Monday, August 10, 2009

Typhoon, Miramar Pizza, and American School!



OK first thing's first. There was a typhoon last weekend and a lot of people in the south of Taiwan are missing. Please keep these people in your thoughts. At the moment, a village of 1000 people is almost completely lost, save for 40 survivors. This is a lot, considering people were freaked out when the US lost about as many people in 9-11. Taiwan has less than 1/10 of the United States's population. I can't even imagine the pain of losing your whole village, and everyone you ever knew or loved, so keep these people in your thoughts. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/taiwan/6003259/Typhoon-Morakot-sparks-exodus-up-to-1000-missing-in-Taiwan-landslide.html

During the Typhoon, we in Taipei were able to get by comfortably, however. During the typhoon I tutored April's sister and April and I even dared to go pick up pizza for us and her family from Pizza Hut. I almost lost April to the heavy winds, but luckily I planted my feet and had a steady grip on her. I included a picture of the Miramar Pizza, a pizza Taiwan has exclusively to celebrate the mall I always happen to go to. The pizza is beyond delicious and may be my favorite Pizza Hut pizza!

I've also been working more and more often. Starting next week, my regular schedule will finally kick in, giving me 24 hours a week. After tutoring, I make a ludicrous amount of money that I have almost no way to spend. Today was the first day of the "American School", a total immersion school program where CTs (Chinese Teacher, my assistant) can't speak Chinese, and the kids are only allowed to talk in English. I overprepared and the result was that we had a lot of fun, and the kids are mind-blisteringly cute and smart. I was told they had no background in English, but here's a taste of some words they could already spell: rhino, octopus, frog, fish, can, funny, happy, ok, no, yes, problem
They even were speaking some full sentenced by the end of Day 1. The students seemed to like me a lot, as well. A couple little girls gave me candy as a present after class. It was a very sweet gesture, and I happily accepted it.

Tomorrow is Tuesday, the day where I will only have one class. I'll be tutoring a woman in the morning, and then shopping for school supplies with my friend, Josh, who just arrived in Taiwan. He is my American friend who went to Hawaii Pacific University that I met last time I was in Taiwan. It's good to have him back. Him, Erik, Carl, and myself were all pretty close back in those day. Carl will also be returning in February. That's the thing about Taiwan. Once you go there, you always want to come back. Josh is going to grad school at TKU (named by Webometrics to be the world's number 358 university, vs. Winona State around 2000). TKU is the school where I studied abroad a couple years ago.

Anyway, that's a quick update. There's a burger joint around here Josh and I are going to hit up this weekend. Tomorrow it'll probably just be dumplings or kung pao chicken at the mall food court. The burger place is two stations from me, and its called Juicy Burger. I've included a picture of that too.

3 comments:

  1. So what's on the pizza? It looks like a crazy starfish or something. And more money than you can spend? That will be the day!

    ReplyDelete
  2. The pizza has some sauces, meats, and veggies on it. Nothing repulsive to the American palette, really. Not even seafood.

    ReplyDelete
  3. There were some sweet mustards on it as well... and each piece of crust you see has, get this, a freakin' hot dog inside of it.

    Taiwanese are so oblivious of caloric intake.

    ReplyDelete