TAIWAN TRIP PICS 2009
Saturday August 1, 2009
We’ve been in the air about 3 ½ hours and still no sign of Eric from Whitney H.S.
or Lucy from Gahr H.S. We’re all supposed to be on the same flight, so it’s probably
just a matter of time until we bump into each other. We still have 9 more hours to go
and should arrive in Taipei, Taiwan Sunday at 8:30 PM.
My options at this time are to continue to stay awake until 4:00 AM LA time or try
and catch some shut eye. However, if I get a full night’s sleep now, by the time we get to Taichung it will be 11:00 PM and time to go to bed again. Gosh this is starting to sound like the film Groundhog Day.
Sunday August 2, 2009
Only was able to get just a few hours sleep on the plane. I must confess that I have never been on a plane for 15 hours in my life. Flying economy class probably isn’t the best way to travel, but overall China Airlines offers decent service.
I’ve now met Lucy and Eric inside the airport terminal. We’ve all arrived in Taipei safely. After spending 30 minutes in line at immigration, we were finally greeted by hundreds of people holding signs up displaying various people’s names. It took a while to locate Miranda, an office assistant from Ming Dao High School. Well, actually I never did find her until I heard my name paged over the intercom. Although I’m pretty certain that I probably could have left the airport with just about anyone as there were many eager faces just hoping that I was the guy that they were suppose to pick up. Miranda was very cheerful and tried to answer all of our questions. She brought each of us a desperately needed water bottle, probably knowing that we would need some help adjusting to the warm temperature. It was 11:00 PM and 105 degrees outside with 50% humidity. Fortunately, our 2 hour ride from the airport in Taipei to Taichung was in an air-conditioned mini-bus.
Fahrenheit 451
I’ve now met Lucy and Eric inside the airport terminal. We’ve all arrived in Taipei safely. After spending 30 minutes in line at immigration, we were finally greeted by hundreds of people holding signs up displaying various people’s names. It took a while to locate Miranda, an office assistant from Ming Dao High School. Well, actually I never did find her until I heard my name paged over the intercom. Although I’m pretty certain that I probably could have left the airport with just about anyone as there were many eager faces just hoping that I was the guy that they were suppose to pick up. Miranda was very cheerful and tried to answer all of our questions. She brought each of us a desperately needed water bottle, probably knowing that we would need some help adjusting to the warm temperature. It was 11:00 PM and 105 degrees outside with 50% humidity. Fortunately, our 2 hour ride from the airport in Taipei to Taichung was in an air-conditioned mini-bus.
Fahrenheit 451
SOME LIKE IT HOT!
It’s now 1:30 am and I’m finally getting settled in my hotel room. Have to get up at 5:30 and go to work at Ming Dao High School. So while some of you in LA are just rising at 10:30 am Sunday morning, my Sunday has come and gone. The hotel accommodations are nice, but the rooms are HOT and aren’t equipped with the best air conditioning. I suppose this isn’t the fairest assessment as I am exhausted and need to get some rest. I’m a bit cranky right now and suffering from Jet Lag, but I do believe that I have already made some interesting observations.
One of the things that struck me as odd was that when we arrived at the airport in Taipei, I noticed a lot of people at the airport were wearing medical face masks. Also, there are cameras here that measure your body temperature. I think they are called Temperature Monitors and I’ve seen three of them so far. It appears that if you have a fever, anyone close by can see your image and body heat displayed on a large flat screen television. It's interesting how some people here take SARS, the Avian Flu and Swine Flu very seriously and others don't appear to have a care in the world. Not sure if the viruses are as threatening as they think, but I guess we'll find out soon enough. )
Monday August 3, 2009
I had a strange dream last night that I was visited by the Spirit of Qui-Gon Gin (Basically, Liam Neeson from SW Ep I) Getting only a few hours of sleep can really change one’s perspective. Needless to say, I slept for about 2 ½ hours. Hope they have strong coffee or tea. The hotel room has finally cooled off but I'm leaving the thermostat at 15 degrees all day so that I can come back to an icebox. I’ll take a lot of pictures today and upload them later this evening.
Tuesday August 4, 2009
Starting to feel like my old self again as I finally
was able to get a full nights sleep. Today it was
a bit cooler, only 99 degrees and overcast. Best
of all, it's raining! Hopefully, that should really
cool things down.
Thus far, the staff at Mingdao HS have
been very gracious and accommodating.
Eric, Lucy and I have just finished our second
work day here and our students seem to be
warming up to us. We're having a lot of fun
with the kids and they appear to enjoy our
teaching style. Mingdao High School is about
half the size of Cal State Long Beach and looks
more like a university than a high school. The
school has a giant electronic scrolling marquee
and today, they had our names displayed on it
in glowing red digital letters, welcoming the
American Teachers from ABC USD to their school.
Some get fifteen minutes of fame, we got 15 days
The students had a lot of fun in Eric's MUN class
today and afterward, all three of us took them into the
computer lab and let them comment on the last few
days' activities at a blog that we created.
You can read what students said about us at the following link:
http://mingdaohs.blogspot.com/
It is 5:30 here on Tuesday and I can hear thunder outside of my
hotel room on the 31st floor. I have an amazing view of the entire city
from up here but right now there are rain clouds lingering right
outside the window. Taichung is a very large city and in some ways reminds
me of Manhattan. Probably because the buildings are so close together. It's
a combination of very old and new structures. Sort of looks like a giant
version of downtown Long Beach surrounded by mountains on all sides.
Taichung from my hotel room window.
Yesterday we went into Sogo Department Store which has 19 floors.
It is a very different way to shop but we never got around to buying
anything except food. Sogo certainly didn't have a shortage of Chinese
Restaurants and other than McDonald's most restaurants served Taiwanese
dishes. In Taichung, you probably already guessed that people eat a lot of different rice and noodle dishes at every meal. I've already eaten a lot very strange things, some of which I'm not even sure what it was. I've eaten lots of vegetable dishes, including stir fried fern. If you have a small fern in your back yard, apparently you can eat it. Who knew? So far the food hasn't tasted bad and hasn't made me sick. Other than the heat, I am in pretty good health and have no complaints.
The first couple of days were a little rough, but the two other teachers, (Eric and Lucy) that I am with are really a lot of fun. We seem to work well together and make a good team.
Tomorrow we get off work early, so we are taking the high speed rail train to Tapei. By car it takes two hours but by train it only takes one. The train reaches speeds of 250 miles per. hour. It's a little expensive, $30 round trip but I figure it's probably a once in a life time thing as there are only four of these trains in the entire world.
"One for all, all for one."
Teachers United! Whitney, Gahr & Cerritos HS
instructors prepare strategic lesson plans for Mingdao students.
Ming Dao Campus
East Meets West
Class is now in session
Mingdao Staff
David Chiou
Wednesday August 5, 2009
I taught one English class today and things went really well with the 9th grade students. However, just a I was about to start working with the 8th graders in my second class, we had an unexpected visitor. The H1N1 Virus has stuck the school! A few of the students became ill after
hanging around the basement swimming pool . Without warning, a frantic looking student stumbled into my classroom to tell everyone that school had been canceled. Everyone was to wear masks to help prevent the spread of the virus. They evacuated all 8000 students that attend here. It was little crazy at times and reminded me of Stephen King's novel, "The Stand." We're all feeling fine at the moment and are sort of glad that school has been canceled so that we have more time to explore the island.
Sorry, no update today
as we have gone to Taipei.
Due to Typhoon Fever the School
is closed until Wed. August 12th
so we decided to take sabbatical leave.
I will update the blog when we return.
Thursday August 6, 2009
Taipei Day Trip
We had to come back from Taipei early because the government
evacuated all tourist from the city. Typhoon Morakot approaches.
Landfall at noon, Friday Aug. 7th. The storm is medium sized, 250
Km in radius with heavy rain and high winds up to 110 mph.Right
now it sounds like there is a freight train passing outside
of my hotel room.
Now due to Swine Flu and Typhoon the
School is indefinitely closed until Wed. August 12th.
Friday August 7, 2009
Alleged Mingdao HS Alumni Michael the bellhop
Saturday August 8, 2009
We had lunch today at a Chinese Restaurant called "Five-Dime Boathouse"
which was worth more than it's weight in gold. The restaurant is priceless.
Apparently one very artistic woman named Xie Li-xiang built this place stone
by stone all by herself. The Chinese food is like nothing that you could ever get
back in the states and was delicious. When you enter the restaurant, it's like
taking a journey with Alice down the rabbit hole. The restaurant interior resembles
a cavern and is covered with ceramic decorations. If Grandmother Willow from
Disney's Pocahontas married Treebeard the Ent from Lord of the Rings, this is where they would live.
Sunday August 9, 2009
Monday August 10, 2009
HONG KONG PHOOEY
John, Eric and Jackie Chan
Tuesday August 11, 2009
Typhoon Morakot (莫拉克颱風) did extensive damage to large areas of Taiwan over the past weekend. Here in Taichung, it rained heavily from about Thursday night (August 6) until Tuesday afternoon (August 11).
Southern Taiwan experienced over 2,500 mm of rain from the storm resulting in widespread flooding and landslides which trapped thousands of residents of Chiayi, Tainan, Kaohsiung, Pingtung, and Taitung Counties. Several barrier lakes were also formed by landslides, creating the potential for even more devastation.
Wednesday August 12, 2009
Thursday August 13, 2009
Friday August 14, 2009
Day Trip -
Baguashan Great Budha in Changhua
Saturday August 15, 2009
Day Trip -
Yin-yan Sea (Sea of two colors)
Acidic freshwater flows into weakly alkaline seawater
near the coast, which decreases the ferric ion solubility.
Yellowish iron hydroxide suspension is produced and
floats on the blue surface of the ocean, creating a unique
visual effect.
Ruins of Shisancheng (13-level) Ore Refinery
Sunday August 16, 2009
Sorry for the long delay in updates. Been extremely busy staying ahead of the H1N1 Swine Flu and Typhoon Morakot, not to mention work and
occasional sight seeing. Now that I'm back safely
in the USA, I promise to finish the blog.
