taiwan

i'll be honest and say by the time we got to taiwan, i was so tired of carrying around my heavy tote bag with my camera in it that i largely ditched it in favor of a tiny wristlet with money and keys in it.. so there aren't a whole lot of pictures of taiwan.

we stayed at bobo's new house. katie had moved out on friday and we showed up on wednesday.

jaime and joyce made me little cards :)
the first day we went to 101.
in case you never make it there.. this is what it looks like from the top on a cloudy day:
the color of the glass makes it look kind of interesting and ominous inside the observation deck. the whole floor looks like this and has little displays against the wall. one tells you about the top 10 tallest buildings in the world.
if you go upstairs, you can look out through the bars and pretend you're in a giant wine glass as you hear the wind whining through them.
if you go downstairs, you can see how sparkley the damper is.
don't know why but this air aquarium is my favorite thing in taipei main station. i find it every time i walk through there. in reality, there are just some random plants in there and there's a hole you can kind of stick your nose in. but the sign is hilarious and the air does seem kinda fresher than normal.
this is lianwu from the market. people kept telling me it was out of season, but it wasn't. thank goodness. it is so yummy and only in taiwan. couldn't find it in china or HK.
best danbing in the whole wide world.
typical scene at the kuo's. i love that it even includes mr. kuo's favorite notepad and his glasses.
we took a whole bunch of pictures but they're all on other people's cameras.
this is when we met up with alex and his new girlfriend, emily, at shilin night market.
beer on the street.
lunch with my old coteacher, augusta.
and her sweeet 8 month old baby, naomi. she sat in my lap until our food came. her newest game is throwing stuff on the floor and having you get it for her.
this was the morning we left. we overslept, took 4 minute showers and were in the car on the way to the airport before we knew it. look how big joyce is! she doesn't even look like the same kid.
and that is the end of the trip pictures! all of the ones i didn't post are in this album on facebook.

zha nan gua

this is mrs. chan a long time ago. it's funny how much she looks like amanda. this picture makes me laugh because every day i bothered her about always wearing pants and how she would never wear a dress with me. she says you can't wear a dress and cook at the same time and she's too thin.
i just called the kuo's and she answered and she speaks a mile a minute. it reminded me that she's on facebook now. love her.

mr. kuo is playing mahjong at his sister's because they have a typhoon. some days i feel like i'm in taiwan. skype is so cool.

goodbye tuesday

alex and i picked up the stuff we made at ying ge this morning and i just realized i never managed to get a picture of it! the glazing job they did was amaaaazing. they're blue and silvery with all different shades. i gave the mug to the kuo's even though they saw my blog from when i posted the pictures. they liked it a lot.
they also said they stayed up until 2am last night translating my blog into chinese with babelfish! i would kill to be a fly on the wall for that.
after ying ge, alex, dawn and i went to tina coffee for lunch. this is my favoriiite tina coffee woman. she always sneaks me little things and we chat about her daughter and our lives. she asked if my friends would still go there. i said yes but they really want an english menu!
my fav: a waffle, fruit, panna cotta, a pot of milk tea and a scoop of the most delicious strawberry gelato. $7.

tonight was my last night at school in taiwan! i love my tuesdays but today the vibe was a little bit off because i have the flu so i couldn't be really loud. they were all kind of calm since i was being so calm. not our usual crazy selves, but still fun.
we had a nice last day in my first class. i wrote them all messages in their QA books, which i've been doing for all of my classes, and helped them translate them. and they all got double stickers today which was a big deal for them.
so cute.

my second class was a little off tonight. we just lost our old native teacher and they don't quite know what to make of the new teacher. she doesn't have a mean bone in her body, so they're pushing her limits. i couldn't really do anything today since i was so ill, so i just gave them the disappointed mom speech. 'you guys are so fun, please leave me with good memories of you. i don't want to remember you misbehaving'. and it worked. i think it took them half the class to realize that they'd never see me again.one kid wrote 'megan you is a good teacher' at the top of the page in the book i've been asking them to sign, so a bazillion kids copied them and now it looks like all of my kids are dummies! ahhhh!!! it's kind of funny though. if you aren't their teacher.
right at the end of class when we were getting ready to leave, kevin 2 (below, front middle) blurted out 'megan you are pretty!' like it was his dying sentence. it was so sweet. it's funny how you can't help but get to know the kids who sit in the front a little better than the others.
the kids who smile biggest in all of my group pictures are the smartest ones in the class, and vice versa. jeffy and i were chatting earlier and he said next time i should just take a picture of my classes on the first day and i would know who's smart and who isn't. space cadet kids. in any language, if someone is taking a picture, don't you know you're supposed to smile?
goodbye front desk ladies!
mrs. chan gave me some chinese medicine stuff for runny noses and headaches and it worked like a charm. my kids were pretty amused when they saw it.
i am so busy tomorrow. i'll post a bazillion more pictures at the end of the day once i finish my million errands.

p.s. happy 25th anniversary, mom and dad!

i've found my strength in you

these are some random pictures from the last couple of days.
i have the creepin crud (scratchy/cruddy throat, achey body, chills, headache) so i went and got a 2 hour massage today at the spa one last time. margaret is 4 months pregnant now! her tummy is pretty big. we had a conversation half in chinese and half in english today! she didn't know i was leaving, but she's very excited. she's going to send me pictures of her baby (we're hoping for a girl) and i'm going to send her pictures of me in DC.

the massage was fantastic. i managed to keep my mind from wandering for the majority of the time, which is always a struggle. every time i go, they've added some more things you can customize. which kind of oil for your foot soak (orange), which kind of spray for your room (nameless chinese stuff), which music (anything without birds), which oil for your body (lemon), which kind of tea (rose).

text message from mr. wang. it says miss megan.. something something america.. something something. mr. wang.
benny drying himself off after he took a bath in the sink after daisy creamed him with tin foil full of shaving cream.
then tonight, a whole bunch of us went to taipei for indian food at this really authentic restaurant down some little side street off of the jungshan denhua stop (exit 3, take a right, take a left at family mart and then right at the next little road. it's on the left). it was kind of my going away dinner. we had a nice time.

the bus ride home was pretty strange. we were the first ones in line for the taoyuan bus and they let the 10 of us on the bus and then stopped the line, so we were the only ones on the bus, even though there were still 20 or so taiwanese people in line. then the bus driver stopped at a light to walk back and count us. then he stopped to ask if we had seen any glasses. then he stopped to show us he had found them, so we all clapped. he was laughing. it was odd. we thought for a minute we were being kidnapped.
that's emily in her taiwan-fab top. she bought me pants from the same store. they're cream colored with red, blue and green polka dots all over them aaaand bows.
i'm still mostly feeling bummed about leaving. i'm sure once i'm home i'll be excited, but for now i'm just sad i'm leaving. i'm proud of myself for getting to the point that i wasn't missing america or my family really since we talk so often. there's been a lot of reflecting on how far i've come this year. i'm just trying to feel my feelings while i'm here so i don't get home and then freak out. done that once already!

p.s. the kid who walked from florida to washington to raise awareness for childhood homelessness emailed me back. i'm going to help him get a letter to the president's desk. it should be easy enough, right? there can't be a bazillion 11 year olds walking up the coasts of america for a cause.

aand this is a video of corey from tongue in cheek on the back of a motorcycle with her husband. if you've never been on a scooter/motorcycle before, you should watch it. he has more guts than me taking those turns so tight. i'm always way in the middle of the road.

goodbye saturday

i am getting so tired of this whole not ever seeing my kids again thing! enough already! i'm glad tomorrow is sunday so i can take a break. i was the first foreign teacher for both of these classes, so they've only known me so far. i'm not sure it really clicked with them that they're going to have a new teacher next week.. but we did have a lot of fun today.
i brought all of the stickers i have left and stuck them all over everyone. there were stickers on the floor, walls, kids, desks, lightswitch.. (this is neely).
daisy! her wish came true: their next teacher is going to be a guy. phil. he's new/awesome. they'll love him.
phina and kiki spelling words in shaving cream.
daisy nailed benny in the face with a whole sheet of shaving cream-covered tin foil as i was taking the picture of their messy hands!
he was not thrilled.we made a biiiig mess in the bathroom. dora's class was one of my favs because it was all little girls (and ian, in the middle). most days, every single kid was wearing something with some pink on it. and vivi always had her bear.
sammy and sandy. try saying their names 3 times fast. we also had vivi and vivian.

messy hands!
after that, i spent 3 hours at the kuo's hanging out with mr. kuo, mr. chen and mr. wang for the last time. i'll see the kuo's on tuesday, but not the trio. if anyone had told me that my best friends in taiwan would be 3 drunken taiwanese men, i'm not sure if i would have believed them. they're the best though.
mrs. chan is all business, but she's great. she's always walking around on a mission and jumping up to make people food and get business done while her husband is laughing and saying hello to everyone. today they kept wanting me to drink and i said no no no, but when she went and got a bottle of wine out of the fridge, i had to. i've never see her drink a sip!
and a saturday without cake is no saturday at all. we had spaghetti that mr. chen brought, green tea, beef stir fry, guava.. and just when i thought i couldn't eat one more bite, mr. chen disappeared for a bit and came back with a bunch of cake. there was no way i was getting out of there without eating the cake, so i just stuffed it into an already full stomach.
they boss me around and make fun of me and hit on me and spoil me. what am i going to do without them?
this is the official megan's favorite cake. cake around the outside and strawberry whipped cream on the inside. yummm!
it makes me teary just to think about not coming back here every weekend. we've had such a good time. (that's mr. kuo's little sister with the pool from the other week).

pictures of da chu

driving to da chu on wednesdays is my fav because the sunset is so pretty. ..nevermind that this pond smells like raw sewage. :)


amanda had a daaaate so she had jie mao gao (mascara).
the kuo's had fried dumplings yesterday with sauce his mom made andd i got to use the family chopsticks for the first time!! usually i get the disposable ones. another milestone reached.
random mom: did you make those dumplings?
mrs. chan: no, we bought them. i'm just frying them again so they're crispy
mom: the teacher is eating with you?
mrs. chan: she teaches across the street but she eats dinner with us four nights a week and she loves these dumplings. they're from blahblah, you should try them
mom: interesting