First Week in Taiwan!

We're in Taiwan! As you can tell from our delay in posting, we have been quite busy.

We arrived safely on February 12th. At the airport, our employer arranged for a driver, who was patiently waiting for us with a sign reading, "Pandi Retrauskas and Wes Harris." It was about a 40 minute drive to the dorm where we were staying for the first week. The dorm was, shall was say, ok? It was definitely motivation for us to start looking for our own apartment.

The following day, we fortunately guessed correctly and took the right bus to the Kojen Head Office. Kojen is the language school that we are teaching at. We spent a few hours filling out paperwork, going to the hospital for our health check, blood test, and chest x-ray, and asking 100 questions about what lies ahead for us . . .

The next day we both reported to our respective Kojen branches for training. Wes and I both feel a little overwhelmed about teaching English, mostly about the "Kojen system" of teaching English, but are sure that we will get the hang of it soon. Since we have arrived, we have been spending much of our time at our schools, looking for an apartment (we found one!), and getting acclimated to the part of the city we are living and working in.

I've met some nice people who work at my school, who took us out for Thai Food and to the Lantern Festival at SYS Memorial Hall. The festivities that follow the Chinese New Year are really fabulous, and it made me excited to be here.

Taipei is a really great city. The people are really friendly, fashionable, and so by that I mean that they love to eat and shop. The city is clean and efficient. The MRT (metro) system is incredible! It's definitely the nicest metro I have ever been on. For how many people ride at one time, it's efficient and organized. The night markets are really great too. You can find quite a variety of inexpensive food. Sometimes you can even find a case of food poisoning . . . Wes sure did.

We found a really great apartment and live right next to the Jingmei Night Market. The apartment itself is more expensive than we expected, but it has some great perks . . . it came fully furnished and has the greatest shower I have ever encountered. The shower has an overhead shower spout, an angled shower spout, 4 side shower spouts, a foot massager, and a bathtub with a head pillow. The shower also has lights, a fan, a stereo, and a sauna . . . crazy. I will take photos.

Unfortunately we haven't taken too many photos yet, as we have been exploring, but promise to do so soon.



Wes with all 8 of our bags at LAX.

The "kitchen" at the dorm we stayed in for the first week. The dorm was provided by our employer for one week for free.

Bicycle parking outside of the Gongguan MRT stop.

The Lantern Festival at SYS Memorial Hall.

View of Taipei 101, currently the tallest building in the world, from the Lantern Festival.

Sweet graffiti.
The Banchiao branch of Kojen, the language school where I teach. Wes works at a different branch (photo coming soon).