August 24, 2011

I almost slept through an entire night, only woke up 2 or 3 times. I’ve been falling asleep to my iPhone which has now obtained the official title of an iPod Touch. I was picked up at 9am by Sam to go to orientation. Apparently they’ve been starting at 9am everyday and he just has us stroll in whenever, he says it’s really ok because unlike the other teachers, I just got there so I still have things to get done and places to see. He also promised to take me to Starbucks this morning. It was amazing, they had all the same drinks and written both in Chinese and English. So I got a triple grande carmel macchiato and a blueberry bagel with cream cheese! Woohooo they have cream cheese and different types of milk! My drink was made nice and slow but it was sooo good, I savored it the whole orientation.  Even the bagel tasted better, probably not mass produced for 3 million Starbucks stores each day like our Starbucks pastries are. Orientation was awesome today. This tiny Asian lady named, Cheryl, ran it. She’s been an elementary teacher teaching English for 10 years but was born and raised in Taiwan. Her English is very good, a little hard to understand at times, but her teaching approaches and ideas and games that she created were amazing. I couldn’t believe all of these creative ideas came out of one lady. She even created C.D.s that went with songs that she made up and made these fun little word games. It was a really fun orientation because it was a bunch of adults playing games and singing songs the whole day. The “American” songs that we sand towards the end of the day were super funny. A few of them, she’d be like “Oh you don’t know this one??” But the other ones we knew, YMCA, We Will Rock You, Mammamia, HEY JUDE!! J She asked ideas on what to do with each song. YMCA was very active. She loved “my” idea for the Hey Jude song which was have the boys sing the first Na Na part and the girls sing the second Na Na part (Paul McCartney did it at his concert) She kept thanking me for the idea and I told her that it wasn’t me, so don’t worry Paul McCartney, I gave you credit. Our lunch was better today, nothing goopy. I got basil chicken with rice. The only thing was, the chicken has bones in it, but it was good. Came with rice, bok choy and tofu, but I didn’t eat the tofu. After class, I took my first bus ride back to the hotel but with Sam’s bus card. It was easy because my hotel is right next to the huge train station and apparently my school and apartments by there too? Still have yet to see the school. 

Back at the hotel, I get a call around 5pm from Sam saying that we’re moving into the apartment tonight! I packed my stuff so fast. I also said a Chinese phrase to the lady at the front desk that I got from one of my little books.  “I had a very comfortable stay” is Wo zho de hen shufu, except with a bunch of symbols that I don’t know how to type. Sam helped me pronounce it and she got all happy and told him I had a pretty face haha. Before the apartment move, of course Sam wanted to do more shopping at weird little Wal mart like stores. We picked up some bathroom stuff and a screwdriver and he insisted I buy roach houses. I wanted to throw up in his face when he was telling me how to set them up and dispose of them. I literally told him I’m not touching those things, he said he’d stop by every once in a while to throw them away for me. I just don’t see how I would get roaches, my apartment is brand new, with tile floors and its like..one room with no crevices..ew. Maybe I’ll go back to Fuh Chun Hotel and pick up Liz Chun and keep her as my pet to eat every bug that tries to get into my room. I also got my own bus card which you get at 711 (which are on every corner here) and my choices for the design on my card were Dragon Ball Z or Spongebob Square Pants, naturally I chose Spongebob. We made another stop before we went to the apartment and that was for dinner, thank god. We went to a hot pot place and it was crazy. The only thing I can compare it to would be Old country buffet crosses the Melting pot? All you can eat, but you pick your broth that will be in your pot (literally built inside of your table) and you control the heat settings. While they make your broth (I got spicy broth) you go and fill you plate with vegetables and raw meats and fill another little plate with different salads and dumplings and desserts. I haven’t eat any shrimp here yet because they all still have their whiskers and eyeballs and it just makes me sad/grossed out..but I did put scallops, beef, chicken into my hot pot, and you just dip it in there with your chop sticks and its so hot that you pull it out after 10 seconds and dip it into your little sauce concoction (kind of like when you go to BD’s Mongolian bbq and make your own sauce) and you eat it right away. Sam kept getting all worried because apparently I hold my fingers too low on my chopsticks and he thought I was going to dip them in scolding hot water. I like the way I hold my chopsticks because you have more control, just like holding a pencil. You don’t hold a pencil up at the top to write. I’m sticking to my Americanized chopstick hold. Didn’t get burned once.  I thought I was eating so much but the meat would shrivel up so fast and I would fill my plate thinking it’s a lot and it ends up being two bites!  Anyway, this place was my favorite food thus far. It was $300 NT, so $10. 

The move into the apartment wasn’t too bad, it was just brutally hot because we just turned the AC on for the first time in it. Sam was a big help and brought everything up and built my pop up closet and night stand while the landlord showed me around a little. His English is pretty good and he’s the teacher for the classroom I live above.  Sam finally left around 12 and I stayed up til about 2 trying to organize things. There’s still so much more stuff I need to get..it’s crazy. Oh and the weather here is great! Not as humid as summers in Chicago so far, and just some light drizzle tonight. You can always tell when it’s going to rain here because it gets real humid for a little bit then after the rain it cools down. That’s what I’ve been told.