Formosa waffle stomping
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Jhong Li has definitely gotten warmer since I was gone. It's beautiful full blown spring. No more 30 minute long, boiling hot showers when I get out of bed in the mornings to warm up. A few of the students took me to a mountain top at a place called Miao Ling. It's an area outside of Taipei. It was covered with blossoming cherry trees. They trees were all flaunting their fragrant puffs of little white flowers. The whole mountain view was sweet smelling. There were areas that were dominated by huge Cyprus trees. Steps went down from the base of the trees to a floor surrounded by the embracing rootballs. These trees were huge… like twisted, outstretching Godzilla's! The Giant Sequoias are in the same family as Cyprus.
These large beautiful trees surrounded another area of blossoming cherry trees with a water fountain. The fountain was bordered by manicured hedges and a water filled moat. The effect was visually pleasing except for the ridiculous purple plastic eggplant characters at the waters edge. Kids and one dude from our group hopped the surrounding moat and had their picture taken with the dopey eyed things.
The entrance to the park had the famous flower clock. You won't guess what the clock face was made up of, never in a million bajillion years. Further up the mountain was an area designated for farming water lilies. First we had lunch at a swell spot at the edge of a flower farm. The rockstar item on the menu was waffles. Funny enough, waffles sounded perfect to all of us. We had butter waffles, chocolate sauce waffles, whipped cream waffles. How could you go wrong with that surrounded by water lilies and fog shrouded mountain peaks?
The water lily tracts were designed for tourist to walk amongst them and pick a bouquet. There was about an 8 inch stone walkway between each row of lilies. They grow in fluffy soft mud. I had a misstep and my leg went down about mid calf into the thick foamy mud. Ah, very embarrassing but at least I was wet and cold for a while. We had somebody take our picture next to the plants and as we stood up I stepped backward to avoid walking on the person kneeling in front of me and I almost went in again! I was ready to go at that point but the bus to take us back down the mountain was delayed. We waited until after the sun went down and it became pretty cold up there. When the bus did arrive and finally loaded up, the driver was trying to make up for lost time. Most of our crew was motion sick because the driver was flying downhill around the turns. We were dropped off right in front of the train station and some of the dizzy students leaned over the ditch railing for a few minutes before we went back home.
I played tennis with two of the students the next day. Also I had some work done on my teeth. The experience was much better, faster and cheaper then the United States. Even without insurance it cost about $40 to have two cavities repaired. With insurance it would have been $6. The visit didn't even require an appointment. The dentist who did the work has been practicing in Jhong Li for 20 years, his English was okay too.
I'm returning to Seattle tomorrow for a short time. Not sure exactly how long, hopefully not too long. Taiwan is good to me and I'll be itching to return ASAP. It partly depends on if I'm granted my work visa or not. Tonight was my last night as the "Free Talk" teacher in Jhong Li, I feel pretty sad. The students have been terrific. It's obvious that they really want to learn and improve their English skills so it's easy to have a blasty blast. They often tell me that our time together is so fun and with the other teachers it's boring because the teacher talks the whole time. That right there has decreased my fear of teaching my own class in the future. I will miss all of the students and staff for sure. To everyone in Sea-town, hit me up on the flipside. Later Baters!
