Was at a friend's bachelor's the other night. I don't feel bad posting this on the net for the world to see because he's so badly made up you can't recognise him anyway! Kiff times were had by all that evening 

An innocent enough picture, but a totally bizarre story behind it. This is officially the weirdest thing that has happened to me since I arrived in Taiwan! 

Hijacked!

As I arrived at my apartment after the usual Tuesday night CS shoot em up, I was accosted by the guy on the left (see the photo above). He seemed a bit drunk but maybe he was just full of the joys of life. Anyway he's hanging outside the newly opened shop which I've just discovered is a skin clinic. We get chatting and I take off my helmet because his English is broken and I figured he could understand me better if he saw my mouth. The usual niceties come forth, you are so handsome etc, etc but they are suddenly VERY concerned about my skin (which isn't great admittedly). Well, next thing I know I'm laying on this bed getting a full facial cleansing by some famous skin expert (who everyone refers to as the 'teacher'). It was BIZARRE to have 10 strange faces peering intently down at my inflamed pores. It gets better. No one can understand me properly so he phones a female friend of his who's English was better. She asks me

'do you want your pimples to disappear?'.
'Of course'
'the teacher will make them go away'
'Great!'

So she gets going with her tweezers pulling out stuff and squeezing stuff. There are 'ooh's and 'ah's from the nice little crowd gathered around my bed.

Halfway through this, she tries to tell me something, which I obviously can't understand so I speak to phone lady again. It emerges that If I want my pimples to disappear, I need to pay NT$12000. That's R2,229.31 at today's exchange rate. Just like that. The crowd seemed genuinely surprised that I didn't have it in my pocket!
So the facial stopped, and negotiations with phone lady started up again. I ended up buying a tub of some special cleanser that will apparently make 'my pimples disappear' It will last one year I'm told so I didn't feel too bad forking out NT$1000 or R185 for it.

That's my weird story for the evening.
Bye.

I should be in bed now

Just spent the evening on the net. It's time for bed. Why I posted this, I have no idea. Good morning!

Another beauty. "Jackson Five English School". Only a non English Speaker born after 1970 would send their kid to this school! I laughed when I saw this on a run near my apartment.

I've been collecting pictures of BAD English for a while now. This is an absolute classic slogan from one of the zillions of scooters that rule the island. I guess that improving the quality of English in Taiwan is one of the reasons I'm here :)

While at Sun Moon lake, we visited this really large temple. This is a shot of the very ornate interior. Most of Taiwan is Taoist/Buddhist/Anything-Goes-ist.

Morrison Christian Academy - the only English based high school of prominence in Taichung (well, the only one I know of anyway). Friends and I play touch rugby here every Sunday at 4pm. I'm not good, but at least I'm getting better...

Speaking of cute, this is one of my friend's recent acquisitions- Roxy, a beagle puppy with SHARP teeth!

This is one sweet little girl.

[Sorry, had to pull these photos off my blog. I figured it wan't quite ethical to randomly post pitures of kids on the net. I don't think the parents would approve. This kind of stuff can get you fired and land you in court. Parents can be quite agro sometimes.]

This is a ... monkey.

[Sorry, had to pull these photos off my blog. I figured it wan't quite ethical to randomly post pitures of kids on the net. I don't think the parents would approve. This kind of stuff can get you fired and land you in court. Parents can be quite agro sometimes.]

I love these kids!

[Sorry, had to pull these photos off my blog. I figured it wan't quite ethical to randomly post pitures of kids on the net. I don't think the parents would approve. This kind of stuff can get you fired and land you in court. Parents can be quite agro sometimes.]

One of my younger students. So cute.

[Sorry, had to pull these photos off my blog. I figured it wan't quite ethical to randomly post pitures of kids on the net. I don't think the parents would approve. This kind of stuff can get you fired and land you in court. Parents can be quite agro sometimes.]

Another photo from Sun Moon Lake. We had a good time there :) 

A bunch of friends and myself visited Sun Moon Lake a while ago. It's a great spot! Here is Rob doing something... to a huge pagoda built for the wife of Chiang Kai-Shek (CKS - have no idea how to spell his name)

Another experimental photo. Craig, Jo and Isabelle on a swing at a park near our apartment. 

An arty photo of a flower on the road outside my apartment. This was about a day after the massive rains from the typhoon that hit about a month ago. 

This is my signature. It's the three characters of my name artistically arranged and carved into a piece of Jade. It's legal to use as a signature throughout Taiwan. What a great souvenir! 

marking marking marking marking marking 

OK, so here's my news.

Work work work! I'm teaching about 30 hours a week now which means about 50 hours of actual work (marking and preperation time takes quite a while!) For the last couple of days, all I've done is work, work work.

Welcome!!

If you're reading this, you've clicked on the link I emailed you and are now viewing

http://www.rogerintaiwan.blogspot.com (Remember this).


This is going to be my little spot on the web for posting all of my news for an indefinite time (until I leave this country).

This will allow me to do some cool things now

1. Post all those photos I'm taking but don't want to send for fear of clogging up you inboxes.
2. You'll be able to check on me at any time you want to without having to wait for an email. I'll try to be regular with posting to it, even if it's just a few words.
   
3. You can read something I previously said without having to scrounge through your inbox (or is that your 'deleted items') folder.

So here we go! Thanks for coming along and as always, thanks for being interested in me!!!

Keep well and God bless you all

-->RoG

If you want to comment on any of these posts, you can. I'm not sure how to yet, but I'll give you details in a few minutes.