At work and at play

During the week, Sepal travels up to Tianmu, Taipei, Taiwan, to teach English. When he doesn't have to teach, Tianmu has some very nice parks he likes to frequent.
The park Sepal went to today is near a Sogo. If you look closely, you can see the Sogo behind the fountain.







The other fountain in the park. Sepal was afraid he might fall into this one.

traveling again! This time as a foreign student....

BACK TO SCHOOL!!!! In Taiwan at JinWen University.

No fear: the Traveling Sepal Mug STILL exists and is still seeing new sights! Above he is posing with a student at JinWen University, a college in Xindian, Taipei, Taiwan. This university rarely sees foreign students, so I think the mug made a hit...
Traveling to JinWen University on the bus.
Some of the campus:

Some of the people:
Now don't be fooled. These two, though they completely look Taiwanese, are NOT foreign exchange students at JinWen. They just come to the university every Tuesday to hang out with college students and help them practice their English. The leave all the studying to Sepal!

More of the campus and people:
On the basketball courts of JinWen.
Also on the basketball courts of JinWen, this time with bags instead of peopel.

another new mouth

Sepal met someone from South Africa. His name is Adrian Brink. The mug didn't know how he felt about this...he was full of Pepsi, though, which tasted nice.

Teaching English

These are the first English students the Sepal Mug has every experienced! Welcome to life as an English teacher in Taiwan!

What's up, yi sheng? (doc)

The traveling sepal mug has been busy...for the last month, to be exact. But then, on October 2, after perhaps the busiest month of his life of teaching English, learning Chinese, and trying to juggle a new lifestyle in a different country, he paid a visit to the emergency room. The condition was serious, however; so after a week of pain and fevers and taking off work, the sepal mug found himself in a Taiwanese hospital room.

Here's the timeline of events:

Friday, Oct 2: Unexplainable swelling in the knee caused intense pain. Sepal left school and instead of teaching went to the emergency room. In ER: two x-rays, an MRI, urine samples, blood test, and a knee drain (a needle being stuck in the knee, extracting liquid that was causing all the swelling).

Monday, Oct 5: After teaching one class, Sepal returned to Out Patience Care, where more liquid, this time yellow ooze, indicative of a possible infection, was extracted from the knee, more drugs were prescribed, and another appointment was made for Thursday. The doctors also left instructions to return to the ER right away if fevers or chills were experienced.

Thursday, Oct 7: After a feverish night of sleep, the morning was greeted with another fever. Off to the ER, followed by submission into the hospital in preparation for surgery.

Friday, Oct 8: Knee surgery at 11am. Haven't left the hospital since.

American vacation: PARTY TIME!

After spending almost an entire month away from the Western way of life, Sepal THANKED GOD IT WAS FRIDAY! Not in the literal sense, however, but it was good enough.

"In here, it's always Friday!

The peeps at the Ximen Loft hit up TGIF right down the street for Rachel's birthday dinner. Thank God for birthdays AND for Fridays!

It was delicious. EVERY BITE.

And, as usual, the Sepal mug got around.

九份 (Jioufen)

The rainy weather wasn't about to stop Sepal from taking the train to 九份, either, and walk around a mountainside town, peruse shops, eat Taiwan-famous taro, and experience another sizable cup of milk tea - this time, caramel milk tea. The view was gorgeous, the bus driver was crazy, but it was a fun and wet Sunday of friends, food, and tea.

The view was fantastic, and the taro tasted awesome.

And of course, the day ended with caramel milk tea and green tea red bean cake.

The traveling sepal mug has officially traversed outside the borders of Taipei.