Onsen Papawaqa Miao-li

... that out of the blue. I can only imagine what a real earthquake would feel like. Hopefully I won't have to experience any of those during my time here! Okay, so I am two for two for 'Taiwanese' natural disaster experiences...and all under one week! LOL! Saturday night we all decided to go back to the 'Woo lounge'...this one place Meghan and I found the night we went out on the town after the typhoon died down. It was Alex's b-day and we all went there for the 'all-you ...

For our last day in Taiwan we headed to Dan Shu to see a Dutch fort that protected the inlet in days gone by which was pretty cool see pictures. We enjoyed the walk on the boardwalk along the river as well. Lastly we headed to the hot spring resort of Beitou for a bit of R & R. You could smell the sulphur in the air as you disembarked the train to this picutesque little town. A hot spring stream ran ...

... back to Taiwan for 2 more weeks of a visiting fellowship at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital. My goals were to get some more exposure to the attendings, especially Dr. Wei and Dr. Cheng, because they do a lot of teaching in English. Furthermore, I wanted to see some more of Taiwan.

... Upon returning, we went to Champagne II, a nice bar with funky music. We probably will come back to this area again. Afterwards, we cabbed it back to Linkou for another night at Club Highness with DJ Emre playing the Ipod on the JBL sound system.

... tower it was sunny. We then entered the mall in the bottom that had lots of chic stores and a huge food court. There was a wonderful supermarket that reminded me of Byerly's in Minnesota and Wegman's in Maryland. Marlene and I went buck wild with things we needed (and didn't need). When we went to the top, unfortunately, it ...

... This cute little kid offered us a bag full of betel nuts. Marlene, as always, took a liking to the child. We started talking a bit to the guys sitting behind us. I have no idea what we talked about because they didn't speak English and we don't speak Chinese. I do know they were all singing and chewing on those betel nuts.

... and mango. As many of you know I hate bananas so it wasn't for me. Nausea soon developed. We next went down snake alley. Needless to say, this did not cure my nausea. There were snake charmers and handlers that were preparing the snakes right in from of us by draining the blood, disemboweling the guts, and skinning the snakes. The meat and blood is prepared in various ...

... offered the faculty job I was interviewed two weeks earlier to my friend (who also received a doctorate from a prestigious US university). Maybe they just feel suspicious for repatriates like me (while my friend left US immediately after he got his degree, he cannot really count as a "repatriate.") So yes, another failure for me to get a job I really wanted (maybe 12th and 13th such failure in the past 15 months). So now, there is no job waiting for me this ...

... of doing the same when I heard a woman had two sons. I'd say, 'Oh, no girls, too bad." They'd know what I was getting at, and wisely agreed that it would have been nice to have a girl. I felt like a bit of a jerk and quit it. The boys often get spoiled rotten while the girls learn to take what they get. All the kids have to work very hard in school, but the girls on average are far better students. They do their homework, take interest in lessons, work ...

... be a very good teacher, but I've got the madness to keep them entertained long enough to absorb some English. In a way that's more important, because kids here get apathetic toward school pretty quickly. From age 9 to 10 there is an obvious push in their performance that stresses them out and makes them lose interest in learning. The Taiwanese school system practices repetition over critical thinking and it just drains their spirit. Life determining ...