August 10th 2006 Carol

August 10, 2006 – Carol

At last I’m up, connected, I think, and reasonably healthy. Little by little we are pulling life together around the edges. Today was Bill’s first day with the kids. He called happy to have met them. His partner teacher does not have a teaching license, but lots of college vocal pedagogy and piano experience, and his 30 years of teaching experience and the sound of the SBHS choirs’ CDs seem to reassure her that this will be a good match. She is from Texas and lots of fun. They seem to really enjoy each other and will be a shift in practices, attitudes, and almost everything else from the previous vocal folks at TAS.

I have just worked setting up today, but had to stay home for the ADSL man, and a delivery from “Hola”, which is sort of connected to the Home Depot-style store B&Q, but more like a Penney’s or Sears. We bought a beautiful and not expensive chest of drawers cum sideboard, and it was the now customary 7 to 8 phone calls (only one with an English-speaking rep) about how to find our place to get it delivered! Survival Mandarin can’t start soon enough for me!!!!! (or, I suspect, fast enough for the Taiwanese who have to deal with us!) My nest brilliant plan is a Map to be translated into Chinese to be attached to all future orders for delivery!! All is well, finally installed and looking perfect. We figured a few less expensive pieces for practicality will leave us some leeway for real Asian art. Naturally, we’re already finding wonderful, beautiful things even in our own neighborhood, which is not that surprising since the area is affluent ex-pats, nationals, and we TAS folk. We do get great discounts everywhere we go, though, it’s like a secret password and suddenly the “special deal” appears!

Bill arrived bearing some gorgeous Asiatic lilies and a small pink rose. The lilies were from him, but the school had a welcome assembly for the new students and teachers where each was introduced with projected photo by a student government member, given a rose by another member and handshakes all around with administration. He said seniors and juniors sat on the risers and underclassmen on the floor, completely orderly and respectful and was greeted by an unknown student later with “Welcome to our school, I hope you enjoy it here!”

We took off for a pre-prandial walk and are amazed at how like Mexico it is in the evenings. That is the time for walking, (except the early morning crew!), shopping casually and looking, and dining out. Much cooler, and slower. We purchased some “Carol” tea at a beautiful tea shop called Lupicia, there must have been at least 200 different teas, all for sampling by scent and several served by a lovely shop assistant and packaged so artistically that you would take them for the wrappings alone! I’ll report on the flavor when we brew it!

The typhoons have so far only dumped lots of rain on us, but Eastern China is really getting slammed, big evacuations, etc. It’s hurricane season in this part of the world and we really watch the weather news faithfully. So far, so good.