breakfast is sacred

I stopped by the nearby supermarket and bought corn flakes and a small carton of milk. I'm eating some now, but I'm saving some for tomorrow, for breakfast. The one thing that's driven me a bit nuts about this country is that I don't have any way to prepare food in my apartment--not so much as a microwave. So any time I want food, I have to go out and get it from someone, which means dealing with "What am I hungry for? How much do I want to spend? What's nearby? What's open? What's healthy?"


I'm learning to deal with that for lunch and dinner, but sometimes, when you've just woken up, you don't want to have to deal with other people just to satisfy your first basic need of the day. Sometimes, you just want to eat breakfast by yourself in your pajamas while surfing the 'net on your computer.

milestones

In the same way you get into the rhythm of making a controlled drop out of a plane, I think I'm getting into the rhythm of teaching.

Today was my (fourth? fifth?) class where I filled in for Amelia, who is on vacation. She and I didn't meet up beforehand to hammer out what I was to teach, so I look it all up upon arriving at the school an hour and a half before class. (Fear makes me punctual.) I found out that the students had a mid-term exam today, and so I would have to do review for the first 45 minutes of class, and then while the students took the test, I would be pulling them aside one at a time to do the oral portion.

All I gotta say is, I put on my big-girl pants and got to work. I hashed out a brief lesson plan that would review all the things the kids had learned up to that point (which wasn't that much, to be fair). However, I still made up most of the lesson on the fly. I hadn't decided on a warmer (a short, fun activity to start the class and get them moving around) but after giving the spelling test, I managed three minutes of Teacher Says (it's like Simon Says).

After that, we did a game where I drew a graph on the board and wrote pronouns and verb phrases ("she" in a box with "catch butterflies," for example) and had the kids throw a sticky-ball at the squares and then make sentences with the words. Each right answer got a point. I dragged that out for a bit by mixing up the sentences they had to make based on what grammatical structures I knew they had on the test; "Do/Does (pronoun) (verb phrase)?" "Can (pronoun) (verb phrase)?" "Does (pronoun) (verb phrase) every night/evening/morning/afternoon?" The basic structure of the game I'd already decided on, but the changing of the sentences I did on the fly.

I did have a small game planned after that, where each student got a stack of playing cards (all black or all red) and had to line them up on the ground as fast as they could. Then I asked them which one was "longer" or "shorter" and they had to say "The red one is shorter/longer," etc. The very fact that their lines were really messy amused them a lot. Then I had one student stand next to me and asked about "taller/shorter," and then "older/younger," which, as kids, they thought was hilarious.

Now here's the part where I, if you'll excuse the phrase, pulled a game out of my butt. I brought out the little beach ball we have in each classroom, and then I got out the sticky-ball, which is smaller than the beach ball. I asked one student, "Which ball do you like?"  (review question) and she said, "The big one." After that I asked a student, using playing cards, "Which card do you like?" and got "The red one." I did a question using black and blue markers, and during this five-second exchange I thought, "What the heck am I going to do with a beach ball and a playing card that gets them to practice English?" They were excited about the beach ball, so I kept that out. The playing card had "7" on it, so I put it on the dry erase board. Then I had the kids make a line of cards on the ground, as if we were going to play volleyball and the line was the "net."

I still didn't quite have a plan yet, but what I finally settled on was that one pair of kids had to pass the beach ball back and forth "7" times, while the other pair had to ask me "3" (I pulled out another playing card) questions using the vocab we'd used earlier. Whichever pair finished their task first got a point for their team.

I cannot believe this worked, and was relevant to the midterm. I know there's still a lot more I'll learn about being a teacher, and more milestones I'll hit the hard way (>____<) on the road to becoming an experienced teacher, but this was a big deal for me because I not only made this thing up, I did it on the fly, in class, and it was successful.

The kids all did very well on the oral portion of the exam, although they had some issues with adding "s" onto third-person verbs, aka "He takes a bath," "She does the dishes," on the written test. I think it may be because we (the teachers) like to do interactive activities because it's more fun for the kids (after all, they are on their summer break and some of them are spending 4-6 hours in English school a week), but I think it might be taking some time from their writing practice. <---- See, this is me thinking like a teacher. :) Ain't it cool?

where i live

I was asked for more info and pictures of where I live. So I made a quick guided tour!

hot?

You can tell you're getting used to the climate when:

• You pull the covers over yourself at night against the "chill" of the fan on you.
• You put on jeans the next morning. It's 93 degrees Fahrenheit outside. This fashion choice seems reasonable to you.
• You don't notice anymore that your skin is sticky with humidity.
• The 80 degree nights with a light breeze are "cool."
• When you shower in the morning, you use lukewarm water at first because cold water is "too cold."
• When you shower at night, you use lukewarm water for the whole shower.
• You don't sweat like a pig the second you leave your apartment during the day.
• You don't chug water like your life depends on it.

You can tell you're getting used to the culture when:

• It seems reasonable to cover up on a hot day.
• You don't always wait for the crossing signal before crossing the street. "Hey, no traffic!" is good enough.
• Of course everything is in Chinese.
• You start recognizing Chinese symbols.
• A meal that "Only costs 100 dollars!" sounds cheap.
• Going down a small, tight alley situated between two buildings with water damage, chipped paint, rusty metal grating and sketchy-looking entrance ways feels perfectly safe.
• You stop wondering why the ice cream truck is making late-night runs. (Note: The garbage trucks play music, so you'll hear Fur Elise and other tunes around the neighborhood once the sun goes down.)
• You stop waking up at every loud noise in the street.

danshui/tamsui

If you go to the area and look it up online, it'll all be spelled "Tamsui," but it's pronounced "Danshui." Whatever you call it it's a cool place, and I'll definitely be going back.

 Danshui is by the sea, so it has a very touristy feel. Nevertheless, there is good food and good fun. There are places selling clothes (I bought much-needed sunglasses) and food (including iron eggs (little eggs cooked in soy sauce), giant cups of tea, stinky tofu (which I tried, it's good!), bean paste buns, squid, and generally fried everything). There are also some little booths with carnival games. It was like a little seaside state fair.

An Iron Egg!

Giant Starbucks!

Amelia and I walked around and she showed me the sights. It was very hard to believe that I live only an hour from here and can get here by bus and MRT, because it felt very much like an expensive ocean vacation. The river between the Danshui side and the Bali side of the island was enormous, and it flowed right out to to the sea.

You can't go in the water, but the tide was high enough that we could just stand on the edge of the walkway and get splashed, sometimes up to our faces!

There were tropical trees and flowers everywhere, and a breeze keeping us cool. Oceanfront cafes and restaurants were scattered up and down the coast. It wasn't insanely busy, though, and despite the obvious tourist attractions (like cheap souvenirs, carnival games, and state-fair food) it also had a local-attraction feel.

An open-air restaurant, with sofa-like seats facing the river.

A temple in Danshui.

Leftover from the Dragonboat Festival in June. I just missed it!

 Amelia and I took a short boat ride to Fisherman's Warf, which is a bit further down the island. Everything looks so tropical that I feel like I'm on vacation, not actually living here.

 An enormous hotel on the Fisherman's Warf side of the island.

 Birds outside a shop. There were two Australian King Parrots (just looked them up, I think I'm right) and an African Grey, as well as two pigs! The birds looked extremely happy; they chattered, flapped their wings, preened, and walked around on their perches. It was very warm outside, so they definitely weren't chilly, and they seemed highly interested the cars and people passing by.

 The pigs were more interested in napping.

 Before going to the San Domingo fort, Amelia and I stopped at a restaurant for lunch/dinner...despite the somewhat misleading menu posted outside. This is actually unusual; written English in Taiwan is often quite good.

 On the wall, inside the cafe. No period, but a complete sentence!

 Amelia and I underestimated this cafe. We thought were were each ordering a small dish, and then one of these "Honey Toast Box" things to share. The "small dishes" of regular food (seafood penne for Amelia and gratin pasta and sausage for me) actually came with small salads, small bowls of soup, and drinks, and the dishes themselves weren't exactly small. So after we polished off that food we had to tackle dessert, and I was not expecting this monster that showed at our table. It's like a gingerbread house made out of French toast, with ice cream in the middle and chocolate shavings, banana, an Oreo, cookie sticks, and drizzles of cream and chocolate sauce on top.

 God help us, we ate our lunch/dinner and then we ate the Honey Toast Box. This all happened around maybe 5pm. It is almost 1am and I am just now starting to think that I may eat food again.

TOTALLY. WORTH. EVERY. BITE.

 The path up to the Sant Domingo Fort, which was built by the Spanish in 1629.

 We got all the way up to the top... but it was closed for construction! What are the odds? We still got some beautiful photos of the landscape and the fort itself, which was quite stunning.

The path back down!

After all this we came straight home; eating that diabolical amount of food wore us out. Once back in Hsin Jhuang, we went to McDonald's to hammer out the lesson plans for Amelia's classes on Wed, Thurs, and Fri, since I'll be teaching them for her while she's taking some vacation time. Amelia's been incredibly helpful in making sure I have all the information I need to get through these classes, not just what to teach but what kids are in what class, how old they are, what they like, and what to know about them to make sure everything runs smoothly. I've seen most of her classes already from shadowing, so I hope I can do half the job she does come Wednesday. If nothing else, I have everything written out in detail so I can just follow the plan if I get nervous!

One more day of summer break, then back to teaching!

learnin chinese one word at a time

The super fun thing about living in a different country with different customs, culture, language, and writing system is that getting "settled" is a daily, uphill battle for a while.
Take, for example, the process of learning what parts of the body are acceptable to show. In Taiwan you can wear shorts almost up to your butt, but heaven forbid you wear a low-cut shirt or show your shoulders. (Although I think showing boob is worse than shoulders.) Skirts and shorts are really short around here, while tops tend to have very high necklines and almost always cover the shoulders. (Tank tops are usually for layering, so you'd be putting something on top of your shoulders, anyway.) Despite knowing this, I feel weird going out in shorts and heels, because in the States you'd be calling attention to yourself (particularly your butt) if you were wearing something that showed your legs and called attention to the way you were walking.
Another thing that I'm going to have to learn one bit at a time is Chinese. Today I learned "san," which is the number 3. I ate at a sushi restaurant today, and the amount you owe is calculated by the number and color of the sushi plates you took off the conveyor belt. What's magical about Taiwan is that so many people know a decent amount of English, so the server was able to tell me that I owed money for three plates, but I asked her how to say "three" in Chinese so I could try to remember it. I now "know" a total of three words: three, thank you, and hi. I want to learn as much as I can because I feel so dumb knowing next to no Chinese when half the country (it seems) can communicate with me in English. I'm in their country, so I should be learning their language. I just know it's going to be hard work, and I know I'll eventually be fine, but since I'm just starting out, it's frustrating to know how far I have to go.
I downloaded a handwriting app from Pleco onto my iPod. The app lets me draw characters on the screen so it can look them up for me and tell me what they mean. I intend to use it at the restaurants because nothing is so annoying as going by yet another cheap restaurant and not being able to read the menu. I'm a visual learner, so having to study the symbols and draw them will help me remember them. The app is very accurate, too, and has helped me identify some complex symbols.
Tomorrow Amelia and I are going to Danshui, which is on the coast. I'm really excited to be getting out and about, and then I'll still have Tuesday to finish the lesson-planning work I'm doing tonight.

wu fen pu

Wu Fen Pu, pronounced woo-fen-poo; and a greater mashing-together of clothes stores I have never seen. It was like American Eagle, Abercrombie & Fitch, Forever 21, Express, and a bit of Hot Topic got caught in a tornado, mixed up a bit, and then deposited in tight-quarters clothing stores in a three square mile labyrinth of alleys.

There was a roof overhead, so the area could be open during rainy days, too. Many of the shops had air conditioning and fans, and since it was all trapped under the roof and between tall apartment buildings, the area inside was very cool and pleasant, even during the heat of the day. (Today was very hot and bright, with almost no cloud cover, which is unusual for Taiwan.)

What a shopper needs to know about Wu Fen Pu is that the clothes are not necessarily going to be high-quality, although you can find good clothes at good prices, and it is very fashionable stuff; you see many people wearing these styles outside the district. The cheaper clothes (NT$100 or a bit more or less) will be in the center shops, not near the entrances. You can see in the last picture a sign saying "100," which means the items in that section or on that rack are going to be NT$100 a piece, which is about US$3. Some pieces will be 1 for NT$100/2 for $150, or 1 for $200/2 for $350--bargain prices, in other words. There aren't many shops (if any) with areas for trying on clothes, so you're often taking a gamble that the item will fit you and flatter you the way you want it to. However, if you're looking for cheap clothes for everyday wear or an easy way to keep up with fashion without paying big prices, it's a good place to go.

The thing about fashion in Taiwan is that outfits that would be considered over-the-top or fashion disasters in the west are merely "mild self-expression" or "well-dressed" here. Women will wear fancier shoes in more everyday situations than westerners would, and mixing patterns or layering odd things is just a matter of course. There's a bit more emphasis on added detail, like lace or frills or bows or patterns or beads or sequins or color or writing.

I didn't buy anything, although I did find a dress with a nerdy reference on it that made my day. If the style had worked for me, I'd have bought it in a heartbeat. :)

adventures in fruit

 I ate a mango once. It was difficult to cut, a little like eating hair, and dull in flavor.
This sucker I'm chopping up here is bleeding sweet mango nectar, and it's like eating pure delicious. Amelia gave these to me after using them for demonstrations in her class.

I ate the smaller one. They were both bigger than my fist, though!

There's a large, flat seed in the middle so I sliced fat slivers of fruit around the seed and ate it like watermelon. This soon proved to be a mere formality, however, as the meat was tender enough for me to peel the skin right off it. Juice was going everywhere and I didn't care.

The aftermath. Nothing but juice and devastation remains. The big piece at the bottom is the seed, which I sucked as clean as I could.

This definitely counted as one of the best things I had ever eaten. Before this I'd have said I like mango flavor, and that I liked the fruit itself well enough. This was mango on a whole different level. The closer the meat grew to the skin, the sweeter it was. Amelia told me it's good to bruise the fruit beforehand and stick a straw in it to suck out the juice. I think I'm going to do that with the other mango.

So I'm having milk tea, leftover vegetables, and mango for dinner. It doesn't get much better than this.

vay-cay

In less than a week my school is having an almost-week-long summer break, during which I fully plan to visit the beach. This is happening.

how to not die of heat exhaustion in taiwan

There are tricks to keeping cool in Taiwan. It's to your advantage to use every last one.


First: Bring an umbrella. Keeping the hot sun off you when you're walking around town lowers the temperature a little, so it's a good idea to bring one or buy one when you get here. There are umbrella shops everywhere. Just make sure you're paying around NT$150 and not NT$200 since that's getting a bit expensive for an umbrella. If you WANT a high-end umbrella, that's fine, just know that going above NT$200 is paying more than you have to.

Case in point. My friend got her umbrella's price knocked down to about NT$160.

Second: Showers. My boss told me many Taiwanese take two showers a day because they get so hot and sweaty from the weather. Since that day I've been taking maybe two short shower/rinses a day and a long shower in the morning. (Water is included in my rent, so why not?) There's hot water available, but to be honest I only need enough to keep the shower temperature above freezing. Cold water feels great.

Third: Go out at night. The nights are still humid and warm in summer, but they're not NEAR the wet scorchers the days are. If the streets look busy during the day, wait until the sun has gone down. People turn up EVERYWHERE, and the night markets get flooded with shoppers. A lot of places open up later in the day and close in the evening, which makes sense because the busiest times of day are when people have left work and the weather is more conducive to being out in it.

Forth: Walk slowly. It sounds like a small thing, but if you're always in a rush, you're using up more energy and generating more body heat than you need to.


Fifth: Take breaks from the heat. I don't think even the Taiwanese spend more time walking outside than they have to. Almost every store is air-conditioned, even the ones that don't have a forth wall, and if they aren't air-conditioned they usually have fans. Sometimes I'll pop into the mall and walk around once or twice just to cool off.


Sixth: Drink water. Water is your friend. It doesn't necessarily keep you cool unless you're drinking something very cold, but it's basically essential to not dying from dehydration, so I recommend it.


Seventh: To those not used to the heat, shorts are your friend. Taiwanese aren't big on showing cleavage or shoulders, so you'll often be wearing something that covers your top half, but there's nothing against showing your legs almost up to your butt, so by all means, do it. Some people wear pants and even thin long-sleeve cardigans outside. More power to them, but I'll stick with the loose top and the shorts.

That's about all I can think of. Taiwan is a warm place, but there are ways to combat it. The trick is to look at the locals, and see what they're doing. Umbrellas, for example, are also used because people are really worried about their skin here (they want to be pale) but I think it's also really helpful for staying cool. So I do it. People also dry their clothes on hangers outside, not in a dryer, which makes me worry about crunchy clothes (T_T) but it makes sense, since the weather is so warm in the summer, and electricity is better spent on air conditioning and fans.


Right now I'm off to the gym. I got a three-day trial membership the other day, and I'm excited to finally get back on the treadmill. The gym is pretty good, it has great facilities and for about NT$1200 a month on a one-year plan I would get full run of the place plus access to the classes they have, which include spinning, combat, zumba, and even dance classes. It's very all-purpose. They also have a steam room and a sauna in the locker room, which weirds me out a bit because the Taiwanese have different ideas about cleanliness than I do (such as taking off your sandals in the locker room, which I don't get because bare feet on wet surfaces is how you get warts, not keep out dirt, but whatever >_< ) but all-in-all it's very nice.


Whelp, time to stop using up my electricity on the air conditioner and hit the streets!

culinary adventures

There's a myth about food in Asia that it's really healthy. Let me put that myth to rest about Taiwan. A friend of mine warned me that it might be difficult getting my hands on healthy, non-oil-fried food here in Taiwan, and boy was she right. I didn't notice this until Amelia pointed it out to me tonight at dinner, but it's really hard to find food in a "fresh" form here. You can't even find cachews, pecans, or pisachios in a un-salted, un-sugar-coated form. Most everything has an additive, be it sugar, salt, spices, or oil.


Take, for example, the meat. At first glace it looks delicious, golden brown and crsipy. Then you start eating and realize it's dripping grease a bit. And there's bits of fat. And it's really oily. Most of the meat here is like that, either oily or greasy or fatty. As I described it to Amelia, it's like "They couldn't tell which parts were fat and which were meat, so they left it all on, and then when they were cooking it they forgot it in the frier."

It's not PRECISELY like that EVERYWHERE, but the gist is the same. Amelia and I hypothesized that it's due to a culture of eating out. There are a lot of street vendors, many of whom cook the food in oil because it's sure to kill any germs. People develop a taste for that, plus the weather is so warm that it's best to kill all germs with oil anyway. So it's nearly impossible to eat food, meat or vegetable, that hasn't been cooked in some kind of oil. Rice may be one of the few things that is steamed rather than fried or boiled in oil.


It's a weird thought, that America might be more health-conscious than someplace else. We don't always choose the right options, but there are so many "non-fat/unsalted/steamed/baked/sugar-free/whatever" options in the US that if you really want to avoid extra oil, sugar, or fats in general, you can. It takes some effort and sometimes some money, but you can do it, often because so many of us cook for ourselves so we have control over what, exactly, goes into our food.


There isn't so much of that here, at least in the parts of Taiwan where I've been. Apartments are so small that there's no room for a stove or oven, and the food you can buy in stores doesn't have the same variety as it does in many Western societies. I'm just glad I have my gym membership and a friend (Amelia) to tell me all these things so I can be careful and, as Amelia said, not make the assumption of, "If that skinny (Taiwanese) girl over there can eat that whole bowl of greasy food and still be thin, so can I."


Because no, you really can't. Amelia runs 5ks at the gym and works out and is health-conscious, so if she's having difficulty doing the health thing here, I'm taking a page out of her book.


I'm going to buy Amelia's toaster oven when she leaves (in August! So soon!) and cook as much of my food at home as financially possible, plus take advantage of all the fresh fruits available around here. There are fruit stands on almost every corner, many of them selling stuff you'd pay through the nose for in the States, like mangoes, dragonfruit, papaya, and guava, the latter of which you can buy pre-sliced in boxes at 7-Eleven for about NT$30. (Aka it's cheap.) The fruit is also really big, so you wonder if it's on steroids or something, but no, it's just really close to the source.

 Vegetables at a stand in Taipei.

Dragonfruit at a stand in Taipei. There are places like this all over Hsin Jhuang, too.

I will upload pictures of stuff I eat later, when (again) my internet connection is better. Also, what's really cool is that apparently people take pictures of their food all the time here, so if I'm doing that I won't even look weird. :p

backtrack: fourth day in Taiwan

Thing one I have learned about Taiwan is always expect to have to do major walking at any given time. I wore my nice shoes to my first day of training and although they are comfortable on the bottom, they're still new and therefore rub on the sides of my feet. We, the students, were assigned different schools in nearby Taiwan to visit and shadow, and after just one trip though the MRT (train system) I felt like bees were stinging my feet in multiple places. I eventually took off the shoes and went barefoot, until one of the teachers at the school we visited leant his giant sandals for me to wear home. My feet are covered in healing blisters from the various pairs of shoes I've worn that I thought would work but really, really didn't. Right now the only shoes I can rely on are my running shoes and loafers, maybe my black sandals if I don't have to walk that far.


I'm in another love hotel, where they at least supply bottled water and the bathroom isn't moldy so it's a bit better. There are also movies in English on the TV, so I've been watching random ones at night.


I think I'm getting used to the heat, just a little. I'm also learning how what to wear (shorts and a loose shirt if you're going to be out in it for a while) and how to deal with it when I'm out in it. For example, if there is a shady area to walk in, walk in it. Doesn't matter if it's for ten feet, if you can stay out of the sunlight, it'll help. I think the Taiwanese use umbrellas and this "stay in the shade" technique out of a concern for their skin, but I say whatever keeps me cool is fine. Plus it makes me look less crazy if I'm doing the same thing as everyone else.


I think I got a mild indegestion yesterday from breakfast. Don't know if it was the waffles, the cream, or the honey that I ate, but about an hour afterward I felt sick, and when we (the training class) went out for lunch, I broke out in a cold sweat. I wasn't really hungry for the rest of the day, and had to take a Pepto Bismal to get rid of the stomach cramps after I tried to eat dinner.


Pepto Bismal is the best thing since everything ever. It is coming everwhere with me now.


I'm sick of the mosquitos. You can tell the teachers who've been here the longest because they can swat mosquitos or catch them out of the air like it's second nature. I've been wearing bug spray every chance I get because the second I stop, I turn into a buffet.


I don't believe I have any shadowing to do after class today, so I think I may try to do some shoe shopping tonight at the night market. (There are two markets, the day market, which is for everyday people, and the night market, which sometimes has cheaper stuff and is more populated by younger people.)


I have to get breakfast before going to class, so I'll write more later. I'm starving, and I know where I can pick up some munchies that won't make me sick!


LATER


Taipei was a much different experience today. The more I get to explore, the more I enjoy it. I had a safe breakfast from McDonald's, which isn't "safe" in terms of health but I knew my body would be okay with it.


Class was good. Through each class I have ups and downs, moments where I can't wait to teach and moments where I'm terrified. I'll just have to make sure I'm prepared for my first class on Saturday.


Lunch was epic. Taipei has a love affair with bread, and there are at least three or four bakeries that I know of within walking distance of my hotel. Bread is also surprisingly cheap and delicious here. My lunch was a giant slice of bread with herbs, garlic, cheese, and ham in it. It was incredible. I was aware food could be that great, but for some reason I'm continuously surprised to find it here, as if the West is the only place that can turn out amazing food. I also bought some raisin bread for later, which turned out to be a good call. Spare food is generally a good idea for a person who doesn't know her way around and can't make quick decisions about food in a new place where the signs aren't in her native language.


After classes, a friend of mine from the class, Lindsay (name changed) and I met up to do some window shopping around Taipei. It was a ton of fun, and it was good to be doing this with someone else. It's a lot easier to do exploring when you have company, because you feel that all the responsibility to field questions and make decisions and figure out how to get out of a jam if you're lost isn't solely on you. We walked down the street and turned a few corners, dropping by a few places selling tea and things and chatting about common interests.


One thing I love about Taiwan is the concept of the previously mentioned "night market." It's rows upon rows of shops and open stalls selling clothes, accessories, food, and various other goods. It's very "street fashion" oriented and full of young people, mostly in their teens and early twenties. There are high-quality clothes to be found here, and a wonderful variety of choices. We stopped by a shoe store, a place selling purses, and a few clothing stores, one of which was named "Kiki's" and was dubbed the love-child of Forever 21 and American Eagle.


Taiwan has a lot of highly-detailed, patterned, and stylized clothing for sale, especially in the night market. I definitely plan to do some shopping around here and in the night markets in Hsin Jhuang, just for clothes that I can wear outside among people. Fashion is a lot more valuable here, I think, because fewer people cook at home so there's more opportunity to go out, and so it makes more sense to be dressed up or express yourself through fashion more than you would in a suburb, where you might spend more time in a casual community setting or at home unless you're at work or school or having a night out with friends.


Lindsay and I stopped at a place called Vino Vino Cafe for dinner, which had  rustic Italian restaurant decor, waiters in casual diner wear, and hip-hop/r&b music playing overhead, all of which together somehow worked. The food was seafood-heavy Italian with a big tea section. Lindsay ordered a salad and I got a risotto-soup combo that came with tea, and I chose mint. For only about NT$300, it was good, and good quality. The risotto had a light tomato sauce, peppers, and italian sausage. The soup was light and creamy and had corn and carrots in it. I tried a bit of Lindsay's salad (spicy chicken with balsamic dressing) and we split my risotto since I'd already eaten my soup. We had a great discussion about our respective countries, Lindsay's experiences teaching in Africa and  Canada, world issues, and our mutual interest in Doctor Who and sci-fi/fantasy books and TV. Suffice to say we are getting along very well, and it is a good thing we'll be living and working within an hour of each other.


The other notable aspect of the cafe was that it was my first contact with a squat toilet. I'll spare you the details, but they're not as bad as one may think; just really different. (I'd have preferred if the bathroom didn't have the sour stink of vomit, but beggars can't be choosers. They can just hold their nose or breath.) There's also a concept here of not flushing toilet paper down the toilet that I'm still getting used to. I think it's for the environment or for water treatment or something, but there's usually a trashcan handy for disposal of paper instead.


After the food, Lindsay and I stopped by Wellcome, a grocery store that is in many places around Taiwan, and bought munchies for breakfast tomorrow. I bought some Quacker instant oatmeal with dried fruit and Lindsay had yogurt. There's a hot water heater in my room so I'll be able to make the oatmeal easily. It'll be simpler than trying to figure out where to eat breakfast first thing in the morning before class. I'll probably go back to the bakery for lunch tomorrow, because oh my god that was delicious and they have more stuff. I'll also have to get one of their mini tiramisus for NT$45 at some point because that's really cheap, only a little over US$1. Food around here is very cheap, but of good quality and often in vast amounts. Water and drinks are also big around here; the Vino Vino Cafe served us water in a cleaned-out wine bottle, which was awesome. It makes sense for people here to be focused on beverages because the weather sweats the water out of you so you need to re-hydrate. I'm slowly getting used to it, though, and realizing that certain habits will help me stay cool, like the afore-mentioned technique of using an umbrella to block out the sun (many people around here do it and there are lots of umbrella stores, although I have an umbrella with me) and walking in shady areas or only walking around a lot during the evening, when it cools down. The night markets get busy around then because that's when you can come outside without dying of the heat. Most people, I think, go outside during the day to get somewhere, not necessarily for leisure.


It's nearly midnight, so I need to get some sleep so I can be fresh for tomorrow. Night!

third day in taiwan: ongoing

I have got to learn me some Mandarin. It's absolutely impossible to get around here without knowing basic phrases. I need to get some things down, starting with numbers. If I don't check prices before I buy something, it's a hassle trying to figure out what the cashier is trying to tell me, and it can't be a picnic for them trying to tell me what they mean, either.

Also, this morning, a young man came to my hotel door and I think he was giving me a message from Joy that she was going to be late, but I didn't understand a word. This makes me want to not just learn competent Mandarin, but complete Mandarin, or as complete as I can get. Susan recommended a forum where you can meet people who will teach you Mandarin in return for lessons in English, sort of an informal language exchange program. I might go for that, because I really need help, and I hate not being able to understand what people are trying to tell me and not being able to tell them what they need to know to help me.

Today I'm being moved from the Hsin Jhuang hotel to a hotel in Taipei, which thank god has internet (so I hear), and I've been eager to get online and go on Facebook, post on my blog, and pull up some programs to help me study Mandarin.

When I get to Taipei, I want to spend a little time shopping, too. I don't have much that a) fits this climate or b) fits this culture. I really like the fashion here, though, it's very loose and easy and also exceedingly stylish. One of my goals is to get a t-shirt that has nonsensical English on it. I have seen t-shirts with good English on them, though, like one that said "Naps are my happy hour," which I thought was hilarious. You get stared at a lot here if you're a foreigner, so I want to at least match the culture's fashion sense so it looks like I'm making an effort to be in tune with local sensibilities.

I might go to a bascketball game later with Susan, Amelia, and possibly some others. I need time to decompress, but I'm also having so much fun hanging out with people. Also, from what I understand about the training, it's going to be a bit intensive, so I'll have less time to do fun things. I'll have to focus on the information and possibly do some homework. I may even have to come back to Hsin Jhuang to do more shadowing of the classes, so I don't know how much time I'll have to myself.

One highlight that I am looking forward to is shopping for my apartment. I won't need much, but I'll need basics like towels and bed sheets and cleaning supplies and a mat for my bathroom, because bathrooms in Taiwan don't always include a separate area for showering or bathing. My bathroom is a toilet and a sink with wall-to-wall pink tile, and the "shower" is a hand-held showerhead that hooks up to the sink. The door to the little bathroom closes like a shower door, so the whole bathroom is basically also the shower itself. I'm going to need to make sure I clean it regularly so it doesn't get mold or bacteria, and I'm going to need a mat right outside the door so I don't get my floor all wet when I come out.

It's different, but I'll get used to it.

Later, after the move to the hotel:

I'm starting to think that Taiwan is not aware that such a thing as "free internet" exists, much less that anyone may want it. There's no internet at McDonald's; I'd have to log in to use the internet at Starbucks but I can't read the directions telling me whether I have to simply create an account or pay for it, and the internet at the internet cafe near my hotel is down.

I give up. Damn it, Taiwan, I haven't been online in days. This isn't me tweaking for an internet fix, this is me needing to get online so I can talk to my friends and family, which I could really use right now because I'm severely overwhelmed. I don't understand anythign anyone says, my hotels are all "love hotels" where the quality is just good enough for people to stop by and have sex in them, I'm terrified of drinking the tap water because I don't want to get sick so I'm on a constant quest to find either a water filter or a place that sells bottled water, I don't have a phone yet, and every meal I eat I'm afraid will make me sick simply because I'm not fully used to the food yet.

All I want is to get online. Is that too much to ask.

The internet cafe said their internet would be back on in an hour, so around 3pm. In the mean time I'm going to charge my computer and immerse myself in The Sims until 3pm rolls around because if I have to even think about how much I want contact with my friends and family right now, I'm going to start crying again. I can't wait until I get to move into my apartment, because then I can clean it my way, decorate it my way, scent it my way, use internet in it all the time, and actually have some kind of refuge from the craziness that is having to deal with an entirely new city, language, and culture. I'm enthusiastic about learning and I know I'll be happy later, but right now I'm really upset because I just want to talk to my famliy and I can't. At all.

So. Sims.

STILL LATER:

I'm at the internet cafe now, and obviously able to get online, so I'm feeling much better. I also played Sims until around 3:45, so I'm late. I am, however, online, on Facebook, and posting on my blog, which is WONDERFUL. Now my family knows I'm not dead, I have some contact with the English-speaking world, and I can do a few normal things, which will make me feel much better.

backtrack: second day in taiwan

Let's start at the beginning.

Coming home from my first day in Hsin Jhuang visiting Shane School, I had been beaten to death so thoroughly by the humidity, heat, and newness of a foreign country that I had just enough energy to brush my teeth, wash my face, take out my contacts, and put on my pyjamas before falling into bed. I put my iPod on "Near Silence," a calming playlist full of new age mood music, and after about half a song I was out cold. It was 9:30pm.

I woke up at 2am. I have no idea why. I felt awake...ish, but knew there was no sane reason not to go back to sleep, so I did. And I woke up at 5am, which made me wonder if there wasn't some lingering jet lag after all, because I'd been fairly sure I'd had it in me to sleep a full 9 or 10 hours, easy. In any case, I wasn't set to wake up 'til 7:30am, so I went back to sleep.

When I woke up at 6am, still feeling tired but unable to go to sleep, I decided that I may as well stay awake. I had a headache named "Oh my god what is all this new stuff everywhere I don't even," but I ignored it, took a shower, put on a skirt and nice shoes and a nice shirt, and went to the school.

It is hot and humid in Taiwan. A hot and humid day in Columbus is a dry, cool day here. These people blast their hotel rooms, apartments, and stores with air conditioning, and for good reason. Step outside and it's like walking through 90 degree fog. You sweat like it's your job. By the time I walked to the school (at 8am, not even nearly the peak of the day), my neck, back, and throat were soaked. I also realized that there might be merits to never wearing underwear in Taiwan, because the ONLY thing it's good for in this kind of heat is giving you the wedgie of our life.

I stopped by a fruit stand on the way to Shane English School and bought a fuji apple to go with my earlier breakfast of good-old-fashioned-American-granola-bar. When I got to Shane I was an hour early, so I went into the Family Mart across the street and bought a sandwhich that I THINK had chicken in it. I also got some almonds and cachews and a little bag of bread-thingies, which were in the shapes of stars and had smiles on them. I ate the nuts and saved the bread for later. (Turned out to be a good call.) I then went to Shane and shadowed Amelia's class, which had four 8 to 11-year-old girls in it and was lots of fun to watch. Different from Dennis's class of insane little kids, but fun.

I really like these kids at Shane, they're smart and hard working and enthusiastic about learning when you get them interested. I really really really hope the training next week helps me so I can make my classes fun and interesting for the kids in them. My biggest fear isn't that I'll look stupid, but that I won't be able to get my kids' attention or interest and they won't learn.

After the class, Vy and I went apartment-viewing. This involved a lot of walking, and it is how I discovered that I am not remotely equipped to deal with this weather. I also discovered that even the soft leather straps of one's most comfortable shoes can cause blisters if one spends five days walking in them. Vy and I saw one apartment, which was okay, and then I pleaded foot pain and we went to my hotel room so I could change into different clothes. (All of which were soaked, it was kind of disgusting. I need to find a drycleaner around here fast.) I ended up wearing a long skirt, tank top, and my running shoes, which made for something of a fashion-disaster ensemble, but by that point I was so over-heated, sweaty, and in such foot pain that I didn't care. Besides, I get looked at for being foreign; doesn't make much of a difference if I'm dressed oddly, too.

Hsin Jhuang's streets are LITTERED with food stands. Vy bought drinks for us on our apartment trek, passion fruit and mango bubble tea, which was a bit odd, though mostly because there were bits of mango seeds in it along with the "bubbles" (which are balls of rice jelly, I belive?) and bits of mango. It was quite delicious and desperately needed on a such a hot day.

Vy called the landlord of the second apartment, and he didn't call back, so we went to the third apartment, which is just down the street from Shane. It was about the size of a big walk-in closet, but it had lovely white tile floors, an enormous window that let in tons of light, good furniture, and wi-fi and water included in the NT$6500/month bill. I'll share the washing machine with about two other apartments and all our clothes will be hung outside on the same big grate on the balcony (most clothes are air-dried in Taiwan; why waste electricity on dryers when the heat'll take care of it?). The apartment complex has a little courtyard out front at the entrance and a big black iron gate separating it from the sidewalk and street. For a first apartment, and for an apartment in a foreign country, I absolutely love it. I'll take pictures and put them up next week when I'm moving in.

After Vy and I returned to Shane, Vy left and Joy, the school owner, drove me to the hotel. Joy is a bit abrupt and set in her ways, but she's also kind and thoughtful, and she cares about her students.

Later I'll be meeting Amelia at Shane to go to Taipei for drinks and to meet other expats. It's amazing how much you miss the sight of other non-Chinese (white, black, indian, latin american, doesn't matter) when you're in a homogenous society. I don't think about it until I see a group of non-Chinese walking down the street or sitting in a restaurant. I don't know them, but I instantly want to go up and start chatting. I think it's some kind of longing for language and cultural similarity.

I do love Taiwan, though. It's still strange and confusing and scary, but when I just stop and look at everything and think about how this is MY city now, I'm so happy. I'm glad I am. I was afraid I'd hate it, that I'd long for home as soon as I got there and that I'd always be comparing it to Japan, because Japan is where I'd set my sights on first and I'd dreamed of going there for so long. Taiwan is entirely different, but still lovely in its own way. It's like someone built one foundation that has been added to and built on ever since without any major remodeling to make it all match. The only things that are uniform are the street signs and yellow and white traffic lines painted on the street. There are about fifty kinds of sidwalk; some tiled, some mosaic, some stone, some cement, some non-existant, some rising up and others going down, some with stairs and some with haphazard cement ramps, some under alcoves and separated from the street, others nearly part of it. There are scooters and bikes parked up and down almost every single sidewalk, often two rows deep, just one after the other like a packed parking lot on Christmas Eve. There are also vendors selling just about everything: clothes, electronics, books, movies, toys, even manga and magazines. There's a shop somewhere with an entire glass wall decked with nothing but shelves of teapots, and I need to find where that is and go back.

I think I may need a nap, so I'm going to go do that and maybe get online so I can let my family and friends know I'm not dead. :)

LATER
Yep, napped. I had a good time tonight hanging out with Amelia, Dennis's sister Susan (name changed), and the other male teacher from Shane, Justin (name changed) at a place called The Tap. There were a lot of other non-Chinese there, and the food was very American. I had a Greek salad that tasted like a Greek salad, and then Amelia and I split an order of chicken strips. The Tap had a very sports-bar-meets-brewery feel to it, and when I was talking to Susan and hearing music in English and seeing pictures of American singers on the wall, I felt like I was back in the States, which (as Susan said) is a valuable feeling.

One thing I also realized from hanging out with other English speakers is that, when you're certain no one can understand you, you're pretty fearless about how loud you speak and what you discuss in public, particularly on a bus. We talked about what it felt like being different in a homogenous society, and Susan and Amelia shared some of the times when they'd been told by Taiwanese to change themselves ("You need to lose 10 kilos" or (to Amelia, who's naturally blonde) "You should stop bleaching your hair because it's bad for your scalp.") based on Taiwaneses expectations of appearance. Apparently there's another girl, Natalie (name changed), from the UK, who is a redhead and has lots of freckles, who was once told by an elderly woman that she needed to take better care of her skin because she was getting blemishes. The elderly woman was apparently appalled when Natalie told her she wouldn't change herself if she could, because she was born that way and in her home country it made her special. Susan, Amelia and I talked about why we thought these kinds of occurances happened, and how we as Americans deal with similar incidences in societies like the US where we encounter different kinds of people all the time. Even if we see someone who has lots of freckles or an unusual hair or skin color, or one arm or no legs or is blind, we consider it something that is physical and unique, something that a person can't change, or wouldn't change if they're happy with it.

However, if everyone you see looks like you, and you have few or no experiences dealing with or reacting to people who are very different from yourself and everyone you know, you base your ideas about them on your expectations of one type of person. It's possible that the woman who told Amelia to stop bleaching her hair had little or no experience with blondes, and the elderly woman who told Natalie to take better care of her skin couldn't imagine why someone would be happy with freckles, when pale, blemish-free skin is the standard for beauty in Taiwan.

Anyway, I move into my new hotel tomorrow, so I need to get some sleep because it is 1:30am and I almost fell asleep on the bus coming back. (Btw I have a bus/train card now, yay!)

I am doubly glad to be getting out of this place, since I was told that most hotels in Taiwan are for couples who want to have sex. Adults don't move out of their parents' homes until they're married, so those who want to have sex with their girl/boyfriends prior to that will come to hotels, and that's what many of them are here for.

*shudders* I feel dirty. >_<