All right one big entry to satisfy many topics! Ready? And go…
The final day of my Tomb Sweeping holiday weekend was spent first by taking the train back to Taipei. I didn’t get a seat so it was an awesome 2 hours of standing back to the city. When I got back I headed to the zoo, as I had received an invite to meet some friends there during my journey home. We spent the afternoon taking in the pandas and other various animals. My first time there, the animals were all sleeping since it was hot out, so this visit they were a bit livelier. After the zoo, we headed over to one of the malls/cinemas and took in a movie. The western theaters here show the movies in English with Chinese subtitles, so we were able to enjoy them with no problem. We saw Gnomeo and Juliet, a cute film with lawn gnomes, how can you go wrong? After the movie, my friend who’s Korean picked out a Korean restaurant to go to. There were many dishes whose names I do not know but they were a Korean BBQ beef dish, a leek and seafood pancake, and another dish that was spicy and had vegetable and tube-like noodles made out of rice, all of it delicious.
The Thursday following this glorious weekend was amazing for two reasons: The arrival of my ARC card (Alien Resident Card) and my first payday here! The ARC makes me legal here and gets me perks like government health care and other such items. As for the payday, we get paid in cash here, so I get a glorious envelope of cash on the seventh of each month.
Finally, this weekend was a good one in Taipei. Saturday I taught in the morning, then spent the afternoon hanging out with friends, getting dinner, and going out dancing. Sunday was a laidback day of spending some of my pay money on much-needed apartment items. I obtained a few little things to make my apartment more livable. This included some more breathable sheets as it is warming up, a night side lamp so I don’t stumble trying to find my bed and a nice rug for the main area. Also, mosquito netting, as I have been getting eaten alive while I sleep! I ended up having to take a cab home from Ikea as there was no way I was getting all of that stuff onto a bus! Now it’s teaching all week until the next adventure!
