What really matters in life is working

My life seems to be back on track once I started my intensive course at the cram school for the exam of Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Later I found a job as a sales assistant, though with meager salary, it is close to my home, and after 47 jobless days I did not really have many choices. Also, via a tutoring agency, I have also got an additional tuturing job.

Compared with other part-time job in restaurant, flyer distributing, or even the starting salaray of my company, the average hour-pay  for tutoring is much more handsome. As an experienced, English-major graduate, one can charge from 400NTD. However, it was kind of difficult for me, as a guy, to find a tutor job when I just finished my military service last September, and it was also very difficult to find a proper job, without business background nor intern experience in any company.

Back to the teaching itself. It's been two years that I have not taught English since I went on exchange in Paris. I was fortunate to be able to teach a junior high school student for one year and a half during 2009 to 2010. Right now I have a in eighth grade student, from a middle class family with caring father who seems to have good education. I use Azar grammar book and a pratical book on tourism in Taiwan. These past few weeks, I taught the conversations in Let's talk in English magazine. It was very helpful for me because I am at the same time learning very useful colloquial English.

Hiking in Yangmingshan in misty, windy, rainy day

My ferver to nature grows as I started hiking on Elephant mountain last November by myself. Taipei is a great place for hiking because many hiking trails are accessible with public transport. Most of them are in stairway, which may not meet some people's standard of "hiking", according to them, it should be natural paths. Still, the view on the summit worth the stair-climbing. Almost each hiking trail we can appreciate the panorama inside the Taipei basin.

Last weekend I went to Yangming Mountain with three other couchsurfers. It was my first time to visit the east part of Yangminshan, and it was me who organised this. Compared with other hiking trails, Yangming Mountain is a perfect getaway because it belongs to the National Park, and in the estern part of it, we don't see any building from the mountain.

Despite the weather report, I still persist going there on Saturday. The weather, as the forecast predicted, was very misty, the white vapor filled the air, and we could hardly see anything within 5 meters. It was the same in the . The wind blew harshly that any umbrella could not resist. I could hardly hold my umbrella when I attempted to climb up the hill, which was killing me, so we decided to walk in the forest downhill, to Chungshan Building.

To my surprise, the path going down still leads to the waterfall, where I have been to three years ago with other church people. We had a short rest in front of the waterfall, which is rich in negative ion. Eddy took out his lunch box and a portable gas to heat up the water. In nature, he made some mint tea in front of us, the taste was pretty good.

We continued to the Qingtiangang grassfield, where the cattle once grazes, but seems like heaven within the heavy white mist. The vast hill is belted with a circular path. I had no idea how long would the circular trail last because I could not see anything among the mist. We just kept walking and sticked out the umbrella to block the blowing wind.

At the end, we have finally made it to the visitor centre. I stamped on my Moleskine notebook to memorate this difficult trail. Waiting at the bus going back to the centre, we have seen several stray dogs idling around, soaked by the rain, they were begging for food. As human beings, we could have our choice to hike or not, but for the animals, they have no choice, and their living is more difficult.

Fuyang Ecological Park

It was a Sunday that I did not need to go to the cram school. The weather was so nice so I decided to go out for nature. I took the metro brown line and got off at Linguang Station, situated in a quiet neighborhood without too many tourist attractions, but possessing two very pleasant parks for the locals and nature goers.

^ Metro Linguang Station

My destination was Fuyang Ecology Park, which is 5-10 minutes away from the metro station on foot. Unfortuantely, Fuyang Ecology Park is still under renovation, and its entrance is totally blocked by the metal construction wall. There seemed to be other visitors with a net at hand coming on their scooters disappointed after seeing the announce on the panel. 

The map at the entrance of the park, with the announce on top of it indicating its temporary closure till Feb 1.

Fuyang park was actually a ammunition depot during the Japanese colonization and then military base, so it preserves the nature in a way.

I continued walking to  the top of the Fuzhoushan park beside, where we can have a nice view overlooking Taipei basin, and of course Taipei 101.