Taipei, Japan ni

Taipei was definately a whirlwind tour. It actually took longer to get to the city than to see any of our stops, but that's okay. We first visited the largest temple in the city, Longshan, which was brilliantly colourful and full of incense. I have pics, but they will have to wait until I have time to download them. And yes, Sauron-chan was there too. Then we stopped at the Chian Kai-shek memorial which was kinda fun, though most of the info I learnt from that stop is from the brochure. We watched the changing of the guard in front of Chiang Kai-shek's statue, then headed off to take a pic of Taipei 101 (a 101 story, glass tower which, hilariously, has subliminal Sony advertising on it), and off to the Martyrs' Shrine, ostensibly to watch another change of guard as far as I can tell. Then it was back to the airport where I read more of Aztec and stole that stop on the free internet (which was quite cunningly, hidden off to the side of one gate, and I only found it by chance since they don't advertise it more than once so no one overwhelms it). Taipei airport main area does have the comfiest couches to lay down on I've ever seen in an airport. Not that I could afford to use them *pouts*

Jetlag struck and woke me at 7:30am here, though I tried to sleep for another hour or two and nearly managed it. I'm off to get dressed and explore since I don't have to be anywhere until 2pm. Must find my granola bars as well...

ps. siriaeve I've forgotten if I mentioned it at this point, but I did get the Cupid dvds before I left and will enjoy rewatching them when I have the time:)

Taipei, Japan ni

Taipei was definately a whirlwind tour. It actually took longer to get to the city than to see any of our stops, but that's okay. We first visited the largest temple in the city, Longshan, which was brilliantly colourful and full of incense. I have pics, but they will have to wait until I have time to download them. And yes, Sauron-chan was there too. Then we stopped at the Chian Kai-shek memorial which was kinda fun, though most of the info I learnt from that stop is from the brochure. We watched the changing of the guard in front of Chiang Kai-shek's statue, then headed off to take a pic of Taipei 101 (a 101 story, glass tower which, hilariously, has subliminal Sony advertising on it), and off to the Martyrs' Shrine, ostensibly to watch another change of guard as far as I can tell. Then it was back to the airport where I read more of Aztec and stole that stop on the free internet (which was quite cunningly, hidden off to the side of one gate, and I only found it by chance since they don't advertise it more than once so no one overwhelms it). Taipei airport main area does have the comfiest couches to lay down on I've ever seen in an airport. Not that I could afford to use them *pouts*

Jetlag struck and woke me at 7:30am here, though I tried to sleep for another hour or two and nearly managed it. I'm off to get dressed and explore since I don't have to be anywhere until 2pm. Must find my granola bars as well...

ps. siriaeve I've forgotten if I mentioned it at this point, but I did get the Cupid dvds before I left and will enjoy rewatching them when I have the time:)

Japan et le culture

I'm going through a rather gleeful form of culture shock atm. It began this morning when I looked out my window to see a sea of Japanese style roofs (this town is what the Japanese consider the country so there's lots of old fashioned wooden houses with tile roofs. It's great! *L*) Once I got kicked out of my room for cleaning, I wandered about. All the doors are made for someone my height and I've been told my apartment is the same. How cool is that? I marvelled at the girls in sailor fukus (dark navy with white trim around here) and the boys in uniform riding two to a bike. Even cuter were the younger students later on with their dark uniforms and bright yellow caps. I had melon bread and an onigiri for lunch (my new method of buying onigiri is to chose one at random and see what I get since I can't read the labels anyway), and wandered over to BENDA where I ran into one of the other teachers and we chatted for awhile until I wandered back here.

Later in the afternoon, I met up with the woman I'm replacing to observe her classes. It was so adorable to see a five year old muttering "mendokuse" (how troublesome) while being forced to colour in shapes *L* I seem to speak a lot more Japanese than a lot of the other teachers here, especially on arriving. (there's free Japanese lessons here, so most learn some at least). I've found that my comprehension of other's speaking is very high (from anime, no doubt) but I'm rather hopeless at speaking. At one of hte later classes I was observing, one of the beginners (who incidently, brought the whole class very nice pieces of cake) asked in Japanese if I understood Japanese, and I automatically translated his sentence into English, which sort of answered his question, ne?

Afterwards, I met up with all the other teachers at the local J. pub where we sat at one of those raised up tables with mats and such and got aquainted over beers and weird spinach salads. Had a great bento for dinner too. It's probably going to take me awhile to become sick of Japanese food. *L*

Japan et le culture

I'm going through a rather gleeful form of culture shock atm. It began this morning when I looked out my window to see a sea of Japanese style roofs (this town is what the Japanese consider the country so there's lots of old fashioned wooden houses with tile roofs. It's great! *L*) Once I got kicked out of my room for cleaning, I wandered about. All the doors are made for someone my height and I've been told my apartment is the same. How cool is that? I marvelled at the girls in sailor fukus (dark navy with white trim around here) and the boys in uniform riding two to a bike. Even cuter were the younger students later on with their dark uniforms and bright yellow caps. I had melon bread and an onigiri for lunch (my new method of buying onigiri is to chose one at random and see what I get since I can't read the labels anyway), and wandered over to BENDA where I ran into one of the other teachers and we chatted for awhile until I wandered back here.

Later in the afternoon, I met up with the woman I'm replacing to observe her classes. It was so adorable to see a five year old muttering "mendokuse" (how troublesome) while being forced to colour in shapes *L* I seem to speak a lot more Japanese than a lot of the other teachers here, especially on arriving. (there's free Japanese lessons here, so most learn some at least). I've found that my comprehension of other's speaking is very high (from anime, no doubt) but I'm rather hopeless at speaking. At one of hte later classes I was observing, one of the beginners (who incidently, brought the whole class very nice pieces of cake) asked in Japanese if I understood Japanese, and I automatically translated his sentence into English, which sort of answered his question, ne?

Afterwards, I met up with all the other teachers at the local J. pub where we sat at one of those raised up tables with mats and such and got aquainted over beers and weird spinach salads. Had a great bento for dinner too. It's probably going to take me awhile to become sick of Japanese food. *L*