At 2:05am August 7th I left the United States for a year teaching in Taiwan. The twelve hour flight was nerve-wracking for a variety of reasons, but mostly because I had no idea what lay ahead. But as the ocean outside my plane window turned into the brightly lit cityscape of Taiwan, I felt ready.
Hour 1:
After disembarking the the plane, I found my way to immigration and customs. While waiting in line, there was a small earthquake. Nope, not a typo. An actual earthquake. Everyone watched the signs swing back and forth for a couple minutes before everything settled down and resumed.
I grabbed my bags from the carousel and exited, scanning the sea of drivers waiting with signs praying that my name was included. It was. The man checked me in, told me to take a seat and wait for a bit. I used the time and the crummy free airport wifi to check in with family and tell them I made it.
Hours 2-4:
When the man finally called me over, I wasn't sure if he was telling me to follow or to wait, but I followed, loathe to be left behind. I huddled behind everyone while we loaded into a twelve seat passenger van, hoping that I wasn't going to be sent to the wrong side of the island. At this point an elderly woman asked where I was headed, and confirmed that I was going the right way. We chatted a bit on the ride and she helped explain the process. This van would take me to one place, then another driver would take me to my exact location. The trick was figuring out when they were calling my address.
With some finagling I got myself and all my luggage into the right car and I arrived at my new school.
Hours 5-8
Upon arrival I was greeted, shepherded past gawking small children, and settled into the back office. A language assistant, Ricky, collected my documents did some paperwork and then asked "Are you ready to go apartment hunting?". Within moments I was handed a helmet and ushered onto the back of her scooter.
Up until that point, I'd never been on a scooter. I latched onto the waist of this woman whom I'd known for all of fifteen minutes and we took off, zooming through the streets of Lukang. It was a surreal experience. The crushing heat momentarily abated as we cruised along, dodging cars, other scooters and pedestrians. I couldn't believe that yesterday I had been in Seattle enjoying Alki beach with my family and now I was halfway across the world on the back of a moped.
We toured a few apartments, Ricky helping to translate and note down the information. The biggest surprise was that none of the apartments had a kitchen. Only a couple even had a fridge. While I do look forward to trying all the food Taiwan has to offer, there is something very nice about cooking food for myself every once in a while.
We stopped for lunch, grabbed some 蛋饼 (egg pancake) and then continued our tour. At the end of five different places I had one apartment that I liked the look of, but was still interested in seeing apartments in Changhua, the bigger nearby city.
Hours 9-11
After the apartment search I had to wait at the school for a couple of hours until someone was free to take me to hotel. I was given the choice of a new hotel with a shared room or an old hotel with a single room. I chose old for the privacy and hoped that the place wouldn't be too sketchy.
Hours 11-23
I arrived at the hotel around 3pm and found myself in a tiny cell of a room. No windows, questionable stains on the bed, rickety air conditioning and nothing to do with my time. I was jet-lagged, scared that I had made the wrong decision in coming to Taiwan, concerned about the security of my luggage and didn't have cell service outside the WIFI of the room. I felt trapped. The next several hours included many tearful phone conversations with friends and family, intermittent sleeping, and a lot of staring at the ceiling in the dark, listening to the tail-end of a typhoon pound on the building. It was at this point that I really wanted to turn around and go home.
Hour 24
The next morning I rose, had a couple more tearful phone conversations and realized that I hadn't eaten since brunch the day before, so I set out to find some breakfast.
The 包子 (steamed bun) place recommend by one of the teachers was still closed, so I asked a couple of local people for directions to the nearest breakfast shop. It was the first time I'd used my Chinese with random strangers. With their help I was able to find my way to a breakfast place called Morni, place an order (蛋饼 again because it was all I could recognize on the menu) and secure food for myself. As the cashier handed over my food, I felt a rush of nervous excitement. I had gotten food by myself. I hadn't been murdered in the sketchy hotel. I was able to communicate with the locals. Maybe, just maybe, everything was going to be alright.
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