Here!

Well, we made it here in one piece! I can’t really complain about the flights. We got on business for both flights and got to sit together. The second flight, from Tokyo to Taipei, was a bit bumpy. At one point the plane suddenly went sideways and I freaked out. That’s when I popped an anxiety pill. I was so exhausted by the time we got on that flight. I slept a little on the one from Chicago to Tokyo, but we were in the middle of dinner on the second flight and I almost fell asleep mid-chew. That’s when I decided to take a nap. Even though there was a lot of turbulence, I passed out for almost the whole flight. I woke up and the next thing I knew we had landed.


A woman whose name I never knew, but who I’ll call “Speedy McWhiteShirt” because she was super efficient and was wearing white, met us at the airport. Our luggage came very quickly, which was a relief because I was quite positive it wouldn’t arrive at all. Speedy McWhiteShirt grabbed the car while we waited outside. Outside—holy cow! I forgot how stifling the heat and humidity is down there. Even though it was 9:30 at night, it was probably in the 80’s with close to 90% humidity. Speedy told us that this was cooler than it had been. Mike asked, “How long is the drive?” thinking we were heading straight to Taichung, which we knew was about two hours away, but she said, “Forty-five minutes.” That’s when the questions started running in my head: Are we going to Taipei? Why? When are we going to Taichung? Do they not need us there after all? Was Speedy not informed that we were reassigned to live in Taichung? I figured I should ask her these questions, but the anxiety pill was still at work and I just didn’t care. I don’t think she would have known the answers anyway, as the next representative of our school that we met didn’t know the answers to these questions either. The roads were not really crazy, a bit crazier than the States, but much much calmer than Beijing. Speedy’s driving did not live up to her name, and I felt quite safe with her in the driver’s seat. Although that may have also been the anxiety pill.


We arrived in Taipei, and Speedy made a quick turn into an alley, which isn’t really an alley, more like a cross between an alley and a small street, which reminded me of the time in Beijing that a taxi driver suddenly turned into an alley that barely fit the car and I was fairly certain we would be robbed and killed. We arrived at our building and met another rep, who showed us to our temporary apartment. It’s kind of like a dorm suite, there’s a couple stoves and bathrooms and several rooms. Right now no one else lives here, but it’s clear that some messy people recently lived here. They left soap and bottles and garbage around, and we discovered a four inch long dead cockroach upon arrival. It’s incredibly hot, but luckily our room has an air conditioner, so sleeping isn’t hard. Hey, it’s free for seven days, so I can’t really complain. The bathrooms are wet bathrooms, which I’ve used before in Asia. These are basically bathrooms with a shower somewhere in them, sans bathtub and shower curtain. You get water all over the place, hence the name. I’m really not a fan, but from what I understand they are the norm in Taiwan, so I have to get used to them. Ours is not as bad as others I’ve used. Other wet bathrooms I’ve used have literally been a shower head sticking out of the wall, but these ones have a little six inch wall along the bottom, somewhat separating it from the rest of the bathroom. I just wish I could duct tape a shower curtain or something to the ceiling.


On our first day we were scheduled to go to the head office of our school in Taipei and meet with someone at 10:00. We woke up at 6 (darn jet lag) and decided to just get ready and go out. We needed to obtain 14 passport photos anyway, which we thought would be difficult to find. So out we went, and sadly, our first meal in Taiwan was at McDonald’s. I’m ashamed, but to be fair, we didn’t know how long it would take us to get to the head office and get passport photos, and McDonalds was right there. However, we found passport photo booths everywhere and basically wandered around until we got to the school.


We met with the head of personnel at the school and met a couple teachers, who were all quite nice (thank God!). We filled out lots of forms, and then she sent us out to lunch until 2:45, at which time we would head to the hospital for our health check (which is required if you’re going to work and teach kids in Taiwan). Yoshinoya wasn’t far so we went there for lunch (a Japanese food chain). Another chain, I know, but we have plenty of time to eat at authentic hole-in-the-wall places. I don’t know why I like Yoshinoya, I don’t even like Japanese food.

Then we went to the Xingtian temple, one of the busiest and newest in Taipei. I’ve never seen a temple so crowded with worshippers! Most of the ones I’ve been to are quite quiet and deserted. There were people everywhere with offerings and incense and being “blessed” or something by the people who work there. It was pretty awesome, I wanted to take pictures, but I didn’t want to offend anyone and disrupt their praying. We didn’t spend too long there, so as not to gawk, and eventually we went back to the school and took a cab to the hospital for our health check.


The woman from the school registered us for the health check, and we were given numbers, kind of like at the deli at the grocery store. We sat in chairs outside some doors, and when your number is up, you enter the room. I was first—lucky me! There were two desks, one with a nurse and one with a doctor. I went to the nurse first, who weighed and measured me. Actually, the machine weighed and measured me and she wrote down the results. I didn’t realize the stick thing was going to come down on its own to measure me, and when it hit my head I panicked and jumped off. Then we had to do it again. Then I failed a vision test (maybe not failed, but did poorly despite my contacts) and a machine took my blood pressure while the nurse took my temperature. I found it strange that the hospital was clearly in a developing country, yet they had more machines doing the work that real people do in the U.S. There’s also no doctor-patient confidentiality, because when she was done with me, Mike’s number was called and he came in and sat with her while I sat with the doctor right next to them. The doctor felt my neck and felt my leg to check for something. He spoke English alright. In the middle of my examination, his cell phone rang, which was dangling from his neck, and he answered it and talked on it for a couple minutes before completing my examination. He couldn’t have been more than a few years older than me. Almost everyone working there wears face masks, which makes sense, since they are exposed to so many germs all day.


Next we went to get our blood drawn to check for AIDS. I was hoping for a Sponge Bob Bandaid, but all I got was a cotton ball to stop the bleeding. Everyone who needs their blood drawn goes to the same room and there are a couple girls who call your name and you go up to their counter to get your blood drawn. They didn’t take too much, but I wasn’t very excited about it. Next, we went to get a chest xray. I had to change out of my shirt and into a gown but Mike didn’t. It’s similar to the blood drawing place, in that whoever needs a chest xray goes down there and they call you and you get an xray, maybe with some other patients watching. One of the technicians asked me where I was from, but most of the people there seemed generally annoyed that I didn’t speak Chinese. That was the end of our health check. I hope to never have to go to a hospital again, but I’m kind of glad I got to see one.


We went back to our apartment after that to change and then go back out, but we accidentally fell asleep (at 4:15 pm) and stayed asleep. This morning we got up at 5:30 and went out to find a Mr. Brown Coffee shop, which supposedly had free wireless, because we can’t pick any up at our place. We found it and I got an iced hazelnut milk tea, which (to use my most-commonly used phrase here) was “strangely good.” I was really hungry for breakfast, which was a great feeling because I hadn’t felt hungry since being in the States. We went to a hole in the wall place and ate egg sandwiches. I kind of wanted something hot they were making but there were no pictures and everything was in Chinese. Then we went to a nice park, Da’an Park, where lots of people did Tai-Chi. Today we are scheduled to do some class observations at one of the locations of our school, which is actually in the same building as our apartment. I’m looking forward to it because it will be nice to finally get an idea of how to do my job. 