About a week ago, one of the secretaries here at Berhan - Amy - offered to take some of us teachers to a gym near that is near the school called Go Go for Her.
(Amy is the secretary that helps out with morning kindergarten.)
I had mentioned to her that a few of us had seen that there was a kick boxing class and wanted to try it out. Well, her son goes to that class, so she offered to go with us and help us get started!
She called the teacher and found out that he only wanted two new students, so Heather and I went.
It was so much fun!
I have never tried kick boxing before, so naturally I was a little nervous.
But it was great!
Our teacher was this Taiwanese man who cracked jokes in Chinese and sang along to the songs in English. He was so funny, and I am convinced that he made the class what it was.
When we first got to the gym, Amy introduced us to her son, Dennis, and Paul who graduated from Berhan and now works a part time job there.
After the class, Paul and Dennis invited us to go the Feng Yuan night market with them, and Heather and I basically decided, "Hey, why not?"
Best Decision Ever.
We had so much fun.
We went back to Berhan and changed out of our nasty, kickboxing clothes before we went, and convinced Kendra, Sara, and Veronica to come with us.
We met Paul and Dennis there and just walked around for awhile.
Then... remember this game? ->
It has been featured before on this very blog,
namely when Kylie, Kendra, and I first went to Feng Yuan's night market.
We thought it was a Bingo game at the time, which it is a little bit.
It's called Mah Jong, and is taken very seriously here in Asia.
Paul described it as the Asian form of Poker.
Americans play poker, Asians play Mah Jong.
Anyway, Paul was kind enough to pay for a game,
which included enough rounds for each of us to play one.
(including Dennis [who is in orange in the above pictures],
and excluding Paul [who is in grey in the above pictures] )
And guess what!
Veronica actually won!!
She picked out a prize, a red and white soccer ball-looking foot rest thing...
and here's how it looked on Sara's bike for the ride home:
P.S. - It was a million times easier to play when we had someone there to translate for us!
After leaving the Mah Jong table,
all of us feeling victorious thanks to the talented Veronica,
we found this!
Both Kendra and Heather wanted to take one home -
Kendra wanted a crab and
Heather wanted a minature turtle -
But through much coaxing and expert persuasion I was able to persuade them otherwise...
Ok, just kidding, I didn't do much of anything at all...
But they did both want to take one home!
Not long after the animal stand, Sara and Veronica went home with their spoils and it was only a few minutes later that Paul and Dennis had to leave as well.
Now don't get me wrong, we had a blast with them, we really did!
But it was after they left that the fun really started!
See... Larger groups are more intimidating.
When there is only one or two or even three people together, they are easier to approach.
So, even though doing things in a large group is barrels of fun,
to get right down in the mud with the people, splitting off is the best route.
(Please excuse my crude comparisons, I couldn't think of anything else!)
The first thing that happened after everyone left was an Indian man
(that's right, from India... in Taiwan...)
called us over to his little stand and asked us where we were from.
He almost didn't believe us when we said we were American;
apparently we have a Russian glow about us...
A little farther down the aisle,
Heather saw a snowcone-type stand and decided she wanted one.
While we were standing there looking at the entirely Chinese menu,
trying to figure out what exactly it was they sold,
a sweet little girl shyly walked up and tried to help us.
As it turns out, she spoke a little English,
enough to be an enormous amount of help to us.
The best part of it was that the ladies behind the counter were totally interested in being involved with helping us (there were about five of them)
In their eagerness, they were practically tripping over one another.
In fact... I think one of them did stumble and almost fell off of a platform they had set up to hold some of their ingredients, which caused all of us a bit of a scare.
On our way back from the shaved ice place, the Indian man
- whose name was John -
stopped us again to talk some more.
See, we had told him that we were English teachers...
And Everyone here is interested in learning or improving their English...
which is more than a little incredible, if you think about it.
Anyway, he wanted to see if we would do a language exchange with him -
He teaches us Chinese and we help him with his English -
So we exchanged contact information.
While we were talking to John,
a man, who I am guessing was his partner or friend or something,
walked by and said something along the lines of, "So Beautiful!"
Why, thank you! You are, too! In... uh... your heart...
Right before we left his stand,
John wanted to know if we wanted to try the food he was selling at his stand.
We again decided, why not?
Which again turned out to be an excellent decision.
He made these Indian curry, burrito-like, wrap things that were just scrumptious.
I'm talking serious yum-factor here.
And when we started to get out our money to pay for them,
he said, "No, it's ok! This time it's from me and next time you can pay."
Really the guy is brilliant, because I'm totally going back for more and will be happy to pay for it!
THEN
(Yep, there's more)
Kendra and I still needed a drink
(That was the whole reason we stayed longer than everyone else)
So while walking back to find something,
this old man who was walking past us, openly gawking by the way,
simply says, "Ooooohhhh??"
It was really... funny?
In a very... awkward way.
Well, a little later
after we had found a drink stand
and were standing there diciding what we wanted and how exactly to get it,
the same old guy walked up to Heather,
opened a container of tomatoes and offers them to her.
He would not leave her alone until she took one,
so now Heather is standing there with a quarter of fresh tomato in her hand.
But right after she took one,
the guy's friend just took the whole container and gave it to us and then (thankfully)
pulled his friend away.
It was, again, hilarious... in a strange sort of way.
We were all convinced that the tomato guy was drunk.
Our final adventure happened after we had found a place to sit down and enjoy all the goodies we had found (or were forced upon us)
As seen below:
So while we were laughing about all of things that had already happened to us,
Another man came up and started speaking to us in Chinese,
which happens a lot, actually.
We must look like we can understand! :D
Anyway, we tried to tell him we did not, in fact, understand
and so he said something like, "Oh! Ok! Goodnight! See you tomorrow!"
Which would have been funny enough.
But then as they were leaving,
they walked past and said the same thing!
And one of the teenage boys with him started to walk over to us and said
"I need your telephone!"
Hahaha :)
Oh, how glorious.
So, if you haven't figured out by the end of this rather lengthy post,
If ever you need a self esteem boost,
A Taiwanese night market is the place to go!
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