Adventurasia Community

I’ve been in Taiwan for one month - can’t believe how fast time flies! Today, I experienced “Taiwan flooding” for the first time. It was disgusting! It was pouring rain on my walk/waddle to the school and all the streets were flooded. I was wearing my leather boots, which is both a blessing and a curse. My feet felt cleaner from not touching the mucky water but they nonetheless were wet. My pants were completely soaked from my knees down. Thank god I had an extra pair of pants in my bag so I was able to change. It has been raining constantly the past week, which I actually appreciated because the weather cooled down. However, I can do without the flooding!

Anyways, last week was a tough week for me because I began teaching full-time. The hours are wacked! I teach kinddie from 9:00am to noon, then bushiban from 4:30pm to 9:00pm. I have 11 bushiban classes, all of which are different levels and different lessons so I had to spend a ton of time prepping. I was also sick it definitely made things extra challenging. On Monday,I worked from 8:30 am till 9:00pm without a break and feeling sick as hell! The guy training me just kept talking and talking, I could hardly absorb all the info. I am slowly getting used to the timing and bushiban is a little easier to teach then kinddie. At least I think they understand me!!! Hehehe!!! The kids in my kinddie class are so cute. I took some pictures when we went to a kiddie maze, I will e-mail them to you when I get a chance.

Saturday after my last class was a huge relief for me. I finally felt well and excited again! I met up with my language exchange partner and we met up with some friends at a club called TU. There was a live band and it was fun. It felt so good to have contact with the outside world! (I had constantly been working and sleeping the whole week!).

Yesterday, I went to the National Palace Museum then dinner with some friends. It was cool to see some of the art/artifacts on display. There was a jade cabbage and slab of meat that was apparently comparable to the Mona Lisa in terms of stature - the carving was in such detail and whoever did it definitely has a sense of humour. There were also many miniature toy boxes - toys for men because children could not afford these things. I will take you guys to the museum when you come visit me.

My apartment is still very bare. I want to buy a real bed soon. I constantly wake up in the middle of the night due to my air mattress and the heat! I need to buy an a/c and a washing machine as well. Laundry service in my area is very expensive. I have not washed my clothes for weeks - it’s a good thing I brought so much clothes here. I have also been using that as an excuse to buy more clothes. There are a lot of sales here and I have been buying things everyday as I pass by the shops on my way home from work. I know I should stop or I won’t have any money left.