Taiwan Part 1 - The arrival, The First Day.

After gruelling long flight, we finally arrived. A man working for Uncle Sam’s picked us up at the airport and brought us to our destination using the company’s kindergarten school bus. It was cramped and hilarious, because we didn’t fit into the seats and barely did our luggage. When asking where we were going the man gave us a big smile. He didn’t speak English.

We arrived at what we thought would be a hotel or somewhere where we’d be staying the night but we soon found out that this is our new apartment. Our translator Eva helped translate what the “Land master” was saying and what would was in the lease. With Eva’s help we also found out how to use the appliances and that without cable we’d be very boring. We got the cable.

Our apartment is a 2 bedroom apartment with a small kitchen that includes a fridge, one gas burner and a sink. We also have a washing machine. Our apartment is very nice, and decorated nicely with white tile floors, a nice royal blue sectional and a high def. television! There are a few American Movie Channels to watch, and its quite interesting watching the other Chinese and Japanese channels trying to figure out what’s going on. From what I gather they too have an “American idol!” But no Simon Cowell.

The Next morning two of the Uncle Sam teachers met us for lunch and brought us around the city of San Sia. The city is very pretty. It reminds me a lot of Vancouver.
We did some errand with the teachers, including going to Downtown San Sia. Downtown San Sia is very busy and smelly and traffic signs are obeyed lightly by the stream of mopeds driving around. We got quite a bit of looks from the locals. We are known as Foreigners to them.
I’m happy to report that there is a Mcdonalds, a Pizza Hut, and an Outback Steakhouse, but its very expensive and will only be used upon missing a great big steak or a quarter pounder.

The language barrier is hard. When grocery shopping the lady asked in Mandarin if I wanted a second bag? (They charge for bags as a way of reducing garbage) I had no clue what she was saying, and I felt the whole line looking at this foreigner, and growing impatient. Thankfully the other teachers knew what she was saying and told me to say yes! Also at the grocery store we met two other female foreigners. English teachers at a diferent school. One American and one Brit. Meeting other foreigner is sort of like meeting other comrades in a war where your stuck behind enemy lines. it’s a very welcomed and sort of a rare experience. So we took their phone numbers and left being thankful to have two more English speaking comrades in our fleet.
Lisa and I came back, made spaghetti watched Harry Potter, and then passed out from Jet Lag. Unfortunately for me, I went to bed at 8 pm, and have now woken up at 1:30 am. I was hoping it was at least 6:10 am with my inability to ready analog clocks. Upon further confirmation from my laptop that it was indeed only 1:10 am, I decided to write this blog since its going to be a long night.( I’m hoping to see Lisa wake up as confused as I was.)

Everything takes a bit longer here because of the language barrier. It took us about 30 min trying to figure out how to call home. This is also after trying to ask the security guard at our building the night before through pictures and gestures,. We were somewhat successful. He gave us his cell phone, but we had to turn it down because it would have costed him a lot of money. He got the phone call part, but not international part. I guess my drawing of the world looked more like a lopsided face…
I looking forward to getting the internet set up (I’m writing this on Microsoft Word to be posted later), and being connected to people back home. I am looking forward to starting school Monday, and I am looking forward to meeting some more of the teachers with whom I will be working with, and some more who live in town (Taipei).

It certainly is an adventure so far, but things will get easier as the days go on. The Taiwanese people are very friendly, it makes the communication barrier easier when someone has a big smile plastered on their face, while nodding as though they understand.

That’s all for now!

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