I have entirely too much time off.

Yeah as weird as that sounds. Saturday is normally a work day, and we had it off for some unknown reason. Or at least, unknown to me. Then Sunday is an off day. Monday work, Tuesday off, Wednesday work, Thursday off. Long story short, with me arriving near Chinese New Year, I think I have worked a good 3 hours this past month. It's like my job in the states all over again!

As much as I'm sure you'd like to hear tales of me sitting in my apartment, studying Chinese and catching up on old movies I'm ashamed I've never seen (Seriously, I just watched Finding Nemo for the first time), I ventured out.

Pictured - Nobody else

I decided to go back to Maokong, AKA my favorite spot in the city. It was a clear day this time, and I essentially just went up there to get a coffee. I guess not many people travel on the MRT and gondola in the middle of the afternoon, because it was amazingly lacking in people. On the way back I had the gondola and a whole car on the MRT all to myself. Maybe I secretly smelled terrible and nobody told me. Maybe the scary foreigner has cooties. I don't know. But it was a suspicious day full of great views. Also I found a Burger King, which was a nice change but for the most part can go straight to hell. If I want terrible fast food McDonalds is about half the price and better.

Sunday was a fun and quick to describe day. I met the rest of Caitlin's girlfriends, and the 5 of us as well as my former coworker Jesse went out to a fancy hot pot place. I say former, because Monday was his last day - seeya dude. After we wandered around Ximen for a bit and found a skate park where they were filming a rap video. I talked to one of the girls there, turns out shes the star of the whole thing. She said to find her on Facebook, which I did. So now I can say I know a Taiwanese rap group.

Best. Mass Transit. Ever.

Right, and now we have Thursday. I decided to walk through the heart of the city and see what I could find. So I took the MRT a bit north of Taipei Main and cut down south, then back west towards my place. Nothing too too exciting to report on my excursion. I did find Taipei Main's underground mall, which I have seen signs for but never visited. Honestly its a waste of time, as it was just full of womens clothing.

Seriously, Taiwan. Sidebar. I know women like to shop for clothes more than men. But minus any change in public decency laws, we do need to buy clothes at some point. I don't know why you insist on having a 1 to 100 ratio of mens clothing stores to womens. In fact, the few clothing stores I've seen that sold mens clothing ALSO sold womens. So like, what the hell, guys? Either expect male nudity or open some damn stores.

Why god, why?!

Along the way back I stopped by a park which has the National Taiwan Museum in it, so I decided to pop on in. Its only 20 kuai (70 cents or so), but there's not too much to see. I did enjoy an entertaining video about unarmed Chinese troops chosen by god to defend the homeland with their divine boxing skills. I'm sure they meant hand-to-hand, or strength, or something along those lines, but the Google Translate provided subtitles kept talking about their divine boxing. I found this hilarious. But also, there were lots of banners around with 2/28 on them. I thought "Hm, I wonder what that's about - because that's today." Turns out its a really big godamn deal, and is like a day of national mourning. Something about the government killing some folk and trying to cover it up. I guess that's why we're off today. I missed the ceremony by an hour but did get to see some of the band still playing.

And last but not least I managed to find a Carrefour which is A) very close to my place B) is next to an Ikea. Yes, an Ikea! I will definitely be back to eat me some meatballs, even if they do contain delicious horse meat. I was lucky enough to find the variety of tea I like there, along with a few other essentials, like soju. Which I will gladly indulge in, because no joke, I probably walked a good 5 miles today.

Phew.

I'm really bad at this photo thing.

I went to look through my phone to see what I've taken since the last blog entry, and there is only ONE photo since I went about sightseeing. You wanna see it?

I mean, granted, it's a pretty great photo. As mentioned, I live above a Pizza Hut, but next door to the Pizza Hut is a tiny Chinese restaurant. I never ate there before, because well... I'm not sure why. But I went today, and asked if they had ji tui fan (chicken with rice), because shut up, it's awesome. They did, but it was 80 kuai without a drink. Granted that's not too much by US standards. A little shy of $3. But a Big Mac meal with a coke is 100 kuai, so I'm thinking "Hmm, that's a bit pricey." Anyway I get home and pop that bad boy open.

The chicken was as delicious as it looks, and I have no idea what the stuff in the rice was. Good nonethless, and it has inspired me to give this place another shot. I mean, like I have to repeat it, but the old Chinese proverb is true. "Confucius say, never doubt the ji tui fan place next to the Pizza Hut".

I just had my first real week of teaching, more or less. As I confided in some people earlier, I still don't care for my boss. But also as the head office said when I complained "You're not going to interact with her too much, so give it a shot." Well they're right, my interaction with her probably averages 1 to 2 minutes a day. But the passive aggressive, bipolar, micromanaging attitude is not appreciated. Like before the class, I started to erase the board from the previous one. One of the students came up, and in English, asked "Teacher, may I erase the board?"

Well sure, why the heck not? Saves me time, plus if you want to, you used perfect English to ask for it. So knock yourself out kid. My boss is walking by, sees me, and says "Mike, you shouldn't let the students touch the board. That is minus [some precise number] stars." (the point system we use for getting toys). Like, really? You have nothing better to do? I'm reminded of the "That is 50 DKP MINUS!" internet video. Anyway go run your own damn class, and when the kid puts his fist through a whiteboard, come back and we'll talk.

That's an awfully negative thing to end the blog on so I don't want to. I managed to meet another great TA, the lovely April. She, Caitlin and I went out to get some food at a fantastic place, also around the corner from my house. Some of the best fried rice I've ever had, covered with ketchup and pineapple. Yeah, I don't know why it works, but it did.

I have the next two days off, but unfortunately I'm going to be quite boring. My agenda is to finish a couple more lessons of Chinese, plan my classes for Monday, and finish work on programming a lesson plan generator. Yes, it is what it sounds like. The classes there are so formulaic compared to EF, I'm about halfway done writing a program that will do one third of my job for me - now it's just a matter of inputting data. I'm slightly terrified at the prospect of a fully armed and operational lesson planner.