I can't believe it's December. Only one more month until Boracay, Phillipines!! We officially booked the flights AND finally the hotel :) Now Shija and I can focus on the important stuff..swimsuits and diets. I laugh whenever I think about the girl who works in a shop by the night market, she kept mentioning how she lost all of this weight so finally I asked, "oh what kind of diet and exercise did you do..?" She said, "Oh I just stopped eating dinners." Alright..anorexia is her diet of choice. Here's my diet idea: I think I'll cut back on my Coldstone intake (I didn't even like Coldstone at home, why do I like it in Taiwan!) I don't get it thattt much, but it's not necessary to eat. I'm 25 now so I'm sure that's when your metabolism starts to go to shit. I'm having Wenli make me go to the school gym on the 5th floor on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursdays. I told her to not let me make any excuses.
Anyway, about Boracay. Apparently it's the new hotspot for Chinese New Year. Thailand is flooded, Tokyo is Cold, and Bali is too expensive (never in my life did I think I'd even consider those options..) There's a big festival during the week that we are going to. There's a Katy Perry concert in Manila that week but that's a bit far from us :( That would've been cool. The festival is supposed to be like a Mardi Gras type of thing. Almost every hotel was booked and the more days we put off booking one, obviously our options were getting pretty slim. But one of our choices a little down the list, was Paradise Garden because of it's price and amenities..but the odd thing about this hotel (although the pictures look great) were some of the reviews on Trip Advisor...this one in particular..it was a little too outrageous to believe and immediately thought it was a competing hotel (because there's a ton of hotels all next door to each other.)
Trip Advisor: Unknown User
TItled: Sex and Drugs
I had a very bad experience at this place. The manager is the rudest person I have ever met. The staff are mostly prison parollees. The staff cannot be trusted and will cheat you out as much as money as you brought with you. If you want drugs, this is the place to go to. Every single staff member offered to sell us some. It is the place for sex too. The staff members offer themselves to everybody and are not discreet about it. You can't walk down a hall without seeing a staff member fondling somebody. Four of the staff members offered sex to my husband. I do not recommemd this place to anybody who has a conscience.
Yahoo Review: another unknown user
Titled: Not a place to take the kids
It is not a place for a family to go to. If you like sex and drugs, this is the place for you. There are plenty of sex and drugs there. The staff is all friendly. But don't turn your back because you might get stabbed. Not a single person who is employed there can be trusted. If you are a swinger this is the place for you. If you are gay or a lesbian this is a good place for you to go to. If you are a student you will enjoy this place. If you are into drugs you will like this place. If you like getting drunk you will like this place. There is a lot of visible sex and drugs going on at this place.
Then finally, some good reviews!
The last review entitled “not a place to take the kids’ was absolute rubbish! It was clearly written by a competitor and nothing in it is anywhere near the truth (except that the staff are friendly-which they certainly are.) The resort is set in its own lush gardens with pools a garden bar and restaurants. One of the best features is its quiet privacy and it is certainly an ideal venue for families. I speak as a regular visitor who is already planning my next trip to Boracay where I will be booking into Paradise Garden again. (It has now changed the name back from One MGM to Paradise Garden Resort Hotel.) I am not a teenager, I do not do drugs and the idea of people getting stabbed there is ludicrous. Highly recommended.
Guess I’ll find out what’s in store for me when the time comes! Either way, it’s in the prime location on the island, Beach Station #2, which has the most bars, restaurants, and the biggest mall. So if it’s a place to sleep and has a mattress thicker than 4 stacked books, I’m a happy camper..
Earlier this week I ate at the Taiwanese noodle place with the nice couple and they ended up inviting me over to cook for me one weekend. I told them I never get to eat home cooked meals and they were shocked and insisted that they cook a meal for me. I went into the little clothing shop next door which is where this one girl who friend requested me my first month out here, works. She was so excited to see me, but she doesn’t call me Diana she calls me “Teacher..” but I’m not her teacher so it’s strange… “Teacha Teacha, look at this new shirt, so cute-a!” I asked her if she knew a good place to get a haircut because frankly..the last one was a disaster and grew out horrible. I think it was because the lady used a razor and thinned out my hair too much…but what was I expecting for an $8 haircut.. I told her I wanted a good salon and I don’t care about the price that much, what everyone thinks is expensive for a haircut is still half of what you pay in the states. Claire Lin told me about a place that her and her boyfriend go to for their haircuts and it’s called LAST Hair. It’s right next to all the good western food restaurants like Fingas and Early Bird. I passed by it on my scooter and it looked very modern. I wanted to wait until Wenli called over there for an appointment and to check if I could get an English speaking stylist. When I checked out the hair place I decided to eat at Early Bird and got a reuben and a cup of chili and the chili was so good because it tasted almost identical to my mom’s! I almost feel like buying a tub of it for my co-workers so I can show them where red beans REALLY belong...not in my pie or cake..just in soup or chili.
Earlier this week I ate at the Taiwanese noodle place with the nice couple and they ended up inviting me over to cook for me one weekend. I told them I never get to eat home cooked meals and they were shocked and insisted that they cook a meal for me. I went into the little clothing shop next door which is where this one girl who friend requested me my first month out here, works. She was so excited to see me, but she doesn’t call me Diana she calls me “Teacher..” but I’m not her teacher so it’s strange… “Teacha Teacha, look at this new shirt, so cute-a!” I asked her if she knew a good place to get a haircut because frankly..the last one was a disaster and grew out horrible. I think it was because the lady used a razor and thinned out my hair too much…but what was I expecting for an $8 haircut.. I told her I wanted a good salon and I don’t care about the price that much, what everyone thinks is expensive for a haircut is still half of what you pay in the states. Claire Lin told me about a place that her and her boyfriend go to for their haircuts and it’s called LAST Hair. It’s right next to all the good western food restaurants like Fingas and Early Bird. I passed by it on my scooter and it looked very modern. I wanted to wait until Wenli called over there for an appointment and to check if I could get an English speaking stylist. When I checked out the hair place I decided to eat at Early Bird and got a reuben and a cup of chili and the chili was so good because it tasted almost identical to my mom’s! I almost feel like buying a tub of it for my co-workers so I can show them where red beans REALLY belong...not in my pie or cake..just in soup or chili.
Friday night was a fun night. Greg told me about this foreigner girl’s going away party at the Deluxe Brewhouse and I’ve been wanting to go there so I decided to crash the party. Shija and me went over there on my scooter and it was 500NT all you can drink but she had Sports Day the next day so I just did the deal and she got some free drinks. The beers were good but they only had 3 on tap. A pilsner, a “strong” pilsner which was 8%, and then a dunkleweiss. I tried each about..twice. I got my money’s worth J It ended up being a fun night because Caroline and Venda were also there and I met their friend, Wendy. Wendy is a Taiwanese girl as well and she’s also dating a foreigner guy and he’s from Chicago. It was cool to talk to someone from my area! One by one the only people I knew started to leave, but I ended up staying and talking to the new people I had met. I talked to this guy from Minnesota who Wendy warned me about, she said he was crazy and gets really drunk and she was right, he was very very intoxicated, but he was funny and nice. When I was talking to the Chicago guy and Minnesota guy, one of their friends showed up and I was like..”wait a second..I’ve seen this man before..and then I thought, “omg he’s the guy who wrote the E-Book that me and my mom bought before I came to Taiwan!!” so they were all talking and talking and finally I interrupted and was like..”hey what’s your name?” to see if I’d recognize it to confirm that it was him..which was useless because I don’t remember the author’s name at all, but he’s like, “I’m Ugo.” So I told him that he looks identical to the guy who wrote that Taiwanese Secrets book that I bought before I came. His friends started cracking up and were like, “Wait you actually bought that piece of crap??” and Ugo looked all embarrassed and was like, “ok ok..who told you to say that to me..?” and I told him that I was serious and I used it a lot for references about different things. Read it on the plane over here, but he still wasn’t convinced so I told him that I read the section about scooters before I decided to get one and read about Kenting before I went there and there’s a picture of him jumping off of a rock and he’s like “Wow you actually DID buy it!” They teased me for a bit about it and said that the money I gave him is just going towards his beers that night, but it’s a good book! I bet he made some good money off of it!
Ok Maybe it doesn’t look like Christmas because there’s no snow, but it is getting cold AND there are decorations everywhere. They’re even playing Christmas music in all the stores. One Dewey guy who’s lived here for a while said that this is the first year they’re reallying going all out for Christmas with decorations and everything. They even set up trees in every mall. On Saturday, I did a lot of shopping for WARM clothes! It’s really only cold in the morning and at night, during the day it will randomly get hot for 2 hours. So I got some sweaters and sweatshirts to go under my jacket when I’m riding my scooter. It feels about 15 degrees colder on that thing.
At Chung Yo I ran into 3 of my students, Philip, Linda, and Amber. I’m glad it was 3 whose names I could remember! They freaked out when they saw me. Like literally gasped and stopped dead in their tracks..I guess it’s always weird to see teacher’s outside of school. Even though it was cold out, I wanted to get my Cold Stone fix. I had a coupon and had to use it. A girl in line that was standing in front of me, who was apparently a foreigner, started talking to me and was real friendly. She looked like she was Taiwanese and sure enough she said she was just visiting her dad out in Taiwan for the week. She told me she’s from San Diego and asked about my Mandarin. I told her I just knew the basics..not much though and she said hers isn’t very good and can only speak basic phrases if people are talking slow. We chatted a bit and she asked about the teaching gig out here and said she’s interested in it. When she was next in line she started speaking super fluent Chinese to the Cold Stone people and I was like.. wait..she thinks HER Chinese isn’t good..geez. I needed help translating my coupon and she talked to them for me and they said it was buy 1 get 1 free and I was like, “oh do you want to use the coupon and split the cost with me?” and she’s like “No that’s ok..” It was strange.. I guess I’ll just use it with Shija but that means I have to go back to Cold Stone again! I get the same thing every time (mainly because you can’t create your own thing there, you have to choose from their “creations” on the menu.) so I get the Founder’s Favorite, it’s brownie, carmel, pecans, and fudge with vanilla ice cream and it’s amazing. Like a turtle sundae from Dairy Queen but with 10 times the calories. Soo that was my Saturday..shopping, eating, more eating, and then I rented a movie on iTunes. I got “Our Idiot Brother.” It was really good, I told my family they’d like it. Nick might not like it, and not because of the title, but just because he can be picky with movies .
At Chung Yo I ran into 3 of my students, Philip, Linda, and Amber. I’m glad it was 3 whose names I could remember! They freaked out when they saw me. Like literally gasped and stopped dead in their tracks..I guess it’s always weird to see teacher’s outside of school. Even though it was cold out, I wanted to get my Cold Stone fix. I had a coupon and had to use it. A girl in line that was standing in front of me, who was apparently a foreigner, started talking to me and was real friendly. She looked like she was Taiwanese and sure enough she said she was just visiting her dad out in Taiwan for the week. She told me she’s from San Diego and asked about my Mandarin. I told her I just knew the basics..not much though and she said hers isn’t very good and can only speak basic phrases if people are talking slow. We chatted a bit and she asked about the teaching gig out here and said she’s interested in it. When she was next in line she started speaking super fluent Chinese to the Cold Stone people and I was like.. wait..she thinks HER Chinese isn’t good..geez. I needed help translating my coupon and she talked to them for me and they said it was buy 1 get 1 free and I was like, “oh do you want to use the coupon and split the cost with me?” and she’s like “No that’s ok..” It was strange.. I guess I’ll just use it with Shija but that means I have to go back to Cold Stone again! I get the same thing every time (mainly because you can’t create your own thing there, you have to choose from their “creations” on the menu.) so I get the Founder’s Favorite, it’s brownie, carmel, pecans, and fudge with vanilla ice cream and it’s amazing. Like a turtle sundae from Dairy Queen but with 10 times the calories. Soo that was my Saturday..shopping, eating, more eating, and then I rented a movie on iTunes. I got “Our Idiot Brother.” It was really good, I told my family they’d like it. Nick might not like it, and not because of the title, but just because he can be picky with movies .
Sunday, December 4th
Shija and I met up at Early Bird for breakfast (yes my second day in a row going there..) We brought our laptops along so we could “get work done.” It was packed! We sat next to an all Caucasian family which was strange..Two little blond hair blue eyed boys and a mom who looked like a hoity toity Lincoln Park mom, she attempted her best “I swear I didn’t try to get ready for breakfast” outfit..but clearly did. Me and Shija exchanged glances like.. “what’s their story?” Maybe the dad is there for work. Early bird always has random dogs walking around begging for food, one that is always there is this big black lab…he’s cute but as people are eating he’ll climb right up next to your legs and sit by your feet and beg for food. I think it’s the owners dog..but I’ve seen a few places now that treat a stray dog as one of their own. They’ll set out a bed and a bowl of water for them and the dog just comes and goes as it pleases. Down the block there’s a basset hound that does that and the convenient store does it for this little wire hair terrier. Maybe I can start doing it too if it’s socially acceptable. Once about a month ago, I casually “dropped” my stale bread pieces outside of my building for the stray dogs that congregate there every morning. I think they ate it..I’d do it again but I’m afraid my landlord would passive aggressively advise against it through Sam or through an email to Sam.
Shija and I went down the street to go to this cute café for our work. I’m thinking she was going to motivate me to work on my lesson plans but no, we spent about 3 hours looking at the Victoria’s Secret Swim section..Some customers would come in and out and glace at our computer screen probably wondering what these crazy foreigners are doing. But after our hours of work, we decided on a few swimsuits and dresses that will be shipped home to my mom and then sent out here. Shija knows this cool website where you can get all of these coupon codes for a bunch of different sites and we used a few of them on our order. I was like.. “wow my mom would love this!” After our over stayed welcome at the café, we decided to leave and head over to Tiger City mall to pick up Shija’s dress that she’s wearing for NYE, and see The Help at the theatre. Her dress is really cool, it’s from this Taiwanese designer that makes one of a kind pieces and they altered it for her for free. I also got a dress for NYE from the outlet mall by me that’s real pretty We’re going to Taipei for New Year’s Eve because it’s supposed to be awesome and everyone says we have to try it. Fireworks and big parties at the clubs..
Tiger City didn’t end up having The Help so we walked down the street to the other giant mall, Mitsokoshi. All of these giant malls are about 5-10 minutes away from each other. It makes no sense..like a bunch of Watertowers on the same street with the same stores. I live closest to Mode Mall and Chung Yo and then Sogo isn’t too far down the main road and then about 10 more minutes from there are the other two giant ones. THEN, Wenli told me that they’re opening another mall next door to Mitsokoshi..so 3 malls within a mile radius of each other. I asked Wenli if people here can actually afford to shop at these high end stores and she said, “mmm maybe not.” Then how the hell is everything still in business?? Right by Mitsokoshi was this amazing teppanaki place (well they’re all amazing..) It was sooo cheap, only 100 NT for beef, rice, 2 veggies, and tea. It was spicy and so good. Then we saw The Help at 7 and we got a discount for being teachers which is nice. I showed my school I.D. but Shija doesn’t have one so we showed mine and tried to explain that and either they don’t care or flat out didn’t notice that we were showing the same I.D.
I already had watched The Help a few weeks ago on an illegal movie website, but it’s not the same as watching it in theatres because on this site, after 70 minutes it cuts you off and makes you wait 45 minutes to watch the rest..and sometimes you can see people getting up and walking through the theatre because it’s bootlegged..so basically I was ok with seeing again. It’s a really good movie, I loved it! I love the book so I was hoping the movie wouldn’t be totally off and I thought they did a good job with casting and what not. Pretty much how I imagined the characters when I read it.
