My friend is coming! :)

My friend got a job teaching out here in Taipei and she is coming tonight. It's crazy to think that I haven't seen her for a year. I remember when just last year, I moved out here and now she's doing the same thing. As I mentioned before, things are getting busier and busier as now not only is my friend coming tonight, but also my relatives are coming this Sat.

Today is exactly 2 weeks until I leave Taipei. Tomorrow is my last day of work and my roommates and I are trying to move out of the apartment since rent is up by the end of this month. So many things happening all at once but it's also really exciting too :)

-Chihchat

Teacher Lilly, please speak Chinese!

As this week is my last week of classes, I gave some of my classes cookies and for one of my fav. classes, I gave them either a coin or a stamp. Although they aren't the brightest and can be super naughty, I really grew to like them a lot. Anyway one of my favorite students Jack was begging me to speak Chinese. It was funny because I said, okay just wait for everyone to leave lol My CT needed to write in his book anyway but he really wanted to hear me speak it. I don't know why. My CT said it was really nice that he stayed after class to wait for me to speak Chinese lol

So I said what do you want me to say? He said anything! I then said "Ni hao" which means hello in Chinese. He goes, no, more than that! lol I said what? He said say hospital because that was one of our vocabulary words. I knew what it was but he said it first and then I said it. He didn't really say anything after I said it. Then I asked him in Chinese why he wanted me to speak Chinese? He didn't say much after that LOL I asked him and said, is my Chinese bad? But again he just smiled and didn't say anything. His English isn't the greatest though and I talked to my CT later about it and she thinks that he just didn't know what else to say lol

Anyway I will miss him and that class but I'm really done teaching today. I'm pretty tired and I'm just ready to be done entirely. I just have 2 more days left (2 more classes). Next week will be family time and showing my friend around Taipei. It's crazy how much time I still have although I know I don't have much time before I go home.

-Chihchat

Rain, Trash, Go Away!

Today was downpouring when I was going to work and I was buying cookies for my classes since it was the last day that I would be teaching them. Of course I miscounted the cookies and so I was missing cookies for 2 people. I had to go back out in the rain and go to a bakery nearby work and get some more cookies LOL

Right now our apartment is messy because we cleaned out everything so basically we just need to throw everything away. I rushed home after going to my aunt's and uncle's and tried to help my roommate throw the trash out. I threw out the trash last night too but we STILL have trash lol The dumpster truck doesn't come on Weds. so I will have to wait until Thurs. Then we can finally start cleaning the apartment lol

-Chihchat

I just want to take one picture!

My Mon. night class is really naughty and it's weird because I like them individually but they are a pain when they are together. They also aren't the brightest and we're learning harder concepts so it's just frustrating because they are older but they don't act their age. Anywho it was my last day teaching them and I just wanted to take one picture.

The students kept pushing each other and it was so hard to get everyone in just for one picture. I yelled at them and I said, wow it's my last day and I just want to take one picture! Stop pushing each other. I'm glad I'm done teaching them lol My roommate asked me why did I want to take a picture of them if they're naughty. I'm like yeah, but I just want a picture of all my classes. Some of them were sad though that I was leaving and I was happy that at least some cared LOL

-Chihchat

Cleaning aka throwing stuff out!

Today my roommates and I planned to clean the apartment. Since both of them are almost moved out, we just need to clean the apartment out. Unfortunately, there is a lot of stuff at the apartment and it took awhile to actually just throw everything out. We have tons of garbage sacks but we finally cleaned out the apartment. Now after we throw out the garbage, we just need to clean it lol As I blogged before, the trash trucks come out on certain days and so we have to wait until tomorrow to throw out the normal trash and paper and the plastic containers will have to wait until Tues.

I also started to clean out my room. I'm glad that I didn't have too much stuff but I'm getting rid of a lot of clothes. I'm really trying to minimize what I bring back to the States because of my weight limit and I don't want to bring back a whole lot. It's going to be hard though since my mom wants me to bring back a rice cooker..yes, a rice cooker lol

-Chihchat

Last day of teaching my Sat. classes

Today was my last Sat. of teaching. I bought cookies for two of my classes and I took pictures of each class. I was really surprised that some of my students were sad that I was leaving. I wasn't expecting it and then the students that I thought would care, weren't really that sad about it lol I felt like I was having party day with most of my classes today but oh well.

It got a little sad with my third class of the day since I taught them since day 1 with ABCs and I was their first foreign Kojen teacher. They are all so young and they were pretty sad. They were surprised that today was my last day with them although I did tell them that I would be leaving.

The biggest surprise was my JK class. They are middle schoolers and they don't want to be in class, especially since the class is on a Sat. from 6-7. It's the last hour of the day and I dread it a lot. Anyway 4 of my students wrotes notes saying they really liked me and were sad that I was leaving. One of my other students gave me a gift certificate and the other gave me a pin off his bag. It was really really sweet. The nicest note was one of my students who remembered me from day 1 of when I started teaching. She said I spoke really fast but then she understood everything that I said later on haha

When I was taking a group picture of my young class, I heard the students speak in Chinese of how they wanted to stand by me and was happy they could stand next to me. I was surprised how excited they were to be near me. I felt like a celebrity haha After work my coworker and I went to this awesome night market. I waited in line for about 20 mins for this awesome snack. It's made from taro and basically it's just a fried taro ball..but it's extremely delicious!! It's well-known and I understand why haha Definitely was a great way to end my night!

Pictures are one of my classes decorating the white board with good-byes, my young class that I had since K1 (the beginning class of English), and the yummy fried taro balls.

-Chihchat

Glamour photos

I finally got my glamour photos today. It took me a month because I went on vacation but it was worth it. It was sort of a long process since I needed to choose certain photos and then I have to check the arrangement of the photos. It's nice because I have a CD where I can print off my photos and it doesn't have the studio name on the pics. It's great so I can develop them without having to worry about copyright issues. The four pictures above are the four outfits I used. I had four different themes: cutesy, traditional-Asian, natural, and artsy.

On a side note, I got accepted to another grad school (Minnesota State Univ.). I obviously am not going to the school but I was wondering why I haven't heard back from them since it's the end of June. But the application deadline was May 1st. It's nice however to be accepted to another grad school program because it makes up for all the rejections that I have received in the past lol

-Chihchat

Recap of vacation

I just realized that I didn't really blog about what I did on vacation and so I'm going to recap of my vacation and link some photos :) Quick highlights of my trip!

Hong Kong:
-Got lost many times with Drew
-Our hotel was on another island so we had to take a ferry every day
-The dragon boat race competition was outside our hotel which woke us up at 8am
-Realized that people in Hong Kong are much more patient in speaking Mandarin than Taiwanese people (a lot to do with the fact that Mandarin is also their second language)
-Bought a dvd to learn Cantonese (I've always wanted to learn Cantonese since my father is Cantonese)
-Hong Kong is EXPENSIVE
-The bread is delicious but also super filling
-The Big Buddha statue park closes at 5pm :(
-The subway station is called "MTR" not "MRT"
-Reunited with Michelle who I'm traveling with for the rest of the trip
-Got to reunite with my old college classmate Jason
-Was a translator between Michelle's grandparents who can only speak Cantonese and Mandarin and Michelle only knowing English
-Ate lots of food and had many awesome drinks
-Got to see the Avenue of Stars which had star celebrities like Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, Jet Li, and even older celebrities like Anita Mui :) I was super ecstatic about that because I did a project about her in my Chinese Pop Culture class last year at Iowa

Macao:
-I can use Mandarin lol
-I have no luck and didn't win any money while gambling
-Macao is like a mini Las Vegas
-The casinos didn't have any free drinks or food :(
-The beef jerky was awesome and it's cheaper when you wait until the end of the street to buy it instead of the first stand when the street begins
-Our hotel was NICE :)

Thailand: I'm splitting it up within cities since there's so much we did in each city lol

Bangkok:
-I didn't realize how scared I was going to Thailand until I was going to Thailand lol
-The first scam: the taxi driver forgot to turn on his meter when he was driving us to our hotel from the airport
-I learned Michelle's tactics of how to know when someone is looking through your stuff
-Mr. Som is a scam artist and never pay over $60 US to go to a tourist attraction (unless you know it's worth it). Sadly he worked for the hotel as the tour company
-Thai milk tea is always amazing :)
-Went to see Hangover 2 in the Bangkok movie theaters lol
-My first trip to Madame Tussad's wax museum to see the oh so lovely..LEONARDO DICAPRIO. Hong Kong also had a wax museum but there was no Leo. I asked lol
-Saw Khao San Road where Leo filmed part of The Beach. There we booked a day trip to Thailand's old capital Ayutthaya.
-Went to the Floating Market where Michelle forced me to take a picture of a big huge snake that was wrapped around me and her. The guy had a lovely time scaring me with his snake
-Saw a very attractive, yes SUPER attractive salesperson that was trying to rip Michelle off while she was trying to buy a painting
-Went to the Grand Palace and saw the Jade Buddha
-Went to the weekend market and raced back to our hotel to make our flight to Phuket. Luckily we made it lol

Phuket-->Aonang, suburb of Krabi (one of the islands)
-Land at Phuket airport only finding out that we missed the ferry and to get to our hotel we would have to take a 3 hr bus ride to get there
-Met a cool Aussie who found it was amusing about how we would get to our hotel
-Thank goodness Michelle asked and instead of being driven all the way to Phuket town, we can stop halfway in the middle of the route to take the bus back to the opposite direction where we came from. I don't know why getting to Krabi was so difficult and why people were telling us to go this completely long, backwards way route
-Ran across a major highway with our heavy backpacks to catch a bus to Aonang
-Met this lady who helped us get a bus to Krabi
-Michelle sat next to a really nice guy who was becoming a lawyer. He was really nice but he had bad breath (from what Michelle said lol)
-I asked the bus driver to tell us when we reached Krabi town and he didn't mind that I sat up front since he said he liked me..yes, weird lol
-After a very bumpy ride of 2 hrs, we landed in Krabi town and by this time it was night
-Michelle got sick and I asked this guy who was riding on the bus with us how to get to our hotel. It would be another 40 mins to get to our hotel ahh! This tuk tuk driver wanted to take us there but we didn't trust him at first because we didn't want to pay a lot. Luckily he found us again because there was another couple who were backpackers going to the same direction
-We met Lorenzo who was from Italy and his (I think girlfriend, forgot the name) from England. They were nice and took care of Michelle by giving her water and hydration pills since Michelle got really sick
-First experience riding a tuk tuk and the drive took about 40 mins or less. We finally got to our hotel!
-Our hotel was AWESOME! Ok not a hotel I mean our resort :) It was definitely a resort haha
-Bothered the receptionists about day trips and how to get to the other islands
-Booked a day trip to Koh Phi Phi Don

Koh Phi Phi Don:
-This is the beach that Leo mostly filmed at during "The Beach". I was HAPPY!
-We went on a speed boat and lucked out because the weather was good enough to go to Mayan Bay which is where they filmed Leo's movie.
-Snorkeled and it was an okay experience although after I got done, I got a little seasick
-Had a nice lunch and rested at the beach
-Snorkeled again and realized I wasn't breathing out of the tube correctly. I mastered the snorkeling experience and had a great time. Also I didn't get sick finally :)
-Went to Bamboo Island and Michelle and I were picture crazy lol I mean, it was just gorgeous. White sand, turquoise water. All you can hope for!
-Toured Aonang. It's a small city but there's also a beach. The people of Aonang are so flattering because they want our business lol

Railey Beach
-Our driver didn't know he had to pick us up so we had to go in the afternoon
-Chilled at the beach and our swimming pool of our amazing view of the mountains
-Our driver to Railey Beach looked like my good friend
-Rode in a longtail boat :)
-Rock climbed for the first time! The mosquitoes were deadly though haha They were everywhere! I'm proud to say I rock climbed a 12 m mountain. I pansied out though and didn't go to the next step since I didn't have enough energy or courage at that point
-Michelle rocked at rock climbing :)
-Spent another evening at Aonang and Michelle got a massage while I got a pedicare. I can't handle massages lol

Aonang--->Phuket
-Went back to Phuket by taking a mini bus
-Rushed to our hotel to go to the beach so we would have time for parasailing
-Parasailed :) It wasn't that long but it was fun
-Since we parasailed, we didn't have to pay money to use their beach chairs
-Layed out on the beach and we met this friendly local who taught us how to wakeboard
-Toured Phuket and saw some interesting nightlife
-We were so poor we only had $180baht ($3USD) between the two of us and we just wanted to get a drink. We stopped at this local bar which was dead because we were there for the low season. The lady was going to charge us for 2 drinks when we told her we could only pay for 1. She was nice for giving us a discount but I think they were desperate for business

Phuket-->Taipei
-Traveled all day and stopped in Kuala Lumpar, Malaysia for a 2 hr layover
-Arrived in Taipei to find out that I didn't know exactly what bus to take. Made it back to Taipei and my roommate planned for all of us to go out
-We went to a bar and it was fun. Met up with my old coworker who was in town

Hualien/Taroko Gorge:
-We had one day of rest in Taipei and I went to the immigration office. I got my extension so I was happy about that
-The next day we went to Hualien. We left early to take the bus and I hired a cab driver to take us around Taroko Gorge.
-Met up with a nice guy named Grant and it was fun checking out the gorge
-We also spent some time at the beach
-Went to the night market but they only had food
-Realized there was nothing to do in Hualien when we got back from the gorge haha
-Next morning I messed up on the train times and I got food poisioning :( On a brighter note, Michelle bought lots of mochi lol
-We traveled from seat to seat on the train since we had to take another train but it worked out where we had seats for most of the ride
-Got back and had dinner with my relatives
-Went to Shida night market

Taipei:
-Showed Michelle around my workplace
-Saw my glamour photos that I took which tomorrow I get to pick up
-Took her to the hotsprings in Bayen where we took a bus
-Went to Shilin night market and bought clothes and shoes
-Played mahjong and went to KTV until 6am
-Took Michelle to many restaurants and ate different types of food
-Helped Michelle to get a haircut..yes I translated their conversation between Michelle and the hairdresser lol

And yes, while Michelle was in Taipei for one week, I had to work for some of the days. I'm still recovering from the trip but it was soooooooo amazing. Thanks Michelle for dealing with my tiredness by the end of the trip. She was so awesome because I could barely keep my eyes open when she left to go back to Hong Kong. My body physically couldn't anything since I got a heat rash, cankersores, sore throat etc. It was bad and I couldn't believe that my body was reacting so much. I was just tired and really needed sleep lol

Anyway THAT was my vacation. I really enjoyed recaping my trip because it reminded me of the good memories I had. Why can't I do it all over again? lol

*Photos are from Thailand

-Chihchat

Humid attack

It's so humid here that I forgot how bad it was when I first came to Taipei. I don't even know how to explain how much it affects what I do, think, and eat lol I mean definitely I don't want to eat anything and I'm always hot and sweaty but I'm also really tired. It's so muggy, sticky, and nauseating that I don't want to do ANYTHING lol It's so hard to push myself to teach this week because next week I'm done. If anything, the days should go by faster but I feel it's so slow and it's dragging me to pieces.

I know next week will fly by quickly because it's my last week of class but I'm actually ready for it and not sad. I'm so ready to be done teaching. As much as I will miss my students and I get sad when I think about leaving, I don't think I can handle teaching them anymore. I think it's that I have accepted the fact that I'm done teaching them and that I will be leaving. I don't know if I'm having a good attitude or not towards leaving but I wish it wasn't so darn hot here!! haha

-Chihchat

Selfless students

Tonight I was teaching my second favorite class. Next Fri. is my last day of class so I was telling the students that since next week is our last day of class, I want to bring them something. It's the oral exam and I know they will get done early so I said raise your hand if you want cookies. Only 2 out of 16 people raised their hand. I said don't worry about it, let me know if you like cookies. Then no one raised their hand. I said okay..how about cake? Still no one said anything except one of my loud students who kept saying that they don't want junk food (she was kidding).

I said okay how about pizza? I thought they would say something but no response although some students whispered to each other like they were interested. I even said McDonalds and yet no one really said anything. I started calling some people out to see what they would like but they still were quiet. They were being wayyyyy too polite. I couldn't believe it. They are 10 year old students and they are so well-behaved. This is one of the reasons why I like the class so much, also because they are very smart.

I told them I would surprise them next week. I'm thinking of getting them a pizza. I told my co-teacher about this and she said, don't worry about it. You don't need to give them anything lol I'm only giving out food to the classes that I like the most and were well-behaved. So that would be a total of 6 classes out of 11 lol I want to give pizza to my top two classes and the other 3 classes cookies.

It's so crazy to think that next week is my last week of work. I could have subbed for some classes after next week but I want and need a break. As much as I did think about it and the fact that I'm a workaholic, I don't want to stress myself out before I leave Taipei with teaching classes. I definitely need some relax time :)

-Chihchat

I'm back and busier than ever!

It's been forever since I last blogged. So many things have happened but here's a short recap. I went on vacation with my roommate and my friend from the States. I went to Hong Kong, Macao, Thailand, and Taroko Gorge in Taiwan. It was an amazing trip but my body couldn't handle it. I got major cankersores, food poisoning, sunburn (of course), and even a heat rash.

All in all the vacation was unbelievable but I definitely need a vacation after my vacation. The hardest part was juggling hosting my friend around Taipei while going to work. She left last week and I'm still trying to regain my energy.

The next couple of weeks will be fly by quickly as my good friend from Iowa is going to come teach in Taipei. My relatives are flying in for my grandmother's one-year death anniversary, and I need to close everything up before I leave Taipei. I also need to plan for my Los Angeles trip.

I can't believe that my year of Taiwan is ending soon. I've been in Taipei over a year and it doesn't seem like it at all although I remember how hot it was when I arrived in Taipei and I'm not happy that the humidity is back lol

-Chihchat