Today was a cranky one

Haha, I can't believe I'm writing a blog about being cranky but I said to myself I was going to try and update more often so here it is.

First of all I woke up at 7:27....my ride picks me up at 7:30, so right there I'm off on the wrong foot.  On top of that for some reason I have multiple aches and pains hitting me at once.  I'm used to the hamstring being sore (I injured it in April) and I've been getting used to my back being sore, but the headaches have been the most annoying.  Once I got to school though I wasn't in a bad mood...yet.  My 6th graders were fine, we had some fun and I was looking forward to doing some venting during my break.  But then, that conversation didn't turn out so well, and after, I had my 5th graders who were complete little pills.  I have four classes in a row before lunch and that usually wipes me out.  I had 2 more classes in the afternoon and then finally it was time to go home.  For some reason I just kept getting more and more cranky over the course of the day and I just couldn't handle the guy driving me home.  I love the people here, I do, they go above and beyond for me and are always very concerned with my well-being but sometimes their form of "conversation" due to lack of English words becomes redundant and annoying.  I decided to ask the teacher who drove me home some Chinese instead of him trying his best at English and I asked him if beef was "ro" which I was already pretty sure it was but couldn't remember if it was beef or meat in general.  He had no clue.  I've noticed here that some people get so freaked out about assuming they aren't going to be able to understand your English that they don't listen to your Chinese.  Sometimes at McDonald's we'll try to tell them the number we want in Chinese, or one time my roommate was telling them tea in chinese, and they get all twitchy and ask someone else to come over.  We're speaking Chinese!  And I realize you're thinking "you're probably saying it wrong" and sometimes yes that's the case, but other times they are very basic words that we've been saying for months now.  It's just that they don't take the time to listen and realize we're speaking Chinese because they get so freaked out about not knowing English.  Anyway I guess that's kind of what happened in the car because he said he didn't know when I asked what the Chinese word was for "beef" and asked if it was "ro".  I said "Chinese" in chinese, and then said "eat" and motioned eating....then "cow"...then I moo-ed.  Still, nothing.  I went as far as to give an example of a dish that I like "lou ro fan" which is minced pork rice but no.  When we got to my apartment he pointed to my building and tried to start telling me about getting "beef" at this restaurant and he said it like he was introducing me to a new place.  It's in the bottom of my apartment building!!  I'm aware.  Well my patience was shot for the day and I said "I know that, I've lived here for 4 months."  Hopefully his lack of English comprehension will mask my rudeness =X

So anyway, that's a little insight into me not always being pleasant.  I do think this whole journey has been extremely good for my patience level in many different ways (which has always been a little low in certain areas).  Tomorrow is a new day AND it's Wednesday which means I don't teach any classes.  I have the whole day to plan and prepare for Christmas! =D

got my hair washed today...mmmm

I love getting my hair washed here!  Going to the salon is quite different here than in America.  First they sit you down and massage your neck, upper back, and shoulders.  That alone makes getting a haircut enjoyable.  But then, they not only wash your hair, but massage your scalp for about 10mins.  It's fantastic...literally, gave me goosebumps.  Then they cut your hair, style it, and you're all set.  And the best part?  It cost me 300 NT.  That's under $10.  Incredible.

So I decided since I had just been sitting around all day on a Saturday that I needed to get out and do something.  I hadn't had my hair trimmed since I first got here in August and remembered LOVING the experience as explained above, so decided I could go to the salon and then hit up the grocery store on the way home.  About 4 blocks into my journey though my scooter was driving kinda funny, like it was on ice or something and the steering kept sliding to the side.  I stopped to check things out even though  I had no clue what i was looking for and everything seemed okay so I thought I'd just try it again to see what happens.  Well, that time it was worse, the bike wouldn't budge even when I gunned it.  I got off again, and then I saw the busted tire.  I had to call my director Doris, have her call the shop where I bought the scooter, and they came to pick up me and the scooter.  It took like 10 minutes at the most for them to give me a new tire.  While they were changing it I was thinking to myself, "good thing I just decided against the Hong Kong trip in two weeks because this is probably going to cost me some money."  Well when he was finished I asked how much (in Chinese) and he answered (also in Chinese of course).  It still takes me several seconds to translate and process the numbers in my head and when I got it I thought "hmm, 500, that's not too bad  I guess."  I handed a $500 bill and waited to see if he was going to hand me a receipt, but he handed me change instead.  I said thank you and walked away (of course pretending like I wasn't confused haha).  I realized he had given me 450 back.  It only cost me 50NT to be picked up and taken to the shop and a new tire put on.  That's like a buck fifty!!  Holy cow!

SO, that turned out to be just a small hiccup in my evening, and after, I got to enjoy my scalp massage and get some groceries.  I decided to write a blog about it even though it's not that big of a deal because I've been horrible about blog updates lately.  I think in the beginning everything was so exciting and new and there was so much to write about and now everything has become fairly normal and routine so I feel like I don't have anything interesting to share.

a random assortment of updates

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Whew I'm finding it hard to keep this updated.  Since my last update I've had three extremely busy, but fun weekends.  First we went to Kaohsiung to visit with Deb and her family.  We got to see some really cool sites around the city the night we got in thanks to our super groovy tour guide, Mike.  Saturday we met up with Deb and her family and headed to Fridays for some fantastic American food.  Then we got to go to the "Dream Mall" with its 7 floors, I believe it was, of food and shopping with a ginormous ferris wheel on top.  After the mall we went to get tattoos and piercings =D  Deb and Staycie got tattoos.  Cassandra, Jacqueline, and I weren't real keen on permanently inking our bodies so Cassandra Jacqueline got their ears pierced and I re-pierced my nose!  Later Saturday night we got to have a girls night out and walk to a little bar near our hostel.  OH, speaking of our hostel, that was my first time staying in one and it was sooo nice.  I'm pretty certain that's not normal for a hostel but ours was like renting out someone's apt.  Our night out at the bar was full of fun and laughing, lots of laughing!

Halloween weekend, we went to Taipei.  Cassandra's aunt had invited us to go to a parade with her on Saturday so we decided to go up for the weekend and visit with our Taipei friends also.  Saturday night we got to dress up and go out for Halloween!  Turns out Halloween is a huge celebration in the city.  I was a hippie because it was cheap and easy to put together with stuff I already had, haha.  We had a great time as always in Taipei.

This weekend there was a marathon in Hualien.  People came from all over the island and even from as far as Kenya to participate in the race.  Our Taipei friends Staycie, Karin, and Monica came as well as Eileen and Eric.  We had an early night Friday night because of the early race time.  Those participating had to leave at 4:30am!  The rest of us were supposed to be on a 7:20am train BUT, true to form,  I overslept =)  I missed the train because my alarm was set for "Mon-Fri" therefore did not go off even though I had set it the night before.  I decided instead of driving over to the train station to find out what time the next train would be, I might as well just make use of my own transportation and ride my scooter.  It was my first long ride on the scooter.  It took about 40 mins to get there and I got to test out driving with a little more speed... I got up to 65 (that's only about 40 mph lol).  At the race it was really cool to see so many people from all over.  Also, after the race we took our visiting friends on a walk through the gorge to see some of the beauty of Hualien.  We mainly just rested and chatted all afternoon and then went out to entertain ourselves in the city for the evening.  We went to the golden bear (it was our first time even though we live here) which is this huge casino looking place with all kinds of video games.  We played a few games in Chinese and then went to get some dumplings for dinner.  Lastly, we went to crazy bar!  Let me explain that we (and by we I mean Karin, haha jk) have been talking about going to crazy bar ever since the first time the Taipei crew were down in Hualien.  Well I will not give the all the details of the evening but I will say that Crazy Bar definitely lived up to its name in many ways.  It was fun, exciting, embarrassing, mortifying, and hilarious all rolled up into one.  Today we got up and went to Country Mama's (also a first for us even though we live here) to have some yummy western breakfast before taking the girls to the train station.

Wow, these last few weeks have been exhausting!  I think November is going to be the month to rest and regroup.

scooter crash update... and a little irony

Here are some pics of my bruises, lol, I know that's exactly what you've been dying to see right?

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 As well as some pictures of the scooter I just bought!!... see the irony now??  =D

It's old, and hunter green, but it was cheap and it'll get me from point A to point B...and it's mine!!

Exploring Hualien

We've been here for about two and a half months now and are still finding new and beautiful places to explore!  Hualien really is incredible and I'm so glad I was placed here =)  Yesterday we took advantage of the movie theater's October discount and saw Surrogates.  It was decent...I don't really have much to say about that.  Then we met up with Jacque and Linda in the city.  We found some new stores that were really cool and a Mexican restaurant!  You have no idea how excited I was to have sour cream lol!  We also met some new people around the city.  We met a guy from Africa who has lived here off and on for 15 years and his 2 little boys.  They were half African half Taiwanese with long dreads and BEAUTIFUL faces!  Absolutely the most adorable children I've ever seen.  He had a friend with him who was Canadian and they said there is a big group of foreigners who all hang out together on Friday nights at this bar in town.  So we're excited to check out this bar sometime and hang out with other foreigners living in Hualien!  We also met this really siiiick break dancer.  We saw this battle going on and he was by far the best one.  Then we ran into him later on and started talking to him.  I told him I video taped some of it and asked if he cared if I put it on youtube.  Not only did he not care, he said I could video tape some more sometime, put it on youtube, and let him know what people have to say.  ALSO, he dances at a studio and I'm going to go with him on Thursday to check out the studio and maybe start taking some hip hop classes!  I'm super excited about that =)

Today, we met Jacque and Linda in the city again and Linda had some work to do but said we could borrow her scooter.  So today was the first day, ever, that I got to drive a scooter...aaaaaannndd it was the first day I crashed a scooter =-o   oops!  It's very difficult to explain how it happened but i ended up inside the cement hole still straddling the scooter with it on it's side on top of me.  Some old guy walking by helped me get the scooter out along with some family walking by that gathered round.  I was mortified!  It did a fairly decent number on my legs and I have some swelling and bruising.  I'm fairly certain I'm going to be in a lot more pain in the morning.  As much as my super sweet boyfriend would like for that to be my last time driving a scooter, I'm still looking to buy a used one.  Especially after driving one today, aside from the wreck, I really loved the independence and being able to get around on my own.  Cassandra and I only get to go somewhere new if someone else finds it and takes us there.  I won't be able to stand that for another 7 months.  BUT, I have learned that I cannot handle a 125cc, it is just too heavy for me.  I'll have to get a 90cc and I will drive SUPER slow and stick to places I know for a long time.

So aside from the small incident, we had a fun day today too.  We found this adorable cottage/museum place that I loved!  I can't wait to see what else they have there in the next few months.  We also went to a great beach location and I got to hear what has become my all time favorite sound in the world, the rocks clinking over each other after the tide comes in and then goes back out.  It is the best sound I've ever heard.  I want a CD of that sound.  Now it's way past my bedtime because it's back to school tomorrow to teach all about Halloween!!

AND....it's still raining!

This rain, geesh!  It did not end up stopping in time for me to go shopping for our guests friday night (Karin, Staycie, and Avrum came to visit from Taipei) so I rode my bike in the rain to the grocery store, not fun.  However, we did have a fun weekend despite the rain.  As I've said many times before to people, the teachers at Nanhua are incredible and one of them let me borrow her car this weekend.  I got her car Friday night to pick our friends up from the train station.  They didn't get in until 9:30 that night so it gave Cassandra and I plenty of time to prepare and insane amount of food ( I really really love having a kitchen). 

We ate and just visited Friday night, then got up Saturday morning to go into the mountains and to Liyu Lake.  Unfortunately it was raining, so they didn't get to see the full beauty of the mountains.  We were going to go to the Cultural Center for more festival activities for stone sculpture month, BUT, the rain prevented us from doing that.  Instead we went into the city for dinner at this great Japanese restaurant, some people got massages and some of us shopped around, then we went to a couple bars.  We tried to go to Crazy Bar, which we saw across the street from our restaurant, and we were starting to think there weren't any bars in Hualien.  However, it wasn't open yet so we went next door to another "bar" to have some Taiwan beer and wait.  We were the only people in there but naturally, they had karaoke so we had a blast singing American music from the 80's and 90's.  After A LOT of singing, we walked over to crazy bar and low and behold, Hualien City actually has a dance club!  Who knew?!?  (Well, apparently Karin knew the whole time haha)  Shortly after walking in we found out it cost 180NT each to stay there, i guess kinda like a cover charge, so we didn't end up staying.  But you better believe we'll be heading back there sometime =)

Sunday we ate a big homemade breakfast (pancakes, eggs, toast, and sausage)  mmmmm!  Then we went to the movies since they're so cheap for the month of October.  We saw the Ugly Truth and I can't decide how I feel about Katherine Heigel but it was a funny movie.  After the movie we had to return our pals to the train station and then I spent the rest of the afternoon planning for this week.  I get to start my Halloween unit now, yay!  I've found a lot of great stuff and I'm excited to introduce them to a major American holiday =)

Earthquake number....I don't even know

I've lost track of earthquakes because there were some small ones I felt and then some that my roommate asked if I felt but I didn't and I'm sure others that we didn't feel at all.  However, yesterday there was a big'n!  I was actually talking to Chris on Skype about 1:30am when it hit.  I was like "Oh my gosh it's an earthquake...oh my gosh...oh my gosh...." you get the idea.  My picture frames started falling over and I sat up real fast and just closed my eyes.  I think at one point I was even telling him "make it stop, make it stop...." lol!  I checked online after I woke up and it was a 6.3, yikes!  Even the Taiwanese are starting to get a little concerned about all the big earthquakes going on in Southeast Asia right now.

We're also having a typhoon right now.  It's pretty mild as far as wind goes but the rain has been crazy!  It will just not stop.  It really needs to stop in the next day or two because we have some shopping to do for our guests coming to visit this weekend =)

Ok so last weekend was the weekend of 2 major events.  First, Saturday was Moon Festival which is a Holiday in Taiwan on the full moon sometime during the lunar calendar i believe but ended up in October for us.  People just have BBQ's and give moon cake gifts to each other and eat Pomelos.  Pomelos are a fruit they have here that kind of belongs to the orange/tangerine/grapefruit family but with less color to it.  They peel the pomelo, eat the inside, and then kids wear the pomelo peel as a hat haha.  The other major event is Stone Sculpture month in Hualien County.  Hualien hosts sculptors from various countries for one month.  They give them a tent outside the cultural center with a block of stone.  They have one month to make their sculpture and then Hualien keeps their sculptures to be placed around the outside of the cultural center.

Saturday we went to the movies (yes we saw a movie in English haha) because the theater is only $100 a ticket for the month of October in honor of the stone sculpture month.  Then later that evening there was a huge parade through the city with music, dancing, fireworks and so on so Jacque and I rode her scooter alongside the parade and joined in the fun lol  Then we met up with Cassandra and teachers from her school who were participating in a drum festival.  Apparently they have something going on every night all month for the stone sculptors!  Which means we'll have some fun stuff to do with out guests next weekend =)