Dec I, Weeks 18 & 19: Going Coastal

Hello folks! These past couple of weeks, I spent some time visiting a couple other counties on the west coast of Taiwan. Coast, city, mountains—I did it all (briefly). I've had a relatively good couple of weeks, so I'm feeling like things are looking up a bit in Chiayi.

Monday, November 27th, wasn't particularly interesting. I taught some ICRT lessons, then spent the rest of the day lesson planning and doing errands. At the very least, my roommate and I did some poor man's Just Dance.

Tuesday was a similarly uneventful school day. Since the kids had midterms, I lesson planned, played some bananagrams with cohortmates, etc. Then, my roommate and I got flu shots and wandered Puzi together after school.

Apparently, Guogou also had midterms on Wednesday, so I didn't teach any classes. Again. As much as I appreciate the extra lesson planing time, I feel like I don't get to know the kids as well when I don't teach classes.

In the afternoon, I had volunteering at National Chiayi University (NCYU) with some cohort members, and we held a cultural sharing event. I think it went well. We compared and contrasted different Taiwanese and American holidays, and my group helped the students make tissue paper flowers.

For dinner, some of us went to a pizza place called Hand on the Pizza. Fortunately, they had cheeseless options, so I got a BBQ pork pizza, and it was pretty good. Afterwards, I played basketball with most of the cohort, and it was a good time! I definitely need to exercise more, though.

I co-taught with some American visitors the next day. We taught about breakfast, and I think the lesson went well. We played blindfold pictionary, which consisted of blindfolding and spinning some of the kids, then letting them draw a vocab word on the board, then the kids got to try some different cereals.

After school, I had dinner in the city, then some cohort members and I went to see A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. I think I liked the book and the movie for different reasons, but it wasn't bad.

On Friday, I only had morning classes. I taught the breakfast lesson again, then in the afternoon, I participated in the school's "mini-marathon" with the students. After warming up at the school, we walked to the nearby Guogou Elementary, where the different feeder schools for Guogou Junior High (plus Guogou Junior High itself) gathered for the race.

The elementary schools' and the girls' junior high division ran a 3k, and the boys' junior high division ran a 5k. I went with the junior high girls, so fortunately, I only had to run (note: walk/jog) three kilometers (1.86 miles). I hung out with some of the eighth and ninth grade girls in the back, and we walked/jogged the mile(s) together. Honestly, it felt a bit like middle school gym class all over again.

For the junior high kids who were more motivated, the first place winner for each gender division won a new bike, and the top twenty of each division won a smaller prize. One of the girls from 901 won the girls' division, and a boy from 801 won the boys' division. Yay, sports!

On Saturday, my partner (who came down to Chiayi the previous night), my roommate, and I got Vietnamese food for lunch and met a friendly kitten named Hefen (河粉, pho). He was a bit of a rascal, but certainly an adorable one.

Afterwards, the three of us drove to the Chiayi Flower Festival in the city. It was a bit tricky to get to, but I liked it! There were market stalls with a bunch of different snacks, artwork, and flowers, plus a stage with live music. My favorite part of the festival was the array of flower fields nearby, which bloomed in various shades of scarlet, gold, and white. We took photos, walked around the festival, and chatted with other cohort members as they arrived at the festival, then my partner and I drove up to Yunlin for the evening.

After an hour's worth of driving (and wishing we weren't), we went to the Douliu Night Market. It was bigger than I expected, and there were plenty of tasty things like skewers, fruit, baked goods, and more to be had. Overall, not a bad night market.

The next day, we went to Gukeng Township to try some of Yunlin's famous coffee. I'm not a particular coffee fan, but I liked the views as we drove into the misty green mountains. We went to a café owned by an older couple, and my partner had some coffee while I had mango ice cream... with Pringles in it. The ice cream wasn't bad, but I'm not sure if the Pringles were my favorite. Apparently the coffee was pretty good, though.

We went to Huashan Coffee Street (華山咖啡大街) next and checked out the different coffee bean shops and cafés, then headed to Gukeng Green Tunnel Park for a stroll. I liked wandering around with my partner a lot; it reminded me of the two of us exploring the east coast last year.

I spent Monday, December 4th, teaching my AI art lesson to the kids at Budai. The kids had fun! Some of them made sheep, dragons, squirrels, monsters, and elephants, among other things. Once school ended, I got turkey rice for dinner with my roommate, then we drove to the city to play badminton with some other cohort members. I haven't played for a while, but I missed it.

Tuesday was more AI art, and as expected, the kids liked it. After school, I explored the coastal area around Budai and Dongshi. I watched the sun glimmer over waterways and canals as I drove to Xincen (新岑) village, then I went to Zhounan Salt Fields (洲南鹽場) and learned about salt cultivation. I didn't learn much, honestly. But I did get a cool map.

I went back to Baishuihu for sunset, then drove to a seafood restaurant to have dinner. The sky along the way glowing stunning shades of orange, gold, and lilac, and I even saw a mangrove forest as I crossed the bridge to Dongshi. At the seafood restaurant, the other county cohort members and I ate all-you-can-eat oysters (which reminded me of our Mid-Autumn Festival barbecue at the fish farm). We chatted for a couple of hours, which was nice, then headed home.

I taught the breakfast lesson to my eighth graders at Guogou the next day. It went relatively well? For the next couple of weeks, I'm down an LET, but I think the classes'll be okay until then. Hopefully.

After lunch, I drove to the city for a workshop, then some of us went to a Vietnamese restaurant for a cohort member's birthday dinner. I liked seeing everyone again! We followed up dinner with another cohort basketball game, and I scored a single point (hooray!), then we went back to the Beimen apartment for a cake and some games.

Wednesday was a wonderful evening! I feel like the cohort's started to feel a bit closer lately, and I'm glad we've been having some more regular big group activities (in addition to the usual smaller ones).

My AI art lesson with my Thursday classes was a bit tricky due to technical difficulties, but they sure did happen. Argh. I horizontalized (laid down on our cozy Puzi couches) after school for a bit, then I had dinner with my language exchange partner. She brought her friend as well, whose language exchange partner was another cohort member!

We had a nice sushi dinner together and introduced ourselves, then we all played mahjong for a couple hours at the Taibao house. I'm not particularly good at it, but I'm better than I was when I tried to play at Chinese school as a kid.

On Friday, school went ok. Could've gone better. Then, I had dinner with my roommate before catching the HSR to Taichung. I met up with the Taichung ETF (who I met last year but didn't get to hang out with), then we went to the Feng Chia Night Market. I liked going; it brought back a lot of memories of going last year with the old Kinmen cohort.

I went to Rainbow Village the next day, and it was just as colorful and whimsical as I'd hoped! Sure, it was smaller than I expected, but it was incredibly charming. The Taichung ETF and I drew on some little cards we hung on a nearby wall, and I also got to meet Rainbow Grandpa (彩虹爺爺), who originally painted the entire village in an attempt to prevent it from being demolished. He's one hundred years old this year.

We went to an Indian restaurant for lunch with a couple of Taichung ETAs, then we drove into the mountains to find some hot springs. The views were gorgeous! I remember seeing the mountains of Taichung and Nantou when my partner and I scooted to Sun Moon Lake last year, and they were just as beautiful as we wove our way up the montain roads. As much as I love the low, flat coast of Chiayi, I'm always amazed by the beauty of Taiwan's mountains.

Despite some scooter incidents, the four of us made it to a famous popsicle place called Baileng Popsicles to try the pine tree flavor (五葉松). 'Tis the season, I suppose. Fortunately, the popsicles tasted less like eating a tree and more like eating something refreshingly green.

We continued our drive into the mountains without incident, passing various creeks, rivers, bridges, mountains, and valleys as we did so, until we arrived at the Guguan hot springs (谷關溫泉). Our group spent over two hours trying out the different hot spring pools and saunas at Mingzhi Hot Spring Hotel, then we went to a Hakka restaurant for dinner and went home. My shoulders and back ached from riding on the back of the other ETF's scooter for so long, but I think the hot springs helped a bit. Or at least, they did until I got back onto his scooter for another hour-long scoot.

On Sunday, I went to see one of my former Jhuo Huan LETs, who lives in Taichung. He offered me some tea (both oolong and a mix of oolong and black tea) while we chatted, and I learned about his potential plans to transform his family's tea shop. We walked around some markets and popup stores near Taichung Civic Square, then eventually wandered to another market called Shenji New Village. Although it was a little warm out, it was a lovely day out! The city was alive with families, couples, older people, and more, and I had a good time

The two of us also went to get some egg cakes from a place called Yuciren Happy Waffle, checked out some of the galleries at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, and got bubble tea from the chain that allegedly invented bubble tea: Chun Shui Tang (春水堂). The bubble tea wasn't bad; I liked that it wasn't too sweet.

One of my favorite stops in Taichung during the weekend was our final stop, which was the Risograph Museum. It was a small shop whose walls and shelves were adorned with different prints, calendars, and other goods made by risograph, which is a specific type of photocopying. I adored the different bright colors and stylish designs, especially the Lunar New Year prints for Year of the Dragon.

It's been a fun but tiring two weeks. I feel like I've been bouncing off the walls doing lots of driving, exercise, wandering, and site hopping, but I suppose variety is the spice of life. I think staying busy has helped keep me in good spirits, but I think the most important part has been being able to hang out with cohort members more.

After thinking back on my experiences both last year and this year, I think it's really been the cohort that's been the best part of it all. Hopefully, we can see each other more often now that we have semi-regular badminton and basketball.

The worst part of the past several weeks has been worrying about my Mandarin proficiency. I haven't been able to practice Mandarin as much as I'd like this year, and I still don't really understand any Taiwanese, so I've been feeling a little frustrated and a little stagnant. My biggest fear is leaving Taiwan in the next six months or so and feeling just as hopelessly lost about Mandarin as I've always felt. I'm hoping that having a language exchange partner now will help a bit, though. And I might take up Chinese lessons again, if possible. Fingers crossed!

Writer's Note I: This blog post was written on Tuesday, December 12th, 2023.

Writer's Note II: The next blog post will span three weeks, so my next post won't be uploaded until January 2024. Happy early new year!