Cinco de Mayo

Don't worry! Cinco de Mayo is not celebrated (in any strange way) in Taiwan, but I couldn't think of another name for this post. Anyhow, things have been busy as usual here. I haven't been able to keep up on here, and now it's hard to condense everything from the past 2 months, but I will try.

I started Chinese classes 2 times a week and it's great to see a little progress by being able to understand some of what people say, and also talk a little. I am also learning to read and write the characters but that takes a long time since each word has a different character and they can combine to form new words! It is a difficult language, but I am determined to keep it up.

My parents also visited in mid March and we had an amazing time! We got to go to some places that I had already visited so I could be of a little help in showing them around (Jioufen, Taroko Gorge, and of course Taipei.) We also went to some new places - Green Island in the South, and we also did some driving along the Eastern coast. The scenery is absolutely spectacular in those areas, especially when it's sunny and the water is a perfect aquamarine with white waves and lush greenery.

I just signed another year contract at my same school, so I will be teaching the little kindergarteners again next year! I will have the younger class (right now I teach 4-5 year old), so I will have the 3-4 year olds - it will be fun, funny, and a huge challenge all at once.


Our semester here ends in July, so once our big end-of-the-year show finishes, I will pop onto a plane the next day and head to Thailand! I will be meeting my boyfriend there and we will travel around for 2 weeks before school starts again. It will be a really relaxing way to spend my vacation. I still feel so lucky that I'm able to go to all these places and see such amazing things! I was a little hesitant about booking tickets to fly into Bangkok because of the current situation there, but I thought that since my trip is 3 months away, something most likely will have been figured out by then. So we'll just see...