Happy Halloween!

Teacher Shawn: "So, what do you guys do in Taiwan to celebrate Halloween?"

Students (monotone, lifeless voice): "Nothhhhinnng"

Teacher Shawn (under my breath): "Great, can't wait to see what you have in store for Christmas..."

Students (monotone, lifeless voice): "Nothhhhinnng"



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With pumpkins selling for over $10/CAN and no other real plans, we're skipping Halloween this year and going to the beach tomorrow instead. Hopefully I can scare up a nice tan. Ha ha ha. That was lame.

Let's Abuse Betel Nut

Bet you've never seen anyone on "Intervention" with this problem!


The drug of choice in Taiwan is called Betel Nut, and vendors selling the nut are as common as 7 Elevens around here. If you look up a typical street in Taiwan you will see loads of bright neon signs that look like palm trees, which identify a betel nut vendors' store. You can't see that in the store above, though it is apparently endorsed by Donald Duck.


The betel nut stores are generally staffed by scantily dressed ladies (though most of them where I live are run by normally dressed normal women). People pull their scooters over on the side of the road by the store and place their order. The stalls have also branched out to sell beer and cigarettes.


So, about a month ago we decided we would try betel nut. Hey, when in Rome, right? We went to a shop at the night market by our apartment and bought 2 bags of 20 for 100NT ($3.00 CAN). After buying the nuts, I went next door to the Two Peck Fried Chicken shop to get a snack. When the guy working there noticed that we had some betel nut with us he was pretty surprised. He told us it was "very bad" and flashed us a big red, rotten toothed smile as proof. Betel nut can increase the chances of getting oral cancer by 10 times. It stains your teeth red and makes your teeth fall out. Nice!


Here were are, about to try our first (and last!) betel nut.


The prepared nut, up close. The nut is wrapped in a leaf and you just pop it in your mouth and chew the whole thing. It was gross as hell. It was really fibrous- like chewing on a tree branch and the salty/chemically taste was so strong. We all spit our betel nuts out pretty quickly. The effect is supposed to be similar to a strong cup of coffee, with a jolt of energy and your body getting red and flushed. None of us felt any effects though, because we couldn't chew it long enough... I really thought I was going to throw up. My neighbor later told me that you're actually supposed to spit out first juices that develop and after a minute it will become more mild, but I don't think I could stomach trying it again, either way.

Oh, and one more thing. As you chew the nut and your mouth fills with red juiciness, you need to spit out the extra juice in your mouth. So, as a result, Taiwan's streets look like this:


So now, if you ever visit Taiwan, you will know that the streets aren't covered with blood- it's just some betel nut.

Hey Fatass!

When you walk past a chain store called "Y.B.S." (Young Big Size) and the sign says the sizes start at medium, you know you're not in Canada anymore!



As a petite gentleman, I have enjoyed the rewards of living in short and skinny countries like Korea and Taiwan, as I often have trouble finding clothes that don't hang off of me at home. Looking like a low-rent Eminem is not a good style for me. If I recall, in Korea we saw exactly zero fat Koreans. Maybe they existed somewhere but if so, I don't think they left home too often for fear of shaming their families. In Taiwan, while most people are still mostly skinny there is a greater number of chubby chubbies than in Korea. Maybe it's because the food is better here? I dunno, but anyway, I imagine these people have trouble finding clothes to wear because at our local department store a large is a 29 waist! And 2XL is a 32! I'm a 30 waist so am I an extra-large here? Holy.

Time to cut down on all those Mister Donuts!

Beitou Hot Springs

Taiwan has the largest concentration of natural hot springs in the world and everybody we meet says that no visit to the country is complete without enjoying a dip in this amazing water. After tonight, I'm going to have to agree.


This weekend our neighbors gave us a voucher for a free hour at a resort in Beitou, which is in the northern part of Taipei. Beitou is hot springs central, and a number of resorts have popped up which pump the natural hot spring water into public and private rooms. Our coupon (which we found out was valued at $60 CAN/hour!) was good for an hour in a private room. The "Fennel" room to be exact.


We were met by a lady who brought us to the room and went through each knob and button with us by miming everything to show us how to use the facilities. In our room there was a huge, stone hot tub, shower, washroom, sink, bottles of water, a sofa and a window overlooking the city.


And wine!!


After our time was up we were given vouchers for two free drinks at the resort restaurant, where we each got a kiwi smoothie to cool down.


We were pretty happy and relaxed the whole way home. Best. Hour. Ever.

Nurse- 1800 CCs of Beer- Stat!!

What a crappy week! Firstly, I'm pretty sure I caught H1N1 from my kids. Man, I felt like crap for most of the week. Then on Monday, the supervisor at the school Mel and I work at told Mel (didn't even tell me!) that there would be a new (certified- the magic word) teacher replacing me on November 1. What! When I took the job, they asked me if I could work there for the semester at least and even asked if I could quit my part-time job so that I'd be more available for them. What happened? I still have no idea. SO I spent the week, sick, teaching there and dreading the inevitable job hunt that would have to begin again soon.

Also on Monday the school hired an unrelated, different new teacher. If you're keeping count, this is the 4th new teacher in 2 months. Then on Friday, they let that new teacher go. So guess who's back? Me. Not that I felt like going back, but I do like the school, the moneys, and the kids even though I was really surprised when the staff treated me like that. The supervisor apologized to me and said some really nice things so I will continue to work there... but I'll never forget!! In fairness, she looked like she'd had a pretty rough week too, she thinks she's going to lose her own job, and I think she could sense the uprising that had started to develop as a result of her decisions.


So, enough about that. Saturday was Parent's Day at the school, and even though not one single parent came to speak to the international staff all the teachers (except me!) had to spend most of the day there. Work on a Saturday? Booooooo. On their lunch break, Mel and I went to a restaurant owned by a guy from Montreal where I bought a poutine! I wouldn't be surprised if this was the only restaurant serving poutine in the country. It was pretty decent too, with an interesting twist- they melted the cheese by oven-baking the fries in a casserole dish (although a little overpriced- it was about $5 CAN).


On the way home we got off the bus in Sinjhuang in the middle of a random parade. Of course we had no idea why there was a parade, but we showed some pictures to a student later that day and they said it was a god's birthday. Woo! Can't wait until Christmas.


I loved the big tall puppets wearing rain bonnets, who started throwing candy into the crowd. I wasn't paying attention and a dozen chocolate maple leaf coins from afar flew directly into my face. You wanna be startin' somethin', giant Asian puppet guy!?

Amazing video of awesome dancing giant puppet men.


For supper we had reservations at the oddly titled DS Music restaurant in Taipei. The restaurant has a hospital theme! This country has such a love affair with theme restaurants- first it was the toilet place, then the dinosaur restaurant, now hospitals.


The theme is more subtly worked into the place than those other two restaurants, though. Our table was normal but some of the tables were set up like hospital beds with curtains around them.


At least the food didn't taste like hospital food! It was really good, actually. Also, the waitresses were all dressed up like nurses and the drinks were stored in an IV drip above our table and poured into our cups through a tube. FYI: the bathroom was labelled "Emergency Room".


Our waitresses were named Sunny and Cola. Jeremy and Marie, it's still not too late to name the new baby Cola! Sunny chatted with us quite a bit and after a little while she showed up at our table with these 12 test tubes of lemon vodka, on the house! "Welcome to Taiwan," she said. Woot!


We also ordered these delicious looking syringes of vodka shots.


Then it got weird! We were told that around 8:00 a "show" would start. Well, Britney Spears' "Womanizer" started pumping from the speakers, the lights went down and a bunch of half dressed women strutted out into the room! What!!! They proceeded to go from table to table dancing on all the men (I am under a gag order in regards to anything that may have happened at our table), then they brought a couple of guys up on a stage and stripped them nude, with only a plate covering their crotches. It was the most random 10 minutes at any restaurant I've ever visited. This doesn't happen at Modern Toilet!

So, as I found out this week, on any given day you win some and you lose some. I started out the week getting laid off and I ended the week watching showgirls perform at a fake hospital. How was your week?

Fill In The Blank

Deli Cafe Osama _________ in Jiangzicui.

Taiwan vs China

A good ho-type friend who taught English in China told us that at her school there were three T's that you could not discuss: Tiananmen, Tibet and Taiwan. China/Taiwan relations have been icy for decades... like, for example: China keeps at least 1,300 missiles pointed at Taiwan as a constant threat in case it ever seeks formal independence. But the hostility is not something you really notice on an everyday basis, unlike the North/South Korean relationship.

So today I started my 7th grade class with a fun warm-up activity: a find-a-person worksheet. You know- the worksheet looks like a bingo card and each square says something like "a person who is wearing green socks" or "someone who loves Hello Kitty" and you have to find someone in the class to sign each square. WELL. One of the squares on this sheet said "someone who wants to travel to China". I'm all about being culturally sensitive, but I didn't really think this would be a big deal. This is what happened to just about every students' sheet:


The square is crossed out with a big X and one girl told me that China is "poo poo". But that's not all.


In outrage that it might have been suggested that China is worth visiting, an "I like Taiwan" petition was started and every person in the class was asked to sign it! Fearing an uprising, I signed...


So, with the signatures and allegiances sorted, class continued. We were doing a lesson on writing stories and the kids had some pictures of a cartoon dog that were supposed to be the inspiration for a page-long story. They worked in groups to write their stories and then presented their dog dramas to the class. Out of the three groups, two of the stories were about nasty Chinese dogs who sneaked into Taiwan to steal bones! But don't worry, in both of the stories the dog ends up dying and, as you can see in the picture above- Taiwan wins. The-end!

Who knew my grade sevens were such nationalists?! Can't we all just get along?

Sizhwan Beach

After checking out of our hotel, Mel and I took the subway to Sizhwan Station where we got some breakfast at a rip-off KFC restaurant (there was nothing else around) before getting a taxi to the beach. We hadn’t planned on going to the beach, but we had the whole day to kill and an afternoon at a tropical beach sounded okay to me. We only had to pay 30NT ($1 CAN) to get on the beach and just look at all the amazing things the resort had to offer. Pigeons? Um… score?

We were able to grab the last cabana, where we left our heavy backpacks before checking out the water. The water was so perfect and warm! However, neither of us had brought a bathing suit or towel and I was surprised to find that there were no shops selling that kind of stuff anywhere… so we just waded up to our knees. I should have just skinny dipped.

We spent an hour reading and relaxing in our warm cabana before hiking for a few minutes up a steep stairway to the old British Consulate building.

The Consulate was built in 1865 and is positioned in such a way that you get an awesome view of the beach from one side and a view of the city harbor from the other. Drinks and snacks were cheap, so we quickly grabbed the last table and enjoyed a Heinekin on the patio.

We were able to catch a random free shuttle bus that we didn’t even know existed from the Consulate to the MRT station, which then took us back to the high speed rail station. Since we had 45 minutes to kill we decided to grab a snack at one of the nearby restaurants. I ate at an amazing Mexican place… Mexican food is really rare in Asia. When I have the chance to eat an enchilada- I take it!!

Do I really have to go to work tomorrow?? For a 6-day week! Oh man...

Hello Kitty Monkey Love

On Saturday morning we got up at around noon, grabbed some breakfast at Starbucks, and took a taxi to Chaishan Park AKA Monkey Mountain. I’d been intrigued by this place ever since I first read about it at least 6 months ago, so I was really looking forward to our hike. First of all, I have to say that I’m so glad we took a taxi. We were going to just take a bus, but for the sake of saving time we took the cab- I honestly believe we’d never have found the place otherwise. The hike started by climbing some narrow stairs uphill through some small shops, all of which looked like they should be offering us our next clue on “The Amazing Race”.


The trail officially started with a flock of wild chickens just chillin’ at the entrance. HAWT.


After hiking for about 10 minutes, I stopped in my tracks as I saw a wild monkey just sitting in the grass on the side of the trail, eating a nut. Should we walk past him? Should we wait? I had no idea until some guy and his dog marched past as though it was an everyday thing to come across wild monkeys during your walk. The monkeys were so tame- they didn’t care about the hikers at all. We soon approached a little sitting area where monkeys climbed over our heads, playing and jumping around. There were well over a dozen of them strutting around. I couldn’t believe they weren’t in a cage!!


Mel with her new friend.


There were a lot of funny warnings regarding the monkeys. I was really hoping none of these things happened to us!


When you’re walking on a trail and someone barges out in front of you and cuts you off, you get annoyed. When a monkey does this, it’s fine.



After another couple of minutes of hiking we stopped seeing monkeys and started seeing more and more stairs. The trail itself was amazing- lush with green tropical plants and palm trees. Once we got to a look-out, the view of the city was awesome.


I spotted this little deer in the woods on our way down. I was starting to wonder what animals DIDN'T live on this mountain.


I like this picture from our trip back down the hill. People on the left; monkeys on the right.


When we got to the bottom of the trail we had to walk a few blocks to a busier area so we could hail a taxi to the Dream Mall. The Dream Mall is the largest mall in Taipei and it features a HELLO KITTY FERRIS WHEEL on its roof! Obviously, we headed directly to this amazing ferris wheel as soon as we arrived.


Once again, just like at the 85 building, there was no line and we got right on the ride. We didn’t get the Hello Kitty car… it was some anime puppy/bunny friend instead. Womp womp.

Recently, Mel has been getting more and more nervous of rides like this which wasn’t helped by the fact that when we got to the top of the ferris wheel the whole thing suddenly squeeked, squeeled, stopped and then an announcement was made in Chinese. Of course, it started up again seconds later but I have to admit I was a little nervous too when that happened!!


We got some sucky Korean food for lunch and some amazing Charmy brand shaved ice for dessert. I hope there’s a Charmy shop in Taipei because it was so good. We looked around the mall for awhile, but neither of us saw anything that we wanted to buy. I think we’ve been spoiled by the cheap price of goods at the night markets… suddenly $10 for a t-shirt seems pricey, even if it does reference Kate Moss. So, we took a cab to our next destination: the Love River.



How beautiful is the Love River? It was such a nice area. The air was so warm and comfortable, the scenery was amazing and the company was second to none.


We finished off the evening with supper and beer at possibly my favorite restaurant- Outback Steakhouse. There are only 3 or 4 Outbacks in Taiwan so I was actually surprised when our taxi let us off right in front of one. It was meant to be! And what tastes better after a day of hiking and shopping than a big steak and loaded baked potato?