Top 10 Highlights of First Week in Taiwan

10.)  Getting to know the critters that we have/and thankfully so far don’t have in our apartment. I have included a picture of our living room- flat screen tv- Hooray!  Our first!  Overall, our living space is wonderful and much better than I had pictured in my mind. We also have a pool, and a ping pong / pool table, and they show movies on Saturday and Sunday at 3:00.  They describe our building in English as Paradise in the Sky.  However, I guess in Taiwan because of how hot and humid it is, it is very common to share your living space with little critters.  Most people have cockroaches- we thankfully so far do not, but we do have little ants, though we seem to have killed them off with ant poison.  We also have little lizards- very quick moving and kind of scary when you aren’t expecting to see them.  Myron trapped the first one we saw- and accidentally cut off its tail, which continued to move on the ground- Gross!  However, then we heard that the lizards eat the bugs, so now we gladly welcome them as family members. 

9).  Discovering English speakers in a city where only 1 in 3 people speak English!  So far my favorite English speaking Taiwanese person is our doorman, whose English name is Wilson.  This is the cutest and sweetest man ever.  We didn’t understand where our mailbox was, and he is not supposed to leave his place at the door, but he really wanted to help us, so he ran as fast as he could over to the mailboxes to  show us where ours was.  You see everywhere that the Taiwanese people are extremely devoted to their work and very diligent. 

8).  TEA!  In terms of tea, I may have died and gone to heaven.  The Taiwanese people love their tea.  Everywhere they have whole shops devoted to making delicious combinations of tea- tea with boba, tea with milk, tea with ice cream, tea with fruit.  I set out one day determined to get some tea.  The two girls behind the counter did not speak much English, and I speak very little Mandarin, and so ordering the tea was a bigger challenge than I thought it would be.  I ended up pointing to what the woman in front of me was getting and saying, I want that.  Unfortunately, she was ordering four teas.  So I too ended up with four teas!  But at least I got to try a lot of different types of tea. 

7).  Our location- we live right by this beautiful park that is currently filled with wildflowers.  Above are pictures.  The building that you see in the background is ours.  Kaoshiung actually has a lot of green spaces, which I think is wonderful.  We are also right by the subway system, which may be the cleanest subway system you have ever seen in your life. 

6).  The interesting interplay of East and West.  Over the course of this last week, we have dined both locally as well as tried out some of the Western restaurants that are scattered around the city.  Friday after school we headed out with work colleagues to Smokey Joes- a tex mex restaurant.  The picture shows me dancing with the Asian Mariachi Band. 

5).  Eating the local food.  I think my favorite place we dined this week was a local seafood restaurant.  You pick out what seafood you want and they cook it up for you.  We had softshell crab and salmon, plus noodles and sesame balls.  The food is cheap-  we ate typically all week for no more than 10 dollars a person, and often ate for about 5 dollars a person. 

4).  Exploring the City- We still have so much more of the city to explore, but here you can see the view from the highest building in Kaoshiung, called the 85 just after sunset.  We went up to the 75^th floor and looked at the obvervation deck for 3 dollars a person, and then had drinks in the lounge.  Drinks were American priced- about 10 dollars a person, but the view was stunning.  I would go back. 

3).  The people that we are working with.  Here is a picture of all the new hires.  Last Sunday they took us out for lunch at a place on the beach.  Everyone at the school has been so friendly, so helpful, so nice.  I am really excited about getting to know better the people that we are working with. 

2).  English translations.  Here you will see that the fried calamari was translated into English as “Deep Fat Seafood”.  Truth in translation! 

1).  As much fun as we have had this week, we miss all of you reading this blog!  Please come and visit us so that you can create your own Taiwan highlight list.