6 months of Living the Taiwan Dream

It's now been 6 months since I arrived here in Taipei and I still really love my life here. The scorching summer heat and humidity has subsided and the September weather was delightfully pleasant. Its great to be able to go for a stroll without getting so sweaty that it feels I've gone for a swim.

My work load has been pretty good lately as I have picked up a few more evening hours teaching adults in addition to weekly make-up classes for my elementary students. The magazine acting work continues supply supplementary income.


A Dutch friend of mine whom I had met on my first visit to Taipei was in town for a week long holiday. This gave me an opportunity to do a little bit of sightseeing and cross-off Yangming Mountain National Park from my list of things-to-see in Taipei.

The park, which spans a vast area covering several mountains/extinct-volcanoes, provided a nice setting to check out some of Taiwan's beautiful natural scenery including bubbling geysers, hot-springs and waterfalls.

In the past couple-weeks I also visited the National Taiwan Museum. At a price of only NT$10(33¢ CAD), it's a bargain, but the general lack of English-language information made it difficult to enjoy. Additionally, I was annoyed by their choice to place polar bears and penguins side-by-side, furthering the misconception that they share a habitat. The museum did, however, have a great dinosaur exhibit which nearly made-up for the carelessness.

I also decided to visit one of Taipei's more obscure museums, the Museum of Drinking Water. The museum is centered around a water pumping and purification system built during the Japanese colonial period. The system is housed in a grandiose building of which the architecture makes for the most interesting sight of the museum tour. It's interesting that, while water purification has been undertaken here for nearly a century, the tap-water in most Taipei homes is still considered unsafe to drink.

This past weekend was the Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋節), a holiday which loosely coincides with the Autumnal Equinox.  Traditional celebrations usually include feasting with family followed by a dessert of delicious moon-cakes.  In Taiwan, a somewhat less traditional practice, barbecuing, is the standard celebration for most families.   My own celebrations were limited to a a moon-cake or two, however, I did receive a box of pineapple cakes as a gift from one of my students.  This is actually the third time I have been in a celebrating country during this festival (I was in Vietnam in 2009 and China last year). 

 
With 6 months of Taiwan living under belt, I can't help but wonder where I will be and what I'll be doing in another half-a-year.  It has long been a goal of mine to live in a foreign country for more than 6 months and now that that has been achieved who knows what's next?  For now, I'm just enjoying my lifestyle here which has, for the first time in a long-while for me, settled into comfortable normalcy.

Ghost Month

Five months have now elapsed since I relocated to Taipei and I continue to be content with my life here. I continue to be surprised with how easy the transition has been and how quickly time has passed since I arrived.
Since my last post, Taiwan has been in the throws of "ghost month," a buddhist/taoist religious event that celebrates the opening of the gates to the spirit world.

While ghost month has little affect on the lives of foreigners and non-believers, many Taiwanese take special precautions throughout the month-long festival. Swimming is to be avoided as the spirits of those who died at sea may pull you into the afterlife; if one hears there name being called from behind, they must never turn around as it is likely a spirit trying to trick them; and staying out after dark is best avoided during this month, among other things. Interestingly, seemingly any mishap occurring within the month can be attributed to some sort of ghost activity. In order to appease/honor the spirits, homes and businesses offer food and beverages to the ghosts on tables adorned with incense and decorative offerings made of paper. I'm still awaiting my first ghostly encounter.

The start of the festival was marked in Taipei by a fireworks display on the banks of the Danshuei River. While I've never been much of a fan of firework displays, I thought the atmosphere would be entertainment enough. Upon arriving at the fireworks venue, I was immediately reminded why I had not attended Vancouver's summer fireworks festival for years.

"People mountain, people sea" (人山人海) is a locally used idiom that accurately describes the hoards that turned up to view the fireworks. After attempting to wiggle my way through shoulder-to-shoulder crowds for the better part of an hour I gave up and left. I heard the thunder of the fireworks from a good distance away from the riverside but I was glad to have escaped the crowd.






I was hoping to travel around Taiwan a great deal during the summer but weekly warnings of impeding Typhoons kept me boarded up at home awaiting extreme storms that would never come.  I suppose it was lucky that the weather stayed so nice throughout the summer as I was able to walk to work every morning.

My summer work concluded at the end of August and I returned to the work schedule I had in the spring. I have the same class at that school, meaning only 6 students which makes it a fairly easy job. I have also began teaching adult conversation classes in the evening. At first I was nervous about standing in front of a class of adults for an hour and a a-half but I've impressed myself with how easily I've managed it, I think I owe my new-found confidence to the acting experience I've gained here.

The transition from summer to fall has also brought on a rash of acting work. I'm now the leading role in a series of English dialogue skits set to accompany a business English textbook. The book scenes are for the same magazine company for which I have been working. The increased workload has kept me busy and my bank account full.

I am still looking for a few more work-hours to fill my schedule but as of right now things are settling into place quite nicely.  I have no big plans for the next few weeks but I am sure they will be as enjoyable I have become accustomed to here in Taipei!

Goulet in H.K.

Four months in Taipei marked the longest I had stayed in one place for the past year and a half. I was feeling the strain of travel withdrawal and I knew it was time for a short relapse.

A chance to rendezvous with friends from home in Hong Kong provided the perfect excuse to get away. I booked monday off of work and headed to the airport as soon as I was off on the Friday. The short flight meant I would arrive with plenty of time to get ready for a big night to precede a massive weekend on the town.

I met up with both Gord and Adam at the airport. Gord arrived from Bali where he is currently living while Adam flew in from Bangkok as he nears the end of a Southeast Asia backpacking adventure. We took a taxi to our friend Ally's apartment at which Ally had graciously offered to put us up for the weekend.

I spent the majority of my time in Hong Kong, just as I had planned, getting the most out of Hong Kong's nightlife with my friends. I did manage a small amount of sightseeing during the increasingly short amounts of daylight for which I was awake. Ally was an excellent host and ensured that our Saturday night was not to be a sober one by treating us to a 1.75 L bottle of vodka.

I also got a chance to check out my friend Chris', newly opened Korean reataurant in the heart of Hong Kong.  We gorged on delicious modern Korean food at Jang on Sunday night with Chris before heading out for one last night our in HK together.

After a large tasty meal, which included desert, Adam suggested I attempt a challenge that he had conquered on a prior visit to HK. The challenge was to drink 2 litres of beer in 15 minutes or less, so as to have it free, otherwise face a penalty of more than $40 cad.

Given the large meal I had just eaten, I was apprehensive to take on the challenge but after some convincing from my friends, I finished off the chalice, like a champion, with 7:11 left on the 15 minute timer. Unfortunately, I'll need to shave more than 4 minutes off my time to beat the all-time record.

I was back in Taipei the following evening to get back to teaching on Tuesday.

I went for an interesting walk on the following Saturday afternoon. I stumbled upon an neat artist's commune that I had previously overlooked. The neighbourhood, called Treasure Hill, is home to many artist's studio's and public works of art. It is a pretty cool area, not far from where I live and I'm surprised it took me so long to discover it.





After a stroll around treasure hill I followed a large crowd of people to a gathering at the nearby National Taiwan University. It turned out to be a comic-book convention complete with hundreds of young adults dressed as their favourite Japanese comic book characters.






I'd never seen a comic-convention before and it proved to be quite entertaining.  Even more entertaining than the many scantily costumed girls were the hoards of men with cameras snapping photos.





Just a couple of days ago I visited an art exhibit of an American artist who works entirely with Lego.  I spent a lot of my childhood with those colourful bricks so it was pretty cool to see how someone had made a career for themselves by playing with Lego.  I really enjoyed the exhibit and I am grateful that a friend of mine was able to get us free tickets.

Since the past typhoon the weather has been sunny and great but extremely hot.  I've continued teaching at the same school and acting for the magazines.   The trip to Hong Kong has reawakened my travel-bug somewhat and I'm starting to feel like things are getting a little too routine around here.  Nonetheless, for now, life is good and I'm happy here!