Kenny's home :)

Kenny has been at the vet for the past 3 days and he finally came home today. Drew, our coworker, and I went this afternoon to get him but the doctor wasn't in and we had to wait until he came. Poor Kenny had a tube around his neck and was just sitting in his cage. There was another cat next to him that was constantly meowing. Now Kenny knows how we feel to hear that loud noise all the time lol

I just taught one class tonight and after class my coworker and I went to an exercise class. This time we tried the Latin class. It wasn't too bad actually because it was like kick boxing where you do different dance moves and you get little breaks. I didn't get an intense work out like the kick boxing class but I definitely still was sweating. We were even using toilet paper to dance with and I originally thought it was for us to wipe the sweat of our faces lol But after we got done using the toilet paper for dancing, the instructor said we could use it to wipe our faces.

We had a lot of trash at the apartment because of the Thanksgiving party. Everyone is busy when it's trash time except me. Tues. and Thurs. are the only days that you can throw out the bottles and cans. I rushed home and made it but there was too much garbage so I could only take two buckets. I got there and this lady wanted me to give my recyclables to this other lady that was collecting them. People collect recyclables because they get money when they take it to the dump. I told the lady she can have it but she had to watch my bucket of trash because I was going to go home and get the other two buckets that I couldn't carry lol So I rushed back home to get them and luckily I made it. I'm happy I got all the trash taken care of tonight since we would have had to wait until Thurs. to throw it out.

Drew brought home Kenny tonight. Kenny has to be on new medication. It's going to be rough for him since he has to drink lots of water and eat pills. He had a tube inserted him but he should be okay now. He just has a bladder infection. Hopefully these next couple of weeks he will get better. Drew gave him a bath tonight and he looked really funny lol But yeah poor Kenny, hopefully he will feel better and won't meow at night!!

-Chihchat

Gorging out

I felt like a slug today since last night we had the Thanksgiving party. I was tired from the night before since I went to bed late and I woke up around 12:30 today. I then ate some leftovers which then made me sleepy lol I taught one class, then had an one-on-one with my new student. I used to tutor her little brother but not anymore. She's older and I'm helping with her writing. I don't have to worry about boring her but she isn't motivated whatsoever. Oh well. Then I threw out the trash, ran, then ate again lol I brought food to work too and ate before class haha It's okay though. It's nice to eat some yummy leftovers and not have to go somewhere to eat dinner.

-Chihchat

Our Taiwan Thanksgiving

Today was our Thanksgiving dinner/celebration. Since most of us didn't have a chance to go back home for the holidays, Drew and I decided to host a Thanksgiving dinner at our place. Everyone brought a side dish and it was a great turn out. There was a lot of food and it was a good night. The pictures above are all the food that we made and what people brought.

The turkey was good although the gravy and stuffing that came with it wasn't super delicious but I can't complain since it was free with the turkey. I also decided to make cranberry sauce this year since I didn't know what the quantities were for the sauce at the place where I ordered the turkey. I made it last night and it was still soupy this morning but I just had to keep boiling it but at least I made it and it was okay lol Everyone was getting pretty stuffed and we even had 3 big pies. There will be a lot of leftovers at work these next couple of days. After we ate, everyone was getting pretty sleepy but some people were playing mahjong while others were playing on the Wii. It was a good night to just have a good time hanging out with coworkers and friends, eating different types of food, and celebrating Thanksgiving aka being thankful for what I have :)

-Chihchat

Costco craziness

After work I went with Drew and a bunch of our coworkers to prep for our Thanksgiving feast tomorrow so we went to Costco, an Westernized supermarket basically like a Sam's Club x 100. It was enormous! There were two levels and to go to each floor, you had to stand in line on a moving escalator. The carts were huge since children can sit in them although they aren't supposed to and it was really crowded tonight. I guess a lot of people go shopping on a Saturday night since they have free time. There were workers to help people guide through the different levels and the entrance/exit. It was definitely hard to weave a huge cart among the aisles.

We were trying to get items to make some side dishes for tomorrow. I'm making my scallion pancake and cranberry sauce. Drew is making chip dip. Everyone who is coming is bringing a side dish. Drew and I got the turkey which cost a whopping $3400NT which is about $112 USD. Yes, we bought a $112 turkey. We ordered at a restaurant that will already have cooked it tomorrow and hopefully it will come with sides but we don't know how much. I didn't want to spend extra money on cranberry sauce since I don't know how much we need so I decided to make my own for everyone. The turkey is about 18 lbs I think. We ordered the biggest one so I guess I will see tomorrow how big it is. I ordered on the phone so I hope everything worked out and nothing get messed up. I'm excited to see it though lol We are expecting at least 10 people so hopefully we will have enough food for everyone!

Costco actually didn't have a lot of variety but they sold everything in huge bulk. It was pretty insane with the sizes but the food was meant for families. Then Drew and our other coworker went to Carrefour which is another Americanized grocery store. We didn't get home until close to 11pm and then I cooked my cranberry sauce. It's going to be a long day tomorrow cleaning and getting everything prepared but it will be totally worth it!

-Chihchat

Trip to the vet

Lately Kenny has been meowing up a storm and he's also been spraying everywhere. He had an UTI before but we didn't know if he was just acting up since he hasn't been fixed. Tonight Drew, our coworker, and I took him to a 24 hr vet. Kenny has some stones in his bladder and he needs to stay in the animal hospital for about 3 days to get his stones by inserting a tube in him. It was so sad because he was so scared when we put him in the cage and he wouldn't get out. I literally had to pull him out and he just didn't want to leave. Then when Drew was holding him he was clawing at his pants because he didn't want to leave. Poor Kenny...this is when I feel for bad him and I'm sorry to see him like this. Hopefully the stones will go away and he will be back to normal. The saddest/cutest thing was when Kenny was so scared that he put his face in Drew's arm :( I just don't want him to think we are leaving him.

It was interesting to go to a Taiwanese vet. I'm so glad our Taiwanese coworker came with us. But anyway I got to see a cat ultrasound. It was so weird since we could see the stones in Kenny's bladder. Kenny also got an x-ray and blood work. Then after we went to the vet, we went to a night market near by. We ate this Mongolian stir fry place where you pile as much as food as you want and they stir fry it for you. It's not like Huhot where they just stir fry the noodles. They add water so it's a little soupy and it's so delicious. They had unlimited rice and black tea! I also had mochi and this other fish soup with rice noodles so I'm pretty stuffed. Drew and I were thinking of getting shaved ice since that was the original plan but after eating all that food, there's no way we both could eat it. Definitely I will eat shaved ice next time!

-Chihchat

I won the Taiwan lottery and kick boxing is now my new hobby

Every 25th of the odd month Taipei has a lottery. Instead of buying lottery tickets, your receipt is a lottery. I'm not sure if I blogged about this before but it's a good way for people to keep their receipts and not throw them away. Basically every receipt that you get from anywhere has an 8 digit number. If you match the last 3 digits of a number or all the numbers that is listed on the website that was put out today, you can earn some money. If you match the last 3 digits, you receive $200NT which is about $6USD or so. If you match 4 digits, it's $300NT and so forth. If you match all 8 digits of the grand prize number, you win $2 million NT dollars. I checked today and I won $200NT. Yay! I didn't win the last couple of times so I'm happy to say that I won the lottery.

My coworker and I tried another exercise class tonight. This time we decided to take kick boxing, and it was a great choice! Our instructor was a guy and yes, he happened to be in shape and not bad looking. BUT it wasn't his looks that made the class fun. He was really energetic, supportive, and nice. He explained to the newbies, like me and my coworker, that we don't have to hit so hard and that if we need a break, we can take one and stop. He told us not to over do it and hurt ourselves. He also even tried speaking English and singing to the songs lol And when we were doing the punches, he would pretend that we were punching him when we were hitting lol It was also a great work out since we would have an intense workout for 15 mins or so then have a quick break. We actually exercised and we did different things, not like the routines that we did for the high and low class the other day. Yep, we were pretty satisfied and I definitely like kick boxing now :)

By the way, to my fellow American friends and family, Happy Thanksgiving!! I hope everyone has a great turkey day. My roommate/coworker and I are hosting a Thanksgiving dinner with our coworkers and friends this Sunday. I'm pretty excited and it should be fun to have a great gathering of American food in Taiwan. I will blog later about the food and how much the turkey costs..also the fact that it's rare to find an oven in Taipei.

-Chihchat

Not as tired!

A couple of days ago I tried to submit my grad school application to the Univ. of Minnesota. The problem was my credit card wasn't working. I really owe my sister a lot because she submitted the application for me. I don't know why my credit card wasn't working. I'm sure they suspended it since I told them I was in Taipei and because I haven't used it for awhile. I need to call my bank about it but for some reason it's hard for me to get an international phone card. I will get one when I get paid next week since I don't want to deal with getting one right now. It was really stressful these past couple of days for some reason. I'm so glad that I submitted one application already!!

I know universities and colleges send information to anyone who has taken the GRE regardless if they did well or not. It's called the GRE free search service where universities and colleges can send you information. It's interesting because a couple of days ago I received an email from Northeastern University's graduate studies. It's interesting because I applied to their English Ph.D. program last year and got rejected lol I was really surprised when I received the email but maybe it was just a mass email. Then yesterday I received an email from Georgetown University's journalism Master's program. Although I'm not going to grad school for journalism, I was really excited to receive an email from Georgetown University. Yep, I'm a loser...let me be happy haha

As I blogged many times before, Weds are my busy days since I teach all day. Surprisingly I wasn't tired after work. I mean, I'm not super energetic but I'm not so exhausted that I can barely stay awake to write a blog. I think I'm actually getting used to my classes. My Wed. classes are all pretty loud and crazy but I think I'm getting used to teaching them. I was lucky and one of my classes had a unit quiz today so I didn't have to teach too much during the second hour. Maybe I don't have to dread Weds now :)

-Chihchat

Never again...

Today my coworker and I went to the YMCA gym and bought tickets to take classes. We decided to take an aerobics class today. It was called high and low and we thought it would involve different steps and what not. It was fine in the beginning but we were basically taught a dance and we had to keep doing it over and over again. It definitely got boring fast, especially when you don't know the steps all too well. It was sort of embarrassing too because they knew we couldn't speak Chinese well and they were laughing and what not about little things. The class was okay but it was definitely hard since I wasn't expecting to memorize and do a dance.

Then later tonight I wanted to return the international phone card that I bought last night and it took forever since the cashier had to again make sure I didn't use the minutes and they had to call the company on the phone. Then she didn't know how to return it and it took a good 15 min. wait. It was my fault and I felt stupid for buying it but it was just frustrating since it took forever to return the card. In the end she got it figured out but I really have to clarify what kind of calling card I need to use because when I say I want to buy an international calling card, they order it from the machine. I rather they just give me a card since it's easier to use but sometimes not all the stores carry the card form.

-Chihchat

I just want to make a phone call...

Today is the day when I call to find out my GRE scores...but there's one problem. I need a way to call the U.S.! I went to a convenience store this afternoon to buy an international calling phone card but the cashier asked me a question which I didn't understand and it turned out to be an important question because the phone card he gave me was only used for pay phones. He asked me where I would be dialing from but I thought he was asking me where I was calling to so I said that it's not a house phone or cell phone since I was calling a test center. Big mistake...

So then later tonight I actually went on a payphone to see if I could use the card but it was confusing since the instructions were in Chinese. I even called this International phone center number listed on the payphone to figure out what to do lol That didn't work so I returned the phone card. When I returned it, I had to wait for 10 mins since the cashier (ironically the same person who sold me the phone card in the first place) had to make sure I didn't use any of the minutes from the card and he could only check by using the payphone outside. Of course there was this lady who was talking on it for awhile so I had to wait for her but I got my money back and I bought another card but again of course it was all in Chinese.

So I go home to try to figure it out but I didn't and thankfully Drew lent me his phone to use Skype. It's free for him since I was calling a toll-free number but I still felt bad. So I got my GRE scores and I was going to submit my first application but it wouldn't let me because of some complication of either my address or insufficient funds through the pay service of the application. I checked my account though and I have enough money so I don't know what's going on. It's almost 1am over here and I think I will just work on it tomorrow.

Since Thanksgiving is coming up this week, my roommate/coworker Drew and I are having our coworkers over for Thanksgiving this Sunday. I called to order our turkey which is nice since it will already be cooked since none of my coworkers and I have ovens but a big turkey of about 16-18lbs is $3400NT which is over $100USD..that's insane! But turkey is not common at all here and they need to export it from the US but still. It's pretty shocking just for a cooked turkey but we are having a good amount of people so we can have turkey leftovers for a couple of weeks if need be!

-Chihchat

Mahjong madness

Last night at my coworkers' housewarming party, we were playing mahjong. Drew and I bought a mahjong set for our coworkers as a housewarming gift. Then today we went to our other coworker's place and ate yummy burritos that our coworkers made for us and played mahjong. We actually played for money and I won! It got really intense for me though at times because I'm used to playing for fun and although we weren't betting huge money, I just kept wanting to win. Yes...it's an addiction haha But no, it was fun and I learned new rules of the game.

Drew was getting ice cream at Coldstone this afternoon and we were with our coworker when I saw a couple of cute guys. I just told them that I saw some cute guys and one of them turned out to be the luwei guy! I haven't talked about him anymore since I really don't like him too much but it was funny that I saw him again with his friends. I didn't even recognize him until he passed us lol

I shouldn't be complaining at all since the weather is still nice for being late Nov. but since it's still humid and in the upper 70s, the mosquitos are still out roaming around and I keep getting bitten! It's been bad especially these past couple of days when it's nice and humid out. I used to have a plug-in that would kill mosquitos in my room but I ran out of them. I'm glad it's nice out still and I can still wear shorts but I got 5 already in the last 10 mins. I was getting an immunity from them this summer since after awhile I wouldn't get anymore mosquito bites but it's been awhile since I've gotten bitten. I guess it's time to wear bug spray again...

-Chihchat

Small dogs

Tonight two of my coworkers had a housewarming party. They just moved in together and we came over to their place tonight after work and had food and drinks. One of my coworkers has two dogs and her roommate has one. Another one of my coworkers brought her dog over too so altogether there were 4 small dogs. They are all so cute and minature-sized. Most of the dogs here are like that because there is no space for a big dog to play outside and go to the bathroom and also because Taiwanese people like small dogs, well actually anything small and cute. One of the dogs is pretty territorial though and bit one of my coworker's nose! I was scared of him the rest of the night. He is a Chihuahua and they tend to get pretty mean. But it was fun getting to play with them and pet them. At first when I saw them, I didn't think they were that cute but now I will admit, they are pretty cute...

-Chihchat

Daycare or teaching?

I have been teaching a half-day class for the past couple of months which meets twice a week. They are different from a regular class since I meet with them, they do not have a CT (Chinese teacher), and they learn from another book. Most of the students have been at my school for a long time so really it's not a learning place but more like a daycare center. I teach an older set of students but there a lot of problems that I have to deal with like crying, fighting with one another, crying, complaining, and did I say crying? lol They are mostly 10 years old with an exception of two students who are 11 years old but they cry very easily. I guess maybe this is why I like teaching older students lol

I like most of them but they are very unmotivated, mostly because they have been at the school for a long time and they are forced to be there after Chinese school. I feel bad for them though because they don't have a lot of free time so I try to create fun projects for them to do. The teachers joke around saying we basically have to take care of them but I'm trying to look at the brighter side, at least I'm gaining experience in teaching young children....at least... lol

-Chihchat

Duck?

I feel so old today, haha that makes sense huh? Last night I went out and got home around midnight and today I could barely get up at 10am to skype with my family. Although I did teach all day yesterday and hung out with friends, I don't work today and yet, I was sleepy and really tired. I skyped with my mom and sister for a good hour and then I tried to go back to sleep although by this point it was after 12. I guess teaching really tires me out!

On a much random note, when I was walking to my uncle's apartment tonight for dinner, I saw on the sidewalk a duck in a small caged area outside a shop. At first I just saw a yellow fence and wondered what was inside and when I glanced in the area I saw a white duck and it was huge! It scared the crap out of me lol I wanted to take a picture but I'm sure people would have thought that was wierd. I usually see people leave their bird cage's outside, I'm thinking to let the birds get some fresh air, and I even saw a rooster in its cage but never have I seen a white duck, a big one in fact, like that. Oh Taiwan...

-Chihchat

Alley Cats...sounds like a bowling alley

Tonight my ex-coworker had a get together to celebrate his new job. His girlfriend still works with me and she is also my trainer. We went to Alley Cats which sounds like a bowling alley but it's a restaurant/bar with really good pizza! The first picture is of Danny and all the girls. Second picture is an all girl pic. Their pizza is also thin crust which I love and they had lots of different toppings to choose from. This lady who used to work at my school now opened up a bakery and my coworker ordered tiramisu cake from her (third picture above). It was amazing. Also, all the servers can speak English since a lot of foreigners go there and eat. I talked to this one server and he was raised in South Africa and he lived in South Carolina for a bit. It was a good time to hang out with everyone after a long, busy day at work ^.^

-Chihchat

Teacher's Point of View

My Tues. night class is a really good class full of smart students who are very young. There English is pretty good for only being 9-10 years old. They are in the upper K level which is almost advanced and for this unit quiz they had to write questions and answers dealing with be + verb-ing ex: I am swimming, and using past tense. Then they had to match the sentences together and then make questions using "who", "what", "when", "what time", "where", "how", and "did". They also had to write sentences using "before", "after", and "when". Since the unit quiz takes awhile, I usually would bring something to grade. I forgot but it didn't matter anyway since a lot of the students had questions. It's really intense seeing everyone taking the test because it reminded me of the GRE. Everyone was really stressed out, sighing, looking at the paper exasperated, and some really confused. I wonder if my Chinese teachers thought the same way when I took a Chinese test? lol

After Drew and I went running, we went to a grocery market and the lady directly asked me if he had a card in Chinese. Drew would answer back and she would ask me if he wanted to buy a bag. It was strange since she talked to Drew before in Chinese and this time she just spoke to me. She was rude about it and it happens all the time where people would look directly at me since I'm Asian and they think I can speak Chinese when Drew can speak it better than me lol

-Chihchat

No self-control..when it comes to food!

At work, everyone is pretty sharing and generous with food. People will bring food for everyone whether it be candy, chips, cookies, or popcorn. The CTs (Chinese Teacher) always bring food over to the FT (Foreign teacher) room (we all work in one big room but there is a wall with an open window that divdes the CTs with the FTs) to give us to eat. Sometimes the CTS are nice and just bring food over and sometimes they can't finish something so they just ask us which usually one of us will eat it since they don't like to waste and they know us foreigners eat way more than they do. Sometimes people leave really good treats like cookies and today was pizza and cheesecake. I'm sometimes not hungry but it's really hard when the food is left in the middle for us to take lol One of my coworkers Matt who brought the pizza today usually brings a bag of ritz-type crackers. I always tell him not to bring anything since I will eat it and he told me to have self-control haha I obviously do not have that since I can't resist and I always eat what's on the table unless it's something I really don't like. I don't know why..I'm not even hungry but it's just hard. This past Saturday one of the CTs brought over kettle popcorn since she didn't like it. No one was eating it and I practically ate the whole thing and then my other coworker gave me a home-made cookie. I have no idea how I'm actually losing some weight...

-Chihchat

Taco Night Round 2

There were leftover ingredients to make more tacos from last night so Drew and I made more tacos tonight. Yummy! They are so good. I think what made it the best was the corn and black bean mix and that he heated the tortillas in the pan. Alex who made tacos last night just mixed those two ingredients together but I think because he made it into a bean paste topping so it was just extremely delicious. Anyway I posted up pictures of the food and Alex who was making the tacos. He was really nice as he made everyone 2nd and 3rd helpings, and there were about 7 of us or so.

Tonight Drew and I went to get another DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) pad so we can compete against one another now. I will now be super addicted to DDR!

*Oh and I forgot to say this, today (14th) is the 5th month mark that I've been in Taiwan! Time is going by so fast that I didn't even realize it until this morning hehe

-Chihchat

Taco Night

Cala had people over at work tonight to make some tacos. Her coworker made extremely delicious tacos since he a really good recipe and way cooking the tacos! Oh my goodness...definitely still craving them although I'm stuffed right now from eating so many lol I will post up pictures later but it was fun to just have a small get together after work and to eat some homemade food. Today was a good work day although I was really tired afterwards and just wanted to sleep. I had to drink coffee tonight which barely woke me up while people were over eating tacos and hanging out. I wish I had more energy but I guess it will just take time and some getting used to teaching all day and to not pass out by the time I get home lol

-Chihchat

Generosity

This morning I went to work early because I needed to prep and grade for my classes. I need to scan an unofficial copy of my transcripts for one of my grad school applications. It's really hard to find a scanner here, well mainly because I'm in a foreign country. My aunt and uncle have one but when I went to the their place last night, my aunt told me that it was broken. I could go to a copy store but I didn't really have an idea of where to go. I was at work early today and I tried to see if the copy machine could also scan things. One of my coworkers was there since she teaches an early morning class. She was so sweet. I asked her if the machine could scan things and if she knew how to do it. She had no idea and she called one of the secretaries to help me scan things downstairs. That was very nice of both of them and I kept saying thank you. This may sound corny and it's not a big deal but they both really helped save me from a lot of stress and hassle of finding someone/some place to scan an important document for my grad school application that is due within a couple of weeks. And it only took a min. or so to scan and upload it on my USB. Awesomeness!

-Chihchat

I'm a local today

Today while I was walking to the post office at Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall in the middle of the square, there were some people building a stage which I'm assuming it's a concert of some sort, or maybe for the elections, I'm not sure. While I was walking, this older lady asked me if I knew what they were doing. I told her I don't know. I was really surprised since I was wearing shorts (although today was in the 80s!) and lately a lot of people have been wearing jackets and pants so I can't believe she thought I was a native Taiwanese person. Although she could have just asked me but there were a lot of people there so she could have asked anyone.

Then when I was waiting for the MRT to go to my aunt's and uncle's place for dinner, this young lady asked me how to get to this place on the subway line. She was with an older lady and there was a map near us and I told her how to get there all in Chinese. The younger lady was really nice and she never asked me where I was from or questioned about my accent. Also, she understood exactly what I meant although I had a map so she could see what I was talking about. Surprisingly she didn't need to me to repeat anything that I said. That really made my day though. I told my aunt about it when I reached her place and she said I'm a local now lol

Oh and today is Leonardo DiCaprio's birthday :) He is 36 today! Happy birthday Leo!

-Chihchat

Bread goodness

For one of my lessons tonight, my K6 class is learning past tense questions and answers. I was practicing with the "wh" questions like who, what, where, when, why. I was getting confused though because I would write the answer and they would write the question but they were mixing up on the tenses when they were writing the questions. However, I realized that when you ask "what, where, when" it needs to be in present tense like "What did you do today? Where did you go shopping?" But if you ask "who" you need to use past tense like "Who cried today?" Sadly, I was getting them confused though because I wouldn't emphasize the tenses and I didn't even think about how the tenses switch when you ask certain questions. This is how my job is actually improving my English because as a native speaker, you don't think about these things since it makes sense and it comes natural to just know the rules. It's weird that you would have to explain these little details but they are important. I was tired though by the time I taught them since I previously taught two energetic classes before them so I wasn't thinking clearly but luckily they understood somewhat of what I was saying. But they are crazy kids anyways so it's not like they were getting angry with me lol Oh English..

After work I went to the Shida night market tonight to buy some presents. I haven't eaten dinner yet since I just got off work and I was planning on buying some small snack food at the market. I passed by this bakery which had fresh bread and huge buns/rolls. They had many different kinds of buns and I ordered two; red bean and taro. It was amazing! I was happy to see the red bean since I haven't seen many stands that have them and as I blogged before, I just had my first red bean bun a couple of weeks ago. The buns were so cheap and so fresh that it just came out of the steamer. Then when I got to the night market, I got another bun that had different meat and vegetables inside. I definitely had my bread fix for awhile!

-Chihchat

Nice routine

Since I'm almost turning in my graduate school applications, I'm not as super busy as I have been these past couple of months. It's really nice to not have to be working on something. I have begun a routine now where in the afternoon I study Chinese, then work at night, throw out the trash, and run. Although Wed., Fri., and Sat., are my busy days since I work all day, it's nice to have a couple of relax days too. I'm turning in grad. apps. in less than 2 weeks and I'm definitely counting down the days :)

-Chihchat

Defending myself

For some reason I always have something new to say when I throw out the garbage. I throw out the garbage 3x a week and lately I haven't experienced any conflicts. I've been doing good for the past couple of weeks but today I got yelled at again and I finally fought back. There are two trucks and I was waiting to throw out the paper/cardboard that doesn't touch food since today is Monday. Mondays are the days when you can usually throw away that stuff. As I was waiting for the guy to open the bag, he looks at me and asks me a question. I couldn't hear him though because he was wearing a face mask since he probably didn't want to get sick from dealing with the trash. It's popular to wear face masks here. Anyway I didn't answer right away and then he asked me again what was in my bucket and that it was the wrong day to throw the trash and that today was the day to throw out paper/cardboard. I was frustrated since I just wanted to throw away the trash and I had paper/cardboard in my bucket so I quickly retorted angrily in Chinese (of course), "No, this is paper" since he was asking me if the things in my trash were touching food. I was so mad because he asked me although you can see that I wasn't throwing the wrong stuff. I'm glad I finally got a little snappy since when I first got here, they would always yell at me. After I left I gave a glare to the other worker lol I'm sure he just wanted to make sure I wasn't throwing things in the wrong bag but it was just annoying that he questioned me when I'm sure he didn't question other people. I also had paper and cardboard so I don't know why he would assume I mixed everything up. Okay, just had to vent a little bit :)

-Chihchat

It never gets old

During lunchtime I went to Shilin night market to buy some school supplies and do some errands. Shilin night market nevers get old. No matter how many times I've been there, I always find something new and manage to get myself lost lol Although most of the stands weren't even open yet, there are so many small hidden alleys where you can seriously just walk forever and look at everything. I walked around for 2 1/2 hours and it was awesome. I just love looking at everything and I even passed by a temple and they were playing some music.

This evening Cala and I went to my mother's cousin's daughters, Lily and Anita, (I don't know what to call our relation) clothing store. I went to check it out and it was near a lot of food stands. After shopping at the store, we went to a Vietnamese restaurant.

A little side note, I saw that in the US they had daylight savings time this weekend. Oddly enough, in Taiwan they don't do that here. All year round the time is the same. Anyway days like today where I have a day off and just travel and explore different areas and places of Taipei are when I just love Taiwan because you can always find something new, eat something different, and enjoy a whole different atmosphere.

-Chihchat

Brownie points?

For my A1 class which is the first level for the advanced classes, I assigned them an essay to write about their favorite thing. It could be about their favorite sport, movie, actor/actress, color, band, etc. One of the students who is doing really bad in the class turned in her essay and she wrote how her favorite teacher is me. She said I was beautiful and in big bold letters she colored "We heart you (yes she drew a heart)" I was really surprised. I thought she actually didn't like me because she does have an attitude in class. Sadly I thought maybe she was just trying to get brownie points since she's doing pretty bad in the class and barely passing. After reading it, I told her thank you about the essay and she just smiled. It was pretty nice of her, I just hope her English can improve so I don't have to fail her.

-Chihchat

蔥油餅 heaven

My favorite Chinese snack/food is 蔥油餅 aka scallion pancakes. It's basically fried dough with green onions in it and I made it all the time back home in the US. It can be a breakfast food although it's a snack food in Taipei and you can even add cheese, basil leaves, and egg. I usually eat it plain but lately I would add hot sauce and this type of sour pickled vegetable to it. The other day Cala and I went to a little market near our place and we went inside this building where they had more food stands. We passed a 蔥油餅 stand. Usually in Taipei they sell 葱抓饼 which I blogged before but the difference is that the bread is thinner and fluffier. This stand was selling 蔥油餅 which I've never seen here yet and the dough was super thick and they were in huge pizza slices. One piece was bigger than my own hand. It only cost 50NT (almost $1USD) and I ordered a piece this afternoon. After seeing the stand yesterday, I had to go back today to order it lol The guy cut it up for me and it had sesame seeds on it too. It was so big that when he cut it up, it added up to about 10 big pieces. It was amazing though..I probably won't eat 蔥油餅 for awhile since it's way too much but it was incredible. I never seen such a big piece of 蔥油餅 in my life lol I need to go back and take a picture of it haha

-Chihchat

Hiking up Mt. Qixing

Today Cala and I went hiking at Yangming Mountain to Mt. Qixing. It's 1120 meters high (about 3,000 ft) and it took 2.27 km (1.41 miles) to walk there. We left at 5:45am to take the first bus since we expected this trip to take 5 hours. We both had a class tonight so we wanted to get home early enough to relax before we had to work. We took the correct bus but we couldn't find the second bus to transfer. We figured it out and all the buses were filled with older Taiwanese people getting ready to hike. Hiking is a popular pasttime for the older Taiwanese generation. The age range of these people are probably about 60s-80s and they are definitely in shape.

We reached the park and we get outside to find out that it is drizzling. It's just really annoying since the past couple of days it was so nice outside and of course the day we hike, it's rainy. It took us awhile to get to the trail but we finally started the trail at 7am. The steps weren't too bad and it was warm enough to wear my tank top and not have to wear my jacket. I was wearng shorts and my shoes didn't have the best traction since they had shocks. We were walking halfway there and it wasn't too bad. The stone steps were ok until we reached a little halfway to the peak and the trail became really steep. The steps were elevated higher so it was harder to climb up each step. The path got curvier and the rain didn't help at all since it made the stone steps slippery. It was pretty intense at some times because you would just look up and all you would see were more steps. We got to a grassy area, only a couple of kilometers away from the peak and the rain really started to pick up. The wind was blowing like crazy and we both had to wear our jackets again. We finally got to the top and we were basically in a middle of a cloud. It was super foggy and you couldn't see anything. We wanted to see the beautiful view of Taipei but the weather ruined it and you couldn't see anything except whiteness. (pictures above). It only took us about 50 mins to walk it up since we took some time taking pictures.

Walking back down the mountain was a whole different story. Well right when we were starting to head back, this guy who's not wearing a shirt and just wearing shorts, runs past us down the steps, practically jumping down. He was so crazy, but sadly he definitely outbeat us in walking down a mountain. Cala and I got passed a couple of times and a lot of the Taiwanese people were worried that I would get sick since I was wearing shorts and they would talk and ask me about it lol They were surprised I would be wearing shorts but it really wasn't that cold. I'm still used to the snow and cold winters of Iowa. The funny thing was that I was afraid of walking down the steep stairs since I didn't want to fall and my shoes aren't good handling traction. I slipped a couple of times and did fall a little bit (on flat land luckily) but at one point I would always fall or stagger when I was around people and Cala was joking around and said I was doing it on purpose and wanted attention lol It was pretty embarrassing though that I was slipping and having to walk really slow. We got back to our apartment at 10am. It was awesome! We then got lunch, we both went to Starbucks, and I studied a little bit of Chinese. I had to sub a class tonight and I'm not as tired. I feel pretty good considering I got up around 5am to hike a mountain!! Cala and I are definitely going back up again when the weather gets nicer.

-Chihchat

Speaking Chinese without stopping

Today after work I ordered some dinner to go. I ordered luwei which is where you can select noodles, meat, and vegetables and they cook it in a sauce and serve it in a bag. I ordered my food and I even asked them questions like why they weren't using the vegetables I chose and the lady told me they don't use the vegetables up front because they have them in the back and it's already cleaned. Anyway so then I orderd shaved ice and the lady understood me when I told her my toppings and she didn't speak English to me. So as you may think this is just another ordinary day of ordering food, but it wasn't since no one spoke English to me. Usually they don't understand and I have to repeat myself or I can't say something smoothly and I stutter. Tonight wasn't the case at all. I actually ordered food at two different places and I spoke with my Uncle tonight about making dinner plans for next week, all in Chinese without stopping to think of what to say next. I know I've been here for almost 5 months but I don't get to practice my Chinese a lot. I'm glad that it's somewhat improving. At least now I can think of what to say and actually converse with most people lol

-Chihchat

Noisy Taiwan and unpopped popcorn once again

This morning at 8:30am I woke up from the lovely noise of jack hammering. They are tearing down a building or room of some sort near our apartment and you can hear everything. When I was skyping with my friend, I at first had no idea what the noise was. Then Kenny was having a fit and meowing so it was just a loud morning.

Cala lost her keys a couple of days ago so we went to find a key store. Her old roommate knew of a place so while we were walking there, there was a food stand selling two kinds of donuts and sesame balls. I ordered a sesame ball and it was so good I had another one lol The lady asked me where I was from and I just told her I was American but I asked her what I thought I was. She thought I was Korean. It's because of my shirt though since it was a really Korean-like haha Cala and I made a joke about it but I guess I just have my days. Some days I look Japanese, Korean, Cantonese-Hong Kong, Taiwanese, Chinese, American, or Canadian.

Cala and I found a place near the market by our apartment to copy keys. It was literally like, let's find a sign with a key on it. There were so many signs with the key symbol and a telephone number posted on it but we couldn't find the store. We finally found a place and it only took the guy 10 mins to copy them and it cost a little over $3. Plus the new set of keys are really shiny! haha

Drew and I had Korean food for lunch. We both ordered the bibimbap (picture above). It was extremely delicious and super fresh. Then we went to Coldstone to get ice cream since Drew had stickers remaining from 7-Eleven and we needed to finish it up before they expired. During my night class, I had a student give me candy. Then for my private tutoring, my student also gave me candy lol I was surprised since my Monday night awful class had a party day and didn't give me anything :( lol

Then tonight after Drew and I ran, I went to my favorite 7-Eleven store near my apartment to buy popcorn. Unfortunately they ran out of the kind I like and I even went to another convenience store (Hi-Life) but they didn't have any either. I finally had to go to this 7-Eleven that is closer to my place but I don't like them since they are unfriendly and they always mess up on something. So Drew was at another food stand so I went to the 7-Eleven to get my popcorn. It took awhile for it to pop but anyway I got my popcorn and left and was walking to meet Drew when I realized that the bag was 1/3 popped. I complained to Drew about it and we went back to 7-Eleven. I explained to the 2 guys working although my Chinese isn't the greatest so I didn't really know how to say that the popcorn bag wasn't fully popped but they understood lol They opened another popcorn bag since I told them since they were going to repop the bag in the microwave. They were looking at me like they were annoyed though. Taiwanese people seriously must not eat that much popcorn because I always have trouble when I buy it. No one seems to know how to pop it and it's really a mystery to them lol But yeah, today was definitely a food day!

-Chihchat

好? ok?

I was running tonight and usually I would get stares since I would be running the track and wearing a tank top. Like I said before, it's pretty unusual to see young Taiwanese people exercising, especially girls. Although it's the first day of November, it was really nice out today. It was in the lower 70s, partly sunny, and super nice. But Taiwanese people still think it's cold and they would were wearing winter coats today. The heaters were on in the subway and I was sweating once again lol

Anyway so tonight I was running on the track in the elementary school and of course I would get stares and people would look at me funny since I'm wearing shorts and a tank top in November. Well while I was running there were some older women walking on the track. They were walking in the outer lane which is also the lane where I run. I was running for awhile and they just got on the track when a lady said "miss" in Chinese. I wasn't paying attention since I was running but I slowed down a bit and she told me something and I didn't quite catch it since I was still running so I yelled at ok in Chinese "hao" (好). Then I heard her talking to the other ladies on the track and saying how I was American and discussing something about English and Chinese.

So I understood the first sentence she said but for the second sentence there are 3 things that I'm not quite sure. These are the possibilities:

1) Slow down. You don't need to run so fast! Take it easy.
2) Slow down. Don't run so fast when you pass me.
3) Slow down. There are children near the track.

Yeah..so I don't really know what she said but I just yelled out okay and I don't know if she thought that was rude of me. After we talked, she walked one more lap and then her and the other ladies got off the track. I hope I didn't upset them but on the other hand I was annoyed that she stopped me from running. I was running pretty fast and I felt it was rude that she broke up my pace to tell me something unimportant..unless it was important? I guess I could have stopped and asked again, emphasizing "I could have" lol

Anyway it's getting cooler and rainy outside so I might need to start running in a gym. Then later after my run I went to one of my fav. restaurants because they serve really good hot and sour soup for a cheap deal. The owner and I talk all the time when I'm there and she asked me if I was cold tonight. I said no, I just got done running. Her husband thought it was so weird lol Yes, it's crazy to run in November with a tank top and shorts but the weather is so nice out! They are very spoiled with this tropical weather.

-Chihchat