Taiwan - The story so far

I thought scootering was like this...boy was i wrong!

Taiwan has been one big head spin so far.

Actually to be honest our time so far has been one big mind-shag. It has felt like the forces of doom have dressed up in its sexiest night clothes and taken my cranium for an almighty rogering.

It's Saturday afternoon here in Kaohsiung and i'm listening to AFL Finals Football and its come as a welcome relief. It all started Wednesday night when Sab and I landed Taiwan side a little tired but looking forward to getting settled into a year of hard work and fun. I was in the country for 5 minutes when the lady at passport control had a good look at my passport. You see, China and Taiwan aren't the best of friends. China considers Taiwan as a "renegade province of China" where as Taiwan wants to be a democratic country in its own right. With this business going on and with my previous workplaces being in China and Hong Kong, i could understand the look on the passport ladies face when she asked me "Have you been to China?" Even though i have 7 Chinese visas in my passport i stumbled an answer of "Yeah i was there a couple of years ago" which i'm sure didn't convince the lady behind the counter.

After picking up our luggage we were greeted by Steven who is our guide around town and representative. He's a pretty easy going guy who treated us to the best accomdation the town has to offer. The smell of nicotine filled the minivan as we pulled up out the front of our hotel. Taiwan has no English signs on the street so its Dalian all over again. The hotel rooms that Sab and I are staying in have been tailored to a specific market. The pinkinsh red carpet, large double bed, no windows, small bathroom and 3 hardcore adult movie channels on the TV made Sab and i come to the conclusion that our accomodation is actually a "love hotel." Sure the sight of Japanese girls and boys on the job after a while gets a bit boring but it was just the first of a series of adventures.

Thursday morning after a very good sleep in a very copmfortable bed, it was time to look at our schools that were shortlisted for us. there were four schools in the area that each had two positions avaliable so what we thought was four different schools under the same compnay name in the one city actually turned out to be something completly different. With steven smoking like a chimney already at 9am we made our way to the city of Tainan which is 30 mins north of Kaohsiung to a school called "Sesame." The school was actually a lot bigger than we thought it would be and it looked very nice. There was an actual office where there were actual adult sized desks to work on unlike Topkids in Tin Shui Wai where we had to use the kids desks to do our work. With another three schools to see it was time to travel a further hour north to a city which is home to the most beautiful kindergarten i have ever seen. It was more like a hotel for the kids rather than an educational facility and the principal was a really nice lady. Actually she was very helpful and really wanted us to start work there but the place was just "too American" for us. It was the best kindergarten in the area and the principal asked us to read a book to one of the classes in North American accent. I tried but it just didn't feel right. The school didn't feel right so on the way back to Tainan i asked Sab "straight throught to the keeper?" She agreed.

By the way..who the hell is Johnny Appleseed?

Back in the minivan and it was off to another school in some part of the country. By this time the rains were really coming down so all the windows were up yet Steven continued to smoke which really cheesed me off. I didn't say anything as while we were driving in the rain Steve was telling us about the different schools and Sab and I were leaning towards "Sesame" yet there were two more schools. We eventually made it to the front of another school which looked like a carbon copy of the language schoolwe worked at in Dalian. The english teachers there all had poxy Yankee accents even though some were from Australia and had only been there nine months. I'm not American and even though the United States is a major influence island side, i'm not prepared to let go of my accent, i'm too proud and stubborn in that respect. Hearing a guy from Brisbane talk like a hybrid Greg Norman didn't sit well with me.

We skipped the last school as by that time Sab and I decided that we are going to work at Sesame in Tainan. We met our new head teacher who was very nice and said that the school would help with our visas and finding a place to stay plus other stuff. We made our way back to our love hotel and after watching a bit of TV it was time for bed and the adventure that Friday would have in store for us.

Aftere a very nice sleep in it was time to get a new phonecard as the one i purchased yesterday wouldnt allow me to make calls or send messages. It was concluded that my Motorola phone i have had for a year somehow got water damage during the holiday even though i had never ever used it in two months. I was pissed as this phone was a year old and i had to buy a cheap second hand phone whilst they tried to fix it. It seems i have no luck with technology. Even with a brand new Dell laptop i had read that there was a product reacall of laptop batteries (which included my model) as the batteries may explode. First my iBook and now my Dell. I have no luck and maybe i should stick with smoke signals.


get on a scooter. Having travelled all around Southeast Asia we have had plenty of chances to get accustomed to the world of scootering but we never took the chance. As we found out the night before when we met our teacher, our initial job will be teaching English classes to kids at campuses around Tainan and the best and so far, only way to get around is by scooter so we had no choice but to get on and try it. It as time to jump on our chopper..a 50cc hell raising machine. i jumped on first and seeing it was the first time ever on a motorbike i accidentally hit the gas when i was trying to reverse back and the bike went straight into another scooter and i nearly went head first into a van! There's a scene in the film "American Graffiti" where Terry the Toad slams his scooter into another Vespa. It looked exactly like that.

Then i took it for a spin around the block and sort of got the hang of it. I got off and Sab had a little go outside the front of the building where Steven works at. The scooted was running off vapous so we had to try and find a petrol station. We eventually found one and filled it up and then it was time to battle the traffic again and find a quiet place for Sab to practise. We found a small area of streets that had no traffic so Sab went to the task at hand. She rode off to the end of the street and went around the block. Just as she was coming back to the place where i was standing i head a yelp from around the corner. I walked up the street a bit only to see Sab coming toward me pushing the scooter. She looked in shock as she told me as she was coming around the second to last corner, she hit the gas instead of the brake and hit a parked car.

She had a small cut on her leg but the worst part was her leg had somehow snapped the key and the bottom half of the key was jammed in the ignition. We couldnt call anyone as the only way to lift the seat to get to our phones was by turning the key in the ignition switch. We were stuck in some part of the city with no one who could speak English. Every street looked the same and we can't speak Mandarin even though with the time we had spent in China. Eventually we pushed our bie past a repair shop who said it would take 1000NT dollars to fix. Considering we rented the bike for a month for 2000NT it was a bit too much. We pushed again until we came across a guy who tried to fix it with a pair of pliers, something i tried to do when it first happened. Somehow there was a large toolbox at a chemist two doors down from where the accident happened. I thought with my limited experience i could som,ehow pull the key out or at least turn it so we could access our phones...but to no avail.

The plies guy pulled the front of the bike cover off, cut the cord from the ignition system ant hotwired the bike so it would start. He then told us to follow him to a repair shop. WE had to pay 650NT for a new ignition system and keys but the bike was fixed. it was given a mini service as well and "plier guy" gave us his details in case we have more trouble which was very nice of him. We were back on our way then we were completley lost. With traffic everywhere and only 30 mins experience on a bike, we were both clueless about what to do. Sab has since stated on her blog that she was more frightened on the back of the scooter then kyacking. We travelled around the city for an hour trying to find a landmark or a building to point us the way home. During this time we nearly had a head on accident as we were going straight through an intersection and a guy turning left from the opposite direction turned left and decided to stop right in front of me. I swerved just in time otherwise we would have flipped over the bike. The scootering here is a combination of "Roman Holiday" meets "Mad Max 2."

the sky was getting darker and the rain started to fall as we somehow found a bulding which we knew was only two blocks from our hotl. We eventually made it back and Sab will not get on a scooter anytime soon. Last night i went to the internet cafe and trid to update the blog but my computer was playing up but i gave up. This morning i went for another run around town and thought it would take about 45 minutes. It took an hour and a half which was both good and bad. I got straight back into the traffic and getting into the nitty-gritty of scootering Taiwan style. The saving grace is that even though its a crazy way to travel, Tainan is a smaller city so i'm hoping that it will be easier to get around.

Thats about it for now. It's been a roller coaster so far so hopefully after we get settled in it will be a lot better because so far its been far from impressive.