It's the new Asian Ali!: Prepare for pictures

I had today off for some reason so I decided to climb a mountain! It's not so much a mountain as much as a tall hill with A LOT of stairs. A lot. I put in my iPod and slipped on my shades and climbed to the top of like 50 different tall hills. It was amazing, however, there were a lot of trees blocking the panorama @ the top of every hill so I didn't really get a good scene of the city, thanks a lot nature. I saw a lot of giant butterflies, grass (finally no more cement) and these little temples with idols to pray to. I also saw and felt every mosquito in that place. I was eaten alive and decided to retreat back to a mosquito free zone. Regardless, I had a great time and I sweat my body weight, and then some.

Now normally I get stared at a lot here bc I am in the minority( which I am getting used to. I smile and say hello a lot here so they are not scared of me) but I am starting to give the locals a misguided sense of all foreigners. Thanks to my mother, I tend to sweat a lot and it's not pretty. I don't understand it either, but the women here look beautiful all the time, and never sweat. IN FACT, they wear leggins, layers of shirts or just jeans and regular tops. Meanwhile, this gringa is wearing as little as possible and still sweating. I see these lucky women to be born without sweat glands wearing pants and I become 1. angry 2. even hotter bc I can't even imagine wearing jeans! 3. defeated. Well that is my sweating rant, sorry so gross.

What next? Well, teaching is going. I have two classes tomorrow and they will be my summer classes that will last for like a month. I also am teaching phonics in the morning starting Wednesday. The old teachers left since their contracts were up and now it is 2 old teachers and 3 new ones. Should be interesting.

This weekend was a blast of rama as well. I was supposed to go see the Dali exhibit in Taipei which I was super stoaked about however, we couldn't find it. after wandering around this square for a bit, we decided to go to Tom's and drink, eat and be merry. We did indeed. We also decided it was a night for glitter so we made EVERYONE put on loads of glitter. I am talking lightining bolts on faces, sequins on your eyes, and glitter eye shadow, for both sexes. We made our way out of the apt. and into the MRT (metro). We were stared at hard, but at that point, no one cared. We found ourselves in a basement of this pub. That is when the trouble started. List of accomplishments that night

1. Found a motorcycle helmet and refused to take it. I also made people knock" on it to test out its safety features.

2. Ran to McDonalds with Sam to slam 2 cheeseburgers when we ordered 2.

3. made plans to go to a Rihana concert with a straight man

4. accidently took a shot of absinthe. It was green, I should have known better.

5. went to a dance club called Roxy and danced my face off

6. Slept on a leather couch with no blankets/ sheets and almost died of heat stroke

7. Took 2 hours to meet up with friends in the train station to go home bc they we lost and we were 3 floors below them

8. Didn't see Dali

9. Smiled a lot

I really like the group of new teachers from orientation. We are planning to hike some mountains or go to the beach this weekend.

Oh, pictures! Some of these I snagged from my friend Sammy and some are a repeat from fb. Forgive me, Jude doesn't have fb and she has been pestering me about pictures.