This morning we went with a friend on a hike up Monkey Mountain for the first time since returning to Taiwan. I was worried that the typhoon would have left the paths littered with fallen trees. But as it turned out you could hardly tell there'd been a storm given how little damage we saw.

The mountain was quite busy with lots of small crowds at the tables and pavilions scattered around in the woods. There are people who carry up the mountain gallons of water, propane tanks and all the paraphernalia to supply dozens of people with hot tea. At one such spot a woman reached into her backpack to take out a bag of snacks and a monkey came swooping in to grab it away before she could even react. When she decided to rummage around for the second bag we decided to leave so as not to get caught between any monkeys and her food.

At another lookout area a man had carried up his guitar and was playing to an appreciative audience, both people and monkeys.

The views from the back side of the mountain were nice despite the occasional rain. There were plenty of monkeys to admire, although I didn't take many photos of them. I still enjoy seeing them very much but I don't feel the need to photograph all of them. I did take a few shots just to document that they were there.

That's the ocean off in the distance.

We had a great ride to the end of Cijin Island and back this morning. The heat index was approaching 100 degrees but we still had a great time. The key on a bike is to keep moving. At least then you have a breeze.

We were surprised to find sand castles on the beach when we first got to the island. Someone was quite busy in the last week, building them after typhoon Soudelor. They may not last long, as there are two more typhoons building to the east of us right now.

The surf was higher than we've seen before. I could've stayed and watched the waves crashing on the sea wall all morning but it was too hot to stand still for long.

On the way back home we took on one particular road where we could see from one end to the other and there was one traffic light after another. It reminded me of a scene in Star Wars where Liam Neeson's character is fighting the Sith guy with the cool black and red face. They fight and then the doors close and they have to wait until the doors open before they attack again. That's how we were with the traffic lights. We'd fight our way through the traffic for a couple of blocks and then get stuck at a light for awhile. Then when the light turned green we'd go barreling back into the traffic for another few lights before we were stopped once again. In the end no one died, which is, of course, a good thing. Liam Neeson's character wasn't so lucky, although Mr. Neeson probably considered himself lucky since it saved him from having to come back and participate in the next two films. But I digress...

After our ride we met up with some friends for lunch at a Thai restaurant. It was fabulous and may become our go-to activity on Saturdays. By the time we got home we'd been gone for about six hours. The rest of the day I spent warping my loom, which is a great way to recover from a such a busy morning.

Here's what my Friday looked like:

I started out the day with a beautiful sunrise with my morning coffee.

Since it's Friday we bought dumplings at our favorite cart on our bike ride to school. This is the first time we've stopped at the cart since we've been back, although we say good morning every day on our way by. I managed a short conversation with the head dumpling maker (the wife of the pair that man the cart). I figured out she was asking if we'd been to the U.S. for the summer and I said yes. It was a very short conversation. Clearly I need to get back to Chinese lessons.

The school day bubbled along nicely. I got my E block class to laugh, even with the principal in the room making them nervous. (She had stopped by to see how things are going in the ELL department.) As far as I know I did not make anyone cry today. I did graduate two students out of the program, which made them very happy, although they claim they'll miss me.

I spent a few minutes of my day looking out my window and watching the construction site. They are working on phase two of the new campus, which includes a new cafeteria, swimming pool, gym and playing fields. As far as I can tell they spent the day digging a large hole, filling more than a dozen very large trucks with fill that got carted away, and then apparently filling in the hole back in again.

The bike ride home went smoothly. They've almost finished clearing the fallen trees on the little section of bike path we like to use next to the train tracks. Just about all of the damage from the typhoon has been cleared up. It's been pretty amazing to see how quickly the work has gone.

When we got home I went for a swim at the pool at our apartment. It's an outside pool but it's mostly covered by the outside edge of the building so it doesn't get much direct sun which keeps it a little cooler than it might if it were more exposed. This evening it didn't get any sun, but it got rain instead. It turns out it's pretty cool to go swimming in the rain.

This evening has been spent watching the Patriots play a preseason game against Green Bay. We'd stopped at the 7-11 for a mostly western collection of snacks for football watching:

It's been a very nice Friday and now we get the weekend. I hope you all have had a nice Friday too.

Everyone had said, wait til next year, it'll be so much easier your second year. How true! This time last year I was so overwhelmed by what I had to do at school. Getting used to living in Taiwan was secondary to getting used to teaching as KAS but I was still often blown away by the newness of it all. Now it's comfortable, even when it's complicated. Lee and I have dentist appointments in a couple of weeks and it was complicated to set them up because I don't know any dentists nor do I speak their language, but on the other hand, of course we have dentist appointments. Everyone goes to see the dentist. Last August I might have burst into tears if someone told me I had to set up a dentist appointment.

On the flip side, you may be asking, isn't it getting less interesting to live here, not as thrilling now that it's not so new? I feel like I'm getting the best of both sides right now. I've got the comfort of the routine with the still-novel-to-me city living in a foreign country. It may be our second year but it's still different than the previous 50 or so years of my life.

The best time for me to see the stars is early in the morning. It gets dark here much earlier in August than it does back in Connecticut - the sun is setting around 6:30 and there's hardly any dusk - so the stars could be out long before I go to bed. Okay, not too long before I go to bed since I'm struggling to keep my eyes open much past 8:30. But even so, I think there are more lights on or maybe there's more lingering scooter exhaust in the air, so it's just hard to make out more than a few stars in the evening.

This morning, though, when I stood out on my balcony just after I woke up there was a lovely crescent moon hanging over the eastern horizon and the constellation Orion was there as well. There weren't a ton of stars but enough that I could see Orion, and he's my favorite constellation (how nerdy is it to have a favorite constellation?). The sun rose shortly after that, which was also quite lovely, and now the day has started. We've managed to have two good days of teaching, only about 178 more to go!

We made it through the first day of school. It is so much easier not being new but still exhausting. This year I'm teaching four middle school classes and one small group of third and fourth graders. The middle school classes are mixed grades, sixth through eighth. If you'd asked me two years ago what age level I'd be teaching I am pretty sure I would not have imagined it would be this age. I do like it, though. It turns out fourteen year olds are not so different than four year olds.

After school we treated ourselves to an early exit from school and a bike ride to the harbor. Many sections of the bike path are still impassable for all the trees that are down. There are crews cleaning up all over the place and all the roads I've seen have been cleared but it'll take awhile to do the paths. Picking our way through the branches reminded me of the big Halloween storm we got a few years ago in New England. After that storm Lee and I walked up the bike path in Simsbury and had to wrestling our way through tree branches and snow to get through the fallen trees. It was like that here except it's about 50 degrees warmer and many of the branches are from palm trees instead of evergreens.

This morning we decided it was time to venture out and get our week's shopping started. Our plan was to head to the morning produce market (aka "the big melon market") but as we exited the parking garage ramp the skies opened up and sent us back inside. The next attempt was an hour or two later when the showers had stopped, at least for awhile. It was too late for the market and too early for the grocery store so we walked to the 24 hour store (aka "the plastic store," aka "the mini walmart").

It became quite clear the destruction the typhoon left in its wake. We didn't see any buildings with damage but the broken and uprooted trees were overwhelming. Later when we biked over to the grocery store the bike path was nearly impassable in places from all the limbs down. It was heart breaking to walk through our neighborhood park, Aohzidi, and see the devastation of the trees.

Here are a few pix of what we saw.

Scooter dominoes

Most of the palm trees were unscathed but not these particular ones.

Look for the man (without a helmet, btw) cutting away the tree limbs while sitting in the tree.

In this picture you can see the path disappear into the trees. Before the storm that path went all the way through the park unimpeded. Now the whole park is full of downed trees and tree limbs. I imagine there will be armies of people out over the next few weeks clearing away the debris but it'll take years for the trees to recover.