The rain finally stopped and the sun came out. Normally that would be great but really it just meant that it got really, really hot. When we left school at 4:00 it was 35 degrees, which doesn't sound so bad until you convert it to fahrenheit and it's 95! Today was the perfect day to cool off in the pool. Did I mention we have a pool at our apartment?

 
It was incredibly refreshing and I had it pretty much to myself. I think I'll be spending a lot of late afternoons there.

It's been raining so much in southern Taiwan that the mayor of Kaohsiung cancelled schools today, in addition to closing them early yesterday. Yesterday the city got upwards of 14 inches of rain (over 300 mm - sounds especially dramatic in metric, doesn't it?) and today has been alternately pouring and lightly raining.

We had a wonderful early walk through the park this morning and stayed relatively dry, thanks to our handy little umbrellas we bought on one of our first days in Taiwan. They have seen a lot of use in the last 5 days!

By noon we were getting pretty antsy to get moving and the rain had stopped (briefly, it turned out) so we decided to hop on our bikes and explore the bike path along the Love River.

Lee, chillaxing on the bike bath.
(Those are brick pieces of furniture, including a book and pair of glasses on the coffee table.)

 
Having the bikes opens up the whole city for exploration. I can only walk so far and taxis are great for getting you to one place but not really for exploring. There's a pretty extensive bus service and a 2-track metro (the north-south line and the east-west line) but we haven't figured out the systems yet. Eventually.

My classroom last week:

My classroom yesterday:

It may not look like much but it's my home during the day.

Lee has two classrooms, one the floor above mine and one downstairs and around the corner. Unfortunately, he has to share both of them with other teachers so he's a bit of a nomad. At the end of the day he likes to come hang out on my miniature couch while I finish up my work. I may think about putting in a miniature coffee maker.

Today it rained. A lot, apparently, because at noon the mayor of the city closed all of the schools. I guess there is such a thing as too much rain, even here, where my students tell me it rains all the time. This rain is different than the typhoon rains because then there's a lot of wind. We should expect school to close at least once or twice before the typhoon season ends in October.

Today was the first day of school. After all the prep work it was nice to actually get started. I am now exhausted. I took some pictures of my classroom but forgot to bring my phone home so I'll post the photos later.

It was pouring this morning, something it's done for three straight days. I've never worked in a school where it rains in the corridors! The hallways are open to the outside so there's a lot of splash, plus the ceilings leak in places.

KAS is building a brand new campus next to the old building so there's not much impetus to fix things like leaky roofs. We got to tour the construction site last week but it was a little hard to imagine the end result. There was a ceremony at the new building on Friday for the Ghost Festival. From what I understand, the festival is a chance to placate the ghosts by offering them food and money. There were tables set up all over the city covered with food and burning incense and braziers on the sidewalk where paper money was burned (not real money - I think the ghosts aren't particular). Anyway, I think the ceremony went well and we are on schedule to move into the new building in April.

Here's a link to the architect's video:
http://www.kas.tw/kaohsiung-american-school/campus/

Today we have to go to the grocery store. Yesterday we got 10 pounds of oatmeal at Costco and fresh mango and papaya from the street vendor but that's not really enough to make lunch for school tomorrow. The problem is we had planned on walking there and taking a taxi back but, unfortunately, it's pouring ran and it's a bit of a haul to walk there.

So you're thinking, just take the taxi there, right? Our problem is how to tell the taxi where to take us. When we are going to school or home we have the addresses to hand to the driver.

Most taxi drivers we've encountered don't speak any English and my Chinese is limited to counting to 10, thank you and sorry. Lee can say chopsticks. Addresses are beyond our language skills so far. Hopefully it'll stop raining long enough for a walk or we may have to try showing the driver google maps on the phone.

Here's my new bike!

We went to a wonderful Giant Bikes shop and spoke with Joe, whose English was excellent, and bought a bike that'll be good for commuting on the flat roads of Kaohsiung. But it also has plenty of gears so I'll be able to bike up Monkey Mountain if I want. I also got a water bottle, fender, lock, helmet, pump and a really nifty basket that detaches and has a handle so it'll be great for shopping at the street markets.

Unfortunately they didn't have the bike Lee wanted in the shop so he has to wait until Monday evening to pick up his. That's not really a big deal considering it poured on and off all day today and the weather forecast is for more of the same for the next 6 days. Not exactly biking weather.

On our way to shop at Costco we walked a bit out of our way and found part of the bike trail that goes along the Love River.

The river itself is pretty murky but the trail was great. There are something like 100 km of bike paths in the city and the one along the river is one of the most popular. We'll start exploring the paths next weekend.

Ta da! From this:

To this (with only a little help from Lee):

Yeah, I know, it's only a fan and all fans are pretty much alike, but I'm looking for little victories right now.