techno has no words

i'm posting pictures of allen and alex's day at the children's museum with bobo and katie and at a baseball game. allen has been begging me to go to a game with him, but it is sooo hot outside, so i tried to steer him toward someone who actually wanted to go. and allen loves alex. he's always asking me about him and every time we see a temple we say "alex would love this" because alex is the temple king. so i'm glad they did that together.well this scuba certification thing is kind of trial by fire. we did some of the same stuff as yesterday, but this time you're 30 feet down. it was all pretty nice and wonderful except one minute of panic where i thought i was skyrocketing toward the surface and my BCD wouldn't deflate.. but it turns out that i was really upside down, swimming toward the sand and turning around in circles. i have no idea how that happened. i really thought i was going up and up and up.

today was fun though because we got to see some real fish and remember why we were going through the whole tedious learning process at all. there were cute little fish in these holes in the sand in the bottom that would pop out and pop back in when they saw you. while we were doing some technical stuff, this orange and gray stripey fish was just swimming all around my knees and checkin' me out.
apparently it was a choppy day, so everything else should seem easy. i'm hoping we have some sun in the next couple of days so i can have a thailand tan when i get back to taiwan. the last couple of days have been a little gray and rainy.
tonight we went to dinner with dawn and leila at the beeeest indian place. we stuffed ourselves with platters of food and chai tea. ymmm. then we went to watch a ladyboy show down the street. it was hilaaaarious. some of them really look like women, but this one guy was built like a football player and he wasn't super convincing (see below). they were lip synching to tina turner, whitney houston, etc. songs but they didn't know the right words so it was like weird kung fu movie with not quite right lips. pretty entertaining though. the costumes were all sequined or tasseled with giant, piled-up wigs and the highest high heels with eyelashes a foot long. one of them had more cleavage than me which i find perplexing. plastic? lots of tape? special bra?
we have to get up to leave at 7 for our final 2 dives before we're open water certified, so i'm headed in early.

croaking geckos

11 new skills:
1. enjoying coconut shakes on the beach and only getting a teeny bit sunburned
2. staying awake through 3 hours of dive videos starting at 8am
3. properly identifying the sound a giant gecko makes
4. hooking up a scuba tank/vest (BCD)/accoutrements while in and out of the water
5. getting water out of my mask while underwater
6. tackling the windblown, wavy vacation hair
7. getting to the surface without a scuba tank
8. getting to the surface with a broken respirator that's shooting out uncontrollable bubbles
9. getting to the surface with a buddy, using their air tank
10. learning how not to explode my lungs, fill my blood with nitrogen bubbles or get decompression sickness11. appreciating the serious, scuba instructor side of emil, who i had previously only seen only the silly, tigger suit wearing side of. he's awesome, direct, fun and comforting.

keith and i did scuba in the pool today and it was scary/fun. it took me a few minutes to stop thinking about how weird i felt to only breathe through my mouth, but it's ok now. it all makes me appreciate my kids and how we demo something once and then expect them to copy us without making any mistakes on their first try when they've never done it before. i had forgotten how hard it can be to do something you've never ever done before. but we did it.. in the pouring rain, too (not that it matters i guess, when you're already all wet).

we did 4 chapters in the book and 4 tests. 3 hours of pool stuff. it was a long, scuba-y day. tomorrow we're headed into the ocean for 2 dives. they don't mess around with the progression of things.
HEY i was just watching a show about mt. everest climbers and it was interviewing the men and what their next plan was and the man just said 'i'm headed to thailand to hang out in a hammock on the beach for three months.'

p.s. the internship emailed to say they still haven't decided and they're pushing the notification back one week. good thing i'm too busy to drive myself crazy wondering about that for another week. keep thinking good thoughts.
p.p.s. for those sappy romantic readers, tonight allen said i was his 'angel of the air and water, flying around me and with the fish in the ocean'. we go back and forth with being friends and being sparkley. i think long absences fuel the sparkle.

to get away from it all

sairee beach in koh tao is everything you could imagine a beach to be. the water is blue, the sand is white, there are palm trees, the entire thing is lined with kitschy little restaurants and bars with low tables with cushions to lean up against. banana smoothies are 50 batt (less than $2), you can get a massage on the beach, you can do yoga, you can take a water taxi. there are resident beach dogs that will just walk up to you and lie down at your feet.

our hotel is right across from emil's dive shop and we're staying in a 'luxury room' with AC, a shower, TV, fridge and wireless for ~35US a night. the walls are deep gray and sea blue stained concrete. it's lovely.
anyway i'm getting ahead of myself. yesterday we spent the day exploring some of the sights of bangkok. we ended up in this open-aired (meaning a cart attached to a motorbike) taxi service that would take you to a few tourist spots and the deal was that you had to go to all of these handmade suit shops and just listen to the pitch. one guy actually talked keith into ordering a custom made dress shirt.
we saw the grand palace which was beautiful and dripping in gold leaf/paint. to be very honest, we didn't read much about it, so i'll let wikipedia tell you if you want to know. we spent a few hours there.. prayed to the jade buddha. no email from the white house yet.
the most exciting part of yesterday was showering in the train station for 10 batt, awesome, and then taking the overnight sleeper train south. we bought top bunk sleeper seats with AC for $30ish each and it was so worth it. i pulled the curtain closed, put in my ipod and slept from 9 until around 3. they gave you a heavy, white towel for a blanket and it had real white sheets and a real pillow. it was amazing.
then todayy we took a boat to the island, ate the best veggie platter of indian food right on the beach with a dog at our feet, and met up with emil, leila, dawn and derek this evening for dinner at an italian place. the spinach ravioli had real spinach leaves inside. it was deeelicious. i just got back from hanging out with leila on the front porch of her bungalow. seriously, is the awesomeness coming across? can you even imagine?
open water certification course part 1 with emil starts tomorrow morning. we're going to do it in our hotel room since it's freezing in here. life is good in thailand.

cabbages and kings

keith's keyboard is missing the L key, so if you notice any insane typos, it's not me.

let's do bullet points. i'm tired.
- we had a self described "happy taxi driver" on the way to the airport. he was adorable. keith talked to him before they picked me up and by the time they got there, the guy was calling me 'beautiful teacher' and asking if i wanted to sing songs in chinese. that guy was so funny. he taught me mimihuhu which means 'i don't know, you don't know' because we were all guessing between terminals 1 and 2. it was 2.
- then we're in line waiting to get on the plane and this guy asks us what numbers they just called. we say we have no idea, but i asked him what instrument he was carrying. turns out he's a taiwanese guy who has a serious passion for death metal AND went to school at UT (same as me). i think he might have been partially autistic.
- the flight was OK except we had a dude who didn't request a veggie meal but who was very upset that they didn't have an extra for him. keith almost elbowed him about a million times.

-right when we got out of the taxi in thailand, we ran into a junkie of a man who pointed us toward koh san road, all bug-eyed and making long pauses.. we didn't stay where he suggested.
-it is bizarre to be in a place with so many foreigners from so many places. i've gotten so used to only seeing asian-looking people that it's a real shock that the demographic on this road is 60% blonde girls, 35% frat guys and 5% hippies. tonight we had a drink with two dutch people who had a long layover on the way to bali.
time for bed! it smells so much like cabbage in our $30 a night (which i guess counts as a 'luxury hotel') hotel room. but it's beautiful. pictures in a week and a half.

v-a-c-a-t-i-o-n.

headed to thailand with keith this evening! we're going to be at the airport way early but it's ok.
we get into bangkok around 1030 and we're going to have late dinner somewhere on koh san road.
check in tonight!

stars shinin' right above you

hands down, the worst part of this job is the inevitable goodbyes. you have to say goodbye to your friends, your kids, the taiwanese people you make friends with. steve is leaving next week but tonight is the last time i'll see him since i'm headed to thailand. he's the kind of guy you marry. dependable, super nice, easygoing, wants a lot of kids, fantastic bowler, blushes like a girl. if we had the sparkle, i would snatch him.

joycie and i said goodbye today too, but not forever. she and jaime are going to their grandma's house for 3 weeks. she's like a whole different kid than i remember. she must be a few inches taller. she can say things i didn't even know she knew how to say before. we spent the afternoon playing with her webkin and some korean kids game website that we can't read.

we're getting somewhere with the automatic please and thank you.
joyce: megan, you do this one
me: i'm sorry, i think you forgot a word
joyce: you do this one, please
..5 minutes later..
joyce: you finish this puzzle
joyce: you finish this puzzle please
..15 minutes later..
megan: joyce can you hand me that marker?
joyce: please?
megan: pleaseee can i have that marker? thank you

i went to tuesday night bowling tonight since i knew it was the last time i'd get to hang out with steve and it was a lot of fun. i did hoooorribly, but it was ok. the bowling guys (and julia) are all really awesome. now it's 2am though. time for bed. cross your fingers that sleeping on wet hair will result in beautiful waves and not crazy morning hair.

p.s. jimmie is way more ballsy than me and she took pictures of the market where we've been buying fruits and veggies. tell me you would be able to walk past all of that hanging meat to get to the fruit in the back!

when the lights go down in the city

well it was another apartment-y day in taoyuan. i asked the owner about the water when we were touring it with him yesterday and he told me there was no filter but the water in taiwan just isn't good anyway and we would need to boil it. then the real estate company guy, eddie, called tess later in the evening and said the owner decided to install a water filter on the sink for us. so we spent the morning hanging out while they installed it.

the landlord is an interesting guy, mr. dong. he was in the air force for a long long time until he started flying for china airlines. he's retired now and lives in taipei. for the first 10 minutes of our lease meeting yesterday, his face was stone-cold serious. no smiling, no laughing, arms folded.

but tess, katie and i are all pretty smiley, bubbly north american girls and we were super excited about signing everything, so he loosened up over time. he said he has 2 daughters, 20 and 18. by the end of it, he was smiling and laughing and making little jokes. i think he's pretty good.

the beeest part of the contract signing was when we had to stamp 3 sets of contracts with our thumb prints. we had to stamp every folded over page.

we just got back from the friendship store, where everything is super cheap. we spent $100 on everything we need to get up and running. dishes, cleaning stuff, kitchen stuff, bathroom stuff. we opted for asian-fab whenever we had the option. the mop is barbie pink.

i find out about the internship sometime this week and i leave for thailand on wednesday! exciting week for me. at least all news is good news at this point. oh! speaking of good news, i was able to put my plane ticket on hold so i only have to change it once and i don't lose the $700 i have in it. good day all around.