Snakes and Temples and Incense, oh my!

Last Sunday Katelynn and I took the MRT down to the oldest part of Taipei, Wanhua District. We met up with our Taiwanese friend, Viva, on the way and then readied ourselves to be tourists for the day! It's funny to say tourists, since we live here as well. We visited three temples.

The first was Longshan (Dragon) Temple (see left), a very large and famous temple. It was originally built in 1738 and was dedicated to the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy (Avalokitesvara); since then, many Taoist deities have been incorporated into the temple, but it remains largly Buddhist. The coolest thing about this temple is its history. It has survived more than its fair share of disasters over its lifetime. According to my guidebook, "the temple was leveled by an earthquake in 1815, rebuilt, and badly damaged again by a typhoon in 1867. It was fully reconstructed between 1919 and 1924, only to fall victim to a wayward Allied bomb in 1945... it was restored once again in 1957." Talk about battle scars! We can learn a lot about endurance from this temple.

After Longshan Temple, we ventured through "Snake Alley," a true alley that yes, did indeed offer snake to buy, eat, drink (its blood), etc... This opens a window to an older China, where snake is believed to have magical properties. Needless to say, we did not try any snake... but Kate touched this one! Even the cute little boy beside her looks surprised! Afterwards, we were yelled at in Chinese by the "snake keeper." It seems that you are supposed to PAY to touch the snake. Oh, sometimes its great being a foreigner because no one expects you to understand! Unintentional oblivion!
Next stop was Cingshan Temple, my favourite! Pictured to the left, you can see Kate standing with 4 gods (I guess they are called gods...). These guys were super scary but so colourful and beautiful all at once. While Longshan Temple was filled with flocks of people, we were the only ones in this temple! The detail is so magnificant and I got some really great photos! At the bottom of this entry, I will place a link to the facebook album where you can see all of our pictures from this day. I hope you check it out to get a better idea of the temples! Another cool fact about this temple is that it is wedged between two very large buildings (I believe apartments). This is typical for Taipei... the culture and religion is overshadowed by the growing city. It's like one beautifully planned community (picture Oakville...) gone horribly wrong. Even Toronto looks organized when compared to Taipei (and I sure can't find my way around Toronto)! This isn't meant to be a criticism, just merely an observation from someone whose travelling has just barely begun.

Our day ended with one more Temple (Cingshuei Temple that looked very much like the second temple we saw) and then a visit to Ximen shopping district! You can move me across the world, but you cannot take the shopper out of me! What fun this strip of the city is at night! Being obvious foreigners (you can't hide the blonde hair in a sea of black), we get a lot of attention in areas such as these. It can be annoying at times, but this particular evening was a lot of fun! There was a man with his pet/trained squirrel (who tried to get us to hold the squirrel, so we ran away!), there was a man playing his traditional Chinese string instrument (I didn't catch the name of the instrument) and another man cutting people's silhouettes using just plain paper and kitchen scissors! Just picture the buskers down-town Toronto and you'll get a good idea of this strip.

The man cutting silhouettes got very excited when he saw Kate and I... eager to try a new face shape, he insisted on "cutting" us for free! It was hilarious! While cutting he was dancing around and singing polka songs, blabbering on like crazy! All Viva could catch in Chinese, was that we was so excited to have us there! It was all pretty silly, but the finished product is very neat! (I'm on the left)

Today is Saturday, and we are going to have another fun weekend! Soon we are meeting some of our new (and awesome) Taiwanese friends on Yangmingshan Mountain for dinner at a ritzy restaurant called "The Top." It gets its name from the mere fact that it is located on the top of the mountain and has a spectacular view. Tomorrow we're going rock climbing with another few friends of ours! I can't wait to climb again, that's something I really miss from London, Ontario!

I also forgot to mention that Kate and I have joined a Yoga Studio called "Space Yoga" 10 minutes from our house! It's a wonderful place (http://www.withinspace.com/english/studios02.htm) and I couldn't be more excited to pick up where I left off in my yoga practice!

Here is the link to see the facebook album of our "Tourist Adventure": http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2368806&l=99667&id=58004131

I hope everyone is doing well! and please remember how much I love your updates from home! I miss you all so much and I'm quite homesick right now! But still, my heart is very happy to be here.

remembering why I'm here...

I've made a change today that I'm so excited about! Before I tell you about this change I've got to rewind a bit... When Kate and I arrived in Taiwan, I was on fire with getting things done as quickly as possible. Within 1 week of living in the country, I had two jobs (33 hours a week of work), an apartment, a cell phone and I was looking for tutoring jobs. Given my work-a-holic nature and being so employable in this city, I was so excited to begin working like crazy and start kicking that OSAP debt's butt. In the beginning working this many hours as a new teacher was exciting and energizing, until last week when I realized that I had been running on adrenaline the whole time. Last week I crashed! I was coming home every day, exhausted and unhappy only to go to bed to rest up for another crazy day! With some great advice from Kate and my mom I realized that I must take a month or so to really focus on teaching and resting; not to push myself too hard in order to avoid burning out.

This week I began to do just this, focus on teaching and resting. Then last night I was out with Kate and some friends at a delicious Indian restaurant and I was talking about how utterly exhausted I am continually; how I seem to have lost my love for teaching in this whirlpool of a life that I've created for myself (in just one month!). Oh, you've got to LOVE the outside perspective in times like these. The great friends that they are stopped me and said something alone the lines of, "Laura, why are you even working two jobs right now?" It was at this point that I realized, Yeah! Why AM I working two jobs right now? The thought of cutting down my working hours had never crossed my mind until now and I was instantaneously delighted at the idea! Again, being the great friends that they are, the dinner conversation then led to hashing out a plan for Laura's sanity and happiness in Taiwan. I decided that leaving my morning teaching job at the Kindergarten was not only feasible but exactly what I need to begin remembering why I'm here! It seems that in all of this "look how employable I am overseas" business, I've completely forgotten that I came here to a) have an adventure and b) learn about a new culture.

So, today I went to work and announced that it would be my last day. I was finishing up my month trial (where either the employee or employer could end it) and while they were very sad to see me go (I've got boast, I'm a very good catch, hehe) they understood completely. They've witnessed each day how very tired I am and they are still going to call me as a substitute for vacations here and there. They also would love to see me return as a teacher when I am more settled.

Well, that's that! I wanted to share this because upon reading these blog entries, one might think that it's all been so easy! And certain things like getting jobs, settling into an apartment, etc... really have been easier than anticipated. However, climatizing and teaching have been very draining and so that's the other side of the coin shared! I am very optimistic about my next few week with only one job. Kate and I have discussed how we can both use our mornings to continue running, go on hikes, find great places to eat, etc... Just making this decision has given me a burst of energy! Good thing too, we're visiting the most famous night market in Taiwan tonight! I'll be sure to take my camera!

Happy Month-A-Versary!

Yesterday (October 4, 2008) was our '1-month-a-versary' of being in Taiwan. Luckily enough, this particular event landed on a Saturday! After teaching our Saturday morning classes, Katelynn and I headed to IKEA (yes! there are many in this little country!) in hopes that enough employees knew English for us to purchase and arrange delivery for what we were looking for: comfy chairs! (Note: we've both grown tired of living in what feels like university residence; having only a bed, a desk, a closet and a small fridge. So we've started accumulating inexpensive items to make home feel more like home).

Our first challenge was communicating to the taxi driver where we'd like to go. On many occasions, I call our friend William (who speaks Chinese) and then hand the phone to the cab driver. However, yesterday we attempted to take matters into our own hands. I took a picture of IKEA's Chinese address off of my computer screen and upon getting into the cab, had the driver examine the photo on my digital camera. This ingenius plan proved a success! For fun, here is the photo that we used.
This was also our first experience taking a cab with a female driver. Not once did we feel like we would lose our lunches... or our lives! It was fantastic!

Once we arrived at IKEA, we took a good look around the city street and we were delighted to see an Outback Steakhouse! It was then decided that we would shop at IKEA and then eat the meal of our dreams in celebration of our Month-A-Versary! IKEA was exactly the same as at home, it was comforting in an odd sort of way. Though, take away all of the multiculturalism that you would see in an Ontario IKEA and replace it with strictly Asians... that's Taiwan for you! (My students can't believe that Toronto can possibly be that multicultural... it is).

Once we found sofas the next mission was to try and have them delivered to our apartment. We had quite a time trying to communicate this to the employee (who spoke very little English) until a woman standing nearby began to help translate for us! (Thank God for the friendly-bilingual Taiwanese!) and as a result? our sofas will arrive on Tuesday morning!! I cannot wait!

After serving as our translator, the friendly-bilingual Taiwanese woman began asking us about ourselves. She then asked if we would each be interested in tutoring her children; we gave her our email addresses. So THAT'S how you get private tutoring jobs! Just be as useless as possible at IKEA! haha. I guess I should mention here that private tutoring jobs are what everyone wants. They pay more than double what teaching at a school pays (equivalent to $40-50CDN/hour).

Post IKEA, we headed to the Outback Steakhouse, only to have the most fabulous meal (after our favourite Indian restaurant that is) thus far in Taiwan! Yes... I acknowledge that it was fabulous because it was familiar, but it takes time to fully experience a culture in its entirety and my stomach is telling me to wait a bit on the food part of this culture. I could describe dinner in 4-5 paragraphs but I will restrict myself to one picture and a mere list of our dinner.

Drinks: Pina Colada and Strawberry Daquiris!

Appetizer: A delicious deep-fried onion platter (pictured left)

Meal: A savoury hamburger with french fries and coleslaw (Note: we have both been craving a delicious hamburger ever since we arrived on this island)

The result of this scrumptious month-a-versary meal? Two, very-full Canadian girls wandering the streets of down town Taiwan looking for nothing other than... dessert! We decided to head home and purchase dessert at the bakery that we live beside (literally... right beside). Here I'd like to boast to my old boss at Western Foot Patrol, Samantha. We can literally step outside of our apartment door, walk 10 steps and purchase the most delicious slices of CAKE that you can imagine! (Samantha continually craves CAKE). So this is what we did.

Later in the evening we joined some of our new friends (people that we met at a roof-top party in the mountains last weekend) at KTV. For those of you who don't know, KTV is Asian karaoke and it is the most popular thing to do in Taiwan. We went to a place called PartyWorld that is apparently the biggest and best karaoke joint in Taipei. Now, when I say joint I don't mean a dingy little bar in an alley. No, this place looked and felt like a high-class hotel. The lobby was full of beautiful (and huge) chrystal chandeliers and each floor sported rooms and rooms of private karaoke that are reserved in advance. Room service? Yes please! All you need to do is pick up the room phone and order from a large menu of alcohol and food! I cannot tell you how much fun this was! I lost my voice (yet again) after singing my little heart out all night to tunes like "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and every Avril Lavine song you can (and can't) name. While most of the songs were in Chinese, every time an English song came on, the microphones were immediately passed to us!

All in all, our 1-month-a-versary was a day to remember! Katelynn and I decided that for at least the first few months we will treat ourselves to a lovely dinner on the 4th of every month in order to recognize the realization of our dream of coming to Taiwan! We are here and we're doing so well!