The Move

I had a subbing gig on my birthday in Hsinchu. That was quite the experience. I taught three different classes, all of which had a vast difference in student behaviours even though they were all roughly the same age. It went pretty well though, and it was really nice to make some cash. I must say that some schools here make it very easy to teach. This place had a manual that broke down everything and told me what to do. And I mean EVERYTHING. Like, step one: teach them a basic meaning of the following words and go through spelling as they will have a speeling quiz next Wednesday. Step two: blah blah blah. Step 3: Play a game with them: Pick two students and have one close their eyes and the other describe a student sitting, and have the student with their eyes closed guess which student is being described (that's right, it even said exactly what kind of game to play with instructions). It was so simple. I'm pretty sure absolutely anyone could teach at some schools here. After I got paid, in cash which is super convenient, we went out to dinner. We hit up a proper Japanese restaurant where we sat on the floor and it was damned delicious! In case you didn't know, I really like Japanese food and could probably eat sashimi every day of the week. However, this was definitely a splurge kind of meal as that bill alone was significantly more than what we had spent on that whole week's worth of food (but it was worth it)!

The next day we decided to try the lantern festival again. Yet again we did not get to see any lanterns get released into the sky, but we did get to see the massive lanterns that had been submitted to the national contest. Some of them were ridiculously large. I have no idea how long some of these must have taken to construct, like this Gundam Wing character. It was still a pretty interesting night nonetheless.

Sunday afternoon we decided we needed to head back to Taipei to get the rest of our stuff. We stayed at the lovely hostel near Taipei Main Station that we had been to a few weeks prior. All I can say, we spent are night restlessly trying to kill mosquitoes who had woken us from our slumber. Although we killed many, with blood smears on the wall as proof, we still got eaten alive. I have a disgusting amount of red bumps and I also have this terrible habit of scratching them until my skin is raw. After that fiasco, it was time to catch the local train to Yuanlin. The train ride was just under three hours, but it was certainly worth it; beautiful views and the prospect of a job, visa and free accommodations for a year is great. Matthew seems to be in love with Taipei, perhaps because it is the largest city on the island, or perhaps it is because his old high school mate lives there. I, however, must disagree. Everytime we travel south, I like the more southern area better. Erlin is located in Changhua County, just south west of the city with the same name. It's about a 2hours and 45min drive south of Taipei, and a 2hours and 50mins drive to the southern most city. So, we are pretty close to half way on the west coast. The weather has been beautiful since arriving here, nothing under 22 degrees celcius thus far. And this is winter and apparently one of the coldest months; there hasn't been any rain here either (unlike Taipei).

On Monday we got aquainted with our "temporary" dorm room. It was occupied by the last foreign teacher and I swear it had never been cleaned. We also found out that the showerhead was clogged and the water leaked from the bathroom into the bedroom. But don't despair! We got a new room, one floor above it! Matthew spent the day cleaning it but it looks great, and the last tenant (a female) kept it clean and had even bought some things for it, like a wardrobe and a new showerhead. This apartment may also be a temporary one as a newer building will be available on April 1st. It is currently under renovations. I am hoping that it is nicer or at least bigger as this room will probably get to be a tight fit with two people living here. I anticipate we will get in each other's space within the month. This week I have been in training at my job and so far so good. People are pretty chill and super friendly and are always willing to help others in any way.