Teacher's Day

I am taking advantage of the availability of the blog site. Don't let me bore you.

September 28 was Confucius' Birthday and the day is celebrated as Teacher's Day. I am told that once it was a national holiday but no longer. It's not a bad deal, though. The Parents' Association gave us a really wonderful banquet -- best food I've had since I got here and the school sponsored a day trip to the north on the following Saturday. It was originally billed as a visit to a Hakka Village (one of Taiwan's minority groups) but we didn't really get to one.

Two buses were full. They let me bring another teacher friend along since the others were allowed to bring their families. We drove north about 2 hours, up into the mountains where it was lovely. We stopped at a giant Buddha statue on the way. We got to this national park area and hiked around in the rainforest. We saw a movie about the area which showed a lot of aborigines but we never saw any. We had a great lunch, then went to a Hakka town. I never saw any Hakkas but they proudly showed us two houses that were over 100 years old! (I didn't want to say anything about Old Town Alexandria so kept my mouth shut.) We couldn't go inside the houses but the layout of the traditional Chinese house was described.

In the town center, we were treated to a bunch of different stores that sold different flavors of tea as this is a tea growing region. Then we went to another town that had interesting handicrafts -- though pretty expensive.

Another great meal and we came home. All in all a great day and free! for teachers.

The weather has grown cool and lovely. I'm settling down with the little beasties and starting to learn some of their names. The teaching is really fun, although there is quite a range of proficiencies.

Today is a Red Letter Day as I FINALLY received my Alien Registration Certificate (Green Card) which makes me legal. It's green here, too.