Taking swim lessons was one of my least favorite part about the trip, in hindsight. It gave me a taste of what fairly traditional teachers, and parents, are like. I was so surprised at how often I heard different parents say, “The children need a teacher who are mean stern to toe them in line. Because look at how they don’t behave otherwise. They ride all over the teacher.”
There are definite differences in expectations in appropriate children behavior. And for some of these parents, a stern teacher equates to a good teacher.
I’ve since heard from a fellow swimmer friend from Taiwan that there are different systems of learning to swim in Taiwan and the teachers in these teaching schools tend to be a bit more old school than say, YMCA.
Itinerary: Daan Park, Citibank, Shaved Ice, Swimming lesson
Our daily life has settled into a routine where I try to do one adult event, be it shopping or getting residency) and one child fun event. Today the adult event was getting a bank acct, cellphone, and milk. But, I only managed one of those thing.
Our first stop was to the mobile phone store via the MRT. But I discovered it doesn’t open till 11am, much like many other stores in Taiwan which opens late and closes late. So off we went to the bank to exchange some money, then to Daan Park, which was filled with people because it was sunny and reaching 70 degrees.
I’m not sure where all the children are coming from because it should be a day of school for them. Because it was full, Thumper was shy about playing on the equipment. I’m beginning to see that when she grows up she’ll be the more quiet and shy one in new situations.
But she warmed up after awhile when I let her be. Eventually I got hungry so first we went to a 7-11 for some yukult and chips and then to Citibank.
I had to fill out a W9 in order to open a Savings Account because I was a US citizen, even though I came in through a Taiwan passport. The US government has a very far reach. It took over an hour with the kids getting antsy and me needing to whip out my iPad. I found out that you can withdraw money with a simple account passbook and inkan if you designated that. Quite interesting.
But at the end of that long process, it turns out I can’t even open an account because my ID was way too new and not in the system yet for the computer to verify. *sigh*
So off we went to get lunch. As a reward, I took the kids to the Smoothie place my aunt to me too last time. We had shaved ice instead of the strange shaved “snow” thing most tourists get. It had fruits…..so it’s healthy right?
Then we spied a park down the street and after getting more gyoza to go, we ate at the park while the kids enjoyed sliding down the concrete slides. They did not want to go home. But they needed to go down for a nap so that we could make it to swimming that night at 7.
I dug the kids up by 5 from their nap and we had an early dinner of curry made by my cousin. We had to arrive by 6:30 to register and check out the pool. The swim lesson is at the National Taipei University of Education Sports Center It’s an olympic-sized pool with 3 other small warm pools and a sauna.
I was surprised just by how many swimming pools and classes are offered in our area (4!) The adult swimming pool was divided into lanes for different purposes, classes, swimming, etc. They don’t have a family swim time apparently. You just show up and play in the pool after paying a fee. And since the adult pool is deep, 10 feet the whole length, what they do is toss in these red benches for the children to step for swimming classes.
Thumper was shy and demanded that I be there with here and she was doing her “hidey” thing. But once the teacher took her hand to go get a cold shower first she willingly went and of course the minute she was into the water, she was super happy. Though Thumper had already started learning her strokes in the US, the teacher took her back to the basics again for the first class, which I think it’s a good thing so she’s not scared, since the pool is deep.
After the ONE HOUR class (where they spent first 15-30 minutes just warming up), they all jumped into the warm pool to warm up and have some fun and warm up. Isn’t that neat? The teacher came by to tell me she will be working on solidifying the basics with Thumper, including teaching them how to dive to the bottom of the pool and push off back onto the surface, to learn to kick better, to learn how to doggie paddle well, etc.
All these things I noticed she didn’t know when we went swimming in Hawaii. So I”m happy the teacher is going to focus on that because Thumper was not too comfortable when she could not touch the bottom while swimming. I had heard they’re very methodical when teaching in Taiwan and in observing the upper level classes I can see it’s true. They really work on the proper form while teaching.
One other thing that was different from the US classes is that classes are not divided into level. It’s just one teacher teaching either elementary children or pre-K children. And they will teach whatever level you’re at. It was $7/hour for Thumper and $13/h for Astroboy’s age because one has 6 children and the other 4 children. Pretty good. Though private lessons are $30/hour.
I also chatted with a mom w/ two children who lives in the neighborhood while they’re having their class. I learned a bit about the school districts here. You have to live in your address for a certain number of years before you can even go to school here, because it’s that desirable.
I also learned that she liked this swimming pool the best amongst the neighborhood pools and she gave me a lot of suggestions on what we could do here. I was not extraverted enough to be asking for her contact info unfortunately, though I wish I did!
All in all, a super good day.
