Hello Kitty Monkey Love

On Saturday morning we got up at around noon, grabbed some breakfast at Starbucks, and took a taxi to Chaishan Park AKA Monkey Mountain. I’d been intrigued by this place ever since I first read about it at least 6 months ago, so I was really looking forward to our hike. First of all, I have to say that I’m so glad we took a taxi. We were going to just take a bus, but for the sake of saving time we took the cab- I honestly believe we’d never have found the place otherwise. The hike started by climbing some narrow stairs uphill through some small shops, all of which looked like they should be offering us our next clue on “The Amazing Race”.


The trail officially started with a flock of wild chickens just chillin’ at the entrance. HAWT.


After hiking for about 10 minutes, I stopped in my tracks as I saw a wild monkey just sitting in the grass on the side of the trail, eating a nut. Should we walk past him? Should we wait? I had no idea until some guy and his dog marched past as though it was an everyday thing to come across wild monkeys during your walk. The monkeys were so tame- they didn’t care about the hikers at all. We soon approached a little sitting area where monkeys climbed over our heads, playing and jumping around. There were well over a dozen of them strutting around. I couldn’t believe they weren’t in a cage!!


Mel with her new friend.


There were a lot of funny warnings regarding the monkeys. I was really hoping none of these things happened to us!


When you’re walking on a trail and someone barges out in front of you and cuts you off, you get annoyed. When a monkey does this, it’s fine.



After another couple of minutes of hiking we stopped seeing monkeys and started seeing more and more stairs. The trail itself was amazing- lush with green tropical plants and palm trees. Once we got to a look-out, the view of the city was awesome.


I spotted this little deer in the woods on our way down. I was starting to wonder what animals DIDN'T live on this mountain.


I like this picture from our trip back down the hill. People on the left; monkeys on the right.


When we got to the bottom of the trail we had to walk a few blocks to a busier area so we could hail a taxi to the Dream Mall. The Dream Mall is the largest mall in Taipei and it features a HELLO KITTY FERRIS WHEEL on its roof! Obviously, we headed directly to this amazing ferris wheel as soon as we arrived.


Once again, just like at the 85 building, there was no line and we got right on the ride. We didn’t get the Hello Kitty car… it was some anime puppy/bunny friend instead. Womp womp.

Recently, Mel has been getting more and more nervous of rides like this which wasn’t helped by the fact that when we got to the top of the ferris wheel the whole thing suddenly squeeked, squeeled, stopped and then an announcement was made in Chinese. Of course, it started up again seconds later but I have to admit I was a little nervous too when that happened!!


We got some sucky Korean food for lunch and some amazing Charmy brand shaved ice for dessert. I hope there’s a Charmy shop in Taipei because it was so good. We looked around the mall for awhile, but neither of us saw anything that we wanted to buy. I think we’ve been spoiled by the cheap price of goods at the night markets… suddenly $10 for a t-shirt seems pricey, even if it does reference Kate Moss. So, we took a cab to our next destination: the Love River.



How beautiful is the Love River? It was such a nice area. The air was so warm and comfortable, the scenery was amazing and the company was second to none.


We finished off the evening with supper and beer at possibly my favorite restaurant- Outback Steakhouse. There are only 3 or 4 Outbacks in Taiwan so I was actually surprised when our taxi let us off right in front of one. It was meant to be! And what tastes better after a day of hiking and shopping than a big steak and loaded baked potato?

Lotus Lake and the 85 Building

This week was “test week” at my part-time school so Mel and I were able to make an early getaway to one of the most southern areas of Taiwan, Kaohsiung- the second largest city in the country. We took the high speed railway to Kaohsiung, which was almost as exciting as the trip itself. The whole trip took us only 1 hour and 27 minutes, which had us at our destination before supper time. The alternative would have been a lot cheaper but a 4 hour ride, with the possibility of standing the whole way. No thanks!

When we got off the train we took a shuttle bus to Lotus Lake which is only about 5-10 minutes from the high speed rail station. First impressions of Kaohsiung? It’s a good bit hotter than Taipei. Taipei’s temperatures have been in the mid-20s for about 3 weeks now, and the temperature in Kaohsiung was well over 30 degrees. But back to Lotus Lake… what a cool place!! The lake is surrounded by walking trails that connect the large statues and pagodas that looked so great along the water. First, we visited the Dragon and Tiger pagodas, being careful to go inside the dragons’ mouth and exit through the tigers’ mouth for good luck.

Inside the tiger and dragon were some colorful murals and burning incense. Favorite part of the mural can be seen in the above photo.

Next we walked down the pier to this pagoda and took in the view for a little while.

On the way back, Mel put a few cents in this fish-shaped vending machine just to see what in the world it would dispense. Fish food, of course- with the helpful label “don’t eats”. We fed some big fishies and moved on.

After passing a random pig which was tied up to a tree, we arrived at this giant gentleman. There was a little incense burning/temple area inside of him and a karaoke/shaved ice place at the end. We decided it was time to check out our hotel so we headed back to the main road, hailed a cab and travelled to the Union Hotel.

The Union Hotel had a few things going for it. First of all, it was about $24 CAN a night for a decent sized room. Plus, it was directly across from Kaohsiung Main Station so it was really convenient for getting around. However, there are a few ways to tell that you’re not really staying in the nicest place- sign number 1 is when you turn on the TV and it immediately loads porn. The rooms were really aging (though not especially dirty), our bedroom’s view was of a brick wall, and the elevator made this unnerving dropping motion when it started and stopped. Other than that, it was fine but I don’t think we’d stay there twice.

Suddenly starving, we walked to the nearby Liohe Night Market for some food but couldn’t find anything that wasn’t made of organ meat that we recognized besides stinky tofu (which we weren’t really craving) so guess where we wound up? Good old McDicks. It was good, I have to admit.

We decided to take the MRT to the 85 building, which is the tallest building in Kaohsiung. We bought tickets to the 74^th floor observatory and headed up after being screened for H1N1.

There was no one in the building!! We had the whole observatory to ourselves right up until the time we went to the lounge. Not sure why, because it was a cool view.

The 75th floor lounge was probably the swankiest place I’ve ever had a drink… definitely had the best views of any bar I’ve visited for sure. I’m not really sure where else in the world it would be so cheap for us to do something like this- I mean it was only $3 CAN to go to the observatory and we were able to use that admission price as money off our drinks. I think we spent $10 for the whole night. Crazy.

The lounge singer was very awesome, and there was a group of older couples (and one awkward older foreigner) who really knew how to tear up the dance floor. Let me leave you with one of my favorite cuts of the evening: the loungiest version of “Spiderman” you’ll ever hear.

Case of the Missing Wallet= Solved!

Hey- if you ever lose anything in a taxi in Taiwan, just check the Police Radio Station website:

http://www.prs.gov.tw/EN/index.aspx

Their policy:

"Lost and found

If you left something in the taxi, you can find it back through PRS. We even reward the strangers who finds more than NT$50,000 but never keeps for his own."

A typical lost item ad on their website

What an awesome service! One advantage of living in such a big city is that there's a lot of people and a lot of services to serve the people. Whereas at home if you lost something in a taxi you'd just call the taxi company, here the taxi company hands lost items over to the Police Radio Station. It's not just limited to taxis, if you lose anything anywhere, you can contact the Police Radio Station.

When I got to work on Monday my supervisor had already been called by the radio station about my wallet. Her business card with her phone number was in the wallet, so they gave her a call. The taxi driver from Saturday night had turned it in over the weekend. When I got home from work, my neighbor said she called the radio station too but they told her they'd already contacted me through my supervisor. I was so, so happy and I feel really lucky. It would have sucked to replace all of that ID- especially my drivers license, which I waited 28 years to get, after all!

So, after work on Monday I went to the radio station building and claimed my wallet. At home you'd have to describe the wallet and it's contents, but when they saw the Canadian walk into the building they believed it was mine.

Quoteable Taiwan

Did you know that I laugh on a daily basis here in Taiwan? Sometimes, it's an inner laugh (like when you accidentally draw an obscene "laser" shooting liquid on the chalkboard and the students notice) but most times, it's a hearty and obnoxious laugh. Possibly one of the best things about living in Taiwan has to be the funny and amusing things we hear.

Here is a list of our favourite "lost in translation" moments.

1. Foreign teacher: "What are you going to do this weekend?"
Supervisor: (laughter) "Oh, foreign teachers, always wanting to know what people are doing on the weekend"

2.Foreign teacher: "Is there any cold water to drink at school?"
Supervisor: (laughter) "Oh, Canadian teachers always want cold water!"


3. Foreign teacher: "What are your favourite foods and what foods don't you like?
Student: "I don't like taste"

4. Foreign teacher gives the following writing assignment: "Write about your favourite movie-Include an introduction and two topic sentences"
Student: "My favourite movie is Jackie Chan. I like Spongebob Squarepants. I like Pokemon".

5. Supervisor: "Don't be a heavy load" (translation: "Don't get stressed out")


6. Foreign teacher: "I can't believe I lost my wallet. I've never lost my wallet before."
Supervisor: "Oh, foreign teachers ALWAYS lose their wallets"

7. Taiwanese Friend (really confused): "Why don't you eat more organs?"
Mel: "I don't know."

8. Melodie to her class: I am from Canadia...I mean Canada! (losing all grip of the English language after only 7 weeks away)


9. A concerned subway rider tries to warn the foreign teachers about chewing gum on the subway: "Can receive fine for chewing the essence"

10. The waiter at the snake restaurant explaining the shot of snake semen: "It's okay, the penis was only dipped into the drink"
Mel, Shawn and Naressa: "Bottoms up!"

Booked!

It's test week at the school where I work my part-time gig, so I have Friday afternoon off. We're going to take advantage of this quasi-long weekend by taking the high speed rail to Kaohsiung, which is in the south of Taiwan. Kaohsiung is 345 km from Taipei, but the ride only takes an hour and 27 minutes! We'd originally considered moving to Kaohsiung, so we're pretty interested to see what it's like- plus the weather has been chilly here lately (mid to high-20s) so we're looking forward to the warmer weather down south!

Jurassic Park And The Case Of The Missing Wallet

On Saturday night, after spending the afternoon organizing lessons, games, books and everything for all my crazy new classes our schools' "international" staff went to the randomly named Indian restaurant in Taipei. Indian serves absolutely no Indian food and has a wild dinosaur theme going on. One look at the building and it wasn't hard to figure out that you were in the right place.




As you can see the menu offered a lot of variety. We pussed out and ordered some more recognizable foods which we all shared: fried rice, pineapple chicken, stir fried boar, "3 cups" chicken and a mutton dish. The restaurant was really cheap but the food was all really good. None of the dishes were more than $4 a piece and guess what they were selling for a little under $3?


A liter of beer!!


We were sat in what looked to be the foreigners section, but was probably just the section where the waitress who spoke the best English was working. There was a big pterodactyl skeleton hanging over our table, and as you can see the restaurant was not short on decorations. Next time I want to sit inside the dinosaur!!


There was some god awful live music and every 10 minutes the woman performing sang "Happy Birthday" to another table and everyone clapped along to the song.


Calling Wilma Flinstone to let her know I'd be home late.


Even the bathroom was themed. The water for the sinks came out of the t-rex's mouths! By the time we left it was after 11:00pm, which meant that the other teachers who live on-campus had missed their 10pm curfew (so ridiculous!) and were locked out for the night, so they decided to stay over at our place on our comfortable floor covered in pillows. We took the subway and then took a taxi the rest of the way. Before we got in the taxi I bought a chocolate bar at the convenience store by the subway station and then we hopped in the cab. The cabby started waving his hands and asking us to leave the cab, so we got out and got in the next taxi instead. Who knows why he didn't want to drive us, maybe he was on a break or something, but this happens sometimes. When the taxi dropped us off at home I reached for my wallet to pay and it was gone!! I searched the cab and it was not in there, so we headed back to the station to try and find it but it was nowhere to be seen. I know I had it when I bought the chocolate bar, so the only place it could have fallen out was when I was in that first taxi that kicked us out. All the cabs here look the same and all the drivers have a similar profile (Asian) so I have no idea what cab company it was, who the driver was or anything. Really fun night, pretty crappy ending.


So today I asked my neighbor to write a note that says "I lost my wallet in a taxi last night, have you seen it? Thank you" which I took back to the convenience store area to show any cab drivers that were around.


One of the drivers called his dispatcher on the radio and it seemed like he had found out where the wallet was. He wrote something on our note, which we happily thought would be a huge clue... but when I showed it to my neighbor she said it's just the name of a radio station that you can call to report missing things. Sooooooo I'm not really holding out much hope of finding my wallet. There wasn't too much money in it, but ALL of my ID (drivers license, birth certificate, SIN card) are all gone now which totally sucks. Luckily, none of those IDs matter at all in Taiwan, but it's still going to be annoying to replace them all when I get home.
So.. um.. have you seen my wallet laying around anywhere in the Xinpu area? It's got a big Domo reporting the news on the front- can't miss it!

Co-Workers

Busy times lately in the land of stinky tofu!


On Monday my employer sent me on what basically amounted to a scavenger hunt in the pouring rain on an attempt to get my ARC card. Your ARC card lets you stay in the country, so it's pretty important. First I had to go to our head office on the other side of the city to pick up some paperwork that was supposed to be ready for me... except it wasn't ready. Then I had to go back into Taipei to the immigration office, where they politely told me I'd been sent to the wrong place. Since I live in Taipei County, I had to go to the office in Banchio. After walking around Banchio for about an hour I somehow found myself a full subway station away from where I started, but this subway station had a *MAP*. Yay for maps! I never would have found the place without it because although it was on a main street, it started out as a dinky little street with some noodle shops on the end. Never would have gone up there. But in the end, I got it done and even found the site of my next haircut: Funny Hair. Sounds professional enough.

On Tuesday, Mel found out that another teacher at her school quit. So the staff was down two people within 5 days. Mel's boss's first question.... "do you think Shawn would be available?"

On Wednesday, I went to Mel's school to do a demo lesson! Unfortunately my audience was not made up of just students... Mel's boss and the principal were there too. As a result, the kids were very well behaved but also very shy to participate so my lesson went by so fast. Their English level was lower than I anticipated so one of my games was pretty unsuccessful. At the end of the class I actually remember turning my back to the class for a minute and s l o w l y erasing the board so I could try to think of what I was going to do with them next! It was one of my worst ever classes. When it was over, the principal came over to shake my hand and tell me what a good job I'd done. Um... okay!


So, Thursday was Melodie's birthday and as her birthday present she got a new co-worker: me! Lucky! Because I had to come in early to go over policies and stuff with the school and I had to stay late to observe a class, I had a 10.5 hour day at school so the birthday festivities weren't as wild as they probably might have been. However, for lunch Mel's boss treated us all to pizza and chicken and we also had a cake and sang "Happy Birthday". After work we went to an all you can eat BBQ place where we ate our money's worth, and then our neighbors came over to give Mel a gift (a hot suit dress, just ask her... she loves it aaahahahahahhaaa). Tonight we're going out for some Thai food with friends to celebrate as well.


So far, I really enjoy the new job. I think it's going to keep me pretty busy since I already have another part time job. I'm really happy to be working with Mel again (just like Korea!), the school is right across the road and I already know the staff and bosses quite well through Melodie. It's been quite interesting so far... in the last 2 days I've learned about all the characters in Final Fantasy thanks to a fan in my grade 9 class, found out that one kid hates pizza because it is too "no water", danced the grapevine with Nareesa and I've been told that I look just like Richard Gere. Who is like 60. C'mon. I used to get told I look like Beckham! I've aged....

Mrs. Donut Is A Very Lucky Woman

The biggest donut chain in Taiwan is NOT Tim Hortons, but who cares- Mr. Donut sells the tastiest donuts I've ever had. They are my new obsession! In Korea, I was addicted to a variety of ice creams and popsicles, but in Taiwan I get my kicks from Mr. Donut brand donuts!

I was reading a bit about the company online and I guess it used to be an American brand but most stores have become Dunkin' Donuts since they were bought out in the 90s. But in many Asian countries, Mr. Donut is still the big kahuna. Our neighbors told us that when the frst Mr. Donut opened in Taiwan people used to wait in line for an hour to try their donuts! Luckily that isn't the case anymore (although I would probably consider waiting an hour for a fix if I had to!)


Mr. Donut's flavours are surprisingly normal- no red bean, green tea or pumpkin donuts here! My favorite is the Maple Flocky donut... I don't know what "flocky" means but I can only assume it means "delicious". The Maple Flocky is a crueller sliced in half and filled with whip cream and maple syrup. MAN, does writing about it make me want a Maple Flocky RIGHT NOW!!


Mel's favorite is the "Pon De" line of donuts. Pon De Chocolate, Pon De Almond, etc... they are a chewier (perhaps half-cooked?) donut, and I enjoy them as well. And who doesn't like being an English speaking person ordering in French at a Chinese-speaking store? Last weekend Mel asked me to hold onto her Pon De Almond donut for a minute and I accidentally dropped it. I will never live it down!! I can't even tell you how many times she's said "Pon De" in the last week!!

Mister Donut also makes yummy coffees and blended ice drinks, but the star of the show is definately the donuts. I can totally see myself driving through the Eastern US when I get home, in search of these delcious donuts!!! Well, time to drag my fat ass to work. But after that I think I know where I'll be going this evening...

Happy Moon Festival

Melodie's moon, Moon on his special day.

Happy Moon Festival, everyone! Today was a special day in Taiwan. It's a day when the locals spend time with their families, barbecue (even on the side of the road if you have to- lawns are hard to come by here), eat pomelos (and wear the rinds on their heads) and eat moon cakes under the full moon. Mel and I were given SO MANY moon cakes by our students and employers. Mel's school gave her a very fancy looking box of "Chirlie Brown" brand moon cakes, which is a fine brand name if ever I've heard one. One of my students had a bag of cakes and asked me how many I wanted. I said that one would be fine, but she came back a few minutes later and passed me the entire bagfull saying "my mother said". There are many different kinds of moon cakes. The kinds that we've had (and enjoyed) have been filled with pineapple and sugar. The kinds that weren't so enjoyable contained fish jerkey and an egg. You never know what you're going to get when you bite into these things.


Since today was a family holiday and we don't have a barbecue we basically just spent our Saturday as we would any other Saturday: being tourists. Today we went to the Miramar shopping center in Taipei. The Miramar is popular because of the huge-ass ferris wheel located on its' roof.



The ferris wheel is 100 meters tall, costs $200 NT ($7) to ride and one rotation takes about 17 minutes.


The view was pretty cool, but it was a really hazy day... probably due to that pesky typhoon that's on its way.


After lunch, we took the MRT to Shilin market for some shopping. I guess it's safe to tell you that Melodie was looking for a birthday gift for her niece. Since she's going to be 2, she probably won't be reading this blog and have her surprise spoiled. One of the first things we noticed upon getting off the subway was a giant neon penis perched on the roof of a building. Nice!


Shilin is a great place to go for wigs.


A bit of drama at Mel's school this week: the head teacher decided he'd had enough stinky tofu and Hello Kitty and made a kind of abrupt exit from the school. Luckily, his exit led him to a hotel in Ximen for a few days before flying home so we had a place to hang out that was conveniently close to a karaoke room! If it was your last weekend in Taipei trust me, you'd want to have me sing you off. The karaoke room was a bit pricier than we were used to from Korea (it was $1350 NT AKA $45.00 CAN) but it came with a private bathroom and $400 NT worth of free food or drinks. You know what that means...


FREE KEG!

Hope you all had a pleasant moon festival. By the way, as I was typing this we just felt our first earthquake in Taiwan! My computer chair started wobbling, and being from Nova Scotia your mind doesn't immediately think of "earthquake", but of course that's what it was. It was just a little one... the internet didn't even go down and we all know that's what's really important. Good night!