Grand View Changhua

... Taiwan's busy SME ( small and medium enterprises ) <br>- Textile factory covering all steps from the unprocessed raw cotton or synthetic fiber packs via spinning the very fine yarn rolled onto huge drums to weaving the fabric as ordered. Very interesting for me ( gives me a lot more respect for my shirt - will try not to drop anything on it from now on ), but a very tough and competitive business ...

... of how the locals responded. We were walking home from the traditional day market when we looked west and noticed that either we had been hit by a nuclear blast and the dark mushroom cloud was taking over the city or there was a storm rolling in. Then about thirty second later it starts to drain from the sky in a way only explainable through mental telepathy. Mmm..mmm..mmmm did you get it? Before our very eyes as we scampered ...

... teachers would translate the test and provide hidden codes (such as a wink or a cough) after they translated all of the multiple choice options. Not to take away any sort of climax to the story, but I will let you know that I did fail my written exam by two questions (85% was needed, I believe I obtained an 82%). The test was very difficult to pass for a number of reasons. One reason being the fact that there are a number of road signs ...

... if this was some sort of local custom for them to walk up to foreigners and rub sand all over their bodies, but I was kind of honored and a little weirded-out... After a few hours of hanging out on the beach front, we put on our gym shorts and laced up our gym shoes and headed toward the high ropes course of the resort. There were going to be a number of challenges for us to endure that included a high wire walk-through, a zip line from a 5 ...

... to wake up in the morning with rain pelting my window and winds causing my door to shake. However, no real significant rain arrived in our city until about 4 o'clock this afternoon. The winds have been relatively strong and the rain has been heavy, but it has been nothing compared to the last typhoon. I feel as though the country has made a strong effort to place importance on safety after the last typhoon hit us. There was a lot of uproar in ...

... away from the busy city streets. Our first stop was the Big Buddah Statue that sits atop of a huge hill in the middle of the city. It is a very impressive sight. Buddhists and tourists from all over the country come and visit this statute and have their picture taken with it. The statue was built in the 1960's, so it's a relatively new attraction. However, the thing is so big that you can walk around the inside and see small dioramas of stages from Buddah's life. You ...

... what is acceptable behavior when we leave the classroom. We then returned to the classroom and practiced our "earthquake drill." I can only imagine what my Chinese teacher was thinking this whole time with me having my students practice such things. After our bathroom break, we returned to class and we did sort of a "meet and greet" activity. I had made a bulletin board entitled, "Meet Teacher Scot" that allowed students to see photographs ...

... As we hiked up the mountain, one thing that really stuck out for me was the number of locals that came out on such a day. A lot of people were spending their Sunday afternoon hiking up the mountains. And unlike Americans, they did not have fancy-schmancy hiking gear on. Instead, they had their regular clothes and shoes. Some brought their dogs, some carried picnic baskets, while others even brought their Grandmas and Grandpas! (If that wasn ...

... auf dem Southern Cross Highway kommt man fast rueber, es fehlen nur 27km, hatte kurz ueberlegt dass zu machen, aber ich schaetze dass ich mit meinem Gepaeck allenfalls 20km schaffe:-) An der Ostkueste kommen die Berge praktisch bis an die Kueste, so dass selbst dort viele Tunnel noetig sind. Taiwan hat inzwischen ja auch seinen eigenen ICE (heisst HSR, High Speed Rail), ist aber relativ unnuetz, da ...

... everyone left in the middle of the afternoon. There was still chalk on the boards from lessons, there were still books on the shelves in an office and there were juice boxes that still had juice in them. They were delicious (just kidding). Ian picked up a few English books from an office as souvenirs. Also nearby the house was a giant sitting Buddha sculpture (72 feet tall) that sits at the top of Baguashan mountain and looks out over Changhua. The ...