around

I climbed a mountain and it may be the last one I ever climb. Let's be clear: by "climb a mountain" I mean "walk up a million narrow stone steps." Really steep staircases, is what I'm saying. They twist and turn, some are lined with ropes, and the steps vary in thickness and actual similarity to steps. I went on this field trip (which was actually a lot of fun, except for the stairs) with my Chinese tutor and some of her other students. We met at Yongning MRT station at 3:30 and walked to the foot of the mountain. The first portion of the climb was easy, as it was on a paved road. This street lead up to a large Buddhist temple, which was absolutely gorgeous. After the temple, we left the road and began the hike up the steps. I am not out of shape. Just that morning I'd gone to the gym, where I had biked AND jogged for a solid hour. My legs are not noodles. But apparently, when faced with anything slightly uphill, they are. Every ...

Let's be clear: I've only had two lessons so far and I can barely count to ten reliably. If pressed to put together all but the most basic of sentences I'll need at least three minutes to remember the right words. I still am not quite sure about grammar, either. But yesterday I asked someone about buying tea, and today I ordered milk tea (twice) and an omelette using the few words and sentences I knew. I was even able to imagine what words and phrase I could  use to order some of the foods being sold on carts along the sidewalks. After nine months of stumbling blindly through Taiwan without being able to interact, I'm at last able to communicate, albeit barely. Learning Chinese is frustrating, although I'm pretty sure learning  any  language for the first time (at my age, no less) would be frustrating. There's all this studying and repeating and memorizing that has to be done. My method is to take small chunks of time (bus and MRT rides, mostly) and force myse...