Christmas Eve at Tiger City

Christmas lights and palm trees.

Christmas Eve at Tiger City

Olivier, dazzled by the lights, apparently, by the Christmassy carousal.

Christmas Eve at Tiger City

Olivier's class were singing carols at Tiger City, a local shopping mall and it was packed! Check out this huge pink fuzzy teddy bear! I want one.

Dec. 23rd - staff party - more dancin!

These are university students from Bih Hua's husband's school (he's the vice president of Chung-Shing University) and they did this Michael Jacksonesque dance for us.

Staff Christmas party - dancing

Here's my boss and her husband. I think she's invading his dance space.

The boss lady

This is Bih Hua, the principal of my school and her husband. They're very involved with ballroom dancing, hence the wicked gown. During the party (which was about 5 courses of Chinese food, mostly seafood) they danced for us.

Staff Party on Tip's Eve (Dec. 23rd)

I got me hair straightened and gots me a Chinese dress! No, I haven't been living here too long! That's Christy, she's due in February.

More Christmas party pictures.

As I write this, my apartment is a festering mess of post party squalor......


Micki and Lucy doing the Taiwan V-sign pose.



Daniel, Ash and Ryan were just drinking their beers and then Daniel's head became a supernova.
Emily and I, glowing in the flash.

Like my Christmas lights? Here I decided to look hopefully to the future while Olivier shut his eyes and smiled.

Christmas Par-tay!

Hey, I had a Christmas party last night. Wanna see the pictures? Here da pictures.



Julie, Emily and Mirium posing cute with a bottle of vodka.


Aaron and Jeff looking stern.

Around my picnic table are Amanda, Faye, Olivier, Oliver (yes, both the French and English versions of the name) and Jody.



Me and Olivier, in his toque. It's actually chilly out. I mean, I'm still not wearing socks, but it's chilly out.





Kristy wanted to know if she was the same height as the tree. Indeed, Kristy is tree-sized.

A Christmas Wish from Eric (age 4)

Some of these kids have strong parental instincts.

The tree Lucy Van Pelt wanted to buy.

 

Hack, cough, blech

Indeed, I am officially sick now. My voice has been whittled down to a low scraping sound. Stupid sinuses. Stupid children and their little cooties and dirty fingers. November was a very stressful month, all the staff were crazy busy, we had a teacher resign and myself and the other head teachers here have been running off our heads trying to find a replacement. Looks like that problem has been solved, things have cooled down and now my immune system has caught up with me. I'm dragging my arse around and everyday I come home to this huge pile of wrapped Christmas presents which I must, I must get in the mail....tomorrow...after I sit down for awhile......and watch eposides of "Entourage" which my friend Robin loaned me on DVD.

But things could be worse. I could have had really bad gas while riding a plane and embarrass myself internationally.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6213644.stm

My apartment gecko

Below are a couple of pictures of the gecko that lives in my apartment. He's pale and shy, a bit of a wallflower, or a wall-climbing wallflower. ....sorry, I'm tired and trying to be witty. I like peaceful lizards that eat bugs. I'm trying to think of a good name. Any suggestions would be appreciated. I keep thinking "Simon" but I call everything Simon. Mark C has my old plant called Simon. And I like Bruce too, but I already suggested that name recently to my friend Emily, who took in a stray puppy.

I'm feeling really sooky right now. I have an itchy tickle at the back of my throat and I'm more tired than usual, which means I'm probably getting sick. Stupid germs. And my TV is on the fritz, the screen is doing this skippy, flashy thing. I'm going to go lie down and read - oh, right now I'm reading "Enduring Love" by Ian McEwan which is really dark and sucks you in. I love Ian McEwan, I've already read "Atonement" and "Amsterdam." Yay Ian McEwan.

Anyway, feeling really crappy and going for a nappy!

Bridget

It beats having mice.

 

Geckos are our friends.

 

American Thanksgiving at the school

Here's that potluck dinner I was talking about in my last post. Troughs of food! Bih Hua the owner got the turkeys.

Below is Anne and Katherine. Anne is one of my closest friends here in Taiwan. We're in a kindergarten class if anyone's wondering.

Olivier came with me to the dinner. I have that "take the goddamn picture already" look in my eyes.

So we ate a lot and then I went home and passed out, like a regular thanksgiving.

Gettin' ready for lots of eatin'

Tomorrow is American Thanksgiving and a friend of mine has invited me for supper. Then on Friday the kindergarten teachers have organized a whole day of Thanksgiving crafts with the kids. Then on Saturday, it's the Cornel Thanksgiving potluck at school and most of the staff goes. We all eat in the kindergarten classrooms at Nan Men. Everybody brings a dish and it's a mad eating frenzy with adults on tiny plastic chairs.

One of the Chinese Teachers asked me the other day what the difference is between American Thanksgiving and Canadian Thanksgiving. I told her that in the U.S, Thanksgiving is a major holiday with lots of turkey and a long weekend and it's a really big deal and all the sitcoms create a Thanksgiving special. In Canada, we have Thanksgiving in October and we eat turkey and everyone is happy we have a long weekend. I don't remember ever getting that excited about the pilgrims in school and I don't know why we celebrate it on different days. I don't think she was impressed with my knowledgeable answer.

Anyway, I'll try to remember to bring my camera for this one. And if anyone wants to fill me in on the background of Canadian Thanksgiving, that would be good too.

Da'an Beach

On Nov. 4th Olivier and I got on his scooter and drove and drove and drove 'til we found a beach (Da'an, it's out by the harbour). We were concerned about pollution, but so far we haven't started mutating or sprouted nasty rashes. It was very shallow, but scenic and there were no other people around except for the occasional crab fisherperson. And I didn't get sunburned! Yay!



The trip wasn't planned, hence no bathing suit and my pants look pretty stupid rolled up.
Me and lots of sand.

That's Olivier in his cool sunglasses. He's so cute, I must take more pictures of him.

Time flies when....you're really tired and there isn't much going on....

Oops, I've been pretty pokey when it comes to updating this blog lately. I had a small, impromptu party on Saturday with some friends that was lots of fun and I completely forgot to take pictures. And earlier that day, there was a sports day at school with lots of kids running around in potato sack races and with their faces painted....and I completely forgot to take pictures. However, Olivier and I went to the beach a couple of weeks ago and although I forgot to bring my camera, he didn't, so I will post some pictures of that later on. Good to be with people who are on the ball. This way you'll know it's really me writing these posts and not just some crazed blog hacker who has stolen my identity.

We only have one photocopier at work and it's broken and all the teachers are going crazy. Crazy! Arrrggghh! What to do?

Bridget

Happy Taiwanese Halloween!

Here at the school, we had our Halloween party on Friday as there's a lot of students that aren't here on Tuesdays. So we set up lots of games and face painting and also invited the parents to come and watch. Lots of kindergarten age children, hopped up on sugar and parents with cameras acting like the paparazzi. But fortunately not as chaotic as it seems.

Halloween here always makes me miss fall in Newfoundland and the George Street Mardi Gras.

And yes, it was my birthday on Sunday but it was pretty quiet as I returned from Nepal with a nasty stomach bug which made its appearance last Monday and wiped me out all week. I actually went to the hospital last Monday as I couldn't keep anything down and was really dehydrated. So no big party for me...yet. I might have one in the next week or so. Got some very nice gifts (thanks for the Tragically Hip cds Liz!) and emails and people keep taking me out for dinner, so it's great! And I'm still one year away from 33, the other big celebrity death age after 27 (Jesus, Jim Belushi, Chris Farley, there were all 33!). Gotta be careful about these things.

Off to do work related activities, will post more soon.

Bridget

Web album full of pics from Nepal

These Picasa web albums are wicked, thanks Liz. If you want to see more of my photos from Nepal, you can click on the album in the sidebar. Warning, I managed to narrow it down to 97 so you might want to use the sideshow and save yourself some clicking. I'm going to try and get some of my older pictures up in web albums soon as well.

Bridget

Mountainpalooza

Whoo-hoo! Big honkin' snowy mountain. I love my zoom lense.


This is Cohpagnya who was my porter. Trekking guides and porters are a male dominated business in Nepal, but there's a organization called 3 Sisters (www.3sistersadventure.com) that provides female guides and porters. They train women to become guides and focus on enpowering Nepalese women - Nepal is one of the only countries where men outlive women, on average a Nepali man works 8 hours a day, a Nepali woman works 12. Cohpagnya hardly spoke any English, so I asked my guide about her. She is 23 and was going to university in a small town, but the Maoists moved in and she ended up having to leave school. Then she was part of a group that got kidnapped by the Maoists and held in the jungle for a week - the military showed up with helicopters and the Maoists took off. Afterwards she ended up in Kathmandu doing a sewing course when she heard about the 3 Sisters and decided to join them. She's looking into studying music.


Clothesline, palm tree, purple flowers, snowy mountain.

This is back in Pokhara, I took a boat across the lake and hiked up to the stupa and pagoda on the top. There was a nice view of the Annapurnas before it got too hot and steamy.

Stupa and purdy purple flowers.

More trekking pictures

Here's some more photos of my cloudy trek.



Rooftops of guesthouses.

This is me with my guide Cohmilla (left) and Cohpagnya (right). We're blurry! That German tourist didn't know what she was doing man.

Nothing like hiking uphill for 3 days to stand around in a cloud. This little peek was all I could get of the spectacular views at 3000 M!

Ominous cloudy valley. It started to rain shortly after I took this picture.

Then on the last day, the sky was clear! They put those poles together like that to make swings for the kids.

and some more......

Here's a few more from around Kathmandu and my trek.



Pack horses comin' down the moutain. You have to jump out to the way so they don't step on you.

Temple action. While I was taking this picture, there was this dog following me around and barking and snarling aggressively. That dog hated me. So I didn't stay at this temple very long.

Pigeon and temple roof freaky head.

Shiva the Aggressor!

Ladies hanging out at the local stupa.