Taiwan

We made it to Taiwan safely on November 20th.

We've been staying with some friends and connections here in Taipei. We are in a town called Danshuei, the furthest north stop of the MRT train from Taipei.

Things are definitely new and unknown. We are slowly figuring out how to order food and building a list of place that we can eat via pointing to a picture or food.

I'm sorry that I have not blogged recently since we arrived. We do not have Internet where are staying and have only recently found some good coffee houses with wifi. I've taken a few photos but plan to take more before posting them.

We are working with a recruiter to find jobs teaching English. Currently, we are preparing a teaching DEMO that we will use during interviews with schools. Tomorrow (Friday), we will be presenting our teaching DEMO to the recruiters we are working with. This presentation is in preparation for an interview that we have next week.

I'm having a really great time trying all the new foods available - there is such a wealth of options! The only issue, and cause of much emotional frustration for me, is the fact that I can only order a very limited array of foods because of my limited knowledge. I look forward to learning Mandarin and learning how to eat using Chinese characters!

The food is so different from Thailand. We've been eating lots of noodles. The noodles are much thicker than noodles eaten in Thailand. I've had some amazing steamed buns. Still a mystery to me, these buns are filled with any number of things from meat to bean paste, and steamed. The shell of the bun is a really soft, moist, rice something or other - it seems to me like the bread of China, and it's made from rice.

The food is wonderful and I look forward to posting pictures and descriptions as time and opportunity allow.

Blessings,

Jonathan