Hiking Ren Shan

Today, I was invited by my friend Stew to accompany her and her Chinese teacher, Zhan Laoshi (with whom I also went to the Miaoli Lantern Festival) to go hiking at Ren Shan Mountain.  The springtime weather was absolutely gorgeous again today and ended up being perfect hiking weather.

We left in the afternoon and spent about three hours hiking and exploring the gardens atop the mountain.  Sounds intense, but there's a big difference between Taiwanese / Chinese-style "hiking" and American-style "hiking."  In Taiwanese-Chinese "hiking," going uphill is not necessarily involved at all -- it pretty much just means walking around outside.  Sometimes, like today, there are lots and lots of paved stairs involved.  I experienced "hiking" like this in China as well at the Great Wall and Huang Shan.   Once, as we were "hiking" around a flat lake, my co-teacher asked me, "I hear that in America when you go hiking you have to use your HANDS??!!"

After the hike we drove to a mountain temple to eat ice cream, a much-deserved post-hike treat.

The views from both the mountain and the temple were incredible!  We could see all of Yilan county and even Turtle Island off in the distance.

Mountaintop garden

You could smell the trees!

Stew sippin' on the holy mountain water

Inside the temple

Stew teaches us how to tell if your lion statue is male or female

Oh...

Green Expo

The best days of school (for the students, at least) are always always always FIELD TRIP days!!!

This Friday, all four 6th grade classes -- about 120 kids -- packed up and went on an all-day field trip to the Yilan county garbage / recycling center and the bigger (and understandably more popular) Yilan Green Expo.

This was my first time hanging out with my kids outside of school and it was awesome!  They were all very well behaved and we had a good time walking around in the sunshine.

The single highlight of the garbage and recycling center was this GIANT claw machine that picked up bunches of garbage to be dropped into a trash compactor.  I was pretty creeped out by it (reminded me too much of all those futuristic machines you see destroying the human race in movies) but the kids all thought it was awesome.

Next, it was off to the very well-publicized Yilan Green Expo.  There are posters all over NE Taiwan advertising the Green Expo and its "Return to Nature" theme.  The Expo doesn't open to the public until next month but for now only hosts special visiting tour groups and schools.

I spent my afternoon walking around the Expo with a group of 5 lovely girls.  We looked at cool fish, played on a bootcamp-style equipment playground, looked at cute animals, ate ice cream and sushi, and rode on a railroad cart -- just like in Donkey Kong!  

Despite all the press, I didn't think the Expo was all that great.  From what I've heard, last year's was a lot bigger and better.  However, it was in a beautiful location and we couldn't have asked for better weather or more ice cream.

DK-style!!

Sports Day!

This Saturday, my school hosted its annual Sports Day to celebrate its 75th birthday!  It was the hottest day we've had in a while and we were all hot, sweaty and exhausted by the end of the morning.

There were lots of awards presented, games played, and popsicles consumed.  The kids had been practicing all week for their performances and competitions, they looked so cute in their costumes.  I also met a lot of my kids' parents, which is always interesting!

Here are some pictures from the morning!  There's a lot more in my Picasa album, so ch-ch-check it out!

4th grade drumming performance.  My school's really big on music.

4th graders take the field

All the students at Gu Ting!

1st grade dance

Kindergarten kids posing with Mr. Policeman

I'm not sure what this number was... Two 4th grade girls and a group of middle-aged women danced to Aqua's 1990s hit "Barbie Girl"

The older grades ran food and game tables as class fundraisers

The 6th grade 3-legged race competition was fierce!

And here are some portraits of my babies

This is Mr. Milk.  He's the one responsible for all the awesome drawings ("Christmas Gaiety")

An interesting point of difference between Taiwanese and American schools:  you will not get in trouble if you bring a toy gun to school in Taiwan.  All children also have boxcutters.

Scarecrows in the news

A few Fulbrighters and I made some scarecrows on a farm the other day.  Apparently, foreigners making scarecrows are legit enough to make the national news.

I get the feeling that my 15 minutes of fame are almost up... and it's a sad, sad feeling. I have new-found empathy for forgotten reality TV stars