To the Mountains

On Sunday, after church, Steph wanted to go up to the mountains. Never wanting to miss the chance to explore, I went with her and we took a path up near a Buddhist college, when things really started to change. If you go outside of the city, further than the gardens and fields surrounding the school, it's seriously another world. It's so green and the mountains are huge up close and covered in plants I've never seen before. We both thought it was like entering a fairy tale. The mountain village we passed through was even called Eden Paradise (spelled Pardaise on the sign).

We kept going up the path, getting more and more tired as we went, but the thought of how much fun that ride down was going to be kept us going. So we kept it up until we hit the end of the trail, which opened up to a spring where people were swimming. There was a tour that was going over a dam and further upwards, but I stopped at the spring where a group of people were barbecuing. They wanted to give us fish and shrimp (they taught me how to chew on places like the head and the legs so you got the flavor; you spit out the shell) they were catching. They had shrimp, mushrooms, pork, fish, fish, and more fish. Steph went on to explore where the diving group was going while I stayed behind to talk to the barbecuing people. They were all very friendly and it gave me some great practice speaking in Chinese. Unfortunately, they kept trying to give me Heineken Beer, saying that OMG Taiwan beer is the best beer in the world. I politely declined, explaining that my religion doesn't allow beer and they grudgingly accepted it.

After that, we decided to go home before it got dark. The ride down was extremely fun and it felt great because I was soaked in sweat from the long ride up.

Fast forward a few days to today and I have more to share. Across the hall from our apartments is another pair of rooms meant, I guess, for more teachers. One is used for school storage and the other is an empty room. The door to that room is always locked, but I was curious, so I tried to see if I could open a window and crawl in. It turns out I could. Inside was a big pile of pencil shavings, a pencil sharpener, a bag of pencils, English pamphlets for tutoring kids, and a bunch of skirt hangers in the closet. Figuring no one would miss them, I took the pencils, sharpener, and skirt hangers. I'm practically a pillager, but at least my skirts won't be wrinkled now.

Now I'm just sitting around, planning for tomorrow's lessons so I don't wake up feeling anxious like I usually do. I always have the grave expectation that I'm going to flop when I get into the classroom, that the kids won't pay attention and that the teachers will think I'm a waste of time. I think I might be jinxing myself. If anyone has a piece of advice on how to keep the attention of 3-5-yr.-olds, feel free to speak up. We have a field trip we are going on tomorrow to a nearby festival. That should be awesome.

There's a lightning storm going on outside, not overhead but off in the distance. It's weird because the sky right above us is clear. Oh well, it probably has to do with this tropical climate.

This is an orchard of either Longan or Lychee fruit. Steph wondered how people harvested the fruit. I'm pretty sure they just climb the trunks. They have to be strong enough to withstand the typhoons here, so I don't see why they wouldn't hold up the human body.

Magnificent view of the mountains. The further in you go, the higher they rise.
A lizard we encountered. If you can't see it, it just above the gray part. There's a yellow streak on its back.

Me with the woman I was talking to the most at the barbecue. I can't remember her name, but she was awesome.

This is the dam that the tour group and Stephanie were going over to explore further up.