To start of the festivities we went to Shoushan Natural Park, which is very very close to my school, NeiWei. Shoushan is also commonly known as Monkey Mountain, and I will tell you what, there is no other name that would suit it better, there are Macaque monkeys crawling all over this place, or every shape, size, and age. Our tour guide told us they may come up and sit by your leg, but not to look at them because that is a sign you want to fight. This was reassuring.... we were also warned not to bring too many personal belongings, because if we are not holding onto items, especially anything plastic, the monkeys would definitely take it. Between those two comments, we were ready to go! We were walking through the trails and finally hit the sweet spot where to monkeys were hanging out, we must have been there at a good time, because they were going crazy around the spot we were, fighting and chasing each other, invading a mans scooter for goodies, and playing in the public telephone booth; however, they were pretty adorable. After spending some time hanging out with the monkeys and learning about the natural parks of Taiwan, it was off to do some rock climbing.
At on of the junior highs, we all met back together to try some rock climbing. When we got there, the school's rock climbing club was there to assist and climb with us! I have only done this a number of times, but I was excited to try it again. They had a number of courses, ranging in difficulty, it was safe to say we were going to start with the easiest one! The club members were insanely good, climbing walls while almost being parallel to the ground, some crazy strength there! I made it to the top of the wall, the rest we left up to the experts. It was fun to see our cooperating teachers, host families, coordinators, and directors participating in the fun!
Now off to the dinner they said, taking us to a hotel on the beach where we could hang out before having to get ready for dinner. The view was incredible! I am by all means not complaining about anything this night had in store, but it would have been nice if the weather would have cooperated little bit more for this night, it was a bit chilly. We were the only ones on the beach, so many that was the added benefit. Time for dinner, and oh my goodness I have never felt so spoiled in my entire life. We each got to sit at large circular tables with our host family and people from our schools like our cooperating teacher, directors, and principals. We ate course after course, they just kept bringing more and more food to try; most of it was very delicious! During dinner the four of us were brought up on stage to be welcomed by each school, principal, host family, and bureau of education here in Taiwan. We received bananas and pineapple for good luck, a flower for international women's day, a famous bread, and many bags, mugs, key rings, and trinkets from the schools. It was awesome to be able to sit down and talk with everyone that has been a part in making this happen for us. Everything was so incredible at this welcome party event and we were so fortunate that everyone was so excited for us to be here for student teaching.
We are officially ready to begin our great adventure!
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