Visa Run to Hong Kong

I just completed my first visa run to Hong Kong!

It was a thoroughly exhausting experience. For anyone who doesn't know, when you go to a foreign country you have to have a visa which allows you to stay in the country for a certain period of time. Normally you go to the embassy closest to your city, however, since Taiwan is not officially it's own country they do not have embassies, but TECO offices. When I went to the TECO (Taiwan Economic and Cultural Office) in Los Angeles I got a beotchy lady who didn't want to give me a visa, but finally consented to give me a 60 day NO EXTENSIONS visitor visa. The visa will run you around $140 dollars American (more if you want to have your diploma authenticated or something). Some countries have more favorable visa rules. U.K citizens can stay in Taiwan for six months for free.  (Rico went to the office in San Francisco and got a really nice lady who gave him the much coveted 5 year multiple entry visitor's visa...grrr...Rico swears it was because he showed up literally a few minutes before they closed and, like anyone with government jobs, they want to fly out of there at 5pm and gave him everything he wanted to avoid a hassle. I, of course, being the organized person that I am, showed up bright and early. Folks, this is one example of the early bird not always catching the worm).

Normally you have to bring in a lot of paperwork such as your passport, letter of invitation from friend or family inviting you, job contract, etc. If you are going there to teach English, DO NOT SAY SO. They will deny your visa, expecting of course, that you will be working illegally until you get your work permit (which everyone does - it's even illegal to do a lesson demo without a work permit... which is obviously a necessity during an interview). When you go there, say you will be going for tourism purposes. You usually have to show your bank statement and proof of an outgoing flight. If you want a multiple entry permit try to explain that you want to tour Asia and want to use Taiwan as your home base because you have friends/family there. It may work, it may not. It didn't for me. If you go to Taiwan without a visitor visa you will be getting in with a 30 day visa exempt status (which is free), but you will likely have to convert to a visitor's visa in Taiwan or do a visa run (30 days is not much time to find a job and do the paperwork required for an Alien Resident Card).
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So after I finally signed with my school it was apparent that there would not be enough time to do the paperwork so I had to book a round trip ticket to Hong Kong. (Rico could not go because his paperwork is being processed and he cannot leave the country.) My flight left at 6:15 am so we had to spend the night at the airport (otherwise there would be no public transportation to get there since the buses don't run until about 6am). I had just finished my Christmas show with my students, who did wonderfully :), so I raced home, we left for the airport about 10pm and got there about 12am. We spent a very cold night in some very uncomfortable chairs in a very noisy (construction going on, of course, how very Taiwan) terminal. There was no heat and we were freezing. It all ended all right. I got on my plane, had a 5 hour layover in Hong Kong, and managed to get back with a 30 day visa exempt permit in my passport by 4pm the next day.

Of course I slept about 12 hours that night but it's all over and I hope I never have to do it again. The importance of a visa run is this: if you overstay your visa, even by one day, even by a few hours you get a huge fine and sometimes get banned from going into that country for a period of time, usually one year. Never, ever overstay a visa or you will be monumentally screwed. Usually in Taiwan visa runs can be pretty inexpensive such as $60 each way. I had the misfortune of having my visa expire at an extremely bad time (right before Christmas), so it was more expensive.

Some people don't know this, but when you do a visa run you don't actually have to go through immigration and customs in the city you land in if you are doing a simple leave and return in the same day. Some people do this, thinking they need the stamp, but when you land in Taipei, they don't really care where you came from. Make sure though, that you pick up both boarding passes (departure and return) at the airport in Taiwan before you leave for wherever you are going. Make sure the airline gives you both when you check in for your first flight. If you don't have the return boarding pass when you get into you visa run destination, you will have to exit the gate area to get your return pass at the airlines' ticket counters, then you will have to go through security and immigration and all that (it might be possible to get your boarding pass from the ticket counter near the boarding gate, but I wouldn't risk it). For the same reason, make sure your arrival and return flight are in the same terminal (usually you only need to do this if your destination airport is really big and you are returning with a different airline). Of course, it's no problem to go through customs and immigration at your  destination, but it can just be a hassle, and, if anything goes wrong and it takes too long and your return flight comes right on the heels of your arrival flight, you could miss your return flight. When I got back to Taipei, I was a bit scared thinking I needed to show an outgoing flight to get the visa exempt permit, but I just put the flight number from my Hong Kong flight and no questions were asked.

This experience was grueling and exhausting, but not that bad. I'm glad I waited for the job I did because it is a really good job for someone with no experience. I got the hours I wanted, the kids and staff are great, and I get an entire month (30 days, not the American 20 days) of paid vacation a year plus all national holidays and typhoon days! Awesome.

Peace. Out.

Day Trip - International Flora Expo

See the Int'l Flora Expo official website here

Tons of amazing flowers! Especially orchids.

You can take the MRT from pretty much any line and get a shuttle directly to the expo. Just look at some MRT maps during expo season and you're bound to see the expo logo.

So I think the Taipei International Flora Exposition (TIFE) is a yearly thing, but I'm not sure because this year it's from like November to May I think and that's a long time if it is a yearly thing. Tickets are pretty cheap. A whole day ticket is only $300 NTD. You can come later in the day and get cheaper rates. After 2:00pm I think it's only $200 and after 6:00pm it's only $150. See the pricing schedule:

You can also pay with your Easy Pass MRT card if you have one. We paid in cash, so I don't know if the Easy Card gets you a discount. 

These two guys were near the entrance of the expo.

This was just kinda cool because it was pretty amazing orchid work, but it wasn't event really a display. It's just a place for people to sit down near the entrance. 

The expo was actually really big:

This one is a picture of a Starbucks right in the middle of the whole expo. Taiwan is unashamedly capitalist. 

Some art thing. I don't know what it's supposed to be. 

The mazes were cool. This one is the tot maze. Some kids were too small to see over the hedges. Kids went crazy in these things.  

Megan got us thoroughly lost in the maze. 

It seems like a bunch of different mazes when you're in it, but it actually is one massive maze and you're supposed to enter on one of those colored dots and exit on the other if you wanna play the challenge. 

Workers are clearly marked. 

Display of flowers. The whole expo was really huge. Maybe the size of Disneyland. I didn't take many panoramic pictures because there weren't really any good vantage points. But you can basically imagine the entirety of Disneyland covered in the above pictures.

There were a lot of country displays in one section of the expo. Pictured above are two pictures of Holland, and one each of Indonesia, Greece, and Thailand. 

The Korean display. Of course, kim-chi pots!

The American exhibit was log-cabinesque and there were cowboy hats so people could readily look ridiculous. The rest of the American exhibit seemed really commercialized, saying stuff like: Buy our potatoes! Buy our beef! Buy our cotton!

         

The Japan exhibit seemed to be the most popular country exhibit, judging by the line.  

One of the cooler artsy-type buildings. 

I love those mini-landscape scenes. 

There was a lot of stuff that we didn't see because the expo was just too huge and we were getting tired. Since it'll be running so long, we'll probably go back in a couple of months. 

'Til the next post!

The Mask

I am now officially Taiwanese! My allergies have been bothering me so much, especially when the sun comes out and the wind starts up, that I have decided to try out the Taiwanese mask. People wear these masks all the time. Everyone from babies to old people. Usually people wear them for the pollution (however I don't think the masks really protect you from that much) and children usually wear them to prevent germs from spreading (many children in Taiwan have weak immune systems, not enough exercise, fresh air, etc.). Hopefully this does something for the pollen. I will let you know if it works.

Wulai

Wulai is a small township south of Taipei. It has the famous Wulai waterfall as well as cultural history from the aboriginal tribes that inhabited Taiwan before the Chinese came. It is an easy day trip from Taipei. We got there by taking the MRT to the Sindian stop and then taking the 1601 bus to Wulai. It took about 1.5 hours, (longer coming back).

 Lots and lots of dumplings.

 Yummy sweet potatoes. They sell these all over Taiwan.

Wild pork sausage. Delicious!

The main street has all the foods/museums. Then the street branches off into the hike to the waterfall (or you can take the log cart for $50 NT) or to the hot springs.

 Yummy! Dead wild boar. I wouldn't eat it though because I didn't know how long it was out. I always try to be really careful, and I haven't gotten sick yet! General rule of thumb is if the place has a line it has good food turnover and it should be fresh. Never eat cold street food.

 Poor roosters :(

I think these were quails. Whatever they were, they were selling a lot of
 them.

Pink guavas that look like watermelons           

Bamboo snack

Big tortilla chips! Not really, but it looked like it!

there is a virgin mary in the background

 

This guy was really getting into making the kebabs.

A kid stepped on this bag and fell through. In the U.S. his parents would of sued. In Taiwan, his parents just hauled him out.

Rico is inspecting a cousin of our ladybug

These cars took you to and from the waterfall we decided to walk though.

The cable cars take you up very high.

sheepish after I ate most of the cotton candy.

Rico gets his turn

 

 Whenever I go into a stall with a Western toilet I always find the seat up. Being a girl, I found this extremely odd until I learned that Taiwanese people climb up onto the toilet and squat over it. Hence the worn out rims and foot marks. Now, this is something we would find insane in the American culture, however, for some reason they think that toilet seats give you diseases and apparently don't think to TP it. Sometimes you will find someone who was not quite that accurate in squatting over the seat. Therefore as Rico said "of course you will get diseases from the seat if you crap like an animal!" Enough said about that. :)

As you can see, the worn out seat from people's shoes :/ All in all though, for mountain bathrooms they were pretty decent.