Taichung Ho!
So I have finally arrived in Taichung. This is where I'll be teaching for the next twelve months and I love it so far. It's so much more beautiful than Taipei. The streets are wider, the buildings prettier, less polluted, less humid, traffic is actually managable, the streets are cleaners, and rent is CHEAP!
We are moving into our new apartment this afternoon. It's a beautiful high rise on a main road in Taichung City. It's about a 20 minute bus ride from the branch I'm teaching at and even closer once I get a scooter. We have four balconies (one is in my bedroom, that also has a private bath), an oven (which is rare in Taiwan), built in armoires, vanities, hard wood and tile floors, recessed lighting, and three amazing views. There are only two apartments on each floor, they are so big! From one side of the apartment you can see the mountains and the sun sets over the hills on the other side. The neighborhood is really close to a lot of grocery stores, bars, and expat hangouts if we get a little lonely and some of our friends from the training group are living in another building in the complex so we already have friends next door. We are meeting to buy mattresses today.
I start teaching on Monday and so far I have ten classes a week that each meet once a week. Seeing as each class has between 15-25 kids, that's a lot of names to learn, but I think I can handle it. We observed a class last night that was a little rowdy, but I think I can handle it. We'll see...Luckily, I won't be teaching any classes this month on Saturdays which is NOT a normal thing. Some people who have worked for years still have to work Saturdays, but they only had a few Saturday classes scheduled and I didn't get one. So nice weekends for me for a while!
In three weeks we all head back up to Taipei for another training session, this one only two days long. They'll put us up again, but before that I'll be going on a retreat to Kenting on the southern most tip of Taiwan. It's supposed to be beautiful there. We'll get a chance to meet a lot of the other teachers from the Taichung District there. I'm pretty pumped about that. It'll be a nice relaxing break from what I'm sure will be a very hectic few weeks of settling in and beginning to teach.
We are moving into our new apartment this afternoon. It's a beautiful high rise on a main road in Taichung City. It's about a 20 minute bus ride from the branch I'm teaching at and even closer once I get a scooter. We have four balconies (one is in my bedroom, that also has a private bath), an oven (which is rare in Taiwan), built in armoires, vanities, hard wood and tile floors, recessed lighting, and three amazing views. There are only two apartments on each floor, they are so big! From one side of the apartment you can see the mountains and the sun sets over the hills on the other side. The neighborhood is really close to a lot of grocery stores, bars, and expat hangouts if we get a little lonely and some of our friends from the training group are living in another building in the complex so we already have friends next door. We are meeting to buy mattresses today.
I start teaching on Monday and so far I have ten classes a week that each meet once a week. Seeing as each class has between 15-25 kids, that's a lot of names to learn, but I think I can handle it. We observed a class last night that was a little rowdy, but I think I can handle it. We'll see...Luckily, I won't be teaching any classes this month on Saturdays which is NOT a normal thing. Some people who have worked for years still have to work Saturdays, but they only had a few Saturday classes scheduled and I didn't get one. So nice weekends for me for a while!
In three weeks we all head back up to Taipei for another training session, this one only two days long. They'll put us up again, but before that I'll be going on a retreat to Kenting on the southern most tip of Taiwan. It's supposed to be beautiful there. We'll get a chance to meet a lot of the other teachers from the Taichung District there. I'm pretty pumped about that. It'll be a nice relaxing break from what I'm sure will be a very hectic few weeks of settling in and beginning to teach.
posted by CJ at 7:43 PM
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