Category Archives: fun fact

Thai Massage & A Wedding

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I enjoy busy weekends. Although it does mean that they end faster, and Monday will be here tomorrow.

Anyways, I got a Thai massage and went to a wedding on Saturday.

I highly do not recommend getting Thai massages if you’re looking for a relaxing, spa-like massage where you can drift off to sleep as they oil and massage your body with their soft kneading hands as Enya plays in the background and the scent of lavender in the air. Unfortunately, that was what I was looking for so I chose the Thai oil massage over the traditional Thai massage. You know how in the commercials for tourists to Thailand, you see people getting relaxing massages with satisfied smiles on their faces in those cute little wooden huts by the beach? Yeah, it’s not like that at all.

HOWEVER, if you’re looking for a massage where the masseuses use their elbows and knees to pummel you to death, and then pull your arms and legs in every direction while holding you down and standing on your back, or pull you airborne over their knees reminiscent to a WWF move, then by all means, I do highly recommend a Thai massage. There was oil involved but only to help the masseuse locate all the supposed knots in my muscles and literally squash them to death with her hammer of a thumb. There were also many groans and yelps of pain involved. At many moments throughout the two hours, I thought she had mistaken my bones for  knots and was trying to massage my bones away , but no, she said that I had many many knots all over my body. Today, I am very sore. It hurts to move.

Long story short: Don’t think I’ll be getting another one of those any time soon.

After the fun two hours, Michael and I went to a wedding of a friend’s sister. It was a traditional Chinese wedding with the typical 10 dishes and lots of red wine. (Fun Fact:) Here in Taiwan, when one gets married, there are no registries, and the guests don’t buy presents. They just show up to the reception with red envelopes containing money. The amount of money is given in increments of even numbers and no 4′s (cause 4 sounds like death in Chinese so it’s a bad number). For example, you could give $800NT, 1200NT, 1600NT, etc. The amount also depends on the venue (a nicer venue would probably require a higher amount) and how close you are to the bride and/or groom.

(Notice the hint of an Asian flush?)

B is for Boy

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My junior high boys have been so good lately, which has been pleasantly surprising. *knock on wood* Then again, it’s probably because I sent my bad kids away to the other classes. See, there’s a system of classes which are broken down into A, B1, B2, and C class. The A kids have the best English ability (we’re talking second grade level English here), the B kids are about the same (first grade/second grade) but B1 moves at a faster pace, and C kids have the lowest-to-no level. I teach B2, and after last semester, my worst kids (based on test scores) were sent to C class, and my best kids were sent to B1 or A class (which was really sad because my best kids were also most of my favorite kids). In return, I received the lowest-test-scores kids from B1 and A class.  After the first test of this semester, there was a bit more shuffling around, and a couple more of my lowest-test-score kids went to C class and one especially naughty one went to B1. (He’s a real jerk. He picks on me. I’m his teacher, and he picks on me like throw stupid paper balls at me or says things in Chinese. Ugh. If only I were bigger and stronger and a male.)

Why is it a child’s test score negatively correlates with his naughtiness level? Is it because they are naughty so they don’t pay attention in class and therefore gets bad grades? Or is it because they don’t understand what’s going on and will get bad grades anyway so they get bored and are naughty? There are rarely some students who are naughty and can still make good grades. I have discovered that the highest-scoring kids are the ones that participate in class and are engaged with my teaching. They can be funny and give goofy answers, but for the most part, they actually take the class seriously and can answer most my questions.

Fun Fact

The pros to being a young attractive female teacher: You can pretty much get away with anything with these junior high boys. Give them a ton of work, yell at them, be tough on them, but then they’ll always forgive you again and shower you with compliments the next day. For the most part, they’re also really nice to you and will offer to clean your board and carry your books.

The cons: Getting compliments or inappropriate comments. I get “sexy” a lot as in,”Teacher, you are so sexy today”. I’d like to think it’s because they don’t know what it really means and equate it with “beautiful” or “pretty”. Then again, maybe they do cause they’re 13-year-old boys, and I’m just being naive. Regardless, it still makes me uncomfortable. That and having “So-and-So love (or even f***) Tina” written on about half of the desks in my classroom. Flattering, but no thanks.

Popcorn

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Fun Fact: The movie theaters here serve sweet and salty popcorn. They usually just give you the sweet popcorn by default when you ask for popcorn because that’s what the Taiwanese prefer.

In the beginning, I refused to get the sweet because I thought it was the sweet kettle corn which I’m not a fan of. Then, one time, they accidentally threw in a few sweet kernels, and I suddenly discovered a little piece of caramelized heaven.

Since then, I’ve been getting popcorn half and half because what’s watching a movie without salty and buttery popcorn which goes great with an ice cold fountain coke, right? (Although the popcorn here really isn’t that buttery. It’s an Asian thing, along with less cheese and less sauce on pizzas.) Salty on top, then when you get to the sweet on the bottom, it’s like dessert!

Now, I’ve been getting (probably hormonal-related) cravings for caramel popcorn and have been looking all over Taipei for some since I don’t think you can just buy concessions at the movies without tickets. First was the caramel popcorn imported from the States that I found at City Super, but that tasted funny. Then, the boyfriend suggested Herson’s Popcorn located in the food court of Shinkong Mitsukoshi (shopping malls) by Taipei 101. Now, that counter is seriously popcorn heaven. They have flavors from blueberry to bacon to cotton candy. We got a decent size bucket of caramel, green apple, and Oreo cookie for only $140NT ($4.38USD). Yum!

Tipping

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Fun Fact: You don’t ever have to tip here in Taiwan. Sometimes there’s a 10% service charge added to restaurant bills, but that’s only when you go to a nice, sit-down place to eat. The rest of the time, there’s no tipping necessary for anything: taxis, salon services, eating out, etc. I think hotel services and valet tipping is pretty much expected, but that’s about it. I mean, after a year and a half of living here, I still feel a bit awkward about not tipping. Sometimes I’ll tell the taxi driver or pizza delivery boy to keep the change just because I don’t want to deal with it, but the amount of it is usually so little that I feel more embarrassed than not tipping at all.

Ironically, even though there’s no culture of tipping here, the service here is still very excellent. I would say in about 90% of the places that I’ve ever been here in Taiwan from hair salons to fast food restaurants that required service of some sort, all the employees have always been very thorough and polite.

Ice Skating

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As you can see, I went ice skating today at the Taipei Ice Arena with the boy and some friends. And as you can see, we had a great time even though we had to wear silly helmets and gloves because they are required unless you sign a waiver.

But the whole process of getting in and out was quite inefficient.

In Nashville, when you go ice-skating, you walk up to the admissions counter and pay for entrance fee/skate rental, and they give you a little ticket similar to the ones you get from arcade games or at the state fair. Then you go inside to the rink, walk up to the skate counter, give them the ticket and your shoes, tell them your shoe size, and they’ll give you your skates. The rest is up to you – you wear whatever you want, and you go skate, have fun, and leave whenever you want. When you’re done, you go back up to the skate counter, give them their skates back, get your shoes, and go along your merry way.

But today was not like that at all.

We waited in line at the admissions counter, told them our shoe size (because there were signs EVERYWHERE telling us to), and paid the $190NT ($5.89USD) entrance fee and $60NT ($1.86USD) skate rental fee. They then told us if we had gloves, and we said no so they told us to go buy some because we had to wear gloves. They handed us three cards to get inside. We went and bought the gloves, which were $50NT ($1.55USD) a pair. We swiped our cards at the turnstiles to get through and went to the skate counter, told them our shoe sizes AGAIN (what was the point the first time?), handed them the cards to swipe, got our skates and helmets. It’s about 3:45pm in the afternoon, and we’re taking our sweet time because we’re in no rush. You’ll see why this is important later.

So we skate for a couple of hours, and they were going to zamboni the ice at 6:00pm so we decided to leave. When we left, we returned the skates, swiped the cards, and tried to leave through the turnstile by inserting our cards. But it wouldn’t let us. The machine told us to go to the office. Apparently, we had gone over our 2-hour limit by like ten minutes. They didn’t tell us we only had two hours when we paid to get in! So instead of letting us through to pay the difference at the admission counter, they kept us on the inside of the one and only turnstile and blocked the rest of the arena from exiting until we paid up. (It’s an extra $45NT ($1.40USD) per half hour overtime.) Actually, they wanted us to step to the side at the “problems counter”, but that was already taken up by a group of ten-year-old hockey players and their parents being held hostage because they didn’t have their cards to exit either. Anyways, the whole process was quite frustrating because I felt like a prisoner who got caught doing something wrong.

I understand the reasoning behind the two-hour limit because the ice rink is pretty small, and there are too many people in Taipei for unlimited anything (because the Asians would probably stay all day just to get their money’s worth). But it was still highly inefficient.

In summary, I went ice skating today. It was fun. I paid too much for it. (It’s not really about the money, but more about the principle.)

Fun Fact: I learned that I ONLY GET 2 HOURS OF ICE SKATING next time.