a list

taken from the wish jar...

1. life and people are impermanent.
2. slow down.
3. look people in the eye.
4. drink tea.
5. be kind.
6. simple things hold the secret.

Keelung beach.

the hike.

keelung beach .

me with my favorite co-teacher, David.

this was a big spider on our hike.

a little hike near Keelung.
the wonderful Shanon King for one night only.

my Tuesday drive.

Rhonda, my lovely scooter.

Dynamic Demo

Last Friday I had a parent's demonstration with my favourite class. These kids are so smart and are incredibly enthusiastic to learn English. I always look forward to my Friday nights with them.

We sang a song called '10 Little Indians' so I made them all headbands with feathers.

Betty, Lisa and Cindy. These 3 girls are the chattiest, sweetest students I have.

This is Benny from one of my older classes. He was being punished for speaking Chinese in class. He had to perform the 'model walk'. Basically, you have to strut down the center of the classroom and pose at the front. He is such a character, he pretends like he doesn't like to but I know he secretly loves doing it.

The Taipei Zoo

These are some pictures from our field trip to the Taipei zoo with my summer classes. This was the day before the big typhoon so there was tonnes of rain.

Chris and Johnathan.

My co-teacher David with a few of the kids.

Most of the day poured rain.

Don't these kids look happy?

Johnny and Johnson, identical twins that also dress alike.

Poop Art! They are obsessed with poo.

100 ideas

Katie and I are going to work through this list every time we have a spare moment and make a book of it!

http://www.kerismith.com/funstuff/100ideas.htm

Here are a few pics of me and my lovely room mate Katie:

Baishawan or White Sands Beach

On Sunday Steph, Carley, Danielle, Jon, Jimmie and I drove to a lovely little beach 2 hours away. The beach is called Baishawan or White Sands Beach, more like Brown Sands but still nice. It was a long trek by scooter but was definetly worth it in the end.

On the way we stopped in Danshui for lunch at an awesome Mexican restaurant called Eddy's Cantina. The owner is from northern British Columbia, small world!

There were life gaurds everywhere and everytime you went deep enough where the water was past your waist they would blow their whistle at you. Taiwanese are really weird about swimming. Even though the country is an island surrounded by water and most people live near the coast many people do not know how to swim. I've heard that it has something to do with their continental shelf. Most coastal areas in the world have a long continental shelf so it is safe to swim far out in the ocean. Where as, Taiwan's shelf drops off right away and creates strong rip tides. As well, this month is ghost month and the superstition is that ghosts will drown you if you go swimming. With these reasons combined I'm a little surprised none of us drowned.

some new artwork

Here are a couple of paintings I have done since I have been in Taiwan:

This is a pink bird painted on a T-shirt for Jamie (Bobo's daughter) for her birthday. I hope it fits!

This one was for my beautiful cousin Sarah:

She is a true Leo so I decided to paint her lioness alter ego.

Taiwan Stardom!

I had a totally Taiwan moment on Monday. Mike (another foreign teacher) asked me to be his pretend girlfriend for the day in a hot pot commercial! It was definetly one of the most interesting days I have experienced since being in Taiwan.

Since I forgot to bring my camera with me here is a picture of Steph and I eating hot pot when she came to visit.

All Mike and I had to do was eat hot pot and act like it was delicious (which it is not) and then cheers all of our Taiwanese friends. We did that for about 15 takes and then had a bunch of pictures taken for a newspaper ad. The Taiwanese actors spoke little or very little English so it was pretty funny trying to have pretend conversation with them while we were filming. Mike and I would say things like "mmmm this onion tastes so good". Fast forward to take 15 "mmmm this onion still tastes so good". The Taiwanese actors and director had no idea what we were saying. I am pretty sure that it didn't matter and they will probably just dub over the sound with some cheesy Taiwan music.

After eating the hot pot for 2 hours we were filmed being given a tour around the restaurant. You can put anything you want in the hot pot. Delicious items including stomach, lung, congealed pigs blood, squid balls, processed mini weiners, liver and whole squid with eyes intact. Doesn't that make you want to hop on a plane, come to Taiwan and try this exceptional local meal?

The newspaper advertisement comes out on Friday and the commercial is going to be played in movie theaters in Chungli (the town south of us) probably in the next few weeks. To sum it all up it was a fun and different way to make $50 and I hope to do it again soon.