Bryan's Adventures in Taiwan

An update....

2006-09-14T10:05:00.000+08:00

Wow... does anyone actually read this thing?? I've had a few visitors since my last post back in May - mainly from people stumbling across it. I hope my short time in Taiwan was of some use to those who found this site.

Well - it's the middle of September, and a lot has happened. A few days after I got home, I was hired at Paramount Canada's Wonderland. What was supposed to be a "for now while I get settled" thing turned into a rather enjoyable summer working in a good theme park. I was hired a Supervisor in the maintenance department, in charge of the waste collection, recycling, upkeep and landscaping of the "Medieval Faire" section of the park. It was a good job, a hell of a lot more enjoyable than the last time I worked at the park. The pay was good, my crew was great and I got to carry a radio. It can't get any better than that :)

Well, summer is over, and things seem like they've worked out rather well for me since I got home. I had ZERO luck getting any jobs in broadcasting over the summer, but near the end of August I lucked out. I am now a full-time Master Control operator at a major Toronto TV station. They are launching their own MCR facility after relying on other stations to do their playout - so I'm starting fresh with a team of nine guys in a brand new facillity full of brand new equipment. Nice!!

This new job of mine is located very close to where I used to live back when I was married. It seems that part of Toronto keeps re-entering my life somehow.

A good friendship has turned into a great relationship - my friend Ann and I have started dating, and things are going well in that respect. Everything, except for my attempt to learn Korean (her native tongue). Chinese was easy - but Korean, man.. that's a tough language.

I'm still living at home in Brampton, but I'm hoping to move out very soon - maybe around Christmastime or just after the new year. I plan on paying down my debts first, then we'll see what happens. My sister has moved out to go to school in Orillia, so I'm sure my parents are happy at the idea of getting the house to themselves!!

Anyhow, that is all. I had toyed with the idea of starting up another blog.. but.... bleh... what's the point? Am I that vain in thinking anyone cares about what I have to say about my life? Fuck that - go visit Hamsexy..... I've got enough on my plate keeping that pain in the ass on the air.

Thanks guys for all your support!!

http://www.hamsexy.com

Epilogue

2006-05-21T21:52:00.000+08:00

Yes, the rumours are true. I have left Taiwan for good and have returned home.

I am sorry that it took so long for me to write about it - but honestly, the trip home totally wiped me out. Jet lag is indeed a cruel mistress, and it took me a few days to recover.

Alright, that's total bullshit. Honestly, I didn't really know what to write.

But here it goes....

Things haven't been very good between me and my school's management for quite some time. I got the impression that they weren't happy with how I was teaching (or something), and their attitude towards me was indicitve of that.

I was called by my supervisor and told that, due to a police investigation, I am being transferred to another branch. But, they can't cover all of my shifts, so they have me back working at my old school once or twice a week (despite the fact I was told that being transferred was 'for my own good', since if the cops caught me working illegally, I would be instantly deported (their words, not mine). It mustn't be a very big investigation if I'm back working at my old school whenever it suited them.

Secondly, the fact that I was working illegally without my knowledge drained the last of my resepct for the school and my supervisor. Truth be told, I wouldn't have cared one way or another, but they least they could have done was TOLD me about it.

Thirdly, the move to the new school meant my already low hours were cut in half. I can't survive on five hours a week, even in Taiwan.

Fourth, The job market in Tainan was really bottoming out. Some other foriegn teacher friends of mine were getting their hours cut. My plane ticket home expired in June, and there was no way I could live AND afford a new ticket home with what I was making now.

And, finally, I'm no teacher. I love the kids and love to play with them and interact, but when it comes to teaching them - forget it. I don't have what it takes!!

So, with only a handful of trusted friends in the loop, I planned my return home. My numerous visits to the Kaohsiung Airport the last few weeks in Taiwan were arranging my ticket home. Many thanks to my mother, who spent time on the phone with Continental trying to find out how to get my ticket re-booked. Thanks to her, I was able to get it re-booked for May 16th with only a $150 US change penalty. I thought for a moment that I would have to go to Taipei or even Hong Kong to get it taken care of, but thankfully Continental has a desk in Kaohsiung Airport, so it was all taken care of.

The planning of my return rivaled most military operations. Here was my plan:

May 15th:

Work my 5pm to 6pm shift
Pick up my pay in Guei Ren
Return Rented Scooter
Meet friends for last beer
Finish packing

May 16th:

Take car to airport at 4am
Board plane at 7am
26 hours later, I'm home!!

As with most well-hatched plans, things didn't go to plan. Even though the 15th is my payday, my school in Guei Ren didn't want to pay me (a good way to end my time in Taiwan). They said to come back next week, and then tomorrow, for my pay. Needless to say I internally panicked (I think they suspected something), but lied and told them I was buying a scooter that night. I said that not only to get them to pay me, but to make them not think I was 12 hours away from boarding an airplane and heading home. Reluctantly and with much gnashing of teeth, they paid me my full amount. Whew.

I had planned on dropping my scooter off before the rental place closed, but the temptation to meet Erick for one last beer and dinner was too strong. So I met him at the Armoury and had a great time with him.

After leaving Erick, I head back to my apartment to meet with the couple who will be taking over my lease. My landlady was great, so I felt the least I could do was find her another tenant to take over for me. I got a couple in just under the gun to take the place, so another problem solved. Whew!!

So, after doing some last minute souvenier shopping, I head off to the scooter place. My plan was to leave the scooter out front, and drop the keys off in their mailbox. Uh oh. No mailbox. Nowhere to leave the keys, and I wasn't about to leave the keys in the ignition. I look across the street - there's a 24 hour scooter parking garage right next to the train station. I go over there and stumble through an explaination of what's going on in broken Chinese. I'm not sure if they guy understood or not, but I left the keys in the scooter and the rental place's business card under the mirror. Hopefully they get the scooter back in one piece...!!!

I walk home, and spend the next few hours making sure I haven't forgotten anything. After a failed attempt at taking a nap, I get all of my shit together and head downstairs. After locking the door for one last time, I lug my stuff down to the street to await my airport car, graciously arranged by my good friend Yolanda.

The car was booked for 4:30am, but it didn't show up until closer to 5:30. It unloads me at Kaohsiung airport just after dawn, and I head in to start my journey home.

My flight home was a mirror image of my flight 5 months ago. A 90 minute flight from Kaohsiung to Hong Kong, a 15 hour flight from Hong Kong to Newark, New Jersey (five hours less than my original flight to Taiwan), and another 90 minute flight from Newark to Buffalo, New York - where my parents met me to drive me home to Toronto, Canada.

It was a pretty good flight.. I was able to book a decent seat on the HKK-EWR flight (nice asile seat, not jammed into the middle of the middle row like last time). Plus, being five hours shorter, the flight was a lit more enjoyable.

But, it's good to be home. My cat remembered me (thankfully), my Motorcycle runs great and my bed is comfortable as hell. Now all I've gotta do is work on getting a job.... sigh....

Anyhow, here are some photos of my flight home.

Some airplanes at Kaohsiung Airport.

This is what I love about foreign airports - seeing airlines you don't normally see at home. A trio of Boeing 737-800s - China Airlines, Vietnam Airlines and Malaysia Air.

Waiting to board Flight 98 in Hong Kong. Hong Kong's airport, much like the rest of the city, is beautiful. I wish I had more time to visit HK - maybe next time.

Our route home. Straight over the top of world. This photo was taken about 200 miles south of the North Pole (everywhere is south of the North Pole!!!!)

Another view of our route home. Because we flew "over" the night terminator, the entire trip was in bright sunshine.

It gets a little chilly up there at 39,000 feet!

Almost home

Continental's new Boeing 777-800's are quite comfortable. This is the middle Economy class cabin. Even a man of my carriage was quite comfortable

The longest leg of my flight home behind me, all I've got to look forward to now is a quick 90 minute flight to Buffalo in this Embrarer ERJ-145. A plane so small you don't so much ride in as put on and wear. The ride home was a little uncomfortable, as we went through some nasty pockets of turbulence. Not some "oh crap my coke sloshed a little bit over the edge of my cup" turbulence, we're talking "plane falls out from under you,leaving our stomach in your throat and your head pinned against the bulkhead" turbulence. At least two people got airsick on the flight (not very pleasant considering the close quarters of the plane). This was also the first time I've ever flown with an all-female flight crew.

But, I'm home...!! This is also my last entry in this blog. I will keep it online, for those who might want to learn more about teaching English in Taiwan. Thanks to everyone from around the world who read my writings on a regular basis - I appreciate your comments, questions and words of encouragement!! Take care, everyone - and Zaijian!!

It wasn't a chicken....

2006-05-16T00:13:00.000+08:00

sotohP

2006-05-13T15:07:00.000+08:00

Hard at work. For a lot of Taiwanese students, time is wasted unless it is doing homework.

Hiding in the stairs at the Ren De school.

A fellow teacher, smiling for the camera

Some kids in the school's computer lab. SOME kids spend all their time doing homework. The other kids spend the time playing computer games

"Not Teacher Bryan and that damned camera again.."

Goofing around before class.

This adorable little girl used to be terrified of me. When I first saw her, she would stand up straight and wave her arms at me and say "No! You have no hair! I don't like you! You have no hair!" in Chinese. Her mome came over, said something to her, and she walked over and gave me a big hug. So everytime I see her she says "hello! Hello!" and gives me a hug

B&Q, a large hardware/home improvement store - exactly the same as Home Depot or Rona at home. Many of the larger stores are imported from Europe, including B&Q (UK), Carrefour (France), Tesco (UK), among others. Other popular stores are 7-Eleven (Japan) and Costco (USA).

While Taiwan has the third largest amount of 7-11s in the world (Behind the US and Japan), the population versus number of stores means that Taiwan has the largest concentrations of 7-11s per person (about 1 store to every 6000 people, compared to 1 store to every 50,000 people in the USA). The separation of 7-11s in cities here are literally hundreds of feet. There is a street here in Tainan where you can literally see four other 7-11's from the doorstep of a single 7-11 - and yes, they all do quite well!!

Wellcome, a chain of Grocery Stores.

A gas station. The Petroleum industry in Taiwan is wholly government owned by the Chinese Petroleum Company. The CPC is Taiwan's largest company, and owns everything from the oil pumping platforms, the refineries to the roadside gas stations. Taiwan consumes 100% of it's own oil, and exports oil to other countries, which means that worldwide oil prices mean nothing to the domestic price of gasoline. 94 Octane Gasoline (the lowest blend available here) is currently about $2.60 US per gallon, or $0.76 a litre Canadian.

Teaching Video

2006-05-12T11:40:00.000+08:00

I took a video of one of my classes on Wednesday. This is a typical Stage A class, playing a game identifying items relating to "Springtime".

I call the students up by numbers, and they identify photos of Spring-related items. The winner gets to roll large plush dice to determine the amount of points (stars) they get. If there is a tie, it's "Paper Scissors Stone".

Just for fun :)

It's election time!

2006-05-10T20:35:00.000+08:00

Last week, these signs started popping up along the rural townships outside of Tainan City. It seems that some sort of election campaign is underway in Tainan County. The election signs are absolutley hilarious - rather than the simple "Vote for so and so" signs at home, the candidates go all out on their signs. They present themselves with powerful yet sincere poses and slogans portraying themselves to be respectful, honourable and effective candidates. It seems that a common theme among the election posters are expensive suits and confident displays of one's clenched fist.

I took the camera with me today and rode around Ren De and Guei Ren to get some images of the election signs. I have no idea what the election is for, or when election day is. May the sexiest fist win!

Vote for "The Taiwan Buzzcut of Justice", runner up in the 2005 Mao Tse-Tung look-alike contest.

See? I'm so serious about governing, I won't even smile on my sign. I'm that serious.

Vote for me and I'll let you hear what my truck's airhorn sounds like. Honk Honk!

I don't know how well you can see it, but this guy has a enormous bruise on his forehead in his poster photo. Do you really want to vote for a candidate who can't handle himself in a fistfight?

Vote for me! I'm so easy going, I'm not wearing a suit jacket!

A vote for me is a vote for my HUGE MAGIC RING OF POWER

Vote for me and I'll show you what I'm holding in my hands!

Even more photos

2006-05-10T12:47:00.000+08:00

Since the tap water in Taiwan is undrinkable (it contains Arsenic and harmful microrganisms), you can obtain potable water either from bottles at the store, or from roadside machines. The machine water is very good and very cheap ($5 NT will fill my five litre jug (which cost $70 NT when I bought it fresh at the 7-11). If you have large containers to fill, a gas station-style nozzle is available to use on the side of the machine. Often times families will bring dozens of containers on the back of a truck to fill up. The water here is fine, however, to bathe and wash clothes in, but not to drink.

Some students from my Stage E class

Some more of my Stage E students goofing around

More goofing around

Some Stage A students flashing some gang signs. Ren De crips, reprahsent. Time to bust a cap and do the c-walk.

The Taiwanese public works mindset: "Let's see.... it's 4pm friday night, it's the only road into Taiwan's 3rd largest city from Taiwan's only freeway and it's 38 degrees celsius. Fuck, let's pave!!!"

Bunny!

Night time photos

2006-05-07T21:42:00.000+08:00

I met up with my friend Ivy tonight for a drink. I had something I had not had in a while - an ice cream float.... quite good :)

My friend Ivy

An interesting restaurant. The entire floor of the restaurant is a pool of water, you walk on wooden planks to get to your secluded booth, also built above the water. The food is expensive and VERY salty.

Some government building on the side of one of Tainan's many roundabouts (traffic circles)

A small road-side temple in downtown Tainan

Oops!! A common sport in Taiwan is overloading whatever vehicle you happen to driving, especially scooters and bikes. Often times, a road-side failure of the load is the result. Amusing when it's a shitload of cardboard. Not so amusing when it's five kids and nine bags of groceries.

I was parking my scooter in the downstairs parking area of my building when I noticed some movement out of the corner of my eye. It was a lizard friend!! I snapped a photo of him

Another shot of my lizard friend. He is a common house gecko, very common here. I used to have them scurrying around my apartment when I had a cockroach problem. Once I got rid of the roaches, the Geckos moved on. Their primary food are cockroaches.

Confucian Temple

2006-05-06T14:12:00.000+08:00

Today, me and my friend Daisy from Chiayi went to visit the Tainan Confucian Temple, located in central Tainan. It is a shrine erected to commemorate Confucius, the famous Chinese teacher and philosopher.

Many students come to the shrine to pray and wish for good luck in their studies. Daisy told me that, while she was at University, they would come to the temple as a class to ensure good results in their exams.

The Tainan Temple is the oldest and most historically significant Confucian temple in Taiwan. The temple was built in the 1600's in an effort to attract learned people and revive interest in scholastic learning.

The park outside of the shrine, on the temple grounds. Many ancient trees stand among the grounds

My friend Daisy

Temple grounds

Entrance to the inner shrine. It costs $25 NT to enter the inner part of the temple

Inner shrine

A dragon guards the inner temple

Standing inside the shrine, honoring the Master of all Teachers

A Taiwan Air Force Ching-kuo IDF (Indigenous Defense Fighter) makes a landing at the nearby Tainan Airport, after patrolling Taiwan's airspace from an invasion from China

It's a squirrel! Squirrels are novelties here, as opposed to being annoying vermin at home. Baby squirrels are even sold as pets in night markets.

A funny bird with a furry haircut.

The narrowest entrance to a pub in all of Taiwan, and quite possibly all of Asia

Daisy demonstrating how narrow the doorway is... and yes, it's quite narrow... I can barely make it through!!

New glasses and a visit to Kaohsiung

2006-05-02T16:45:00.000+08:00

Well, last week I lost my glasses. I was waiting for a bus, and I guess they must have fallen out somewhere between the time I got up to board the bus and the time I got off. It sucked because I was forced to go almost a week wearing my perscription sunglasses (I'm blind as a brick wall without them - and trying to drive at night with dark sunglasses is a chore and a half). So, last week I must give many thanks to my buddy Yolanda, who took me to an local optometrist to get new ones. Because I've got such a complicated perscription (I require a prisim in my left lens), it took a week to get my new glasses. So, finally today, I was able to pick them up. The frames are a little bit of a departure for me, they are a dark moulded plastic instead of the wireframes I normally wear (Yolanda helped me pick them, and she told me they look very 'trendy' - Seeing as she's a very attractive woman who knows a thing or two about style herself, I decided to take her word for it.) Judge for yourself - I think they look okay.

Shit - it's raining again.... I've had the same set of clothes out on the line for the past few days, trying to get dry. I would bring them in, but they take a week to dry inside, whereas they dry in a few hours in the hot tropical sunshine. I think I'll go get them in - it's coming down pretty hard, and with the horrible air here, I'd hate to think what's in the rain....)

So anyway, I got my new schedule yesterday. Predictably, I got a big reduction in my hours. I've even got tuesdays off. Of this, I'm pretty pissed off and plan to do something about it soon. More on that later.

So, seeing as though I had the day off, I decided to visit a friend in Kaohsiung. We met at the airport for some lunch, and had a good time. I had my camera, and took a few more photos. Enjoy!

Some workers at the Kaohsiung Airport, working on the new bus shelter. The airport is the terminus of Kaohsiung's new subway (currently under construction).

This guy obviously went to the "American Chopper" school of MIG welding

Working on the bus shelter

Cute woman waiting for the bus.

Tim Sacrey's favourite airline

The best and cheapest way to get across the country are on these buses. The lower part is devoted to luggage, while the passengers sit on top, in luxurious recliners with personal TV sets. Granted, it's only a 5 hour trip from one tip of Taiwan to the other, so you won't get any week-long treks on a Greyhound Bus like you would in the USA...

Kaohsiung train station - diesel locomotive shunting
passenger cars

EMU train on it's way to a platform. A,l train drivers, from commuter trains to freight train hoggers, wear neatly pressed uniforms with hats, ties and dress pants.

Diesel engine, ready to take an out-of-service passenger train home to sleep

The locomotive of the train that took me home. It was a very modern train, with wheelchair accessable cars (very rare here)

Sesame Street

2006-04-30T16:14:00.000+08:00

I got a rather interesting phone call from my supervisor early Saturday morning.

It turns out the foreign affairs police are investigating my school, and because of this, I am being permanently transferred to the branch of our school in the city of Ren De.

Apparantly, I have been (unknown to me) working ilegally at my school (The Sesame Street English school in the city of Guei Ren) - all of the paperwork submitted thusfar to the Taiwanese government says that I am working at the Ren De school, not Guei Ren. The rules regarding working illegally are rather strict here, with instant deportation, high fines and a ban from ever being able to return to Taiwan if caught working illegally, even if they aren't aware of it. So now, as of 2pm Monday, I have to say goodbye to the Guei Ren school (and all of my students) and work out of Ren De.

While Ren De is closer to my apartment than Guei Ren (I drive through Ren De on my way to Guei Ren), I'm a little pissed off at once again being lied to. Since the Ren De school is a lot smaller than Guei Ren, I seriously doubt I can maintain the amount of hours I was working at the Guei Ren school (all 40 hours a month.. eesh). The story continues, but I'm getting a little fed up. More on this bullshit as it develops.

Anyhow, speaking of Sesame Street, I've been doing a little reading on the show. Did you know that Snuffleupagus' first name is Aloysius? Freaky. Oh.. and Big Bird is a Canary.

I also found a bunch of classic Sesame Street clips on Youtube... here's one of my favourites from when I was a kid:

The Pinball number segments were all sung by The Pointer Sisters... another useless chunk of trivia for you :)

I also found the episode where they explain the death of Mr. Hooper to Big Bird... very sad. I was rather young when that happened, considering it was in 1983, but I remember it.

At my school, only a few muppets appear on our Curriculum (mainly in the early stages). Ernie, Bert, Grover, Herry Monster, Cookie Monster, Big Bird, Prarie Dawn, Rodeo Rosie, Oscar the Grouch, the Count and Betty Lou play large roles in Stage A. Other characters, such as the Amazing Mumford, Guy Smiley and the Yip-Yips appear maybe once or twice. Newer muppets, such as Elmo and Zoe never appear (our curriculum was developed long before they were popular), but appear in later-produced posters and promotional items. Tingo, a green and purple specially-produced ESL muppet, appears in all of the promotional materials (as well as a specially-produced series of Sesame English ESL videos that we never see), but nowhere else. I had to read about Tingo on a website (so I finally found out what that strange muppet's name is that is all over our school...!) I've asked many people at my school who the strange muppet was, but no one seemed to know. Go figure :)

Guns n' Freakin' Roses

2006-04-29T01:46:00.000+08:00

There has always been something about Guns n' Roses that I love. I don't know what it is, but to me they are one of the best groups of the late 80's. They were the neat transition from retarded 80's glam rock bands to a more 70's nostaglic-centered era of well-produced concert-rock. While some say that Use Your Illusion was too gimmicky, I thought that it was a good way to end a good career - considering they only produced three good albums in their long run (Appetite for Destruction and Use Your Illusion I and II - Their other two, GNR Lies and The Spaghetti Incident sucked).

My favourite video and favourite song - Sweet Child O' Mine. Everything from the 'Behind the Scenes' 8mm footage, to Izzy's windmill guitar strikes to the way Slash bangs the last note out of his guitar reeks of that late 80's cool that we all wished we had. Despite the fact this video is almost TWENTY years old, it still holds up well (it's so hard to believe that 1987 was so long ago..!!)

Anyhow... Enough waxing nostalgic about bands that were once great but are now shit (I mean, come on.. replacing Slash with BUCKETHEAD??) - here are some photos I once again pulled from my cell phone.

Vicki and Emily

Willy, Maggie and.... sigh... Thomas...

A lot of the teaching we do here is based on games - the class is always divided into two teams. This class likes to design and draw their own team logos on the whiteboard. This is "Team Candy", drawn by Vicki. How sweet and innocent....

This, on the otherhand is "Team Si Kung Long" (Death Dinosaur), drawn by Thomas. He's one sick kid (he's also the kid that, upon being given my camera to play with, immediatley ran to the bathroom to take a photo of the toilet).

A world trip of beer....

2006-04-27T22:41:00.000+08:00

The great thing about Taiwan is the great variety of Asian beer that isn't (normally) available back home. While some less-than-great American beers are sold here for ridiculous prices (Old Milwaukee, PBR, Budweiser, to name a few) there are some rather interesting Asian beers available.

While last at the supermarket, I decided to pick up a few to sample.

From left to right - Asahi from Japan (one of my favourites back home), San Miguel Cerveca from The Phillipines, Blue Ice from Hong Kong (no relation to Labatt's Blue - I am drinking it as I am typing it, it's pretty lousy), Essential Beer from Korea and Taiwan Beer from, of course, Taiwan. I was looking forward to sampling some Chinese beers, but unfortunatley they aren't available here because of the polticial situation between Taiwan and Mainland China. Because of a ban of Taiwan Beer in the People's Republic of China, the people of Taiwan took it upon themselves to not buy Chinese brands of Beer (Such as Tsingtao, another one of my favourites back home). Because of this, Taiwan Beer has an 80% market share of the Beer market here.

I haven't yet tried San Miguel - Essential Beer is alright, Taiwan Beer is great and Asahi is good too (not as good as Sapporro as Japanese beers go). Blue Ice is lousy - it's watery and has a pretty skunky aftertaste.

Noodles - the manna of the God(s)

2006-04-27T11:58:00.000+08:00

Ah, noodles. If you can't get them fresh, you gotta get them dried. Pre-packaged instant noodles are everywhere here... supermarkets have entire asiles here devoted to them. They come in a wide variety of flavours, sizes and styles. Some feature delicious displays of what's inside on the top, others feature a stern looking Chinese chef whos steely eyes reflect the centuries of cooking history that ran through his family that provided you the freeze-dried bounty that lies within.... With that in mind, I bring you a bryanpassifiume.com exclusive - the INSTANT NOODLES.

What a delicious presentation. Tender cutlets of beef, lush vegetables and springy, tender noodles. I can't wait to dig in...

Oh.... how unencouraging. A clump of noodles and two packages. Well, maybe the bounty comes in the form of the provided VEGETABLE SACKET.

Hmm.. I think I liked it better before I added the grey. But maybe the tender beef slices will appear after I add the water

Viola! The final product. Hmmm... sure doesn't look anything like the front of the package. Oh well, it still tasted pretty good, even though the
slices of beef turned out to be nothing more than glorified beef jerky. It's still a good meal for 30NT (just under a dollar Canadian).

The black man's toothpaste

2006-04-23T18:30:00.000+08:00

I did it! I found The Black Man's toothpaste! Well, sort of...

Many years ago there was a very popular brand of toothpaste in Asia called "DARKIE". It featured a minstrel-show Al Jolson-esque man in blackface, and was a very famous brand of toothpaste. In 1985, the company that produced Darkie (Hazel & Hawley) was bought by Colgate, who obviously decided to change the name and packaging. Darkie is still available, but it is now called "Darlie" and features a white guy in the top hat and tux.

Does this mean that the previous racist overtones of the toothpaste are gone? Nope. Check out the Chinese on the box. The two characters at the top (黑人) I immediatley recognized as hei ren (literally "Black Man"). The two characters on the bottom means "Super Fluroide" (超氟 - thanks to Echo for the translation of 氟). So, even though the english name of the toothpaste is "Darlie", the chinese name is still 黑人牙膏 (hei ren ya guo), which literally means "Black Man Toothpaste".

I feel like i should be listening to "Turkey in the Straw" while I brush my teeth, after drinking a mint julep on the plantation, of course. It's the toothpaste with SOUL.

Some photos from my phone

2006-04-19T22:17:00.000+08:00

I dumped some photos out of my cell phone tonight - here they are :)

The cats here in Taiwan look very different than the cats in North America. Their faces are more 'pointy'.

This cute little guy lives at the local KLG chicken stand. I watched him and his brother grow up in the months I've been here, from tiny kittens to the adolescent cat you see before you, stalking a wily street cockroach.

There are lots of creepy crawlies for the local felines to stalk and hunt... Cockroaches, lizards, monkeys, etc.

This is the little guy as a kitten two months previous.

Hot Pot - a local delicasy. Very good :)

Two students at the Ren De school

The swastika is a buddhist symbol of luck and good fortune (used centuries before Hitler adopted it as the symbol for the NSDAP). Despite what some might think, both the clockwise and counter-clockwise swastika is used here interchangibly. As a result, a lot of well-meaning buddhists who don't know any better commonly end up wearing or displaying Nazi regalia. This old woman is wearing a WW-II Schutzstaffel motorcycle helmet (complete with the eagle angled clockwise Swastika and SS insignia on the sides).

The students in this class like to design their own 'team' insignia for the class games.

Vicki goofing around

Today's lesson: setting the table

The alley outside of my apartment builing

Looking in the other direction

Got something stuck in your butt? Maybe you need to use a TOOTPICK

Some more students

Videos

2006-04-17T12:33:00.000+08:00

Things are becoming a little strange... enrollment is down, and some of my classes are being cancelled/combined. THis isn't a good thing, because it means my already low amount of hours are being reduced even more. This is going on with a lot of friends I have here, who are down to working 15...10... even 5 hour weeks. I'm looking at the situation, and hope it changes. If not, I might be going home... I'll keep you all informed.

IN the meantime, I bought myself a new 1 gig memory card for my camera, which is a marked improvement from my old 128 mb one! As a result, I can actually make videos with my camera. So, this morning I went out on my scooter and got some videos around Tainan. It isn't much, and they are a little shaky, but it's something :)

All of the videos are in Windows WMV format.

Video 1 - Taken through the famous Tainan "Toxic Tunnel". It's called this because (before they installed the blowers), one had to hold their breath while going through it - the engine fumes from the scooters tended to collect, and driving through it was literally hazardous to your health.

Video 2 - A drive through the campus of National Cheng-Kung University in Tainan.

Video 3 - A fun hidden camera thing of me buying a sandwich and soda in the local 7-11.... Gotta love the cheezy Chinese pop music :)

The wedding of 徐雅文 and 王德成

2006-04-15T16:40:00.000+08:00

My friend's Yolanda's sister recently got married, and I was asked to take photos of the reception. Here are some selected photos from the blessed event.

The Happy couple

Yolanda, Yolanda's other sister and Echo

The bride and family

Real Chinese China (Made in Taiwan)

The couple makes their entrance into the reception hall.

Some of my friends at the table thought it was amusing I was taking photos of the food, but it was quite interesting. These were lobster spring rolls - they were quite good... The hollowed-out lobster centerpiece was a nice touch.

A trio of crabs invite you to take a bite before they take a pinch

"Go ahead... take a morsel.. I dare you... I'll give you such a bite..."

During the dinner, the couple goes around and shares a toast with each table

A table of guests

Some more food. Beef ribs and some sort of breaded thing. I don't know what the breaded things were, but they were good - so I am pretty sure I don't want to know.

The dinner menu, full of scary delights

A dish made from rice, Abalone and... Sea Cucumber. I didn't eat this.

Looks like a nice, normal stew... until you look a little closer.... is that....

... OMG... It's Seahorse soup!!!

Not everyone was put off by eating Seahorses. The soup was a big hit

Papaya hamming it up for the camera

As the guests leave the reception, the couple greets them and offers gifts of candy and cigarettes

The father of the bride, looking very proud (as he should)

Group shot!

A final shot of the happy couple.

Class photos

2006-04-08T14:19:00.000+08:00

I've got nothing really to post, so I will post some photos from my classes again :)

One of my worst classes.... a stage b class full of three troublemakers that ruin it for everyone else.

Stephen, One of the three troublemakers. This kid makes my skin crawl.

One of the unfortunates in my hellish stage B class

Two students from my most terrifying stage A class - the one where parents decide to sit in... scary!

And in contrast, one of my favourite classes - a very well behaved and smart Kindergarten class

CoCo, a sweet little Kindergarten student with a hot stripper name

Frank, another Kindergarten kid with a hot Greek Deli-owner's name

Fanny, putting face to lens

I forget this kid's name, but he likes to strike a pose

Sherry, acting goofy

Fanny in a different perspective

I forget her name too

Grover, another one of my students

Two students studying before class

Teacher Belinda and Tony posing for the camera

Uh oh.. an older kids picks a fight with poor, little Doris...

Oof! Someone taught poor little Doris a few things.... this photo was taken a millisecond before she hoofed the kid in the balls. Needless to say he crumpled like a ton of bricks.

The weight

2006-04-05T02:10:00.000+08:00

Probably the biggest change I've seen in myself since arriving in Taiwan is weight loss. As you can see some the photo, my belt has gotten a lot longer in the three months I've been here. The diagram to the left shows how my belt has changed position since i've arrived.

There are a few reasons for this. With the exception of tonight (Some friends from work and I went to Willy's Second Base (a local pub run by a Canadian dude) and had my first real hamburger since arriving here.... It was almost orgasmic...), I am eating mainly local Taiwanese food. I have only had McDonalds maybe 5 times since I've arrived here - this is from eating fast food 5-6 times a week back home. As well, I am only eating maybe once or twice a day - my appetite pretty much flew out the window.

On a good note, I don't have school tomorrow (wednesday) on account it's Tomb Sweeping Day (a national holiday). Since I have no tombs to sweep, I will be sweeping the dust off of my pillow and sleeping in.

Hopefully this trend keeps up... Hopefully I'll actually start to look good by the time my year is up!!!!

Wow! Is that a *real* Kaiser chocolate bar! On the back of the package is says: "KAISER chocolate is made from such best quality. European raw material and automatic intergrated machinery imported from Europe. Because of it's excellent quality and distinctive taste, this chocolate is as good as othe well-known importing brands. Please enjoy the KAISER chocolate which is pleasing your taste the most!". This bar costs $10 NT, and tastes exactly how a thirty-cent chocolate bar should taste, imported machinery not withstanding.

Finally a brand of bottled water that shares my flippant view on life

My favourite brand of gum!! It's even approved by the Finnish Dental Council (I'm guessing all Taiwanese gum must meet their stringent guidelines). Honestly, though.. it's excellent gum. It's "Apple Mint", and tastes great. I shudder to think how they make gum taste so good without using sugar.. God knows what chemicals I am eating every time I chew it...

Anping Beach and EARTHQUAAAAKE!!

2006-04-01T19:36:00.000+08:00

Today a bunch of us met at Anping Beach to celebrate Erick's birthday. The day started off nice and sunny, but by 2pm clouds came in and covered up most of the sky.

Anping is on Taiwan's west coast on the Taiwan Strait (the side of Taiwan that faces Mainland China). Because the side of the island doesn't face the open Pacific, the water is relativley calm and nice.

The day was nice... relaxing in the warm sea air, playing in the water, playing some beach football and drinking some cheap Taiwanese beer. About 4:30PM, while I was sitting on a dune with a beer, the ground started to move. THe ground started to fucking MOVE. Everyone on the beach froze, and looked around. A few car alarms in the distance went off and the shocks on the SUV next to us started to creak. Earthquake! The sensation was quite strange, sort of like the loss of equilibrium you get when you are drunk. The ground didn't shake, but it sort of rolled like a rippling pond. When my ass went down and my feet went up, I thought... woah... The large part of the quake lasted about 15-20 seconds, and changed amplitude to a slight rumbling for about five minutes before it stopped totally. It was pretty trippy!!

Apparantly it was a pretty strong quake - according to Reuters, it measured 6.4 on the Richter Scale, and was centered east of Taitung on the east coast. Thoughts of the Boxing Day Tsunami was in our thoughts, as we were sitting about 10 feet from the Pacific Ocean when the quake hit.

Here's a link: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/TP207564.htm

Anping Beach, looking south. Over the horizon is Mainland China.

Surfing has become quite popular in Taiwan. A good mix of local and foreigners surf the waves here. Apparantly Taiwan has excellent surfing. With the wind coming off of the ocean, the surfing was pretty good today.

WHoops! Erick's roomate took to the water, and ended up accidentally showing a bunch of kids what's under her bikini bottom. Surf's up!

A local surfer

Anping Beach

Charlie doesn't surf, but the Taiwanese do.

Another surfer

Many newlyweds come to Anping beach to get photos taken. While we there I counted about eight couples getting their photos done. Unlike North American weddings where the entire bridal party gets in on the photo taking, here just the bride and groom get their shots done

Erick and his roomate

As you can see, there isn't much of a tide here. The white leavings are bits of styrofoam from the oyster jetties offshore (which float on Styrofoam billets)

Surfing in the foam

Another wedding

Cute girl surfer, trying to stay upright. She reminds me of my good friend Ann back in Canada.. if Ann surfs...

The clouds never let up as the sun set

More surfing

Heather, Steve and Carolyn

Erick and two girls from South Africa

Ocean freighter off in the distance

The gang

Frolicking in the surf

Heather and Carolyn frolicking more

Awwwwwww... How Touching....

The sun sets on the day

So yes.. I am okay... My first major Earthquake in Taiwan was quite interesting... fun, too.. Other than a collapsed wall south in Kaohsiung, there was no damage.

Please leave comments! Thats how I know if anyone reads this shit.

More photos from Kaohsiung

2006-03-31T21:29:00.000+08:00

Some large ads and stores in Kaohsiung. A lot of advertising in Taiwan feature white people

Stephen and Carolyn, two teachers from Edmonton

A street in Kaohsiung

Synagogue in downtown Kaohsiung

Zhongshan road

Erick, a fellow teacher from London, Ontario

Alice, the teacher-instructor at Sesame Street's main office in Kaohsiung

Michelle, a fellow teacher

It's smoke break time! Time to go to the roof to relax, catch some rays and admire the view 13 stories over Kaohsiung

Overhead view of a Kaoshiung intersection on Zhongshen Road. I am not sure what the markings on the road say, so it's best to just do what everyone else does when driving

Erick, Carolyn and Stephen hangin' over the ledge

Some houses and buildings in Kaohsiung. The strings of 3-4 storey buildings are common residences. Each strip is a single house, 3 to 4 stories high.

Erick conquers the mechanical room penthouse on the roof, frolicking among the cell phone transmitters.

Zhongshen road from the penthouse roof

Zhongshan Road, looking in the other direction

Erick living on the edge. Don't jump!!! Teaching English in Taiwan isn't that bad!!

Break over, back to school. The last day of training brought some heavy loads of demos. Busy busy at work

Teaching demo

I don't know.. what ARE you holding, Erick?

More demo teaching

Betel Nuts

2006-03-30T21:13:00.000+08:00

Today was my last training day in Kaohsiung! So to celebrate, I brought my camera to take a few photos.

So - while we were waiting for the bus to take us back to the Train Station in Kaohsiung, talk turned to Betel nuts. For those who don't know, Betel Nuts are a local treat, usually consumed by truck drivers and tradesmen. They are the small fruit from the Betel Palm tree, wrapped in a leaf and mixed with lime. When chewed, the betel nut gives the chewer a pretty strong buzz - it's certainly not an altered-state high like one gets with smoking weed or doing acid (one can think quite clearly while 'intoxicated', but it's a pretty short and intense head rush.

Erick was the only one of our group who had tried it, while me, Stephen and his girlfriend hadn't. So, we thought.. why not give it a try. Getting Betel Nut in Taiwan is a simple matter - as it is 100% legal there are little Betel Nut Kiosks everywhere. The Betel Nut vendors are somewhat of a unique feature in Taiwan. The booths consist of large, raised glass boxes containing a very sexy, very scantily clad "Betel Nut Beauty", who spends her day wrapping and selling Betel Nuts to the passing fare. With $50 NT in my hand, I walk across the street from the bus stop to the Betel Nut stand on the corner, and buy a bag of eight nuts from a woman with a rather large tattoo on her left arm. I walk back to the bus stop, and we see the bus pulling up. As chewing Betel Nut causes one to spit quite a bit, we decided not to dig in until we are off the bus (Betel Nut causes your spit to turn a dark orange, an I am sure the bus driver would not have appreciated us horking red all over his bus).

So we get off the bus at the train station, peel off the top of the nut, and pop it in our mouths. Within about 20 seconds of chewing this rather strange tasting mass in my mouth I get hit with this head rush that shocked even me. Even Erick (who chose not to experiment with us) noticed that my face flushed BRIGHT red. Stephen and I were really buzzing while we bought our tickets and got some lunch at the station's McDonalds (all while chewing the nut in my mouth). After about 5 minutes my head returned to normal, and I spit the residue out. Other than feeling a little pink in the cheeks for about an hour, there was no ill effects.

Will I try it again? Maybe. I've never been the kind of guy to get off on getting altered by anything (I've gotten drunk maybe 4 times in my life) - so I don't see myself being a closet Betel Nut junkie, laying on my bathroom floor with a red foam at my mouth. It was interesting, though - I guess all part of the Taiwan experience :)

Here are some photos from my journey to, and while in, Kaohsiung.

It's tough to get a parking spot at the train station in the morning, as you can see. Some dog owners tie up their pooches to their scooter while they commute to work on the train. Some dogs are friendly and lonely, but others you've got steer clear of.

A train pulls into the station.

Morning rush hour at Tainan train station

Some typical city houses, taken from the train

A street in Baoan

Rear of some track-side houses in Baoan

Baoan Railway Station

I am not sure what these little ponds are (there are lots dotting the countryside). The spinning windmills and water gurglers make me think they are fish farms.

Luhju Railway Station

A Goose farm in Lujhu. Fields and fields of geese.

Trackside Construction Site

Some apartment buildings in Gangshan

More houses in Gangshan

High Speed Railway, in the distance, under construction. They say you can make Kaohsiung to Taipei in 90 minutes once it's complete (a 600 kilometer trip)

Oil Refinery in Kaohsiung. Taiwan produces and refines 100% of it's own oil - so world gas prices mean nothing here.

Some sort of mill in Kaohsiung. Kaohsiung is an industral city, as well as an important port.

Classy apartment buildings in Kaohsiung

Finally! Arrived in Kaohsiung.

Motivational banner. Go! Go! Go!!

More photos later!

More photos from the party

2006-03-27T23:31:00.000+08:00

More photos from the party

A food table - such traditional chinese fare like cherry tomatoes and chicken mcnuggets

A couple of lovely ladies

Echo and her father

Food table

A pretty pissed off fish, in sauce.

A funny old man that tried to get me to eat his DISGUSTING pig's feet soup. Yeech

When more than 3 people in Taiwan gather, it's a federal law that a Karaoke must occur.

Time for the kids games!!

Mustering the troops for a paper-scissor-stone competition

Paper... scissor... STONE

The final show-down. The winner gets a present, the loser immolates herself on a sword.

And the night is capped off by..... more Karaoke...as per legal requirements.

Taiwanese party time!!

2006-03-25T23:07:00.000+08:00

Today (Saturday Evening) I was invited by my friend Echo's parents to a party thrown by a local Mountain Climbing association. As I was the only foreigner there, I seemed to garner a lot of attention.

The party was filled with food, food, food and more food... Most of it pretty darn good (although the pig's feet soup was pretty nasty). THe people who came to the event all brought their own food, so it was a sort of Taiwanese version of a pot-luck. Here are some photos from the event (more later)

The outside of the hall where they were holding the party

One of the games was some sort of face painting competition. These appeared to be the winners!

My friend Echo

One of the food tables

Another one of the food tables

Artsy tomatoes, as taken by Echo

It must be another game! Let's all gather around...

The object of the game was to inflate as many balloons as you can before time runs out....

Winner!

A winner

More photos later...

That's not a beer.....

2006-03-21T18:39:00.000+08:00

....Now THAT'S a beer...

TAIWAN BEER - a rather good lager, quite refreshing. It comes in two sizes: Cans and bloody huge bottles.

I've been a fan of Asian beers for a while (Sapporro from Japan and Tsingtao from China)... A friend of mine suggested trying it when I arrived, and I am glad I did.

It is a good beer with a distinctive flavour, thanks to a certain type of rice added during fermentation.

I plan to bring a few bottles home with me, but I am sad that it is not available outside of Taiwan.

Aside from Taiwan Beer, a variety of brands are available at the local 7-11, inclduing American brads (Budweiser, Miller) European (Heineken, Carlsburg, Newcastle Brown Ale), Japanese (Sapporo, Asahi)... No Canadian brands that I can see, but they might sell them at larger stores than 7-11.

Visa!

2006-03-16T20:45:00.000+08:00

So I've finally gotten my work permit! My passport has a resident visa, and I've applied for an ARC (Alien Resident Card) at the police station - I should get it next week. My school has gone to great lengths to help me - I appreciate their efforts in helping me stay in the country and continuing to teach.

Some people have been asking me how long I'll be staying in Taiwan. My plans right now are to only stay the year. Things might change -- if I find a reason to stay I certainly will, but I am (at this point) planning to leave after my year's contract is up in January 2007.

Joanna, my fellow foreign teacher in Guei Ren. She is from Australia

Emily, a student

Intersection of Dongmen Road and Changrong Road. During rush hour, most busy intersections are controlled by a traffic cop

Waiting at the intersection

A favourite place to get food.... Taiwanese BBQ!

A bank

Comments are always appreciated!!

StudentCam!

2006-03-15T16:23:00.000+08:00

As a treat for being good, I let some students in one of my classes fool around with my camera.

Taken by Emily - not a bad shot of Vicki talking to Maggie.

Thomas' mouth, taken by Willy.

Taken by Vicki - Thomas acting up

Maggie took this artsy shot of my mouth.

Little boys are the same no matter where they grow up. The instant I gave Thomas the camera, he ran off to the bathroom to take a photo of the toilet.

ANother one of Thomas' masterpieces.

Photo of Vikci, taken by me.

More later...

Dr. Feelgood

2006-03-13T20:02:00.000+08:00

Oh yeah.... I finally learned the Chinese word for "Antibiotics"... and man, within a few hours I started to feel 100% better!!

On Sunday, I started to feel like I was relapsing. I developed a pretty bad sinus headache, another sore throat and general congestion. After being sick for over five weeks and generally feeling better as time went on, I thought... oh shit.. here I go back into severe sickness again!!

I woke up this monday morning feeling like total shit. My head was pounding, my back was aching and I felt like my head had about nine pounds of snot inside it. I dragged myself to school and said "Please!! Give me some more medicine!!" This time I learned what "Antibiotics" is in Chinese, and made sure I got some from the owner's pharmacy (the owner of my school also, among his other business ventures, owns a pharmacy).

My boss Henry, whom I now call "Dr. Feelgood", got the drugs for me and delivered them forthwith. I had a Kindergarten class in Guei Ren I had to teach for 3pm (which I barely got through), and a 6pm Stage B class in Ren De. After the Kindie class I took a packet of six pills, and headed off to Ren De (about halfway between Guei Ren and home, maybe 15 minutes on the scooter).

By the time I got to the Ren De branch of the school, man oh man.. I don't know if it was the pills or some kind of psychological placebo effect, but I felt 100% better!! My cough was clearing up, my head was draining, my back no longer was killing me and my sinus headache was gone! I taught my 5pm Ren De class with relative ease, feeling better than I've felt all week.

Like I said, maybe it's psychological, or maybe these Chinese antibiotics aren't what I'm used to.. but man... other than a runny nose I feel great!!

Anyhow, some more photos from my school...

Me, the Tina and Elaine twins, and another kid who's name escapes me. Tina and Elaine love to climb on me when I sit down

My favourite class - they are smart and well behaved... a delight to teach!!

A few older students

Some students

Some more students

Me and the school manager, Tina

Money money money

2006-03-11T13:11:00.000+08:00

Like I said, one of the reasons I started this blog is to help those who might be thinking of taking the same path I did. Here's my biggest piece of advice so far - do your homework!!

The school I work for, Sesame Street in Guei Ren, is pretty good. The management is pretty good, they have a 'foreign teacher supervisor' (Henry) who is a foreigner and can help us with most problems that come up. Like most chain schools, your mileage may vary. Most are franchises, and are as only as good as the owner. Mine is good, but a problem with a lot of chain schools is training pay. I didn't start getting paid my regular salary until about 2 months after I arrived here!! This obviously caused a few problems back home - some of my bills are starting to get upset that I haven't paid them since December!! The training pay for my contract is $500 Nt PER DAY - when that's not even what I make an HOUR now!!

So - do your homework. Read contracts carefully before signing them. Don't be afraid to walk away from contracts that give you a bad feeling - there are TONS of jobs here in Taiwan, it truly is a teacher's market. And - if you can avoid it, try to stay away from Chain schools. Sure, they are easier for those who have no idea what they are doing (like me) - they have their place as they are all mostly quite trustworthy when it comes to paying on time, etc... but they tend to pay pretty low on the scale.

DO your homework, and do your research. That's all I can say!

Went to a night market last night with a friend of mine. Night Markets, aside from being an interesting place to people watch, offer great food at cheap prices. It's a good place to go with a friend for dinner.

One of my favourites - Taiwanese BBQ! Each skewer of meat costs $10NT (about 30 cents Canadian).

Ah... my dinner cooks. The big white beast to the left is an entire squid. I find squid to be a little too chewey for my tastes - I prefer the beef, chicken and pork. The green pepper is good too.

My friend Silvia, enjoying her meal

Traditional "Tribal" Taiwanese BBQ. The tribal Taiwanese (the ones that were here before the Chinese came) cook their food in this method. The bamboo is filled with sticky rice. The only seasoning used on the meat is salt.

Bakeries are quite popular here. I find the bread tastes different here - very sweet.

A display case full of delicious and ghastly food delights

Wow.. are those REAL sportman sandals?!?!

Photos

2006-03-10T19:12:00.000+08:00

Hey there... not much to say, here are some photos...

Big temple near my school in Guei Ren

Another shot of the temple

My school in Guei Ren

Street Corner in Ren De, on the way home from work.

Intersection in Ren De

The local 7-11s have just started a new Hello Kitty promotion

One of my Kindergarten classes.

Kindergarten class

Kindergarten class

Taiwanese Television

2006-03-09T00:47:00.000+08:00

Ahh... television....

My trade is television, so obviously I am quite interested in the state of Television here in Taiwan. My local cable service gives me about 100 channels to choose from - mostly Taiwanese, Chinese and Japanese channels, but there are also a few American channels as well.

Quite popular among my Taiwanese friends are the English movie channels. Up in the high 60's, one can find HBO Asia, Cinemax Asia and a few asian channels that show primarily American movies (Star, Hollywood, AXN). The AXN channel (AXN=ACTION!) also shows a few episodes of CSI every night, one of my favourite shows.

All of the English shows here are subtitled in Chinese, which is quite helpful when attempting to improve my Chinese reading.

As well as English movies, there are also many Chinese movies (which I love). The TV station I used to work at back home (OMNI.TV nee CFMT) used to show Chinese movies every weekend (you've probably seen them - the ones with the chinese and english subtitles while flipping past channel 4 back home). The chinese comedies are great films - the humour is so over-the-top and ridiculous, with hilariously blatent sexual overtones that make the whole film a great comedic experience.

What shows I do miss here (The Simpsons, Family Guy, new CSI episodes, etc.) I get through BitTorrent. Thank God for BitTorrent - I never really used to use it back home, but here it's a lifesaver when you've got favourite shows you just need to keep up on.

Here are some photos that I've taken but never published on the site (I think... If there are repeats I apologize). Now that I feel better, I'll go out and take some fresh ones.

Teacher Annie teaching a class

Teacher prep room

Friend Natasha, at the dreaded Kaohsiung training sessions

Me teaching

A strange little girl who keeps following me around at work - she speaks excellent English and likes doing cartwheels and is very friendly.

Funny safety poster posted in in most elevators I've been in.

My work permit arrived!!!

2006-03-03T20:35:00.000+08:00

Thanks to everyone who offered their support - my work permit was approved today!! After being told that there was no way it would arrive before the 9th, I was interrupted during teaching today to be told that it was approved! I am going down to Kaohsiung on Monday to get everything finalized, but thankfully everything should be okay.

Thanks to everyone who lent their support!

Here are some photos...

Henry, Susan and Tina in the front office of my school.

Typical classroom

Fellow teachers Stanley and Belinda, and some students

Me teaching

Me teaching too

More photos later.. thanks everyone!!

Bad news

2006-03-02T22:38:00.000+08:00

Well, when it rains, it pours.

We got word today that the government recieved my grades transcript.... no problem there. However, because of the delay, it looks like I won't be getting my work visa until after my visitor visa expires on March 9th.

My school's managers are working hard to try and either get my visitor visa extended or expedite my work visa, but it doesn't look all that good.

I'll keep you all informed. More news as it comes.

What I miss.....

2006-02-28T18:54:00.000+08:00

I was chatting with a friend on MSN yesterday, about her experiences living in the USA for 2 years going to school. She was saying that the biggest challenge she faces was missing all of the wonderful food back home in Taiwan. Taiwan (especially Tainan, the city I am in) is known worldwide for it's food. While the food here is good, it's certainly not what I'm used to at home.

Those who know me know that I have a rather unhealthy appreciation for Taco Bell. While there are a couple of North American fast food chains here on Taiwan, there is only one Taco Bell - in the Taipei 101 building in Taipei (and that's a long way to go for a damned taco).

I also miss good ole fashioned North American red meat. A nice, thick steak from The Keg, or an enormous greasy cheeseburger. While I have heard of such things in Taiwan, I haven't found them yet.

In Rochester, New York - my buddy Pastor Tim (who is a Paul Prudhomme-esque gourmet such as myself) were a frequent visitor of an establishment called "Cheeseburger Cheeseburger" in the Rochester/Toronto ferry terminal - where, predictibly, they offer nothing but cheeseburgers of varying sizes. Their smallest ones could choke a small calf, while their largest is enough to feed a small town. If you order it, and finish it without dying, you get your photo put on the wall. We've visited this place about five times whenever I'm in Rochester, and my first time there I was able to tame the beast and get my photo on the wall ('BIG ALL OVER' was the legend I embazoned on it when I put sharpie to polaroid, my current interest in professional wrestling being nothing compared to Tim's obsession with it). I hurt for a day, but man... what a cheeseburger. I will surely miss going once Tim moves to Alberta, but being in the heart of Canadian beef country, I am sure that him and I will find a place of similar ilk when I go out to visit him.

When I arrive home, I think that I my first stop will be the biggest, greasiest cheeseburger I can find. I've go a few places in mind, and a Canadian $10 bill in my wallet that doesn't stand a chance.

Oh - and I've heard no news about my visa yet - as today is a national holiday (Feb 28th is Peace Memorial Day), it takes a precious day away from the bureaucratic process. I'll keep you all informed.

A ray of hope....

2006-02-24T12:40:00.000+08:00

Thanks to the efforts of my always helpful and incredible mother, I think there might be a positive outcome from all of this. My mother got in touch with the Registrar's office at my college, and spoke with a woman who was a GREAT help. Instead of having to wait the usual 7 days for a transcript, my mother was able to get a copy RIGHT AWAY, and faxed it to my school last night.

So, with this in hand, hopefully my visa problems will finally be solved. Time will tell - hopefully my troubles won't end with me boarding a plane back home next week.

Oh, and a note of SEVERE congrats to my buddy Tim, who just got hired as Senior Pastor at a church in Pincher Creek, Alberta! Tim, his wife Sandy and their two sons are currently living in Rochester, New York where Tim works as Youth Pastor at Aldersgate Methodist, a position that I know wasn't suiting them very well. They'll be shipping off to Alberta at the beginning of April - best of luck Tim. Hopefully they'll have a Mary Browns' out there.

Update.. it isn't getting better...

2006-02-23T21:07:00.000+08:00

Upon talking to my boss today, it looks like that the Taiwanese government thinks that my diploma is fake. They have never heard of Mohawk College before, so they contacted the Canadian embassy in Taipei. They have never heard of it either, so that's what led to my work permit application getting rejected.

So our next course of action is to send the Taiwanese government my transcript from Mohawk...... but, herein lies the problem: My visitor visa expires March 9th. I can't get it renewed within Taiwan, I need to go on a 'visa run'... FLy to a close port (Hong Kong is the closest), find the Taiwanese consulate, and get a new visitor visa. THe only problem is: This would totally be on my dime. I pay for the flight, the cost of the new visa, staying in Hong Kong overnight..... And that's still no guarantee that they're even going to accept it. So a visa run is out of the question.

So... that's the situation. I asked my mom to phone Mohawk College in Hamilton for me, to see if they can get a rush on my transcript. Whatever happens, I CANNOT overstay my visa. If I do, I'm in big trouble and I can forget about ever returning to Taiwan. Thanks to everyone who has been contacting me, I appreciate your encouragement and your well-wishing.

I don't want to go! THe kids here are great. I have developed a bad cough, so after one of my classes today, one of my favourite students (a girl named Tina - you've seen her in videos on this blog) came up to me and said "Teacher Bryan no sick!" and gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek... See - who wants to leave that?

And with that, it all might end...

2006-02-22T18:31:00.000+08:00

So I go into work today, and get some pretty earth-shattering news. Henry, my boss, tells me that the Taiwanese version of the Ministry of Labour has rejected my application for a work visa, on the grounds that my educational credentials aren't good enough. In short, they can't confirm that the school I went to even exists, and they will not grant me a work visa.

Needless to say, this comes as a little bit of a shock. Before I even booked my ticket, I made sure that my credentials (consisting of a three year Television Broadcasting diploma from Mohawk College as well as a TEFL teaching certification) were acceptable. I faxed Steve, my recruiter in Kaohsiung, all of my documents for him to verify. He told me that my credentials met the ROC's requirements for a work permit - I never would have sold my car, put my life on hold and spent thousands of dollars to come here. So, needless to say both me and my school are a little peeved at my recruiter.

So... what happens.... Well, there are two outcomes. First, my school is succesful in convincing the powers that be of the legitimacy of my school, I get my work visa, and I can stay. Option number two: home I come. There are other options, but I certainly don't want to end up working illegally (it's getting harder and harder to, with the dodgy schools installing hidden back-exits for the illegal teachers to escape from when the school is raided by the police). There was a story last week about a Canadian teacher here in Tainan who overstayed his visa by something like two years, and ended up leading customs police on a footchase through Chiang Kai Shek Airport in Taipei after they discovered his crime. He got a hefty fine, was instantly deported, and banned from ever returning to Taiwan. He also spent some time in a Taiwanese jail, and that's no picnic from what I've been told.

So... I am having a meeting with my school management tomorrow to see what can be done. I'll keep you all up on what's happening. I certainly don't want to leave... depsite a few bouts of homesickness (and RealSickness), I really am enjoying it here and would hate to leave.

Things blowing up in my face seems to be a recurring theme in my life of late... let's hope this doesn't turn out to be the same deal....

Just a few photos

2006-02-20T20:04:00.000+08:00

Tainan Train Station

Platform at Tainan Train Station

Passenger train locomotive

A large shopping mall in Tainan

Just miscellaneous

2006-02-19T22:36:00.000+08:00

Had a good weekend.... my most full since I got here.

Saturday my friends Echo and Yolanda took me out to Yolanda's sister's restaurant for a belated birthday lunch. It was quite good, consisting of Hot Pot - a local dish. For those who don't know, it consists of a put full of broth (mine was a very good Japanese Miso Soup) filled with junk. Along with whatever is cooking in the pot is a small plate with more junk on it to toss in while you eat (mine had rolls of raw beef, mushrooms, taro cubes, noodles, cabbage and huge leaves that I'm not sure about... but tasted good). The pot is constantly heated by a small sterno burner underneath, so you're constantly cooking whatever is in it. So as you're eating, you toss more stuff in. When you're done eating whatever was in there, the stuff you tossed in should be cooked. It's quite good, and is very popular in Taiwan. Thanks to Yolanda's sister for her hospitality.

As well, it looks like I'll be seeing more of Yolanda and her sister's family. Her sister has hired me on to tutor her three kids in English. Honest to God, her three kids are named Tomato, Pineapple and Banana (all girls). While one's first reaction is to laugh, they are actually very cute names that go well with them. I guess owning a restaurant menas you're passionate about food - so it lends itself that you will want to name your kids in the same fashion.

Today I met a friend in Kaohsiung for language exchange, and had a very interesting Chinese lesson. I quite enjoy the language exchanges that I am doing - I am in contact with a woman named Vivian over MSN who send me daily files with language questions from a book she is reading. The English in her book is VERY VERY advanced, so I am having a lot of fun with her questions. If I have taken anything away from this experience so far, it's how strange and complicated the English language is. Chinese, from what I've studied so far, is a very logical and straightforward language. No plural, no tenses, etc. English, on the other hand, has a very strict set of rules that constantly contradict themselves. Anyone who is able to speak it with any sort of fluency earns my respect and admiration. Taking this language on late in life is a HUGE undertaking - one of the reasons pre-school English education is so vital. As I was discussing with my friend Natasha today, you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

Yolanda with Tomato and Banana.

Feeling 100% better

2006-02-18T10:38:00.000+08:00

Well, those who are concerned will be pleased to know that I am feeling 100% better. The salt water seemed to have done the trick, and my throat, although still healing, is now 100% pain free. I can eat and swallow again! Thanks to everyone who gave me advice.

Now... the garbage trucks....

The garbage trucks here come every day, usually in the evening. As I probably mentioned before, they announce their presence by singing. I have been able to locate the tune that the local trucks sing "The Maiden's Prayer" by Tekla Badarzewska. ONe might say "Aww... the garbage trucks sing! How cute!" However, the same song echoing through the streets and alleys untill well into the night is anything but cute. One message on a local Tainan expat message list lamented that someone in his building has started to play "The Maiden's Prayer" on their piano during the day, so now - like some sort of Clockwork Orange-esque torture, he's subjected to it in almost all of his waking hours.

Some play a pretty good recording of it, but others play a single-tone version of the chorus, which I think sounds like someone who isn't very musically inclined trying to play "Come Dancing" by The Kinks, but not being able to get the last few notes just right.

For those who want to hear what our garbage trucks like to subject us to daily, here's a MIDI file:
mpray.mid

This dog befriended me while waiting for food at the local KLG. He was very friendly and just wanted someone to pat him. Most people get their pet dogs by adpoting one of the many local, friendly strays

Chinese business ethics: work or else

2006-02-16T16:54:00.000+08:00

Wow.. calling in sick here is certainly a different matter here. Back home, one can get fired for showing up to work sick - but here, calling in sick, it seems, is unheard of. It reminds me of that 1980's Ron Howard movie GUNG HO, where the Japanese guy wasn't allowed to be with his wife while she gave birth because he was scheduled to work at the auto plant.

But seriously - I can hardly hear myself talk, much less teach a class. Henry, my supervisor, send me a text message today saying that the school management is very displeased that I called in sick today. The understanding is that I'd better show up friday... or else.....

This whole situation REALLY pissed me off... I mean, come on... What if I was contagious? Is it worth me coming to work if I make all of my kids ill? What about the fact I feel fine other than the fact I CAN'T FUCKING TALK!?!? Sorry for my language, but come on..... It makes no sense.

Anyhow.... I've taken my mother's suggestion and started to gargle with hot salt water, and I've had some good results. My uvula is still annoying me with it's dangling presence, but it doesn't hurt nearly as much as it did. The positive thing is that my food intake has gone down greatly, due to the fact it hurts to eat anything. On Tuesday I ate absolutley nothing (save some water and an attempt at some orange juice... ouch) I wasn't even hungry - those who know me know that I can safely stand to skip a meal or two. Wednesday I braved a trip to my favourite take-out restaurant (a buffet where the price seems to change according to the mood of the woman, who determines how much you pay by probing your food box with small tongs). I chose the softest and least spicy food I could find (mainly soft tofu and some green pepper). It was okay, but it still stung. Today while waiting for a train back to Tainan I got a little bolder and bought a McChicken and a chocolate sundae from the McDonalds in Kaohsiung train station. The McChicken was excruciating (I guess it was too rough) but the sundae was very soothing... until I got to the chocolte sauce (which burned like acid). That was all I ate today, as I don't really have much of an appetite. I chose the high-calorie foods not only because McDonalds is the only food source in the station that I can be reasonably sure won't contain anything too outrageous, but also to give myself a little energy from my abstonation from food for the better part of 2 days. And, the sundae was a treat for my throat.

I took a closer inspection of my throat today... it isn't nearly as red and blotchy as it was the other night - it looks a little raw and bruised (probably from the retching caused by my uvula playing around on my gag reflex... yes, the blood vessles around my eyes and forehead are all broken and I've got blood in the whites my eyes again - quite a common sight for those who have been around me after I've been puking for one reason or another - I am a rather violent barfer (as my ex wife could probably attest to, after my food poisoning escapade during my union organizing days at my old workplace). However, since I took my mother's advice and started gargling with salt water - my throat feels a lot better (doesn't really hurt when I swallow)... but I still have ZERO voice.

I just got a text message that my supervisor Henry (another foreign teacher from Germany) is coming by to drop off some medicine... It's awfully nice of him, since I heard that he got in big trouble by letting me take today off.

I hope I get better by this weekend. My friends Echo and Yolanda are taking me out to Yolanda's sister's restaurant for a birthday dinner (woo hoo!) so I hope I'm at least able to speak (or even eat) by Saturday.

My mother tells me that the power supply for my camera (which I forgot at home) will be arriving in a couple of days. By then I'll be back up and running in the photography department, and I'll be able to take some REAL photos with a REAL camera (not some crummy camera phone).

Today was about 30 degrees C - the hottest it's been since I got here. My buddy Seth sent me these sobering photos of a massive storm that gave a ton of snow to most of the East Coast of the USA. For my Taiwanese friends reading this blog, this is why Canadian foreign teachers wear shorts in January here!

Seth is located in Rockville, Maryland ... which is about 20 minutes outside of Washington, DC. While snow south of the Mason-Dixon line is not unheard of, it was 17 degrees and sunny when I was there a few years ago in early January.

Seth's pickup parked on the street, buried somewhere under the snow. Doesn't seem all that amazing until you realize it's an open-bed pickup truck - imagine the level of the snow if he had a cap on it.

Seth's backyard. BBQ anyone?

Happy Birthday! Here's a sore throat

2006-02-15T19:30:00.000+08:00

For me, a sore throat is one of the worst ailments imaginable. I have been fortunate not to suffer from anything more serious than a broken ankle, but for my limited experience with painful ailments, a sore throat ranks right up there.

A couple of days ago I started to come down with a sore throat.. no big deal - I've gotten them occasionally when I arrived, and from what I've been told it's rather common adjusting to a tropical climate and driving in a country where face-level exaust pipes on huge tri-tandem gravel trucks are common. But what started out as a scratchy throat turned into one hell of a bad sore throat. After arriving home from training in Kaohsiung, I went to my school to teach a couple of classes. The first class went off without a hitch, but halfway through the second one Teacher Bryan's voice shrivelled and died. Trying to teach english to a class of rowdy 6 year olds with no voice isn't just hard - it's impossible.

So the next day I resolve to kick this thing in the ass - I stay home from training and school. Incidentally, Feb 14th was my birthday, so I got the chance to spend the day of my birth at home alone.

So... I spend the day in a fruitless pursuit of throat health, finally travelling to the 7-11 to buy some relief. The clerk (through the help of a kid I found who spoke English) reccomended some chewy "IMPLEMENT FOR SOOTHING THE OF A THROAT" losenges... they seemed to work well, and I was able to get to sleep.

So - at about 3:30am I wake up with my throat on fire... This isn't going to do, so I toss back a few aspirin and decongestant tablets. Uh oh.. My throat's a little too swollen for the large yellow pill, because now it's FIRMLY PLANTED ON MY GAG REFLEX. After about 30 minutes of violent retching and gulping of water (which you can guess did my throat a lot of good) - I finally realize that what I am feeling at the back of my throat isn't the pill.. it's my UVULA. The thing has swollen to the side of a Mercedes (along with the rest of my now red, raw and bleeding throat), and has found a new home resting on the root of my tongue. I just made my throat a million times worse (and forced my next door neighbour to slam her window shut in digust) trying to cough up my throat grape. Nice. I tuck my uvula back down my throat and go back to sleep, praying for the tylenol to kick in.

So - despite the fact my throat is miserable, I decide I can't afford to miss any more training. Thankfully I don't have any classes to teach today, so I end up going to Kaohsiung and home by about 2:30pm. I go to the local drug store and buy some real western throat lozenges... hopefully that and my religious listerine-cocktails have helped to get rid of my damned sore throat. I have now developed a nasty cough (which I have taken as a good sign, meaning that my throat is starting to heal)... but every time I cough my Fenway Frank-sized uvula pops out onto my tonuge - which means I've got to quickly swallow it again before it makes me gag.

Fun fun fun fun fun. I've got classes tomorrow-I hope I'm at least functional by then.

Internet is back!!

2006-02-14T14:13:00.000+08:00

Well, things certainly have been interesting this past week....

Here's the story... last Thursday, there is an older woman waiting for me as I step off of the elevator in my apartment building. She spoke no english, but kept pointing the apartment upstairs, and saying "mama... mama..."

A little background before I go on - This is technically a 7 storey building, but it looks like they built a makeshift apartment on the 8th floor. The 8th floor (only accessible by a flight of stairs from the 7th, and only supposed to be housing roof access and the elevator machine room) currently has three residents: The guy who lives upstairs, a cute brown rabbit in a cage and a washing machine (which for some reason only me and the guy who lives upstairs seem to have permission to share). The washing machine (and the bunny) is located in a small locked closet that also is the only way into the single 8th floor apartment.

So.... back to the woman... she's pointing upstairs and saying "mama... mama..." so I figured that it was the mother of the "GWLU" (Guy Who Lives Upstairs). I pulled out the key to the laundry room (that leads to GWLU's apartment) and she nods. So I go to let her in... she reaches into the washing machine and pulls out a brown envelope. She thanks me and leaves. I lock the door and head into my apartment to relax.

About an hour later, while I am watching some terrible B-movie on TV about a fighter jet that can turn itself invisible, there is a knock on my door. I get up and open the door, and there are two men. They also don't speak any English, but tqhey start to point upstairs. I show them my key to the laundry room, and they nod. So I go and let them in, and they start to POUND on the guy's door. The other guy goes around to the outside part of the roof and starts to pound on the guy's windows. The first guy points to the guy's door and asks me if I know him. I shrug and say no.... I have only met the guy once. He then pulls a police mug shot of the guy out and asks me if that is the guy who lives here.. I nod, and he puts the photo away. After about 5 minutes of pounding, I go back down to my apartment, telling the guy to let me know when they are done so I can lock the door. After about an hour of pounding and trying to get in, they come down and thank me, and leave.

This was last thursday. The next day, on friday, my internet goes down. I am forced to spend the weekend in Starbucks using their internet in order to check my mail and update this blog.

So, monday night I finally decide to call my landlady. She says that she knows all about it, and that yes, the men who were pounding on the door were policemen. Apparantly the guy is a fugitive, and fled shortly before they arrived. I suspected they were cops, but they didn't have uniforms on... or wear guns or show ID as they do in North America (they were wearing sweat pants.. no place to tuck a gun in). She does not know why the internet went down (it's in her name), but she wants to take a look at the apartment and will let me know.

About 9pm last night, there is a knock on my door. It's my landlady and her sister... they were going to go check out the apartment, but they were scared and wanted me to come with them (grin). So We trudge upstairs and find the guy's door unlocked. So we push in and turn on the lights... it looks like the apartment was in the midst of being packed up when the guy fled. There were a few packed boxes around, and hangared clothes were laying on the bed. We found the guy's computer, powered off but still connected to the ADSL modem. It seems that, for some reason, the power supply for the wireless router wasn't working. So I just replaced the CAT5 running down the side of the building into my apartment directly into the ADSL modem, and everything is working fine.

Why the police were after him is a litte vague, but we found a few boxes of some rather 'interesting' items I really don't want to get into right now that might have had something to do with it....

The guy seems to have bugged out with little warning, but the landladies are going to wait and see if he shows (and pays next month's rent) before they start cleaning his place out. I'll keep you up on what's going on.

But, I'm back on the internet.. so I guess that's what's important...

And I was JOKING about paypalling me money, guys!! Come on... would I really be begging for money?? Yeesh! Thanks for your thoughts, though.

A little visitor...

2006-02-12T16:25:00.000+08:00

A common house Gecko... this little friend helped solve my cockroach problem.

Internet down AGAIN

2006-02-12T15:30:00.000+08:00

THe internet situation in my life is getting to be an enormous pain in the ass.

As I am seriously short of cash and things to do, I rely on the internet to enterain me on the weekends. Unfortunatley, my internet has gone down yet again. If you remember me mentioning earlier, I made an arrangement with the guy upstairs (on behalf of my landlady) to use his internet access, in exchange for half-payment of his bills. Unfortunatley, as relying on others usually brings about, the connection goes up and down. I haven't seen or heard him in many days, and I have seemingly lost connection to the internet (both through his wireless router and the convenient CAT-5 that dangles from his window above mine). So I am forced to retreat to the local Starbucks next to the University to access the internet (of which I pay $500 NT a month ($20 Canadian) for the honor). I have grown rather fond of Caramel Frappuchinos - interesting because I have only been to a Starbucks back home a grand total of twice (and both times buying bottled water).

I would like very much to get my own internet access, but I don't have the money or the work permit (and you need both to do it). Money has become a rather interesting subject of late. Used to the bi-weekly paycheques that is the standard in North America, the notion of MONTHLY paydays is taking a little of getting used to. TO top it off, because of Chinese New Year ( a week long unpaid holiday) and my training pay ($550 NT per DAY instead of the usuall $600 per HOUR I'll be getting for real work), I won't get a real paycheque until mid-march. All I am getting in my february pay is $8000 Nt or so. Just enough to cover my rent, and then only a couple of thousand to live on for a month (about $80 Canadian). The cost of living here is low enough that I'd be fine, but having to pay about $200 per day to go into Kaohsiung every day for training will drain me. I'm hoping I can weasle an advance out of my employers. I brought up the subject before and they just tacked on an extra $2000 onto my pay (which meant I had enough for rent). Anyone who wants to contribute to the "Let Bryan Eat" fund can Paypal money to bryanpass@rogers.com.... For donations over $100 we'll send you this "Best of Jim Croce" box set, a channel 13 bar towel and this adorable stuffed Elmo doll... Operators are standing by....

Whoever said all you needed here was $200 and a suitcase can fuck right off!

My Train into Kaohsiung

Down a quart?

2006-02-09T22:43:00.000+08:00

Good evening Mr. and Mrs. North America and all the ships at sea... let's go to press.....

After almost a month of eating Taiwanese food (veggies, tofu, chicken) I felt the craving for some fried chicken. While I was considering KFC, I decided to try the local KLG....

Now.. KLG is something of a local joke. It's a fried chicken franchise who's business plan seems to consist entirely of ways to rip off KFC. The chicken is supposed to be good and cheap. Since I'm trying to save some cash, I decide to check it out (a bucket of chicken usually lasts me a few days).

KLG's look is VERY much modern KFC. The same colours, fonts, etc. - and their mascot is a chubby chicken with glasses and a Kentucky bolo tie.... Colonel Sanders pet chicken, maybe?

$200 NT (about $6) gets you 10 pieces of chicken and an order of French Fries. Not a bad deal.

So... how was the chicken? It certainly isn't KFC or even Mary Brown's - but it was pretty good. It was pretty greasy and the piece selection consisted of mostly legs and wings (the wings were good, but the legs.. ehh.. I don't liek dark meat). It came with exactly one packet of ketchup (urgh), about 20 packets of salt and a couple of packets of "hot spice"... which was actually pure Cayenne pepper powder (which I found out after I liberally sprinkled on my wing... catch the taste!)

So my verdict on KLG Chicken.... it was certainly not KFC, but it was good. I could only eat three pieces before my grease-o-meter topped out and I put the rest in the fridge (for later!)

So - I ended up passing my demo! So now I am offically employed by Sesame Street English school. Unlike other schools who just seem to hire anything white that walks into the door, Sesame Street has a very rigorous training program for it's new teachers. So, for the next few weeks I'm taking the train south to Kaohsiung to attend training.

The transit system in Taiwan, for what I've seen, is very cheap and efficient. A one-way ticket from Tainan to Kaohsiung (about 100 kilometers or so) is $107 NT ($4 Canadian) ($60 NT on the slow cheap train). There are two trains, a fast express train (with nice seats and comfortable trains) and a slow local train (with uncomfortable seats and less ventilation). The express bypasses all of the stations between Tainan and Kaohsiung, while the local train stops at all stops. There is a high speed rail link currently under construction - offering fast electric trains on a cool raised concrete right of way.

The railways here in Taiwan are a mix of electric (fed by a 600V overhead pantograph) and various diesel locomotives. I don't know the track gauge, but it's a lot narrower than North American railways.

The bus network in Kaohsiung is wild. The crazy driving culture in Taiwan is certainly not lost on it's bus drivers. If you can't find a seat, the rule is "hang the hell on!" Weaving, bouncing and frequently bottoming out it's springy shocks on bumps, standing on a bus is a ride worth far more than the meager $12 NT fare.

I have more photos, but Blogger isn't letting me upload any more for some reason. I'll try it again tomorrow.

Some assorted photos

2006-02-08T00:03:00.000+08:00

I finally got Bluetooth up and running on my new computer, so I was able to get some more photos out of my cell phones. Here they are:

A safety sticker in the elevator of my building. What to do if you get trapped in an elevator... umm.. I think..?

A long row of computer stores. You can find anything you want here, except for the part you are looking for. There is a small stand in there that is literally a buffet of CDRs and blank DVD-Rs.

My friends Yolanda and Echo during our visit to Anping Castle.

Lunch in Anping. It is a fried pancake of egg, oysters, bean sprouts, green onions, hot sauce and tapioca. I wasn't too fond of the
tapioca as it had the consistency of warm snot, but the rest was good.

Temple in Anping. Every weekend the temple's front courtyard is host to a large market.

Some amazing radio-controlled boats in Anping. They run on gasoline and can reach some amazing speeds in open water.

A large stone and earth oven. After building a hollow pyramid (with openings to allow convective air flow), they light a fire inside. After the fire and the surrounding earth gets hot enough, they throw some wrapped-up chicken inside and knock it all over on top. After a while, they dig out the chicken (now fully cooked)... it tastes VERY good cooked in the earth.

Anping Fort

2006-02-06T13:41:00.000+08:00

Today me and my two new friends Echo and Yolanda visited Anping Fort, a castle built in the 1600s by the Dutch, and eventually taken over after the were expelled. We also visited a large Temple, the temple's market and some other closeby attractions.

These are photos from Echo's camera (which is why most of them are of me...) I'll post the ones from mine once I get bluetooth installed on this computer and I can d/l the photos from my camera phone.

Me at the temple market shooting range. My favourite game, the locals were impressed with my marksmanship. :)

Me and Yolanda in front of one of the fort's cannons, ready to repel the Dutch should they make their return.

Don't shoot... I'm Canadian!

Chinese Food can sometimes be scary...

Me, Echo and an Iguana. The Iguana was very friendly and liked to get his head horned stroked.

Me and the Iguana Man

Yolanda in a field of Sunflowers

Giving Echo a lift

A fine example of 'depth of field'.... Can someone please tell me what type of flower this is?

How to buy a computer in Taiwan

2006-02-06T00:23:00.000+08:00

Alright.... Let me make the mistakes so you don't have to....

My trusty iBook breathed it's last gasp the other day. An ongoing problem with the display (that I sent off to Apple to get fixed last year, Ironically enough) finally turned terminal. I took it to a local Apple repair place, but it looks like it's going to cost an arm and a leg to even troubleshoot, and they have to ship it off of illha formosa (which is ironic because I am about a 120 minute drive from the factory where my damned iBook was made...) Thankfully, my great and loving parents came to the rescue and loaned me enough money to buy a computer. With a 20% vig...

So after doing some comparison shopping at a few stores, I settled for a nice local Taiwanese brand laptop. 60 gig hard drive, 512 meg of ram, 1.8 GHz, built in 802.11g, built in webcam and a carrying case.

SO let me let you in on a little secret.... when you buy a computer in freakin' China, the version of Windows XP on it is GOING TO BE IN CHINESE.

You have no idea how frustrating it is getting a nice, shiny new computer out of the box, turn it on and get faced with a Mandarin take out menu on the screen. MICROSOFT WINDOWS was all I could understand, the rest was a jumble of Chinese that I couldn't possibly understand.

I stumbled through the initial set-up process and finally got to the main screen. Great! Now.... what's the chinese character for WIRELESS INTERNET CONFIGURATION. I was able to hash my way through some of the gibberish (no offense to my new Taiwanese friends who may be reading this.. you have a beautiful but very confusing language....) - finally I was able to connect to my wireless internet connection.

So I fire up MSN Messenger and put out an urgent SOS to my Chinese friends. Thanks to my wonderful new friend Echo, I was able to change the keyboard configuration to something a little closer to what I'm used to (and learn some Chinese along the way). She was also able to find out for me that I need to install an English version of Windows XP.

So I hop back on my trusty KYMCO steed and visit about 10 local computer stores.... They will be pleased to sell me Windows XP for $3000 NT....... although none of them have it in stock. Sigh...

So until I find a solution, I am stuck with a Chinese computer. At least I'm able to surf the net and check my e-mail.... So unless I become the Rain Man of Chinese overnight, I'm stuck waiting until I can find someone who will 'lend' me a copy of English XP. Arr me matey.

My two new friends Echo and Yolanda took me out to Anping Fort the other day (seemed like a better idea than crying over the corpse of my computer).. I will be posting photos shortly. Stay tuned - and sorry for the delay!!

My apartment

2006-01-31T17:47:00.000+08:00

Photos of my apartment are coming.... I'm still not done unpacking/cleaning. :)

I like my apartment.. it's not huge and has no kitchen (just a fridge and a pretty scary looking burner connected to a propane tank which I am a little afraid to use), but it's nice. It's on the 7th floow of an 8 story building (even though the single apartment upstairs was obviously built on top of the roof itself). It's got a TV, cable, both wireless and wired internet (I found a bundle of cat 5 sitting on the cage around my bedroom window today - and it works!), an air conditioner, windows on three sides (the apartment juts out from the building), a full bathroom with shower, and toilet.

The 8th floor upstairs features an apartment, a nice roof-top balcony and a washing machine that me and the guy upstairs share.

It's also got two other very common tenants in Taiwanese homes: Cockroaches and Geckos. unfortunatley, I didn't know that I had Geckos until I emptied a can of Raid in my apartment. I certainly don't mind having friendly and cockroaching munching Geckos running around - I just hope they don't get sick from eating the Raid-kilt cockroaches. I've tried to get photos of my little Gecko friends, but they don't stick around long enough to get their photo taken.

Even though Tainan (and Taiwan in general) is pretty safe, most houses and apartments are buttoned up nice and tight. All of the windows have bars and/or cages on them (to thwart burglars who like to rappelle. To get into the apartments here you need to get through two doors - the standard steel fire door, and a bank-vault like solid steel screen door.

I am physically close to both the Tainan Airport and a Taiwan Air Force base (home of the Repubic of China 443rd Combat Air Wing), so I get a good mix of commerical and military air traffic pass overhead. The Taiwan Air Force consits of American F-16s, French Mirage 2000-5s, Taiwan's own F/CK Indigenous Defense Fighters (which look a lot like F-16s) and Northrop F-5s (I thought these were MiGs when I first saw them fly overhead and got a little worried that China was finally invading..... they actually used F-5s in Top Gun as enemy aircraft becauase they look so much like Russian MiGs). They also fly several Sikorsky UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters, which are on a pretty regular patrol - especially over Guei Ren, the township where my school is located.

The story behind why Taiwan developed it's own fighter jet is a sad story of China's bullying the world over Taiwanese politics. Taiwan decided to purchase the French-made Mirage fighter jets (over the more expensive American F-16). Unfortunatley, the People's Republic of China didn't like it, and threatened the French Government to cancel several Commercial Airliner contracts with Airbus (a multi-billion dollar deal) if it didn't stop selling fighter jets to Taiwan (including the new Airbus A380 superjet, of which South China Airlines bought 5 of them (at $300 Million US each)). As well, Boeing has refused sale to Taiwan for upgrades to their fleet of F-16s and other Boeing military aircraft. Taiwan wanted to get in on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, but their participation was blocked , mainly due to political pressure from China on other participation nations (including Turkey, Israel, Norwal, The UK and Canada)

Anyhow - enough politics.... Here are some shots from my building...

My front door/fortress with fire protection equipment.

The view from my building's roof.

Looking down on my neighbourhood. Roofs here are typically corrugated sheet metal.

Another view from my roof. No clothes dryers here, drying white shirts on a very rusty clothes rack is a challenge.

Alley next to my building

Hotel and some buildings from my roof

Yet another view

Koxinga Shrine

2006-01-30T00:21:00.000+08:00

Being as I've got a week off due to Chinese New Year, I decided to go sightseeting. Tainan is the ancient capital of Taiwan (the modern capital being, of course, Taipei) - because of this, there are many beautiful, historic and important sites in and around Tainan.

Today I visted Koxinga Shrine, a temple built in 1875 to commemorate Koxinga, a general who drove the Dutch out of Taiwan in the 1600's. Today it's a shrine surrounded by some beautifully manicured grounds with trees, ponds and fountains in the heart of Tainan's central district. It's also about a 5 minute scooter ride from my place - a nice place to come and relax.

The entrance to the shrine.

Inside the ancient and hallowed shrine courtyard... is a three piece saxophone band! Playing both Chinese and Western standards. They do a great rendition of "Stay... just a rittle bit ronger...."

Another shot of the band. They were very good.

The Shrine courtyard, looking at the main shrine housing.

Saxophone player and young fan

The heart of the shrine. This handsome fellow is Koxinga. People come here to pay tribute to this man, who liberated Taiwan from the Dutch in the 1600s and helped develop Taiwan.

A closeup of Koxinga's face.

A tree

A round portal.

Shrine gardens

I'm not sure who this "General Rubbish" guy was to Taiwanese history, but there were mini-shrines to him all over the grounds.

I will post more photos later.

Happy Chinese New Year!

2006-01-29T02:06:00.000+08:00

It's Chinese New Year.... The year of the Dog has arrived. So, for the next week, the entire Chinese world shuts down. I tried getting some photos, but it started to rain before I could find any of the large temple fireworks displays (the fireworks and the copious displays of the colour red are designed to scare away evil spirits).

I wish I had better photos, but these will do.. hehe

Some street-side fireworks (5 second exposure). After this guy was done, some lady came out of the house and started screaming at him. I didn't know what made her so upset, but she definitley was on about something.

This one's a little darker, because it was just a standard 1/60 exposure.

Chinese New Year display in the traffic circle in front of the Tainan train station.

Roadside shrine next to a 7-11 (taken with my camera phone)

A bad photo, but a funny story behind it. Taken from my school's other branch in Ren De. The local Family Mart, as part of a Chinese New Year sale, released thousands of metallic streamers into the windy street to celebrate some sort of CNY sale. Unfortunatley, no one thought about the 600V power lines along the side of the road, and that releasing thousands of metallic streamers into them wouldn't be such a great idea. With a bang and explosion of sparks and smoke, the transformers on the pole shorted out, and knocked out power to the entire area (including our school). The linemen who soon arrived to clean up the mess didn't look too impressed with having to scrape the smoking, melted streamers out of the lines and transformers. Within a few hours, they cleaned the mess and located the popped breaker, and power was restored.

Chinese liquor bottles rule. This cheery fellow graced a bottle of scotch.

I don't know if I should buy this guy's scotch or lose $12,000 to him in one hand of poker....

Classroom photos

2006-01-24T21:14:00.000+08:00

I brought my camera to class the other day, and the kids went crazy. I let them take some photos - so here are the results... (click to enlarge)

Alright alright.. I took this one (grin). They don't have municipal school buses here - they are all owned and run by the individual schools.

Eileen posing for the camera

JK and Timothy, hamming it up

Me and Eileen

Class photo!!

You aaahhrr heeealed!!

Me, Tina and Michael.

Me giving Tina a lift

Clowning around

Classroom video

2006-01-24T19:15:00.000+08:00

I brought my camera to one of the classes I was observing - of course, the kids go crazy. I took some pictures and some video of the class. The photos will come later, but in the mean time, here's the video.

This is a kindergarten/grade 1 english class - today's lesson is parts of the bathroom.

Click here for the video

The video is a few minutes long, and is about 70 megs (it's also Quicktime). However, it should stream when you click on it. Otherwise, right click to "save as" and watch it from your computer. The kids are cute, and they love the camera.. :)

More later... it's dinner time!

EDIT: I have changed it so you don't have to register to leave a comment.. sorry about that!!!

More more more more Photos!!

2006-01-22T17:01:00.000+08:00

One thing I've noticed about Taiwan is that everything is musical. The sliding doors at convenience stores like Family Mart and Big Egg sing when you enter them. The daily garbage truck prowling through your neighbourhood announces itself with a cheery tune. Even my intestinal tract was singing last night after eating some chicken that was a little too greasy. Although they don't make a noise, the walk/don't walk signs in Kaohsiung feature an animated green man walking when it's time to walk. When red light time draws near, the little man breaks into a run to let you know that you should probably get off of the street (not that it matters much, since red lights are usually regarded as decoration here).

All of these photos were taken with my new camera phone.... An experiment...

Just what I was thinking last night we needed more of at home: boxed coffee drinks featuring the works of Vincent Van Gogh.

"Coke Light" is the only 'diet' soft drink found here (and only found in cans). Sprite, Coke and Pepsi are in abundant supply here, but this is the only sugar free soda. (ignore the mess, I was picking up after my garbage bag split and decided to take the photo as I was picking up)

This photo was in the phone I bought from a night market a few days ago. I assume it was the previous owner's kid. Very cute.

Even more photos

2006-01-20T23:13:00.000+08:00

Here are some more photos, to compliment my previous, wordy entry.

My dinner.... Black Pepper Beef with rice, three delicious steamed meat buns (doughy steamed buns with meat in the middle) and cold sweet tea. The tea is not so good, but the rest of the food was excellent.

This is the stand I usually get my dinner at. One of the teachers here at the school translated their menu for me, so I'm able to pick what I want without rolling the dice as to if I get chicken or deep fried infant. This food stand is located in that covered food stand pavillion I mentioned in my previous entry. The proprietors are very friendly and make excellent food.

Making my dinner - noodles and beef.... yummy!!

The Steamed Bun stand in all it's glory. Most of the buns in the rack are filled with something. They are a bargain at $10NT each (about 25 cents)

Another food stand. This is a buffet featuring tofu and various duck body parts. "I'll take the duck head... the one with the neck and beak..."

Another shot of the food pavillon.

A shot down the street in front of the food pavillion.

Typical elementary school. You can't see it in the photo, but it has 24 hour security guards with guard post, a huge courtyard, about 4 or 5 four story wings, separate athletic wings and a beautiful compound.

I'm not sure what this guy approves of, but it's to the left.

I'm guessing this means that a temple is down the street or something. It's a beautiful archway otherwise.

Only in Taiwan...a hardware store that caters exclusivley to geniuses.

Henry my boss, and Susan a fellow teacher.

The food

2006-01-20T19:16:00.000+08:00

I should have called this blog "What, no egg rolls??!".

Everyone asks how the food is. Me, being the consumate gourmet that I am, have officially given the food here a big fat thumbs up!!

The food is great - no you won't get any eggrolls here... but there is enough to satisfy even the most discriminating taste (yes, I think my sister (who orders pizza without melted cheese) would like the food here).

The food is in four categories: Local food stand, sit-down restaurant, grocery store and western fast food.

The local food stand is by far the best - although it's not for the picky. There are food stands, box lunch stores and food pavillions everywhere. If there's one thing the Taiwanese love to do is EAT, and they certainly fill that niche by having food stands on every corner. Near my school (and my current temporary abode) there is a large food market which reminds me of the Food building at the Ex. It's a covered area that has about 50 food vendors peddling their wares.

The variety ranges from a buffet-style selection of items to stands that specialize in fruit, noodles, rice, etc. The buffet-style is my favourite, as I know that I'm getting without mixing up my tones and accidentally ordering a live duck with a knife in it instead of that rice & beef dish I got last night. Beware - they like to eat a lot of duck here, so you have to make sure that the round tofu you've got your eye on isn't a duck kidney.

As well, you also don't have to mind that the tongs you're using to dish your chicken pieces just served some hungry woman a complete duck's head, complete with neck and beak. My favourite are steamed meat buns.

The second is the Sit down restaurant. These range from local cuisine to the Taiwanese 'best guess' of other world cuisines. The other foreign teacher at my school invited me to go with her to dinner with her friend and boyfriend to a local Italian restaurant called the "Green Olive". The food was great, but I've never seen lasagne with sweet & sour sauce on it, or fettucini with a steamed meat bun. These are hit and miss, but they usually are guaranteed to have english menus.

Of course, you can always buy food at the local convenience store, like I did the first few times after I arrived. The food in there ranges from hot/cold prepared food (meat buns, sandwiches, duck eggs, noodles) to packaged food (ramen noodles, boxed noodles, dried noodles, packaged sandwiches). I naturally picked the isntant noodle bowls until I got stuck into a little bit of an issue of what the hell is in this thing?. Being a little skeeved out at meat other than beef, chicken and pork, I wanted to make sure that the noodle bowl I was buying didn't have hunks of goat or duck in it. Everything on the packages is in CHINESE. The photo doesn't help, since it's usually got either a photo of a suggested serving or a smarmy guy giving you a thumbs up on the box. Are those hunks of beef sitting on the priceless china plate on the photo simple beef or an unlucky dog? For about 3 days I was forced to eat the only package that said BEEF on it - I wasn't really fond of the dried beef jerky floating around the noodle broth, but I really didn't have any choice. To anyone coming here, go to Zhong Wen dot com and learn the chinese characters for your favourite (and not so favourite) foods. It's made me a much more comfortable eater here, especially eating in places that don't have photo menus to point and grunt at.

Then there's the Western Fast Food. They have most of the favourites here... McDonalds, KFC, Burger King, TGI Fridays, etc. They even have a few places from the Hooters chain (I'm not sure how they pull that off... (grin)). The prices are a little cheaper, but I'm sure I don't need to tell you the dangers of eating fast food constantly (look at me...). I've only been to McDonalds once, and I can report that my Big Mac and Fries tasted just like at home (they even give you a little cup of whatever drink you ordered while you are waiting for your food to arrive...)

That's pretty much the food situation here. I've got some photos to post, but I'll do it later. I just got off work and I'm friggin' hungry.

Today's photos

2006-01-19T18:33:00.000+08:00

I taught my first class today... it was a lot harder controlling kindergarten kids than it would first appear!! Parts of the body was the lesson today - It's amazing how fast kids pick up langauges. There are 9 year olds here who know the difference between the Past Particle and the Present Perfect Continous verb tense. And they're fluent in CHINESE too.. not bad for a bunch of kids.

Man, they must have some beefed up mosquitoes here.. I'm still scratching bites over a week old. I look like i've got smallpox.

I also finally bought a cell phone, so I can give back the piece of shit LG I borrowed from Steve that only has about half of it's buttons in a functional state. It's a used Motorola V600 I picked up at a night market for cheap cheap cheap. It's got a nice weight to it, not too small, Bluetooth and yes... it's got a camera in it. A flashy cell phone with loads of pointless features - I feel Taiwanese already. All I've got to do is get a non-DOT approved Doraemon helmet and an anorexic girl to sit on the back of my scooter and I'm all set.

Here are some photos:

My lunch. Bought it at a local box lunch place near my school. It's a rather large piece of breaded fish (most of it eaten by the time I took the photo, it was quite good and quite large), pickled eggplant, assorted greens (no idea what they are, but they're in everything here) and some sort of ginger/bamboo thing at the bottom. The white thing is the ever present rice and some sort of orange pieces of (I think) meat. Not bad for $50 NT. It came with a tiny carton of pineapple juice and some soup. The pickled eggplant was GOOOOD.

Me with one of my classes.

Patrick, one of the smarter kids in the class.

Doris, another kid from the class

Teacher Belinda with some students

Some kids waiting for their next class

Tomorrow I'll take some more photos from around the city, including some Betel Nut girls for you guys!

Tainan photos

2006-01-18T12:49:00.002+08:00

Here are some photos from in and around Tainan City.

All of the police cars in Taiwan are the same. Lest they sneak up on any crime in progress, police cars here typically drive around with their lightbar on all the time. Police presence on the roads is totally for show, as enforcing such things as traffic laws, etc. doesn't seem to occur to most of Taiwan's finest.

My scooter.

Some things never change, no matter where you go.

A typical street corner. The roads are shared with scooters, cars, little blue trucks, absolutley enormous tri-tandem transport trucks and bicycles. It is actually in the Taiwan traffic laws that bicycles must suddenly steer in a random direction every five pedal rotations.

Another intersection, looking down the street towards where my school is. The stereotype about asians being terrible drivers comes from the fact most learned to drive in a country with no regard to any traffic laws whatsoever. Driving bad is truly an art form here. Don't worry - defensive driving nullifys 99% of it (and being on a small, fast, manouverable scooter helps too). When you've got a few hours to kill, sitting and watching the traffic at a busy intersection is usually worth a few laughs. Traffic lights here are merely suggestions.

The official tree of Taiwan is the road-side sign.

Naturally, Scooters aren't just for people! You can use them to carry groceries....

...you and your anorexic friend....

...the family dog...

...and, of course, the kid!

More photos

2006-01-16T13:06:00.000+08:00

Well, I'm more or less settled into my temporary apartment at the school in Tainan. It's small, but it has internet access. I'll post some more later, but in the mean time, here's some more photos (click to enlarge).

Apartment Building in Kaohsiung.

Steve, my agent and friend in Taiwan.

Yu Cheng Street in Kaohsiung with ever-present Taxi

It's 26 degrees and everyone's in parkas. Meanwhile, I'm in shorts & tee-shirt and sweating my ass off.

My Jeep was waiting for me in Taiwan!!!
(NOTE: Despite all of the people e-mailing me, this is NOT my Jeep!!!! Come on, doesn't anyone ever think of what's involved with shipping a large car overseas...!!! Yeeesh!!!

Dinner & Night Market

2006-01-15T23:58:00.000+08:00

Tonight Brett and I had dinner and went to the Kaohsiung Night Market. (I re-did the page. Click to make the photos enlarge in a pop-up window)

Chinese Pepsi gets the big thumbs up!

Brett eating noodles. This meal cost about $60 NT, about $1.50 Canadian

My box lunch - pieces of spicy chicken on rice, assorted greens and tofu. Cost: $50 NT, about $1 Canadian. Very filling! Available at the food stand downstairs.

Me enjoying some chicken.

The Kaohsiung Night Market. Always crowded, but always fun!

Cute kid, but she started bawling every time she saw me. I guess Gwei Lo scares her!

Me at the shooting range. Naturally, I am an excellent shot, so I ended up winning many prizes, including bottles of wine, salted fish an airsoft gun of my own! Woo hoo!

Some cute kids on a ride at the night market

Photos!!

2006-01-15T20:47:00.000+08:00

You asked for them, so here they are.....photos!!

Typical Elementary School across the street from my agent's office

Dropping the kids off at school - a ride on a scooter is usually a family affair.

A view across Mincheng Street

Elementary school courtyard across the street

Locking the scooter so it doesn't wander away.

Waiting at the light - something not too many people here do.

Morning rush hour at Mincheng Street and Yucheng Street

Mincheng/Yucheng intersection at about 8am

Down the street - sorry for the odd angle

Got a job

2006-01-14T04:53:00.000+08:00

Took a few days to post - sorry about that. Jet lag has a habit of sneaking up and kicking your ass.

It's 5am and I've been awake since 3. A new guy from Oregon just arrived, replacing the girl from South Africa that left on Thursday.

I've gotten myself a job at Sesame Street English School in Tainan. It's a chain of schools that seem to use some sort of Sesame Street-themed curicculum (SS workbooks, videos, etc.) I guess it's licensed by them..!!

The jet lag is hopefully going away. Arriving at 11pm after not sleeping for a 30 hour flight day, I naiivley thought that i'd be on the new cycle rather quickly. Jet Lag doesn't work that way!! Case and point: I layed down for a nap todat at 3pm as I was feeling a little tired. The enxt thing I know I wake up at 3am...... nice 12 hour nap. So much for being able to sleep tonight.

I'm going Scooter shopping tomorrow, and my job starts monday. I'll write more later.. I'm going to go take a few sleeping pills and go to sleep.

When I get my memory upgraded on this crummy laptop I'll upload some photos.

I'm in Taiwan!!

2006-01-11T15:35:00.000+08:00

I'm here!! More later once I get some sleep....

The Home Stretch.....

2006-01-01T02:34:00.000+08:00

Well, Christmas and New Years (almost) is out of the way... That means I've got NINE days before I'm on a damned plane to Taiwan. I've got my visa, International driver's license, passport, a month's worth of Citalopram, $50,000 NTD, five months of Mandarin Chinese lessons and my teaching certification. All I'm missing is.. umm... well... my contact in Taiwan.....

I'm a little worried that my agent hasn't responded to my e-mails..... So I took it upon myself to secure a few leads myself. So, if all goes well, I'll have a position as a teacher at Joy English School in Nantz, which is just north of Kaohsiung City.... like 30 minutes north as the scooter flies... I was kinda looking for something inside the city itself, but I'm not going to complain...!

I look back at all I've given up to do this... a comfortable home, mainly... the security.... Not to mention some of my most prized possessions.. My Jeep..... My Bass.... My Motorcycle.... I guess it shows that anything worth doing is worth at least some sacrifice.....! It seems a long time since I got my certification in August.... when I thought I'd be gone by early September... haha!

It's snowing again today... one of the reasons I am VERY MUCH looking forward to moving to a tropical country for a year. To all the rest of you who are stuck in the snow and cold... SUFFER!

Kaohsiung, although I've heard it's pretty badly polluted, looks like a beautiful city. Ringed by moutains, calm seas off the Strait of Taiwan... long white beaches.... Man, I hope it's as good as I'm naiivley thinking it will be...! And if it sucks, then I come home and go back to Air Traffic Controller school.. :)

From all of the job postings I've seen online, most of the jobs appear to be teaching kids.... ages 5 to 14.... That suits me just fine - desks full of tousle-haired little youngsters... eager to learn and eyes full of the potential of life.... More like fifteen grumpy six year olds, forced to come to my school by their parents to be drilled one of hte world's most difficult languages for four hours before going home to face enough homework to make a 4th year med school student weep. Ah well, at least the food will be good.

I'll try to post again before I leave. I'm not one of these blog whores who think that the whole world waits on my ever word, so they post their useless and inane thoughts every day. Until then, zai jian!

It's not months... it's DAYS now, son!

2005-12-13T12:33:00.000+08:00

The clock is ticking down.... It's now 26 days until I leave. For the longest time, it was 2 months...... now it's like 3 weeks away....!

We'll see what happens when I finally step off that plane in Kaohsiung. Will all of the work I've done be worth it... the preparation, the money, the weight lost.... A new life, or a mistake? Who the hell knows, man...

Everyone keeps asking me if I'm excited or nervous. No way - I've got too much stuff to do between now and then. Christmas has pretty much become the swinging door between now and then. After Christmas (or even New Years') is over and done with, I'll start thinking about it. But until then - I've got bills to pay off, gifts to buy and plans to make.

In the mean time I'm packing, cleaning and trying to keep busy. And, of course, trying to eat more asian food. My mom's not impressed with the smell my butter chicken produces, but she never complains when she eats it (grin)

Man, I am not looking forward to that plane ride.

The coveted Visa....

2005-11-16T21:06:00.001+08:00

I picked up my visa yesterday - it's nice to finally have the last piece of the puzzle in place for my move. Getting the visa was relativley painless. Getting it transferred to a resident visa and work permit when I get to Taiwan will prove to be a little more interesting, but nothing that's easy is worth doing, right?

I was in Toronto these past few days anyway, as I was doing some work at Casino & Gaming Television, which is literally right down the street from the Taiwanese consulate. CGTV's got a really nice setup. They've got full gaming setups in their studios (huge and REAL slot machines with craps and roulette tables... mmmm...) - it's a pretty cool place. I'm back to being nostalgic about my freelance days back at Sportsnet and CTV - lots of money without all those pesky taxes and deductions (grin).

Anyhow.... seven weeks and I'm gone - still too far away to really start looking forward to it, but at least all of the major hurdles are behind me.

...and I got visa!

2005-11-10T09:45:00.000+08:00

Well, almost. I visited the Taiwanese economic office in downtown Toronto today and applied for a 60 day visitor visa (Because Taiwan R.O.C. isn't an internationally recognized sovereign state, it doesn't have consulates or embassies - just economic offices).

The trick is *NOT* to tell the Taiwanese consular that you are going to teach English, just as a tourist. When you get a job, you can convert the visitor's visa to a resident visa, and eventually an ARC (Alien Residency Card). You can do it with a Visitor's Visa, but *not* a landing visa. More on that later.

So in applying for the visitor's visa, I needed to provide

a) A travel itinerary, proving that you've got a round trip ticket (got that)
b) A bank statement proving you've got funds to sustain yourself (Got that covered)
c) 2 passport photos (got 'em)
d) A valid passport (got it)

I got a 2 week plane ticket, which I plan to change when I get there for whatever fee they charge (and, if all goes to shit, I've got a way home and a nice vacation in Taiwan for 2 weeks.)

"Oh, no sir." said the woman at the desk "You are staying less than 30 days, you don't need a visitor's visa. You can just get a landing visa when you arrive in the airport"

Shit. I can't do that! I need my Visitor's Visa to convert to a work permit! And I can't them I want to teach, because it'll make it harder to get the visa.

So I insist on the visitor's visa.... She looks at me rather suspicpiously, but takes me $55 and passport. The visa will only take 3 days to get, so in 3 days I'll have a nice Taiwanese stamp in my otherwise empty passport. Yahoo!!

I got tickets!!

2005-11-03T12:15:00.000+08:00

Plane tickets to Taiwan have been purchased!! After some hang-wringing over the price of the flight I had my eye on skyrocketing in about 24 hours, I finally found a reasonably priced flight that didn't involve me leaving the house at 2am.

Because it's so incredibly expensive to fly out of Canada, I chose to book a flight out of Buffalo, New York. This not only saved me about $1000, it knocks off at least one customs line to stand in.

So, here's my Itinerary. On 12:20pm on January 9th (my sister's birthday, incidentally), I will be taking an Continental Embraer ERJ-145 Regional Jet to Newark, New Jersey. After sitting in the Garden State for about 5 hours, I depart to Hong Kong on a Boeing 777 on a gruelling 19 hour flight. After spending a few hours on a Chinese layover I depart on a Dragonair Airbus A320 to my final stop, Kaohsiung in the tropical south of Taiwan. The only thing I'm worried about is the fact my flight gets in at about 11:45PM Taiwan time. My agent is meeting me at the airport, and I feel bad that it's coming in so late. Sorry Andy and Steve....

In the mean time, I'm working on getting my visa, which promises to be a pretty painless experience. As well, my poor Jeep is paid off and finally out of my life. Time to keep saving money and brush up on my teaching skills. In the mean time, it's killing time directing Daytime at Rogers, swimming every other day, lifting weights, working hard at Masons and trying to keep my cat from killing himself. Shit, January seems too far away.

Typical Stupid Blog moves

2005-11-01T11:36:00.000+08:00

it's not a blog unless you've got lyrics to a song as an entry. So, to prevent Blogger.com from removing my blog, here we go:

FLY BY NIGHT by Rush
(Peart/Lee)

Why try? I know why
The feeling inside me says it’s time I was gone
Clear head, new life ahead
I want to be king now not just one more pawn

Fly by night, away from here
Change my life again
Fly by night goodbye my dear
My ship isn’t coming and I just can’t pretend

Moon rise, thoughtful eyes
Staring back at me from the window beside
No fright or hindsight
Leaving behind that empty feeling inside

Start a new chapter
Find what I’m after
It’s changing every day
The change of a season
Is enough of a reason
To want to get away

Quiet and pensive
My thoughts apprehensive
The hours drift away
Leaving my homeland
Playing a lone hand
My life begins today

--

Shudder.. Damnnit do I hate blogs.

The Jeep is Sold!

2005-10-28T10:07:00.000+08:00

Well, my dream car has been sold. Since a very young age I've dreamed about owning a Jeep. After I got my first full time job out of college I took the plunge and bought a brand new 2000 Jeep TJ Sport. It was a great car, getting me through several jobs, my marriage and subsequent divorce, some good and rough times... It was pretty hard to see her go, but at the risk of anthropomorphizing a motor vehicle, It'll have a good home. Ah well.

Now that it's gone, I've got a definite timetable for my departure. if all goes well, I'll be gone by December 6th. I think it'll be harder leaving my cat behind than the Jeep, but no one said that this would be easy (grin).

Long journey.. getting there...

2005-10-27T07:23:00.000+08:00

It's late October... Almost 2 months since my last post.. Not much to add, really.. But it looks like I'm gonna sell my car! Getting rid of the Jeep was the last step towards finally getting to Taiwan. As long as the buyer (A friend) doesn't totally flake out on me, I should be in Taiwan by the first week of december. A little later than I had hoped, but at least it's progress! Stay tuned.

Welcome welcome welcome

2005-08-12T10:32:00.001+08:00

Welcome to my blog!

First of all, an apology. I always thought (and told others) that blogs were pointless wastes of webspace, that only arrogant blowhards who think that anything that goes through their heads is profound wisdom had blogs. Well, here we are. I've got a blog.

Why? Am I an arrogant blowhard? Do I think that what I have to say is worthy of publishing for the whole world to see? Perhaps - but there's more. I'm embarking on what I feel is a life-changing journey. I'm leaving my life and loving family behind here in Canada to start a totally new career in a totally foreign land - that is, teaching English in Taiwan. I thought that setting up this little thing (I detest calling it a 'blog') for my friends and family to read would be a useful tool in letting everyone back home know how I'm doing.

Don't worry, I'm not going to turn this into some sort of weepy diary of self-reflection like I've seen others do. If you're looking for a deep glimpse into my soul, I'm afraid you just aren't gonna find it here.

I will, however, be posting my various adventures and ruminations leading up to and during my life abroad. I will also be posting photos I've taken on my photography page (http://www.pbase.com/bryanpass) - so be sure to check that often if you want to 'see what I see'.

More than a few people have asked why I'm doing this. My old career was broadcast television (of which I enjoyed immensley). As well, I get along with my family quite well and love living in Canada. So, why leave?

The answer to that is rather long and complicated, so I'm not going to go into here. But the simple answer is this: I need a change. Badly. I went through a trying separation and divorce last year, and I've been out of work since about November. She wanted to explore an alternative lifestyle, and found someone she'd much rather explore this side of herself with.

Honestly, I just need to do something totally different - take myself out of my life and expose myself to something totally different. I'm sure you understand.

That is my only motivation. I'm not "running away" or anything - and this certainly doesn't have anything to do with my ex-wife. For those who might not know, my wife left me in 2004 for what she hopes are greener pastures.

So - if you like, keep checking back for updates. I probably won't be updating it every day (as I am still in Canada at this point). I am currently in the final stages before I head off. I'll keep you all in the loop - I promise. :)