Blonde and the city..

Ni Hao! 


The day has finally arrived and I have finally made it to what is called The Hidden Jewel of Asia, aka. Taiwan! It has already been an adventure and I have only been here 3 full days! 

Maggie, Myself & Pei

It all started when I got off the plane to find that my driver who was supposed to pick me up, didn't show. Great, what the heck was I going to do now? Well, I did what any normal person would do, got into a random cab and tried to find my way to my hostel when I had no idea where it was, the driver didn't speak any English and the address wasn't in Chinese, so he couldn't read it. This situation = PROBLEM. So I am in the cab and we are both trying to talk back and forth to one another to find the hostel, every time we spoke to one another our voices got louder, maybe we though if you yell, you will understand better? No that is not true at all. He kept on saying, "I AM HOTEL DRIVER" and I kept saying, "Ok, I need hostel." It was a mess! After a good 45 minutes of driving, we finally reached my hostel. The problems didn't stop there, I arrived so early I had to let myself inside and when I opened the door, there were about 40 stairs in front of me. So, needless to say, I had to drag 2, 50 pound suitcases up the stairs ALONE! After getting settled in, I left to go meet my friend Pei Wen who lives in Taipei. I don't know what I would have done without Pei, because she helped me with everything on the first day.  Pei met me at my hostel and we went out to lunch and I met many of her Taiwanese friends. I am definitely going to have to get used to people staring at me, because everywhere I looked people were looking back at me. Haven't they seen someone with blonde hair before? Or do I just look like a freak? ha. It also doesn't help that I am about a whole foot taller than some of them and I must look like a giant!! BFG. We then left lunch and Pei and her friend Maggie helped me get a phone and a Metro train pass and then we went site seeing. These two pretty much were my translators all day! It was an exhausting day, especially since I was so jet lagged, but I couldn't believe I had finally made it to Taiwan. 

Elena- student at my school

After I had gone to bed and slept for 12 hours, hah, I woke up and today was the day I would be heading to my school where I would be teaching!! My school is located in a town called Da Zhe in the Nei Hu area and I am very lucky, because my school in located in the one of the wealthiest areas in Taipei!!  After heading out of my hostel, I first had a very unsuccessful mission to find breakfast, so I only really had a coffee from the 7/11 down the road (there are 7/11 everywhere!!) I then proceeded to take the train from my hostel to where my school was located! I was pretty impressed with myself, because I made it to my school perfectly without getting lost once!! Pretty good for the first day alone. When arriving at my school, I met with my  manager Rita and she took me to the hospital, because every new teacher needs to get a heath check. So Rita and I spent a good 3 hours in the hospital, waiting, waiting and doing some more waiting. Then we left and went out to lunch and Rita got me some Milk Bubble Tea (I am OBSESSED)! So for the past 2 days I have been drinking milk bubble tea. I hope I don't get too fat! ha. 


 It has been a pretty good adventure here so far in Taiwan and I can't believe that I will be here for the next year, WOW! I definitely need to work on my Chinese so I can navigate more easily and actually be able to talk to other people! I have never talked so little in my life!! You would never know that I scored an 100 on my extroversion test, ha! Well, there will be many more amazing experiences and stories to come, so stay tuned for the next blog! 


Zai Jian (Goodbye)