Kickboxing

Last night I got to try something really different: a kickboxing class! It might not seem that unusual, but the difference was that my roommate, Kenzie, and I went to one that meets outside of the Chang Kai-Shek memorial in the evening. It is a huge open area paved with square stones and there are lots of people just sitting or walking around. On three sides there are massive ornately decorated buildings, one of which is the actual memorial and another is a concert hall. The fourth side has the huge gateway made up of white archways leading into the whole area.

This particular night there was a jazz festival about to begin in a different part of the memorial, so there was live background music the whole time.
Kenzie and I arrived not really knowing what to expect. We saw the group (mostly foreigners) sitting by the gateway and several minutes later the class began. As newcomers, the other people warned us that it was going to be a hard 2 hours! They said we would be sore for days after... It truly was a total body workout; no muscle went unused! We began with a 'warm up' and after those 20 minutes I knew that the evening was going to be very intense as I was already completely drenched with sweat and winded! It was non-stop starting with aerobic exercises, then stretching, strength training, technique (which I have none of just yet!) and finally a little break for water, then running the 89 steps up to the memorial countless times, then ab exercises!

The teacher is a guy from Denmark who was a world champion but is now living in Taiwan teaching English, leading these classes on the side in the evenings. He is pretty funny and nice, but also really pushes people and encourages them to keep going when it gets tough. We went to different areas of the memorial and did different exercises...all the while many Taiwanese people were walking around and watching, sometimes in amusement, sometimes in confusion as to what we were doing...I heard one couple wondering if we were a cross-country team out for training! The people in the class were all really friendly and just like most other groups here, they get together often outside of the class for nights out, potlucks, and camping trips.
The humidity and heat (about 95F and 80% humidity) was so different from what I am used to exercising in and everyone was just dripping with sweat about half an hour into the workout! (The whole workout lasted a bit over 2 hours, but it just flew by!) I just loved it because back home, classes like this are just in boring gym studios and here we were outside of this amazing cultural sight with beautiful buildings all around, just the night sky above us! It was unlike anything I've done before and such a fun experience. I left feeling really good (but also incredibly tired) and ready to do it again, so now every Tuesday and Thursday evening that's where I'll be!


This is just one example of what I love so far about Taiwan - something that we have in the States is just in such a different setting or done in such a different way that it becomes so much more exciting! There is always so much going on that it is impossible to be bored.

Hash Run

So this past weekend I went on this event called a Hash run and it was a blast! These runs are actually held all over the world. It is a completely cross-country run through unique terrain. Basically by going on it, you see really unique areas of Taiwan that you wouldn't otherwise get to see, like farmers planting in their fields and tiny villages.
I went with my 2 roommates Katelin and Kenzie and we met the group at an MRT station in Taipei. Then we all boarded a chartered bus and it drove us north near the coast. The start of the run was at the top of some hills, so the bus started to make it's way up. Then the road did a complete U-turn going uphill and the bus wasn't going to make it. So this massive bus with about 50 people on it started to do a 6-point turn on this steep curve, getting perilously close to the edge each time it backed up....about 5 minutes later we somehow got all the way turned around and continued upwards! Amazing - it felt like the ending to the original 'Italian Job.' The bus couldn't make it all the way, so we walked the last 5 minutes or so. Then we started!

The trail is about an hour or so long (depending on how fast you run or walk, and what the route is like.) There are the 'hares' who pick the route (they go in advance and choose the route, sometimes clearing away the bamboo or other vegetation with machetes...) and leave the start line about 5 minutes earlier than everyone else to mark the trail with blobs of flour. Then the girls start and the guys go about 10 minutes later.

This particular one was amazing because it was all downhill and through really cool areas - through rice fields and little villages with people sitting on their balconies cheering us on, overgrown creeks, thick bamboo stands, irrigation ditches and tunnels where you had to grab onto a banana plant to keep from falling when you emerged on the other side, along the edges of crops (one in particular had a farmer shouting Chinese at us...) then eventually about an hour later we ended up on the beach!

It's a new course each week in a different location and the trail is supposed to be difficult to find in parts, so you really have to keep an eye out for white patches of flour while navigating down steep rocky areas and creeks. My legs got fairly scratched from running through the low down vines and pushing aside the branches and twigs, but definitely worth it!
Afterwards we met the bus at the bottom of the hill, right next to the beach where we all dove in (and surprisingly the water was extremely warm! This coming from someone who normally gets blue-lipped in the ocean...) Then we moved further on down the beach to a traditional Taiwanese restaurant specializing in barbeque. It is different from western barbeque in that each outdoor picnic table has it's own hot plate/grill, and you just choose whichever raw meat you want to cook and bring it back to your table. It was all you can eat and drink, so everyone definitely got their fill!

It was a great way to spend a Sunday and an even better way to see parts of Northern Taiwan that would be hard to get to otherwise. Everything is planned by the organizers so all you do is show up at the right time and place and off you go!

Daily Living

I have now been in Taiwan for almost a month, and things are still going great! I have gone to so many places and have figured out many different things for everyday living, and started my job, so there is lots to tell!
I moved into an apartment about 3 weeks ago with three other girls who happened to be on the same plane to Taipei. We are on the only apartment on the 5th floor and have an amazing rooftop garden above us! It has lots of plants, a little pond with some koi fish, and amazing views of our neighborhood. It makes a great place to exercise in the early mornings before school! It is nice getting settled in and having some of our neighbours say hello and recognize us. As far as we can tell, there aren’t many foreigners in the area, so everybody remembers us. A man who sells stinky tofu lives right at the entrance to our building, so we get a smelly welcome home in the evenings!
Everyday there is something new to figure out or discover – there will never be a dull moment! Just yesterday I came home and checked the mail box, which is metal and has a little slit to put mail through. I opened it up with the key and found a large bag of mushrooms: how did they get there and who put them there?! The answer is a common one here – who knows! It’s little things like that that make me laugh every day.
Another interesting part of the everyday life here is the buses. I had read before I came that some of the drivers were not exactly concerned with the comfort or safety of the riders, but the first couple of weeks I had had good experiences, except for the jerkiness as they lurched in and out of traffic. Just this weekend however, my roommate, Katelin, and I flagged the bus down when we saw it and the back doors opened. There were two other ladies running to catch the bus so we let them get on first. As soon as the first lady set foot on the step, the doors suddenly closed and the bus started to pull away! She fell out of the bus onto Katelin and as soon as somebody else stopped the bus, the driver got out and we figured he was coming to apologize, but instead he started to yell at the lady! It was rapidfire Chinese, so we had no idea what he was saying, but it was pretty strange. Another time we got on a half empty bus and upon seeing us, the driver started shaking his head and gesticulating wildly, and shooed us off. Just another day in Taiwan!
Despite some of the bus drivers, everybody else has been very friendly and helpful. The times we have gotten lost, it only takes about 5 minutes looking at a map until somebody stops and asks if you need help. When you tell them where you’re trying to go, they try their best to help. It’s just very welcoming and makes getting around even easier. The traffic however is just unlike anything I have ever seen! No space on the road is wasted, so if there is even a foot between a bus and the curb, there will be at least 2 or 3 scooters. Everybody drives bumper to bumper and must really know the dimensions of their car, because I still have not seen one accident! There are lots of honking of horns, but it is more just to let other people on the road know that someone is in front of/behind them. Something that took a while to get used to is crossing the street at a crosswalk: in the US it is usually expected that cars will wait to turn until the pedestrians are all the way across the street, but here they will give you about a foot of clearance while they whiz on by. So at first it constantly felt like I was going to be runover, but now that I am used to it I realize that everybody walks and the cars and scooters go around and just use the other space. I think if they waited the American way, no one would get anywhere because of how much traffic there is.
Starting teaching has been interesting – fun, but really different and more challenging than I thought it would be. Our very first day we had to teach a class for half an hour...no training! Then our next couple of days were meetings with our boss and she went over some of our working duties and what levels we would be teaching, then we observed a few classes. Then because it was the end of the semester, all the experienced teachers, along with our boss, left for the Philippines! So the only 3 English teachers at this school were me and my roommates – that week was pretty stressful since it was the blind leading the blind and we didn’t have a clue. The only people we could ask questions were the Chinese teachers who speak sometimes-questionable English.
This week we started teaching our permanent classes with the students we will have all semester. Apparently kids are not placed in classes based on their English ability or their age, but instead what time they first enrolled in school. (One of the kids who is 2 has been at the school since he was 10 months old...amazing!) This means that although I am supposed to be teaching the middle level, I have kids aged anywhere from 3 to 6. It is really hard because some of them can’t even hold a pencil while others can write their name well. This is really my first time dealing with kids and it’s fun but exhausting! I am always chasing after them and keeping a constant eye on them, or else one of them has glued their worksheet to the table, spilled their breakfast milk on their neighbour’s pants, or shoved a sticker up their nose. A good thing is that I am being forced to speak (or yell!) louder, which has always been a problem for me. Already I can get the attention of my 11 kids in a sea of about 50.
From what I remember of kindergarten in Boulder, we had it easy! Here they have a very specific routine each day and have homework each weekend. First thing before class starts, all the students have Exercise Time in the lobby where we lead them through stretches and dances to kids’ songs. Then each class goes to their room and they eat their snack. Each student has 3 bowls that they use each day – one for morning snack, lunch, and afternoon snack, all between 9am and 4 pm. Even the really young kids (2 or 3) know which bowl is for what time, etc. There is a lot of eating that happens in Taiwan! The cook at the school makes really good food though and all the teachers are encouraged to eat with the students, so I get to experience different Taiwanese foods each day while at work.
There is a huge focus here not on the student directly, but what the parents want or will think. So if a student has a problem doing something in class, instead of telling the parents, we are supposed to find something good about their child to tell them instead and ignore the problem. But then on the opposite side, they recommend pinching as a form of discipline! Very strange. It is really nice that 2 of my roommates are also teaching at the same school because we can compare what we are doing and what we are told to figure things out on our own – crucial at this school because things are very disorganized.
So...there is lots more, but since things are so busy here with exploring and work (lots of preparation time involved for lesson planning and materials) I can’t even begin to list it all – also this post is so long already!
More updates to follow...