Chinese Proverb: He who returns from a journey is not the same as he who left.
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My Taiwan Adventure
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
124 "No Rabbits"
This morning I walked to work. It took me just over an hour and by the time I made it to the school I was dripping all over with sweat. It is a cool morning (maybe 24-25) but the humidity really makes a difference.
A good portion of my walk takes me along the route that they used to chauffeur the American diplomats down. It features enormous palms and ficus trees and in the morning rain you can almost ignore the fact that you're walking along 8 lanes of traffic because the trees some how offset a lot of the sound and smell. Really the road is well done - and split into 4 lanes separated by boulevards of plant life.
I enjoyed the walk. It helped to make my morning more interesting. I don't want to stagnate into eating at the same diner every morning and taking the same bus every day. Familiarity is nice when you need it but I find it important to vary my routine from time to time to keep learning new things about Taipei. For instance I ended up walking past the Ministry of Defense (MOD) compound this morning and now I know where it is. I also learned that if you take the path down one of the beckoning boulevards in the middle of the traffic lanes you'll end up at a dead end where you can see the other side of the street but NOT get there. I ended up back-tracking a bit.
I also saw a rat the size of a small poodle near the MOD this morning. It ran about as fast as a dog too. *shuddering* Man that thing was HUGE. I'm only glad I'm not running into them in my apartment. The current concern there is ants. Lots and lots of ants. I had a whole highway of ants running down my wall from underneath my Canadian map. When I lifted the map I discovered a large crack in the paint that the ants were coming from. I used some packing tape and closed it. Then I used more tape to bulldoze the ant freeway. I think I probably got about 500 of the thousands that have infested my room. This morning though the word must have been out because I only caught about a dozen more ants. There was also the dive-bombing flying ants to contend with. Fun and joy. Thank God for the electric tennis racket.
Teaching thought:
There are days when the students here try and get away with things that aren't entirely polite. The gap in cultures mean that when a student says "LP" I think of vinyl records. (Yes I am that old!) It has a different meaning here which I won't post so please don't ask. My girls class was doing some improv theatre practice 2 weeks ago and they made a sign that said "no rabbits." I have no idea what that means and was concerned it might be somehow dirty so I asked them what it means. They said "I don't like rabbits." It seemed a little strange that they would just draw up a sign that means they don't like rabbits. Yet the society of knowing the inside joke is closed to the teacher. The other night in the stationery store I saw a cartoon with a sign "No Rabbits" and I breathed a sigh of relief. Sometimes there really should be no worries. *laughs*
A good portion of my walk takes me along the route that they used to chauffeur the American diplomats down. It features enormous palms and ficus trees and in the morning rain you can almost ignore the fact that you're walking along 8 lanes of traffic because the trees some how offset a lot of the sound and smell. Really the road is well done - and split into 4 lanes separated by boulevards of plant life.
I enjoyed the walk. It helped to make my morning more interesting. I don't want to stagnate into eating at the same diner every morning and taking the same bus every day. Familiarity is nice when you need it but I find it important to vary my routine from time to time to keep learning new things about Taipei. For instance I ended up walking past the Ministry of Defense (MOD) compound this morning and now I know where it is. I also learned that if you take the path down one of the beckoning boulevards in the middle of the traffic lanes you'll end up at a dead end where you can see the other side of the street but NOT get there. I ended up back-tracking a bit.
I also saw a rat the size of a small poodle near the MOD this morning. It ran about as fast as a dog too. *shuddering* Man that thing was HUGE. I'm only glad I'm not running into them in my apartment. The current concern there is ants. Lots and lots of ants. I had a whole highway of ants running down my wall from underneath my Canadian map. When I lifted the map I discovered a large crack in the paint that the ants were coming from. I used some packing tape and closed it. Then I used more tape to bulldoze the ant freeway. I think I probably got about 500 of the thousands that have infested my room. This morning though the word must have been out because I only caught about a dozen more ants. There was also the dive-bombing flying ants to contend with. Fun and joy. Thank God for the electric tennis racket.
Teaching thought:
There are days when the students here try and get away with things that aren't entirely polite. The gap in cultures mean that when a student says "LP" I think of vinyl records. (Yes I am that old!) It has a different meaning here which I won't post so please don't ask. My girls class was doing some improv theatre practice 2 weeks ago and they made a sign that said "no rabbits." I have no idea what that means and was concerned it might be somehow dirty so I asked them what it means. They said "I don't like rabbits." It seemed a little strange that they would just draw up a sign that means they don't like rabbits. Yet the society of knowing the inside joke is closed to the teacher. The other night in the stationery store I saw a cartoon with a sign "No Rabbits" and I breathed a sigh of relief. Sometimes there really should be no worries. *laughs*
Posted by T. Destiny in Taiwan at 9:03 AM 
Hajimemashite. Watashiwa Dave desu. Douzo yoroshiku. That's about as far as my ability to string words together goes. In Japanese that is. Yes I want to got to Japan second choices being China or Thailand. It's gotta be better than the 'hat and I also suffer from the urge to flee my current locale as said common acquantance (sic) =)did.
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