. It was built in 1865 and is the oldest western-style building in the city. It hasn't been used by the British for over 100 years and it fell into disrepair until 1986 when the Kaohsiung government renovated the grounds and buildings. It's now one of the big tourist attractions in the city.

At the end of the subway line we found a sidewalk cafe of sorts and fortified ourselves with a light lunch.

Not sure what we ate. Something with egg, a dumpling kind of thing, an odd waldorf salad sandwich, milk tea. It was enough to give us energy to wend our way through the streets in search of our destination.

We made a wrong turn and took this tunnel...

...and found ourselves at National Sun Yat-sen University. It was a beautiful campus but not where we wanted to be, so we came back through the tunnel and found this lovely little sign:

So up the walkway we went. The consulate is at the top of a small knoll overlooking the entrance of the harbor. I'm pretty sure it's located on the prettiest plot of land in the entire city. Here's the building:

Here's the view towards the city:

And the view in the opposite direction towards the ocean:

We walked down to the beach just out of sight around the corner of this view. The university's sports fields are right at the shore but the beach itself was pretty deserted.

I think the Taiwanese feel that once the calendar says summer is over you just don't go to the beach. All the tourists were back at the consulate, although they parked the buses by the beach.

You see these buses all around the city. They are full of mainland Chinese taking in the sites. The bus pulls up, out they come, they take some pictures, browse the gift shop, march back on the bus and go off to the next stop. I hope to never find myself on one of those tours.

Instead of the bus we used our feet to find our way back to the subway, stopping at our favorite mango ice shop on the way and stumbling upon a field full of kite flyers next to the subway stop.

It was marvelous day. And we still had time after getting home to head out to the produce market, but that's another story.

Last night's intention had been to eat at Foster's because it was close to the produce market and we could pop out to buy some veggies after dinner. As it turned out, after a couple of beers (Lee) and a lychee sour (me) we didn't have the motivation to look for carrots and onions. There's always today.

We did, however, spend time at the bar talking to an expat Brit who is a lawyer and has been living in Kaohsiung for 12 years. It's odd to run into other expats. I'm not sure of the appropriate acknowledgement. Do we give a hearty hello, as though we already know each other because of some perceived shared background? I wouldn't greet a stranger like that on the streets back home and yet there is some sense of commonality. Hey! someone else who speaks English! In fact, I usually make an attempt at eye contact and give a subtle head nod or ignore them, depending on their response to me. More often than not, we just ignore each other. It's odd.

On a completely different note, we did finally make it to the post office after work on Friday. Not only did I send my package to Amherst I also bought stamps for postcards:

Now I can finally send my thank you cards to my Green Room families at the Children's Center. It turned out not to be a long wait at the post office but it is not cheap to send packages. I probably won't be doing much of that. I'll be packing really efficiently for our Christmas trip instead. After all, none of the clothes I have here will be appropriate for December in New England. All the clothes I need will be waiting for me in the box I left behind.

The weather here, though, really has changed. I've actually changed from wearing a tank top to a t-shirt on the bike ride to school because it's a bit chilly in the morning. The highs are only reaching into the mid-80's and the humidity is in the 60's and 70's, way down from the 90's a month ago! Too soon to switch to long pants but that may actually happen before winter arrives.

Once a month the faculty at KAS gets together for a potluck breakfast in the cafeteria before the students arrive. Today was the October day and the spread was quite impressive. About a dozen people are assigned to each month so people only have to think about bringing in something once, which is quite civilized. There were Chinese dumplings and French quiche plus these:

It's a Japanese donut and comes in a box with the same color scheme as Dunkin Donuts. I'm not a big fan of donuts (give me Dunkin muffin anytime though) but this was pretty good. Chewier and not quite as sweet as a Dunkin donut.

In general the bread here is sweeter than back in the States and desserts, like cake and cookies, are less sweet. We've found sausage to be sweeter and every drink at the 7-11 to be really sugary as well.

Tonight we're taking a break from Asian cuisine and eating at the expat bar near us. Sometimes it's a nice change to have wings and fish and chips.

After dinner we went on a walk to the "plastics store" to find some glue for a project at school. On our way back I took some photos of things along the way. I feel a little like the boy in Dr. Seuss' book "And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street." I'll not to embellish too much....

I didn't actually take this picture tonight but we did pass by this spot on our walk. In fact, we either walk or bike past it every day since it's right next door to our apartment.

I like to think of it as a living billboard. It's an advertisement for the new highrise apartment they're building but what's different from back home is that the center is surrounded by little pots of plants. The wall has a grid attached to it and each pot is stuck in a hole in the grid. These billboards are all over the place. It's a pretty cool way to add a little greenery to the city.

We also walked past a school with this kiosk in front:

As far as I can tell, it's for publicly displaying grades. Nice (not...).

General elections are coming up soon. I know it's not for president or mayor of Kaohsiung but I don't know who it is for. These little trucks drive around all day long blaring campaign slogans and generally slowing down traffic.

It's really nice being in a place where you can't understand what's being said during an election. Election campaigns are definitely something I do not miss. 

We have been teaching for nearly 10 weeks and I'm beginning to have some perspective on the beginning of the school year. Gone, mostly, are the days of sheer panic of being prepared to teach five classes. Gone also, mostly, are the days of feeling completely incompetent. Most of the time now I feel ready for each class, ready to face all those eager, and less than eager, children in my care.

The flip side of that is the realization that we're only a quarter of the way through the school year! There's something about having to work so hard at the beginning of the year that doesn't allow you time to look very far forward. Now that I'm beginning to feel comfortable there's a certain drudgery that comes with the job. It's still satisfying and exciting and fun and hard too, but now there's also the sameness and predictability that comes from the familiar.

One of the nice things about getting comfortable in the job is having a little more energy at the end of the day. I got home at 4:45 today and by 5:00 Lee and I were on our bikes for an hour's ride before dinner. A month ago I barely had the energy to get through dinner before collapsing on the couch with the intention of getting schoolwork done but only managing to fall asleep. My internal clock is still skewed to the early morning wake-up call so I'm out of bed by 4:30 but at least I'm up a little bit later in the evenings.

Tomorrow we start a yoga class which will hopefully add to our sense of renewed energy. I'll let you know.

This evening we have a couple friends coming by to watch the Patriots play their Sunday afternoon game. It's nice that the NFL gives us the option of watching our team play at our convenience. Of course it works fine for them since we gave them a chunk of change for the privilege, but that's okay. We have Pizza Hut delivering dinner, Taiwan beer in the fridge and a couple bags of snacks so we have everything we need.

The funny thing is that everything is just a little bit off. It's Tuesday evening, not Sunday afternoon, the pizza flavors include kimchi and the snack bags include dried fish. Plus there are no Cox/Sheldons around. It's a new life. Hopefully there will be a game we can see with CT friends during Christmas break.

I came across an unexpected delight when I biked into school Sunday afternoon: a field of zinnias in the middle of a city block.

We had such a busy day yesterday I'm going to need to get back to school just to get some rest! Simona took us on a whirlwind tour of Tainan then back to Kaohsiung for a truly spectacular dinner.

We had our first trip on a Taiwan train and I was glad to have a Chinese speaker with us. There was limited English and there were no maps on the train to tell you that you're on the right train or how many stops to go until yours. That was a problem on our return trip because we got on the wrong train and had to get off at the next station to get the right one. Maybe it wasn't all that helpful to have a native speaker after all! (Just kidding, Simona.)

Our first stop was outside of Tainan city at the Salt Museum.

It showed the old process of evaporating the sea water in pools and harvesting the salt. It looked like incredibly hot, hard work although in all the dioramas the people were smiling and the exhibits tried to convince us the workers had good working and living conditions. The area was beautiful in that desolate, stark way and the wind was strong and constant. Living around there had more of a forced-labor-camp feel than planned-community.

Nowadays the area is a tourist attraction with a salt mountain to climb, go-carts, pony rides, food stalls and an arcade. All out in the middle of a wind-swept, flat as a pancake area a half hour's drive from the city. A bit surreal.

Here's the salt mountain:

And the view from the top:

Lee channeled his inner black faced spoonbill:

  

After that we headed back into the city to see the old sites. Tainan is the oldest city in Taiwan and still shows some of its old Dutch roots as well as being home to hundreds of years old Buddhist, Taoist and Confucius temples. 

Every little aspect of sightseeing was so much easier having Simona with us. Where to go, how to get there, what to order for lunch. I'm all for immersion tourism, figuring things out on your own, making mistakes and learning from them. But we've been doing that every day for two and a half months and will continue to do that every day for many months to come. It was a treat to take a break from all that. We even got the insider perspective of Tainan in that Simona's father grew up there and we made a stop to look at his old home.

But first, we visited Chihkan Tower, first built by the Dutch in 1653. 

The grounds were beautiful and the tower gave a nice view of the area. There were even some signs in English talking about the various rulers of the area, including the Ming, Qing, Japanese and Kuomintang (the KMT, China's Nationalist Party, which still has a strong influence in Taiwan).

The next stop was the Confucius Temple. The temple is surrounded by parkland and was peaceful and serene despite all the bustle and traffic on the other side of the stone walls. There were even a couple of concerts going on in the park including this orchestra of traditional Chinese instruments. 

After the stop at Simona's family's home and a quick, one-of-a-kind-in-Taiwan dessert of crepes we hopped on the (wrong) train to come back to Kaohsiung and shower before dinner.

And what a dinner it was! It was a tiny Japanese restaurant with one seating, in front of the chefs who prepared one piece of sushi at a time for 12 or so diners. Every bite was exquisite. I've never before had a meal like this one. I'm at a loss of how to describe it so I won't even try. You'll just have to imagine it for yourselves. Thank you, thank you, Simona!