taiwan 101

getting here was the easiest thing in the world: no delays, no missed connections, no middle seats, no sleepless 13-hour flights. nyc to l.a. to taipei, arriving at 5:30 a.m. on a monday morning, with an hour to go until foreign-teacher orientation. the first day and the first week were a blur of of introductions and initiations. we met our fabulous and charismatic taiwanese leaders-- mama leah, fatbat mike, derek & doris plus military boys tom, clifford, and eric. they were the absolute best kinds of ambassadors-- so smart, so funny, and so cool! military boy, by the way, is a local term that is commonly mistranslated as "slave." we met the 30-odd north american teachers headed for various towns and cities around the island. also very smart, funny, and cool. we learned an unbelievable amount about taiwanese people, history, culture, education, food, and language. we received cool gifts of pencils with insertable tips, collapsible chopsticks, and canadian flag pins. we took the MRT (taiwanese subways-- municipal rapid transit), visited night markets (stall after stall of food, drink, clothing, and everything else under the sun), and saw major sights. and at the end of the week, we experienced typhoon morakot (thai "emerald"). this typhoon, which was expected to slam taipei, caused a good deal of wind and rain in taipei, but nothing compared to the flooding, mudslides, and general destruction witnessed by the rest of the island (mainly in the south). some teachers were able to leave, but the majority of us were essentially marooned in taipei. we never knew when that "tap on the shoulder" would come, with someone telling us that it was time to go... our friday departure turned into saturday, which turned into sunday, which turned into monday... we just sat tight at the howard international hotel and hung out with our new community of friendly teachers. finally, on monday morning, those of us who were headed for pingtung got word that the high speed rail was running and that tickets were available. and so finally we left taipei for the south.
goodbye, mama leah-- you are the best!

Photos: almost in asia; view of taipei from hotel window (and orientation HQ); the coolest lady in taiwan a.k.a. leah; night marketers (adora, me, mike, john, karin, marcia, mariah); taipei typhoon sky; night market fruit