memoirs on a rainy day

It’s been raining on and off for the past few weeks. This was the first time I was really caught in a downpour on the scooter. Luckily I had just picked up a milk tea at a shop and was about a minute away from my school.

While I was waiting for the lights to change, the torrential rains swept across my helmet. They were so strong that I looked up, expecting to see a lamp or something to make the water pour all over me. Naturally, it was just the rain.

It got incredibly dark at around 3:30PM. I was lucky once again when the rain abated when I left for home at 6:30PM. I still had on my full raingear. I noticed that since my spill a few weeks ago, my raingear isn’t as rainproof as before. That’s because I have two tears in it. I’ll have to try and seal them.

I really hate driving in the rain. It’s really dangerous and aquaplaning is a fact of life. Brakes don’t really work well and the old scooters don’t have any ABS, so they will just slide and skip and spill.

I’ve had to refuse substitution work for the past few weeks. I’m substituting at a school for the afternoon and most of the evening of my teaching day. I even work on Saturdays until 2:30PM. There are no holes in my schedule for now.

One school has promised me to keep me on for the whole summer, which is pretty cool. I don’t mind that. All that’s left is to find steady substitution work for the afternoons and evenings and I’ll be set for July and August.

Located on on the intersection of Baoan St. and Shusin Rd.. the Jie An Palace is hard to find when you are zipping along. However, when the temple gates are open, it’s hard to miss. This happened to me earlier this week.

Jie An Palace is located at the intersection between Section 1, Baoan Street and Shusin Road for the worship of Baoan God. In 1927, it was moved to its current location, which was repaired in 1978. Nowadays, it is a magnificent temple. Jie An Palace is simple and unsophisticated and solemn, and the temple is exquisitely carved.

Continue reading ‘Jie An Palace In Shulin’

I arrived at my morning gig right on time. Actually, I’ve been slower than usual getting to work so I’ve been arriving at work a bit later than I wanted. I’ve never been late though.

My bruised is healing up well, I ice it down three or four times a day. The rest of the time, I spray on a liquid form of Vicks Vaporub. It’s working. I’ve been able to run short distances, but my foot still feels a bit weak, and I’m sure that it would be easy to injure it again.

Tuesday morning I arrived at my usual time. I was heading into class when I saw the Taiwanese teacher of the K1 class using a hair dryer to dry her jeans. She still had them on and I was curious. It had been raining, so I guessed that she had gotten wet. Still, it was surprising, since I’ve never seen this type of behavior from the locals.

I asked her about it. She replied that a little boy named Vince had peed on her. He’s about two and a half and is in the K1 class. It’s a bit early for him, since he spends most of his time running around, not really being able to follow lessons.

Later that day, I was eating my lunch and watching some kids go through their lunch time routines, which involves a 90 minute nap. I haven’t eaten any rice at the school. I take the meat, the veggies and dump soup all over it. It tastes pretty good and is filling. I usually go back for a second bowl of soup. I find that I’m eating a lot less than before since I eat throughout the day, when I stop at home.

Anyways, there I was drinking my soup when I noticed that Vince was squatting in front of his classroom. I wondered what was going on. I didn’t really bother investigating. I was just enjoying a few minutes of peace, watching the kids run to the bathroom.

I saw the principal walk up to him. She started talking to him in Mandarin and summoned the Taiwanese teacher Rebecca. It became apparent that Vince had pissed himself again, right in front of the classroom. For some reason, this was extremely comical to me. I found it pretty funny. The same teacher cleared up the mess.

It started raining like crazy tonight. It was long due. However, there is enough water on some places on the streets to start puddle baths. Next to the Carrefour in Sinjhuang is pretty dangerous.

The people at my school were interested to see me get all geared up. I had rain pants, raincoat, rain cover for my boots.

I had a little spill right before the Daan bridge in S
Sinjhuang. I wasn’t going fast, and I had my protective gear on. I just scraped my knee. However I think that it’s time to get rid of Old Nancy. She can barely break when it’s wet and the wheels have basically no traction in the rain.

I got lost this morning on my way to Shulin (樹林市). Getting there isn’t that complicated, but I took a wrong turn and ended up taking the 114 the wrong way. I took the Guanfu bridge into Taipei. Luckily, I had left early enough so that being late wasn’t an issue. I made it into Shulin easily enough.

Once there, my memories of the city started coming back. I lived in Shulin for a few months last year, in my mate’s flat (Carrie) while she was away on holiday in South-East Asia.

A few quick directions from some strangers on scooters and I found my school easily enough. Teaching there brought back memories from 2007. I taught at another branch of the same school and was recommended to sub there for the summer.

It didn’t help that I mixed up the 114 and the 116, lost part of my map and was just all sweaty from the extremely hot sun that plagued Taipei today.

Getting back was a snap. It took me about 25 minutes. Meaning that the commute could be pretty damn fast once I’m sure of the way. Streets and ways seemed familiar and I could see the Banciao train station building from a distance, so I knew which way to go. While I was doing that, I was memorizing parts of the journey so that tomorrow I could find my way back easily.

Now that it’s over, I’m pretty sure how to get there. Once I’m in Shulin, it won’t be that complicated to find my school again. I’ve found that once I’ve been to a place, I can make my way back there easily enough.

Old Nancy’s been repaired. However, she’s a bit slow. She’ll only hit 90 at the max. Before I could hit 95kph. I’m not sure what to do about this. I feel that I’ve put enough money into her for a long time. I’ll probably look into other faster options over the summer. An old Kymco Ego 250cc from 2004 might do the trick for me. Now that I’ve driven a more recent scooter, Old Nancy feels a bit dangerous and shabby. Yet I’ll never get a maxi-scooter. They aren’t maneuverable enough and they are heavy as hell.

I’ve started working out. It’s two weeks behind schedule, but at least I started. It’s safe to say that I was a bit nervous about the work situation in Taiwan. I needn’t have worried. My substitution schedule has rapidly filled up.

On Saturday night, I did some cardio indoors and then I went for a run. It’s been a while. I only managed to run 1km, but Spike wasn’t up to running anymore. Next time, I’ll leave him home.

Today, I’m feeling a bit sore. It’s a good feeling though. It’s just a bit uncomfortable. I’ll continue running tomorrow and every weekday. I’ll take Sundays off, just like before.

The moment I stepped into my apartment today after teaching my morning classes, it started to rain. Torrential rain. It’s still raining right now.

Last night, Old Nancy broke down on the way home from Sanchong. I called my mechanic and he picked me up an hour later with his truck. I’ve been told that I need to replace the transmission and the engine. I haggled and got a good deal on that. It will cost about $7000NT ( ~225$). Over the last two years, I’ve had the scooter repaired whenever there was a problem. I was told that it was dangerous driving it around, so I had it fixed immediately. For that amount of money, they will also be doing some extra work on it for me. They will change the exhaust and oil, as well as some other minor stuff that popped up when I started riding Old Nancy hard last week.

In the interim, I’m driving a maxi-scooter, a Kymco Grand Dink 150cc. It’s pretty fast, yet not as agile as Old Nancy. I got up to 120kph today on the way home. It was impressive. It feels very solid, but I definitely don’t like the handling.

I’ve always thought that a Kymco Ego 250cc would be the perfect scooter for me. It’s fast, agile, and has got loads of power. Enough power to probably hit 160kph.

My day started in Taipei, at Zhongxiao-Fuxing (忠孝復興站), near the old Sogo store. I spent a few hours in training. Then it was off to Sanchong (新首席) for the first of four interviews.

The school was easy to find and it was small. It’s conveniently located, not too far from Banciao (板橋市), through Sinjhuang (新莊市). It’s only to sub for a week, but my demo went very well. It took me a few minutes to find my way to the Jongzhen Bridge which led me directly into Taipei. I took a wrong turn and ended up on Aiguo Rd. but I managed to find Heping Rd. again.

My second interview took place in Shida (師大). It was a very small school, but with a reading based curriculum. Of the schools I have visited, I’d like to work at this school. It has very small classes, a dynamic owner who studied education and positive reviews from other teachers. They also have a summer camp.

Later, I headed over to the place on Roosevelt Rd Sec 3. where I would be subbing for a few weeks in June. The manager would pass my number around his other schools for more substitution work.

Even though it was pouring part of the day, I got a lot of things done. I was offered a substitution job in Taoyuan for a few days, but I still have more interviews this week. I’ll wait until tomorrow until I make my final decision.

I’m subbing the whole day on Friday, nine hours. That’s going to be interesting. Today was also the first day since January that I had a class for a while. I played a learning game, which the other teacher said that he’d use as well. It’s a version of mega-tic-tac-toe.

All in all, it was a good day. I came home at around 5PM, fed the dog and walked him after I had eaten something. I made a Thai Thom Yam soup, with chicken instead of shrimp. It was good.

It’s 8:25AM and today we will have rain showers in Taipei. It’s going to be a wet day today. I’ve got a training session at one of my new jobs. I’ve still got some interviews left this week.

It’s already getting dark. It will rain most of the day in my opinion. Good thing that I have a full rain kit for when I am on the scooter.

I’m adapting to life in Taiwan again. Getting around is pretty easy on Old Nancy. I came back to Taiwan on Saturday night. For a few days afterwards, I had a little fever in the evenings. I used some Ibuprofen to keep it under control.

I’m doing fine tonight. No fever in sight.

How is life in Taiwan?

It’s surprising how easy it is to fall back into your routine, even after an absence of a few months. Spike is fine. My wife is fine. I’ve spent some time doing some updates on my computer. I’m actually thinking about formatting the C:\ drive and installing Windows Vista Ultimate. Not that I really want to install it, but I actually like working with M$ Office 2007, and I can’t seem to install it on my workstation with Win XP.

The fruits are as good as ever. I actually saw some fresh tamarin at the Carrefour. I’ll pick some up and try and make some salmon with it. Overall, I’m sticking to my diet. No rice, no bread, no pasta. Fresh fruits and veggies, meat, eggs are pretty much what I usually eat. I have to get into the habit of drinking a morning smoothie again. I’ll probably use papaya instead of bananas though.

I’ve tried eating dragon fruit or pitayas again without any adverse effects to my digestive tract. I wonder if I can find cherrymosas here.