Dear friends,
I just got back from a 3-day trip to Kending, Taiwan. From previous posts, you already know I've been to Kending twice. This third trip to Kending was still terrific because I was able to still see many new things.

On the first day, we went to the Aquatic Marine Museum. There, we saw lots of beautiful fish, sharks, and we even got to see a beluga show! You'll see pictures in this album: Taiwan Photo Set 29. During the beluga show, if you answered questions about belugas correctly, you were given an opportunity to be kissed and professionally photographed with a beluga for free. Of course, I couldn't answer any of the questions in Chinese, but I was lucky enough to be given a free photo pass by an elderly women who answered a question correctly and was leaving the show early. Quite an experience! When I put on the life jacket and pet the beluga, the beluga felt squishy and soft. I was a bit nervous when the beluga came to kiss me on the cheek and I was hoping it couldn't tell I was nervous. Anyway, it was fun.

The mid-year conference was different from the orientation conference in September because we actually got two days to explore Taiwan instead of sitting in a conference room all day. During those two days, we hiked in Kending National Park and saw two caves, orchids, and several unique trees. Pictured in the photo above is a tree whose roots grow vertically--really amazing! We also saw a tree that was wrapped in vines. The vines knotted themselves to keep from squeezing the tree to death, according to our tour guide. You can find the picture of the tree in this album link.

The Fulbrighters took several group shots and I'll post two of them here. You may not recognize me because I'm wearing glasses. One of my contacts ripped and I had to take it out so I wore glasses the entire weekend. I thought I was so smart because I actually brought an extra pair of contacts with me to Kending. Unfortunately, when I opened up one of the new contact lens packets, it was empty! There was no contact in there...so much for my luck, eh?

In this picture, I'm in the middle, popping the peace sign...

In addition to going to the Marine Museum and Kending National Park, we visited a beach and observed egrets. On the last day, each grantee and group of ETAs (English Teaching Assistants) presented on their experience in Taiwan so far.

Dear friends,
This past Saturday and Sunday, right after my 6th grade field trip (Wednesday-Friday), I went to Kending with my host family. You'll notice from my earlier posts that I went to Kending last Sunday; that time was with Joyce from Ling Zhou Elementary School. This time, I went with Tai-Shia, Chung-Shih, and Scarlet to Kending.

We stayed at the Cesar Hotel, the nicest resort in Kending. When we walked into the lobby, they had talking parrots, marble staircases, and a fully decorated Christmas Tree. You can find photos here.  The picture to the right is a view outside our hotel room.

DAY 1
We began our day by dropping our stuff off at the hotel. Afterwards, we took off on a bike ride to the Southern most point in Taiwan. Just two days ago, I already rode bikes with my 6th graders on their graduation field trip. I really like riding bikes so I enjoyed this immensely. We rode from the Cesar Hotel all the way to Oluanpi Park. Along the way, we passed Chuan Fan Shih (a huge rock, see pictures in this album), Banana Bay, and ShaTao. The most Southern point in Taiwan was marked by a huge stone marker (See below).

The stone marker at the most Southern tip of Taiwan (above)

When we were at the most Southern tip of Taiwan, two bikers stopped and gave Tai-shia beetlnut. In the picture to the left, you can see me chewing on beetlenut. Apparently you put a white powder on it and it tastes like cocaine. But, rest assured, beetlenut is legal in Taiwan and when you chew it and suck on the juice, you spit out this red colored pulp. It's rather yucky when you see a person's mouth all red, but lots of elderlypeople in Taiwan and some young people like to chew on beetlenut. After I stopped to try some of this beetlenut, which I found rather spicy, we headed back to Cesar Hotel with our bikes.

I was surprised, Scarlet was not tired at all! She rode with such vigor and enthusiasm =D. We rode for about 2 or 3 hours and it started to rain on our way back. But, the rain stopped and the sun came back out so we still had a great bike ride. Later, when we got back, we went to the private beach owned by the resort. It was absolutely beautiful! I was going to go for a swim in the ocean, but the waves were so strong the lifeguard did not allow anyone to go into the water. So, I swam in the swimming pool at the resort.

Later, my host family and I went to the night market in Kending after eating at the resort's buffet and visiting the game room. The night market was huge! It was the only night market in all of Kending, so maybe that's why it was so big. Many people were selling seashell decorations and I was considering purchasing one, but it was too expensive. After the night market, Tai-Shia and I went to see a live concert at an outdoor pub. It wasn't bad, but it was very noisy so we left and went back to the hotel to play Taiwanese Monopoly with Chung-Shih and Scarlet. It was already very late by then, so we went to bed soon after the game finished.

DAY 2
We woke up at 6:45am and headed to breakfast at about 7:15am. We set out to go hiking in the morning. We went to Kending National Forest and hiked Mountain Tachien. We went to Sheding Nature Park where we hiked the Major and Minor Gorge. Check out the gorge below.

We also saw lots of very colorful insects and huge spiders on the hike. See this album. Afterwards, we went to Hengchun to visit famous film spots from the movie, Cape No. 7. I already went to many of them last Sunday, so we went to Chateaux, the hotel where the movie was filmed. It was absolutely beautiful! The view of the beach was spectacular.

Please check out all the photos in this album: Taiwan Photo Set 23.

Later, on our way back to Kaohsiung, we stopped by Dapeng and saw the sports arena they're building. They're planning to turn this past military base into a hotel and sports place where you can fly airplanes, row boats, and do many things.

Now, I must tell you, after three days of playing and traveling around Taiwan with my 6th graders, I was exhausted by this fifth day of touring Kending. So, during the car rides from place to place, I was sleeping. I had so much fun with my host family and I was surprised I still had so much energy.

It must've been that fish soup we drank at the last restaurant we went to =D Haha.

Thank you, Tai-Shia, Chung-Shih, and Scarlet for taking me on this wonderful trip, filled with so many adventures! I look forward to the next two weekends with you guys when we go to Pingdong County and Taipei to see a piano concert!

All the teachers on the graduation field trip

Dear friends,
Last Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, I went with all the 150 sixth graders from my school on their graduation field trip around the Western and Northern part of Taiwan. We went from Kaohsiung to Taichung, then Xin-zhu, then Taipei, Taoyuan, and finally returned to Kaohsiung. I took over 500+ photos, which I have split up into two albums--Taiwan Photo Set 22.A and Taiwan Photo Set 22.B. I hope you have time to take a look at the pictures because they are pretty good, especialy because Chia-Ling took some artistic shots of our trip.

Day 1
We set off from Hua Shan Elementary School at about 7:30am on Wednesday morning and on 4 tour buses carrying 150 students, 9 teachers, and 5 tour guides, we set off for our first destination: bike riding in Taichung (I don't know the exact name of the place we went to ride our bikes because it's in Chinese). The bike route was pretty level and somewhat short, but we the scenery was pretty cool because we crossed a huge bridge and rode through tunnels that used to be for railcars. You can see pictures of the bike ride in this album. After our bike ride, we hopped back on the bus and headed to an amusement park in Xin-zhu.

The amusement park was awesome! There were so many spectacular, and scary, rides. I rode the ride pictured to the right, whose horizontal track turns vertical 180 degrees and then drops you straight down into lots of upside down turns. Chia-Ling and I rode it twice! You would think I would be scared, but I wasn't because of the following story I'm going to tell you:

So, the teachers were all excited to ride the amusement park rides, but they were especially excited to ride the water park ride (pictured below). We put all our stuff down in the storage area and then got into the boat. Look at how happy we are =D.

The ride was so much fun. I'm sitting in the very front with Watson and we both have our hands up. It was exhilarating and we all got very wet.  After the ride, we got out to get our stuff, but when I looked around, my backpack was missing!

First off, let me tell you the backpack wasn't even mine. I borrowed it from Billy, my apartment mate. Secondly, I had everything in that backpack--Alien Resident Certificate Card, Health Insurance Card, ATM card, NT$4,500 dollars, MP3 player, Fulbright business cards, two jackets, an umbrella, and tissue. So, it was pretty valuable. Luckily, I gave my camera to one of the teachers who didn't ride the water ride so I still had my camera. But, I LOST THE BACKPACK that wasn't even mine and all my valuables! I was freaking out!

All the teachers immediately called the theme park managers, all tour guides, and told fellow students to look in bathrooms and trash cans for my backpack. When the teachers asked me to describe the backpack, I told them it was all black. That was only my guess because I couldn't quite remember what it looked like since I only had it in my possession for that morning (I borrowed the backpack only for the three day trip).

We searched for about an hour, students, teachers, and all tour guides (including some tour guides that weren't even part of our tour group!). Finally, Watson, one of the teachers I was with, receives a call from one of the other teachers, "We've found it." "Is there anything inside?" I ask.

"I don't know," says the teacher.

I run over to where they are and see the backpack. Wow. Everything is there.

"How did you find it?" I ask.

"Well, Tsui-Zhu [another teacher] and I thought the backpack must be nearby the water ride so we went around the little souvenir shops. Then, we saw a backpack laying on the floor in one of the shops. But, we didn't know if it was yours because the backpack was GRAY and BLACK. But, I recognized your umbrella sticking out of the side, Shiela, and knew it was yours!" exclaimed Chia-Ling.

Wow. I was SO incredibly lucky. Lots of students lost their items that day, but I was so lucky to have found my backpack with EVERYTHING inside. Apparently, somebody--probably a student--just grabbed the wrong bag and when they discovered it wasn't theirs, they probably just left it where they were. I'm SO surprised they did not steal anything. I thank my lucky stars for that.

So you can see why after two hours of frantic panicking, that incident made me fearless! I rode everything after that. I rode the ride that vertically drops off, the boat ride that swings back and forth, bumper cars, roller coasters, etc. You name it, I rode it. Let me tell you, I had the courage of a lion.

After the amusement park, we went to a hotel in the mountains of some place in-between Xin-zhu and Taipei (I don't know the name, sorry to disappoint. I'll try to find out later). Now, I felt okay after all the rides, a little dizzy, but still okay. Once I got in the car and we headed up the windy mountain roads and, oh dear, I threw up! Terrible, just terrible. A teacher throwing up before her students! Ha! So much for the courage of a lion, eh?

Anyway, the hotel in the mountains was pretty cool. The teachers, later that night, all got together and karaoked. I was terrible at singing, but I still sang because it was fun. We hit the sack at about 1am.

DAY 2
The next day, I woke up rather cold. There was no heater in the hotel and Chia-Ling (my co-teacher) and I suspected that we left one of the windows open. But, to this day, we will never know. Chia-Ling even wore gloves to go to bed!

Anyway, the next morning we got up at 7am and headed to Taipei at 7:30am. We went to the Taipei Zoo. I kept my bag very close to me throughout this excursion...

We saw all sorts of creatures, but the white rhinosaurus was everywhere! The picture to the right is a pretty good shot of the white rhino. We had a lot of fun at the zoo and the class I toured with was pretty photogenic so we took lots of photos. So many photos in fact, that we were late in meeting back up with the rest of the school. Oh well. When the other classes were waiting for us, they enjoyed McFlurries from McDonald's while we took pictures =D

See how photogenic this class I toured with is?

And then, I played with some of our students. My student is killing me with a blow-up sword...

After we spent about an hour and a half at the zoo, we went to the harbor. On the way to the harbor, we visited the house of Dr. Mackey, a Canadian minister who was famous for establishing a hospital in Taiwan. He was also famous for something else...Chia-Ling will have to fill me in on the story again. In the photo to the left is a picture of me and a teacher in front of a Dr. Mackey statue head.

The harbor was absolutely beautiful. But, I can't put anymore pictures of it on this blog because  there's already too many pictures. You'll just have to see the pictures yourself in this album.

When we went to the harbor in Taipei, which is called Danshui, we headed to "Old Street." There they sold lots of "Pi-Dan," or what literally translates into "leather eggs." The eggs are black, small, and the outer layer is very thick and leathery, hence the name. It tasted, different. Anyway, those eggs were very popular amongst the students and teachers; everybody bought a bag. After visiting old street and eating some dessert, we took a a boat to a nearby island (again, the name is in Chinese and my Chinese isn't that advanced).

Check out one of my students enjoying the boat ride to the left. The boat was pretty neat and we all got sprayed by the water (See pictures here). When we got to the harbor, there was an amazing bridge called "Lover's Bridge" that was for pedestrians only. It was huge and beautiful! Check out the architecture in the picture below.

The 6th graders in the picture above is the class I toured with the entire three days. Chia-Ling, Tsui-Zhu (another teacher), and I walked the bridge. It curved so beautifully. Since coming to Taiwan, every single bridge I've been on (two in total so far, hehe), I've jumped on. So, here's a shot of me jumping (see below). The other bridge I jumped on was in Sandimen's aboriginal park. You'll have to look for that picture in one of the photo albums.

Ta da! Me jumping on the bridge. There was also one more bridge on this island that I jumped on. I was jumping against the sunset. You'll have to find it yourself in this album =D.

After walking the bridge and boardwalk, we headed to a five-star hotel in Taoyuan, the Howard Hotel. It was amazing. They had a swimming pool, game room, sauna/jacuzzi, beautiful view above a reservoir, workout room, game room complete with a mini golf course for children, ping pong tables, pool tables, a nice restaurant and lots of other stuff. I was so exhausted from the day that I headed straight to bed at 10:30pm. Once my head hit the table, I fell asleep.

DAY 3
The next day, we went to yet another amusement park. This time, it was in Taoyuan. This amusement park is very special. It's called LeoFoo Village Theme Park and it is equivalent to the Disneyland of California. I think it's even better than the Disneyland in California, though. Granted, I haven't been to Disneyland in over 15 years, but this theme park was AMAZING!

There are four villages in this theme park--a safarii park, an arabic-like-Taj-Mahal theme park, a water park, and a Western cowboy and indians themed park. It was awesome. The teachers and I went to the safarri park first.

We rode a bicycle trolly above some of the animal cages and we also rode a small train.

The train ride took us very close to the tame animals. Look at how artistic this photo of Coach Pao is to the right. Chia-Ling took this picture. The animals came very close...

See Ms. Liu, my dean of student affairs, to the left and the ostrich running after us? We were very close to the animals. We later took a carnivorous bus ride to see the lions and tigers. It was a great safarii ride.

Later, I also rode a camel with a fellow teacher who was just as daring as me! See picture below.

In the photo above, we were just about to head into the Western Cowboy and Indian themed park. There, Chia-Ling and I rode a roller coaster ride called the Screaming Condor. It was pretty crazy because the ride was very very high and it twisted. We also rode something like the Tower of Doom back in Denver, a normal vertical drop with no twists and spirals. Lots of fun, but only some of the teachers joined us because the others were too scared =D.

At the end of the amusement park trip, about 1pm in the afternoon, we headed back to Kaohsiung. The four and a half hour ride back to Kaohsiung was very long. Our tour bus passed the time by singing KTV, all four and a half hours. Amazing, eh? The kids, teachers, and I sang for four hours straight, no sleeping!

When we got back we were all exhausted. We got back early, though. It was only 5:30pm!

The trip was so much fun. Thank you Hua Shan Elementary School and Principal Liu for inviting me to go. I got to know my 6th graders better and saw lots of Taiwan.

Below, you can see some artistic shots that Chia-Ling took on our trip. She's quite the photographer.

What a fun three days. But, the next day, I had to wake up at 8:30 to go to Kending with my host family! It was non-stop fun. I was jumping from one place to the next. I visited the North part of Taiwan and the next day, I visited the South part. Keep reading for my exciting adventures...

Dear friends,
I was not able to update about my first trip to Kending last Sunday because everybody that went to Kending wanted to surprise our apartment mate, Billy, that we went to Kending that same weekend. However, I think it is appropriate to update now because any later and I'll forget what we did =D.

Last Sunday, I went with Joyce's family to Kending, the Southern peninsula of Taiwan. It was absolutely beautiful, although very windy. We began our trip at Hengchun, the town made famous by the movie Cape No. 7 (See earlier posts about this movie). Along the road, were various fruit, wine, egg, and other small stands (see below).

In the photos above (from left to right) you can see wax fruit (Lein Wu, my new favorite fruit), rice millet wine, and all sorts of duck/chicken eggs. Wax fruit tastes a bit like apple, except sweeter, juicer, and not as dense.

After we walked along the road with all these various stands, we went to the famous film spots of Cape No. 7 in Hengchun. If you've seen the movie, I will let you know that we went to Aga's house, the old postman's house, the elderly lady's house to whom the Cape No. 7 letters were directed, and the West gate. We also passed by a lot of the other film spots.

A map of all the film spots in Hengchun that was displayed outside of Aga's house

After visiting the film spots, we went to several scenic spots including Nanwan (pictured below).

We only spent one day in Kending, but I have over 200 pictures that you can view here. Just a warning, it's a long album...

Enjoy the beautiful scenery of Taiwan! Thanks, Joyce for taking me and Kate =D