Dear friends,
I'm behind on my blogging because I've been so incredibly busy these past four weeks. On Sunday, December 21, the Bureau of Education organized a trip for all the ETAs (English Teaching Assistants), LETs (Local English Teachers), and host families of the ETAs to go to Ping Dong county (Sandimen) & Mei-Nung. If you remember, I have already been to both of those places so I showed my co-teachers and host family around.

From left, the family of my host mom's colleague (whose son also happens to be my student!), me, co-teacher Chia-Ling, and my host family

When we went to Sandimen, I rode a swing made by the aboriginals. Two people need to be in balance to pull the rope strings that swing the swing. It was pretty fun.

Here I am on the swing...

After we played with the swing, all of the ETAs, LETs, and host families went to make clay pottery. Last time I went to Meinung, I made a cup, remember? This time, I made a wall decoration (see picture below). I had my host family and co-teachers sign it. The top two holes are for stringing ribbon through so it will hang. The bottom hole is for me to hang a picture of my host family and co-teachers.

There are lots and lots of pictures of this trip here. Be sure to check it out!

Dear friends,
Do you remember when I wrote about my trip to Mei-Nung? Well, when I was there, I made my own pottery. Here is the product that just arrived yesterday in the mail!

Making my cup.

Ta da! I just made the shape. The experts who helped me wrote my name, painted it, and put the neat little lining decor on it. It was a lot of fun and now I have a cup  that has special meaning because it came from a Hakka Village in Taiwan!

Dear friends,
Today was a very fun day. Patty, a local English teacher, took me and four other Fulbrighters to Mei-Nung, a Hakka Village 40 minutes outside of Kaohsiung. The Hakka are a type of tribe in Taiwan. This particular Hakka village is famous for their hand-painted umbrellas and hand-made pottery. The name, "Mei-Nung," means "beautiful (thick) mist." It is nestled among several small hills that are covered with bananas trees and beetle nut trees.

You can find the photo album for this day, here. We walked around the shops, saw the beautifully painted umbrellas, and then...made our own pottery! You won't get to see the grand masterpiece that I made until the end of this month when they send it to me. So, sit tight, and I'll post again when my hand-crafted artifact comes in =D. After making pottery, we had lunch and picked lemons at Patty's lemon farm.