After a couple more days relaxing and exploring the city I got my first work as a substitute English teacher in an evening school. My job was to teach two lessons, first to a class of 9 year olds, then after 11 year olds. Each class was an hour long and there were about 12 students in each class.
Being close to Chinese new year holidays, the kids had already finished their work for that term. My job was basically to baby-sit them while playing games and talking in English. Decided to take my guitar in and teach them a bit about it, play a few games and sing a song or two. I had also been told it would be a good idea to make a cross word for the kids as a fallback in case they got out of hand.
I sat in the school reception area, a staff member lined up the kids and then I marched them down the hall to the cramped class room. The lesson started okay, kids were interested in the guitar but before long I was struggling to hold their attention. Decided to have a round of the “quiet game” to buy myself sometime . Split the class into two teams and then had a competition see which team could stay quietest longest. Worked for 5 mins and the kids found it hilarious as I did my best to put them off and make them speak.
Next I decided we would sing a class song. Had been told by the regular teacher before hand that the kids had learned jingle bells recently. I wrote the words on the board and dove into the first verse. Was expecting them to sing along happily as was told they loved songs. However the first verse was met with silence and staring faces which seemed to be asking “ who the hell is this guy with his crappy xmas song”. Within seconds the kids were messing around and throwing drinks cartons at each other……
“abort, abort”….had to fall onto back up plan and whipped out the word search. This was met with rounds of applause and the class quickly got their highlighter pens out and quieted down. …(there is no music critic worse than a nine year old kid I realised, and twelve of them had just given me the thumbs down, one cheeky girl even holding her ears and making out like the sound had hurt her…hmmmm no Evstival invite for these kids )
“Phew” I thought after the calm had settled “rescued that one”. A glance at the clock though showed that we were only 20mins into the class and I had already used up all my material with 40mins remaining……shit!, .managed to wing the rest of the class by playing team games with a sticky ball and a target in shape of guitar on the blackboard, and getting the kids to draw pictures for the last 10mins…
The second class of 11 years olds went better and apart from having to stop one potential fight at the beginning managed to maintain the kids interest for the lesson. Overall teaching the kids was a good experience and good money…..you can make a decent wage teaching a 30 hour week in Taiwan and with food and rent being relatively cheap its nice to know there is work available here if needed……Anyway had a few beers that night to recover from the most responsibility I had had on my shoulders since April.
The next day was my housemate Shaun’s girlfriend Ting’s birthday party. The party was at a “Hot Spring Hotel” in the hills to the north of the city. Taiwan is a volcanic Island and is dotted with natural hot springs. In the Beitou area of the city there is a series of large hotels built around a series of springs. The party was in a private karaoke enabled dining room (see photo) and was attended by a mix of about 12 local Taiwanese and foreigners. Had an amazing Chinese meal ( definitely the best Chinese I have ever tasted but I’m sure there will be more to follow), drank the local beer and sang karaoke songs for a few hours……
After drinking enough to be merry and filling up on good quality food was time to go in the hot spring. The public pools were separated into male and female sections (as the local custom was to hot spring in the nude.) There were 4 pools of varying temperature a steam room and massage area. The first pool was about the temp of a hot tub, the second a hotter hot tub, and the third was so hot you couldn’t stay more than 3-4minutes. Jumped from the hottest pool into the cold pool, what an amazing sensation!…. could feel the benefits to my circulation and the massage jets in the largest pool sorted out a few niggles in my muscles left over from India.
After an hour in the springs went back to the party room for some more drunken karaoke, my duet with Rob on “Runaway Train” was met with jeers from the rest of the room. The perfect karaoke compliment. Ended the night in a local nightclub where the dance floor seemed to comprise of western males and the local girls they were trying to hook up with, ended up leaving around 430am and then getting lost on the walk home, eventually got back at 6am after stopping at various 7-11 convenience stores along the way to eat their moderately priced ( but devoid of nutrition) sandwiches.
Had a mild hang over next day and the 7-11 sandwiches had killed my stomach, but was a great night overall, met some cool people and got a good insight into the local culture.
A couple of days later I went on a day trip to a Taoist temple in the north of the city at Guandu. One of the coolest places I’ve ever been. The huge temple complex sat on a hill between the town and the sea. A large main temple building with a heavily ornamented tile roof was surrounded by terraces with smaller temples and gardens. I entered the complex through a long tunnel at the rear of the building that lead to the main court yard. Was blown away by some of the stone and wood carvings and the tile dragons on the roofs were incredibly intricate . ( see photos ) Spent a good couple of hours in the temple grounds, enjoying the calm and view of surrounding sea and mountains, thinking deep thoughts and feeling the warmth of the rarely seen sun on my skin….A great day, felt touched by the spirit of the east and made plans to brush up on my Chinese history in the next couple weeks.
Finished the week off with a day trip to the Ynagmingshan National Park in the mountains on the north of the Island. We set off on a scooter in great weather but by the time we hit the mountains the clouds had closed in and rain was drizzling down. The walk itself was about 2 hours over a mountain ( unfortunately no view whatsoever ) by a series of gas fumaroles ( giving the whole walk a smell of rotten eggs) to a hot spring on the other side.
Despite the weather a good walk, the landscape was scarred by volcanic activity and the bright green colorations around the sulphur vents compensated for the egg smell. Also the vents seemed to raise the surrounding temperature dramatically. The mist on the hills gave the trek and eerie but cool backdrop.
Realised after 30mins how out of shape I was, although walking a lot in India I had lost a lot of muscle weight, that combined with a week and a half of super vegetating in Taiwan had left me breathless and stiff at the end of the walk…..However that’s not a problem when there is a natural hot spring you can use for free. Absolutely the best way to finish a tough hike is to soak in a hot tub for 20mins…awesome. Got chatting to some locals while soaking, but their English wasn’t too great and the only common theme most could discuss was Baseball. Still the friendliness and politeness of the Taiwanese people always impresses me.
Ended up having to walk back to the scooter along a winding mountain road in the dark for an hour or so without being sure where we were. The fog and rain had really closed in by then, eventually made it back to the car park after one of those “this could go one of two ways “ walks. Luckily it went the good way instead of the spending a night lost on the mountain way …….A good bit of exercise and good training for two more hiking trips in the south of the island planned for the next couple weeks….
So week 2 was a success; got some work, played guitar, met some cool people, saw some cool stuff and learnt about the culture of the island while getting a bit of exercise…..more updates same time next week.
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