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| New Teacher Family |
This Thanksgiving started off really hard. It was hard being away from family, hard not eating real turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, hard not sharing it with my friends from back home, hard being in a country where Thanksgiving is not something that is celebrated, and hard not being able to do some black Friday shopping. Despite all of the hardships I encountered, this turned out to be an AWESOME weekend.
Since I teach at an American School, we get off for Thanksgiving, even if the rest of the island does not celebrate it. This is said to be one of the best travel weekends in Taiwan for us Americans because of this. People were making plans to go all over, but since I have been a busy bee lately I decided to lay low and see where the wind would take me. I am so glad I did. The only thing I committed to was a race (10k) in Taitung on Sunday.
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| Jennifer and Larissa cooking :) |
Wednesday night all of the "new teachers" had a Thanksgiving dinner together. While we could not find turkey, we managed to find chicken and everyone else brought their version of Thanksgiving favorites. It was not exactly the same as what I would have back in the states, but it was really close and was by far one of the best meals I have had here. Not to mention, the feeling of family we created, made it all even better. 13 of us were crowded into a room sharing food, wine and friendship. You could not ask for a better substitution for being home.
Thursday, being Thanksgiving was the toughest day. I went to the gym, had brunch with Jennifer, then stayed at home catching up on my reading and sleep. Not what I wanted to do for Thanksgiving but good all the same.
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| Outside of the hostel |
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| Lobby of the hostel |
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| Walk to the competition site |
I got up Friday morning and headed to Taitung for a surf competition Lori's husband Keith was entering. When I got to the train station I was told there were only standing room tickets. I was silently cussing out the counter guy, but figured that is the best I could get so whatever. I got on the train with about 20 students on a school trip. After I had been standing for about 30 minutes, one of the little boys handed me a chocolate candy. He could not speak English, I can't speak Chinese but we exchanged smiles and I said thank you. Not long after a girl from the group offered me her seat. Once I sat down, the awkward stares started, but I just smiled. Then the girl took out a script for a play I think she was in. It was in English and she wanted to show me. She read me her parts, in English then motioned for me to read the whole thing. As soon as I started, I had a crowd of 15 Taiwanese kids around me wanting to hear me read this play, laughing and having a great time. After I was finished with the play, she handed me another book and we had story time for the rest of the ride. When it was time for me to get off the train, we exchanged e-mail addresses, the kids took pictures with me and I said goodbye. It was such a heartwarming experience and totally AWESOME!
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| Another image of the walk |
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| The surf competition site |
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| Lori and I |
Friday night I stayed in the small surfing town called Donghe with Lori and Keith. There was literally a 7-11, 3 surf hostels, and a harbor there. Nothing else. When I arrived, Lori and I walked down to the competition site, which was breathtaking. We headed back for dinner at the surf hostel we stayed in, then went to the hostel/bar down the road. There we met some really cool people, namely Ry Craike, a pro Australian surfer Quicksilver flew in for the competition. That was neat just hanging out and talking with him and his friends/entourage. Saturday we got up, went to the competition site and stayed there most of the day. The beach was beautiful and the people were so chill. Keith ended up placing 12th in the competition so that was really AWESOME!
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| This is what the beach looked like |
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| Beach on one side, mountains on the other! |
Saturday night we headed into Taitung to another hostel we were staying in for the night to meet the 20 or so people from KAS who were running in the race. We went out for pizza and headed back, hanging out and watching TV, making sure we got to bed early, after all we had to get up for the race at 6am. The race Sunday was in this park located on the base of a mountain. Throughout the whole run there was a great view of the mountain line in the sky. The weather was the prefect running weather, overcast with a little rain and slight chill in the air. I was running the 10k, and not being thrilled about running or exercising, I was just wanting to finish. I had dome a little training, but nothing extensive. When the race started, I tried to find a good pace, listen to some tunes and get in the running zone. To my surprise I ended up finishing 14th in my division with a time of 56.01. Better than I ever thought I would do. AWESOME.
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| This was the puppy at the hostel, too cute for words! |
With hurting legs and sore muscles all over, I went to the train station to head home, this time with Jeff, a PE teacher at KAS. My good luck at this point had run out because we got standing room only tickets yet again, (I think the train system here hates me) just what everyone wants after running a race, Jeff even did the half marathon. To make the trip a little more bearable, we went to 7-11 got some wine and waited it out with pizza and the wine. We ended up finding "seats" in between 2 train cars by the engine. Due to the fumes coming up from the floor boards, we rode most of the way with the train doors open, looking out at the scenery in Taiwan. I felt like a hobo, or someone in the circus. 2 bottles of wine and a couple drinking games later we were home. Once again an AWESOME adventure.
This weekend was an experience. Looking back I can not believe all the things I got to see and do, life is AWESOME!
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