(P.s. In case you didn't see the description, any post with an N: in front is a post by me, and a K: is a post by Kaitlyn)
Oh man, WHAT a day this was. Well, I guess it was a combination of a couple days, if you include the all the time travel. The plane flight was...okay. Long. I envied the guy sitting in front of me. He somehow found a way to shove his seat 3 times farther back than it's supposed to go. If I could have found a way to do that, I totally would! But, without the (preferred) option of sleeping on my little table thing, I had to find ways to sleep sitting up. That game alone took up most of the flight time! When I wasn't attempting to sleep, I was watching The Dark Night and Aurthur Christmas, and practicing some Chinese. Let's just say I was glad to get off when we landed!
I had met up with one of the new teachers, Sunny Watts, at LAX, so we ventured into the Taipei airport together. I had my first, very brief, conversation with someone in Chinese! I went up to a lady at a desk and asked her, "ni hui shuo Yingwen ma?" (do you speak English?). She said, "yi dian dian." (Just a little bit). I looked at Sunny, wondering if I should ask her in English where we could find the money exchange desk, or try my luck in Chinese. I turned to her and said, "huanquian guitai zai nali?" (where is the money exchange desk?). She said a short sentence in Chinese, but I heard the the word "zuo" (Left) and said "zuo?" (of course I said it like a total American, but that's okay, she got it) She nodded and I said, "xiexie!" (thank you) and we went our merry way! It was SO COOL!
So we made our way to immigration and with only a little confusion, made our way through. (I don't have a visa yet, but they gave me a 90 day, even though they were confused that I would be in the country 6 months). We found Kaitlyn and the other teacher, Kylie Wiser at baggage, got some NT (Taiwanese money) and tried to find a payphone (we were instructed to call the school before getting on the bus so they knew what time to expect us and such). Not only were all the directions in Chinese, but at this point, I had NO idea how much each coin was worth, and therefore how much to put in... I somehow got the phone to ring! I was almost positive it was the right number. A woman answered in Chinese. I said, "Hello, is this the Berhan Language Institute?" The poor lady. She said, "uh, uh, and paused". I said, "ni hui shuo Yingwen ma?" She said something really fast in Chinese; I think it was someting like what do you need or something like that. I didn't know any of the names of the people I was looking for, so I didn't know what to say! They are all supposed to be able to speak English over there! It got so awkward that I just said, "dui bu qi!" (sorry!) and hung up... AWKWARD! I went through another, like, 35 kuai (about $1.20) before I gave up and went to the Lost and Found table that was right across the way. Luckily, before I made a fool of myself speaking Chinese, one lady said, "do you need any help?" I said, "Yes! Can you help us with the payphone?" She was so nice. She called the school for us and even used her own cell phone to let them have the Principle call her back on. I talked to him when he called and told hin we were about to go get a bus to Feng Yuan. He said, "okay, well then I'll be expecting you at around 11-11:30, then". Phew. THAT mess was over! On to the next one...
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| Us and our bus tickets:) |
Most of the people we met in the airport could speak at least a little English...not at the bus stop! We all went up to a counter and I'm not sure if we bombarded her with so much English she freaked out, or if she just woke up on the wrong side of the bed, but she was not in the mood to communicate much. I tried to tell her what we wanted in Chinese, but she insisted we take the bus to Taichung. I told her we wanted to go to Feng Yuan in Chinese, but she kept pointing to Taichung on the map! I tried to ask if the Feng Yuan station was near the Taichung station, but I must have said it wrong because she nodded at me and printed up all our tickets (we will find out that the Feng Yuan station is near the Taichung station...by train.). Whaaaaatever, I thought. Close enough!
We took the most ghetto bus I've ever been on for a couple hours to the Taichung bus station. When we got there, there was no train station in sight. Between all four of us, I think we had 12 pieces of luggage. I had two big suitcases and a bag, and the others had as much or more they had to carry around. I pulled out a map and tried to figure out how we were going to get to Feng Yuan. At least 3 people asked us where we were going and pointed us in the right direction. Even though I wasn't exactly sure where we were and where we needed to be going, I was super excited I knew what people were saying when they asked where we were wanting to go! They all said it was just right up the street (at least I gathered that much). So, we headed that way with all our luggage. You can imagine all the looks we were getting. We were like the one eyed, one horned, flying purple people eaters...with luggage. The people were all right, though! It was just up the street. (It felt like a little longer because they have these random metal bars spaced out on the sidewalks we had to maneuver through). I tried to call Gerald (the principal) on the payphone, but no luck. He didn't answer. (By this time I only had to try, maybe 5 times before it actually started ringing). After a couple minutes, some older, white women came out of the train station and started talking to us! They were such nice ladies. They even gave us their numbers if we ever needed help. They and their Taiwanese friend helped us buy tickets to Feng Yuan, about 10 minutes away by train. I figured it would be a good idea, since Gerald was expecting us there. The only thing was, he was expecting us at 11:30... it was already noon and our train didn't leave for another 35 minutes! Ah well.
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| In the Taichung train station...with ALL our luggage |
We went on inside and found a little place selling food. We were starved! Kaitlyn and I bought a meal box and a random little cookie thing. It was good! Kaitlyn is, well, not the most talented at using chopsticks, might we say. So! I bought her a pair of chopsticks that have a little kitty on the top that holds them together that makes it easy to use! She loves it! She calls him Kitty. (And that is the story of how Kaitlyn didn't starve on our way to Feng Yuan. :) ).
We barely managed to board the train with all our luggage before it took off. The whistle blew a bunch of times and everyone was already boarded as we were struggling to lift everything through the little train doors. We didn't go in the train and sit down, we just stayed in the little compartment in between two cars where the doors are. There was a girl and a boy in there with us. The girl spoke pretty good English, so we talked to her on the ride. Luckily, our stop was the first one! We were afraid that we would have to get out and back in so we didn't block everyone. The girl got off at our stop and offered to help with our stuff. She was so nice! Well, in order to get to the front of the station, you have to walk up stairs into the station, and then downstairs to get out. There are no elevators, of course, so we had to pull all our luggage up and over! The girl was so nice and helped get all our stuff up into the station. Before she left, she took a picture with us :)
Kaitlyn and I went and found a payphone to try and get a hold of Gerald. Again, we had a little trouble with the payphone. A couple minutes later, a Taiwanese boy (later introduced himself as Zack) and German girl (Judith) came over and asked if we needed any help. They were so friendly! We couldn't reach Gerald. Once again. But after Zack and Judith so kindly helped us take all our luggage down the stairs to the front, Zack used his cell phone to try calling Gerald. We got him! I told him the story about the bus and the train and apologized that we got there so late. he said it was fine and that he'd be over soon! Hallelujah!! Zack and Judith stayed and chatted with us. We all became quite the friends! It was really fun:)
Gerald picked us up and drove us to the school, where we had to take all our bags up the stairs. Again. 4 floors! Yep! The school has 3 floors, with all our living arrangements on the 4th floor (and then they have a really fun roof). I definitely got my exercise that day! With the exception of a dreadfully uncomfortable mattress, everything is great! We have a nice kitchen, bathroom, laundry room and lounge. There are 4 other girl teachers and two boys. Everyone is really nice! I think we will all be good friends. I'm looking forward to this semester with them!
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| At Le Chie's |
After filling out some paperwork and hearing a bit about the school, we got to take showers! I was soooooooooooo nice!! Then we went to take pictures for our ARC cards (don't ask me exactly what their for yet...). After that, we went to get dinner with some of the teachers at a place down the street called Le Chie's (Lee Chee). I got some noodles and dumplings. They give you SO much for SO little! It's the greatest thing ever. Pretty much two meals for a buck and a half. A few feet down on the corner of the street is a really good bingsha place. It's like a smoothie. Yum! I got some papaya milk. It was good! They also sell amazingly delicious fresh squeezed orange juice. There is no way you could ever find fresh squeezed orange juice like this unless you did it yourself. And even then! Uhg. yum. That's all I gotta say.
Great first day in Taiwan!! :)
