The Life of Rachel: July 2013

Or movies. Or bugs. Either one.
May was Movie May. Every weekend except the last there was a movie for Tessa and I to see in the theater. First Iron Man 3. Then Star Trek. Third was The Great Gatsby and the fourth weekend we watched Fast 6. All fabulous. I love seeing movies and you can't really beat $6.75 for a 3D movie.

Fast and the Furious 6!

We can't take a serious picture to save our lives

Maywas Operation Deep Clean My Room. I spent a lot of May (in my down time) cleaning my room because of a mold that is growing on all my things! My room is very poorly insulated, and the humidity here averages about 80% every day. When I first got here it was so cold that I didn't need air or anything. I first turned on my air at the end of April, using just a fan before that. At the beginning of May I started going through some things I hadn't touched in a while and bam, there was mold growing on a few of my things. Every day for about a week I found something with mold on it. So, I bleached my furniture and cleaned my room a little at a time.

Probably the most interesting thing we did in May was see the garden highway with out Taiwanese friend James. Eric and Rochelle met James when they were riding around Changhua on their bikes one day. He began showing us around the island. It is really cool to see things with a local because it is stuff you would never see. So he showed us the Garden Highway one day after church. It was a town where you can buy cheap flowers straight from the growers. We saw cacti, and all sorts of plants and flowers. We rode a tandem bench bike thing. It was two people in front and two in back. It was fun to ride around and stop at all the flower shops. I have a bunch of pictures from that day.

On our bike

Baby Cactus

Riding a Snail

In May nothing overly exciting happened. It started to become very very hot in May. Although luckily, the month passed by pretty quickly. I just cannot wait until the summer is over. Can I skip time until October when it is cool again? K thanks!

We had a ton of ward activities in May, almost every weekend. One week we had a singles pool party. We ate pizza. That was really fun. Another week our bishop's daughter was baptized so most of the ward went. The third week we had a ward talent show. That was fun to see people sing and do talents. After the talent show I went with Erin and Trisha, two girls from the Berhan school to the night market. Then we went to Chubby's a really good burger place in Taichung owned by an American guy. They had root beer and nacho cheese it was delicious! I also discovered Taiwanese shaved ice when it began being hot in May. They shave ice and put fruit and ice cream and sweet and condensed milk inside. They also freeze milk and shave that so its like frozen sweet and condensed milk shaved with fruit on top and its so so good!!

A Thai temple

I also started getting really weird stress dreams this month. I'm not sure why but I would wake up with the most vivid dreams but they would be so stressful that I would be so grateful that I was in my bed in Taiwan. It was so strange because normally I don't remember my dreams at all.
Oh yea! So my boss really wanted to make a new school brochure while we were there, so we had to take pictures for the brochure. We totally had an Asian photo shoot, peace signs, jazz hands and all. It was so much fun. We had a real photographer come and everything. We all enjoyed poking fun at the weird situation we were in while it was happening.

May brought many bugs with it. Twice in May did I leave church with bugs bits in the double digits. One particular Sunday my bug bite count was in the 40's. After living in Taiwan, I would take an American mosquito bite any day. The little, miny sand flies they have here are awful. I would rather a mosquito bite me, at least mosquito bites go away if you don't itch them in a couple days. These sand fly bites itch and burn for the better part of a week. They were all over my legs, so anytime I would walk, even to take the garbage out, my legs would burn. They were painful to touch after walking even to put cream on. When I teach all the girls love to put different creams on my bites for me. I sit in class literally wanting to cry sometimes because it hurts so bad. I don't understand why the bugs like me so much. I guess I'll never know.

Me and Angus

I wrote my Chinese name

That time we tried to fit 7 people in one taxi

Riding my bike Taiwanese style

This is supposed to tell your fortune

Eating Bing (Shaved Ice)

This stuff is delicious!

Jeffery is so cute!

Riding on her pegs, Taiwan style!

This is how you try on bras in Taiwan.
Morning Market!

Huge Cockroach we killed

The end of May brought with it the return of cock roaches. I mean, lets be real. They never went away. But since our house deep cleaning in January, they have slowly died off leaving baby ones or normal sized ones once or a couple times a week. Instead of the multiple ones on the walls and ceilings every time I would come home. I used to come home and check all the walls, floor and ceiling before doing anything. I think I'm going to have to start that again. One night while getting water, I was attacked by a flying cock roach in the kitchen. And the last week of May Tessa and I fought a daddy roach, probably 2 1/2 inches long in the living room. That was a fun experience. Not. Here's to hoping the next couple of months are the coldest in the history of Changhua and all the bugs die out.

The kids were happy to go to 7-11

Jimmy is adorable!

Oh April. You brought with you so much rain. Rain is an interesting thing in Taiwan. It kinda feels like your about to go on a water ride at Disneyland or in line for Jurassic Park at Universal Studios. Once the rain starts, the ponchos bust out. They are kind of a needed thing since the rain here is ACID. Apparently, the rain will disintegrate your hair and clothes, because this country doesn't believe in things like smog checks (I literally have had mouth fulls of nasty smog in my face being behind an old scooter or car) there is so much smog and pollution in the air that it makes the rain acidic. Its lovely. It is also lovely being out and then the rain pours! So you literally have to carry around shoes that can get wet, and a poncho. The first night of April is the best example. After eating dinner with a student's parents, it was raining so hard that they ran to a convenience store and bought us all ponchos so we could ride home. That was a fun ride, I think I talked about it in my last post already so I'll skip it. Once I was riding to school in the pouring rain. The light I was at turned green and as I started to go my flip flop fell off! I tried to reach it but I couldn't so I had to get off my bike and pick it up then get on my bike and start riding. Meanwhile I blocked traffic the whole time. Only in Taiwan would that happen and I wouldn't even get honked at! As bad of drivers as these people are, they don't get road rage at each other or anyone. I was so embarrassed that I blocked traffic like that but it seemed like no one really cared. Oh that is another cool thing here! The traffic lights have timers that count down until the green light. It is super awesome and convenient because then you know exactly how much time you have until you have to go. People turn off their scooters or cars when it is a long light. But people start to go at like 3 or 2 seconds before it turns green which can be kinda dangerous.

How they transport babies on scooters

Oh Ethan

Rose

The trip to Taipei at the beginning of the month was probably the most exciting part of April. April went by pretty fast. There was one weekend that was pretty interesting. So Daniel, one of my students, invited me over for dinner one Friday night. His mom said we would have pizza. It sounded good, I got dressed up a little bit to look nice for the parents. They picked me up after school on Friday. Right when I got into the car Nancy, his mom, asked me when I needed to be home. She said there was a huge parade and we were going to her mom's house to watch it and eat dinner. The pizza place was closed. She also told me that she wanted to go on a hike the next morning at 6 am and would love if I came too. I had so many mixed emotions.. I was like um 6 am on a Saturday.. OK.. I hike would be cool. I always told myself I wanted to do as much as I could here and if someone offered for me to do something I didn't want to say no. So I said ok.. but I wanted to go home and grab some clothes and shoes ( I was wearing ballet flats). She said that the parade was going to be going all night and it would take too long to go down to my house.. ok.. so I was kinda stuck. And I was in a very awkward situation.. I went with them to Daniel's grandma's house. She lived kinda in an alley way type thing where a bunch of houses lined it. In the alley there were tables and a bunch of people just eating food at these table and watching someone sing. We sat a random table with people we didn't know and shared food with them. After that dinner party shin dig we waited for the parade to come. So i'm not sure exactly what this parade was for, some goddesses birthday I think. It goes all night and walks only at night all down Taiwan from city to city. The people try to touch the float for good luck and kneel down in the street (like through themselves at the ground) so the float (which is really like some boards that people hold and walk) can go over them for good luck. It was crazy packed! Nancy took my arm and lead me in to touch it for good luck and I tried to take pictures of how many people were there. I guess a bunch of people always get hurt kneeling down so every time people went down, cops were there making everyone stand up and back away from the parade. It was insane!

The dinner before the parade

The tent over where we ate

So many people on the street!

Smoke every where!

Tried to capture the parade and people

The police trying to keep people away

Fireworks, smoke, and people!

This is THE float. I touched the redish part on the side

People were walking inside these blow up dolls

After that we went back to their house and ate some ice cream. Daniel played the piano for me, he is soo good! And then I played Taiwanese monopoly with the kids until after midnight. Oh people were also burning things on the street like incense and stuff as the parade passed and major fireworks went off at every major place. So I stunk like smoke, in my nicer clothes and slept at their house. They gave me a toothbrush and a wash cloth. But we really only slept for a few hours. We woke up at about 5 to get ready to go on the hike. The hike ended up being a safety festival thing. There were booths and games set up. But really who plans that for 9 am? It was packed. Then everyone did group stretching before going on the hike (really a medium easy walk hike) up around a mountain. There was a temple at the top. The top was beautiful. It over looked the city and it was lush and green up there. I was really glad I went, even in the over sized brand new shoes she let me borrow to walk in. (She had originally told me we would be there an hour and I could come back and sleep but..) three hours later we left the fair. We went back to their house where I grabbed my things. Nancy made delicious egg pies and fruit for breakfast. We dropped Daniel and his sister Amy off at an Art school. Nancy bought all the teachers a blueberry cheesecake and then took me home. Although I kinda felt like I was kidnapped, I was so glad I stayed and had the opportunity to do all of that. I am totally for just going and having adventures, planned and unplanned, so that experience was pretty sweet.

Group stretches!

It was so beautiful on the mountain

On the hike

The temple at the top

SO beautiful at the top

Can you see my big borrowed shoes?!

Stretching my back

Some stairs to the top so old!

Tessa, me, Rochelle, and Eric

April was mostly filled with working and the kids. This was the month I began to feel comfortable with them and comfortable teaching. They were actually starting to like me as they got over the loss of the previous teacher and got to know me. The kids are so sweet. Everyday they would bring me candy and presents. Kiki gave me felt pencils one day just because she felt like it. Mark always brings me candy and chocolate. All the kids tease him about having a crush on me because he always brings me things. One day he was last out of the classroom and as he left he handed me a paper heart. It was adorable. I really have learned to love these children. They are also so smart! They say the most random things and don't always know how to express themselves in English but they are so smart. The kids went on a rant one day about how toys made in China are bad, but they are the cheapest ones. They told me Japanese and American toys are the best toys but they are more expensive. They said Taiwanese toys are ok. I was just sitting here thinking, when I was 9 years old, I didn't care where my toys came from! I was just happy to be playing. How do they even know the difference?
The kids always love eating this fish jerky in class. It smells so gross like fish. Its just basically like dried out fish and the kids LOVE it. It looks so gross. They always try and give it to me and I'm like no thank you... They also love imitating each other and they love when I imitate them. They are like do Mark, do Jimmy. And they just crack up.
There was also one point in April where they were doing construction on a building by the school and they lifted a toilet up outside on a rope and just pulled it to the top of the building. It was pretty funny. All the kids ran out to see the flying toilet.
I also tried eating pigs feet in April.. that was something I have no desire to try again. My boss, Sherry, brought some in for us to try. It was too fatty for me.
Oh and sometimes here I feel like I am in a futuristic movie. There are tvs outside! Its kinda awesome. Every time I see one I feel like im in a movie! It is so crazy. When Taiwan was in the world baseball championship people watched it on TVs outside. It was pretty cool.

Jimmy

My afternoon class playing on break

I'm not sure if they love or hate pictures

My evening class in the park

They were having a hard time smiling

Morning SPE kids in Kitchen

April included a lot of movies and food. Tessa and I ate at Chilis once and we went to Tex Mex, a pretty good restaurant with more American style food. The last weekend in April Rochelle, Eric and I went up to Taipei again for a Saturday. I ate Macho Taco twice that day (good thing I don't live there, I would be addicted). And we went to the zoo! It was so fun. The zoo is huge and I only saw about 1/3 of it while we were there. I cannot wait to go back. Here are a few of the things we saw!