We made it!

Just a quick post to let you all know we survived Typhoon Soulik. It wasn't that bad in Taichung. We had about 20 hours of "extremely torrential rain" and very strong winds. The river got pretty high, but didn't flood and we never lost power. Our flight to Hong Kong was delayed twice. When we finally headed out to the airport, there were a lot of big tree branches down. Our plane finally took off 10 hours late (thankfully they announced a 8 and a half hour delay the day before, so it was only delayed, so we only had to spend an extra hour and a half in the airport (some people had been waiting in the airport all day and weren't too happy). The flight had some turbulence because of the typhoon winds, but we made it, found our hotel, and went out to explore the city for a few hours. Anyway, we are here now, so even though we lot a day's worth of sightseeing, we're going to make the most of the next two days.

Um, uh oh...

Typhoon Soulik set to hit Taiwan on July 11

A visit to the friendly neighborhood Taiwanese doctor

So last weekend, Tom wasn't feeling well. At first we thought it was just the beginning of a cold combined with the exhaustion of traveling to the other side of the Earth, but then he got really sick. Like 103 degree fever, chills, and difficulty breathing sick. So after two days of rest and no improvement, we told the school and they set up a doctor's appointment for that day. It turns out the Taiwanese people go to the doctor for any minor issue, which is not how we Walshes deal with illness, but at this point Tom clearly needed to seek medical help. So, he left the school at 3:00 and Teacher Tiffany, who worked with me at Cambridge-Ellis last year, went with him to help translate. He was back 25 minutes later with a diagnosis of acute tonsillitis and the medication to clear it up. Seeing your husband go off to the doctor in another country is scary especially when he's pretty sick and you don't know why. Thankfully, while it was serious and he clearly really needed to go, it was easily diagnosed and the medication has been helping a lot. We were also a little concerned how the medical insurance was going to work, since we have to pay the cost and then try to get reimbursed when we get home. The total for his first visit (including the doctor's appointment and the 4 different prescriptions) came to...a whopping $10 American! He wouldn't have even been able to get in the door for that at home!

Family Outings

Maura:
One of the things I was most dubious about before coming to Taiwan was that apparently the families at the school signed up to take us out on evenings and weekends. Socialize with families? That sounds awkward. That would definitely not happen in the US. Won't they just grill us about how their children are doing in the class?

We've gone out with three families at this point and it's actually been pretty interesting. So far, none of the families have been children we are teaching. They're just families with children in the Chinese or English preschool classes who want to welcome us to Taiwan and help us foreigners have a nice visit. The first family spoke very little English, so they invited their two teachers along with us. We went out to a fancy hotel buffet which was very nice. On Saturday, we went out with another family. The mother works up in Taipei and the father works in mainland China, so the little boy lives with his grandparents during the week, and his mom and aunt come down from Taipei on the weekends. This is a pretty common arrangement in Taiwan. The mother had studied English in Boston 15 years ago and was very happy to speak with us in English.

Today, we went with a father and little boy to Lukang, about 45 minutes from Taichung. It had an old market road and a beautiful temple that was over 100 years old.

This is just the main entrance.

This was one of a few interior courtyards in the temple.

One of the many shrines (?) in the temple.

Then we went to the Taichung Earthquake museum. In 1989, there was a serious earthquake here and the museum commemorates what happened and what Taiwan did to improve the engineering and infrastructure after the quake. The hardest part about the museum is that it is on the site of an elementary school that was destroyed in the earthquake. They have secured the building, so you are walking around the ruins of the school and can see how the classrooms collapsed on each other, the bathroom that used to be on the top floor that now lies smashed among the rubble. It was pretty haunting. At least it's good to know how much they learned from the tragedy and all of the safety standards that have been implemented since then.

Food: Volume 1

Tom:

So I've been meaning for a while to make a post that just shows all of the new foods that we've been having on our trip.  I think I'll start that off now.  I'll try as much as possible to cut back on the commentary so I can show more deliciousness (and a little not-so-deliciousness).

Taiwan has lots of delicious fruit, and lychees are one of our favorites.

A close-up lychee.

You have to peel them first, which is pretty easy.

This is what they look like peeled.  There's a pit in the middle.

Pre-meal spread at a Taichung restaurant.

This is my meal at the same restaurant.  Pork, rice, soup, a fruit, a vegetable, and a tofu & pork thing.

Maura's meal.

This place claims to have invented bubble milk tea.
You can see the pearls (bubbles) in the bottom of the tea.

This is one of our school's lunches.

Chicken feet.  I was disappointed to learn that I don't like them.

Mona Harper

Now this makes much more sense.

"Hello Teacher Tom and Teacher Maura"

So, we've been teaching American Sports for 4 days now, and it has been an interesting experience. We have 24 1st-3rd graders with varying levels of English, ranging from absolutely none to pretty good for an ESL third grader. Tom has basically no experience with children this age, and while I am technically trained to teach them, it has been about 10 years since I taught elementary school children, so it has been an adjustment. Some of the activities have gone really well, and others not so much, but the children seem to be having a pretty good time.

There have been a couple moments of hilarity. When we were playing a game involving baseball and the alphabet, we asked the children how many letters are in the English alphabet. Some didn't know, and several said 26, but one child insisted there were 24. We tried to explain to him that there are 26 and even started to show him, when he said, "No, it 24. ET went home." At first, I thought he was crazy, but after a moment we realized what he was doing and laughed our heads off. It's pretty impressive to be able to tell a joke in your second language!

Another time, we were playing Simon says. We had just started and were trying to get the rules straight. So, I said a few easy ones: "Simon says touch your head. Simon says swing a bat (pretend). Wiggle." When none of them wiggled, I said, "Wow you are all really good at this game! Not one of you wiggled!" To which one of the children said, "No, we don't know 'wiggle." Whoops! That would explain why they all just stood there staring at me!