We finally got a new camera, so here is a tour of our apartment :) It's really small but it's really cool and in a great location.
Here is the downstairs tour:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNVnoEYxhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vrFCxZfOLEX3o
Here is the loft:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vrFCxZfOLE
And here is the roof:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mznBkBvRpZs
We're very glad to be settling in and getting our bearings! We're living in the Da'an district which is awesome. Originally we wanted to live outside the city but the MRT is so convenient and we were scared to drive in the traffic. It's smaller and more expensive in the city but it's an ok tradeoff for the convenience. It's still much MUCH cheaper than Irvine!
Next up is the job hunt!
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
One Week in Taiwan and We're Already Famous!
A couple of students back in the States sent this link from the nightly news to me. Some students saw it here in Taiwan, too... This thing is taking over the globe!
We were leaving our hotel room to go check out apartments and these news reporters showed up unannounced. They ambushed us in the hallway and asked why we chose this hotel to stay at. I had no idea what to say since my student Mark found the room for us. There wasn't a whole lot of prompting. Just an intent stare and a mic in my face.
I don't know if there's enough material to make a song like that "hide your kids" guy. Does anyone know what the reporters are saying or what this report is about?
You can fast forward to 1:00 or you can watch it in all its glory!
Taiwanese Stardom --- http://www.nexttv.com.tw/index/section/sec_1/6/sec_2/10001/vdo/7502
Taiwanese Stardom --- http://www.nexttv.com.tw/index/section/sec_1/6/sec_2/10001/vdo/7502
We were leaving our hotel room to go check out apartments and these news reporters showed up unannounced. They ambushed us in the hallway and asked why we chose this hotel to stay at. I had no idea what to say since my student Mark found the room for us. There wasn't a whole lot of prompting. Just an intent stare and a mic in my face.
I don't know if there's enough material to make a song like that "hide your kids" guy. Does anyone know what the reporters are saying or what this report is about?
Good News: The Search is Over! & Bad News: I Broke Our Camera
So we haven't blogged for a few days because the last few days have been a bit hellish. We've only been in Taiwan about a week, but the last few days have felt like twice that long.
We came back from Taichung because of the transportation situation. Taichung has a lot less public transportation and no MRT at all (I think MRT stands for Mass Rapid Transit - it's the Taipei subway).
We started looking for an apartment right away. We searched all of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and were getting pretty desperate. All the apartment ads are in Chinese, so my former students Shane and Mark helped us to find apartments and advised us on where we should live. A lot of the apartments are really old-fashioned with bathrooms that have no separate shower... the shower is a hand held shower head coming out of the wall that pretty much sprays the whole bathroom. It's great at saving space.
We put an offer on one place, but were turned down because the landlord didn't speak English. It was my favorite place, so too bad.
Finally, today by a stroke of luck or fate or something we decided on a place and tomorrow we will make our deposit. An apartment was suggested by a random student who contacted me last night. I had this student for only two days in Irvine, but she's really friendly. She sent me a link to an apartment that looked good, so we contacted the owner. She said she SOLD the apartment that morning. But she had a better apartment. Shane and I went to check it out. It had an old style bath, no storage space, and there was only one room... the living/bed room. After I said we couldn't take that room, the lady said her friend was looking to sell an apartment I might be more interested in. She would call her friend and see if the place was rentable instead. It was. We rushed over after we got the call. We had a good feeling about this place (actually Megan would say I had a good feeling about every place). The rest will soon be history.
I'll have pictures up soon.
About the camera... I was walking by this old, deserted house that must have bad feng shui... there was a tiny tiny puddle with some algae in it. I was carrying my laptop in my book bag... it's pretty heavy. As I stepped in the puddle I started to slip. I tried to get my footing. stumbled like four times. The laptop was too heavy. The camera broke my fall.
Thanks camera! RIP.
J/K. Shane says we can get it repaired. Maybe. My pants have been covered in algae all day :(
Last picture from our loyal camera:
The Empire Strikes Back!
We came back from Taichung because of the transportation situation. Taichung has a lot less public transportation and no MRT at all (I think MRT stands for Mass Rapid Transit - it's the Taipei subway).
We started looking for an apartment right away. We searched all of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and were getting pretty desperate. All the apartment ads are in Chinese, so my former students Shane and Mark helped us to find apartments and advised us on where we should live. A lot of the apartments are really old-fashioned with bathrooms that have no separate shower... the shower is a hand held shower head coming out of the wall that pretty much sprays the whole bathroom. It's great at saving space.
We put an offer on one place, but were turned down because the landlord didn't speak English. It was my favorite place, so too bad.
Finally, today by a stroke of luck or fate or something we decided on a place and tomorrow we will make our deposit. An apartment was suggested by a random student who contacted me last night. I had this student for only two days in Irvine, but she's really friendly. She sent me a link to an apartment that looked good, so we contacted the owner. She said she SOLD the apartment that morning. But she had a better apartment. Shane and I went to check it out. It had an old style bath, no storage space, and there was only one room... the living/bed room. After I said we couldn't take that room, the lady said her friend was looking to sell an apartment I might be more interested in. She would call her friend and see if the place was rentable instead. It was. We rushed over after we got the call. We had a good feeling about this place (actually Megan would say I had a good feeling about every place). The rest will soon be history.
I'll have pictures up soon.
About the camera... I was walking by this old, deserted house that must have bad feng shui... there was a tiny tiny puddle with some algae in it. I was carrying my laptop in my book bag... it's pretty heavy. As I stepped in the puddle I started to slip. I tried to get my footing. stumbled like four times. The laptop was too heavy. The camera broke my fall.
Thanks camera! RIP.
J/K. Shane says we can get it repaired. Maybe. My pants have been covered in algae all day :(
Last picture from our loyal camera:
The Empire Strikes Back!
Friday, October 22, 2010
Taipei
We've been having a great time in Taipei. It's got great food and there's always an adventure! We found out google maps is completely worthless here, (can't find streets in pinyin, only chinese characters, gets confused, etc.) so it's a good thing we have students to help point us in the right direction. Of course that means going anywhere takes five times as long but I'm sure we'll get quicker with time. The humidity is BAD. I've never felt anything quite like it but we're getting used to it.
Taipei at night.
We went to this great noodle place yesterday, the Taipei 101, a huge bookstore (but bookstores have sort of lost their luster since they only have about 5 English books in the whole place 4 of them being the Twilight series) and just generally enjoyed our last day in Taipei. It's been raining, but not the downpour it was on Wednesday and Thursday.
Shane's been a BIG help showing us around.
Delicious Noodles.
Taipei 101. Tallest building in the world for about 3 years I believe.
Just because we're in Taiwan doesn't mean we're totally deprived of American food. There's still Subway, McDonald's, Starbucks, Haagen Daz, Morton's Steakhouse, Costco, Pizza Hut, IKEA, and Hard Rock Cafe among others. But no, it's not the same.
Captivated by Deathly Hallows trailer. November 18th!!!
Halloween decorations in Taipei
Real time display of which toilets are occupied in the women's restrooms. The men's restroom did not have this. Generally bathrooms have been fine in Taiwan. Usually they have alternating squat vs. western toilets with pictures on the door and usually they have toilet paper. One even had a heated seat and a whole lot of other buttons I had no idea what they were.
Today (Saturday) we are headed by bus to Taichung (about a 2 1/2 hour ride but apparently the buses are really nice here with TV's and comfy seats so it's better (and a LOT cheaper) than taking the high speed rail). We are going apartment hunting and job hunting!
We went to this great noodle place yesterday, the Taipei 101, a huge bookstore (but bookstores have sort of lost their luster since they only have about 5 English books in the whole place 4 of them being the Twilight series) and just generally enjoyed our last day in Taipei. It's been raining, but not the downpour it was on Wednesday and Thursday.
Today (Saturday) we are headed by bus to Taichung (about a 2 1/2 hour ride but apparently the buses are really nice here with TV's and comfy seats so it's better (and a LOT cheaper) than taking the high speed rail). We are going apartment hunting and job hunting!
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Last Days - Dad Jumps Security Line at Airport and Delectable Airline Food
So on the day of the flight to Taiwan we were driving around the San Francisco peninsula with Megan's sister, Nina. On the itinerary: make last minute equipment purchases (Nina insisted : D), make the final pack, say good-bye to Winnie, close down utilities, have dinner with my parents and Nina and Brian (Nina's husband), and get the airport. Honestly, I hadn't really had time to consider what we were about to do because I had been working and packing at the same time and generally 3 weeks of hectic-ness in the run up to shipping out from SFO to LAX to TPE.
We were driving in Nina's car to the restaurant where we would have our last meal: you guessed it... a good old-fashioned cheddar cheese burger with some Peter's Bakery chocolate shavings cake with butter cream frosting(!). By the way, the last supper in San Jose the night before was at Vito's Famous Pizza, the best pizza I've ever had. We made it a point to go there for our last dinner in the States.
It hit me on the drive over; what we were about to do. No return ticket. No job. No apartment to go back to. Just the two of us in search of "adventure and fortune", as Jeff said. Suddenly the car became quite hot. My stomach felt empty and almost non-existent. Did I just wake up? Where am I? Why is Megan carrying her hair dryer in the car? I swear my vision was a little fuzzy and the roadway started to spin a little.
One long short-cut later (Brian was driving, but to be fair I think the short-cut was Nina's and to be even fairer Google maps did get the directions wrong) and we were at the Red Robin. Everybody was talking about what an exciting chapter this would be in our lives and I kept thinking, we don't have a plan. What if it's horrible? What if we can't get jobs? What if they don't have Hell's Kitchen? It was a little weird being nervous about going because actually I've been wanting to do this for years. I realized why people don't do this sort of thing. It's the dive. Sometimes you just gotta take it, even if you're not totally sure what's going to happen.
The Peter's gave me some intestinal fortitude and we headed to the airport. The line wasn't long, and the only hitch was that the airline lady gave Megan the wrong boarding pass (I was about to sit next to Herr Hundhausen for the next 14 hours). Nina caught that one, thank goodness. I thought we might have to go to the conversation room.
You're a life-saver Nina!
We said our goodbyes and got into the security line, the one your parents can't follow you into and where you get yelled at even if you're just standing next to the rope. We gave approximately 20 goodbye waves as we rounded each corner in the line. When we were about half-way through, Papa Chino (my grandfather) decided to call. My dad took the call and saw it necessary to duck under the security line (the one you can't duck under unless you want airport security to pat you down for explosive vests) to hand me the cell phone so I could say goodbye before I left SFO. Another potential conversation room moment. Fortunately, the SFO airport security guys are not especially vigilant.
The flight was not bad. We settled in and had pretty good airplane meals and a pretty good (for airline standards) sleep. My meal came with an extra protein shot, as Megan mentioned. I didn't mention it to her at the time, lest she request a return ticket.
We were driving in Nina's car to the restaurant where we would have our last meal: you guessed it... a good old-fashioned cheddar cheese burger with some Peter's Bakery chocolate shavings cake with butter cream frosting(!). By the way, the last supper in San Jose the night before was at Vito's Famous Pizza, the best pizza I've ever had. We made it a point to go there for our last dinner in the States.
It hit me on the drive over; what we were about to do. No return ticket. No job. No apartment to go back to. Just the two of us in search of "adventure and fortune", as Jeff said. Suddenly the car became quite hot. My stomach felt empty and almost non-existent. Did I just wake up? Where am I? Why is Megan carrying her hair dryer in the car? I swear my vision was a little fuzzy and the roadway started to spin a little.
One long short-cut later (Brian was driving, but to be fair I think the short-cut was Nina's and to be even fairer Google maps did get the directions wrong) and we were at the Red Robin. Everybody was talking about what an exciting chapter this would be in our lives and I kept thinking, we don't have a plan. What if it's horrible? What if we can't get jobs? What if they don't have Hell's Kitchen? It was a little weird being nervous about going because actually I've been wanting to do this for years. I realized why people don't do this sort of thing. It's the dive. Sometimes you just gotta take it, even if you're not totally sure what's going to happen.
The Peter's gave me some intestinal fortitude and we headed to the airport. The line wasn't long, and the only hitch was that the airline lady gave Megan the wrong boarding pass (I was about to sit next to Herr Hundhausen for the next 14 hours). Nina caught that one, thank goodness. I thought we might have to go to the conversation room.
You're a life-saver Nina!
We said our goodbyes and got into the security line, the one your parents can't follow you into and where you get yelled at even if you're just standing next to the rope. We gave approximately 20 goodbye waves as we rounded each corner in the line. When we were about half-way through, Papa Chino (my grandfather) decided to call. My dad took the call and saw it necessary to duck under the security line (the one you can't duck under unless you want airport security to pat you down for explosive vests) to hand me the cell phone so I could say goodbye before I left SFO. Another potential conversation room moment. Fortunately, the SFO airport security guys are not especially vigilant.
The flight was not bad. We settled in and had pretty good airplane meals and a pretty good (for airline standards) sleep. My meal came with an extra protein shot, as Megan mentioned. I didn't mention it to her at the time, lest she request a return ticket.
He made his home in my baby bok choy before somebody steamed it and him into delicious soy sauce oblivion! Glad I didn't get my tongue pinched.
Edward and Bella in Chinese.
Breakfast was OK too. Fortunately, the protein shot was optional for this meal.
Last Days - Hellish Packing and Almost Locked into Public Storage
So my blogs are gonna be a little chronologically disjointed cause we've been so busy packing and moving stuff into storage (by we I mean I have been going to Riverside and dropping stuff off).
Packing the apartment was hellish. You know how you always think, "it's not going to be so much; I can just take it in my dad's 7 foot pickup" and then you end up having to rent a 16 foot moving truck at the last second to fit it all? Yeah, that's what happened.
Fortunately, we had a huge amount of help from Megan's dad, Ben, so we got it all in one go using the truck. He even hired a guy to help us with the painting, since we had made the ill-advised decision to paint it for a couple of months. Hey we can just paint it back in jiffy anyway right? We'd planned to move out completely by about 11am Saturday. We actually arrived at Jeff's place to spend the night before heading to San Jose at about 3am Sunday morning. If Ben hadn't helped us, we would have left SoCal Monday morning.
Thanks Ben! It's much appreciated. We really didn't realize we would need so much help, but you thought of us!
So on Saturday night I made the last drive to Riverside with the moving truck. My buddy Moon Bo helped me out with the last drive. We got to the Public Storage site at about 8:30pm. I thought we would unload everything within about 20 minutes. Turns out by the time the clock hit 8:57 we still had about half the truck left. At this PS site, the doors lock at 9pm for security purposes. If you are caught in the PS after 9pm, the gate locks and you have to call the police to come get you out.
Oh crap, we're gonna be locked in! And if we call the police and they are busy, they might not come help us until the next morning. So we started frantically throwing things in there. Moon Bo was stacking up boxes as best he could while I was literally sprinting to and leaping from the moving truck to bring him new stuff to stack. He did a great job packing real quick-like (for some reason he was deathly afraid the cops would show up) and soon I was locking up the door and checking my pockets to make sure I didn't leave any keys thrown around anywhere. I jumped back in the truck and Moon Bo helped me back it out of the site. We got to the front gates and I looked at the key pad. The time stamp said 9:10pm. OK... probabaly this has some kind of grace period... even so it's only either 10 or 15 minutes long. So if that number changes to 9:11pm, we are stuck in here. What's the goddamn pass code? Fortunately my memory was unusually sound just then and the gates began to open. We hopped into the truck and drove to safety. We were both soaked from running back and forth, but we congratulated each other on the mission accomplished.
Thanks Moon Bo! A true friend through thick and thin. Who knew packing could be so exciting?
Packing the apartment was hellish. You know how you always think, "it's not going to be so much; I can just take it in my dad's 7 foot pickup" and then you end up having to rent a 16 foot moving truck at the last second to fit it all? Yeah, that's what happened.
Fortunately, we had a huge amount of help from Megan's dad, Ben, so we got it all in one go using the truck. He even hired a guy to help us with the painting, since we had made the ill-advised decision to paint it for a couple of months. Hey we can just paint it back in jiffy anyway right? We'd planned to move out completely by about 11am Saturday. We actually arrived at Jeff's place to spend the night before heading to San Jose at about 3am Sunday morning. If Ben hadn't helped us, we would have left SoCal Monday morning.
Thanks Ben! It's much appreciated. We really didn't realize we would need so much help, but you thought of us!
So on Saturday night I made the last drive to Riverside with the moving truck. My buddy Moon Bo helped me out with the last drive. We got to the Public Storage site at about 8:30pm. I thought we would unload everything within about 20 minutes. Turns out by the time the clock hit 8:57 we still had about half the truck left. At this PS site, the doors lock at 9pm for security purposes. If you are caught in the PS after 9pm, the gate locks and you have to call the police to come get you out.
Oh crap, we're gonna be locked in! And if we call the police and they are busy, they might not come help us until the next morning. So we started frantically throwing things in there. Moon Bo was stacking up boxes as best he could while I was literally sprinting to and leaping from the moving truck to bring him new stuff to stack. He did a great job packing real quick-like (for some reason he was deathly afraid the cops would show up) and soon I was locking up the door and checking my pockets to make sure I didn't leave any keys thrown around anywhere. I jumped back in the truck and Moon Bo helped me back it out of the site. We got to the front gates and I looked at the key pad. The time stamp said 9:10pm. OK... probabaly this has some kind of grace period... even so it's only either 10 or 15 minutes long. So if that number changes to 9:11pm, we are stuck in here. What's the goddamn pass code? Fortunately my memory was unusually sound just then and the gates began to open. We hopped into the truck and drove to safety. We were both soaked from running back and forth, but we congratulated each other on the mission accomplished.
Thanks Moon Bo! A true friend through thick and thin. Who knew packing could be so exciting?
No Return Ticket
We arrived in Taipei this morning (Wednesday) about 7:30 AM. The 14 hr 40 min plane ride wasn't that bad except the woman behind us who horked when landing, then we couldn't wait to get off the plane. Other than that we pretty much "slept" the whole time, not very restfully though. Food was good, except for the gigantic earwig on Rico's bak choy :/
We got to drive through Taipei and see some of it, Rico tried stinky tofu, and we just tried to get over jet lag and get our bearings. We're definitely not in Irvine anymore. It is VERY different, but exciting and cool.
Rico tried stinky tofu. I was not brave enough.
Right before he tries it.
Trying to get it down.
Rico trying to explain the taste.
All in all a fun experience!
Yay for Taiwan!
We both look sooo tired. Now time to sleep. Good night!
We got to drive through Taipei and see some of it, Rico tried stinky tofu, and we just tried to get over jet lag and get our bearings. We're definitely not in Irvine anymore. It is VERY different, but exciting and cool.
Rico tried stinky tofu. I was not brave enough.
Right before he tries it.
Yay for Taiwan!
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Packing, packing and more packing
It's down to the wire so we are finally packing up our apartment, arranging for storage, (cheap in Riverside and since we're not storing valuable things (except to us) it's totally worth it), and leaving our better belongings with family to take care of (thank you guys!).
Some things we are taking:
1. Camera (naturally)
2. towels (heard they suck in Taiwan)
3. English books
4. DVD's (planning to buy a multi-regional dvd player until netflix gets its international streaming up) including all our holiday (Halloween/Christmas) favorites
5. Cereal (since I can't live without my cereal and it's going to be hard to find the import market right away).
6. Passport, MMR certificate, background check, diploma (all the things necessary to get the work visa).
7. Sunscreen
8. International driver's license (I'm hoping to work close enough to ride a bike, otherwise we will get scooters).
9. Kindle (saving the new Shopaholic and some other good books for the flight)
10. Stickers with english sayings for our new students (apparently they're very popular).
11. Bath and Body works hand sanitizer
12. Bath bombs from Basin (at downtown Disney). I'll need a good bubble bath after we get settled.
Other than that we are just bringing the basic clothing and we can buy everything we need there!
One week to go!!
Some things we are taking:
1. Camera (naturally)
2. towels (heard they suck in Taiwan)
3. English books
4. DVD's (planning to buy a multi-regional dvd player until netflix gets its international streaming up) including all our holiday (Halloween/Christmas) favorites
5. Cereal (since I can't live without my cereal and it's going to be hard to find the import market right away).
6. Passport, MMR certificate, background check, diploma (all the things necessary to get the work visa).
7. Sunscreen
8. International driver's license (I'm hoping to work close enough to ride a bike, otherwise we will get scooters).
9. Kindle (saving the new Shopaholic and some other good books for the flight)
10. Stickers with english sayings for our new students (apparently they're very popular).
11. Bath and Body works hand sanitizer
12. Bath bombs from Basin (at downtown Disney). I'll need a good bubble bath after we get settled.
Other than that we are just bringing the basic clothing and we can buy everything we need there!
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