Sunday, November 21, 2010

A couple of the student's parents invited some of us teachers to lunch followed by orange picking.

An orange orchard in the mountains of Feng Yuan, Taiwan

(you can't see it, but just behind the first row of trees, it drops down and all the trees are on the sides of the mountain)

Jacky and Me

(yes, I did some photo editing, sorry for the bad quality, David, but it's better than being blinded ;)

I was invited by two of my student's parents. Jacky and his friend Jake are in my Afternoon Kindergarten class. Interestingly, a couple days after I was told by a secretary that I was invited, Laura told us that her student's brother had asked her to lunch and, as it happened, to pick oranges. Her student's brother is Alex from one of my 3rd grade classes. To further confuse us, later when Alex asked Laura to confirm that she was going, she asked him, "And Miss Katy too?" He said, "No, not Miss Katy." Well the whole thing from my point of view was fairly up in the air, and I figured I'd just go with the flow, being only slightly reassured when a secretary wanted me to confirm that I was ok to go on the 21st. Remember, when they asked me, they said that it was Jacky and Jake's parents. So along comes 11am Sunday morning and Laura, Erin (I left her out of the already confusing story, don't worry, her part fully added to the confusion ;), and I head downstairs to meet the families. Erin and Laura's students and families are there, including Alex, who did seem confused to see me, and then Jake came around the corner and in a couple minutes Jacky and his family arived, and all confusion was . . . less needed ;)

The kids that go to Burhan (the school I work for) usually have well-to-do families (it is the most expensive English cram school in the area) so it shouldn't surprise me that they have nice cars. It was nice to ride in a very comfortable Benz for our drive into and through the mountains, especially considering that our common modes of transportation are either a bumpy-bus, tipsy-train, crazy-cab, or beautiful-bike (I will admit to having too much fun coming up with those alliterations; and yes, I do love my bike ;)

Well the day started out with lunch at this great restaurant in the mountains. We sat out side on the balcony overlooking Feng Yuan. And the stake was Amazing!!!

I don't have a camera yet, so all these pics came from Erin's.

Thanks Erin.

Alex

(yep, that's pretty much how he is in class too ;)

Jacky

(not how he usually is in class, although this was taken after he ran up a mountain, and of course, a minute after this was taken he was back at it!)

Jacky, Me, Jake

(the only picture I could find of Jake)

Jacky, Me, Erin's Student, Erin, Laura, Lara's Student

Laura, a mom, Me, a kid, another mom, Jacky

(I told you, he was literally running up and down that mountain!

This is how he is in class, with that great smile to boot)

How great is this mountain!

Me in the oranges

(that is the dirt of the mountain behind me, if that gives you a slight clue how steep of a . . . place these trees were . . . on . . .

in . . .)

I think Alex got on the motorized cart, and then the parents saw the picture opportunity.

By right eye: Larua, Erin, Katy, a kid, Jake, Jacky, a student, Jacky's baby sister Angel (he is so good with her!), another student, Alex, a Mom (plus for or five workers in the back ground sorting the oranges ;)

Speaking of . . . and this picture doesn't do the amount of oranges justice! Mine alone were in the black bags!

They were gone within the week with 10 of us eating at them (although I think I only had one . . . or none . . . too sticky!)

It really was a great day!!!!!

Thanks to the parents for inviting us!!! =D

Narnia!!!

Friday, December 3, 2010

Yep, we saw it a whole week ahead of the US!

(and that doesn't include the time difference)

Libby takes such great photos!

They are all so lovely, Thanks Libby

Kristi, Meg, Lien, Erin, Katy

When we gave them our tickets they picked up the 3D glasses (which was when I found out it was in 3D!) and started talking in Chinese about something that apparently was really important, but none of us could understand. They kept trying until an impatient person, in nearly perfect English, told us, basically, 'you break it you buy it!' It made me laugh a little, that seems kinda obvious to me, but it's amazing what types of things we feel are so important to communicate, yet we still try to use just words, actions, people, actions (or as our teaching methodology would say, present and observable! ;)

On top of that, the glasses were just so stylish we had to commemorate their fabulousness with a photo!

Allison, Meg, Katy, Erin, Lien, Kristi, Devin

Narnia Rocked! and Caspian, of course, was HOT! ;)

"Thanksgiving" in Taiwan!

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Thanksgiving was postponed to accommodate everyone's teaching schedules, but we were determined to have one, so everyone signed up to make something and we all sat down and ate! It was great!

A couple of days before this little creation was compiled:

It actually held the 'napkins.' Very clever, I thought!

Before dinner the kitchen was busy with preparations!

Whitney and Laura preparing the chicken dish that would be our entrée.

(not exactly traditional, but very tasty!)

Kristi sneaking a taste of her wonderful mashed potatoes!

Stuffing . . . . excited!

Traditional home-made stuffing!!!

It was definitely a Mozel Tov Moment! Thanks Libby!

Here's a look at the entrée

Yummy!

Meg's sticky and delightful candied sweet potatoes

Oh so good!

Homemade roles by Erin!

They rival any of your's, I'll bet on it!

Our partially set table with:

Devin's corn-0n-the-cob, thank you Devin!

Lein's veggie-medley and fried rice, which were both very tasty!

Meg's stuffing is on the right and in the background is Erin's Rolls and Kristi's potatoes.

It all makes a very beautiful plate, don't you think?!

Wait, wait, wait!!! We can't forget about dessert!!!

Allison made many varieties of wonderful peanut butter cookies!

Yummy plain ones, yummy peanut-butter-cup filled cup ones, and yummy M&M topped ones!

Now, of course you can't forget pie on Thanksgiving! So I attempted to make an apple-pie with the assistance of Whitney, who had never made pie, and had just found out that her soon-to-be loves apple pie! What serendipity!

I think it turned out quit well for my first unsupervised pie!

Thanks mom for the many years of pie-support!

Well, in our mini-America we managed to pull of a great

mini-Thanksgiving!

Thanks to ALL my roommates for your Thanksgiving spirits and delicious contributions!

Katy, Allison, Whitney, Libby, Kristi, Meg, Laura, Devin, Lein

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!

Taipei 4-ish

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Election day! And with that I didn't have to teach my Saturday class! (although I was planning on having it subbed anyway) AnnaLisa and I headed to Taipei to go to the Temple an to the Top of Taipei 101!

The whole day was chill. We didn't leave too early, and we didn't have to leave too early! It was all kinda perfectly timed in a serendipitous way!

The best pics yet of the Taipei Temple!

It just seems kind of misplaced from this angle.

This is the performance hall at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial, which we passed on our way to the metro headed for Taipei 101!
And in front of it we saw our first Christmas Tree of the season!

Me in front of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall Christmas Tree

(The 100 at the top is to comemorate that next year is 100 years since the formation of the Republic of China)

AnnaLisa in front of the Taiwanese styled Christmas Tree!

After that brief pit-stop of it's finally Christmas season-ness we continued on to the metro (I love metros!!!)

After emerging from the metro and rounding a corner this was our view:

And then closer.
And even closer.
Still we were a block or two away!

The thing is huge!

It took me a couple hours of being bombarded with the three punctured circles to figure out that they 'say' 101 . . . yep, I'm kinda slow sometimes . . . ;)

Well we got there around 5:00pm and found our way to the ticket counter where we were told that it would be about a 90 min. wait to go to the top and that was "with out getting out of line." Well we knew that AnnaLisa might not ever get a chance to go to the top again, and I really didn't mind waiting in line so we went for it and ended up only waiting for 60 min!

Taipei 101 is the second tallest building in the world at 101 stories (508 meters).

The view was amazing!!!!!

A view of Taipei from the observatory of Taipei 101

about 450 meters from the ground

When we got the tix we also got a coupon for 15NT off any purchase of ice cream at the top.

(ok, that's only 50cents, but hey, you take what you can get)

And because it was actually slightly cold in Taipei that night, I also bought an Italian hot chocolate! Yummmmmmmmm! =D

This is the spoon for the ice-cream . . . I just don't get it . . . are the bumps so the ice-cream doesn't fall off? . . . or just to make it a pain to try for every last drop? . . .

Read closely:

Could you even imagine?!

Me in front of a observation window and beside more festivities!!!

(I swear I heard Silent Night sung in at least 3 different styles all in the same song!)

When I saw this I realized that all those sci-fi movies that have that room with a big sphere in the middle of it, didn't just come up with it for a great visual, there really are big spheres in the middle of a tall building! They are dampers for to make the building earthquake and typhoon safe!

As with everything in Taiwan, it's sparkly!!

(though you can't see it in these pics)

We finally figured out how to go outside and, of course, the view was spectacular (even more if you jam your head between the bars to get the full view)!

(Side note, there was a Japanese tour group there, and when they came out I could understand all their expressions of excitement: "sugoi!" "kakoi!" "maji!" etc. It was sugoi!)

Yet another 'sbarashi' view!

The view of the . . . top . . . from the top . . . ;)

AnnaLisa's "self-portrait"

My "self-portrait" . . . yah

Remember the damper? Well 101's mascots are 4 baby dampers. Great name right? ;)

(My favorite was "Smart Silver")

Me with a festive Smart Silver, the baby damper!

The ride from the top to the bottom (or vice-versa) is only 37 seconds!

Thing in the Elevator that tells you where you are in reference to the ground . . . just in case you get board during the tortuous 37 second ride . . .

See you soon Taipei 101!

On the bus ride home we saw . . . shocker . . . fireworks!