Haňule z Kyjova

Today I had my very last class – 211. I felt really sad, but they were so cheerfull and full of energy that I early forgott about it. The students gave me some gifts – 2 kilos of rice, some sauce for noodles and tea. Now I really have to post a package to CZE because I will not be able to fit everything inside my luggage!

Also now the whole school knows me, so when I walk around corridors it’s “hello hanaů and “byebye hana” all the time

It started raining yesterday and it’s still rains! Typical taiwanese weather is here! And I was too lazy to go swimming or to go home, that I went around corridor to find someone to talk to:) and I stopped at 310 (Elaine’s home class). It was fun to talk to them and tehy asked me to join them for dinner, so We went to have some noodles – with 6 boys and one girl. It was very nice, although they have sometimes difficulties to speak, but we had a lot of fun and aslo good food. I promised to stop in their class tomorrow morning and they will play me violin and sing a song

And tomorrow I’m going to Nantou with Elaine. It’s her hometown, her parents have there a small farm or plantation in the mountains and we are aslo going to see the Sun moon lake. I hope the weather will be better in the south! So cross your fingers and wish me good trip

P.S.: Happy b-day sis

This week is going to be the last I will attend classes and give them lessons Now I have been to nearly all classes, only one is left tomorrow. Not that I’m not tired a little of giving the same presenation many times around, but I will miss it. I will miss all the students and they stupid questions, playing games with them and also their problems to express themselves in English – but they are so cute when they try hard!

On Monday I had only one class 311. I didn’t go to play volleyball with one class because they said they have not enough people. But I met a boy from 311 and he invited me for a dinner. That shows how the people here can be nice…

On Tuesday I had only 2 classes (309+206) and then went swimming. I wanted to be really hungry because Sarah wanted to take me for a good dinner, as a late b-day gift. We went to a fancy restaurant in Taoyuan. The food was more European style, but it was prepared and served in more asian style. That means the cook prepared it in front of as  on a big table-frying pan. All of it was very good, I tasted shrimps soup, small appetizers made of salmon and vegetable, beef steak and raspberry panacotta. Because we said it is my b-day, they gave me a little cake too and sang a song for me We arrived really late home because Sarah needed to repair her iPad, but in the end she bought a new one I looked the prices, so a new iPad costs around 18000 NTD, iPod Classic nearly 10000NTD, but I don’t remember it very well…

On WednesdayI had a busy day. In the morning I had 3 classes 318+316+217 and in the afternoon 212. All of these classes are specialised in science so mostly boys only! In one way it was really fun because they can be more enthusiastic and energetic. On the other hand it is more exhausting, because when you deal with tehm you have to be also more energetic to keep their attention. In one class they gave me a mutton hotpot, played guitar and sing, danced and played traditioanl games… Mostly they were well prepared. In one class they gave me a big card where every one of them wrote down something for me and they gave me tehre photo, in other they gave me the traditional toys. I enjoyed it today!

During lunch time I went to play volleyball with Zhewei and class 312, but it was raining a little so we stayed only for a while and then we went to see the swimming contest. I saw only the butterfly and freestyle race, because then I went to the cooking class. The beautiful teacher she prepared everything for me, also the recipe. We made “chinese pearl meatball” and it was really delicious! I hope I can find all the ingredients in CZE and prepare it for my family or friends.

Elaine and the beautiful cooking teacher

and the meatballs! yummy

After school it was raining much more so we did not play volleyball but Zhewei he went with me to the train station to help me buy the tickets for Hualien. I’m going there on Monday and I really hope the weather will be good! The journey will take 5 hours from Taipei!! ah! but all the better tickets for express train were sold out But I’m really looking forward to he trip.

Now I have to take  agood sleep cause tomorrow I’ll have my last class! Everyone at school knows me now, so all the time I just say “hello” and “byebye” I really like the students!

class 318 (or I think:)

Now after the few weeks not so many things happen. Everything has settled down. But that doesn’t mean I’m bored! during the week I had many classes. Some were a bit more noisy, like 215 or 315, full of boys only. But they were nice in the end:) And when I asked in 315, what should I visit in Taiwan, one of the boys invited me to visit his hometown on Saturday!

On Friday I had Claire’s classes, two of them 205 and 207 prepared some program for me too, so I stayed for 2 lessons. The first class introduced me the Dragon Boat festival, which takes place on the 5th day of the 5th month of the traditional Chinese calendar. We prepared some traditional food like the rice dumplings wrapped and steamed in bamboo leaves. I tried to make also different type of dumplings filled with meat. They also prepared a performance of the legend. The story is that a well known poet Qu Yuan opposed the emperor, was banished from the city and after a few years he committed a suicide drowning himself in the Milou river. It is said that people that admired him raced after his body on boats, but could not find it so they at least threw rice balls into the water, that the fish would feed on the rice and not on his body.

In the 207 they introduced me the Lantern festival. This is connected to Pingxi. It originated during some wars, when people ran out of the city to save themselves and only a few stayed to secure the city. When they were sure that the enemy is gone, they released lanterns to the sky and let the other people know that it is safe to get back. Nowadays people write a wish on the lantern and release them to sky hoping that the gods will grant their wish.

We also prepared a different kind of dumplings, little balls boiled in a soup, one sweet and one salty, also some wraps with nori and eggs and dried meat. Everything was very good, so I ate all day! and then I joined their P.E. class too.

In the evening I went for dinner with my friends Lulu, Fish, and the twins Jerry&Cherry We had a good hotpot and then went to Zhongli to find some chopsticks for me to buy. But it’s really hard to find good chopsticks! I could not believe how hard it can be! I had also some papaya milk, and we sat in 7/11 for a long time and talked till 10 pm.

my hotpot before cooking

On Saturday the boys planned a trip to Daxi. It is a place famous for “dogan” – a kind of dried soybean thing, similar to tofu but made more hard. I didn’t know how many people is coming with us and who exactly. It was a surprise that 6 boys wanted to go somewhere with me

our “sheep team” – Zhewei, John, Kunchi, Sugar, and behind us Stone and 

We took a bus from Zhongli to Daxi. There we went to an old street which looked different form all streets I have visited since. It looked more old and historical, many shops on both sides, that belonged to different shopowners and had names on the facades. The boy from Daxi, whose name is Kunchi, took us for the best and most famous food – togan, tohua and kind of fried rice. Everything was really tasty and I enjoyed their company.

the old street

We also walked the bridge in Daxi, which is only for walkers and many street artist usually gather here to give performances and earn money. There is a saying that if you walk the whole bridge hand in hand with your partner you will soon brake up!

the Daxi bridge

After the walk we decided to go back to Zhongli to a kind of haunted house Only 4 of the boys accompanied me there because the other two had to go to study. We went to a King House. It’s a kind of hanuted house were you can choose two different kinds – detective or horror. I’ve chosen horror one And the boys were a little bit afraid Sugar was a little shaking

There were several rooms, very dark ones, and we had to find the key to the next room. But there were masked people that were really scary and they made us very afraid… It was fun, but also I was a bit afraid:D Zhewei screamed a lot and in the dark we really leaned to each other how we were afraid.

To relax a little after this we went to bowling. We played one game. I have to say that I was never better – I did 114 points, which is the best in my life! And also I was the second best!

On Sunday Sarah took me to lunch at a sushi restaurant and then we went to see an exhibition at the Taozuan city hall. The paintings were made by a boy who has autism. The paintings were very colourful, gaudy, with strong emotions of love. I liked it!

In another room there was an exhibition of calligraphy, so we pisited also this one. We were very lucky, because the artist who did all the works was there too. We asked him some questions, about his works and he gladly answered, So we spend there nearly an hour!

Sarah wanted to take me to a village near te seacost. It is a small village but the inhabitants painted many walls and buildings with dufferent pictures and then it became famous. And finally I could see the sea!!! I was so happy that I ran to the water in my jeans and didn’t mind that it was all wet to my knees. I love the see! And the sunset was very beautiful, although the beach was not the perfect one, or the cleanest one.

We had dinner in a revolving restaurant at the cost. You can eat a lot of seafood here, and the inside of the restaurant keeps turning, so we could see the dark see and also the lights of the city.

So exhausted after the whole weekend! But it was worth it!

Hi! I did so many things on this weekend! On Friday I had three classes and then went for dinner with Eva. We bought some fried rice and ate it in the classroom and talked for 2 hours…

On Saturday there was a singing competition at school and Eva was going to sing there, so I went early in the morning to school to hear her and support her. There were approximetly 130 students who joined the contest. Everyone had 1 minute to sing just like that withou music, so it was very hard, and i think many of them did a good job. Eva has a really nice voice and I like her singing.

At 10:30 the English teacher Gillian picked me up and we went south to Hsinchu for lunch with her husband Vincent and friend Julia. We stopped at the centre of Hsinchu were is a City God Temple. This one is special because it is surrounded by many and many food stalls and restaurants, so you can hardly see the temple. In the temple there are more gods then one, but one is the main god, then there is also his wife. Inside there are also a little scayr figures or masks of guards of the temple.

You can “light” a little (electric) light as a prayer in the temple – for a year it costs you maybe 500NTD

The guard that weights the good and bad inside you

We tasted a lot of delicious food like spring rolls, different types of rice noodles (which are famous here),  meat balls and kind of dumplings made of rice dough and filled with meat and oyster omellet. Then we went to Miaoli county to see an exhibition of students from the school. Theare were 5 different schools taking part in this exhibition. I think that many of the works were really good and the studnets are talented. I hope they can find their path and be artists one day.

We also went to visit the Expo Pavillion of Taiwan from World Expo exhibition in Shanghai. It looks like a huge lantern and inside there is a big ball on which are many typical taiwanese things and also other projected. We went inside the ball and a video that was all around us took us through popular places in Taiwan. Then we could “send” our own lantern towards the sky with our own wish. To tell the truth I thought the pavillion would be more interesting, or rather, that there would be more things to see. so it dissapointed us a bit…

But the dinner definitely made it up. We went to taste some yuanan food. It is more similar to thai, a little spicy and sour, but I think it was really perfect after the hot day. We had 9 differetn courses in 3 people!! So again a feast! Thank you Gillian and Vincent.

On Sunday I went with 4 students (Jerry, Joseph, Fish and Llul) to Danshui, which is a northern part of Taipei. It’s a place where the river Danshui flows into the sea, so the water here is a little salty. We went along the banks of the river, there was a lot of people and food again! We tried the specialty “age” – it is a kind of tofu that is filled with special noodles and you eat it with red sauce. Not that it is my favourite but it was good. We also tried a kind of cram with garlic and basil leaves, which was very tasty! We visited some buildings that are left here after the Spanish and Dutch domination. And for me they looked soooo normal:))

We took also a ferry to the other side of river. There was even more people, so we didn’t take a ride by bike as we planned earlier, because it was too dangerous. I tasted typical local thing – a kind of small black egg, but it was definitely better than the century egg!!!

We took a MRT to Shilin night market – a famous one in Taipei. It is very big, also underground, so we have seen maybe a half of it and were very tired, so we decided to go home… But I tried some specialities again – a kind of potatoe dough filled with ham, pinapple, broccoli, corn…., roll filled with special kind of cake (difficult to describe).

On Monday I had only 2 classes and no lunch with students! So I went swimming! and had 2 hours of calligraphy practice. One of the classes was very noisy , no suprise it was full of boys , but I did a good move – I told them to speak only in english, and suddenly it was more silent!

I was so occupied that I nearly forgott that it is Eastern! So enjoy yourselves and the day of in CZE!

I was too lazy to write the few days ago, and also today, so I will just sum up what happend. on Tuesday I had 3 classes in 3rd grades and in the evening I went for a dinner with Jacey, Tina and her parents and brother. They were very nice and took me to their favourite restaurant. I had some japanese ramen with noodles and also we tasted other specialities.

Wednesday I went to see a movie with 114. We took a train to Zhongli and then went for lunch. I head a very good hotpot with seafood – shrimps, crams, squibs and fish. The movie’s name is Noah, but americans made it to a very action movie, and if there was not Emma Watson, it wil be much more boring.

After the movie I went with Sarah to a very tiny japanese resturant for sushi. And it was sooooo tasty, perfect! The resturant had only 3 tables but it was nearly sold out of sushi, so we had some sashimi, octopus and rolls and salad.

But today I had some allergic reaction to something I had done or eaten yesterday so I have to find out why

Today was not a special day – I had 3 classes, lunch with students. I wanted to go swimming but every hour there were students in the swimming pool and I really did not feel comfortable going there in my bikini So I stayed in the office whole day. Sarah wants me to cook her something traditional czech, so I spend an hour thinking about what should I do. But first I think I’ll have to visit markets and ssupermarket to see what I can buy here. Oh and also something very nice happend. A boy in one class (2nd grader) told me that I am gorgeus and beautiful woman. He broke all my thoughts about taiwanese beeing too shy, mostly because he said that in fornt of the whole classroom He really took my breath away! and all the students where making fn of him then. But it was really sweet

I decided to do some research and write here something about the traditional Taiwanese wedding. A traditional wedding must follow a total of six procedures to be considered complete. These include an official proposal, the matching of the couple’s birthdates, the selection of an auspicious date for the wedding, the delivery of gifts, the confirmation of the wedding date and lastly the wedding ceremony. Nowadays weddings are not so strict in following these rules.

The groom has to first propose to the parents. This is very official and he has to bring a matchmaker with him, who will go through the details of the marriage. When proposing, apart from the groom, those present, including his parents and the matchmaker, need to make an odd-numbered total of people. Usually there is a standard of three or five people. If the bride’s family agrees, they give the groom red paper where is in detail written the date of birth of the bride. Then he has to find a fortunteller, who will choose the auspicious date of wedding.

During the wedding there are many traditional things taking place, but if you are really interesetd in this you can see this link, where a guy, that wed a taiwanese girl describes all to detail:

http://mykafkaesquelife.blogspot.tw/2011/09/everything-about-taiwanese-wedding.html

This site is also good:

http://www.taiwan.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=44493&CtNode=2461&mp=1009

On Saturday morning I started a journey with Elaine. She wnated to show me the water reservoir near Taoyuan. It is a beautiful place, around is forest and in the trees there are trails up to the hills. Many people come here every weekend to have a picnic or barbecue and let the children enjoy themselves. The air here was very pleasant, full of water and sweet fragrance form the trees. First we took a small path to the hill to take some pictures of the green trees, but my camerea is not good to capture the beauty of that…

Than we rode to the upper part of the dam to take a boat here. The water level wasn’t at its highest position so we could see the stone shore. We just arrived at the small wharf and a boat with other 18 people was waiting for us (as the 19th and 20th persons needed for departure). Other passengers were very kind and friendly, two of them, older man with his nephew and old father, started talking with Elaine and also  wanted to take photo with me :))

Than we went to meet Rosemary and Peter in Taoyuan city and drove towards Taipei. We parked our car under the Memorial Hall Square (or also Liberty or Freedom Square). At the square there are 3 important buildings – Chiang Kai-shek’s memorial hall, National Theatre and Natioanl concert hall. The memorial hall looks stunning, all white whith blue octagonal roof and standing at the east side of the square. ON the north and south sides there are the other building, which look exactly the same. Altough they were built in 1987 they copy the style of traditional chinese palaces. The whole square (which has around 240000 square metres) is closed by the magnificent white and blue gate. The place was full of tourists, but in past it was also the assemblence place of many revolts and protest.

Also the telephone booth here is made “traditional”

Peter wanted to show me around a little so we took MRT to the centre of the city. First we stopped at a place called the Red House. It is a plce for young people and students, with many shops, coffee shops, artist and places to perform f.e. music.

Then awe continued to the Long Shan temple. It is a budhist temple, from the beggining of 18th century, but many times damaged by earthquakes and also during wars. The present Lungshan Temple consists of three halls: the fore hall, the main hall and the rear hall. The fore hall is used as the entrance and the space for the people to worship. The main hall is in the center of the whole complex with a statue of Kuan-in as the main god of the temple. There were a lot of people singing a song from diaries they could buy. Many of them bought some presents for their gods. In the whole place there are many statues of gods, every is for a different purpose – f.e. you can ask a god for health, for luck in your bussines activities, if you want to give birth to a baby, or find a boy/girl friend, and many more – you can just pray in fornt of the god with burning smelly sticks and give him some fruit, food or flowers.

I like that place, it has a unique atmosphere, and aslo it shows how the chinese are tollerant to other religions, because they do not mind a foreginer to come to the temple and pray with them. Te architecture is very traditional, with many statues and wooden and stone carvings. Every piece of it has its own meaning, a story hidden. I really loved the dragons and phoenix birds on the roofs nad the colourfullnes of those peices in comparison with black wood and stone.

Long shan temple form the square in front of it

offerings to gods and the central hall

central hall with praying people

Kuan-in the main god of the temple

the god for finding a boyfriend or girlfriend

the roof with dragon and phoenix

Oh and in translation long=dragon and shan=mountain. The dragon is very positive animal in chinese mythology, it brings luck and happines. Mountain is something strong, with good roots and can last forever. So this temple is something very traditional for chinese…

After that Peter wanted me to try a traditional tea, very special one, very bitter. I wanted to be brave so I took a big cup but that was really a mistake. After the first sip my face  wrinkled, my throat went very tight. I had to finish the whole cup! But it is very healthy!! so NEVER AGAIN!:D

photo taken before I tried that = still smiling

In markets there is always one resturant selling snake’s meat and soup! I was told I have to try that, but maybe next time!

We also stopped at a part of town – the QUidong street, with traditional japanese style buildings. They were build during the occupation of Taiwan by japanese during 1920s to 1940s. Those houses served for japanese officers and now you can go inside of them and see how they lived in that time.

back garden of the houses

painitngs on the walls

After all this we were really tired, so we took the MRT back to the memorial hall to meet up with Elaine and Rosemary. One interesting thing – it is not allowed to eat or drink in the MRT, I do underestand that, it’s the same in CZK, but it is also prohibited to eat at the stations. Not knowing that I put a lump of sweet candy to my mouth, and Peter horrified that I have eaten something told me not to chew, that there are cmares and a policeman could stop me and I’ll have to pay a fine. I told him not to worry, I’m a foreigner and they won¨t stop me, and it was aslo the troth, but this shows how conservative and also orderly lives they have!

For dinner we went to a hotel resturant, where they serve cantonees style food. Because Rosemary wants to do it big always we had maybe 7 or 8 different courses! All of them very delicious! Many of them contained shrimps, some rice, some made of rice dough and so on. It was also a special occasion, because on Tuesday Rosemary is going to have an important operation… good luck Rose…

On Sunday i could rest a little. But for lunch my homepa was invited for a wedding lunch and they took me with them. The weddings here are a lot different. They invite many guests for dinner or lunch only. During the lunch there were some formalities, but none as our wedding ceremony. The birde wore first very big white dress, but during the lunch she dressed to different one, golden, and when we were leaving, she had a blue one. There were 12 courses, so I was really full after that. Some rice, some noodles, crab, lobster, pork ribs, dumplings, baked douggh with filling, soup, vegetable, fish… many and many and many. We ate maybe for 2 hours continuously!

I have to ask the teachers more about the wedding ceremony, because homepa could not underestnad some of my questions….

And now, at 8pm, full of food again (very tasty rolls with beef meat and spring onions) I’m going to watch a film and relax for the coming week!

Hi! Today was again a busy day. I had 3 classes, a lunch with students, 2 hours I practised calligraphy and 1 hout we had a video session with class 308. We watched some of our folklore dances and they really enjoyed it!

After school I went to a night market in Zhongli with 4 girls from 307. They wanted to show me a lot of food, so I took pictures of nearly all of that. So now you will know what it means to go to a night market! I love it really!

sushi (I had 6 different pieces, what I have already eaten is the one with salmon and scuib)

This is the “touhua” – similar to tofu but served sweet with many things inside

ice cream – originally it was tea icecream, but it was so good that we ate it all before I took this picture :))

eggs of some bird (really small) with kari sauce

different parts of chicken (ass, legs), rice sausage, blood cake…

something made of sweet potatoes and with plum flavour

circle cake with cream filling

Stinky tofu with pigblood and spice soup

I don’t know what this is but it was good

very good dumplings with meat ad green onion filling

I think this is everything we tried today! So now I’m really full, my belly looks like f I was pregnant and I’m all tired after the etaing! Thank you girls!

Today was an exhausting day. After yesterday I was very tired and in the morning I had chinese dancing than kung-fu and after that also yoga class. Yoga classes attend some of the teachers and they invited me to. Gillian was so nice to make me homemade rice ball, which I ate before yoga. The teacher was really great, she can make such moves I won’t be ever able to do And she tried to put me in some of those It took 1 and a half hour and after the first hour I really wanted it to end But after I really felt streched (maybe to more then only 3 dimensions :))

After school I watched one of the clubs – those who do some choreographies with wooden guns! I am not sure how to call them, maybe an honor guard? There are some photos:

I am still not sure how to feel about this – children “playing” with guns and doing a little military training… But I was told that many people complained baout the whole military office, which is at every school, and they will cancel these offices. Maybe one of the reasons is also that the military officers receive two payments – one form shcool and one from army. Than such a person can get around 100 000 NTD.

I also tried some moves that they do, f.e. turning the gun around with only one hand, and I really couldn’t do it well and my hand was all sore after a few tries! They were very nice and invited me to come again. Maybe after before I leave I’ll go there and see if they made any progress in their choreography…

Yeah and the teachers were so happy to see me tired today they said that it is not possible to be so active as I am all days! They make sometimes fun of me, but it’s nice

Yesterday I was so tired when I arrived home that I didn’t write antyhing and went straight to bed! I had only two classes so I went for a swim again and I also tried to remember some new vocabulary. After school Sarah took me to watch a basseball match – local Taoyuan Lamigo against Taipei Elelphants. The stadium wasn’t full because it was not weekend. I could see the cheerleaders, which were all very beautiful girls,and many men went crazy and took many pictures and videos when they started dancing:)) You should know that baseball is a national game here. Probably because the Japanese brought the game here when they occupied Taiwan. Every child in school could play only baseball or do sumo in that time. So today it is the most popular game around Taiwan. And the local team has won the match!

to a match? how else then with a czech flag!

Proposal during the game! How romantic!