Merry Chistmas

Merry Chistmas, everyone! I took this photo at Fo Guang, the university where I have night class for Chinese.

But seriously, merry Christmas!

I took the day off from work, slept in until noon, then got up and opened my presents! Thanks Mom, Dad, and family! I'm really happy about it! I used the timer on my camera to take these photos.

Tonight I will go to a Christmas party at the professor's apartment in Yilan. I hope it's fun!

Oh, as an added Christmas bonus, you can watch one of my fifth grade classes sing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." Cheers!

A Quick Video from the Boiling Hot Springs

Not sure if the people who read this are interested in seeing very short (like 10 to 90 seconds) from my daily life here, but I feel like I should be taking advantage of this medium because it's so convenient. My new camera takes decent short videos which are more than adequate for sharing online like this.

Here's 30 seconds of mediocre footage I shot at the boiling hot springs on Sunday. Hope its worthwhile!

Swimmer's Ear!

Yeah, guess what I got?!

My ear got progressively painful last evening, then I took some ibuprofen which tampered it until about lunchtime today. The afternoon was so painful I just sat at my desk as motionless as possible, working on my computer. A couple of hours of this and I decided I'd see a doctor after school, so I passed on the pain relievers so the doctor could see my symptoms clearly.

All doctors in Taiwan speak English (!!!) so I planned to go to the hospital by myself. Diane, however, bless her heart, went with me. Luodong's two hospitals are literally just across the street from my school, so we walked to the nearest one. She helped me check in, led me around, and even waited while the doctor checked me out. Except for a pre-scooter license physical, this was my first trip to a doctor. A little different here. Instead of the doctor checking you out in a private room, you go into a room where there are two doctors working on two patients, and a few chairs for those patients "on deck," and anyone accompanying a patient. Beyond that, it looks about liked I'd imagine an examination room in the U.S., circa 1977. The doctors even wear those big circular reflectors on their foreheads, like doctors in the U.S. now wear only in cartoons. The equipment is all older kind of stuff. There was a big pile of metal calipers, tong depressors, clamps, mirrors, etc. I theory, I guess the stuff is disinfected after each use. And really, I'm sure it is. It's just not quite as comforting as seeing the doctor open an individually wrapped instrument.

Truly, the doctor's English was great. I thought he seemed about 28 years old, which can make me a little wary of a doctor, but Diane later told me he was mid-40s. The examination consisted of me telling him that my ear hurt like hell and had been kinda leaky for about two weeks. Also told him that I had a little cold with nasal congestion. He looked in my ear and after about two seconds knew what it was. I guess it's a clear case, which is a relief. He said I probably just got some dirty water in my ear from showering, then cleaned and picked at it too harshly with q-tips, creating an abrasion for the bacteria to enter. Yeah, the doctor actually used the word "abrasion." Haven't heard that kind of vocab in a while. Impressive!

*Note, yeah, the water here is not dirty, certainly not in any visible way. You can wash dishes, brush your teeth, etc with it, but you can't drink it. They say it's nearly impossible to keep the water drinkable, because pipes often develop tiny fissures from the earthquakes. So everybody has these water boiler appliances in the kitchen for drinking water...*

He also checked in my nose and throat. He informed me I could use antibiotic eardrops, or antibiotic eardrops with oral antibiotics, if I felt it was severe enough. Duh, I opted for the combination. The whole process was kind of rushed, and I ended up leaving before I knew exactly what was happening, ushered out toward the pharmacy. This was a bit disappointing, because I wanted to ask him more about using the medication and his recommendations for the pain. Frankly, I wouldn't have been opposed to prescription pain relief, at that point.

It turns out he'd already considered the pain, and written me a prescription for, look out-- acetominephen! Yep, tylenol. Shucks. Funny thing is you actually do need a prescription for that here. Also got the antibiotics and something to treat my cold symptoms and congestion.

The whole shebang cost me a whopping $380NT, which is $11.67US. Not too shabby! Thank you, national health care system! Ahem, America! Ahem!

We left the hospital, stopping briefly to let me lick Diane's boots. Just kidding, but seriously, I owe her too much to count anymore.

I bought an electric blanket on the way, resolved to not shiver away another night with a busted ear.

Ok, I gotta find some dinner! Ciao!

Cookout at the Boiling Hot Springs

Friday afternoon, Diane and I decorated the office's sad, sad Christmas tree. It's only slightly better than some I've seen in the homerooms around school. This tree has been crammed in a box for one too many a year.

Friday night I spontaneously took off for Taipei. Spent the evening fairly low key with a couple friends, and headed out the next morning to spend the day alone around the city. I was thinking of it kind of as my little Taipei experiment. Mostly I wanted to see how manageable the city really is on my own, because I've only explored with friends and colleagues before.

I went to Toys R' Us to look for Scrabble, which some of the other ETAs and I have been itching for. They don't sell it here. I also walked around Ikea for a while covetting and exercising restraint. Then I set out to find a particular restaurant, asking a couple of people for directions. I was happy that I could do so in Chinese, and mostly understand them. Even so, I can only use Chinese in very limited contexts like these. Found the place but it was closed. Set out for another, and found it using just Lonely Planet.

I thought I'd see a movie, so I went to a couple of theaters in the area that I found in the Lonely Planet map. That was a little frustrating, because it meant walking around in the rain with my backpack, for one thing. Moreover, one theater was in a large, horribly laid out and marked high-rise shopping building. The theaters were at the top levels, but there were no posters or showtimes posted at the building's main entrance. So I had to navigate around hordes of vain consumers, through a labyrinth of ridiculously expensive designer stores, and switch from escalators to elevators and back again just to get up there, where I discovered that the theater was playing only three or four completely inane movies like Happy Feet and Deja Vu and some other crap. Finally I went to Ximending, known for bustling crowds and cinemas, and the first couple of theaters had similar movies, then I finally found a decent looking Chinese movie. I even managed to ask the cashier, "Na ge dian ying you mei you ing wen zi mu?" which means, "Does that movie have English subtitles?" I was so proud of myself, haha. The English title was A Game of Wits. All about a walled Chinese city fighting through a siege by a neighboring clan. It started out well, but after all the protagonists proved to be cruel or cowardly or otherwise horrible, I kind of lost interest.

>folks singing "Jingle Bells" (in Chinese) in the subway station.

Took a cab back and got home around 8.

I got plenty of sleep last night, and went to judge an high school English writing contest this morning. There were 17 writers, who had maybe 90 minutes to write an essay on the topic, "The Person Who Impressed Me Most." About half of them wrote about their parents, a few about English teachers, a few celebrities, and a few friends. They ranged from horrible to pretty darn good. There were two local judges, as well. We each ranked all the entries, then compared, and the winners were unanimous. The first place wrote about some kid he met in first grade, "Timmy," who was born with one arm. The kid was picked on a lot, but he never let it get him down. The writer admired his attitude, and eventually became close friends with Timmy. Then, in junior high, Timmy was run over and killed in a car accident. The grammar and spelling and language was all great. The story itself, however, rode a thin line between heartbreaking and gruesomely funny. Anyway, congrats to contestant #12, whoever it was.

I had lunch today with Luke and Ben. It was a beautiful, sunny, albeit bitingly cold day, and as per Luke's suggestion, we bought some eggs and a cheap net and rode to a boiling hot springs about 20 minutes inland. It was basically a big hole in the middle of a wide, gravelly riverbed, where literally boiling water pooled. And, as Luke observed, like anywhere remotely cool in Taiwan, it was jammed full of people. We bought some corn to boil also, and sat around on rocks eating our sulphurous snacks and drinking a beer. Yum. There's something a little mystic and terribly cool about sitting in the middle of some mountains, eating food that you've cooked in water that rushes up boiling from a gash in the earth's crust.

>the foil bags contain whole chickens!

The ride back was even colder, and I think I'm getting an ear infection. Yuck. It's kind of painful and I can't hear as well as I should. Zach gave me some rubbing alcohol, so I'm gonna keep it clean and try to nurse myself back to perfect health over the next few days. If it's not better by the middle of the week, I guess I'll have to break down and see a doctor.

Taizhong and Lugang

On Saturday, Dec. 9, Luke and I got on the train at 5:57 am. Ben boarded at Yilan, the next stop. We slept a little bit on the way, but it wasn't easy. The train became more and more crowded. First, there was a baby a few seats up that kept crying. The mother changed the diaper about every 15 minutes. Gross. Then, there was this Buddhist nun that spent 30 minutes eating incredibly loudly, and the next 30 minutes belching. At one point, i think she was just intentionally swallowing air and burping it back up, a little burp about every 3 seconds. "Burp!... Burp!...Burp!..." So gross!

Anyway, we got to Taizhong at 10 am. Walked around, aiming for spots in the Lonely Planet guidebook. In short, Taizhong was kind of boring, spread out, and not easy to see without transportation. I also think the Lonely Planet didn't spend much time in Taizhong, because the descriptions were too few and too brief. We took a lot of cabs, which was interesting because Ben and I got to listen to Luke have provocative political conversations in Chinese with the drivers, who had very different opinions. I could understand a little. Actually, Luke had to work pretty hard to understand also. Even I could tell that the accents were very different there. It's odd that there's such a difference on such a small island. But apparently the people along the west coast tend to be "Taiwanese," as in they're from Chinese families that have lived here for hundreds and hundreds of years. People in Taipei, and many along the east coast, tend to be "49-ers," the Chinese families that fled to Taiwan from China with Chiang Kai-Shek in 1949.

Most of the city seemed empty. Not many people about, and a lot of storefronts were closed. We started at a sculpture park, which was a little tame. Then we tried to find a place the LP called "Tea Street," but nobody local knew what we were talking about. We think we found it, but it was tiny and empty. Then we went to Donghai University, a supposed must-see. I guess it was a pretty campus, but again, not many people around, and not much to do there. The surrounding area was equally dead. We tried another area, "Art Street," which was more like tacky craft/flea market than an artists' area.

>at the sculpture park

>a neat little restaurant we wandered by-- catch a fish, then have it cooked on the spot!

>The Luce Chapel, an I.M. Pei building on the campus of Donghai University. I was very surprised to learn that there's a church-affiliated college in Taiwan, especially one so large. Anywho, cool building

>surprise! a goofy sign?!

>Taizhong.

>Taizhong Train Station.

We found a decent cheap room, checked in, went back out for dinner on "International Street." This area was not bad. We opted for a Thai restaurant, and I ate some really spicy Thai noodles that had me sweating. We had a bubble tea at a place that, according to the Lonely Planet, claims to have invented bubble tea in 1983. The tea was pretty good, but the service was stupid, slow and rather rude, and ultimately I guess we just went so we could say we'd been, because it was kind of miserable. Then on to a night market (I forget the name). There, we discovered where all the people in the city had been hiding. This market was huge and suffocatingly crowded.

>the original bubble tea. and i only had to wait an hour for it. blah.

>before and after. yeah right.

>at the night market. bloody rice cakes? yum! just like grandma used to make.

The next morning, we hit the streets and found a Ghost Busters scale Buddha. This thing was huge! In fact, Buddha's whole back was full of little round windows, and we speculated that there are monks living inside.

We stopped off at a Confucius (Confucian?) temple, on the way back to the bus station. Fairly impressive, although Confucius was kind of a jerk.

Then we got on a bus and rode a little over an hour to Lugang, a historical Taiwanese town on the west coast. Actually, it's the historical Taiwanese town. What little I read said that the town isolated itself from the modern world by not allowing railways or major highways into town a hundred years ago or more. Ironically, about 20 years ago, the place changed directions and now it's a major tourist destination. It still seems to have the old appeal, though. In fact, it was like no other town I'd seen here, probably for the better. And in spite of the hordes of tourists and the noisy streets and markets and merchants, it was charming. My favorite part of the trip, actually. There were a few spots off the beaten path that were a little more peaceful, too.

In Lugang, we saw a large Matsu temple (a Taoist temple built to a sea goddess):

>the goddess herself-- "the black-faced Matsu." apparently blackened from years and years of incense smoke.

>this girl wanted to take her picture with us. so i handed her friend my camera, and got a shot for us as well.

We also saw a Buddhist temple called Longshan, but about 90% of it was under major renovation and not very accessible.

This week has been busy. I'm staying home this weekend to relax. I'm going to help judge an English speech and writing contest on Sunday to make a little extra money.

>one last shot from Lugang. I'm not sure I like the name "Take Your Chance Drugstore." Sounds a little risky to me.