Life Back in the States
So it has been forever since I last blogged so here is what has been going on with me since April :-). The Dragonboat Festival was the big holiday in Taiwan in May and I have to say that I enjoyed every bit of it. For those of you that do not know about this holiday, well it is celebrated to remember a man who was loved by all in his country for his own love for his country. This tragic story involves him trying to fight for peace, but in the end he dies without seeing it. To commemorate his life, the Taiwanese conduct boat races in the river. I myself along with many of my friends signed up for this race and although we did not win any of our races we had a blast participating.
The month of June was perhaps my busiest month because that was the last month I had taught at the local preschool. I really miss those kids. Despite the fact that they had their moments ;-), it was easy to grow close to all of them. To wrap up the year my class performed a play titled, Around the World. I wrote this play to give the audience a quick view of the diversity and similarities cultures contain. More specifically, I chose Taiwan, Japan, Spain, and last but not least the USA. The play went better than I could have ever hoped for, and many of the parents along with co-workers enjoyed the song and dance routines. I was fortunate to have a wonderful co-teacher to aid me along the way so now I just want to take the chance to thank Teacher Claire for all of the hard work she put in and out of the classroom.
July was my well unorthodox month because I spent most of it planning for my departure and for my own boat party. Now I know you all remember my earlier blog about the boat party that I went to with my roommate, well you know that after having that much fun on a boat I had to do it one more time before I returned home. So to recognize all those leaving Taiwan I decided to throw a huge boat party with booze, music, the whole nine yards. Attendance was phenomenal which estimated at about 50 and everyone told me that they had a great time. It was great to get everyone together that I shared time with during my stay in Taiwan so that I could give them all one last hooray. A person by the name of Rose was extremely helpful with organizing this event and once again I want to thank her for all that she has done for me and all of the other foreign teachers (she is like our adopted caretaker away from home, Rose you ROCK!!!).
After July I guess you can say that my experience in Taiwan was at its end. I said my final goodbyes the weekend before I left and then my high school friend JT and I departed for Vietnam. Although, I was sad to leave Taiwan I was thrilled to begin my vacation because afterall I worked my tail off in Taiwan, so the idea of vacation was well just an idea and now it finally became a reality. Once we got to the airport we immediately encountered a problem with my friend's visa. Now my friend JT is a great guy, but for some odd reason bad luck seemed to follow him around for our entire vacation. To make a long story short, the Taiwanese officials at the airport fined him for staying too long on his visitor's visa. The visa was only for 30 days but because July has 31 days he accidently overlooked this. Well the officials were not very forgiving so they fined him 30US bucks, and told him he could not step foot in Taiwan for 1 year. Yikes right, anyways I guess it's fair to say that we started off on the wrong foot, but we did not want to let this impact our fun during out trip.
During our stay in Vietnam we met up with a friend of a friend by the name of Vincent. He is a great guy that showed us around Ho Chi Mingh City. We traveled to the Cu Chi Tunnels which the North Vietnamese crafted during the Vietnam War to fight off the US Forces. To describe these tunnels as eerie is an understatement, and after crawling through one and attacked by a bat in the other I decided to take the high ground and avoid the tunnels at all cost. The Vietnam museums were interesting to say the least because it was uncanny to view their museum after having gone in the past to America's Vietnam Memorial.
Midway through the week JT decided that we should go to Hanoi to see Uncle Ho (Ho Chi Mingh himself). Now I admit I was complaining quite a bit about my budget and all because Vietnam is a fairly cheap country so one should not expect to pay too much while staying there, and this plane ticket was a little pricey and it appeared to be the only way to get there and back because Vietnam does not have good reliable ground transportation. I am happy to have gone to Hanoi because it was well worth the money and I have JT to thank for that. We were able to travel on a small row boat down a river past beautiful mountains to an exotic forest. What we saw was truly surreal and I kept thinking to myself I was living a dream. After hiking for about a hour in this forest we made it to an ancient Buddhist prayer site that was magnificent.
During the next day in Hanoi we saw the embalmed body of Ho Chi Mingh which was just plain freaky, but cool to see. Then we went to other temples located around the city. An old lady at one of the temples thought it was interesting that I was wearing jeans with holes in them. Now I admit I think it is ridiculous for people to purchase jeans with holes already in them because doesn't that kind of negate the reason for buying NEW jeans. However, my holes were made just by wear and tear so lucky for me it is fashionable. This lady however (one of the monks if I am correct) thought it was odd and decided to yank on the hole as she smiled. The other monks were laughing and I was like, "Wow I think these monks are making fun of me". Crazy huh, but it was all in good spirit so I then decided to go along with them.
To conclude our trip in Vietnam JT and I flew back to Ho Chi Mingh and spent our remaining time with Vincent and his friend Vaughn. We had a blast hanging out with them, but we were ready to leave because we wanted to continue the rest of our travels. Just before we left Vietnam JT informed me that he was missing his credit card, so once again the bad luck was getting to my friend. Once we got back to Taiwan for a 12 hour lay over we had no problems getting JT back into the country because fortunately he took care of everything at the Taiwan embassy in Vietnam. Unfortunately, it cost him over 100 bucks for the price of a new visa. We were told that was the only way he could get back in, downright outrageous.
Upon getting back to Taiwan I decided to take this time to see what I could do for my friend. So I have a friend by the name of Cindy that reads tarot cards and all. I know, I know a bit odd eh, but I figured if anyone could help JT with his luck it was her. Therefore, we went to her studio to get a reading/spiritual cleansing for JT and a reading for myself. Overall, she said things would get better for him which came as a relief for both of us, and my reading appeared optimistic as well. We spent the last night with my close friend Wayne and that morning we departed for Japan. I want to thank Wayne for all that he has done for me, and I can't wait till him and Cindy visit me in the good ole USA next year, I am counting down the days!
I slept on most of the flight to Japan because I didn't get much sleep the night before. I was seated next to a Japanese person around the same age as myself during this flight. I did not think of starting a conversation with him because I didn't think he knew English and my Japanese is not the best, but to my surprise as I was exiting the plane he said, "Excuse me but you dropped your passport". I said, "Oh my thanks I assumed you didn't speak English." We then had a short conversation from which I found out that he went to school in New York and was just visiting his girlfriend in Taiwan before he went home to Japan to visit his family. He was a really nice person and told me to give him a call while we were in Tokyo and he would show us around.
I took advantage of this opportunity and he lived up to his promise. He drove us all around Tokyo taking us to some cool hot spots, as well as a firework show. I asked him what was the occasion for the show?, and he told me that unlike Americans, the Japanese don't need a reason to have a firework show they just do it. It was really cool hanging out with him and his friends and I learned a lot by doing so. Unfortunately we had to leave Tokyo and continue our trip in Japan and travel to Kyoto, so after spending 3 days in Tokyo we said our goodbyes to Hiro (pronounced Hero) and we traveled to Kyoto with a new friend of ours by the name of Hiko. He insisted that we travel with him for free because of some ticket that he had and we were more than welcome to take him up on his offer. Even though the trip was 10 hours instead of 2hrs taking the shinkasen (japanese for bullet train) it was great seeing sites such as Mt.Fuji, and other cities along the way.
Kyoto is a great traditional city in Japan. Therefore, we were able to see ancient temples and monuments that were not possible to see in Tokyo. At one temple we were blessed with the opportunity to see two Geishas and if you know anything about them they are very rare especially during this day and age. Later that day we went to a showing of bird fishing in an traditional Japanese town and it was quite a spectacle to say the least. To sum it up, guys were lined along long boats and a fire was burning at the back to light the area since it was night. These guys had some type of bird attached to a rope and they would guide these birds in the water to catch fish. Once they caught a fish they would rope the birds back in, take the fish, then throw them back into the water.
After we saw this bird presentation we walked the city of Kyoto and it was there we met a guy that decided to fill us in about the area we were in. It turns out that we were walking in an area notorious for the Ikuza (Japanese Mafia) . We saw guys dressed in fancy suits with crazy rockstar dyed and styled hair standing along the side of the street. We were told that these guys worked as pimps and would set people up with whatever they desired. It was interesting to hear what this guy was telling us, but I thought it would be wise to get back home before something bad happened to us, so JT and I walked back to out hostel.
Osaka was the last city we traveled to before heading back to the States. Out of all of the cities I have to say that I enjoyed this one the most mainly because it was a mix between Tokyo and Kyoto containing the traditional side of Japan along with the city life of Tokyo. I made friends with some guys from my hostel by the names of Joe and Seri and they were nice enough to take JT and I to the finals of the high school baseball tournament at the biggest stadium in Osaka. This event was huge and as far as I could see there was not an available seat in sight once the game started. Now let me start by saying baseball is very popular in Japan so the Japanese treat baseball very seriously. The games involve high school bands, cheerleaders, and this game in particular even had a helicopter circling the stadium to videotape the game for the public to see. At the end Hokkaido ended up defeating the team we were cheering for Tokyo by one run if I correctly recall, but the experience was amazing despite our team's defeat.
After saying goodbye to all of my friends in Japan, JT and I headed back to the USA. We were both feeling homesick by this time and were more than happy to see friends and family we have not seen for over a year since we were both teaching abroad. Now remember me saying earlier that JT was having some bad luck and well actually after the session with my friend Cindy his luck appeared to be improving, but the bad luck resurfaced once we made it back to Columbus, Ohio.
After traveling for nearly 18hrs because of flight delays and airtraffic control problems which almost cost us missing our connecting flight in Dallas, Texas; we made it back home to Ohio. We were both dead tired and ready to go back home when we both found out that they loaded our luggage on the wrong flight in Dallas. At this point I thought it was a joke seeing as how we have had our run-ins with authorities during this trip, but it was true. So that night we both went home with our carry-ons and the hopes that our luggage would arrive the next day, which fortunately it did.
Overall, I guess you can say I had an interesting and exciting past year to say the least. I have greatly benefited from everything that I have learned and from all of the people I met within the past year from all over the world. I greatly miss all of them, but I am ready to start the next stage of my life. I am currently living in Pleasant Hill, California in the San Francisco Bay area and I am loving everyday. My new roommates, both from Japan are great and they have helped me to get settled into my new life. I had my orientation a couple of days ago and I can already tell that I will really love JFK University because the faculty as well as the other students appear to be greatly invested in learning and seeing each other succeed. I will continue to blog from time to time to let you all know how my life is going now that I am in graduate school trying to obtain my doctorate in psychology. I know it will be a challenging road ahead but I am more than ready for this challenge and I can only imagine what will be in stored for me in years to come.
As one chapter comes to an end, another begins.
"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today."
-- James Dean
The month of June was perhaps my busiest month because that was the last month I had taught at the local preschool. I really miss those kids. Despite the fact that they had their moments ;-), it was easy to grow close to all of them. To wrap up the year my class performed a play titled, Around the World. I wrote this play to give the audience a quick view of the diversity and similarities cultures contain. More specifically, I chose Taiwan, Japan, Spain, and last but not least the USA. The play went better than I could have ever hoped for, and many of the parents along with co-workers enjoyed the song and dance routines. I was fortunate to have a wonderful co-teacher to aid me along the way so now I just want to take the chance to thank Teacher Claire for all of the hard work she put in and out of the classroom.
July was my well unorthodox month because I spent most of it planning for my departure and for my own boat party. Now I know you all remember my earlier blog about the boat party that I went to with my roommate, well you know that after having that much fun on a boat I had to do it one more time before I returned home. So to recognize all those leaving Taiwan I decided to throw a huge boat party with booze, music, the whole nine yards. Attendance was phenomenal which estimated at about 50 and everyone told me that they had a great time. It was great to get everyone together that I shared time with during my stay in Taiwan so that I could give them all one last hooray. A person by the name of Rose was extremely helpful with organizing this event and once again I want to thank her for all that she has done for me and all of the other foreign teachers (she is like our adopted caretaker away from home, Rose you ROCK!!!).
After July I guess you can say that my experience in Taiwan was at its end. I said my final goodbyes the weekend before I left and then my high school friend JT and I departed for Vietnam. Although, I was sad to leave Taiwan I was thrilled to begin my vacation because afterall I worked my tail off in Taiwan, so the idea of vacation was well just an idea and now it finally became a reality. Once we got to the airport we immediately encountered a problem with my friend's visa. Now my friend JT is a great guy, but for some odd reason bad luck seemed to follow him around for our entire vacation. To make a long story short, the Taiwanese officials at the airport fined him for staying too long on his visitor's visa. The visa was only for 30 days but because July has 31 days he accidently overlooked this. Well the officials were not very forgiving so they fined him 30US bucks, and told him he could not step foot in Taiwan for 1 year. Yikes right, anyways I guess it's fair to say that we started off on the wrong foot, but we did not want to let this impact our fun during out trip.
During our stay in Vietnam we met up with a friend of a friend by the name of Vincent. He is a great guy that showed us around Ho Chi Mingh City. We traveled to the Cu Chi Tunnels which the North Vietnamese crafted during the Vietnam War to fight off the US Forces. To describe these tunnels as eerie is an understatement, and after crawling through one and attacked by a bat in the other I decided to take the high ground and avoid the tunnels at all cost. The Vietnam museums were interesting to say the least because it was uncanny to view their museum after having gone in the past to America's Vietnam Memorial.
Midway through the week JT decided that we should go to Hanoi to see Uncle Ho (Ho Chi Mingh himself). Now I admit I was complaining quite a bit about my budget and all because Vietnam is a fairly cheap country so one should not expect to pay too much while staying there, and this plane ticket was a little pricey and it appeared to be the only way to get there and back because Vietnam does not have good reliable ground transportation. I am happy to have gone to Hanoi because it was well worth the money and I have JT to thank for that. We were able to travel on a small row boat down a river past beautiful mountains to an exotic forest. What we saw was truly surreal and I kept thinking to myself I was living a dream. After hiking for about a hour in this forest we made it to an ancient Buddhist prayer site that was magnificent.
During the next day in Hanoi we saw the embalmed body of Ho Chi Mingh which was just plain freaky, but cool to see. Then we went to other temples located around the city. An old lady at one of the temples thought it was interesting that I was wearing jeans with holes in them. Now I admit I think it is ridiculous for people to purchase jeans with holes already in them because doesn't that kind of negate the reason for buying NEW jeans. However, my holes were made just by wear and tear so lucky for me it is fashionable. This lady however (one of the monks if I am correct) thought it was odd and decided to yank on the hole as she smiled. The other monks were laughing and I was like, "Wow I think these monks are making fun of me". Crazy huh, but it was all in good spirit so I then decided to go along with them.
To conclude our trip in Vietnam JT and I flew back to Ho Chi Mingh and spent our remaining time with Vincent and his friend Vaughn. We had a blast hanging out with them, but we were ready to leave because we wanted to continue the rest of our travels. Just before we left Vietnam JT informed me that he was missing his credit card, so once again the bad luck was getting to my friend. Once we got back to Taiwan for a 12 hour lay over we had no problems getting JT back into the country because fortunately he took care of everything at the Taiwan embassy in Vietnam. Unfortunately, it cost him over 100 bucks for the price of a new visa. We were told that was the only way he could get back in, downright outrageous.
Upon getting back to Taiwan I decided to take this time to see what I could do for my friend. So I have a friend by the name of Cindy that reads tarot cards and all. I know, I know a bit odd eh, but I figured if anyone could help JT with his luck it was her. Therefore, we went to her studio to get a reading/spiritual cleansing for JT and a reading for myself. Overall, she said things would get better for him which came as a relief for both of us, and my reading appeared optimistic as well. We spent the last night with my close friend Wayne and that morning we departed for Japan. I want to thank Wayne for all that he has done for me, and I can't wait till him and Cindy visit me in the good ole USA next year, I am counting down the days!
I slept on most of the flight to Japan because I didn't get much sleep the night before. I was seated next to a Japanese person around the same age as myself during this flight. I did not think of starting a conversation with him because I didn't think he knew English and my Japanese is not the best, but to my surprise as I was exiting the plane he said, "Excuse me but you dropped your passport". I said, "Oh my thanks I assumed you didn't speak English." We then had a short conversation from which I found out that he went to school in New York and was just visiting his girlfriend in Taiwan before he went home to Japan to visit his family. He was a really nice person and told me to give him a call while we were in Tokyo and he would show us around.
I took advantage of this opportunity and he lived up to his promise. He drove us all around Tokyo taking us to some cool hot spots, as well as a firework show. I asked him what was the occasion for the show?, and he told me that unlike Americans, the Japanese don't need a reason to have a firework show they just do it. It was really cool hanging out with him and his friends and I learned a lot by doing so. Unfortunately we had to leave Tokyo and continue our trip in Japan and travel to Kyoto, so after spending 3 days in Tokyo we said our goodbyes to Hiro (pronounced Hero) and we traveled to Kyoto with a new friend of ours by the name of Hiko. He insisted that we travel with him for free because of some ticket that he had and we were more than welcome to take him up on his offer. Even though the trip was 10 hours instead of 2hrs taking the shinkasen (japanese for bullet train) it was great seeing sites such as Mt.Fuji, and other cities along the way.
Kyoto is a great traditional city in Japan. Therefore, we were able to see ancient temples and monuments that were not possible to see in Tokyo. At one temple we were blessed with the opportunity to see two Geishas and if you know anything about them they are very rare especially during this day and age. Later that day we went to a showing of bird fishing in an traditional Japanese town and it was quite a spectacle to say the least. To sum it up, guys were lined along long boats and a fire was burning at the back to light the area since it was night. These guys had some type of bird attached to a rope and they would guide these birds in the water to catch fish. Once they caught a fish they would rope the birds back in, take the fish, then throw them back into the water.
After we saw this bird presentation we walked the city of Kyoto and it was there we met a guy that decided to fill us in about the area we were in. It turns out that we were walking in an area notorious for the Ikuza (Japanese Mafia) . We saw guys dressed in fancy suits with crazy rockstar dyed and styled hair standing along the side of the street. We were told that these guys worked as pimps and would set people up with whatever they desired. It was interesting to hear what this guy was telling us, but I thought it would be wise to get back home before something bad happened to us, so JT and I walked back to out hostel.
Osaka was the last city we traveled to before heading back to the States. Out of all of the cities I have to say that I enjoyed this one the most mainly because it was a mix between Tokyo and Kyoto containing the traditional side of Japan along with the city life of Tokyo. I made friends with some guys from my hostel by the names of Joe and Seri and they were nice enough to take JT and I to the finals of the high school baseball tournament at the biggest stadium in Osaka. This event was huge and as far as I could see there was not an available seat in sight once the game started. Now let me start by saying baseball is very popular in Japan so the Japanese treat baseball very seriously. The games involve high school bands, cheerleaders, and this game in particular even had a helicopter circling the stadium to videotape the game for the public to see. At the end Hokkaido ended up defeating the team we were cheering for Tokyo by one run if I correctly recall, but the experience was amazing despite our team's defeat.
After saying goodbye to all of my friends in Japan, JT and I headed back to the USA. We were both feeling homesick by this time and were more than happy to see friends and family we have not seen for over a year since we were both teaching abroad. Now remember me saying earlier that JT was having some bad luck and well actually after the session with my friend Cindy his luck appeared to be improving, but the bad luck resurfaced once we made it back to Columbus, Ohio.
After traveling for nearly 18hrs because of flight delays and airtraffic control problems which almost cost us missing our connecting flight in Dallas, Texas; we made it back home to Ohio. We were both dead tired and ready to go back home when we both found out that they loaded our luggage on the wrong flight in Dallas. At this point I thought it was a joke seeing as how we have had our run-ins with authorities during this trip, but it was true. So that night we both went home with our carry-ons and the hopes that our luggage would arrive the next day, which fortunately it did.
Overall, I guess you can say I had an interesting and exciting past year to say the least. I have greatly benefited from everything that I have learned and from all of the people I met within the past year from all over the world. I greatly miss all of them, but I am ready to start the next stage of my life. I am currently living in Pleasant Hill, California in the San Francisco Bay area and I am loving everyday. My new roommates, both from Japan are great and they have helped me to get settled into my new life. I had my orientation a couple of days ago and I can already tell that I will really love JFK University because the faculty as well as the other students appear to be greatly invested in learning and seeing each other succeed. I will continue to blog from time to time to let you all know how my life is going now that I am in graduate school trying to obtain my doctorate in psychology. I know it will be a challenging road ahead but I am more than ready for this challenge and I can only imagine what will be in stored for me in years to come.
As one chapter comes to an end, another begins.
"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today."
-- James Dean
posted by Bob | 12:13 PM
1 Comments:
Wow, Bob I read your post and it seems like an awesome time!! What a great expereience you had over there! It is exciting to see what is all in store for you in Cali and after as well. I hope we can hang out sometime again if you are ever back in OH. Hope all is well and I'll talk with ya soon!
Post a Comment
<< Home