2014-04-20

Taiwan Animals Everywhere

Sorry I haven't posted in a really long time. But to be perfectly honest, not too many things have been happening that are worth posting.  Traveling has been minimal, and school has been pretty calm. The only thing is I am very ready to come home. I haven't mentally checked out yet, but once June hits, I'll probably start packing with great excitement. Although to be fair I'll probably need a month to sort through and organize what I want to leave and what I want to take home.

A couple weeks ago, I went to Green Island, one of only 3 places in the world with salt water hot springs.  I got to experience these wonderful hot springs, but I really couldn't tell the difference between them and normal ones (at least until some water got in my mouth).  No special health/beauty effects seen post- salt water hot spring soak.  We also got to go snorkeling on the coral reefs right near the beaches of the island, and that was absolutely incredible (unfortunately no pictures since I don't have a water proof camera).  And the final cool observation about the place was.... the goats.  There are wild goats seen all over the island and it was kinda cool to see them running up and down the side of these steep cliffs.

Wild goats!

On a cliff overlooking the ocean surrounding the island



Weather wasn't so good... so here is how you travel in Taiwan during the rainy days (full body ponchos)... only NT$75 at 7-11!
Last week, the Taichung ETAs took a little trip to a small town called Lishan, up in the mountains towards the center of the island.  It was COLD there.  Recently, most of Taiwan has been experiencing a comfortable 81 degree high recently (although honestly, with this humidity, feels more like 90 which is not as awesome).  But up in the mountains, I was pulling back out my coats.  In this small town, we put on a day English Camp for the students there since they don't have much access to foreigners/native English speakers.  It was an amazing trip, and I feel so lucky that I got to see all this.  Up in the mountains of Taiwan, I felt like I was in the Alps or something.  It was breathtaking...


Yes, we were high enough to be at cloud level



Teaching has been going great, and my knowledge of children's psychology goes up every day.  But the most exciting thing to happen this past week was this beauty... see if you can tell what it is you should be looking at....

Do you see that massive spider in the brown/clear container? If not, look again.  Luckily, I did not have the misfortune to trap this monster.  Now, I know you're probably thinking... "Oh it can't be that big... we don't have a reference point to compare it to...etc".  Let me give you a reference.  This is a species of spider in Taiwan that eats not only mosquitoes, but cockroaches as well.  Taiwan cockroaches. In case you didn't know, Taiwan cockroaches are about the size your middle and index finger put together (side note: when I get back to the States, I will never fear a cockroach again).  So to bring it back to our spider friend in the picture... one of his legs was as long as my middle finger.  One of the deans found it in the school and caught it.  My co-teacher and I were like "why didn't you just kill it????"  But she wanted to release it outside after school.  Which in hindsight was probably the best idea.... it kills the cockroaches so it must be our friend.... and that would have been a lot of spider guts to clean up.

Happy Easter everyone! He is Risen!

2014/4/22 update: Apparently a teacher took the spider home because she wanted to release it in her father's house which currently has a cockroach problem.  Yes, she willingly released that into her house.  Also, apparently it's not poisonous/dangerous to humans. I personally beg to differ.


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