There’s nothing like having a fieldtrip growing up. You pick your outfit the night before and pack your brown bag lunch, leaving all your homework and textbooks at home. I thought there was nothing like that feeling of euphoria, but as a teacher I have experienced the other side of field trips. I have experienced the need to keep everyone in groups and keep track of the kids that like to wander off. Despite thinking I would be the “cool teacher” similar to Cameron Diaz’s depiction in the movie Bad Teacher, I am a stickler. I found myself both looking forward to my 3-day weekend because my school on Monday was cancelled as the kids were on a field trip. I kept thinking about how much the students were going to forget over their 4 days in Taipei.
This weekend my students, more like the entire school – teachers and nurse included - all went to Taipei for the weekend. The kids were performing on an aboriginal TV channel playing their Amis instruments. The rest of the trip was packed full of different excursions including the zoo and a night market. Originally, I was under the impression I would get to join them on this trip. I was actually really looking forward to it because what is better than going to the zoo that I am already looking forward to visiting, with children that are just as excited as I am. However, as the date neared 電光國小’s director informed me that for some reason I wouldn’t be able to join them on their trip. I am assuming it was for financial reasons and I completely get it. I am the equivalent of bringing another student along because I can’t help plan or call for reservations. All I can be responsible for is making sure no one gets lost pretty much, so I can’t blame 電光國小for politely declining my invitation.
This is how I found myself staring at my calendar with a 3-day weekend. A three-day weekend lounging around my house didn’t seem all that exciting. Phrasing it like that means that I would probably spend Saturday going on a hike, Sunday maybe doing work, and spending Monday probably by myself with no one to talk to. That’s the hardest part. My Chinese isn’t really at a high enough level that I can converse with others for fun. As a result, typically after school I can go the rest of the day without having a real conversation outside of transactions like buying myself dinner. It can be really lonely most days seeing as I usually can just keep talking on a regular day, to going to not being able to talk to anyone if the other ETAs I live with are busy (which is getting more and more common). So instead of being by myself I made plans for a 3- day weekend in Taipei.
I always have really grand plans of what I am going to accomplish and then get completely side tracked. For one, Taiwan has these small markets or fairs that you wouldn’t even know about unless you happen to walk by. One moment you are walking down a street to a temple and find a small market to browse at 2pm and you look at your clock a minute later and its already 5pm. That was my Saturday. I went with two things in mind: to buy some sort of hiking bag for a camping trip coming up and to buy new gym shoes. I was able to complete one of those goals, the hiking bag. It’s interesting that for the amount of camping and hiking that happens in Taiwan, there isn’t many hiking stores. The hiking stores there all happen to be grouped in the same area within a few blocks of each other. It took us going to 5 stores to find a backpack that was both my size and more in my price range. I didn’t realize how expensive they could get. Prices in NTD, New Taiwanese Dollars, also makes the price inflated in my mind just because of the exchange rate too. I ended up getting a pretty small bag, big enough for a 2-3-day trip where someone else was carrying the tent. I couldn’t justify the huge bags because I only have one camping trip on the horizon and have never truly been camping before a day in my life. Who knows if I will actually enjoy myself?
What happened to be next to the hiking stores? A Chicago themed brownie bakery. Sean has perfect planning. You better believe we stopped for some brownies. Sean went with a strawberry chocolate brownie. I chose a classic walnut brownie and to split, we got a chocolate chip brownie. Now our personal brownies were good and I am completely fine with them carrying the Chicago name, but the “chocolate chip” brownie should’ve been called a cereal brownie. They used coco pebble cereal on top for a crunch which tasted more like burnt cereal than a chocolatey brownie. Eating more than our fair share of brownies and milk we returned back to Sean’s apartment before heading out for a run and a hike.
Sean had already been on this hike before with a friend and he had saved the location of the mouth of the hike so that he could take me on it as well. We are pretty adept now at taking the MRT, Taiwan’s subway network. We switched trains and got off at the right station and started to follow Google map instructions to what should’ve led us to his pin. However, what Sean remembers as being a 10-15 minute walk was getting closer to 30 minutes. His google directions led us to an apartment building in which the entrance to the hike was somewhere behind it, but there was no way to get behind the building. With the time already approaching sunset we weren’t going to make it to the top in time. Having already walked quite a long time and climbing stairs, my knee started to act up on top of everything from a small little injury I got running in the race last week. Sean made the executive decision it was probably best if we go on the hike at another time. Tired and hungry we happened across a smaller night market. That had an aboriginal dish that can be described as a triangle of rice surrounding mushrooms and vegetables, some dumplings, and chicken gyros sandwiches. Let me tell you that sandwich has a little too much mayonnaise to be considered a gyro.
Sunday was filled with helping Sean prepare for his conference on Aquaculture he was attending on Monday. We then spent the day making peanut butter cookies (I’m blaming the recipe for them not being good – not my baking ability), going to a flower market, visiting a temple, playing catch in the park, and watching the beginning of the Nightmare Before Christmas – the worst Christmas movie there is.
Bright and early, Sean left at 6 in the morning to catch the high-speed rail to Kaohsiung which is on the other side of the island. Kaohsiung is the pretty close to Taitung county, the county I live, but on the west coast meaning that it is more developed. Being on the west coast also means that Kaohsiung has access to the high-speed rail, changing my 4-6 hour train ride to Taipei into maybe a 1.5 hour train ride. I on the other hand slept in a little more, leaving at 8am to take the train to meet up with KT. KT is probably one of the coolest people I have met in Taiwan and she isn’t even an ETA like me. She is Amanda’s friend from when she studied in China. She had come for a visit last month and she actually ran the 10k at the Hualien marathon race in our group. She was living in Taipei for a month and a half as her job in did a background check before she started. Somehow only having met KT twice before we talk as if we have known each other for longer. She is so creative and open. To top it off she is also a twin so we bonded over that as well. When I let her know there was a possibility to see her once more before she left Taiwan, she jumped on the idea.
KT planned every part of the day to a T. We started with a film camera course at 9am from a Korean photographer, Min. Min had a great story. Despite growing up in Korea which is known for its academic pressure, Min dropped out of college a semester before graduation. He then started to travel to different countries and on a trip to China, he met his now wife who was a professional photographer. He decided to change his whole career and now finds himself moving around from country to country as a photographer with his wife. Don't worry Mom I am not becoming a nomadic photographer any time soon I don't have the skill set yet.
The photography class was personal with KT and I being the only students. The photographer even had my model of camera to utilize during a portion of the class. We walked around the neighborhood for 2 hours taking pictures. Now I understand the settings a bit more and how to load and unload film. I thought the hard part was the settings, but when I got my pictures back I realized I should’ve spent more time on the focusing and holding the camera steady as I took the shot. It’s an interesting way to focus using the circle in the lens to line it up. It was a little more confusing. Working with film is going to need a lot more practice. I wish I had brought my film camera with me to Taiwan.
After our photography class we went to a toy shop called “Fun Maker.” The toy shop is where KT had been working for the month and a half she was in Taiwan. It’s not like a regular toy shop either. It is more akin to a wood working workshop geared towards children. You program a laser cutting machine to cut small pieces of wood that you then put together to create anything from a box to a paper-airplane gun. KT had previously met the shop owners when she studied in Taiwan, and they gave her an open invitation to return whenever she could. She traded English translation for classes in woodworking. I got to try every “gun” in the shop which were all handmade and created by one of the shop owners. The whole idea of the toy shop is to encourage creativity and thinking out of the box. The owners wanted to show their kids (which they homeschool) that life is so much more than trying to get a good grade. The couple truly is an inspiration in how the raised their children, but also in how open and excited they were to have KT bring me to the shop. I grabbed a business card and have every intention to come back.
All the "guns" are created with rubber bands, string, wood, and sometimes glue - but typically the joints are created by perfectly fitting another piece of wood inside the other to keep them together.
Getting close to my train departure time we sadly had to skip the stop for a Chocolate Hazelnut Drink. Instead, we skipped right to a vegetarian restaurant where the woman spoke perfect English. KT hadn’t been to the restaurant in over a year, but the second she walked in the door the woman recognized her. It was beautiful. My goal is to build a relationship with someone here that is even half of what KT has created with the Fun Markers and this restaurant owner.
It was all over too soon. I was sitting on the train reading KT’s letter to me and staring at the gift she gave me as we hugged. She gave me the first ever box she made at the Fun Makers. We have already decided to become pen pals and this friendship is one that I am so grateful for. It was unexpected and serendipitous to meet her like all the stars aligned perfectly. Spending one of her last days in Taiwan with her made me see Taiwan in a new light. KT is an angel I swear.
There are a few things I have taken away from getting to know KT:
Live every day with a smile
Make friends where ever you go
Start good habits – everyday KT takes a video whether its meeting a new person or doing something new in which she introduces the person and describes what she is doing. She does this to keep her family updated, but also to not forget anyone or anything she does
Write letters and notes: simple words mean a lot
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