A New Year

My little Cornel Family on Christmas :-)

The Nanmen girls celebrated Laura's 27th birthday at a pretty tasty vegetarian restaurant very close to school. Good food, a variety of drinks you can try out, and you can write on the walls! Unfortunately that same night one of the girls got a hefty ticket from the Taichung police- it was not for having a license - which none of us do and we were told we wouldn't need to. Needless to say, we're looking into getting one now.

Their has been quite a few visitors at this point in the year, the majority being parents. It's always enjoyable to meet the parents of the girls here. I had a great time at dinner with Stephanie's mother and brother. Then last week Brittany, Michelle, and I decided to pop in on Krista's Canadian parents and play a real fun game called 'heads up.' It's become one of the best games to play in a large group, and it really gets people excited and energized.

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By the end of the year, all but 2 of the teachers will have had a visitor. For me, I'm lucky to have such a great friend who was in the transition of leaving his job to move, and while he had the time and money saved up, he took advantage of having a friend in Asia. He arrives today and although I look forward to everything we have planned in the next 2 weeks, I'm really excited to have a newbie in Taiwan, get his perspective on this beautiful island and his reactions to the people and culture here.

NEW YEARS EVE 2013 in TAIPEI!  

Ready to show Taipei a good time!

The planning for  NYE was a bit chaotic since thousands of people flock to the capital of Taiwan to see the Taipei 101 building ignite in fireworks at the stroke of midnight. Taipei 101 is the 2nd, or 3rd, tallest building in the world. Depending on your source of information. Bewildering, because I had no idea of this until about a month ago. We had a hostel booked months in advance, I had booked a table at Luxy, a night club in Taipei which would be featuring T.Pain in concert the night of New Years! The table, drinks, and T.Pain would cost us each about $65 US, insane. 

 

Just as the time we tried to see Aerosmith, T.Pain cancelled his trip the DAY OF. Unfortuate, yes, but with the night we ended up having you'd never notice his absence. We arrived to the club fairly later in the evening, but still before midnight. Our table was in an ideal location on the main floor, and then the drinks came. Just before midnight, thousands of people were rushing in the streets to get as best a view of Taipei 101 that they could. I, along with a couple of the girls, decided to stay in the club and do the countdown. Kelly and I jumped up on stage and danced until we all started chanting the countdown together. At midnight the place lit up, confetti flew everywhere, and I exchanged a kiss with my two best friends here in Taiwan.

The night did not end here of course. High on life, love, and happiness the girls and I danced the night away with the hundreds of others in the club. As time went on, the girls slowly dwindled back to the hostel. Brittany, Stephanie, Amy and I decided to join a KTV (karaoke) after party with some French fellows. We sang until the wee hours of the early am. Hugged our new friends goodbye and taxied back to the hostel. 

The hostel was my first of many. There were four rooms with six beds in each, two bathrooms, one big shared kitchen, living room, and dining room. I should have taken pictures inside. It was called Chocolate Box for backpackers. When we came home in the morning there were people sprawled out across the living room, and others were up making tea. For one night you seem to be one giant family in a cozy little house. 

The morning after. 

The Philippine crew ( Amy, Steph, Kelly, Britt, and I who went to Philippines together in October) went to a greasy, delicious Taiwanese joint for breakfast and laughed about the adventures of the night. Amy and Steph headed off to Malaysia while Kelly, Brittany, and I thought it'd be a good idea to go to the famous Taipei Zoo with little to no sleep in us.
 

As we dragged ourselves throughout just the front half of the zoo, I was extremely excited to see my first panda bear and koala! They also had kangaroos, but I didn't spotted any. I will definitely need to revisit the zoo with more energy!

Kelly, Holli, and I arriving at Atayal

This past Saturday I did something I NEVER thought I would, or could, do. I ran a half marathon with Holli and Kelly! A half marathon is 13.1 miles, in Taiwan they use kilometers, so it was 21k. We were picked up bright and early, took a short bus ride out of town to Atayla aboriginal village. It was beautiful! The first thing I noticed was how great the air smelled, no pollution and exhaust!! Then I noticed a giant aboriginal monument up along the side of a mountain. The 'big foot' marathon was so well organized. I was extremely impressed with how they handled belongings, other visitors, sport shops, and other prep for the race.

 

At 10:00 the buzzer went off and we eagerly tried to start jogging, but there was no movement besides walking until we crossed the start line. It took a good 5 minutes to just get around people, find a decent spot to run where you wouldn't bump, hit or run anyone over. Once they separated paths for the 21k and the 42k runners, I set my pace and went for it. Our run was through the mountains, uphill, downhill, slated road and rarely flat. I would have loved to stop and take photos but that was not my state of mind at the time. 

Taiwan aboriginal dancing.

There were plenty of water/fruit stops along the way. I stopped at 3 or 4 total, not wanting to lose momentum and not really needing the break. When I reached the halfway point, I got quite the second wind! I could do this, and with much less of a struggle than I thought. The people along the way were so encouraging, holding thumbs up, clapping, shouting "keep going" in Chinese. Once I came across 5-6 young Taiwanese, dressed in the traditional  aboriginal clothing. They were holding out their hands for high fives from the runners, being one of maybe ten forginers at the race, they grew very excited to reach out their hand towards me. One boy in particular shouted "yah!" and held my hand just a second longer. I couldn't help but laugh out loud. Oh how I love Taiwan.

I was 6k away when I really started mentally and physically pushing myself. It wasn't my muscles, or anything respiratory, the pain I fought through was all in my knees and feet. I kept pushing, 5k, 4k, 3k, 2k...one last hill right at the end had me praying for it to be over. Then with the end in sight I kicked it into gear. 

I finished with a time of 2 hours, 15 minutes. Coming in 15th place of 76 girls. I walked around on my wobbly legs, found Kelly who finished in 4th and plopped onto the cement. I only had one blister on my foot and some very sore joints. Holli came in 15 minutes after me still placing in 23rd! I've taken a break from running this week, but it is something I want to keep in my life. However, my metabolism kicked into high gear ever since and I've been eating everything in sight! 

COMPLETION !

On a less intense note, contracts for the 2014-2015 school year came out...and I'm leaning towards one more year. There are still some things to work out beforehand.

MY first, very own, parent teacher teacher conferences were this week and they went better than expected. I got to share great things with the parents, and so,e concerns. I also got an even better insight on what they wanted from me and what they wanted to see from their child. My current Chinese Teacher, Iris will be leaving us at the end of the month so my third graders and I will be getting Teacher Sabrina. 

Big decisions and big changes will be happening soon! Thanks for reading!  - K