We know where we are going!!

Hello everyone,
We have finally found out where it is we are going to be living for the next year at least. We are going to be living in Changhua City, which is in west central Taiwan. It is only about 20 minutes outside of the third largest city, Taichung. Changhua is a pretty small town, of about 230,000 people. Its not too much of a touristy town, but it does have the biggest Buddha statue on the island, and is surrounded by pretty mountains I'm told.



We will be working in the biggest branch that our company has, with around 1000 students. There will be at least seven other NST's (Native Speaking Teachers, like us!) at the school. We will be teaching all ages and skill levels. They are being really amazing, and trying to keep our working hours similar so that we are not constantly working opposite hours, like we were back in Minnesota. They are also looking around to find a couple options for apartments for us to look at when we get done with training next week, and we may be lucky enough that they find a furnished place!

On Saturday, we went to the Taipei Zoo. Two words, freakin' huge. It is about 4x the size of the San Diego Zoo, and man did our feet hurt at the end of the day. It was an absolutely fantastic place though. They had a Formosan section (Formosa is another name for Taiwan, the Portugese called it that when they "discovered" this place) which was very neat. There were some Formosan Monkeys which were highly entertaining. They were playing around on their trees/islands, which were surrounded by water, when all of a sudden a monkey did a cannonball into the water and started to swim around! Which wasn't a bad idea because it had to be at least 95 degrees outside at that point. Shortly after that, we got our first true experience with the weather we had been expecting from the start... massive amounts of rain. It poured for at least two hours. Even underneath an umbrella, we were very wet. At one point, we tried to walk through a "puddle" that turned out to be a small lake. Not exaggerating, it was at least three inches deep! On one photo you can kind of see just how hard it is raining, and if you look real close you can see a crocodile. Although we got very wet, it was an amazing day. We got to see lots of cool animals, and the actual zoo atmosphere is fantastic. The zoo was built into the mountains, and the plants and natural habit just added to the experience. Also, we found it really entertaining when walking through the "temperate zone" to see how amazed the locals were at a beaver. They also went absolutely crazy over the mountain lion. I imagine its something like us when we see a monkey in the wild, just grabbing our cameras and snapping away like crazy. We did get to see Pandas and Koalas too! Basically, it was a fabulous day and we hope you enjoy our pictures!

Our First Post

Hi everyone!


We have arrived, are relatively well-rested, and enjoying ourselves in Taiwan so far! The flights over were horrendously long, but Matt says he really enjoyed seeing some cool airports. I dont particularly enjoy any aspects of flying, but it got us here so thats what counts. We haven't had a lot of time yet to explore, as we have been jet-lagged and my feet got swollen on the 14 hour flight from Chicago to Seoul. However, we have gotten to explore the area where our hotel is located, had some really good food, and been able to see some of the amazing sights Taipei has to offer. This morning we went to Taipei 101, currently the second tallest building in the world, where we travelled from the 5th floor all the way up to the 89th floor in 37 seconds. It has the Guinness Record for fastest elevators in the world at 1010 m/min. It was quite a trip! Even being relatively terrified of heights, I did not get scared in the least bit (except a bit before we even got on the elevator). The view was simply spectacular! The pictures can not describe how beautiful the mountains surrounding this massive city are. Matt thinks that without a doubt it was the single most spectacular thing he has ever seen.

Also, the heat here in Taipei is terrible. It has been hot and humid every day, and unlike back home in Minnesota, the temperature does not cool off that much in the evenings, at least during the summer months. Even last night around eleven, both Matt and I got really hot walking around looking for some food to eat. 7-Elevens are nearly around every corner here, it seems like there is one on every block. We have discovered cold tea that is bottled just like soda. They taste amazing and really quench your thirst when walking down the street. We had our first experience today with the MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) today. Matt has never been on a subway before, but we discovered that it is quite easy to figure out the maps and transfers and is very convenient. We got from near our hotel to Taipei 101 and back for around $2US. That's about it for now, check back frequently for updates.