Always an Adventure...

A Sunday night art excursion... for your enjoyment 

welllll tomorrow is my first day of teaching in the semester, and what a day it will be! It will start at 8:00 where I am leading a Studio Classroom discussion with Dr. Su and Peggy (and Hope, though her English really is quite good) during our ministry meeting. I spent some time tonight planning what I would do, including a fun little activity I thought up... I must say, there is a much bigger scope of activities you can do with intermediate speakers than beginners. If I didn't have a translator in my elementary and jr. high classes things would be much different, though I'll save that topic for my master's thesis (The role of students' native langauge in the ESL classroom: I've had many ponderings on this topic since I've been here) LOL. Anyways, tomorrow afternoon we'll be teaching at Zhuo Feng elementary, which is an aboriginal school 30-40 minutes away from here. We'll be arriving by 2:50 to have a tour and meet the staff and we teach until 4:40. Bu

Now that I've been back nearly a week (hard to believe!) I can write the final installment in my journey. In the meantime you may have noticed a few changes around here lol... i must say, the orange was a passing fancy, it never could have lasted.... i guess i'm just not ready to make a long term commitment to one color at this stage in my life... hahaha The sweet butterfly picture I stole from Jo's blog (as with the last picture)... what can I say, the girl's got style! Finally, I added a little sidebar thing in case anyone was really that curious about my current interests etc, all of the titles are links to sites about the things i'm reading, watching etc. Oh and finally.... when I changed my template, I joyously discovered that all my old comments were restored!!! I woke up this morning at approximately 4:22 to an earthquake! Which was, to date, the largest one I've felt. It actually lasted quite a while. We found out that the epicentre was in the ocean

A building on the campus of Taijong University 

One of the storefronts in Lu Gang.  

This was a really beautiful place that I want to go back to sometime! 

 

Outside the National Museum of Prehistory, Taidong 

This maze was so cool! 

This roughly traces our route around Taiwan.  

A series of bangs and pops break the midnight silence, awakening me from my slumber. Is mainland China attacking?? Ah no, it's just some person celebrating chinese new year a week late.... i wonder how much they spend on those firecrackers, there seem to be a lot.... on further investigation, i guess this is a big spirit worship night in Yuli, many of our neighbours have candles lit in the entries of their homes, are burning incense and ghost money, and of course, setting off fireworks... perhaps i shouldn't write in my current groggy (and slightly grumpy) state, i tend to get a little melodramatic. anyways, it seems like my old comments may be gone forever, leaving a little void in my heart that may never be filled again.... Anyhow... the rest of my trip had its moments but was a lot of travelling, to Taijong where we visited the Taijong Metropolitan park, and rented bikes, to join the throngs of walkers and cyclists out enjoying the holiday. I got a little sunburnt though.

Before I go back to the narrative of my holiday, I changed my comments to haloscan, but i haven't decided if i will keep them yet... sadly i discovered when i did this that i erased all my old comments... i'm not sure if they'll come back if i change the setting back. In other blog upkeeping news, I have had more than 1000 visitors now!!! That number shocks and amazes me. Anyways, overall, my first Chinese New Year was rather enjoyable. I learned to recognize a lot more Chinese phrases that are used all the time, especially " Ying wen shenme shuo " (how do you say _____ in English, which was being asked to other chinese people when those brave souls were trying to talk with me!) . In Taipei we stayed with Amy's mother and brother who were very nice. Amy's mother is a high school principal, who is retiring soon. I could definitely see the whole recripocal giving thing working with her.... I broke out the cookies (which were well received at each place) and

Welcome to Taroko Gorge. This is the famous gate that stands at the entrance of the park. I hope you will enjoy this short tour. Remember, you can click on any picture to enlarge it.

 

 

Maybe you can get an idea from this picture of how high up we were. Though it doesn't capture just how brilliant the water in this pool was. This was one of the many wondrous sights as we walked the hiking path called "9 Turn Tunnel" probably my favourite place in the gorge. It's not a continuous tunnel, and I believe it used to be the main road through the gorge.  

The tunnels ahead were lit as you can see in this somewhat blurry picture. 

Amy and Joey at the entrance of the 9 Turn Tunnel. 

 

Stone lions guarded the entrance of this bridge 

 

One of the many stops along the way.