Second TIme's Sometimes the Charm

It's not a bad deal getting every third week off.  Last week, Ryan and I had the privilege to meet up with a third friend from home, Aaron Marson, in Thailand.  Exactly three years ago to the day, I had been in Bangkok with my friends Alban and Phil.  Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of Bangkok.  And on that occasion, I was in the city for two weeks.  Phil made the experience bearable by introducing us to the delicious local street food.  He'd be happy to know that I sought out the same stands this time through.
This second time in Thailand was much better--probably because we spent only one day in Bangkok.  It was a good day, though.  We met up with some fantastic friends (Annet and Peter from The Netherlands) of friends (Matt and Alex from Walla Walla) and explored the city and had a generally enlightening experience.
Once again, though, I was relieved to get out of that city and onto the beautiful Thai island of Phuket.  Upon arrival on the island, we went to the popular tourist town of Patong.  It was neat-ish, but the atmosphere wasn't for us.  Plus, the beach wasn't super clean and some parasailing company had lain claim on any part of the beach they chose at ten seconds' notice to allow space for their landing parasailers.  If beach-goers didn't understand the Thai as well as we did, they'd get selfishly entangled in someone else's parachute that they wanted nothing to do with.  For us, it was no problem.  The Thai was a breeze, and we are all naturally athletic, so we were always able to spare full inches between ourselves and the parachute.
Fortunately, we ditched that dirty town after one night and went to the much more pleasant town of Kata just fifteen minutes south by the scooters we rented.  Aaron kindly sponsored two nights for the three of us in the Kata Beach Resort right on one of the nicest beaches I had ever seen--the waves were huge (I love letting the waves destroy me), the sand was smooth, and the rinse-off pool (I'm sure the Resort did not classify it as such) was nearby.  We enjoyed delicious mango smoothies at the pool bar and pizzas under the veranda.  Plus, we had a complimentary breakfast buffet, complete with an omelette lady and everything else that could make breakfast delicious and fill us to the point where it could suffice as the only meal of the day--if only the Pad Thai and banana/egg roti wouldn't lure us away.
On behalf of my low spending budget, the three of us moved to a nearly classless place much further inland.  And instead of relaxing for hours at the poolside and spending the first two hours of the day eating breakfast, we rode our scooters to different places including the most massive Buddha statue I have ever seen (truly put the Reclining Buddha of Bangkok to shame) at the direction of our very kind hostess from our nearly classless (she is the reason for the 'nearly,' but her ladyboy friends almost took it back away) resort.
The biggest problem with Thailand is that the people drive on the left side of the road.  It is entirely unnatural and I never got used to it.  Which side are you supposed to pass on on a four lane road?  And which lane do you turn into on a right turn?  It was a total clustercuss, but we managed safety throughout.  We all got pulled over once at a driver's license checkpoint.  Only Aaron was carrying his, and it was a 500 baht fine for Ryan and me.  I was really upset with them and thought it was too arbitrary to be a respectful way of policemen earning money (probably better than CPPD though) so I argued mine down to 300 baht--mostly just through frustrating the policeman by speaking a lot of English.
The highlight of the trip came in the middle of the week when we all went to the "James Bond Island."  It was named such because it was in a James Bond movie, obviously.  They picked us up from our resort (the classy one) at ten in the morning (really 9:45, they could have warned us that they were gonna be early) and we slowly started to pick up more passengers until the van was filled.  It took us off the island and to a small harbor where we boarded a long boat that took us on a winding journey through rivers and open sea until we got to an island made of two boats where we disembarked.  We got on a small inflatable canoe paddled by a pro who canoed us into fascinating caves with terrific views.  Really, it was borderline awe-inspiring.  Something I'd always wanted to do, but never knew how to find.  Then, we were taken to the mostly impressive James Bond Island to take pictures for twenty minutes then to another floating island (mostly a bunch of piers in the ocean) for a pretty good lunch.  This particular village is featured on a super inspiring YouTube clip that you'll wanna watch <http://youtu.be/jU4oA3kkAWU>.   Do it now, it's better than what you're reading.  Then back to shore and the resort for a total of only $30.  What a deal!
Anyway, we're back in Taiwan now.  Just about finished with another mostly fun week of teaching.
Pictures...?

Philippictures

Ryan took these:

One of the waterfalls we found.

Jenny and Michael, our hosts at Oceana Resort.

Another Waterfall, duh!

Lester and Alex, the guys who rented our motorcycles to us.

One of the fantastic views from our island.

Joey.

Joy and Ailyn.  They were great fun!

The Philippines

Ryan and I flew to The Philippines after work last week.  We are good travelers, and so we didn't go with any sort of plan.  We only had roundtrip tickets and about eight days between the flights.
Our flight south was fantastic.  It left at 1:30 in the morning, so we were exhausted boarding the plane.  As we taxied down the runway, all the power went out on the plane.  Fortunately, the pilot reassured us that no power was nothing to worry about.  So we were okay.  The flight went really well thereafter, aside from incredibly violent shuddering during takeoff and landing.
We arrived in Manila at 3:30 in the morning and left the airport at four--too late to get a hotel.  The cab driver drove us around for aa bit, then directed us to an island resort town called Puerto Galera.  At noon, we met up with our new friends, Joy and Ailyn who were heading to the same place to pick out their wedding location.  We followed them onto a boat and then they directed us to the same resort they were going to.
The following couple of days were a blast, and we got to know the two of them well.  We rented scooters and explored the area and enjoyed good beachtime and free massages.
After they left, Ryan and I rented two scooters of our own and freelanced our way around the northern part of the island. It was obviously nothing short of fun because we are fun.  We found three incredible waterfalls and swam around in the pools below them and above them.  We mostly just enjoyed exploring .
One day, as we were scootering away from a beach we had just visited, Ryan smelled something delicious coming from a nearby Obviously, we stopped to order lunch. We sat down at a table with a Korean man, Michael, and a Frenchman, Jean.  Michael, the new resort owner, told us that we could order something from off the menu, or be his guests and eat their food with them for free.  Obviously, we ate their food.  And it was delicious.  We spent the rest of the day with them and the cook/general manager, Jenny. 
I climbed halfway up a coconut tree, and then got to (weakly, out of fear for cutting off my own fingers) cut open my own coconut with a machete and drink the coconut milk.  Then we got a tour of the resort from the owner who was renovating it.  We kayaked, played ping pong and foosball, had a game of badminton and then were invited for supper.  Jenny was so nervous cooking for us, because Mchael had told her that he wanted something special for us. It was the most delicious meal that I have had in three months.  Really great.
We visited them again the next day, and had a fun time again.  Basically, our whole time on the island felt just perfect, but we ha to leave Friday morning for Manila because we wanted to go to church.
A 62 year old gentleman who volunteered at the resort ("You're a guy, I am a gay." he told us the first day we arrived) told us that he would be our tourguide for Manila free of charge. He knew about one in fifty people that we passed in Manila as well as 90% of Puerto Galera residents.  So, he gave us all the hookups, incluing 60% off our hotel price. We spent the weekend in Manila with him.   
On Sabbath, Ryan and I sought out one of the Adventist churches, and had a great time there.  We met one of the most fun families in the world there.  All of the kids sang a really nice song for us when Ryan asked if they could sing.  And then the family gave us a ride back to our hotel.
Really, a fun trip.  Want anymore details?  I'm kidding.  I've written 1/4 of a book (at least, of a book the size that I am willing to read).
Maybe when I get back to my own computer, I'll post some pictures if you want. 
Good night!

Cloud Seeding

Good evening.

The kids are headed to bed.  We have a really energetic bunch of kids this week.  

I don't have much else to say.

Mostly, I just wanted to put up these pictures.

Oh yeah!  Also, it has been raining a ton over the last several days.  In one 8 hour period, we could get as much rainfall as Walla Walla will typically get over its rainiest three months combined.  Thankfully, its referred to as acid rain.  If the kids get in it, it is guaranteed that their hair will fall out soon thereafter.  So we have to keep all of our outdoor activities indoors.  

The interesting thing about this rain, is that it is borderline artificial.  The reservoir that provides the population 8 million Taipei residents hydrated was getting low.  The rain was coming, but the government decided to step up the amount of rain that would fall from the clouds by 'seeding' them.  Basically, a plane flew above the clouds and inserted them with a chemical or something that caused ALL of the rain to fall FAST, HERE!  I think most of it would have typically flown out to the Pacific, but this kept as much of the rainfall within the country as possible.

I think.

I dunno, I'm obviously no scientist.  If you know more about cloud seeding than that, correct me.

But you don't have to.  That could be embarrassing to me.  But do it, because I kinda wanna know more about it.

Thanks.

Dressed for unicycle success.

We played Rebecca Black's Friday song for them on...Friday.

Preparing for an afternoon of football.

No big deal...

But, I'm obviously awesome.

Schoolio, Yo!

It was a good weekend. 

And now, it has been followed up by a good week.  We have students at XingFu (our school, duh!) finally!  Real, live, mostly good with a few bad, energetic fifth graders.  They're getting in bed now, hopefully as tiredly as we are.  

We checked out the final product of the campus on Sunday when we arrived for the week.  It is looking really good, but not functioning completely like it should.  The last pictures below are an example of how cool they make this place look.  The ceiling lights up at night and it feels like you are in a planetarium rather than a dormitory.  

The beds, however, are a total clustercuss! It takes about ten minutes to make one bed because somehow something easy was made complicated.  Once the bed is complete, it is much too hot to sleep in because with all the money they invested in this building they didn't manage to put in air-conditioning.  That also contributed to me sleeping only three hours Sunday night.  It is VERY warm in our room, and no matter how naked I am, it doesn't keep me cool.  Plus, I need a minimal of a sheet over my body to prevent bug bites (I got one anyway).  The school light also shines right directly straight into our room, and I struggle sleeping with merely the power light from my computer exposed.  Additionally, in order to keep any sort of coolness in our room, we must leave the windows open.  This exposes us to barking dogs, cicadas, crickets, frogs and the sound of jets flying into the neighboring airport.  We pleasanted the situation last night by adding a fan to our room which helps keep it cool and less stale while muffling the sounds of the night.

Monday morning found much of the plumbing nonfunctional and the electricity insufficient for our projectors and expensive smartboards.  Somehow they think of everything while forgetting about everything.  It was fixed by class time and the classes all went borderline smoothly along with everything else.  It is really fun teaching these kids.  Most of them are really happy and are enthusiastic to participate.  The food here is great as well.  We were concerned that we would have to go to town to get food that we could be happy with, but the caterers are doing great things for us.

Anyway, Taiwan has eighty new football players.  Some of these kids managed to be blessed with the athlete genes that I 68% lack.  The rest of them are worse off than I am.  It is fun to teach them how to throw and catch a football.

Tomorrow's Wednesday, and we'll be half done with the week when we wake up in the morning.  This is not a bad way to make money.

Made it out to Paris during my weekend off.

Finally a cafeteria full of kids!

The dorm ceilings are incredible.

This lights up when the lights are off and some black lights are turned on.

AWESOME!

Sandwiches

Obviously, we heard about Osama.  I don't want to really talk about that here, but it was funny that all yesterday evening one of our team leaders pranced around Taipei shouting, "We got him!" and "God bless America!"

Today, I've been off.  So I went into town and got a haircut.  The lady wanted to give me Asia spikes--or so she indicated with her fingers in my hair.  I told her that I wanted to leave it flat.  That cost about $11.00.  Later in the day, I went to the dentist office to get my teeth cleaned, that cost me $5.00.

I bought all the materials I needed today to make a sandwich.  It cost about $7.00.  For exactly half that, I could have gone and gotten a bigger, more delicious sandwich at the local Subway, which is nearer than the grocery store and I wouldn't have had to wait through the rough prep time.

Anyway, this was the week that our school was supposed to be opened for kids.  The new building, however, didn't pass inspection.  It looked almost ready, so I don't know what the hiccup was.  All I know is that we are expecting kids next week.  I won't be counting on it, though.

Oh, and since my computer died I took it to an Apple reseller to see if they could move stuff (especially my class PowerPoints) onto Ryan's computer from my harddrive.  No luck though.  It's all gone according to that guy.  Therefore, I've spent several hours this week remaking all my class PowerPoints.

Since last I wrote:

Went to the beach.

Went on the city's biggest ferris wheel (not quite as impressive as the London Eye, but better than Vienna's ferris wheel).

Purchased tickets to The Philippines and Thailand.

Did the Maokong gondola.

Got my new card key for the apartment (only took a month and a half).

Questions?

Baby octopus sushi.  Better than adult octopus because of a lack of big suction cups.

Not sure I like the end result, so I'm not showing it.