Week 37: Sunny Days and Taipei

I spent this week hanging out with the rest of the cohort, enjoying my new site placement for next year, and celebrating my six month anniversary with my partner in Taipei. I also got to spend more time interacting with students, whether they were from my school or other schools. It was a pretty good week!

Monday meant going back to teaching, but my classes all went smoothly. One of my sixth graders showed me a painting of a night market she was doing, which was cute. During the day, I was also handed a bag of masks and a giant box of twenty COVID tests.

After that, I got dinner with my partner, then we each got little desserts at 85 Degrees (which is a bakery/café). I got a little cake, and my partner got a cup of tiramisu, both of which were tasty.

The biggest news of the day was that I received my site placement for ETF (being an English Teaching Fellow with Fulbright Taiwan again) for next year! I'll be in Chiayi, and so will two other people from the Kinmen cohort (as well as some friends from other cohorts)!

Tuesday was a little less fun, or at least the morning was. It started raining suddenly (and intensely) just as I was about to reach FamilyMart (my beloved breakfast spot), so my jeans were soaked all the way through. I ran into another Little K ETA at FamilyMart buying a poncho, so we commiserated aout the sudden rain, then headed to our respective schools.

The weather got better throughout the day, and I liked interacting with my kids. One of them showed me his double Nike socks (which were just two different lengths of Nike socks stitched together), and another showed me his tower defense game. My second graders were particularly adorable; they drew a bunch of hearts on the board when I came in.

For dinner, I went to the Vietnamese restaurant in Jincheng (the best of the three we know of, anyway) with my partner and got fried spring rolls and bánh xèo. I'd never tried bánh xèo before, but it was pretty good! The one I got had meat and seafood cooked into it.

Since there was no workshop the next day, Wednesday was a half day for me. As usual, the kids were incredibly sweet. The kindergarteners are always excited to see me, and when I gave them high fives at the end of class today, some of them hugged me extra long. Even my sixth graders were sweet! They drew little pictures on the board and wrote that they loved me and my LET with little hearts.

After class, I got bubble tea with some other ETAs, then took a group nap with two other Hong House ETAs. Although I wasn't in the middle, there were three of us under a fuzzy blanket, and it was so warm and cozy that I think I took the best nap I've taken yet this year.

In some ways, Thursday was also a half day. I taught my morning classes, and one of my students drew with me on the chalkboard, which was very cute. Then in the afternoon, I scooted back to Big K to help chaperone a sixth grade field trip project for another school.

Jhong Jheng Elementary, the school the sixth graders were from, was enormous! I met two other ETAs, one of whom teaches at Jhong Jheng, and we ate lunch together in the teacher's lounge, then split off into our groups. I initially had four kids, but I ended up with seven. They were sweet! I liked chatting with them as we took photos and videos at different monuments and places in Jincheng. The field trip ended an hour or so later at Juguang Park, where all the kids and all the teachers got to sit, eat food, and play. It was a beautifully sunny day out.

When my partner came back from school, he handed me a large gift bag for our six month anniversary. He was so sweet; he got me a bunch of Kinmen souvenirs and had a story behind each one! I loved the wind lion pin, the wind chicken chopstick rest, and the shaved ice keychain, but I think I loved the book he got me the most. It was a beautiful hardcover book about the different beachside flora and fauna on Little K, and it came with a set of postcards too. I spent probably half an hour flipping through every single page. There were gorgeous, glossy photos of sea slugs, clams, anemones, crabs, kelp, and more, and each species had its Chinese name, scientific name, an info blurb in Chinese, and a map showing where and how frequently they appear on Little K.

The next day was our trip to Taipei (as well as the actual date of our six month anniversary)! During the school day, I taught English Village, hung out with the other ETAs, and got potato curry for lunch. Then I went to the airport with my partner and set out for Taipei. Since our hotel was in Shilin, we went to the Shilin Night Market for dinner. It brought back some wonderful memories of the first time we went as a cohort! The food was pretty good too; we got watermelon juice, pepper buns, and steak cubes cooked by a blowtorch.

Since my partner had to get his phone fixed at one of Taipei's Apple Stores, Saturday was spent right by Taipei 101. We walked around the mall attached to Taipei 101, discovered an international food expo and a Thai festival nearby, and wandered through some other areas around Xinyi. Although his phone was unfixable (but largely usable), my boyfriend at least got his airpods fixed for free.

We had a late lunch at Din Tai Fung afterwards and ate so, so much food. We had two baskets of pork xiao long bao, a basket of siu mai, veggie wontons in chili oil, fried eggplant, cold wood ear mushroom, steamed spinach greens, pork and sticky rice wrapped in a lotus leaf, and a basket of chocolate xiao long bao. Was it delicious? Absolutely. But was it expensive and were we incredibly full for the rest of the day? Absolutely.

After lunch, the two of us walked around Daan Forest park a bit and sat down on a bench. I liked just sitting, people watching, and vibing; it was soothing. I especially liked seeing all the dogs and their owners walk past! As night fell, we also got to see another Malayan night heron stalking around in the grass, which was cool.

The rest of the evening was pretty uneventful. My partner and I hung out at a Starbucks (which had a cool sky artwork with little birds), then went to a bar to meet up with a Fulbright scholar and his friends. We stayed there for a couple hours, then went back to the hotel.

On Sunday, we checked out of our hotel, then got Mexican food for lunch. It wasn't the most amazing Mexican food, but after nine months without any Mexican food, it was pretty good. After that, we got cookies, then biked to Huashan 1914 Creative Park. The park was originally a sake plant and a winery, but then got turned into a park and event venue with lots of little galleries, art shops, restaurants, and shop stalls. I liked laying on one of the benches and watching the negative space between the tree leaves glitter. We also walked around a little and saw lots of people with pets, including one person with a tortoise wearing a flower chain.

I took a nap on the flight back, then ran some errands back in Kinmen. I also got to run into two of my students and the gym teacher from Jhou Huan. I didn't even know that those two students were related. Honestly, I've spent a good chunk of the year realizing that multiple kids I don't associate with each other are siblings.

As usual, we had our weekly hotpot night, then a bunch of us hung out in Mr. Hong House 3F. There was chatting, playing bananagrams, and learning/teaching DDU-DU DDU-DU. I was exhausted from the weekend, but seeing the other ETAs and just chilling was nice.

I think the week's been going pretty well. I like being able to interact more with the kids, including drawing on the board with them, and I think they like interacting with me too! I usually give them little finger hearts in the hallways, and they usually like to give them back.

I'm also quite happy with my site placement for next year! I've heard Chiayi (especially Chiayi City and Alishan) is pretty cool, and it's not far from Tainan or Kaohsiung, both of which I'd love to visit. I'm also looking forward to exploring the rest of Taiwan more, whether it be Green Island or Miaoli County, and I hope I can explore it with people from my cohorts new and old. Until next week!

Writer's Note: This post was originally written on Thursday, May 4th, 2023.