Jaywalking

At the end of almost every crosswalk in Taipei City, there is the familiar "walk/don't walk" indicator. Along with a little green man, whose glowing bulbs actually flash to show it walking in place, there is the countdown of how long you have to cross the street. I have very mixed feelings about crosswalks in Taipei. On the upside, it takes all the guessing out of crossing the street. Many times I have been almost a block away from the crosswalk and saw the green man pacing in his yellow box. Instead of breaking into an uncomfortable trot to try to make the light, I see that I have a 68 second cushion, allowing me to continue my leisurely stroll across the street.

One thing is for sure, though: People don't jaywalk in Taiwan. No matter how many seconds left until the light changes, how wide the street is, it just doesn't happen. As a New Yorker, I'm inclined to step out onto the pavement as soon as I see an opportunity to squeeze between two cars. However, the amount of peer pressure I've felt from the Taiwanese people has done nothing short of snuff out those temptations.

Consider this... I was walking by myself, and I came to an intersection where my green man had just fizzled out only to be replaced by his evil twin- the little red man. He reappeared on the adjacent corner along with the number 97. The scene was desolate. I was at the only intersection in Taiwan where there weren't any cars or scooters. I looked around, and it was only me and a Taiwanese gentleman, who was next to me, waiting patiently on the sidewalk. At 85 seconds, still no cars had passed. I could see at least a quarter of a mile in either direction. Nothing. 70 seconds. I glanced at the man, as if to say, "If you go, I'll go, too. We don't have to tell anyone about this," but his eyes remained fixed on the red man. I glared at him, then leaned over the curb, giving an exaggerated look in both directions, then looked back at him. I could have easily been 100 yards closer to my destination, but the 3-way stalemate between this Taiwanese man, his glowing red counterpart, and the green pedestrian was too much for me to overcome.

Finally, I gave up trying to mentally persuade the man into crossing the empty street with me. 30 seconds to go, and a lone scooter zips through the intersection. 3, 2, 1. There is always a 5 second grace period where everyone gets the glaring red man. The man held strong. Finally, our little green savior appeared, and the Taiwanese man looked both ways and crossed the street.

The only conclusion I can come to after a few episodes similar to this is that Jaywalking is a capital offense, punishable only by tar and feathers, followed by being paraded through the city to be hanged in front of a large crowd.

Speaking Up

My pics
Dave's pics

Its been about 10 days since we landed in Taiwan and I feel as though I am adapting very well. By now, I get tired around 11 PM and sleep through until 8 AM. And its not like I'm starving; Dave and I are perfectly able to get two meals a day out of the hotel by ourselves. Sure there is a giant language barrier, but I'm starting to pick up the basics, even though resorting to caveman grunts and pointing like a child at things I want has been working just fine.*

One thing that I have both experienced and observed is that speaking another language to a native speaker brings a tremendous feeling of accomplishment. For example, I used my Mandarin phrase book to come up with a sentence to ask a waiter for another beer. When he brought over another beer, I did a mini touchdown dance because I broke down the barrier. When I finally reflected on these moments, I started to notice how many people go out of their way to try to speak to Dave and me in English. Just like my Mandarin, it is well rehearsed and carefully artiuclated, and usually ends with a goofy look of wide-eyes looking for approval.

For me, trying to speak to people in their native tongue is like picking up one of Tiger Woods' irons and telling him, "Hey, look what I can do." But after he grimaces , he grins and walks the 3 yards to pick up my ball, and another 7 yards to pick up the piece of earth that belongs on the fairway at my feet. (Side note- I have a tendency to pick a metaphor and run wildly with it) It's a nerve-racking experience, but its essentially what's happening. I'm on the PGA tour of Chinese speakers, and yeah, everyones watching me tee up, yeah, everyone sees my knees quivering, but knowing how it feels to play their role is a huge confidence boost.

Hitting the links is still a long way away for me, but caddying is the best place to observe and learn first hand. For now, I'm satisfied with the pleasure brought on by communicating in small sentences, although I'm told that like any gateway drug, pretty soon I'll be trying bigger and more complex sentences to reach a greater euphoria.


* I <3>

Pictures

I set up a photo album through Google. Click any one of these links to check them out. The link will always be available under my profile picture to the right.

Chicken Feet

The past few days have been pretty relaxed, as Dave and I are still getting adjusted to this new environment. We've figured out the subway system, seen some different parts of the city, and have been introduced to some good eats. All this, of course, is thanks to Uncle Fred. Even though we would have came to Taiwan if Fred wasn't here, it's extremely hard to imagine how we would be coping with the language barrier without him. Aside from being our tour guide, he also helped us with our hotel accommodations and has acted as an ice breaker in the couple of schools that we went to. Dave and I are infinitely grateful to have him helping us. Although, he was the one responsible for me ingesting a chicken foot (which is not a type of food that one would look at and seriously say, "Hm, I wonder what that is...").

So far the worst thing is that sleep has been off and on for me. I've been waking up at around 4:00 or 5:00 AM, which is not a pleasant experience. I lay in darkness and silence, sometimes putting my headphones on and pray that the sleep mix I've heard a thousand times will lull me back to sleep. No such luck.

Here's a little bit of what I've seen so far:

Our lovely temporary home. Sometimes I try to talk to the receptionist in Chinese. She laughs. Free Taiwanese breakfast buffet is great.

The Mall. It's big. There's another one of these across the street.


A microcosm of the scooter population in Taipei.


7-Eleven. There might be a 7-Eleven for every scooter in Taipei (I'm actually standing outside of one while taking this picture (not a joke).).


Stores and scooters.

For more insight, entertainment, pictures, and an alternate view, check out what Dave's up to.
Also, get your vaccinations (or don't). Yellow fever is spreading through New Paltz.
Hopefully more stories and a consistent sleep cycle on the way.

Skype

The computers here at the hotel have Skype, so if anyone wants to talk (no webcam yet), let me know when and we'll set up a time. Figure around 8-10 AM or PM.

Jet lag

I feel like for the amount of time I've been gone not a whole lot has happened. I got on a plane, I got off a plane. Got on another plane, got off that plane, got on a bus and went to sleep in a hotel.

The first flight was pretty amazing. I didn't sleep at all the entire time, probably from the excitement. About every hour I was offered green tea, sometimes hot, sometimes cold. For our first meal we were offered a choice of either chicken cutlet or eel over rice. I hope at this point everyone knows that there was really no question what Dave and I chose. The phrase "When in Rome..." has come into play a lot and will be dictating a lot of my life over the next year or so. Even so, I had to creepily watch the people around me before I started eating to make sure I didn't do/eat anything I wasn't supposed to do. Along with 2 other meals and a rice ball, I probably had about 8 cups of tea, 3 mini bottles of white wine, ice cream and some pringles.

For the first 4 or 5 hours (before I discovered that I had unlimited access to movies and games in the little screen in front of me) I stared at the flight map. It was pretty cool, although it was painful every time they showed how long we had until we landed. After we cut through Canada between Ottawa and Montreal, past Thunder Bay, and over Alaska, I stood up to stretch my legs. For the first time I had a kind of deep moment of reflection. I was basically standing on the International Date Line. I told Dave, "I don't think I could have ever pictured myself here in my life," to which he responded, "I don't think you give yourself enough credit." (anecdote later on how Dave gives me TOO much credit).

Nothing happened in Japan. We were too tired (it had been about 24 hours without sleep, and thats if your counting the 3 hours I slept after the 5 hour energy wore off) to do anything but sit at our terminal and read. The only thing I remember from the next flight is a nasty piece of chicken I ate. I was asleep as soon as my ass hit the seat.

Once in Taiwan, we changed our money, went through immigration and met up with Fred (a good friend of Dave's uncle), and the three of us took a bus to our hotel in Taipei. I'm not going to describe our room until I'm able to take a video of it with the webcam and post it up here. Which I hope doesn't lead anyone to believe the hotel isn't nice, because it is.

For those who care about the business part of this trip (hi mom!), we weren't here for 12 hours and I've already talked to 4 schools. Fred walked around the city with us and showed us a few schools and we dropped off our resumes and filled out applications.

That's it for now, sorry for long post. Actually I'm not.

[oh yeah, anecdote. conversation in Japan:
Me: I spent $30 on these sunglasses. They were designed by NASA and are High Definition and Polarized. I never spend money on sunglasses because I always lose them. How long before I lose them?
Dave: I'll give it a couple months.
I hope United likes their new donation.]

I made it

Ok you can stop feverishly refreshing the page to see if I've updated- I'm here!

We got into our hotel at about midnight last night and because of a combination of 25+ hours in travel and not having internet access in our room, this is the first word out that we're here. So, you heard it here first.

So far its everything I expected: everyone speaks Chinese and it's VERY humid. We are going to spend today getting acquainted with the area around our hotel and see if we can get internet in our room.

This is just an "I arrived safely" post to ease your worried minds; I have much to talk about later. Hope the rest of Thursday goes well, Friday is going well for me and Dave here in Taipei!

Check back later for more.

The Final Countdown

It’s late Tuesday night, just about to be early Wednesday morning. In 12 hours I’ll be on a plane. Then, after spending 22 hours in the air and 3 hours in Tokyo, I’ll finally be in Taiwan. It’ll be about midnight on Thursday (Taiwan time, noon in NY) at that point. (Since daylight savings time, the world clocks on the right have become pretty much obsolete, assuming you know the difference between AM and PM.)

Right now I’m considering pulling an all-nighter for a few reasons: in 36 hours, my entire life will be reversed; sunrise will be when sunset usually is and I’ll be drinking orange juice instead of beer while watching hockey games. Staying up all night would hopefully give me a head start on the ultimate jetlag time difference. Also, if I try to stay awake all night, I’ll be pretty damn tired come time to board the plane and The more time in the air I spend sleeping the better.

All right, I’m convinced. I’ll try to stay up.

Beyond your front door

It’s official: I’m going to Taiwan.

You might be thinking, “You have a week until you leave and its just now official?” After all, it was official after I signed up for the TEFL class, and it was even more official after I bought a one-way plane ticket. However, on Friday, the Taiwan government granted me permission to visit their country.

In preparation for next Wednesday, the process that has been by far the most nerve-racking has been getting the visa. On Thursday, Dave and I went into the city to the TECO (Taipei Economic and Cultural Office) to apply for the 60-day visitor visa. The processing fee for all the paperwork was $131, and we signed a line stating that we understood they reserve the right to deny our visas, for any reason, and they don’t have to tell us why. So you can understand the anxiety after all that we have done in preparation, only to lay ourselves at the mercy of the folks over at TECO and possibly have our visas denied.

“Come back tomorrow at 1:00,” they told us, which did nothing to ease the pit in my stomach. The suspense element is lost here since I began this post with the end to this story, but needless to say, the 24-hour period of our judgment was terrifying. However, with the visa, there is really nothing else to do besides show up at the airport next Wednesday. Any nervousness I may have been feeling has all subsided and been replaced by relief and excited anticipation.

In celebration, I went to New Paltz for the weekend and had a great time and said my goodbyes to a lot of people. There probably aren’t going to be very many people I see in the next week.








So long, snow!







(get it?)