Try #1 - We wanted a 'portrait' to capture the moment. I tried it first, holding the camera at arms length. But, as usual, my head looks huge. 

Try #2 - Maybe if Claire takes it, it will be the right size. Nope, I guess Claire's arms aren't quite long enough, 

Try # 3 - Just right! Well, we still look like we're sweating in 35C heat, but at least our heads are in proportion. 

Sidenote

I was just walking home, and as usual, found my back soaked upon arrival. Which made me want to check the temperature. This week the daily highs have varied between 35 and 36 C, not counting all the humidity which makes it feel worse. Then I thought about my summer, and decided to check Halifax. No kidding - the high one day last week was 17C! And the monthly average for July is 23C! Now, this sounds lovely for living in long term, but after acclimatizing to Taipei, I'm going to freeze in Nova Scotia!

Travel Lesson for the Day: Mango Ice is for sharing. We learned this valuable truth when we made the mistake of ordering three mango ices and got these three boat fulls. The consequences of ignorance of this important rule? Well, everyone who passed us got a good chuckle out of the three foreign pigs, and we felt sick the whole evening. Still, it was delicious, and it was a great deal, there must have been two whole mangos cut up in each bowl.  

We're back

Claire and I aren't going to cut it as adventure travelers. We tried to have the Green Island experience, but ended up coming back to Taipei two days early. The whole story will follow, with LOTS of pictures. But for now, we are back in the land of civilization, hapily on our way for breakfast at Starbucks.

A Series of Flowers

{This is Kathleen} Happy Canada Day to everyone! Carole is away at a mountain hotspring resort with Claire and asked me to fill up the blog. So these are some pictures she took of day lillies. Great aren't they? She didn't change any of the colour or do special effects- they're just that pretty!

This is a bit of a dreary picture of the Chaing Kai Shek Memorial. It really is brilliantly white in the sunshine, but we went at dusk.

Claire and I leave for Taichung in an hour or two, so I likely won't be posting for a week. I've given Kathy the crash course in Blogger, so she may post some things if she feels so inclined.

Well, I taught my last class this morning, and was quite happy to say goodbye. Ten months of teaching with only one week off means I'm allowed to be excited to leave. If I wasn't coming back, I would be horribly sad, but this situation just makes me excited. After I finished at school, Kathleen, Claire and I went to Apple Cobo for a little girly lunch, then off for our last day in Taipei.  

Our afternoon was spent at the National Palace Musuem. It's the largest collection of Chinese artificats in the world, and it was smuggled out of China. It's being renovated, so you can't take pictures. Instead, they do this 3D fake photo of you superimposed in front of what the renovated musuem will look like. I had to get one. Anyway, this is Claire playing along with my idea of trying to get one of those silly shots where it looks like someone is interacting with an inanimate object. Never works. But we still tried.  

Kathleen's favorite flower, the Frangipani. There was a big tree of them outside the Musuem. 

The beginning of the night market - dinner at Ikari. Claire and I had tortillas and chips, and they gave us plastic gloves to use for eating. Isn't that considerate. No messy fingers for us. The night market is something of a must-see in Taipei, although I didn't think Claire would especially enjoy it. 

The end of the night market. Yup - time to go home. I don't like the night market, all the people get to me. It was the smells that got to Claire. Who knew stinky tofu was that stinky?! 

This is Claire and I at the Chaing Kai Shek Memorial. It's my favorite part of Taipei, and Claire thought it as pretty as I do. We wandered around the gardens while the sun set, and then went into the National Concert Hall for a performance of the TMU orchestra. They did all movie overtures, including Star Wars, so it was highly enjoyable. However, jet lag hit Claire half way through, and she had that unpleasant sensation of being so sleepy it is painful to keep your eyes open.  

Eastern Mindset

So, Claire needed to change some money from US to NT. We went to the bank that says "Official Foreign Currency Exchange" on the sign. We went in and finally found the currency lady who invited us to sit down.

First, she asked how much Claire wanted to exchange. "$100". The lady was concerned: "Oh no, too much, we can't do that." Of course we asked how much we were allowed to do. "Nothing more than $500." "$500 NT?" She looked at us like we were idoits: "No, US dollars, of course." Well, there you go. Silly us.

So having agreed upon $100, Claire handed over her cash. The lady again looked very concerned. Three of the $20s were the newest bills with the new security features. She very gravely informed us that the machine couldn't read the bills because they were too new. Slightly put out, Claire told her to just do the other $40. She started to get out the paperwork, then gave the bills a second look, and took them over to her supervisor. She came back to inform us that "These bills are too old." Claire and I both scoffed in her face. We couldn't believe it. The new ones were too new, and the regular ones were "too old." Claire suggested brusquely that they take down the Currency Exchange sign, because they do no such thing. (=

It just reminded me of the fundamental differences between the Eastern and Western mindset, follow the rules versus big picture. But understanding it doesn't make it any less frustrating.

Water Lily

I bought a bouqet of water lilies at the flower market yesterday. I took them home, put them in the vase, and they promptly all closed up. I was worried, until I woke up this morning to this! They must only open in the sunlight. Anyway, this may be the prettiest bunch of flowers I've ever bought, and for only $4 CND! I'll take more pictures, but I wanted to get one, in case it died before I got home. Oh, and I didn't edit it at all, that's really the colour.

Claire's here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Claire arrived last night, and we were both so excited. She had "the worst trip of her life" which is saying something because she traveled alot. All three flights she took to get her were not the ones she was scheduled to go on. And she stubbed her toe. Aww. But the stress is over, and she's here for a lovely and relaxing vacation.

While unpacking she found her llama, whose name escapes me. Maybe she'll put the story in the comments.

And last night, we turned off the light, and said goodnight, just like we did for three years. It's a nice feeling.

Well, that was different

It was an entirely enjoyable opera that lived up to my expectations. Nothing was in English, so we did miss some of the plotline, but the comedy transcended. It involved Falstaff with his Hello Kitty towel, Silly Stringing the conductor who was dressed in a pink, purple and yellow outfit, and human featherdusters.

Falstaff was sung by a a Finnish guy, who was very talented. Most of the other parts were Taiwanese. The costume design was by a Taiwan company, i prefer, and it was certainly eye catching. Kathy said she had to close her eyes in order to really appreciate the music instead of focusing on all the visual drama on stage.

I loved what the director did to make the production unique and exciting. I really felt like it was a production that was interpretated for our times. The best part was the dual story line, in the huge frame at the back of the stage. While the main roles were doing the scene in front of the orchestra, there were a group of dancers miming out a parallel action behind the orchestra, and at times breaking into the main story.

The theatre was only about half full, and I'm sort of tempted to go back on Sunday afternoon. It's too bad it's not on longer, so Claire could see it too.

Next year's NSO Opera season is Cosi Fan Tutte and the Marriage of Figaro, both of which I've seen recently; so I think I will enjoy them even more.

National Concert Hall

This is the National Concert Hall by Chaing Kai Shek Memorial. It's really a breathtaking building, but I'll need to put a bit more time an effort into getting an adequate shot of it. This was taking as we were rushing in with only 4 minutes to spare before the opera started

The Falstaff Brochure

This was the only opera that the NSO (Taiwan's National Symphony Orchestra) did this year. But, it was a good one. Falstaff was entirely different than I expected. More in a bit.

Ooh, exciting.

I love politics ~ I just read on CBC.ca all about the DRAMA in Canada last night. Who knew legislature could be so exciting! I'll bet the Conservatives wish they had stayed up a bit later.

If you are Canadian, you probably know the whole story; and if you aren't you probably don't care, but here's a link to the CBC article none the less.

Falstaff approaches

Okay, I'm excited. Tonight Kathleen and I are going to see Falstaff. I got tickets, because any opera that comes is worth going to. But, I wasn't too excited because I saw Falstaff in Brussels and didn't especially care for it. But I think that must have been a different Falstaff. Because today when I was checking for reviews online I got really excited by the Taipei Times review. This production sounds incredible, here's the bit that got me really excited:

Next week's production in Taipei is by Wei Ying-chuan (魏瑛娟), the young director of the Taiwan theater group Shakespeare's Wild Sisters. Everyone concerned is being tight-lipped about what the production will contain, but what can be gleaned is that reference in the initial publicity to the early 20th century modernist painter Piet Mondrian should now be discounted. Instead, the show will be in a high-fashion, 2005 style, with gorgeous youth-culture costumes, and make-up and hair under the guidance of the cosmetics and hair-styling products companies I Prefer, L'Oreal, Govin and Shu Uemura. The style of popular children's paper dolls, with interchangeable two-dimension cut-out dresses, will characterize aspects of both the costumes and the decor.
Another fascinating aspect is:
The most sensational news was that the NSO conductor Chien Wen-pin (簡文彬) will wear a series of costumes, harmonizing in style with those of the characters in the opera. There's no ballet as such in Falstaff, but in this production dancers dressed identically with the conductor will at various points mimic his movements, giving rise to the question of what is reality and what is dream.
Well, I'll let you know how it goes!

"Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow."
- Jeff Valdez

Add to that...

So, yesterday I posted those pictures, and meant to go back and add captions but didn't have time. The last few days have been crazy, work is busy with assignments and grading, and life is busy with the gym, appointments and organizing!

I went to the Dentist yesterday afternoon. I have a Taiwan health card, so a cleaning only cost about $6 CND. He was very jovial, and used a very comfortable uv/laser pick thing to clean my teeth. However, he said I had lots of decay and he would need to fill 4 or 5 cavities! 4 or 5! Now, either the lack of flouride in the water has made my teeth go completely to pot in under 10 months; or this guy is just trying to get me to come in so he can get more government money (a cavity filled is also just $6 for me). So, the question is whether to go to my dentist in Canada for a second opinion, or just go with it here. Hmm. I'm sure my Mom will have an opinion.

Oh, and about the pictures from yesterday. The berry picture is from an interesting filter on my camera, which extracts all the colour except the green, red, or in this case, blue. I think it makes a very interesting image, when used occasionally.

And the other picture was of the gifts I've gotten for graduation. One grade 6 class made a whole yearbook for themselves, another class sent a giant card, another gave all the teachers that cute teddy bear with a picture of the class hanging from the neck. Then, one of my grade 2 classes gave me a box of chocolates and a gift box from LUSH. My goodness, they knew what to pick. I was so excited. Then a grade 2 boy gave me a fancy pen and a Dior Addict Makeup Gift set. A large part of my satisfaction in this job comes from the fact that I am given gifts on a regular bases. Gifts are my love language, as they say, and it seems to be the typical Taiwanese ones as well. Every time I get a gift, I feel so loved and appreciated. Actually, I've realized that feeling valued in my job is very important to me. If I don't get some occasional positive feedback, I start to feel like one of the minions. So, Fu-Hsing is a great fit for me. It seems like every month we get gifts for something or other!

berry 

gifts