Asia Phase B (or C, if you please)

So, obviously I'm done with Taiwan now.  It's still a bummer, I mostly liked it there.  But, I am in Hong Kong now on my way to Shanghai.  And, if it so interests you, here is a brief synopsis (actually, it's the entirety of what I think I know) of what I'll be doing for the next year or whatevs.
The program is called a twin track program and schools students from Kindergarten to 12th grade.  Half of their time is spent learning from American teachers (me, for example) and the other half is with Chinese teachers.  Hopefully, after thirteen years of study, these students will have earned both American and Chinese diplomas with the obvious goal of getting accepted into an American university.
The school year, as it stands, is a bit longer than our own with 220 days.  I've heard rumors that we are trying to add a bit of a Christmastime vacation (contract states that we have Christmas day off--it's a Sunday).
The students are placed in dorms directly from Kindergarten (lucky kids get me etc. instead of Mom and Dad (sarcasm)).  I think I'll be teaching third graders.  What do Canadians call third graders?  Grade three-ers? Students in grade three?  My point is, why don't they just call it third grade instead of grade 3?
Also, the program costs $20,000 per year from Kindergarten.  That seems steep to me.  Especially considering that I am half of what they are paying for--bless their hearts.
Anyway, I'll be in Shanghai for the next couple of weeks with the other teachers, preparing for the next year.  Then I'll be moving down to the massive metropolis area of Guangzhou (pop. 40,000,000 which is California plus the city of Los Angeles a second time).  It is south of Shanghai exactly as far as Los Angeles is from Portland (I was just guessing that last week, and it turns out there is only a three mile difference).
Really, I am looking forward to this next year. Visit at your leisure if you think you're worth my time.

Tyson's Visit

Fourth of July came and went.  They invented fireworks here, but they won't allow us to light them.

Soon thereafter, Tyson came out for a visit.  We obviously made a party out of it.  He showed up Friday night, the ninth.  He's lucky that he works nights at home, otherwise I'd have dragged him around Taipei the next day while he was sleeping, and that would be uncomfortable for me.  We saw most of Taipei's wonders that day.  On Sunday, we went to a little town outside of Taipei called Wulai where two rivers met together.  We followed the smaller river upstream to a spot where we met with several other teachers to go swimming and jumping off the rocks.  It was mostly a good afternoon.  And I saw my first big snake--probably about six feet long.

We were going to ride up the Maokong gondola on Monday, but it was closed for maintenance when we showed up, so we settled for a tour of the zoo.  Always enlightening.  Same animals as last time.  Just on a hotter day.  And this time I actually got to see the pandas, which were way overrated.  No action.

Tyson did some research on hiking near Taipei and discovered a mountain just south of the city which would be a neat one to climb.  When we arrived at the mountain, our tour guides (a couple of dogs) greeted us and led us toward the top.  After the first five minutes, our guides lost their tempers at one another and got into a big fight.  Instead of interfering, we felt it would be best to let this one play itself out.  And sure enough, soon the smaller dog put just the right pressure on the larger one so that is fell off the bank and a long way down the trail.  It scrambled back up, and all was soon forgotten.

The trail was unique, in that it had steep rock faces that needed to be climbed to make it to the top.  Ropes were suspended in front of us as an aid to allow us safe passage up the mountain.  Somehow, the dogs would consistently sort out their way beyond the rocks for the first half of the hike.  You'd  think that after so many years of service to hikers these dogs would be in good enough shape to make the round trip, but they tuckered out early and disappeared.  Pansies.  We continued our climb to the top, which afforded better than average views and sounds.  It was a good hike, and left us pretty tired at the end.

The next day we began a three day adventure to Long Dong where Dragon Cave is located with its world-class rock climbing.  When we arrived, we met with our friend, Sandy, who had been there a few times before and guided us around and provided fun company.  The plan was to sleep out on the rocks, but it turned out to be super windy, we didn't have ground pads or blankets, and the bugs were terrible.  Instead, we rented a room for two nights--also without beds.  But we had AC, and blankets, and a nice hard wood floor to almost sleep on.

The climbing was fantastic, and we had some of the best views ever whenever we made it to the top of a route.  Tyson and I each burned ourselves really bad.  Tyson even grew blisters on his shoulder from too much sun.  But we had a great time.  And before we started climbing on Friday, we rented snorkel gear for a little under $2 for the afternoon.  We did some diving and saw pretty fish, puffer fish, massive crabs and a lot of seaweed.  Someone directed us to some cliffs eventually, and we were able to do some cliff jumping.  Really a fantastic little trip.

That weekend, we finally made it to the top of the Taipei 101 with Ryan who finally met up with us.  And on Sunday, we enjoyed a water park with several other teachers as we celebrated one of their birthdays.  And then, on Sunday night, we brought Tyson out to the school with us so that he could be introduced to what we have been doing.  He was able to perform some unicycle stunts for the students, and we did some magic shows for them during class.  That was a lot of fun, and the students all missed Tyson when he left for Portland without any warning to them on Tuesday morning.  It was nice to have him over.  Just goes to show me who my real friends (maybe just friend) are.

Last week, we met with our Taiwanese staff for a dinner to say farewell, and I was able to meet Claire's kids.  They were a ton of fun.  The boy played on my iPhone throughout his meal, making it very greasy as he stole away some of my food.  And I gave the little girl one of my french fries with some BBQ sauce, and her eyes went crazy and she will never ever touch that stuff again.  At the end of the meal, we agreed that they should come to the school on Monday.  The boy is a good little unicyclist, and it was a fun time unicycling around the campus with him while his little sister enjoyed taking pictures of us.

Last Sabbath was the last time that all the staff from the four schools had an opportunity to meet together at our school.  We had a grand afternoon, and one of the Taiwanese staff from our school, Fish, asked me if he could cut my hair like his.  I told him no.  But he asked again, so I said yes.  I look better than ever now, with shorter than ever hair.

Yesterday was my last day at the school, mostly as a support staff because there were already four teachers there and I needed to be there only for paperwork.  So everything is mostly done for me now.  Ryan and I are planning on doing a weekend trip to Kenting at the south end of the island with several of the Taiwanese staff from our school and one of the other schools.  We are really looking forward to the last bit of bonding before good-byes that will last probably the rest of our lives.  Those good-byes are the biggest downside of traveling in general.  In the future I will not meet people while I travel to avoid those painful, tearful moments.  I will shun those I come across.  See how I am continuously improving?

The view from my apartment that I will miss greatly.

The swimming hole at Wulai.

This little guy was close enough to the fence that I could reach over and touch him.

Our tour guides.

A for example of our Tuesday hike.

Climbing at Dragon Cave.

A pier at Long Dong.

Our climbing crew at lunchtime.

With Fish and Claire, and her two kids.

Snorkeling at Long Dong

Some of the fish.

Our cliffs at Long Dong.

My haircut.

Cone-ing.

Für Elise

The kids broke into song while in class today.  I didn't recognize it at first, but then I got them on video a second time and recognized it.  It's Für Elise, right?  Anyway, I got them to write out the name in Chinese.  So you can hear them sing it, and see how it is written in Chinese.

The Mostly Corresponding Pictures from that Post

The dumb parasailing company...

One of the most pleasant beaches.

Super big Buddha shown to us by Fa (the girl...).

Our Iranian friend with us in front of the James Bond Island.

Pleasant folk (Peter and Annet) to explore Bangkok with...plus delicious Pad Thai.

The long boat that we explored James Bond Island with.

One of the monkeys that I hang out with.

Ryan can fly.

The cleansing fish felt weirder than it looks.

Just canoeing through a cave, no big deal.

Our canoe was too small...

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!