Letters from Annie Douglass Lima
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Taiwan Quarantine, Day 4
I had promised my Kindle we would have a dinner date this evening, so all in all, the meal was quite delightful.
I guess turning thirty is one of those things that was bound to happen sooner or later. Well, it's better than the alternative! And I've had a good thirty years - I can't think of one I've had that I'd want to erase from my past, even the hard ones. So, I guess I don't […]
Last night we enjoyed celebrating Lantern Festival, the second-biggest holiday of the year, with the family of one of my students. A number of other teachers and their spouses were invited as well. The evening began with a delicious hot pot dinner at their house, which they had undoubtedly spent hours preparing beforehand (and hours […]
It's Chinese New Year! There are decorations everywhere, it seems. The above picture is of entryway of our apartment building - notice all the red and gold velvety banners, and the hanging decorations of various kinds with long red tassles. The pictures to the right and below show a big display (from the front and […]
On February 2nd, Floyd and I had the chance to visit an interesting museum with some other expatriates here. It's on the site of a large junior high school that was totally destroyed in a major earthquake on September 21, 1999. They've reinforced the ruins with steel and concrete to keep them stable, but kept […]
Pretty much every restaurant we've eaten in since coming to Taiwan has been a deliciously delightful experience. We wanted to describe a few of them so you'll know what you're missing (and remember, come visit us any time - we'd be glad to take you out to all of them!).Name: The Orange Grove (at least, […]
One of Floyd's and my favorite little restaurants here in Taichung is called the Orange Grove. At least, we call it that, because much of it is painted orange, and it has big round orange lanterns hanging out front. Maybe someday when we learn to read Chinese well, we can figure out what the sign […]
Recently, after we'd finished reading Katherine Paterson's Bridge to Terabithia, I assigned my 5th graders a project where they each had to make up their own world. One assignment that was part of this activity involved writing a list of laws or rules for the inhabitants of their imaginary world. Most of these were what […]
Yesterday Floyd and I and some friends drove up to the mountains to enjoy a day in a national park called Sun Link Sea. Why is it called that? I have no idea! Though it boasts of some beautiful waterfalls, flowerbeds, forested mountain peaks, and even snow at certain times of the year, there is […]
This past weekend I had the opportunity to travel to Seoul, South Korea, for a conference on teaching the "Six Traits of Writing" at Seoul Foreign School. It was great; I came away with a lot of ideas and am eager to start implementing some of the things I learned in my own classroom. It […]
One of our last destinations in Taipei was the Sun Yat-sen Memorial. We got to watch part of a changing of the guard ceremony, but it was too crowded at that point to get any good pictures.We enjoyed walking around the grounds, which were spacious and park-like. Here I found a statue of Dr. Sun […]
One of the highlights of Floyd's and my vacation in Taipei was our visit to Taipei 101, the tallest building in the world (at the time).This impressive structure, whose shape is meant to be reminiscent of a stalk of bamboo, towers over everything around it.It's lit up beautifully at night, with a different color scheme […]