Hsinchu Chinatrust Hotel

... have a name. But, Irene’s family has been going there for years. The place is packed. There is no place to sit and the chefs cooking are doing it non-stop. There is a small variety of noodles dishes available – I get the stir-fried type and Irene gets the soup type. It is really good. Irene’s brother is finished before I am even 1/3 of the way done. I know I eat slow, but that is speed eating ...

My first few days of teaching were simply hetcic and confusing. I was given this Gloria English School bag with a whole bunch of books in them. Apparently they were all books that I would be teaching from within the next year. I was excited by this...structure and organization is always a plus. I arrived in Taiwan in the middle of the of fall/moon festival and so had Monday and Tuesday off. My first teaching day was Wednesday. I had been faxed this 'schedule' from the school ...

... to as the "hottest pen I own") - food and drinks not part of the tour meal plan: fried dango, tuna onigiri, tenzaru soba (actually that was a treat from Yuto's parents), C.C. Lemon, and orange Fanta (I love Japanese vending machines.) We arrived in Taiwan yesterday afternoon. Since we were tired from the 3 hour flight, we didn't do much besides unpack, eat, and watch TV. I got to see Wan Quan Yu Le, a daily ...

... such as the Snow Mountain Range and Da Ba Jian Shan. When I arrive in Tai Ping Shan at 2:00pm tour groups who have seen me walking up from their busses give me a great reception, kind of standing ( there are no seats so they were standing anyhow) ovations and clap their hands. I am really touched. Unluckily the only hotel at the place, although very nice with seperate houses with different themes ( chinese, japanese ) only offers me a room, the ...

Well, that's it. The backpack is finally unpacked and the residency permit is stamped into my rather battered passport. Officially, I live in Taiwan! So much has changed in the two months since I arrived. I've already acquired about double the amount of things I brought with me, I spend my mornings running around after 12 three or four year olds, and Chinese food no longer holds much appeal. Suppose I should tell you something about Taiwan really - point number ...

... work hours are much longer, until 5:30 pm normally, but everyone usually stays far beyond that time. At the same time, because the day is so long, I feel like there's more chatting and downtime... and nap time as well! While it's not done too much in my office (I have seen it only a few times), there seems to be the trend of eating lunch at noon as fast as possible, and then rushing back to the office for a nap until 1 pm. It's ...

... buildings! Still, it's very humid and the clouds seem to have a tendency to rain every afternoon. So far, I've been doing alright with jet lag. Yesterday I was little tired all day, but pushed it until 11 pm. I woke up this morning at 7 am, so hopefully this trend will keep up! Work days are officially Mondays to Thursdays from 8 am to 5:30 pm, and Fridays from 8 am to 5 pm. However, in my office, 8:45/9 am works just as well. Well, it's almost lunch time!

... located eastern tip of Mt. Geumjeong. Next, we visited Geumgang Park and rode the cable car to the top of the mountain. The view of Busan city from there is breathtaking. Later, Haley took me to a Korean style spa in Gimhae for some relaxation and we met up with Dave at night to go see the Da Vinci Code at CGV. Said bye to Nuss (Mr. Daewoo Utopia) this morning. I had a blast. That's how we roll... Kamsa Hamnida!

... but it was a good excuse to veg for a day). It was always the most fun and in these times we discovered other Chinese traditions. We rented a Taiwanese movie(we were great fans of the Eastern movie makers) from the local blockbuster (who we later avoided as we never seemed to get the due date-thing right, this will probably never change) and got ready for a nice quiet night under the covers. Little were we to know that Taiwanese art movie more or less translates to cheezy ...

... to get a little worried about the other two. Matt then returned and informed us that D (a South African girl who had been riding up to join us) had had an accident on the way and had been taken to hospital. We of course packed up all our stuff straight away and climbed back up to our scooters. While waiting for the others to attach everything to their scooters and for my Matt to go back down to the camp spot to collect a bag he had forgotton, I took the ...