just takinga break to catch up

Good morning,

Things here in Taipei are good…It’s Saturday morning and I am spending a lazy few hours catching up on the all the things I haven’t had time to get to because this new job is keeping me on my toes! So I have been uploading photos to make a new photo album (look for it soon) and tidying up my apartment, what fun.

I’ve had a good week, it was long but good. I spent a long time yesterday setting up my classroom, yes I have my very own classroom for the next 6 weeks of summer camp (I’ll probably move into another one for the fall), I needed to make room for a tent as the theme for the next 2 weeks is “In the Woods”. Most of the children at our school come from the upper class of Taipei and none of them have ever been camping, one of them told me had slept in a tent at his Aunt’s house once but it was inside. Everyone here lives in apartments, I haven’t seen a house in the city and so none of the children even know about camping in their yards, bug hunts or bike riding in the driveway. It’s a different world (many of our kids have nannies, drivers and some have cooks). I think that we will have a fun few weeks, I’ll have fun anyway and I hope that they do too.

Last weekend I did some sight seeing and apartment hunting, I think I found one on my own that I can move into next month, it is one of the other teacher’s places. It’s a great space but hard to explain so you’ll have to wait until I move in and can take some photos.

After that I went with one of the other teachers from school to see the national theatre, it’s in a park and beautiful to see. There are lots of great concerts there and I took some great photos. I went to the world’s tallest building, It’s called Taipei 101 and is huge! It has a large mall and book store in it and just about every North American store you could ever want. The expensive but wonderful grocery store is in the basement there, I made another trip there too.

Taipei has these great night markets that I am in love with, there is one on the way home from work and it has amazing deals and all kinds of stores that only open at night, it’s cool to see and quite the shopping experience. You can by roasted chickens or geese, but here they roast the whole thing and they eat all of it, the kids tell me that they like the heads! YUCK! I have seen whole pigs and pigs ears and snouts are popular too, They eat everything here and I have seen enough animal liver to last me a life time.

On a brighter note there are lots of great restaurants and I went for Vietnamese last weekend that was great and for hot pot on Thursday night – asian fondue, a little different than Korea but good. I have encountered a great deal of MSG, they use it like salt here and since it makes feel rather ill I have been avoiding most restaurants unless I really know what I am going to eat.

Not much else to tell you about, it’s hot here and the mosquitoes are vicious and I’ve got a million bites. Not fun although they have these great electric mosquito zappers that run on batteries and look like a tennis racket, you touch the bug and zap it’s dead. There are also cockroaches here – they are huge and can fly… I’ve seen plenty of those too.

Well I think that’s about it for today, I still can’t access my email at home but can at school and do check it when I get a chance, now that I have keys I have a little more freedom to come and go there. Hope everyone is well, I get that photo album finished this week and send the link on Monday. Be well

Love
J