fishing boats in danshui


friendly neighbourhood spiderman, whos job is to dance in a window all day every day. only in asia.


typical asian karaoke, always with the bryan adams


sunset in danshui


this would be the aforementioned picture of the john, the dropped money, the hooker, and me pointing out to everyone that this was "all about the money."



typical asian crowd



This is, once again, Taipei 101, the highest building in the world at the moment, which is meant to bamboo stalk tied together with vines. However, as you may notice, the vines look a little....phallic.


This picture is of a man fishing at Danshui, a smallish town on the ocean, near Taipei. You may notice that he is fishing where the water comes out of a sewage drain. Only in Asia also.



One of those fucking dressed up dogs that are absolutely everywhere



This is the flagpole at Sun-Yat Sen Memorial Hall. I also happened to be sitting at the bottom of this when the 3 soldiers marched up to perform the flag-lowering ceremonies, which was very awkward as i had to crawl away since I didnt notice them coming. i really wish i had myself in this picture crawling away in the corner.





These two are of the Sun-Yat Sen Memorial Hall


The woman who tends the prayer candles at Longshan Temple





These two are of Longshan Temple, one of the more famous temples in the middle of Taipei.





This is a view of the Taipei skyline from the roof of our building. That is Taipei 101, the highest building in the world.


This is the view on the other side of our building, a bunch of public housing mostly.

Hello all,

You know how I've mentioned that this is a fucked up place already? Yup, still is.
I am doing well, working pretty hard and all that good stuff. I'm working like 36 hours a week until atleast Chinese New Years, which becomes about 50 with marking and lesson planning and all that garbage. It is all quite hilarious because I have no idea what I'm doing. I spend most of my time completely bullshitting and I must say, I am good at that. And, it is a good thing I am because otherwise I would be in some trouble. But ya, the job itself isn't that hard and there are teacher trainers (both of whom are not leaving Taiwan any time soon since they've both accidentally (?) impregnated unsuspecting Taiwanese girls) to help out with planning stuff.

The teaching itself is pretty humourous because the people I'm teaching are pretty fuckin funny. The adult and teen classes I have are OK but not overly special. I have this one 3 hour class every weekday for the next 3 weeks, and it is all teenagers on winter break from school who have absolutely no interest in being there. The adult class is slightly better, mostly because of comments such as the Robert DeNiro line and a more recent one where they were learning either/or and one woman said "I don't like my cocaine and the teacher does not like it or either." I thanked her for her belief in my clean living style and have since then been trying to figure out what she was trying to say. I also started teaching very very tiny kids who don't know a word of english and are about 4 years old. It didn't start very well when I tried to play a game with them, and Kiki (who I am certain will grow very sorry in the future that she had to pick her english name when she was 4 years old) took one look at me, started bawling and attempted to crawl into her backpack. She didn't fit, and the rest of the class was an adventure. It was pretty fun though, as it is pretty much all, "A a apple!" and then they scream it out after you. Good times. By the way, in case you are wondering what the dominating female english name is in Taiwan, you may be surprised to learn that it is Candy. Good luck with that ladies of Taiwan.

Taiwan in general is quite the place. We have found that the mentality of the Asian people is quite different than our own. For example, a Taiwanese teacher who works at Dave's school came into work to ask his director if he could take the next day off because his best friend from childhood had just died and he wanted to attend the funeral. She said no, because it would leave them shorthanded the next day. Or, Mike put a question on his test asking "What would you do if you saw a person drowning in a pool?" 100% of the class answered, "I would not help him because if I did I might drown." So apparently, something different is going on here. I guess it's just a cultural thing?

I have loved immersing myself in this culture, as it is about as different you can experience. Whenever I get some free time I try to get out and have a look around. So I've spent alot of time walking around markets and temples and all that good stuff. The other day I went to Sun-Yat Sen Memorial Temple, which is for the first president of the country. If you'll look at the picture where there are 3 soldiers lowering a flag, you will see the spot where i was sitting against the base of the flagpost just a moment before and had a very awkward moment where I got in the way of the traditional march and flag lowering ceremony and had to scramble out of the way because I didn't see or hear them cuz I had my headphones in.

We were out having a beer at a bar the other night, and as we were leaving we saw an actual, real life, good looking blond girl. Dave was very excited, as this was the first good looking blond he had seen here in 5 months, so he decided we would have to stay and make a night of it. So, we made a quick stop off at 7-11 (there is seriously 2 on every block, it is insanity) to buy cheap beers and we proceeded to get belligerently drunk. Apparently the rest of the night was fun, as it included Boner Dave getting molested by a terrifying, unidentified Asian girl and an oreo cookie wedding proposal. Also, there are pictures of me standing next to a sleazy white businessman and his newest friend, as i drew attention to the large crowd of people outside the bar that he was buying himself some night-time accompaniment. At that point, he dropped the money and she had to pick it up, and I pulled a massive awkward face and then proceeded to make things awkward-er by asking them how they knew eachother; however, that part is pretty fuzzy and i dont know how he came back to that one.

There is a basketball court a block from our apartment building. So I bought a ball and have been playing a bit, which has obviously led to alot of humourous situations. Most of the teens and other people who play there can't speak much english, and they certainly aren't used to my whiteboy styles. I try to explain that I play basketball like Manu Ginobili and they dont understand, and then they ask me, i think, my name, and i tell them Duncan, and they get unreasonably excited and started yelling "Tim Duncan! Tim Duncan!". So, that gets interesting, especially when I yell "White Chocolate" every time I drive to the basket, but I don't think that "street name" is really catching on in the streets of Taipei yet. Sigh.

Anyways, I'm posting some pictures below. There are a few of the view from our rooftop of the city, pictures from the Longshan Temple, pictures from the market at Danshui and the ocean, etc... LAter

If you want to know what Taipei is all about, all you have to do is cross the street. If you don't get hit by a bus, it's quite the experience. As you walk though, you get mesmerized by the little green man on the city's "walk" lights. It doesn't just flash, he walks. And he doesn't just walk, he starts running as the seconds count down until the light changes back to red. As you cross, the street alongside you turns into a wall of trucks and buses, absolutely insane cabbies coming ridiculously close to causing 20 car pileups and an incomprehensible number of scooters (it would be nice to get a scooter to cruise around on except that i would a)surely die and b)i have a bit of a confidence issue after violently crashing my scooter in september). So ya, that is Taipei in a nutshell; absolutely frenetic at all times, everyone pushing to be the next to suck down more and more fumes.

You can tell that the city maybe urbanized too fast: unbelievable traffic, some very hideous buildings and dense dense smog. But hey, a city with such a ridiculously efficient subway system cant be all bad, right? In fact, it may just be worth travelling here. I am enjoying the culture the more time I spend here, as it is so much different than anything I've experienced. Obviously the cultures in Africa were very special, but the East meets West culture here is something else. My favourite thing so far are the night markets. They are, obviously, packed with people, with dumpling and noodle stands everywhere and knockoff clothes, just amazing. Today I had a day off so I went to check out the Longshan Temple, which is just a beautiful spot in the middle of the city. I went and hung out there for a few hours, and at one point a monk starts beating a drum and everyone in the temple starts singing for half an hour. An amazing experience, it was an amazing to see people of all ages, classes, etc... from homeless people to businessmen, all standing beside eachother singing.

I've started teaching now, and it's pretty hilarious. I've taught some adult classes, but no kids yet, so I'm sure that will get somewhat frustrating when that happens. My personal favourite was when I asked the question to the class, "what singer or actor/actress do you think is sexy?" and a 40 year old man answered that he believed, "robert deniro is an every sexy, handsome man". The other foreigners here just get weirder and weirder as I meet more of them. It has also come to my attention that there are 2 types of lifers: the nerdy, holier-than-thou types who sit at home and wait to come back the next day and teach some more english, and the lost souls who drink impressive amounts of anything they can get their hands on when they arent doing as many drugs as they can get their hands on. The common denominator for people who have been teaching more than a few years is that they interchangeably, and seemingly unknowingly, switch from talking normally to talking babytalk. It is very bizarre, please make sure that doesnt happen to me.

So ya things are good. Right now I am looking into volunteering in maybe Laos or Cambodia for the month of May before starting to travel. If anyone has heard of any good volunteer opportunities or interesting NGOs working in Southeast Asia, can you let me know? laaater

Whaaat's happenin,

So here I am. May I once again apologize for the nerdy blog, but I suppose it is a necessary evil at this point. In case you didn't know, I am now working in Taiwan, teaching english for awhile. I got here about 5 days ago after a really long flight and a connection through Japan. My everlasting memory from Japan will be the automatic soap dispensers in the washrooms. ahhh progress.

So I arrived in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, and Dave picked me up at the airport, where we then proceeded to take the best dressed bus I've ever seen to our apartment. I think the people of Taiwan may be compensating for something, because being bigger than everyone else is of the utmost importance. If it isn't Asia's biggest english bookstore it is the world's largest commercial building or Southeast Asia's biggest temple or the world's most polluted pigeons (maybe i made that one up, but probably not). But, it's a very typical big Asian city: very crowded, filled with bright lights and ridiculously polluted. I like it alot so far though, it is such an interesting culture to immerse yourself in, and the people are for the most part very nice when they aren't making blatantly lude comments in mandarin about me. our apartment is small but pretty nice, and my favourite part is that we can sit on the roof of our building with the taipei skyline on one side and some more poor, residential housing on the other side, great view. i did have a bit of a tough time adjusting to living in this little apartment building though. i accidentally ended up on the wrong floor the other day, and spent several minutes trying to barge in on an old lady's apartment. for some reason i wasnt paying attention tho, and didn't connect the shrill scream i kept hearing to my inability to get into my apartment. i am pretty sure, however, that the police motorcycle that was parked outside the building later on was unrelated.

i do have, as usual, many typical, slightly cynical observations from my time here so far. first of all, everyone cares way too much about their dogs. evidently, the cheap clothing that asia is so well known for extends to canines as well. i swear, some of the wardrobes ive seen are unbelievable. today, i looked beside me as i was crossing the street (which is an adventure in itself, ive almost been hit by about 14 half drunk lunatic cabbies) when i looked over and saw a dog wearing a raincoat that put me to shame. secondly, taiwan really wants you to know how much people want to be here. for example, did you know that the 2009 deaflympics are in taipei? take that vancouver 2010, we dont need you anyways. thirdly, when millions of people share the same four last names, you are gonna get the odd woman with the last name chung who makes the wrong choice for their english first name. good news connie chung, you are well-represented over here.

so i got a job teaching english here for the next little while. i went into my school for the first time yesterday and there certainly are some interesting characters around. the way i see it, there are 2 categories of ppl who do this
job. the majority are lifers: they are balding, probably named
jimbo and spend atleast several years here, if not marry an
poor, unsuspecting taiwanese girl and live here forever. then there are the
monthers. that would be me, dave, and about 4 other people on this island. everyone keeps talking about how i'll get the hang of it "after 6 months or so," to which i always almost laugh in their face. but, there are some really nice people, so this should be a pretty hilarious few months. anyways, talk later muchlovedunc