4ever Discovering
A little over a month ago, I packed up my bright pink suitcases and said goodbye to my life in Canada. I took an opportunity to teach in a country I have never ever heard of… I know that sounds a little ridiculous, but why not? I said goodbye to my family, my friends, and my boyfriend and hello to a whole new world.
So this post is going to talk about what I learnt the few couples of weeks living in Taipei.
First off, I thought WAY more people would be able to speak English here. I mean the city population is over 2 million… Even before I left, everyone was saying that I would be fine Taipei is huge and lots of people speak English… Boy how I wish that was true… (to a certain point) Asking for direction, ordering food, and some of the simplest tasks can become 100x more difficult when you have a language barrier. Using symbols and signs can only take you so far, and google translate….. Do I put it simplified or traditional Chinese? YES, IT MATTERS. A few times, Danielle and I got rejected at restaurants, simply because the owners do not want to waste their time trying to communicate with us. Crazy!
The first task on our list of things to do was “FIND AN APARTMENT”.
I have never been apartment shopping in my life- when I stayed out of town at
university my friends had picked the house, and I live on residence in France,
and then with my grandma. So, my first time apartment shopping in Taipei.
Finding the perfect apartment was tricky, especially because we did not want to start our budget and settle when we knew we would be living there for 10 months. Danielle and I looked at over 15 apartments till we found the ONE. We even had one landlord turn us down because we were foreigners. We learnt that foreigners have a bad rep here; even your friendly Canadians. Some foreigners like to leave the apartment a mess and then leave the country. Another thing, apartments go really fast here, we looked at an apartment at 7PM- and thought it might be the one and said we would let the landlord know by 10 PM. We called at 9PM and the apartment was already taken. It’s hard because you don’t want to settle but everything gets taken so fast- advice- RELAX. Just keep positive, everything happens for a reason… (We had to say this to each other maybe 100 times a day)
My First Couple Weeks in Taipei
Having a beer after a long day of apartment shopping
First time ordering bubble tea was a success
Beautiful park near our apartment!
Another thing that I learnt or did not learn is breakfast. Breakfast is really weird here, I still don’t really know what people eat for breakfast. During the first week, Danielle and I stayed at a hotel and it had breakfast included- this breakfast had bread, cereal, fruits, the usual stuff but wait here comes the weirdness… It also had rice, seafood spaghetti, stir-fry veggies and noodles, chicken nuggets, and sometimes even chicken wings. Crazy! Danielle and I didn’t mind staying there for the first two weeks, but if it were the whole 10 months, I would need 3 hours a day with a personal trainer. LOL. Another weird fact, bubble tea and coffee shops are NOT open in the morning. People get their caffeine fix during the evenings and even at night. There are some popular shops that are open in the morning like 85 degrees, Dante, Louisa Coffee, so thankful for cafe lattes before class!
The first couple of weeks were filled with long day apartment shopping, setting up bank accounts, and getting immigration papers, and other boring stuff. Glad to say that’s over and we’re finally settled in!
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Time to start discovering the city!
Stay tuned for more post about my time here in Taipei!
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