How Did It Get So Late So Soon?: August 2011

Typhoon is just a fancy (probably Asian) word for a hurricane.

I think it might be the term that is used
when there is a hurricane in the Pacific rather than the Atlantic.

But back to the point.

There is a typhoon right now heading toward/hitting Taiwan,

not exactly sure which it is.

But it means that the government has ordered all classes canceled.

[They can do that here because
Taiwan is so small that one typhoon affects all of it.

Crazy, right?]

The most wonderful part about that is that we,

as teachers,

get the day off!

Hurray!!!

Ok, so really it was more like:

HURRAY!!!!!!!!!

If we're being honest that is.

Except that a few kids still showed up this morning for class even though it was canceled,

simply because their parents had nowhere else to take them.

And guess who was called down to "teach" [babysit] these kids!

That's right -

Morning Kindergarten teachers!

Or...

Kaylee, Kylie, Kendra, and Jessica.

So we got to "work" this morning.

But really it was just play.

And we were done by 11:30.
Not really a big deal at all.

Our Art Project of the morning

Breakfast break!

Me with Brian
(He's in MK)

Allen

Larson
Who I nicknamed Lancelot
because I couldn't remember his name
and that's what Kylie thought it was.

Lilian and Allen [the tiwns] with Miss Jessica

There's Cherry and Penny with Miss Kendra!

Oh Shawn...
(He's also in MK)

Larson again,
this time with Jimmy
who wouldn't tell us his name at first.
So I named him Alfred.

Alfred and Lancelot

At noon we all had a meeting with The Boss(es),

but then the day was ours!

We spent a good part of it preparing for the typhoon,

things like

getting water,

buying and preparing food,

finding flashlights,

bringing things inside...

all kinds of emergency preparedness stuff.

"Getting Ready"

But we had some fun too.

Like...

Boggle:

and the Justin Bieber Movie:

and homemade pizza!!! :

[Compliments of Heather!]

If this is how surviving a Typhoon is,
I wish they would happen more often!

Ok, not really.
But for facing a potentially serious natural disaster,
today was great!

This weekend

[on August 27th]

I had the good fortune to take a second Trip to Taipei!

And the fact that my time in Taipei started off with this:

should give you a pretty good idea of how it went.

[Side Note: I had no idea how much I had missed french fries until I saw them on the menu.]

Those beauties shown above plus ice cream for breakfast?

That right there is the start to a perfect day, my friends.

After breakfast

[Mmmm...]

We took Taipei's subway system,

called the MRT,

to the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial stop

which is the stop closest to the temple!

This is the MRT station.
It's very similar to the subways I've been on in the states...
except it was a lot cleaner.

So cool!
This is the MRT "ticket"

Painted electrical boxes...
they're all over and I think it's great that they aren't just left plain and boring.

Window into the garden of Chiang Kai Shek Memorial

We had to walk from the MRT station to the temple.

It was a nice little stroll.

And when we reached the end,

there was the temple -

such a lovely sight for sore eyes.

There's the temple!
Can you see Taipei 101, too?

This temple session took quite a bit longer than the last one,

which actually was nice because it meant we got to spend more time in the temple.

Always a good thing.

And!

- added bonus -

It was all in Chinese this time!

Which was basically fantastic.

I loved being "Sowards Jiemei" for a change.

After we left the temple, Heather and I went to find the Long Shan temple.

This meant finding our way back to the MRT stop

and navigating the subway system on our own!

What an adventure, you say?

Na...

Me and Heather?

We're pros at this stuff! [:

Fountains at Chiang Kai Shek Memorial
Isn't this girl adorable?

Accordian player in the MRT station
He sounded amazing.
I wasn't sure until I saw him
that it wasn't just some music playing from a CD or something over speakers in the station.
[Sorry about the poor picture quality.]

And here is is!

Long Shan Temple

For those wondering,
that in the lower left hand corner
is Heather's finger.

This was outside the temple, across the street.
You probably can't tell,
but it includes all of the signs of the zodiac.

Then we made our way to:

Snake Alley!

This sign says
"Taipei Hwahsi Tourist Night Market"
Perfect for us tourists!

Unfortunately,

almost everything in Snake Alley was closed

because it's a Night Market,

something we didn't know til we got there.

Bummer.

This is another little temple that we passed after leaving Snake Alley.
There are about six in this area, scattered all over.

This is the third and final temple we found while exploring this area.
After this one, we decided just to wander.

Police Scooters!

There's 101 again!
It's rather cool to randomly look up and see it off in the distance.

So we wandered for a bit,

almost got lost,

then decided to look at the map.

We discovered we were supposedly fairly close to the Botanical Gardens,

so we decided to try and find them.

It was an epic success.

The Gardens were incredible.

I'm sad that I don't live in Taipei so that I can go there all the time.

It was so quiet!

A nice break from the noise of the city.

Lotus Pond!

When we left the Gardens,

rather than ride the MRT back,

we decided to try and walk back.

Good idea?

Debatable.

We saw some neat things,

but by this point we had done a ton of walking and

both our feet were aching terribly.

But we made it back to Chiang Kai Shek!

So I guess it turned out alright.

When we got back to Chiang Kai Shek,

we gave our poor aching feet a much needed break.

While we were sitting there, we got to see a bunch of soldiers/guards march past.

Kinda cool.

We figured out later that they were simply coming back

from doing some cool changing of the gaurd thing on the other side of the building.

They do it every hour.

We were talented enough to miss it twice.

From where we were sitting,

Heather and I could just barely see on to the balcony of the building in front of us.

Every so often we would catch a glimpse of some kid dancing.

So, being dancers and therefore naturally interested in all things dance,

we went to check it out.

There were groups of kids all over the balcony outside this building

with music on,

dancing away.

It was probably the best thing I've ever seen.

I wanted SO badly to go up to a group and either randomly join them or ask to be taught.

But I didn't.

I was too chicken.

Instead we kept walking and I took these neat pictures!

We got to see a bunch of little kids playing in the fountains...

So funny!

One little girl,

she was probably about three years old,

kept going to hit the water as it came out of the spout.

But everytime she would walk over to a fountain,

it would die down so that it was barely spouting any water.

It happened about 4 or 5 times in a row!

The poor thing...

But it was rather hilarious.

And she was adorable.

We had an appointment to meet Jessica and Rachel at the top of the Memorial.

When that time came around we hiked up to the top

[180-some steps, I believe. Rachel counted.]

And oh! What a view!

The Taiwanese Abraham Lincoln.
What I think is great is that I have a picture just like this in front of the American Abraham Lincoln.

He looks so Jolly!
As opposed to our Abe,
who looks like he'd like nothing more
than to give you a stern lecture and possibly a paddling to go along with it.

Underneath this main part of the memorial,

there was an Egyptian exhibit set up.

We tried to go see it,

but...

we were a bit too late.

In the elevator down to the other exhibits...
[My favorite picture of the day]

This is what we almost saw...
But it was closed by the time we got there.

This is a scale model replica of the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial...
You can see the top there in the back and this part in the front is what is underneath.
Which is where we happened to be standing.