Touchdown Taipei.

The day arrived and I was on my way to pick Stephen up from the airport.  I decided to leave a bit later instead of standing like a bell end at the airport.  In hindsight this nearly turned out to be a mistake.

The reason it nearly turned out to be a mistake is because Taipei main station is like the Crystal Maze, even though I have been here for 1 year now I still think so.  As I was heading for the bus station, I followed the sign for the bus station as you do.  It turned out, it was the wrong bus station.  I had to belt out the station, down the road, and across a bridge.  The distance wasn't huge, it wasn't even a little far and I am no Speedy Gonzalez to begin with but in this heat I was slower than a snail.

Then when I got to the bus station the woman selling the bus tickets to the airport was battering my head worse than a load of cod in the chippy about taking her bus.  When it was clearly not the express bus, which I wanted and needed to get there on time.

Stephens flight was due to land at 6.15 and seeing as the bus took 1 hour to get to the airport I was indeed cutting it fine.  By the time the bus departed the bus station it was 5.45.  There was clearly nothing I could do about this, other than kick back, whack on the tunes and enjoy the ride.  It took another 15 minutes to get out of Taipei City!!

By the time I was getting closer to Taoyuan the sun started to set and it was the most beautiful and scenic sunset I had seen for a long time.  All oranges and reds reflecting of the clouds and giving off an awesome scene in the sky, that made you think I wish the sky was like this every night.  If I was back home, it would of definitely been a red sky at night, Shepards delight moment.

The sky called for me to change the music, and go for something even more mellow, and chilled out.  I opted to listen to Stornaway, and kicked back into a right proper chillaxing mode.  The chilled out moment was only slighty broken when I realised my sandal was stuck to the floor of the bus, by some mongs chewing gum!!!

When I got to the airport I was more than a little late.  Stephen however, wasn't mulling about like a lost sheep wondering where the hell I was.  So I assumed he was still waiting for his bag.  When I was waiting I was stood next to a Taiwanese guy with the biggest afro I have ever seen in the world.

I was stood there waiting quietly admiring the afro when all of a sudden there was a huge commotion and running towards this girl.  I thought she was a celebrity or something and I was missing out on a life defining moment here in Taiwan, but after calling Jen, and getting her to speak to the guy next to me.  It turned out was just proposing to his girlfriend.  With the reactions of all the people it looked like the answer was a firm yes, although by the looks of some of their party I think some were secretly hoping for a no!

At this point I was wondering where Stephen was.  It was getting close to nearly an hour after he had landed. I came up with a master plan that couldn't fail.  I called Jen, told her to check the flight details, and told her to call me back.  After the obligatory why didn't you take them with you?  (I just thought what can go wrong with turning up and waiting?)  So I told Jen "log into my Facebook, and check it out"  Which she did.

Then she wasn't too pleased because there was over 1000 messages between me and Stephen trying to plan what we were going to do when he got here.  The funny thing is, she thought the message box was a search function.  So she typed in flight.  Which Stephen replied from his Iphone getting my bags.  Classic!

Then eventually he showed up we then took the bus back to Taipei and a quick taxi to mine.  We changed out of sweaty clothes, and a shower from a can.  Then we headed off to a traditional Taiwanese beer/food place.  Me and Jen had booked it for when he arrived to make sure we could get a seat.

We got there a little later than planned Jen ordered 6 dishes of food and then the drinking commenced.  After a while the table behind us started to get louder.  We would occasionally turn to check out what was going on, then all of a sudden we started chatting with them.  Stephen then said cheers in Chinese.  (gan bei)   That then set the tone for the rest of the night.  If you say cheers in Chinese you have to down your drink.  (I'm sure my dad will know the word for cheers in Chinese no problem when he comes here.)

At around 10.30, Rainbow arrived from work to join the party.  We had a really fun night and the people on the other table were really friendly, and wanted to gam bei us all night long.  They were all out together in a big group, because everyone in Taiwan had a day off the next day, because of the Dragon Boat Festival.

We had 7 or 8 dishes of food, and god only knows how many beers.  The total bill only came to around £36 for 4 people.  Which I think is very reasonable.

The night ended with a few games on the ps3 and I even managed to see my dad online.  We went to bed at 6am because Stephen was quite a bit jet lagged after his 18 hour journey, then eventually we hit the hay.

p.s

Sorry I didn't have my camera with me in case I lost it when I was drunk.

My Apartment.

This is my apartment that I wont have for much longer.  It would be nice just to stay and live here because it is a super convenient location, and I like the facilities they have on offer in this building, but since I have changed my job so that I am now no longer working with a bunch of cunts I need to downgrade where I live too.  

My apartment is a nice size for 2 people, and has good roof top views, right in the heart of the city, I love it so it will be a shame to move out, even though I think I could get a kindergarten job.  I want to save more money, and buy more things so it makes more sense to let go.....ha.  

This is what I pretty much get for my £380 notes:

My apartment, internet, cable tv, roof access with awesome views, bbq pits on the roof, spa on the roof, a small cardio gym, internet room, pool table room, karaoke room, 24 hour guards, rubbish disposal.  So I think it is worth it for the wonga!

My apartment and view from the roof.....Soon to not be my apartment, only here until August.

Man Fridge

Before Stephen arrived I went and stocked up the fridge for when Stephen arrived and for the international football that night which was on TV instead of the basketball and the baseball which I felt was worth celebrating.  


Another reason obviously was it, was the second day of holiday time.  It was the beginning of a great 2 weeks ahead that was for sure. 


The fridge has been returned to its former glory days of when I lived with Owain and its back to being a man fridge happy days!

Man fridge, with 1 litre emergency can.

Smallest cinema in the world!!!!

A few weeks ago now, before I went off on my mini travel around Taiwan me and Jen decided we should go to the cinema.  We both really wanted to watch Hangover 2 and I had the night off, because I was waiting for Stephen coming and sorting  everything out.  Another reason was to celebrate the start of my holidays.


We always try to go to our favourite cinema first here in Ximending which is In 89.  We have never been yet since they did a refurbishment and had been quite excited to see if they had enhanced the viewing quality, or totally destroyed the feel of the cinema and how comfy it was......this was our chance.


As it turned out the cinemas were crazy busy and we missed the showing that we wanted to see.  I told Jen not to worry, we can just watch the next one that starts 30 minutes later.


The guy told us we would have to sit behind each other.  I thought my god they are really busy aren't they.  Jen then told me the cinema only had 30 seats!!  When I heard this I thought yeah this will pretty cool, it might even be a lot like a private showing.  


Then it happened, the time came for us to enter the cinema, I was really curious to see what it was like inside. I was thinking it will be awesome, 30 seats and a big screen how good is that.  We had to walk up loads and loads of stairs to get there, then I seen the entrance.  A tiny little doorway that only one person get through, smaller than a lot of turnstiles at the football.  I'm not fat, but not skinny either and if I had of been any fatter I don't think I would of fit through the door which would of been crazy embarrassing ha!  


Inside it was so tiny and a weird long shape.  Kind of like building a cinema the shape and width of a lamp post, with the light as the screen!  This was indeed the Peter Crouch of cinemas.  This cinema had obviously been added as an afterthought.  


How the same price could be charged for that small cinema and small screen is beyond me.  They only had 3 seats per row, there was no way they could of fitted any more in either.  The screen only looked about 10 inches bigger than my TV at home, and smaller than the screen I used to watch the Newcastle matches on at the social club with my old man.


The only saving grace was that Hangover 2 was awesome, followed the same pattern as the first movie, but was just as funny.  On top of that I think we didn't miss any defining scenes in the movie from watching it on such a tiny screen.  Everyone should of seen Hangover 2 by now, if not go and watch it. 

Smallest Cinema I have ever been to!!!

Fire/Fire brigade in Xiemen

Friday night last week I was on my way home from work and there was firemen and fire engines all over Xiemen, and part of the street was cordoned off.

The first sign something was a miss

I thought I would go around and have a bit of a nosy about as you do to what was going down.  From what I could make out there was some kind of fire or problem with some of the electrics in one of the buildings.  

Having a nose around

So the fire brigade it had seemed done the sensible thing as you would expect and turned out most the electrics to the rest of the street.  It seemed like other shop owners were running around complaining but there was jack shit they could do about it.  Anyway the situation was completely under control.

Under control

The whole area looked like it was complete chaos because of the amount of fire engines and fire men around but when i noseied around they really did have it all under control.  The amount of fire engines there though, and fire men.  It was the equivalent to opening a chestnut with a sledgehammer!

Loads of different fire engines about

On Saturday morning I seen the electrics where the problems had been caused the night before and they all looked burnt out.

What caused the problem

At least it was under control (I know I have said this a lot ha!) but if it had of expanded around Xiemen shopping area it could of been a complete nightmare how close the shops and buildings are crammed together, so no wonder the fire brigade took the sledge hammer approach I guess.

Zombies in Xiemen

One Saturday morning about 3 weeks ago, I was kind of sleepwalking through the commercial area of Xiemen on my way to the MRT.  As I turned one of the corners there was thick smoke all over the place.  Not only that a load of bodies and blood everywhere.  


It looked like the army had the place cordoned off.  They also looked like they were stopping people from getting through, at this point I stopped caring that people were dead all over the floor and thought, shit I'm going to be late for work if I have to walk around!  The thought did cross my mind of, what the hell happened here last night!!!


As I was still half asleep because it was 7am, I didn't notice the film crew.  It turns out the fact I was half asleep made it seem more real, and if I had of opened my eyes more I would of clearly seen they were making a new movie, right in my home neighbourhood.


At this point I was thinking bollocks, why don't I have my camera?  This made me re asses when, and when not to take out my camera and I take it with me pretty much most times now, it lives in my bag.  Hopefully I will never miss the chance to take photos of this kind of thing again, if I run into it by accident. 

Bus to Work.

Every now and then the bus to work is totally packed.  One day last week however it was more full than I had ever seen it.  We were all literally crammed into the bus like sardines.


I was stuck at the front between the door and the driver.  To my horror the bus driver was still stopping and letting more and more people pile in at every stop.  There was even people getting hit by the doors as they opened it was that full.


At this moment I was thinking this is mental, but no!  The mentalness carried on all the way to work.  The doors closed on a young kid at one point, and the young kid was stuck in the doors, you think the bus would stop right?  Wrong again it didn't it kept on moving with the kid stuck in the doors.  


Everyone was just looking at this poor little bastard stuck there, half in and half out.  I am sure they were thinking the same thing as me "BLOODY HELL!"


In the end I just grabbed him and pulled him out of the doors.  He replied with a firm xie xie (thank you.)  Eventually the bus trundled along to my stop, letting more people in at every stop.  When I got off I was happy to be away from that sardine can of a bus!

A bus like a can of sardines.

2 Women looking at me like I'm a compete bell end!

Trial for kindergarten job.

I applied to work at a kindergarten called Merry Angels, near Taipei 101.  When I went for the interview she told me that I had to go back for a trial day.  Even though I done a demo, they told me they require all there teachers to do a trial day.  She also told me the reason I could do the trial day on Monday was because there foreign teacher was not there.

We scheduled the trial day for Monday.  This was fine, but even before this I had to go and see the school director.  The day after my interview on Friday.  I went back to see the director and she blabbered on about stuff, and said that I would be doing my trial with the class I did the demo with.  This was fine for me as they were a bit older and you could speak to them pretty well, much more than the starter kids, and I didn't have to act like a performing monkey to some extent with this kids.

So it was all agreed, I would go on Monday do the trial day and they would be paying me 500NT dollars (£10) for this per hour. I had to work for 1.5 hours, and I had to make a teaching plan for 30 minutes phonics, and 30 minutes songs and chants.  She also told me that it normally takes 3 days of a trial to decide if she wants to hire you, but because I have been working here for 1 year she should be able to tell in 1 day and not 3.

When I got there though, she told me that she wanted me to work with the younger class.  This started to set my alarm bells ringing straight away.  I was thinking after she told me about their other foreign teacher being missing, that they just wanted me to work with which ever class they had a teacher missing from and I was thinking what happens if they keep asking me to go back for a trial.

I managed to make what I thought was a very good plan after the football on Sunday night.  My phonics plan was solid, totally solid for the age, and level I was dealing with.  It also helps I have lots of co operative Taiwanese co teachers in my job who are willing to give me ideas about how to teach phonics.

My songs and chants was not as solid, I didn't know what they already knew and what they didn't know.  I had the CDs that I had made while I worked at Happy Marian, so I tested them out and they worked fine.  I picked some songs and chants to do that I had used in the past and then planned how to teach them.

I was going to sing leaves are falling from the trees......and the chant I chose was Nobody likes me.  All was set, I packed up everything I needed then I headed to bed.

The next morning I woke up with enough time to get there  with a bit of time to spare.  The kids were doing there morning exercise with some English guy from London.  The morning exercise didn't look as bad as the one in Happy Marian because he was playing a CD for the kids to dance and sing a long too, instead of having to make it all up him self.

Then this is when the whole plan changed.  The director of the school told me that I would not be working with the age group I demoed with and instead she wanted me to work with a younger age group, much younger!  I then had to try and quickly adjust my plan in my head, and the co teacher looked like a stubborn you know what!  Just like the last one.  The director also told me that instead of working for 1.5 hours she only wanted me to work for 1 hour as she had to go somewhere.  This suited me just fine because she changed the age group I was working with and I didn't really have a great deal of time to adjust my plan.

Anyway things got off to a good start, as I set about teaching them the long A vowel.  The kids seemed to really like me, but that has never been a problem for me in every interview I have went to here since I arrived, the problem was always the professional side which I am much better at now.

I set out the words in a grid, and had the letters that make the long vowel sound above, then underneath I wrote the words like cake, bake, sail, day, say, etc etc.  I messed around with the kids asking them if they have a tail, and we pretended to bake cakes.  I was getting them to say, watch out for your tail as you bake a cake!  Seemed like a good way to make them learn.  Then at the end when the cake was finished we ate eat, and it was a good day!  Roll out the long A's and yes the cake was imaginary!

Then I thought they would manage to play a hitting game, so I had my mosquito hands at the ready.  Then I wrote out some of the long A words onto the white board and drew big circles around them.  Then I chose kids who were sat nicely, I said a word and they had to hit the correct word that I was saying.  Some of them could manage this and some of them could not.

After this I done a drawing activity, where the kids had to match the word, with the sounding letters that made it into a long A sound.  With this activity only about 2 kids from 8 managed to do it.  So I didn't try this for very long, and anyway all the kids were getting bored and annoyed it seemed because they could not do it.  So I did a quick review of the long A words that they learnt then got my stuff ready for songs and chants.

This is where a mini disaster happened, my CD's would not bloody work.  I didn't write the words down to the songs either, so I just ended up doing the ones I knew.  I sang The Grand Old Duke of York, 5 Little Ducks, and 5 Little Monkeys.  When I was singing 5 little Monkeys jumping on the bed, some little fell over and bashed her head right of the cupboard!  That was not good and I was glad the school director did not see that.  The kid was all right thank god, like most of the time they always are.

Then I finished off with some chants.  Mainly just Nobody likes me.  The words of it go like this:

Nobody likes me,
everybody hates me,
so I'll eat a worm.
When its in your stomach,
It will squirm.
Eat some candy instead.

Once I thought they managed this as best they could in 5-7 minutes I decided to get out my piece of rope I took with me.  The plan was to get them to wriggle along the floor like worms one at a time as the rest of the class said the chant.  This would make them remember it a long with the actions we learnt from it.

Then once I was finished my trial it was off to see the school director and take a look at the contract.  She then told me that she would not pay me today.  Said that she would only pay me on the last day of the demo, I told her I would rather get my money now, I am glad she agreed otherwise I would of ended up telling I want it now.  Anyway she never mentioned not getting paid on a daily basis.

Then when I looked at the contract what a nightmare job.  The contract was terrible, if I ever got sick I was not allowed to stay off for more than 3 days, if I was sick and off for 3 days I would have to find a replacement teacher otherwise they would fine me 300 NT(£6 per day!)  If the school let me have any time off, and I did not find a replacement teacher, even if they agreed to letting me have the time off they would fine me 300NT dollars per day!

If I wanted to end the contract early and they would not allow they would fine me 10,000 NT dollars (£200.) This would come out of my wages, which they would pay into the bank so I would have no control over if they actually paid me it or not.  If I did not renew my contract, they would have the right to cancel my contract whenever they liked in the last 2 weeks to find a new teacher without any notice, and without any pay outs due to loss of pay.

They wanted me to turn up to there staff meetings every week, which were unpaid.  It made me laugh because in the contract it said the staff meetings are 1 day a week, on either, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday.  So I thought it is when you can be arsed to arrange them then.  They wanted me to fill out all the progress reports in 30 minutes of a break time, and hand them in to the director before Friday.  They wanted me to attend all the special events they would arrange, but they didn't mention if that was paid or not.  They also wanted me to turn up early, and deal with the parents in the mornings, and deal with the parents when the kids were going home.

They wanted me to make up all the songs, scripts, and plays for the special events too.  I mean come on, why can you not just get story books and follow the plot.  It is not really that difficult.  To ask someone who is only working 1.5 hours a day to make all the scripts and plots, and find all the stories for your special events is not really very reasonable in my eyes.

Now don't get me wrong a lot of jobs here in Taiwan have these kind of contracts and it is obviously due to previous foreigners who have been working here doing what the hell they want.  It does however mean you need to be very cautious with which job you will take, because from my own previous experience here if you make the wrong decision you will just end up losing money!  I have already had my fingers burnt once here and I wont be getting them burnt again.  As the saying goes, trick me once fool you, trick me twice fool me!

It would of been a decent job if:

A) they didn't have all that extra crap that I would have to do.  I mean if I am only working 1.5 hours per week and then in my own time have to work like 5 or 6 hours its not really worth it is it.  If it was just a normal part time gig, of turn up with my teaching plan, teach for 1.5 hours and go home without all the extra crap that could of worked.

B) if they actually paid me more money per hour, to compensate for all the extra crap I had to do in my own time.  Like for example if I only worked 1.5 hours there and made 750NT dollars (£15) per day.  Then had to do all that extra crap I would not have any time to do anything else, all my time would be taken up working for £15 a day.  If you work it out by the actual real hours I would be working to the hours I would actually be paid the job is shit.  Like I said though if they paid 200-300 NT dollars more than it could of been considered but at the rate they offered I didn't even think twice about telling them no way!

Evaluation Result.

My evaluation result went fine.  I have a few things to improve but that was to be expected.  It was better than I thought it was going to be due to my slight messing up in the first class.  They said they can see I try really hard and have the right attitude so they think I am doing ok.


I got average, but it is better than what it could of been and worse than what it can be.  The things I need to improve is making sure all the kids understand and the classroom management.  I think class room management is difficult to master and will only come naturally with experience.  At least I can deal with kids and I don't have to learn that too, because I am sure some teachers come here and don't even want to work with kids their could only be here for a jolly or whatever other reasons.  Anyway my social interaction with dealing with the kids at work is totally fine, I have no problems with that side of my job.


Even some of the professional side now, I feel much better at, and I also feel a lot more confident in what I am teaching, and I feel like I am starting to develop my own style instead of following the book like a clone.  This is a good thing and I can only improve of that I am certain.


The one complaint I have at the moment is the hours keep chopping and changing but it is not such a major problem at the moment and I can cope with it up to now, and also waking up on Saturday mornings at 6am to go to work really kill me.  Sometimes I feel half asleep but I have only been late one Saturday morning which is an absolute miracle for me to be honest with you folks.


Basically things are going well with work, but there is definitely potential for it to get even better by ten fold.  Which I think it can in time.  I really love working with all the kids I am working with now.  The class they swapped me to is awesome, really talkative and like to have fun, a lot more than the quiet class I struggled for three months to speak to me.  Anyway like I said things are going well for me at the moment which is great.

Work Evaluation.

So I get my work evaluation tomorrow, I am not sure I am looking forward to it.  As you can all imagine I was pretty nervous for someone to be sitting in my class assessing me.  I made a bit of a mistake in the first class, and then I panicked a little bit.  I shouldn't of been so nervous because the first class I am normally really good with.


Then the class I am not so good with.  The GEPT class, I normally struggle a little bit with this one, but I thought what the hell.  I have already made a mistake so I thought it could not get any worse.  Then low and behold my supervisor praised me for my style of teaching with this class.  I was a bit shocked because the classes were a bit flipped around, I think I put too much pressure on my self to well in the class which I normally do well in, then when the mistakes started to happen......I thought bloody hell this is going terrible and then didn't think it could get any worse and it didn't.


On the plus side I have an interview for a morning job on Thursday morning, so seems like schools might be publishing their morning jobs again now.  I have never got a morning job from Tealit before, or any job from Tealit for that matter, so I am not so certain I will now.  Well you have to be in it to win it don't you so I have lobbed my huge hat in the ring and will fight for a morning job.  I need more wonga ha!


Anyway wish me luck for my evaluation tomorrow because I hate getting evaluated always makes me panic, and I always put too much pressure on myself.  Can not relax in that kind of environment.

Pan fried dumplings and a man hanging from a window!

Today I decided I wanted fried dumplings for my lunch.  There is a place in Ximen that does them near my home for 5NT dollars per dumpling.  (Equivalent to 10p per dumpling.)


Chinese style dumplings are a lot different to dumplings back home in England.  The outside texture is made from flour and the inside is filled with either meat or vegetables.  That is not the only choice you have to make when it comes to eating dumplings here however, you have to choose is you want fried dumplings or boiled dumplings.  Then you have to choose what flavour you want if you buy the fried ones like the ones I like the most at the moment.  The flavours you can choose from what I can remember are: curry, Korean kimchee, plain/normal, or leek.  


Personally I always get the curry and the kimchi ones. The reason for this is because they are a lot more spicy than the normal ones and I prefer my food that way. 


So when I went to work today I made a detour to the dumpling place thinking I have plenty of time because I left pretty early for work today.  So I just trundled a long at the speed of a snail because the weather felt so humid and it seemed like my lungs were battling with everyone else's for air!


On my way there I noticed a man hanging out of a window really high up above everyone else.  I was pretty pleased that I took my camera with me so I could get some pictures.  So I quickly took out my camera, changed the settings to cloudy and zoomed in hoping he wouldn't move.  I would of been pissed off for being to slow if he moved from that bloody window!  As it happens he didn't move and I zoomed in to get some shots of him in the window.  When I moved a little further down the road I realised the man was hanging out of the window having a discussion with a man hanging over the roof of the building.  

Man hanging out of a window!

Man hanging out of a window talking with a man hanging over the roof!

I just stood and watched for a while and thought that is proper crazy mental!  After this little unexpected pit stop I then proceeded on my short cut through all the lanes and alleys to my final destination.....the dumpling shop.


I ordered 8 kimchi, and 8 curry fried dumplings.  16 dumplings in total, at the final cost of 80NT dollars.  (the equivalent to £1.60 back home.)  The place was empty, there was an american guy with what looked like his girlfriend/or a date and 2 Taiwanese girls at the back of the shop.  The 2 girls smiled at me a lot when I went to get my sauces for my dumplings.    This was not because they wanted to get it on with me, but just because people here are happy when they see foreigners eating alone in local places.  They think most foreigners won't eat like locals and especially not when they are alone.  So they look at me like an anomaly in the foreigner community.  I am often told, "your Taiwanese" due to what I can eat here.

Fried dumpling, kimchi at the front and curry at the back.

You have to add the sauces to your dumplings, they have loads of different type of sauces to add.  The ones I like the most are, 2 different types of soy sauce, one is thin like back home what we are all used to, and another is thick.   I also really like the spicy sauce too.  You can get spicy sauce, or spicy flavours added to everything here and for me that is great.


When I started eating my dumplings I realised I forgot to get a drink due to the short cut that I took.  This is rare for me as I hate eating food without having a drink.  I thought nothing I can do now, so just ate the dumplings.


When I was leaving I seen a couple walk in and they had there dog.  It still kind of amazes me people carry there dogs into food places still here.  It is not as bad as when I was in Bangkok though and some women sat opposite me in the restaurant had her pet mouse with her in the restaurant, that kind of takes the biscuit a little bit.


I throughly enjoyed the dumplings as always, even when eating them without a drink.  I am glad I checked that place out back when I did otherwise I wouldn't know about it now.