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...

Wade in the water

Many of th Yilan ETAs, myself included, teach in the rural townships of greater Yilan County.  While farming is the traditional way of life out in these regions, we -- along with many of the younger generations of Taiwanese kids -- are pretty removed from it all.  I've watched the crop rotation throughout the year in the fields surrounding my school but never had the chance to get down and dirty in the paddies myself...

Until this morning!

To give us a better perspective on the daily lifestyle of many Yilan residents, Fulbright Yilan arranged for the ETA group to take part in some good, ol' fashioned rice planting!

After admiring the specially-made banner and being christened with traditional farming hats in front of the local news media, we kicked off our shoes and got down n' dirty in the paddies!

To add to the ridiculousness of it all (a bunch of foreigners wading around barefoot in a rice paddy at 9am) we got into the spirit by singing some good ol' fashioned gospel songs, led by one of our resident Southerners.  This was also documented by the local news media.  Wade in the water, children.

  

Showing off my handiwork.  The local news media encouraged us to smear mud on our faces while in the field.  While I was a little hesitant at first, it was all very tasteful and classy.

Farmer Man plows his field before planting.  One of my fave pics from the day.

Sandhya's "hatting" was documented by the local news

As was Brittni's towel crowning

Then we sat around like this for a while

Then we were each given a chunk of rice and got to it!

We all had a fun time playing in the mud and then were treated to a lunch of rice porridge and our own freshly picked cherry tomatoes!  We also got to keep the hats, win!

1 Week Down

I have definitely fallen deeply, madly, head-over-heels in love with Taiwan -- and I've only been here a week!

Our month-long Yilan orientation started on Monday at the local teachers' center.  Over the course of the week, we were walked through the important details of living in Taiwan, which include taking care of household trash and recycling (more complicated than it sounds, lots of sorting involved) and what to do if we are involved in a scooter accident (take pictures, call Kelly).  We also practiced scootering on Kelly and Principal Wellington's  125cc scooters in preparation for our licensing tests at the end of the month.

On Wednesday, we toured our first round of elementary schools in the Yilan area.  At the end of next week, after two more full days of campus tours, we'll have to submit our final choices for our year-long placement. Despite being in the same general area, the schools were all very different.  One school, located in the northern part of the county, was a charter school that emphasized independent student learning based, from what I understood, on the multiple intelligences theory of differentiated instruction focusing on the individual needs and learning styles of each student.  It was very interesting and inspiring, to say the least.

On Friday, Fulbright took us to the Yilan International Children's Folklore and Folkgame Festival at a local water park.  I had a ton of fun despite being terrified by the so-called family water attractions.  The first attraction my three friends and I decided to check out was the water maze, which looked like a big black inflatable bubble from the outside.  Once you walked inside, you were ushered onto a pretty much pitch-black walkway and blasted from all angles with surprisingly powerful jets of water.  As far as I could tell, the goal was to make it out alive.  It was the most disorienting thing I've ever experienced.  There was also a giant water bed covered by more big spraying jets of water and the goal was to not get squished by people falling over on top of you.  The way you "play" the water bed game is that, once you fall, you try and drag people down by grabbing at their ankles.  Also terrifying, yet incredibly fun.

The other Yilan Fulbrighters and I are getting along swimmingly.  For being such an incredibly driven group of individuals, everyone is wonderfully easy-going and friendly.  We bonded pretty quickly over the shared experience of being the only foreigners in Yilan.  Last night, a few friends and I bussed into Taipei to check out the nightlife, which was INCREDIBLE.  Tonight, us Yilaners are all taking the train down to Luodong to eat Sunday family dinner at one of the Luodong apartments and then going as a group to the Monkey Festival and awesome night market.  Luodong night market has the best tofu pudding!

Mango Ice.  Definitely the best dessert I've ever had ever. Ever.

Chillin' on the roof of the Luodong apartments.  Tallest building in the city!

My team won the Luodong night market scavenger hunt.  Our prize?  Snacks!

One of the schools we toured was literally ON the beach.

Taiwan, Touch Your Heart

Sooo... I made it to Taiwan!  After spending an exhausting day in Taipei exploring and doing official orientation stuff and only sleeping 3ish hours out of 50, we finally went to bed in a really cool hotel called "Just Sleep" and headed out for Yilan this morning via chartered bus.  Run-on sentence much?

While some of the kids live in neighboring Luodong township, I live in an apartment with two other super cool ladies in Yilan city.  We live on the 7th floor which gives us a pretty nice view of the city, surrounding mountains and even Turtle Island.  Yilan is a really beautiful area with lush mountains and rice paddies.

Here are some things that I've learned so far:

1. Taiwan is HOT and HUMID.  so hot. so humid. so sweaty.

2.  It reminds me a lot of living in Thailand, which is nice because not everything seems entirely foreign.  The buildings are similar in their construction and there's a similar mass amount of 7-11 shops, as well as scooters.

3.  Taiwanese people don't accentuate their tones as much when speaking Chinese, which means I now kick butt at speaking Chinese.  Hellz yeah.

4.  Lysol sets off carbon monoxide detectors (confirmed by Google).  Or else we have a carbon monoxide leak, one of the two.  We're pretty sure the first.


My apartment has 3 bedrooms with air conditioning, Wi-Fi, a nice but very small kitchen, laundry balcony, 2 other balconies, 2 bathrooms, and a big living room.  It came with a bunch of stuff that had been left behind by past years' Fulbrighters, including a little grill for the balcony so we can BBQ!  It really is pretty nice and everyone has been so helpful in getting us set up and settled in, even the helpful cashier at 7-11.  Also, the bottom floor of my apartment complex houses not only a BABY CENTER but also a 7-11 and a musical instruments store!  Pretty cool.

I've never dealt with cockroaches before, but our apartment had two today.  We squished them and sprayed Raid all over the bathroom and along all the bedroom doorways.

I'm excited to get out and explore the area around our apartment, find some good places to eat and make some neighborhood friends!  Both Yilan and Luodong are supposed to have really awesome night markets, so that'll be exciting to check out.

Tomorrow we have a formal photo op with the local media (my Asia dream come true!) and we start our summer training on how to be teachers!

Can't wait to get me one of these babies

Cantonese-style dindin

Taipei

Yilan is very green

View from balcony #2

TWO DAYS!!?! The packing saga continues...

I'm leaving on Friday (as in the day after tomorrow, Friday) for the 4 hour drive up to Seattle followed by the 12 hour direct flight to Taipei.  I'm attempting to pack lightly, one overflowing suitcase vs. two, but so much of my valuable space is being taken up by GIFTS!  I'm bringing lots of Made in Oregon chocolates and Seaside-style salt water taffy, because everyone loves candy!  Layered over the chocolate is a year's supply of American essentials - vitamins, a serious supply of OTC medications, and tampons.  In my experience, going to Asian (both Chinese and Thai) pharmacies without fluently speaking the language is not always the best idea.  This time, I come prepared with NyQuil and loads of Ibuprofen.

Since camp ended last weekend, I've finally started looking into life in Yilan.  From what I can tell, it's more or less the Seaside of Taiwan -- a perpetually grey, rainy, and humid rural beach town, separated from Taipei by an hour's drive worth of lush mountains.  Think a never-ending cloud cover's gonna get me down? Haaa, think again!

Anyways, I've still got a few things to buy before shipping out.  I misplaced my trusty Chinese dictionary and now need to buy a new one, hopefully along with a copy of Dave Eggers' "What is the What."  I also need to download the latest Top40 hits (143, anyone?) and read the final 300 pages of the TESL book assigned by Fulbright Yilan.

All in all, I've had an awesome summer just hanging out at the coast and the lack of anything to do has made me super ready to KTV my little heart out in Taiwan.  I'm posting some of my very summer favorite photos below.

Hanging out at the girls' pool in Portland

I really, really <3 camp

While walking around downtown Seaside with my 4 y.o. neighbor and buddy, Gil, it didn't occur to me how much we probably looked like our own little family.  That is, until the creepy Seaside Candy Man pointed it out... "Here son, take some taffy for your girl and daughter."

Family beach portrait

Counting down

With less than a month before departure, I'm officially ready to go!  My plane ticket has been purchased thanks to the Yilan County government, my Resident Visa arrived in the mail a few days ago, and my heavy-duty rain clothes have been ordered.  Now I just need to stock up on granola bars and instant coffee...

In the meantime, here's some info on Taiwan and Yilan for you to peruse at your leisure.

CIA World Factbook - Taiwan 
Wikipedia - Taiwan
Wikipedia - Yilan
Republic of China (Taiwan) Government Information Office

Image from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/peanutlen/sets/72157603872074435/