Taipei Outdoors!

There are lots of fun places to explore in urban Taipei, but that doesn't do the whole city justice. There are kilometres of great biking and hiking trails that we have taken advantage of. Here are some pics:

One nice day this week Sharon, our good friend Cassie, and I went on an epic bike ride around Taipei. The city of Taipei is circled by a river system to the North, South, and West with a mountain range closing it off on the East. There is an interconnected bike path system all around the rivers in the city, which you can hop on and off at your leisure. We decided to take a two hour trip from one area of town back to our place.  Along this bike ride we saw a bunch of baseball diamonds, badminton courts, and stray dogs (not necessarily in that order).

These guys were awfully friendly

This is Sharon on a U Bike. 

 zoooooooooooom!

This is the public bike system in Taipei that connects with the subway system. The first 30 minutes of the bike ride are free then it's $0.40 (CAD) for every 30 minutes afterwards. Our whole bike trip cost us $1.20.

Here is a video of the ride. I'll let it explain everything.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4wIwJfnmpU&feature=youtu.be

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A few days later Sharon and I went to the mountains East of the city. There are four mountains to explore, but because of a call for rain, we decided to just check out one: Elephant Mountain.

We have been learning a LITTLE Chinese. Beneath the words "Taipei" on this sign

 are the symbols 象 (elephant) and 山 (mountain). Once you recognize a few symbols, 

you can get by in every day life. We are not at that stage yet.

Elephant mountain is a 10 minute walk from the MRT (which makes it the most popular) and can take you on hours of trail through some pretty breathtaking scenery. It also gives you a great and inexpensive view of the city:

I guess we should have picked a nicer day for this...

It was a rainy day, so we didn't get a great view, but you still get a pretty good feel from the city up there. Straight ahead is Taipei 101, Taipei's "Empire State Building"/"CN Tower". We'll have to go back and get a better shot on a nicer day.

Back to the hike, there are a few good shots that we took and would like to share with you. Enjoy!

If only I knew what these meant. They look really cool though.

Once we were off the mountain and walking back, we saw this amazing looking temple embedded in the mountains. On a nicer day, we plan to go back and explore it (and I'm overdue for sharing my experiences with temples here).

Until then, keep your feet dry and your hands warm.

- RS=T

School's in Session

Well here we go! This past week and half have been crazy busy as you'll read in this post, so our apologies for not posting! But we both have jobs and are very busy! Here's how it all worked out...



...Sharon, being a great teacher and human being, managed to find work right off the plane. The conversation at customs went something like this:



Sharon: "Hello, I am so excited to come to your country!"

Customs: "Hello, you're all clear and here is full time work."

Mine however went like this...

Russ: "Hello, I have nothing to declare."

Customs: "Neither do we."



Being a man and getting work is a little harder than it is being a woman. It's not sexist or anything, its just that there are a lot more younger kids to be taught, so generally they want the motherly type. Apparently, I lack that character type.

With a little persistence however, I managed to land not one job but three! One was for a two week stint before Chinese New Year, but the other two are ongoing until the summer (one is for adults, one is for children). It's been great teaching so far, so here is what we've learned about learning and we will teach you about teaching:

1) ESL is a completely different beast than public school teaching in Canada. It's not about expanding ideas and reaching beyond the nuts and bolts.. this IS the nuts and bolts. You can't have a conversation about the government, art, or even weekend activities if the students don't know how to express themselves. You really have to take it slow and drill into their heads "It is an eraser", "Wednesday is when we do our spelling test", and "I can't go to the movies because Johnny Depp is now officially creepy".

2) These kids work hard. This is a typical schedule for a Taiwanese child (grade 1).

         - 8:30 go to Chinese school
         - 12:00 eat lunch
         - 12:30 continue Chinese school
         - 1:30 take a nap at their desks at school (they bring a pillow, blanket, and toothbrush)
         - 2:00 English teacher like us come in and teach for 3 hours
         - 5:30 continue Chinese school
         - 7:00 go home. repeat.

It's amazing how they do it. But here, that's the norm and is always how it's been.

3) Small class sizes = the ability to connect with each child, even if it's only for two weeks.

4) Russ is a very foreign name. Russell is absolutely alien. So are beards.

5) Children are children wherever you go. Just because they have this crazy schedule, doesn't mean they are thoughtless robots. They are funny, silly, fidgety, just like every kid. Since parents pay to go to these schools, there is an expectation that students not only behave, but excel. They get that message at a young age, but still act like silly little kids.


All in all, teaching has been great so far. We have learned a lot of new skills already in this short time here in Taiwan and will probably pick up a whole bucket load more by the time we return. I already know I'm going to miss everything out here - the city, the life style, the teaching. We both try our best to not think about that because if we do, we're going to miss all the great things around us every day.

Speaking of great things around us every day, here's what's keeping the streets safe during mid day construction downtown Taipei today:

- RS=T

Weird Stuff...

The best part of this trip for me is being thrilled by the seemingly mundane/ordinary...

...like this lamp

...or this extremely delicious tiny banana that was given to us from the mountains

...or these things

Um.. wut? 

 Why yes, of course

"piggy brain soup"

awesome shirt

it might be the year of the sheep, but I'm gonna have the year of the pork

...the best thing for me by far has to be these two amazing 1980s cardboard adverts for a photography store....

- RS=T

Yuhliu Geopark

Greetings!

Although the city has offered us some great sights, there is a great handful of natural sights to be seen here as well. With our trusty tour guides, Byron and Cassie, we ventured 1.5 hours east of Taipei to visit the coast of the island to a place known as…

…Yehliu Geopark

Yehliu Geopark is a pretty neat place. It’s off a peninsula off the Northeast coast of Taiwan. Here are a few maps to get a sense of where it is located:

This park is famous for it’s limestone marine erosion, washed away in layers by ocean waves over thousands of years, making it look almost Mars-like. I can’t really describe it in its fullest detail, so here’s what it looks like:

This all at one point used to be under water but has risen to make these natural “mushroom” like shapes. Here are a few pics up close:

 Heroes in a halfshell

This is me spying on that hut over there

This one was my favourite:

 I think its a leopard...

...or a lion

The main attraction here is what's knows as the "Queen's Head" and unless you want to stand in line all day, it's impossible to get a clear shot of her... this is what happened...

Gotcha!

After all that fun and excitement we decided to walk all the way to the end of the peninsula and looked out onto the sea.

...oh how sweet it is!

- RS=T

If I had $100

Thank you Janina. Thank you my darling sister for the $100 you gave me for Christmas. It was the most you’ve ever attempted to give me and I am blessed. Unfortunately, the teller at TD didn’t quite understand the sentiment.

What Janina MEANT to do was give me $100 Canadian dollars in Taiwanese currency (NT). The teller on the other hand thought my sister wanted $100 NT, which is equal to about $3.70 Canadian.

Taiwan is a cash economy (only Western stores and major purchases are done via credit or debit cards [and even those are usually handled in cash]). I have cherished that $100 bill with my life, not spending in on something small. The great thing about Taiwan is that $100 can actually go pretty far here, if you spend it wisely.

The question is… where to spend it? Let’s look at my options…

...7-11

7-11 has EVERYTHING. You can buy your basic 7-11 stuff, but you can also find full blown meals, internet plans, and lots of crazy looking drinks. 

You can also pay for things using your EasyCard, which is their transit card.

...MRT

Speaking of which, here are some cool things to know about their transit system called the MRT:

-       You pay per distance and it’s cheap. Riding on the subway for about 30 minutes will cost you ~$30 NT (less than $1 CAD). Busses are even cheaper.

-       It’s super clean. We just learned the other night that you will get fined if you eat, drink, or chew gum on the subway. Other passengers can report you to the authorities and get a “bounty” for doing so.

-       There are more than 3 lines.

But no, I didn’t spend it on transit or at 7-11. Lets see what else I could buy with $100 NT:

cheap haircut? 

Benenenenenenene Betman! (85NT)

This delicious pulled pork, peanut, cilantro sandwich? (50NT)

These hotpot meals? (100NT each)

We decided to give my $100 bill to this guy...

One night in Taipei we were walking though the streets with a bag of food and stumbled across this man creating paintings using only spray paint. Look at these things! Check THIS out:

Each of his paintings are $200NT so I had to use a second bill to purchase it, but it was definitely the right place to spend Janina's. Sharon also got one.

We hope all is well at home.

- RS=T

Hello!

Preface

I'm not one to document travels but this trip feels like it will be too interesting not to share. At the same time, I don't want the mass of voyeurs on the Facebook to piggyback on this train. This trip is an experience that I (and for all intensive purposes in these posts probably means Sharon as well) want to share personally with you. Feel free to pass any of this onward to people you know and care about if you feel they would enjoy/benefit from it.

Sooooooo to those whom we have shared this with and to those you choose to share this with:

Hello! We are in Taiwan!

Just so you know, we're here for 5 reasons: eat food, teach english, see cool things, and eat food (in that order).

So today lets discuss...

... Food

Food = Good. "Hen how che" = "That was very good". That ended up being my first strung together phrase because I'm using it quite often. Some things are OK and something are an absolute slam dunk. Half the fun of eating here is looking at all of your options as you walk down the street. Sharon and I are one subway stop away from the main subway station (it would be like living at Bathurst to Spadina), so there is a ton going on near our place.

Ximen Station area

Just outside our current place down small side streets and back alleys are all sorts of fun street foods to explore. I've been caught getting my nose awkwardly close to the stands only to get starred at. I know I'm getting too close when Sharon stares at me along with the locals. Here's a quick vid:

Presentation from the street is a necessity for places to eat here in Taipei. If it's not coming from an actual street vender, restaurants will commonly cook their food out in the open right at the front door:

...more on this place next time...

Here's a place that is not exactly "Taiwanese" cuisine, but its presentation certainly caught our attention:

Sharon: "I want to know how much that is" ...we never found out...

Sometimes ordering food is a bit of a guessing game but is always exciting. Food is fairly cheap here so you can never be too afraid to order blindly. Today for example, we ordered breakfast with a total of 3 eggs, 3 sausages, 2 hashbrowns, 1 coffee, and 6 pieces of toast (oops!), which came up to a total of... *drum roll*..... $220! That would be a major buzzkill in Canadian dollars but here that works out to be approximately $8.25 Canadian. Not bad considering we ordered too much toast and was our most expensive breakfast to date. Oh, and no tip.

So in the spirit of breakfast, this is a picture of a neckless that cracked me up. 

- RS=T