Party time, HESS style...

Well this weekend was a lot of fun. Saturday night I went out with Chelsea and Anneke to Wallace (a foreign run restaurant) where they were holding a cocktail party with the proceeds going to Steve who just got into a soccer accident and had to get his arm operated on. Anyhoo, it was fun, and I got to dress up and wear cute shoes which is always fun. We played some fun games too, we were given a card when we entered of a famous persons name and we had to find our mate in order to get our free drink, so there was motivation there to mingle. I had Penelope Cruz, but she's single right now so I wasn't really sure who I was looking for. I finally found a Tom Cruise, and the Chinese bartenders really had no idea who these people were anyways, so I got my drink in the end. The guy that had my card though was my friend's boyfriend so no flirting there, which is really too bad.

Then the next morning bright and early I woke-up for the HESS banquet deal in Taichung. It was from 10:30am-2:30pm, so needless to say I was tired Sunday when I only slept for a couple of hours. I think the reason for a holding a lunch and not a dinner banquet was so that no one got really hammered. But the food was really good, I tried some traditional dishes that I've never tasted before that were really good. I don't really know what they are called, but they mostly consisted of a large quantity of meat. Roasted pork, ginger fish, etc.

The entertainment consisted of different CT's (Chinese Teachers) and NST's (Native Speaking Teachers) doing little skits, or dances. My kindy branch sang a song (a sappy love song, Celine Dion type, the Taiwanese love those puke-worthy ones unfortunately). But you can see me and a bunch of my CT's, waving our hands back and forth to the song in one of the pics. The picture with me in between two CT's are my kindie teachers Wing and Winnie. Wing is always getting me little treats, yesterday sh gave me a huge tin of seaweed flavored crackers (pretty good actually). They love seaweed here, the students bring little dried squares of it to class that they pass out to their friends like it's chocolate or candy.

At the banquet they gave out prizes too, and my boss Dan (the red headed American) won a three night all inclusive trip to Disneyland Hong Kong, I'm trying tp convince him to take me along, but so far he thinks I'm joking. Dan and I aren't really friends, but for a free trip to Hong Kong whatever.

On Wednesday I went on a field trip to a dairy ranch with a bunch of highschool students at my bushiban branch. I had to teach them how the anatomy of a cow works, the process of making yogurt and explain artifical insemination, it was interesting....But it was a good day, we had a big barbeque which was so good. They had all kinds of pork, chicken wings, funky mushrooms, fish balls (really good) etc. Really healthy food. No hamburgers to be seen, which was actually nice. It's crazy how long it takes to eat for meals here. It's like an event. All the students took turns cooking the meat or marinating it. And we ate for like 2 and a half hours, eating little bits at a time. Very different than bbqs back home.