Thursday, October 1, 2009

Dancing like a macaque!






Nick is currently running around the room waving his hands in the air like a Macaque. FYI.

Lately, Nick and I have made several trips into Taichung city to the Science Museum. They have such a cool "space theater", its a room with rounded ceilings and walls and the screen covers almost the entire room, so you really feel like you're surrounded by the film.

The area where we live is pretty empty and boring, so we don't do much unless we go to the city. We have made it through the first 1 1/2 seasons of ALIAS, which has been pretty entertaining, and we sometimes go to the campus to walk on the track at night.

Today, Tony came over and helped us sign Nick up to this Taiwan website where schools post ads for English teachers, and Nick sent his application to about 15 businesses in Taichung. I really hope he can find something soon cause he's been pretty bored.
We found out that if he overstays his visa over 90 days, the worst they'll do to him is fine him $300 and not let him into Taiwan for one year. And if its less than that then they will only fine him around $150 or so. It will cost around $400 to change his ticket, so if he does find some part time job its cheaper to stay. Although, if his visa expires he won't be eligible for any job that requires a work visa, so we still have only a few weeks. :(
I think tomorrow I'm going to help him call a few places and email some more businesses looking for teachers/tutors. We really didn't have enough help/info for finding him a job, I thought everyone looking for an English teacher would post ads in...English! but no, its all in Chinese!! 真没有道理!

My Chinese class is really fun and harder than I expected, but I really like it. We learn around 80 words or so a week, and we do a lot of practice learning the words. Its so much better than at Ole Miss, I actually get time to LEARN the vocabulary.
I also bought a novel, and so far I've read 1 1/2 pages! :O Its pretty difficult, but I now have my trusty electronic dictionary!! I love that thing, it was really worth the money. Now it takes me two seconds to look up words, instead of waiting til I get to a computer and then looking them up.

Well, I really like Taichung city, I wish I'd rented an apartment there instead and just taken the school bus everyday, but I didn't know about the school bus. Tony told us about a nice club in this mall called Tiger City, I think Nick and I will go there in a few weeks to see if its fun. Oh, and we also found this entire street filled with Indian and Halal restaurants! We ate at one and it was really decent, although obviously not completely authentic. And also a Gelato stand across from the museum.
We also ate at a Thai restaurant but were disappointed, one thing we ordered was really gross.....
Tony also said he can take us to visit his hometown in a few weeks, Xinzu. I don't know what to expect, but I need to think of something to bring to his parents as a gift, cause Tony helped us out a lot when we were looking for an apartment. What's a good gift to give Chinese people? They probably don't drink, and I really don't know any other good gifts....hmm.....

Ok going to bed. Nick is pacing cause he wants the computer :p