First Trip to Kenting/World Gym Experiences

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Ni hao! (hello in Chinese)

Or I suppose I should say zao an (Good Morning! in Chinese)

I hope life is finding you well. I know it's been a bit since my last update, much has happened since I last emailed you.

A few weekends ago, I went to Kenting National Park with a couple of new teachers from Cornel as well as members of the church I've been attending. Just a few facts about Kenting that I found which you might be interested in hearing:

"Kenting National Park is a national park located in the Hengchun Peninsula of Pingtung County, Taiwan...it is Taiwan's oldest and southernmost national park, covering the southernmost area of the Taiwan island. this national park is well-known for its tropical climate and sunshine, scenic mountain and beach...and has long been one of the most favorite resort places in Taiwan..With coral sea cliffs teemed with fringing reefs along the west coast, the park features a large number of mountains in the north, and coral tablelands and foothills in the south.." - Wikipedia

Needlesstosay, this park is absolutely gorgeous and a wonderful weekend getaway. We rode down to Kenting, which is located near Kaohsiung (pronounced Gow-shung), on the HSR. It is the same railway I used to get to Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. Kaohsiung is the second largest city in Taiwan and is known as Taiwan's largest seaport. With my group, we were led by a woman who knows the area well, so we first rented scooters at a very low cost of about $9 for the weekend, and she took us to a more secluded beach called White Sands Beach. There, we rented everything we needed, from snorkeling gear, to tubes to float on, to umbrellas and chairs, to a ball for sand volleyball. I believe I spent no more than $10 USD for all that. We stayed at this lovely beach for about 3 hours, enjoyed some activities such as snorkeling (there is coral at this beach, which we were able to explore), and just laying around in the sun and being lazy. Afterwards, Amanda, our leader/tour guide/friend, took us on a tour of the backroads of Kenting. Everything is so green and it felt exhilarating to get out of the hub bub of the city and really breathe some country air. During our tour, the farthest out of the way we could be from downtown Kenting, we had a scooter breakdown where the belt on one of the scooters broke. So we waited for a half hour while Amanda tried contacting the place we rented the scooters from, and just as she was about to leave and drive back for help (which would be an hour away), a nice local stopped and told us he had a friend in the nearest village that owned and repaired scooters. So he called his friend, who later came by with his truck, picked up our scooter, and our scooter "posse" followed him to his shop. How fortunate could we be? We were really out in the middle of no where, where no one even spoke Chinese, only Taiwanese, which only about 9% of the population speaks, and really only in the most rural of areas. So luck was definetely on our side with that! After a half hour at the shop, and our broken scooter was fixed, we headed back to downtown Kenting to meet everyone for dinner. (No mishaps on our way back, yay!) After dinner, we shopped the crazy busy night market and then headed back to our hotel for some well earned rest. The next morning we headed back to Taichung, thus ending our excursion and sightseeing of Kenting. Funny side story though, on our way back to the HSR station, which is approx. a 2 hour ride, the taxi driver was nice enough to let us watch one of his movies on his DVD player, keep in mind, all of his english movies are B-rated and cheap...so you probably know where this is going. The title of the movie was "Shark Attack 3: Megadoom". It is the most ridiculous movie I've ever seen, similar to Jaws but just taken way way way too far...and I suppose the perfect choice after the unsuspecting tourists leave a beautiful beach...I'm still laughing at this movie and how horrible it is, if you ever get a rainy afternoon, please rent this God-awful movie, it will make your day!

Once we were back, we were into the full swing of things at school. The next week we ended the summer program and began the regular program. During the summer program, I taught just one class - 2nd grade - from 8:30 am to 12:30 pm. Now, since we started the regular program, all of our schedules changed. Instead of starting at 8:30, I now start at 1:50 pm and teach 2nd grade until 4:50 pm. Then I teach 5th grade after that from 5 to 7 pm. So it's a crazy schedule, and definetely took a lot of getting used to. (I still don't think I'm used to it!) To top off the transition of schedules and prepping for two classes instead of one, my fellow new teacher, Carinna, and I had to switch classrooms...a real pain in the butt. Since Carinna was teaching 1st grade and I was teaching 2nd grade, I had to be on the 2nd floor and she had to be on the 1st floor. So the weekend after Kenting, Carinna and I devoted ourselves to Cornel and moved every single thing up and down the steps...no small feat, but we made it! So now we're set and the only thing all of us new teachers are struggling with is adjusting to a new schedule and trying to fnd a routine that suites us...we'll get there, just takes time like anything else.

This past weekend, I did nothing and took a couple of days for myself...just wonderful! I wound up joining the local gym here- World Gym - and actually am taking a few sessions with a personal trainer, who's name is Rock...and yes, the name suites him well...I've never seen a more muscled person in my life and when I asked where his name came from, he replied in broken English, "Rock...WWE". He means the wrestler/actor, "The Rock", I tried to tell Rock that "The Rock's" real name is Dwayne, but he doesn't speak any English, so he didn't get my joke....sooooo training sessions are pretty interesting every time because of the language barrier, but strangely enough, we communicate just fine. It really is all about body language, so we always make due. But many sessions do turn quite hysterical. After some conversation and translating by another student of his, I mentioned to Rock the theme from "Rocky", after which he pulls out his phone, and starts playing the theme straight from his phone, while shouting at me "5...4....3...come on! 2...1...yeahhhh!!!!!" Yup, sessions are a blast. I had another session last night and I think this one tops all of my experiances at World Gym so far. While doing lunges, ab exercises, leg pumps, etc., about 6-7 gym employees gathered around me while I was in awkward poses and all spoke Chinese to eachother, then would stop and look at me and I would try to say something in English, which they would repeat back and teach me the Chinese word, so we were having lessons. I was teaching English to the employees and they were teaching me Chinese...all in awkward poses and I'm sweating like the world is going to end. (People do not sweat here...so they think I'm dying everytime they see me sweat!) Next time, they told me that I could only speak in Chinese to them...I said that's fine, but my converstaion will only be "Hao (Good) and Bu Hao (Not Good)", to which they all laughed. So I'm definetely making some friends. It's really fun to introduce American culture while learning Chinese culture at the same time...

Well I think that's it for now. I'm posting some links for you to visit and view pictures. It will be the same as last time where you can view the slideshow, just hit the pause button so you can view at your leisure...Enjoy!!!

Love, MB

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Photos

Scooter Breakdown
This is when the nice man came by to help us with his truck, we're heading to his shop!