Keelung, Bitan, and Sunshine

The constant rains are a thing of the past and Taiwan, the sweet potato shaped island, is baking. 

Following my first day at the new job everything continued to flow smoothly. The students have continued to be well behaved.

I was hoping to do some day trips after school as I have mostly free afternoons now. During my first week I managed only one, short, day trip to a scenic area called Bitan.

Bitan is only a short metro ride away from where I live but the riverside park there has a lot of natural beauty that is complemented by and old pedestrian suspension bridge that spans the width of the river. Bitan is a popular date destination and had many restaurants lining the river and romantic two-seater paddle boats for hire. As I was alone, I stuck to wandering around the area on foot.

One of the reasons that I didn't venture further afield last week was that I had an unfortunate altercation with a small metal spring that left my right eye swollen, sore and the colour strawberry syrup. Luckily, my vision wasn't damaged and I picked up some eye drops at the pharmacy which returned my eye to it's usual vanilla flavour within a couple of days.

I got out to see the new Spiderman movie in theatre on the weekend. Seeing movies here is weird sometimes because, since everyone is reading the Chinese subtitles, nearly everyone laughs at jokes before the actor has even spoken them in English.  It gives me half a second of warning to prepare for something funny (sometimes I think the Chinese translation must have been funnier than what was said in English).

Apart from seeing Spiderman, a standard weekend of drinking beers in front of convenience stores would see me into my second week at the new job. I was told that I would have 2 more students in my class this week bringing the total up to 7.

To make up for my lack of success at doing much in the afternoons the prior week I made certain that shortly after finishing teaching on Monday I was en-route to the Baishawan (White Sand Beach). 

Getting to the beach from Taipei using Public transit is a bit of a lengthy undertaking. Baishawan is the closest beach to Taipei and it still took me about 1.5 hours using the MRT and bus. As a small conciliation the bus-ride through the rural countryside was pretty scenic. The beach itself was very nice and the weather was gorgeous. Even considering the travel time it was a great way to pass the afternoon and certainly a pretty good Monday overall.

The following day temperatures in Taipei reached 38 degrees. I was dripping sweat while filming an outdoor scene for the magazine. Luckily I was portraying a lost tourist looking like a sweaty mess was appropriate for the role.

On the Wednesday I caught a bus to the sea-side city of Keelung (pronounced Jilung). Keelung is the second largest port in Taiwan and is just a half-an-hour bus ride from Taipei. For the second time in a week, it was nice to breath in the ocean air and feel it's cooling breeze.

I saw some interesting sites around Keelung including it's famous night-market and some impressive hillside temples. While I didn't see all the things in Keelung that I had hoped to see, it is close enough that I can easily make the trip again in the future.

It was an eventful week for me I, I was invited on the Thursday to go swimming in the rooftop pool at a friend's building. I had previously heard rumours that most of the modern apartment buildings in Taipei had pools on their roofs but as most people I know live in old dingy low-rises, this was my first chance to see and swim in one. The views surrounding the pool were awesome and the constant breeze that came with the rooftop height made the pool the perfect place to relax and cool off from the 35+ degree heat.

On the weekend I attended a party in an abandoned bottle-cap factory. The party itself wasn't the greatest but the old industrial venue proved to be pretty cool.

I don't yet what I'll get up to this week but another week of sunshine has been forecast. I have now been in Taiwan longer that I have been in Canada in the past year.

A Quarter of a Year in Taipei

Rain has been the ongoing theme of the past month. Locals and expats tell me it gets better but I was beginning to get sick of the consistently bad weather.

Preparing for the typhoon

We had a Typhoon warning 2 weeks ago and, to be honest, I was a bit excited about my first Taiwan typhoon experience. Disappointingly, the typhoon did not live up to the hype and we received little more than a few light showers here in Taipei.

We had a break in the rain that conveniently landed on the weekend, dragon boat festival weekend as it would turn out. I went to watch the races which themselves were somewhat boring but the atmosphere around the event made up for it. There were lots of interesting foods to sample and it was nice to be out in the sun.

Aboriginal rice. Cooked in bamboo.

When I'd seen my fill of the races I rented a bike for a relaxing ride along the river through several of Taipei's numerous riverside parks. The bike rental was very cheap and the ride was an enjoyable way to spend the afternoon.

One evening I embraced my Canadianess and went ice skating at Taipei Arena. It has been 2 years since I last skated and the rental skates were painful but I managed to skate for close to an hour without a single wipeout. 

I've been working on lining up some work for the summer which was starting to become a slight concern come the final week of June. Luckily for me my boss found me a new job for summer at a different branch of the franchise school I have been working for.

I have been on the midst of administering and marking end-of-semester exams. Luckily for me, I had only 6 students, making the task fairly easy. I finished up the last day at that school on Friday and if I choose to continue to teach there, classes won't begin until September.

Writing their final exam.

The weather has been excellent for the past week and it managed to stay-so for the weekend. On Saturday, I went to the Taipei Zoo! I couldn't believe how cheap a ticket to the zoo is here, only $2 cad ($1 with my counterfeit student card). Even at such a cheap price point the zoo is world class with lions, tigers, pandas, penguins, gorillas and many more.

Right next to the zoo is the main entrance to Taipei's tourist gondola that lifts revelers high up into the hills for cool refreshing air and a sprawling view of Tea plantations, the city skyline and everything in-between.  The gondola even had a glass floor which added to the experience.

This Sunday was, of course, Canada day and as a Canadian living abroad I'm obliged to clebrate and exhibit my national pride. Fortunately, Taipei holds a fairly sizable event to mark the occasion. Molson beer, Canadian club whiskey, and poutine made with McCain french fries were the featured Canadian delicacies of the day and the center stage hosted bands playing, somewhat questionable, covers of Canadian songs. I had a few beers as part of my patriotic duty on what was a nice and relaxing Canada Day.

Today I started my new job. Unlike my previous job, I will now teach in the mornings which means ill have to give-up sleeping in in exchange for freeing up my afternoons to take short trips around the region. My new class has only 5 students, 4 of whom are girls meaning their behavior is much easier to manage than my prior class full of boys.

Weird tea with thick salty cream

The newest magazines.

In summary, things are still going great after three months of living here and I look forward an exciting summer.

Ps.  Here's a sample of my lack of acting skills: