beginning of the end

it's been quite a while since i've written, but as usual, not much is new. my last two months can be summed up with 3 points:

1) I went to Taiwan with Aaron over Spring Break
2) First semester has started, which is the beginning of my JET end
3) Us ALTs had the wildest/longest day up north in Hitakatsu 2 weekends ago, and was by far, the most fun i've had all year

first off: Taiwan. after planning the packed trip that was Okinawa for me and 2 other people, i felt really adverse to the idea of planning yet another trip so soon afterwards. originally, aaron and i wanted to travel all over the place during spring break (singapore, manila, hong kong, and taiwan), but due to cathay pacific failing us again, we just decided to do taiwan only, and it actually worked out for the best.

we spent a week there, including 2 days in Tainan and 4.5 days in Taipei. since adam had gone to Tainan earlier in the year, we figured Tainan could offer us the non-metropolis view of taiwan, and all in all, it seemed like a pretty nice place to live. i think it's currently the 4th most populated city in Taiwan (i think the old capital of Taiwan if my memory serves me right), so there's a good balance of people, sightseeing, and places to go. we figured taipei would serve our shopping cravings, so we spent those two days in Tainan walking endlessly, seeing just about everything there was to see tourist-wise.

then it was taipei. man, is food cheap in taiwan. i ate like a king for a week, and still didn't need to break into my emergency piggy bank fund. off the top of my head, i recall going to Taipei 101 (the tallest completed building in the world), the Shilin Night Market (which was insanely packed and huge), Maokong Gondola (takes you to the top of a mountain for a view of Taipei... and home of many tea farms), some electronics market (where i got the pimpest electronic dictionary ever), the and National Palace Museum (home to one of the largest collections of Chinese art in the world).

while i've come to expect a lot of walking on vacations by now, i didn't foresee just how much we'd be walking in taiwan. by far, our most ridiculous day was our first whole day in taipei. our hotel was the second to last stop on one of the metro lines, and from our hotel, we could see Taipei 101. so that morning, we figured we could walk 10 mins to the station, take the metro for 2 stops, then walk another 10 mins to Taipei 101, or we could just walk straight there. so being the foolish people we were, we walked about 45 mins from our hotel to Taipei 101... you know, it's deceivingly far... but i guess you'd have to expect that since it's the tallest building in the world and all. also, up close, Taipei 101 didn't feel that tall because all the surrounding buildings are short. i still recall visiting the Twin Towers in NY the summer before senior year and thinking, daaaaamn they're tall, but then again, all the neighboring buildings being tall to begin with kind of accentuated how tall i perceived the Twin Towers to be.

after taipei 101, we went to an electronics market because for years, i've wanted an electronic dictionary that can go from english to mandarin and cantonese. particularly, i want it to pronounce it out loud for me so i can speak better. after wandering the market for nearly 2 hours, i finally settled on one that had what i wanted, and had a good price. for only about US$170, my dictionary can not only do cantonese and mandarin, but it can also go from chinese <-> japanese, german, french, spanish, and italian. not to mention it has a study function where you can learn conversational phrases in languages like thai, vietnamese, russian, and god knows what else. it's pretty insane.

as if all this walking wasn't enough, that night, we decided to hit up one of the highlights of taipei: the Shilin Night Market. it's famous for it's specialty foods, and just having a giant market that sells everything from shoes, to knock-off DVDs, to clothes, to accessories..... you name it, they probably have it. fulfilling yet another dream of mine, i purchased a real mahjong set... it was a bit pricey, but for the future joys i'll indulge in with my very own joy luck club, i can't complain. despite the market being pretty huge, i'd still have to say the weekend market in Bangkok is the most impressive market i've ever seen. i mean, there's something like 10,000+ stalls there, and no one has ever been able to count them all. THAT'S lunacy.

so to sum up, in that one day, we probably walked about 7 or 8 hours total... which is why it was no surprise that we were shells of human beings in the successive days. we'd aim to do something that day, and by the time we finished it, we were like, screw it, let's go back to the hotel and nap. all in all, though, i had a great time, and it was due mainly to the company and to not having a strict plan of what we had to do every day... going with the flow definitely made it that much more relaxing.

after our vacation, it was school. so far, i'm finding that teachers who have been reassigned schools have managed to stay within my town, which means that at the end of the shuffle, i still get to see my favorite teachers in new environments, while at least 2 teachers i disliked have been moved out of my town to aaron's schools muahahaha (^ ^)v it's weird to think that i've spent a whole school year with all my students, and that now they've moved on to the next grade. it really doesn't feel like i've been here that long, much less that i've been here for over half of their school year when i got here, saw them through a whole school year, and now am beginning a 3 school year with them. at the end of this semester, that's it... i'm gone. i don't think it's really sunken in... the year is fresh for everyone around me -- teachers and students alike. since my schedule doesn't change, and since they all know me, my life is relatively stable. i'm the type of person where once i'm used to a certain lifestyle, i dont change unless i need to. which is why now that i'm set in this routine, it's going to be strange uprooting myself and moving back home.

finally, the 3rd exciting piece of news... the funnest day ever this year. 2 weekends ago, all of us got together up north for a day at the beach. for about 4 solid hours, we played volleyball, baseball, soccer, and frisbee. as if all that running around wasn't hard enough on our bodies, we followed that up with a night of drunken debauchery. we gathered at joey's to ultimately enjoy a bbq, beirut, and dancing. i can only imagine how loud we were. poor mike got completely trashed and passed out shirtless on joey's couch early in the night. so what does joey do? break out in the sharpies... mike said it took a few days to get all the sharpie mess out, and i dont blame him...

in short, i'm glad we had that bonding time. it was an insane day, but i had a great time, and i think everyone else would say the same.

it's back to work tomorrow, but at the end of the week, guess what i have to look forward to? showing my parents around Tsushima! that's right --- after allll this time, they've finally given in and decided to come to me (on my brother's tab =D). i'll have them for the weekend, and then it's only a few more months till i'm destined for home.

that's all the news for now. tah tah!