Birthdays are the Best, I Should Try Having One Every Year

Ok, I imagine there is some day in the future that I will not agree with the title of this blog, but thankfully, that day has not yet come.  I have had a very memorable birthday, filled with good students, great friends, and my family!  Phrases like "birthday week" have been around for as long as I can remember, but I think this has been the first time I really experienced that.  While my birthday was on Thursday, and it was a great day, the day itself lasted about 36 hours because of my friends in various time zones, but my celebrations have been ongoing.  As school on Thursday I had students coming up to me all day saying variations of "Happy Birthday, Teacher Kaitlin" and I was surprised with cakes from my private students, handmade cards from my CEI11 class (who I don't even teach on Thursdays), a lovely rendition of the "Happy Birthday" song by my CE02 class (who are the youngest class in the school), and a cake from the other teachers, TA's, and managers after the school day ended.  The festivities didn't end there though, I finished up my night with a pizza and games nice with a group of my close friends, it was perfect!
The best thing in my birthday celebrations was the arrival of my parents in Taiwan.  After 9 months of being away, it is about time I get to see them again!  I believe their initial review of Taiwan could be summarized in one word: hot.  They reactions to the heat have actually helped me realize that I am actually acclimating to the heat a bit (I would still pick a cold day over a hot day, but at least I'm not dying every time I step outside now).  In their first weekend of Taiwanese adventuring, we haven't managed to accomplish much, but we are making memories none-the-less.  For starters, they are staying in a themed-motel, have you ever heard of such a thing? Each room is designed after a different business around the world (but primarily in Taiwan), and my parents have now experienced the B & O railroad room and the Global Village Organization room, each equipped with a giant bathroom, a jacuzzi style bathtub, some form of water massage tub (we don't understand how it works), and an open-air patio enclosure (in the room!).  Considering it isn't a very fancy or expensive motel, It has certainly impressed me with its entertaining features.  After leaving the hotel (which has a very good air conditioner, thus making it hard to leave), we ventured out for lunch and started our most Taiwanese experience of the day: scooter (moped) driving.  For anyone who didn't know, Taiwanese roads are not like American roads, people drive in all directions, ignore lights, cluster close to other vehicles, and honk their horns a lot.  All of these features are things that I am used to, but leading two other drivers through that mess is a lot of pressure (thankfully we survived, unscathed).  We drove our scooters to Ershui to see the monkeys on Monkey Mountain, but this was the first time I have been there that the monkeys weren't near the trails, so we didn't see any (that was very disappointing).  We followed up the mountain visit with dinner in the largest of Changhua's night markets, and again returned to the lair of air conditioning.  Our weekend's adventures ended with an eventful Sunday.  We started with a scooter trip up Bagua Mountain to visit the Great Buddha statue.  While I didn't hear many comments about the Buddha statue, or the temple behind it, the stand out feature for my mother seemed to be the dried squid salesmen, "What I find funny is, there are what, 20 or so vendors here, and half of them are selling the same squid?".  It was then time for the finale to birthday week: KTV (karaoke), which, by now, there have been a lot of stories about karaoke nights, and this one goes a lot like the previous ones.  There were a lot of songs (several of which my voice failed me on) and a lot of ridiculous moments!

"Happy birthday" to me, from my wonderful friends and family!