I will NEVER do that again!!!

Oh my goodness... I finally have some time and space to tell you all about my wisdom tooth extraction experience. Never again will I undergo such an intensely painful operation!!!

Martin drove me through to Changhua Christian Hospital early last Thursday morning at about 8am. We waited a while until I was able to go in to see one of the dentists there. His first question: "So what's your problem?"... clearly I wasn't about to explain all of that (ha ha ha) so I just said that I needed to have a wisdom tooth extracted (all the while thinking... 'shouldn't you know this already???'). Second question: "Can you open your mouth?"...

And the next thing I knew he had a massive needle in there and was prodding me with a local anesthetic. Please note - only a LOCAL.

5 minutes later he started the job, after telling me it would take about 30 minutes for him to finish as it was rather "complicated".

1 hour passed and I was still in the chair, crying in agony, a nurse holding my hand and patting me, the dentist with a big metal clamp thing in my mouth still tugging!!! Such pain!!
A massive bucket full of my blood and saliva later, I was done. He explained that actually it was more complicated that he had thought and the tooth was so big and impacted that he had to cut it into 3 pieces to extract the whole thing. OW OW OW!! I was still crying and in such a state of shock that Martin had to do the rest - talk to the dentist, get my medicine, buy me ice, drive me home etc. Luckily for me... he's wonderful and has taken such good care of me these last few days.

It's now been 5 days and I still can't eat or talk properly. I have to go back to Changhua on Thursday for him to check it all out again and remove the stitches. If he even begins to suggest that I should have the other one taken out too I will run as fast as I can out of there....

P.S. (Even now just talking about it I can feel again the crunch as the metal clamp closed around my tooth.... )

Wisdom teeth!!

SCARY CANARY: Tomorrow morning I have to go through to Changhua Hospital to have my bottom two wisdom teeth taken out. WHY WHY WHY!!!

See how happy I am when all my teeth are IN my mouth???

I guess it can't be helped though. It's just such a pain because this week was already super busy with me saying goodbye to students, filling out tax forms, selling my scooter, needing to go to the police station about staying in Taiwan longer than I'm allowed etc etc... and the added stress of removing some of my teeth does not help. It was such a shock too - I went to the dentist purely for a check-up this morning, because when my ARC (visa for Taiwan) is cancelled on May 31st, so too is my medical card and I wanted to get the cheap medical stuff done while I still have it. He took about 4 x-rays and then said in a loud voice "Oh no!". Not exactly what one wants to hear...
Aparantly I also have to have root canal surgery done too, great! But this will have to wait until later in June because I cannot put my poor mouth through that and wisdom teeth extraction all in the same week!!

So anyway, that's what I'll be doing tomorrow... in case you all were wondering...

Fun weekend...

Last weekend was fun!! Friday night began with a little munching at the bbq bar with the Shane School gang - Sam, Duncan, Pascal and Martin. Of course Katie and I were there representing Hess (the superior school!). On the way there Katie and I were driving along on my bike when suddenly our eyes were shocked by a bright red fire in front of us!!! Not only a fire though... it seemed as if we'd driven near a KKK reunion on Yuanlin...



Luckily, we discovered later that it was merely a memorial service for someone (although I've never seen such a huge bonfire for that before!) and that in Taiwan they always wear white to a funeral.

After the bbq bar, we all headed to Changhua for a few drinks. Pascal recently bought himself a nifty little van, so we all hitched a ride with him instead of driving there on the bikes. Such fun!!! We headed to 'The Culture Club' and enjoyed an evening of chatting and listening to Andy play.

Stu looks like he's really enjoying this song!


Rachel and Duncan.


Pascal proudly driving his new van.


"Oh for a soft bed and not the hard floor in the back of this van"


Not sure what's happening here... I think Martin is trying to pick Katie's nose!


Lurking about not ready for bed yet...


After Friday night's evening out we decided that nothing would be better than a good meal and a movie... so off to Taichung we went. Martin, Sam, Duncan and I went to watch "The DaVinci Code" and eat yummy burgers. We also went to Nova (a big technical/computery store in Taichung) to help Sam buy a new laptop. While we were there I managed to find the exact digital camera I want to buy before I leave for China. Yay! It's the same model as the one I have now but the new fancy wonderful version. My lucky Dad gets my old one :)

On Sunday morning we got up early (again) and went hiking (again). But this time we were much more prepared!! Our friends Ross and Rea (from Changhua) came with us, as well as dear old Katie. We went to the same place as we did last weekend, but this time we brought sandwiches and crisps for a picnic on top of the mountain. What a fun day it was! Katie has just bought a new scooter and did a wonderful job of driving all around the local area without having any sort of whooopsie. The day was humid and hot but the hike was fun.

Group shot mid-way up the mountain.


Me and Martin.


Playing with colors...


The scary rope-holding part of the hike... so much easier going up!!!


Girls resting on park bench at the top!


Ross impressed us all with his manly moves on all the climbing equipment there was up there. (We came to the conclusion that Rea really did marry a monkey!!)


Pretty pink flower.


Me and Katie - full and happy after some good cheese and tomato sarmies.


On the way home we took the route through Nantou County, which is so beautiful - lots of tea fields (the smell as you drive past is incredible!), pineapple plantations and other things to see.

Hot pot, temples and hiking....

I had the loveliest time last weekend... so relaxed and stress-free - just what I needed!! Last week I found myself getting totally wound up about the smallest things, crying at work, and generally not feeling on-top-of-the-world!! I guess I'm just anxious about leaving Taiwan next month and all that that entails...

On Saturday Martin and I lurked around inside all day (catching up because Martin had been away on holiday last week) until we finally ventured out to have an early hot pot dinner with some friends. We went to a local place, right next door to the school where I work.

Katie and Martin get some black tea to go with our meal.


Miranda, Ema and Katie enjoy the selection of sauces available.


Mmmmm.... yummy bacon (NOT!). Seriously - this is what most Taiwanese consider good bacon. Yuck!! If they could only see the stuff we get at home :)


Martie and Katie and Katie...


Ema, Sophia and Miranda enjoying their ice creams.


Poor Miranda had no idea what those foreigners were up to!


Buying fruit tea and milk tea at our local tea shop.



On Sunday Martin and I woke up early (a miracle indeed!!) and decided we would go on a biking adventure. Not really sure where we were going, but that didn't matter. It was an absolutely gorgeous day... sun shining, little puffy white clouds in the sky and a cool breeze!!

I'm ready for the ride...



First Martin took me to a temple on the mountain side that he used to visit sometimes. It's a lovely big temple overlooking the whole of Yuanlin and surrounding areas.


Martin at the front of the temple.


Where's Wally??


Me and Martin.


The temple man burning paper money for the ancestors.


Flower sculpture things...



After the fun at the temple, we headed off further south down the road. After a while we realized we were in Tienchung, and with a little more driving we discovered the "Tienchung Hiking Trail". A nice little walk would do us good we thought, so we parked the bike and headed off to see what we could see...

A nice little walk!!! We ended up hiking up the mountain side in the mid-day sun, me in my flip-flops and jeans and bright red in the face!! We did make it to the top though, and enjoyed the stunning views over the surrounding tea fields and little villages.

On the way down we came across a little hitch in the proceedings, we reached a place where you had to scale down the mountain side - there'd been a landslide and the steps were all washed away! The only way one could get down was by holding on to ropes and slowly descending. Martin wasn't too bad off with his long legs, but I must say I must have looked a sight!!! I got scared half-way down so ended up throwing my body against the rocks to save myself from falling down the mountain!!! When I eventually reached the bottom I was covered in sweat and dirt and had burning hands from the ropes!! As if that wasn't bad enough, we later bumped into a student of mine hiking with her family... Martin had no t-shirt on, I was covered in grime and generally looking rather rough... and we had to endure a little polite chat with them before we could move on!!!


My cool shot of this weird insect I discovered (half butterfly, half bee or something!)


Martin prepares himself to climb some more...


I've reached a flat bit - yay!!


The view across the valley to the part of the trail that we hiked up...


Why did we go on this hiking trail again???


The top part of this picture is the area where you have to sort-of absail down... we later discovered that most people climb UP this side to avoid having to go down holding on to ropes!!! (good to know!)

Baseball!!

A few weekends ago, Martin surprised me with a trip to a baseball game for our anniversary. I'd never seen a real game before and so I was super excited!!
We drove to Douliou, where they have a brand new baseball stadium - very fancy it was indeed! We watched The Elephants (Douliou's local team) play The Whales, and joined in enthusiastically with all the cheering, yelling and yellow-plastic banging things! I didn't really have any clue as to how the game went, so every now and again I found myself cheering for what I thought was a really good hit by our team... only to be given sideways glances and disapproving looks from the hard-core Elephants fans!!! Oops. Luckily I did eventually get the gist of it all!

After the baseball, we drove around Douliou for a while looking for somewhere to forage... and lo and behold... we found Somewhere Beer...

All in all, I had a wonderful evening with Martin - what a lucky girl I am :)


And they're off... The Elephants vs. The Whales!!


I try out my hand at banging the yellow things... and I like it!


My hero of the hour... Man of the match... No. 23!!


This cheerleading lady kept us going through all the innings!!


We're excited!


The pitch through the wire.


Snacks keep us going and I feel like a child all over again... yummy HOOLA HOOPS!!!


This is the gang of cheerleaders that were just amazing!


The yellow blur is burning my eyes!!


Don't I look superimposed?


The triumphant team says thanks to the cheering crowds!!


And there it is: Douliou Baseball Stadium


Lovely name for a bar...