Back by Almost Popular Demand

After much cajoling, I'm back. First, a nod to Chris V., who twisted my arm into posting today. Thanks, I needed it.

The photos below are just a few from each of the events I mention. There are plenty more on my flickr page. You can find the photo album here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrlevi/sets/72157600156142256

So, April has come and nearly gone. I spent the month teaching at Dong Xing Elementary in Dongshan. I've had a wonderful time there. My co-teacher, the rest of the staff, and the kids have all been extremely warm and welcoming. It's quite different from Luodong Elelmentary-- more rural, smaller class sizes, much smaller overall. There I co-taught third, fourth, fifth and sixth grades. Here are some photos from my time there:

Easter Egg hunt:

In late March, the other ETAs and I spent two days shooting the video for our English teaching DVD, Let's Go Yilan! Here are some photos from the production:

This particular beach is strewn with garbage and dead blowfish, and smells like it, too! But we were on a tight schedule and couldn't drive to the beach we wanted.

Cast(/writers/developers/etc.) in the rear, production crew in the front. Props to the mic guy, whose sole job consists of holding a fuzzy boom mic over his head for hours on end.

And here are some photos from the preview session, where we got to see a rough cut and give some feedback to the production company:

My host family invited me to dinner back in March, which turned out to be a bit of a birthday party for me. It was really sweet, and I always have a good time when I see them.

Adorable? I think so!

In late March and early April, I spent a couple weekends in Taipei, visiting folks, hanging out with the other foreign teachers and eating delicious foreign foods. I went to a part of Yangmingshan Park that I'd never seen before with my friend Denny, who was back from his army service for a while. It was really cool and the weather was nice, as you can see in these photos:

That's steam from the hot springs.

There are wild cattle there!

Thurday, April 5 was a national holiday, Tomb Sweeping Day, which is a bit like Memorial Day. Families go to cemeteries and clean up the tombs of their ancestors. So we had a four day weekend. On Friday, Viktor and I went to Spring Scream, a music festival in Kenting, at the far southern tip of the island. We went with two other Americans--Viktor's friend James, and James' friend Grant who was visiting from Hong Kong. April joined us on Saturday. The festival itself was a bit of a bust. We took the new High Speed Rail from Taipei to Kaohsiung, then a three hour bus ride to Kenting. As we neared Kenting, traffic was horrible. Kenting is a small town, and not suited for the mass of traffic there on the holiday weekend. It's a bit like Taiwan's spring break. To make matters worse, several other festivals are held in the area to piggy-back on the success of Spring Scream. This means more traffic and more confusion over the venues. We had purchased a package which included the HSR tickets, bus tickets, concert tickets for Spring Scream's two venues, and a four-person cabin. When we got off the bus in Kenting, James, who speaks Chinese quite well, started inquiring about the location of our cabin. After asking several traffic directors, parking attendants, and other event peons, we finally established that our cabin was 30 minutes away from the main venue, at the second venue at a resort, which wasn't even on the beach. At some point during the confusion, James muttered, "This is why China will not take over the world," or something like that. While Taiwan is not quite China, I agree with the idea. As I said, the event was a bit of a bust, and in two nights, we probably saw only one or two hours of music. We spent way too much time getting from point to point, figuring out locations, following poor signage, dealing with traffic, talking to incompetent and uninformed staff, etc. It was quite stressful until we were able to get to our cabin and resign to stay at the second-class, non-beach resort we unwittingly booked, because it was not worth the time and trouble of making the trip back to the beach and back, even though our tickets were also valid there. Also, Kenting, although tropical, was not the always-bright-and-sunny paradise it was rumored to be. It was a bit brisk and rainy at times. Nonetheless, it was a nice change of scenery and we got to mingle with a real international crowd and chill out at our (American) Wild West/Cowboys and Indians themed hotel, which was quite ridiculous.

The bullet train!

On the way to Kenting, the bus driver pulled over, quietly said something, and then the everyone on the bus started scurrying out the door. We realized the back of the bus was filling with smoke, and decided we'd better get out! The driver didn't exactly go out of his way to make sure we knew what to do. Thanks! He ran around to the back side with a fire extinguisher, and a few minutes later, we got back on and took off. I guess it was the air conditioner that caught fire. Here I am waiting it out:

The following weekend, we had to work Saturday to make up for the Friday we got off between Tomb Sweeping Day and the weekend. My friend Allen, a teacher at Luodong, drove Zach, Gina, Luke and me to a town about an 1.5 hours north called Jiufen. It's a sort of historical, mountainy old town with a crooked old pedestrian street market. We stopped at a cool lookout point over Dashi on the way there. It was a nice little day trip.

mmmm! not!

On Friday, my fifth grade class at Dong Xing threw a surprise party for me just before and during lunch. Complete with food, drinks, and even performances-- flutes, magic tricks, and a skit. I was really surprised and honored!

Saturday night, I had dinner with my co-teacher and some of the other staff from Dong Xing. Luke came along, and we had a nice time. They loved Luke of course, because his Chinese is good. And it's good for me, because when Luke speaks Chinese with people, it's easier for me to follow than when local people are conversing. Luke says it's because they modify it for him-- slow down, speak clearly, etc.

And finally, here are some miscellaneous photos from the past few weeks.

Biggest scooter I've ever seen.

Luodong Elementary's Sports Day.

A stage was set up on the street near the night market, outside a temple. The performances are for a particular god's birthday. This is Taiwanese opera.

Ben: That's an interesting proposition (sluuurp!).

This is an Yilan Project meeting that we had to hold at McDonald's because all the meeting rooms were booked that day.

All aboard for the Ego Tour!