Hot & Humid Muggy May

Hello Everyone
Things In Taiwan have been going really great! We honestly love our lives here - so relaxed and laid back , so much time to our selves...it's GREAT!

We're continually meeting more and more people which really helps keep our minds off of school school school. Don't get me wrong teaching has been going great, and we are getting along with the staff and administration really well. We've got ourselves a really good set-up here. Hearing some of the horror stories from other people we have met, our situation seems pretty good.

May 22
HOORAY....Mom Culbert finally got your parcel...2 months later, but it ROCKS!! Thank you so much...I can't believe how much you fit in the box!!

A new English school has opened in Homei, really giving our school some competition. Some of the students at our school have already dropped out and gone to the other school. Giant and Rita seem a little tense about this whole ordeal. But it's great for us, they treat us even better now, they really want to make their teachers happy now, so we stay and provide them with stability.
After work on Monday Michelle and I went for a walk to check out the new school. We heard that it has other foriegners working there, but it was already closed. So we'll check it out some other time. Hopefully we can meet them and if they live in Homei, we'll finally have people in our own town to hang out with.

May 23
On Tuesday evenings, I'm done teaching at 9:10 pm, so for something totally different, we took the last bus to Chunghua, and went out for supper. It was so great. It really broke up the mundaness. We brought our homework with us and just hung out and relaxed, I loved it. Michelle finished reading her book "Excuse Me, Your Life Is Waiting", and I finished marking exams. Then we went for a long walk down the streets of Chunghua to find many different night shops, and restaurants open and busy, at 1am. Then we took a cab home.

May 24
We had another awesome business meeting.
My mom called, so we chatted with her for a while...it's so great to get a phone call....just cause we almost never do.

May 25
Had a Presentation day, (when parents can come into the class and see what their children have learned), the only parent was a father...which is unusual. It is usually always the mothers that attend. But after I taught, I sat down with him and he asked me the usual questions about how his child is doing, what he could be doing better, etc...and then complimented me for my teaching, enthusiasm, and animatedness.
That night, being Thursday, we headed to the Night Market, good thing too. The food was great as usual, and the Orange Juice lady was back in business.
4 bottles of fresh OJ, for about $3.50 Cdn....great price!

May 26
We had asked for some holiday time last week, and were under the impression that is wasn't going to work out, due to their remarks, and them saying we'd have to have a meeting and discuss it. So we had our meeting in the afternoon with Susan and Giant. Michelle's sister Trisha is visiting us June 29th-July 17th. We had asked for 3 extra days off to make a bunch of long weekends.
They were really concerned because as of July 10th our school also provides a summer camp, so it's even harder to replace us, or have us make up the time.
Anyway, all is good! We got the time off, and our week in October for our one year wedding anniversary to travel to Thailand. Plus with camp starting it'll bring in some extra bucks!!!! So things are working out good. This is the first year they are having a summer theatre camp...our idea of course, and they liked it! So we get to use our drama skills and education, and show off our talent...and the childrens too! It's going to be a lot of fun!

The couple we met last week after watching The Da Vinci Code called us today, they wanted to met us for a few drinks at a pub in Changua. Hello! We were totally into that.
So Friday night we quickly left our last class to catch the last bus into Changhua. We found the pub without any problems and there we were - right in the middle of a bunch of foreigners. It was great. We hadn't seen that many foreigners in Changhua yet. We quickly started chatting with Natalia and Brandon, found a place to sit and started to enjoy the live music. There was a guy from the U.K. playing accoustic guitar and singing away. It was awesome. His music was exactly what I love to hear. We had a great time and met lots of great people. So nice to know there is a community of foreigners that get together and hang out. This could be opening a whole new chapter in our Taiwan adventures..............we're definitely going to have fun.

May 27
Today we got up late - considering the beer last night it was too scary to get up early for fear of a hangover. So we got up and headed out to the school. Jeff had left his bookbag there Friday night when we left for the Pub so we had to pick it up before the school closed at 12:00. We then headed off to get Jeff a haircut. We went to a little salon and for about $8CDN Jeff got his hair buzzed. She did a great job (way better than the last lady Jeff went to)....and then little did we know we were off on a shopping spree. We ended up walking around for all of the afternoon checking out shops in Homei. Jeff picked up a great shirt, a pair of shorts for $4.00 CDN, I got a skirt, a shirt and two pairs of shoes. The two pairs of shoes cost about $15CDN. So cheap!!! We haven't really done any shopping since we've been here - but as it gets hotter we're finding that we're needing way cooler clothes. The skirt I got can be worn as either a skirt or a dress - 2 in 1. There are so many great sandles here and all I brought with us are my holey soles (they look like big plastic clogs with wholes in them). Considering the number of women here that go shopping in Stiletos you can imagine the number of funny looks I get as women check out my footwear.

We also watched The Constant Gardner tonite - what a powerful film. We highly recommend it to everyone. I also just finished the book "Excuse me Your Life is Waiting...the Astonishing Power of Positive Feelings" by Lynn Grabhorn. For any of you out there that are seeking a differnent outlook on life - wanting to make a change - or are searching for something more - this is the book for you. Its was the most POWERFUL book I've ever read.

A late-nite restaurant FINALLY opened in Homei. It's called Tepp Any Aki - a Japanese restaurant where they cook on the grill right in front of you. We're super excited becuase this means after a long day at work we don't have to come home and cook - we now have the option of going out to eat. Everything else in Homei closes down by 10:00 and often stop serving even before that. The food was great. I had steamed cod and Jeff had chicken and onions. They grill it up right in front of you and they gave us cabbage and sprouts with it too. They are so good at spicing everything here. It was fun - thank goodness they had some English on their menus because they didn't speak a word of English. They kept talking to us in Chinese and when we didn't understand they would just talk slower - a nice gesture - but it doesn't help when you don't speak the language. It was a great day!

That's all for now!
Cheers!
Jeff and Michelle