sunday meanderings...

It was Jacqui's birthday yesterday and since we were all fairly hungover from the night before (we doing birthday parties right here in Taiwan) we went to Taipei for a movie and some food. We found a new restaurant that specialized in British food and Tom and Jacqui were in heaven with Bangers and mash and chicken pies. I was in heaven with the salmon eggs benedict that I found. Yeah, that's right, they had eggs benedict.

On our walk from the restaurant to Taipei 101, we went down the side street and found the furniture shops in Taipei. It was the most amazing stuff I have seen in this country. It was at least 4 blocks of stores dedicated strictly to furniture of all sorts. There was some of the most beautiful wood furniture I have ever seen and if I was going to live in Taiwan forever, I would have bought it all. But I'm not, so I didn't. I think I have a thing for furniture though. If only it wouldn't be a bloody fortune to ship it back to Canada.

We went to see Wild Hogs. I had never seen any previews for this and I didn't even know who was in it. Imagine how excited I was when I found out John Travolta was in it. Yeah, I was bloody excited. Jacqui made Tom sit beside me though. Apparently she doesn't like it when I laugh at stupid things in the movie no one else laughs at. (yes, Jacqui I know you are going to read this :) ) For a silly movie, it was actually pretty good. I enjoyed it, but then it had John Travolta in it and I love anything that he's in and I always have. Because you know, he's a god.

welcome to punk

I shouldn't have gone out on Saturday night. We ended up going for breakfast when we were done. Darn water in my ears anyway! Went to see NOFX last night with Consider the Meek. I went for the support band (Consider the Meek) I had actually never heard of NOFX before. My friends couldn't believe it, but the most punk I got into was Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. Yeah, NOFX was great, now I'm all into punk music. It was a really good show and even though it was on a Sunday and I'm really, really tired now, I'm really glad I went.

spring scream

I just had the most fantastic weekend. It was Tomb sweeping day here in Taiwan, nicely coinsiding with Easter I must say. Nothing worse than everyone having a long weekend off at home and I have to work, for some reason, I hate that. I did however totally forget about Good Friday and ate meat (oops) Not that there was much fish around, it was really a burger sort of weekend since I went to a music festival in Kenting.

We only found out about Spring Scream last week and even though I was hesitant about going, I'm so glad I did. It was seriously one of the best weekends I've had in a really, really long time, and no, that's not because I was drunk through a lot of it...mostly it was because I was listening to amazing music, meeting amazing musicians and having a great time. The festival was great because it really allowed for access to the bands and getting to talk to them and it was a great way to find out more about the Taiwan music scene.

If you want to see pictures go here to my flickr account...I have too many to chose which ones to put here...

I finally got to see Consider the Meek, a band that found me somehow here on myspace soooo long ago. I met them in Fulong last year but I had never seen them. When I found out they were playing this weekend that was the only band we made the date for seeing...the only appointment we had and they were worth it. They were really good and now I have my friends hooked and we are going to see them again on Sunday when they play with NOFX.

Some other bands of interest that I found this weekend....

Charlie Taylor (and the Axis of Evil)
***check him out...incredibly funny and well worth it
Rabbit Is Rich
Mosquilephant
Swui

These three are all Taiwanese, but all have a really, really great sound and go check out the pictures at Flickr...if you view as a slide show, you can click on any picture to pause it and find out who the band is...assuming of course I was able to remember who they were ^_~

addicted

I've been discovering a lot of new addictions lately. Mostly having to do with Heroes or Ugly Betty, but it's this song. I just can't get it out of my head. It's being played everywhere. It's always on my TV, which makes sense as it's being billed as the Asian Anthem. I'm not really sure if that's true, but it's even made it on some tv commercial from Hong Kong. Anyway, the band is rivermaya and they are from the Philippines.

oh well

I should really check the class before I complain about subbing. It was actually one of my old classes that I loved so it wasn't so bad. I still have to stop saying "yes" to everything though.

oh, and I went back to the original look. The other was a little too froo froo for me...I missed this one.

a little annoyed

I have to sub a class tonight and for some reason I'm really annoyed about it. One of my teachers is at training and normally we don't have to cover classes for trainings, but apparently we do now. Of course, being head teacher means that this has fallen to me, or so they figured Friday night at 9:00pm as I was heading out the door with not enough time to actually think about saying no. Not that I would have, because you know, I have that perpetual problem of not being able to say no, but it would have been nice if the thought could have crossed my mind before I was outside in the cold reality of what I just did. I gave up my last night of getting off work at four forever. Damn them.

I don't know how I have been the type of person to give everything to my job. I love my job, I really do, but the worst thing I hate about it is that I will give up everything I am doing to go in and help them do things or teach a class, even when I have other plans. I have always done this with any job that I've been in. Why? Why, why, why, why, why???!!!! I mean, I have no problems being helpful, it sounds awful, but it goes a long way in a country where guan-shi is a huge part of their culture. It isn't really all that hard where I work though, the people are amazing, however I just don't like the last minute, "we forgot to tell you this, can you do it?" They know I will say yes. They know I will say "yes" so much that my manager actually had to tell someone "no" for me, because she knew I couldn't do it. Yeah, I'm that pathetic.

If I could learn anything in the time I have left here, it would be to say no. I've been trying, but it's just so hard. Too hard for me to be able to do it I think, but maybe it will be a good skill to put to use when I get home.

with wine, doors watch out

Last Saturday was suppose to be a quiet night. T&J and I were going to head to Taipei for something to eat but the box o' wine got in the way. This is not the first time this has happened. We had just enough that we decided to invent our own drink when the box became empty...uh, never, ever mix brandy and vodka.

We decided we wanted to go dancing but J's clothes (and yes, her hair straightener too...okay, so sometimes we like to be girly, It just doesn't happen very often and dancing requires girly-ness) were in their closet, which just happened to have locked itself from the inside. I didn't ask how this could have happened, but regardless the door was locked.

It was decided then that locks don't matter, hinges do. Take it off the hinges, I said. Yes, I said it, it was my idea. It was my idea for them to take the hinges out and then pry their door out with a screwdriver and put big dents in their door frame. It worked though, I am a genius, but all I could think of was why didn't I think of that when I was locked in my bathroom.

changes still make it boring

I've changed the look of my blog, did you notice? I've been lacking in posting lately, I know I have....it's because I really don't have much to talk about. I mean really, I posted about how much I love Costco. I'm on glue (but it's better than being on crack right?)

it treats me well, who am I to argue with fate

How much do I love Costco? It's sad really...it's probably my favourite store in Taiwan. I have many theories as to why this is, but still. Why Costco?

1. The food. It's totally like food at home that I know how to cook. It is the only place to get decently cheap and good cheese. Taiwan is not a very big cheese eating culture. If you go to the Welcome in Chidu it's all processed cheese, you can even get chocolate processed cheese. So yeah, Costco is better by far.

2. It reminds me of home. Not that I ever went to Costco at home. I can really only remember being there one time before in Canada. My parents have a Costco card but I guess I was never with them when they went because the time I remember going, I wasn't with them. I do remember them coming home from a big Costco excursion with giant poppyseed muffins (which, you can't get here, by the way) It reminds me of home because it is just like any other supermarket/superstore that you can find at home.

3. You don't run into things in the meat section like pigs feet and frogs that jump at you.

3. I don't really have another theory, I just thought 4 looked better than 3.


Today we went on a field trip with the kids. We went to Costco. Can I tell you how excited I was? I was very excited. Mostly because my fridge was empty and it meant a free trip in the school bus. Score!! I didn't actually buy that much stuff, but I did get the gigantic jar of pickles because it would be so much easier to take them home and now that I don't have house guests, they will last a lot longer. Well, maybe. The kids were especially excited when they saw the six pound bad of pretzels that I did not buy but all the kids had their pictures taken with it. It was almost as big as two of my kids. I mean, Taiwanese kids aren't all that big!

The surprising thing. None of our HRT's have ever been to Costco. The reason why we got in? We used my card. How cool am I?

it's about time

After two years of waiting, my pool has finally opened. There is a park down the street from my house in Bai Fu (like a block, seriously close) In this park they have been building a pool only now I've found out, it's not just a pool. It's got a gym (small, but a gym) you can do yoga, there is a spa where you can get massages (you have to pay extra for that though) an indoor pool and and outdoor pool.

I joined up.

I have decided that swimming in Taiwan is a great thing for these reasons.

1. so many people here can't actually swim. That's right, even though they live on an island, many Taiwanese people don't swim. Thus, the majority of the time they only use the pool facilities for the hot tubs, sauna and steam rooms (but that may just be because it's been raining the last few days. When the rain stops I'll see if that's still true.)

2. the place is so damn expensive that not many people are probably going to join up.

Okay, yeah, it's pricey if you go for one visit at a time...250NT which is almost $9CAD. They let us join for only six months since we aren't going to be here for the whole year (really, I'm not) so it is much more beneficial. It is a little more expensive than the pool at home (but only like $15 more) but the pool at home doesn't have a gym in it...nor do the gym's at home have a pool in them. Plus it's only a block away from my house and there is no snow so I don't really have any excuses not to go.

a night well spent

I'm tired. Why am I tired? Well you see, I stayed up too late last night. I stayed up too late playing video games with Travis on his computer. I stayed up too late last night playing Barbie's Vacation Adventure. seriously.

chinese new year trip part 3

Alright where were we. Sun Moon Lake, right. This is one picture that I forgot to post last time. The coolest thing by far that I saw. They had these trees all over the place and being that they are by far my favourite fruit, I was quite excited. Can you see the bananas?



After we got back we were pretty tired, so we went for dinner at a place called Frogs and sat under this....



Now can you see the coconut that was threatening to fall on us? Luckily, I wasn't sitting directly underneath it, however it did raise comments through out the evening.

So with Taichung finished we had to head to meet up with some more friends in Tainan. We got a train which took about 2 hours. When we got there we didn't have much time to relax and we were off to a fort. Now, being that Tainan is not actually anywhere near the ocean, it is more inland, we were confused as to how it actually protected Taiwan. It had a moat around it, so I guess it was just protecting itself from people trying to get over the moat. I'm not exactly sure. I was confused about it, especially when we saw all the big cannons.




After this, we discovered that the next thing on the agenda was another fort. I'm all for history, trust me...but it was really hot, I was really tired, and not really interested, so when we couldn't get over the bridge to the next fort, we took it as a hint and went back to the hotel to sleep (I know, but this is what happens when you are old and you hang out with people that like to party) So we got back to the hotel and yes, we had been there to drop off our stuff, but this particular feature was still making us laugh...



That's right, that's a mirror all right. On.The.Ceiling. Pretty swank huh.

So the next part of this story is Kenting. I'll tell you right now, that it wasn't very good and might not even get a spot in this story. The best thing about it was that Kenting actually has decent food at their night market....but that's a whole other story.

Chinese New Year Trip part 2

I was suppose to put this part earlier than tonight, sorry. This week has been crazy and I can only prove that by saying it is Friday night and I am ready to go to bed at 10pm. This NEVER happens. Something must be up. I take solace in the fact that I'm not the only one. It was a general consensus that no one was doing anything tonight.

Okay, so the second part of the trip. On our second day in Taichung we decided to go to Sun Moon Lake. So we spent the morning on what seemed like the longest bus trip ever (unknown to us, this would be hugely surpassed by the trip to Kenting, but I digress) Sun Moon Lake was really cool. No swimming though, since some of my students had told me that if you swim in Sun Moon Lake you would die. I'm pretty sure that is not true, but none the less they had signs saying you couldn't swim in the area we were anyway. We wandered around the lake for a bit and then took a boat tour around the lake. Not your regular ride a boat tour. It had the typical Taiwanese slant of stopping at everything it could, which included some fish thing (I'm not really sure what that was all about, but we got to feed fish and see catfish) and a temple. The weather was absolutely great, which was good because we had heard it was raining in Keelung (home). Here are some pictures of Sun Moon Lake.
Not quite as nice as the Shuswap, but nothing ever will be.

(these pictures are in a random order...for some reason blogger changes the order that I upload them in...I haven't figured out why yet.)

A view of the sun on the lake while we were on the boat.



The view from one of the walking paths.



If you look closely maybe you can see that these are catfish. Definitely the strangest fish I've ever come across.



This was the island in the middle of the lake. It's a little small but the boat actually stopped here for people to see it. Of course, you can't actually go on the island...you can only go on the man-made "raft" of green stuff that surrounds it so people can look at the island.



One of the tour boats coming in. Unfortunately, our boat did not look like this, ours was boring and white. We were very disappointed to be sitting on it when we saw this one dock.



So those are the pictures. Next time, the trip part 3.

chinese new year trip part 1

To cover almost an entire week of trip in just one post is going to be too difficult I think, so you get it in stages. I will start at the beginning.

We couldn't make it on the fast train. Even with everyone telling us not to go on it and that many people in Taiwan wouldn't, it seems the lure of an 80 minute trip of the entire length of the island was too tempting to pass up since all the trains seemed to be booked. That was okay though since we have discovered the greatness of the aloha bus. The trip started out great, we got to Taipei after a bit of a crazy taxi ride and when we got to the bus terminal, we only had to wait 10 minutes for a bus to leave. Pretty decent for Chinese New Years Eve.

So we were off to Taichung, where I swore I would never go again for fear of ending up in a gutter again. Yeah, I don't have much luck with Taichung. Things always seem to go wrong there. This time didn't seem too much better either since after we got our hotel room, we decided to walk downtown to see what was going on. So two hours of walking later, we finally made it to the area we were headed in (little Europe, no less) to discover nothing open. And I mean nothing, other than 7-11's and family marts. So we had a drink outside 7-11 to decide our fate. I almost thought were going to have to plant ourselves outside of that 7-11 for the evening, and it wasn't even 7pm yet.

Finally, we decided to give up, catch a cab and go back to the hotel to drown our sorrows in 7-11 food and beer. Just as we had made this decision, we found a restaurant. Amazingly enough, we found a restaurant and with this discovery, we sat. For a really, really long time, we sat.

So that was day one. I was going to do day two today too, however, I'm too tired and lazy to post all my pictures, so you'll just have to wait for the Sun Moon Lake story. I will say, however, that it was by far the highlight of the trip, so that's at least something to look forward to.

music....and some lyrics too

I went to Taipei today to watch a movie. I wanted to see Dreamgirls but since no one else in the world apparently wants to see it (by world I mean my world...as in none of my friends is into musicals I guess) we discovered Music & Lyrics is on. Oh man, I have never laughed so hard in my life. I love Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore so I was pretty well going in with the intent to love it however, I have never laughed so hard, and if you know me, then you know how much I laugh at movies and TV. Seriously, I couldn't stop laughing in some parts. If you haven't seen it, go, really. Here is a little taste to show you how great it is...

chinese new year

Chinese New Year...those are the greatest words I think ever invented. Why? Because it automatically means holiday. My need for a vacation has been very apparent over the last two days, my poor kids and friends. It's probably been a good thing I haven't seen much of many people this week. See, this is my first real holiday in a year. The last time I had a vacation was last February when I went home for the month. Sure, we had 5 days off in October and we went to Green Island, but this is 9 whole days of not seeing any kids, not doing any work, of just pure relaxation. I have discovered this week that a year is a long time to go without a real quality holiday.

We are still trying to make our plans for the holiday. Unfortunately most everything is going to be booked or closed and of course, we are not ones for planning ahead. My friends and I abide by spur of the moment. We are last minute sort of people. We were going to try and go on the High Speed Rail however I think our last minuteness has sort of screwed us out of that. I'm sure we will get on it eventually though. I mean, 90 minutes to Kaohsiung means we could just go for the weekend...if we wanted to. It is do-able.

So this Chinese New Year, whatever we do, I'm sure it will be full of traveling and doing nothing and I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to that. So "Xin nian kuai le" everyone, Happy New Year.

it's the anniversary

So yes, as my sister said, it was my 3rd anniversary of arriving in Taiwan on February 14th. (for most of you reading this, it is still Feb 14th, however, it is almost 1am here on the 15th, so technically the anniversary was yesterday). This is actually the first time I have "celebrated" or even mentioned the fact that it was my anniversary. Last year I was in Canada, the year before...my parents were here and I was as sick as a dog, since it was February after all and I have been cursed to be sick every February I've been in Taiwan.

I have been thinking about my time in Taiwan all day, starting with the day I arrived. I remember phoning my sister in Vancouver crying, wondering what the hell I was doing (yes, I am an emotional person) Arriving in Taiwan to a driver with my name on a sign and the school I was employed by. That was pretty cool, and it will probably never happen again. It is hard to believe that 3 years have gone by. I can see it all so clearly, sometimes it seems I can almost account for every minute, but I don't know how it's gone so fast. Every moment of Taiwan has affected my life, whether it has been a good experience or a bad one. They all turn out to be good in the long run, even if they don't seem to at first. I know, this entry is all over the place. My mind is running over all my experiences since being here and it is hard to write about them all in the same place. The kids I've taught, the friends I have met, the things I have done, it has been life changing. Some days I didn't think I could make it past six months and here it's been three years. It seriously baffles my mind sometimes.

my valentine...

Every year (or something like that) my mom has a sister weekend (with her sisters no-less) For some reason while they were out, they found something that made them think of me. I am not exactly sure why they all thought it was so funny that it should be sent to me. Am I really the only single person in our family? And if I am, so what? What did they think was so funny, you ask? I got sent this in the mail....




Yeah, was I excited or what about that. Really thrilled.

So in honour of Valentines day, I decided to let the little dude grow to his full 600% of original size self. Here is the progress of my new man...







So that's my Valentines date. Although apparently if I take him out of the water, he'll shrink again so I guess it's going to be a nice quiet evening in.

(and tomorrow's a special day for me too, (and no, NOT because of Valentines day) if anyone can remember you get bonus points...although for what, I'm not exactly sure. Maybe I'll send you my boyfriend for next year...I'll let you know what sort of date he turns out to be)

the flack of it all

now i'm starting to catch flack for my drunken posting...Cherly Beynon was invoved and she liked every minute if it as well as several people of the thailand Phuket group. But all in all it was a grand experience...If you read this blog...fucing find something you like...the vicarious thing is overdone...

sincerely,
Tweekville

guest posting gone wrong

I have company staying at my house. Cheryl and Travis have come back from Thailand on their way to Korea and I am horribly happy about it, even though apparently I'm very appathetic to the whole thing. I REALLY AM HAPPY TRAVIS. That being said, I am giving up the reigns for tonight to Obi Wan...so for your enjoyment here is my first guest post....


Well, I don't really know what to say...but i'm here at tobi's house(mind you i don't do the capital thing). if you please excuse the next few lines...this is purely for the reader list...ok tobi just told me that the parents read this so for the next few lines mom and please ignore the next few lines... sex drugs and rock and roll

so that was probably a let down i have lots more words but apparently tobi's dictionary doewsn't take cunt and fucking bitch as propper words. So I'm the guest and I don't really want to seperate from the normal expectations of the "tobi fan club" but there is some wierd shit to see such as if you go to thailad what's up wiht the lady boys...t's really fucked up. A quick story, new years i was in phuket in thailand and i decided to take somee acid with a very strange mexican that i met. well things porgress from there...ad tobi is calling everyone a jack ass for no apparent reason...we would up watching fire works form a place in Kata...then to Bagla, now if you have gone to thailand, Bangla is the center of..hmmmmmmm...well if you know the storey of sodom and gemora then you know the gist of it...and it mwas the essence of evil(mind you this is commingform a home schooled kid) So you walk into this world of fornication and debauchery. but the impressive thing was the lady boys. So they walk around picking hte drunk straight boys. The image was this..you're walking by seeing a "woman" wallking up to you then she shispers something in your ear and in sounds sometihing like ...blue jeb... mbut being as drunk as you are or as they are if you are in another country "blowjob" and these guys go ahead ad walk or scurry as it were away with these boy girls only to tell a storey later of how they had slept with a thai girl that wasn't really. So that wasn't really a quick story but if you like it enjoy. now here is the ultimate question...in you know how to strangle someone really really well what art could you say hou have mastered? If you want the answer e-mail tweekville@yahoo.com and mid you i'm really drunk right now but it is a funny answer. Any way i've been drinking for a while and i'm sure the future guests of tobi will be mch better.

Sincerely,
Travis James