To me, Taiwan is a maze. The driving here is rather out of my confort zone as well. There will be people who don't even look before they pull out right infront of traffic, scooters that are screaming down the road right next to old men riding their bikes with all of their belongings piled up and hanging off, and big trucks that have to fit on one lane of traffic. Fortunately for me, Rob can swerve in and out with the best of them. He's like a driving genius and gets us out of the tightest spots. Even though the streets may be crazy I feel as safe as a bubble wrapped leprechaun in Fort Knox.

From the first day we were here Rob had streets and roadways memorized. Whenever someone has shown us the way to the school, store, or restaurant Rob has it locked away somewhere. He even has learned some of the characters to help us find stores. It astounds me how well he has adapted here and just how comfortable he is with everything. I feel so lucky to be here with him. It has been so easy for me to adapt knowing that I have a wonderful companion and buddy to help me along not only here in Taiwan but for eternity. I look forward to learning more from him throughout the year.

All is well here.

 Our roommates are moving out, thank goodness.  The girl flew out last night, but her husband (whose packing style is uncannily similar to Chris's) says he may not be out until Saturday.  Well, I guess I should say that he will be sleeping in another place, but his stuff will gradually trickle out of here for a few days.  I am awestricken at the quantity of crap one can accumulate over the course of a year.  I don't have much room to judge because Lauren and I learned how much junk (Lauren wouldn't call it junk) we had when we put it into storage, but I feel like this is a slightly different circumstance.  The Wellers seem to be oblivious to the fact that everything they get here will have to come back in two checked bags and a carry-on, or get thrown away here. 

We will be very happy once we have this apartment to ourselves.  It's a great place, and we feel like it will be a wonderful home for the next year.

The other night we took the garbage to the street, which may not seem like a noteworthy occasion, but it's nothing like taking the cans to the curb in Utah.  Taiwan is a very environmentally conscious country.  Our garbage needs to be sorted out into five different groups: metals, plastics, cardboard, paper, and compost/other.  That may sound like a lot, but it's really not as bad as it seems.  Our apartment complex collects all the recyclables, and every night a garbage truck snakes through the streets collecting the other refuse. It's easy to tell when the garbage truck is coming because it sounds like an ice-cream truck.  Once you can hear the jingle chiming up your way, it becomes a mad dash to get to the street in time.  We live on the top floor of an eleven story building and by the time we got to the ground floor we were in the most jam-packed, not to mention stinkiest, elevator this side of the Prime Meridian. We rushed out of the elevator to find about forty people waiting to toss their garbage. It was quite a sight.

I'm sure we'll have pictures coming soon... they are taking us to a place called Monkey Mountain. 

For our second day here, Rob and I took a little adventure to explore some of the stores in the area including the largest mall in Asia. (If that little tid bit of info doesn't bring you to Taiwan I don't know what will) It's call the "Dream Mall" and it was quite a site to see being eight floors and all. Also in Kaohsiung there is a Costco, IKEA, and a sort of Walmart that they call Carefore. Who would have though there would be a Costco here? I'm not sure how often we'll go to that corner of Kaohsiung, but it's good to know it's there if we need it.

We got a few apartment supplies and groceries from the Costco and started to head home when we got a little taste of the Taiwan rainy season. It was pretty brutal driving a scooter through all that rain but also quite an experience to have. We came home soaked through but at least it was a relief from the humid heat. We did take some pictures but you can't really tell how wet we are because we were wearing helmets. 

New Beginnings

After almost two days of travel we are finally lying down in what will be our apartment for the next year.  It has been a great trip so far.  After flying about fourteen hours we landed in Taipei expecting a ten hour layover before we flew to Kaohsiung in the morning.  When we landed, however, we were greeted by some friendly China Air personelle who informed us that our flight had been changed so that we would land at midnight in Kaohsiung.  Allegedly this was due to some immigration policy (uh huh.).  Anyways, originally we were going to be picked up at the airport by some people from the school, but since we landed at midnight we thought we'd just sleep in the airport lobby.  This too is allegedly against immigration policy (right.).  So we were kicked to the rainy midnight streets with nothing but our English language skills and American money to help us out.  We looked at a Taxi driver and said, "Hotel."  He shot us back a glance that spoke more eloquently than all of his English abilities combined, which basically amounted to, "what kind of idiots don't know what they are going to do when they land in a foreign country?"  

When we finally arrived at the hotel of his choosing, the illustrious Golf Hotel, we learned that they didn't accept American currency (what a shock.).  Fortunately, the taxi driver was willing to exchange with us.  It was probably the worst exchange rate in all Taiwan, but it got us a ride, a room for a night, and a hot breakfast.  All in all, it was great, and probably better than just flying in in the morning.  This way we were able to start fresh with a shower in the morning.  I'm not sure how well adjusted we are to the time difference yet, but I imagine the jet lag will not be too bad.  We stayed up most of the flight and fell asleep about midnight here and slept for about eight hours.  

I emailed the school from the hotel and told us to pick us up at the hotel this morning.  From that moment on it has been non-stop running from place to place, getting acquainted at the school.  Lauren and I can't help but feel somewhat overwhelmed with the whole deal.  It's a lot to take in, but we'll make the adjustments we need.  We just hope we don't go crazy living with these people who we are sharing the apartment with.  The guy is pretty obtuse and the apartment is crazy with clutter.  We can't fathom how they accumulated so much junk in just a year.  We will not follow a similar path, that's for sure.  We are excited to turn this into our apartment because it is really nice, spacious, and well furnished.  With all of their clutter it's a mess, but it will be nice once Lauren and I are able to clean it up.

This is the view from our kitchen window and above is the front of the hotel we stayed at. I wish I had taken a picture of the whole hotel but I suppose this will do.