Vacation is over

My parents left on Monday. After the typhoon left, the weather wasn't too bad. We made it to the beach, to Taroko Gorge, and to Taipei. Did some really cool things in Taipei- there is a gondola (they call it) that is a little car suspended from a cable up in the air- I know there is a better word in English. What is it? Gah! Anyways it let you see beautiful scenery and took you to these tea houses from which you could see all of Taipie. Also went to a hot springs. And to Taipei 101- now the world's second tallest building.

Poor Taiwan. There were 2 things they were so proud of: Taipei 101, the world's tallest building, and Wang Chien Ming (you call him Chien Ming Wang in the US? I can never keep it straight), the greatest pitcher on the greatest baseball team in the world (the Yankees, ahem). And within a month it's all taken away- Dubai finished their tallest building in the world, and Wang Chien Ming pitched the losing game in the penant race. He was literally a national hero- people would shut down their businesses to watch the games he pitched. If a boy student was doing something crazy you could say, "Hey, would Wang Chien Ming stand on a desk and jump on his friend's head?" and they would be like, no, I'd better not do that.

But in one day. I forgot about the shame and made up some sentence with him for an example and the kids were like, "Teacher, he did very bad." Then I made the mistake of saying that the Cleveland Indians were from very close to where I'm from in the USA, thinking that was so cool. No. It was like saying, "I'm friends with the guy who killed your family."