Category Archives: shopping

Mmm.. Ikea

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And we are furnished!

On the way to work yesterday morning, I passed by a store like two blocks away that sells second-hand TVs. After work, Jen and I walked down there and bought a 20inch old-school TV for $2000NT ($63USD) and taxi-ed it home. And the driver helped carry it to the elevator for us.

Then we had dinner at this buffet place a couple of blocks away. It’s a road-side buffet with a spread of about 30 different dishes and you get to pick whatever you want and then pay according to how much you get. Mine was $80NT ($2.51USD) for a plateful and rice. I think it’s the closest thing to a home-cooked meal for us.

The internet called me fat, right? So Jen and I walked to AsiaWorld, a mall, where the Ikea is. Ok, it was like a 30-minute walk and easily remedied by taking a bus. Anyways, we got a coffee table, pillows, toolkit, and some other things to make this place a little bit more homey.

We finally figured out the trash schedule. The garbage truck comes up to the alley at 6:03-6:08pm everyday except on Wednesdays and Sundays. There are recycling trucks that follow the garbage trucks, but you can only recycle certain things on certain days i.e. paper on mondays, plastics on tuesdays, etc. There are government-sanctioned trash bags that you have to buy at convenience stores where you can put anything in them and not have to sort it. Recycling stuff can go in any kind of bags and are a lot cheaper, therefore it kind of encourages you to recycle.

But there’s a problem.

Jen & I will never get home in time to meet the garbage truck. You have to take the trash to them because they don’t collect it. So as of right now, it looks like we have to be home at 6pm every Saturday night to be able to throw our trash away. Yuck.

Update: Jen ordered a bed base for her mattress from a furniture store across the street, so I took the opportunity to ask the salesman if he knew of the trash schedule around here. He told me there was another stop after 9pm which is perfect. So last night, we got to meet the garbage truck! It’s good to know that we won’t have piles of garbage laying around our apartment.

Two Weeks

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We have an apartment! It’s about halfway between Jen’s and my work. It’s also across the street from a Carrefour and a block away from the Living Mall, which has a movie theater too. Prime location, indeed.

We’re paying $18000NT a month, not counting utilities, which translates to $575USD a month so that equals about $300 apiece with utilities. As you can tell, Taiwan is very affordable. You can get a meal for about $30-50NT, which is about $1-2USD. A can of coke is $15NT, which is 50cents. And to put it into perspective, as of now, I work 13.5 hours a week and I get paid $620NT ($20USD) an hour.

We’ve found a couple of furniture/house sales online where some English teachers are moving back home. Our apartment already comes with a sofa, TV cabinet, full size bed, desk, fridge, air conditioning, and a washing machine. (Fridges, AC, and washing machines do not usually come with places, and dryers do not even exist. You hang clothes up to dry.) There are two bedrooms: one’s a regular size bedroom, and the other is probably half the size of that and does not quite fit in. I’m taking the big one for now, and Jen and I will switch halfway through the year. Anyways, we’re trying to sparsely furnish our place since we’re not staying long anyway. Jen needs a bed, and we need a TV.

We’ve met tons of Americans/non-Taiwanese people who’ve been here for 3, 4, 8, 12 and such years. The interesting thing is that most of them intended to come and teach English for a year and ended up staying for much longer. They say that life is too comfortable here, which we can see why, since everything is so much more affordable and teaching English is quite a lucrative job. Jen and I are a bit scared that that may happen to us. What if we never want to leave?

My older cousin, Maggie, tried to take us to the Millet exhibition, but when we got there, the line was down about three blocks and looped back around. I wasn’t that excited about seeing paintings on a wall to wait that long; besides Jen had already seen them in France, which is probably the real deal. That’s definitely one thing I’ve noticed about the people here: they like to wait in lines for pretty much everything. And they’re so patient about it too. The last time I saw a line like this back in the States was when the Apple iPhone first came out or something.

We’ve been to two night markets thus far, which are amazing, since you can buy pretty much anything and everything there for cheap. The food is amazing, of course. I’ve eaten so much fruit since I’ve been here. Every day, I’ve had at least a cup of fresh-squeezed of something, mostly mangoes and guavas.

(Jen has pictures up, so go see them for a bit of satisfaction. I promise, promise, I’ll put more up when I don’t have to share the internet cable every 10 minutes.)

I Think I’ve Died..

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I have found my slice of heaven here in Taipei. It’s called SOGO shopping mall and has everything from Hermès to Christian Dior to Shu Uemura to Kate Spade. It’s like Sephora, Green Hills Mall, and 5th Avenue all compacted in two separate buildings with about ten floors each and they’re all filled with pretty and expensive things. It even has a bookstore consisting mostly of English books. I think I’ve bought more English books and magazines than anything else since I’ve been here, especially purses or shoes. You should be proud of me.

Fun Fact for the Day: Did you know that they don’t eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches here? It’s either a peanut butter sandwich or a jelly sandwich, but never together. I let my cousin take a bite, and she freaked out. Strange.

There is now air conditioning at my Uncle’s place. They just had it installed yesterday. I kind of had hoped that it wasn’t because Jennifer and I were staying there, and they thought we wouldn’t be used to the heat. We were coping just fine. However, it seems like they’ve been talking about it for awhile, and we just sped up the process.

I have a job offer! It’s from my favorite place out of all the places that I interviewed at last week. It’s in Neihu, which is about 20 minutes outside of downtown Taipei (and 20 minutes from SOGO). Even though it’s only part time in the afternoons, I think I’m going to take it and then find another part time morning at another place close by. And I never know, it might turn into full time. I’ll make a decision tomorrow. In the meantime, I technically have a job!

There is Hope

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It’s way too hot here… there’s no air conditioning here at my aunt’s place, in fact not much anywhere, so we can only sleep with fans on in 90 degree weather.

I’m also way too dark-skinned for them here. My cousin, who’s 17, is currently in modeling high school where she learns to put on make up and how to put oneself look pretty. Anyways, she asked me if I wished I were paler.

The toilets are half normal ones and half squatting ones. I’m not a big fan of the squatting toilets. I’m always afraid I’ll pee on my shoes or something, and there’s just something unsettling about my face being so close to all of that. The idea is that it’s more sanitary because your butt doesn’t actually touch anything, but if you’re squatting, putting your face so close to all that can’t be sanitary either. And hardly any public places have toilet paper available, so most of the time you have to bring your own Kleenex. It’s times like these when I wish I were a boy.

Ok, I’m done with the gross stuff.

Yesterday, we went to visit more family. We went to Ying-ge, famous for its ceramics, and did touristy stuff. Here, all shopping streets are lined with little food kiosks with all sorts of random and delicious snacks. But if you eat something from just about every kiosk, then that’s just like three meals. My cousin and aunt from China are also in Taiwan for about a week. Apparently, the girls in the family, on my dad’s eyes, all have pretty eyes. I think my girl cousins’ eyes are the biggest with the super long eyelashes and the folded eyelids. I’m just a teensy bit jealous.

Today, we went shopping at Ximen, the biggest teenager hangout/shopping place ever. Ok, that’s a lie because everywhere has hardcore shopping places. But imagine your local teenage hangout or where you meet up with your high school friends, now multiply that place by a thousand and the people by a million. A bit of an exaggeration, but you get what I mean.

I bought a pair of chucks today. Now I need a new handbag to go with them. Did I mention that I love to shop? I decided to wear the chucks right after I bought them because the flip flops I bought the other day were hurting my feet, so I had to buy socks. Then I got blisters from the chucks. We do a lot of walking here.

As for the real reasons why we’re here in Taiwan, we do have job interviews! Tomorrow, Jennifer needs to get a health check, and then we need to go far out of the city for one of Jennifer’s interview. (She didn’t know where any of the places are, so the only place she called today asked her to come in to interview tomorrow, and of course it was the furthest away. And she most likely won’t take it, but it’s ok because we need to see what the interviews are like.) After that, we need to come back here and meet with a lady who works for a company who helps schools find English teachers. And then on Thursday, I have another interview with another lady at another school.

If you didn’t know already, some of these English schools will only hire foreign-looking teachers. There are parents who won’t pay for their students to attend the schools if they don’t think that the teachers are the best. And since the parents have no other way to compare the English levels, they can only do it based on appearance. But I already sent my pictures to the schools that I’m going to interview at, so I’m not worried that they’ll reject me because they only hire foreign people. That has been one of my biggest concerns lately, and I’m pretty certain that Jennifer should find a job before I do with the least amount of effort.

Night Is Now Officially Day

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Here, I am always perpetually eating. Imagine three official and big-portioned meals and some sort of snack in between. And I’m not talking about half a bag of chips for snacks, but more like a mini-meal. It’s a good thing that I’m always perpetually sweating; have to keep off the weight somehow, right?

We woke up at 7am and couldn’t fall back asleep. Guess we’re not adjusted to the time difference yet.

Breakfast was amazing. I don’t usually eat breakfasts at home, but here, I would dutifully eat it every day. Eggs, turnip cakes, pita salads, almond juice, and rice milk.

Lunch at this amazing hole-in-the-wall place for beef soup noodles. Then again, about every other food joint is a hole-in-the-wall place, and you have to go through the locals to know which ones are the best. This place is famous for its broth, and not so much the beef or the noodles, and the line was out the door after we got there.

Off to the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. For those of you who don’t know who he is, he was the first president of Taiwan. Lots of big old buildings, giant statues, and lots of old stuff.

Then to Longshan Temple, very big and very popular with the tourists, surrounded by tons of shopping and food joints. We went and got shaved ice at a popular place that’s been around since 1920. Walked around a bit, did some shopping, bought my first pair of flip-flops. And the shopping begins.

We went back to my dad’s house, the place where I was born and grew up in for the first three years of my life. Had a mini-family reunion at my Uncle’s new Karaoke place down the street. Again, more food: amazing dumplings that my Aunt made, clams, fresh-not-frozen edamame, Chinese water spinach, tofu, fish.. did I mention that we eat a lot here?

Back in the States, I don’t have all my family there. I have an aunt and her family up in Ohio, whom we visit about once a year, and my great aunt and uncle out in California whom I don’t see very much. So I’ve always been a teeny bit jealous when my friends always talk about hanging out with their cousins, seeing their grandparents, or big family reunions. It’s a bit strange to see uncles look like my dad and aunts who I’ve always been mesmerized by as a child with a different perspective years later. There’s a different dynamic with every aunt, whereas all my uncles are the same, easy-going and fun like my dad and grandfather. And the thing is, they all love me that can only be expressed by food and entertainment. My cousins are all so big now, and I only remember them as children. It’s nice to know that I have family, and it’s definitely made the transition easier.

Jennifer has been doing fantastic, willing to try everything and has taken on quite a palate for most of the food here. She’s been openly practicing her Chinese with my family, and they’ve taken on quite a liking to her. We went and had our hair washed at a salon which, by the way, was less than $5 USD for 10 minutes of hard-core shoulder and head massage, 30-45 minutes of intense hair washing: shampoo three times for about 15 minutes each, then a really long rinse, and a blow dry and hair styling at the end. It was less than $5, to the point where Jennifer and I felt kind of bad for paying so little, and also there are no tips here in Taiwan.

But I digress; Jennifer fascinated everyone at the salon. Everyone here, my family included, thinks she has doll-like features and is so awed by her beauty. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell her when she keeps saying that everyone is staring at her a bit too long, as if they’ve never seen an American before. Oh, but they have, and we have confirmation that she’s just way too pretty. I told her she should start wearing big sunglasses, and I’m going to start going around and calling her Julia Roberts. I plan on exploiting Jennifer quite a bit. =)

I will put up more pictures when I get time, but Jennifer needs to use our only ethernet cable. But here’s one for the road.