Dear friends,
After a week of silence, I am happy to announce that I finally got Internet installed in my apartment. I am staying with three other people in our spacious 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom apartment complete with kitchen, living room, laundry room, basic furnishings, and a balcony. The apartment (pictures to come)  is quite comfortable despite the occasional cockroach that pops up. Our apartment is right across the street from the South gate of the Kaohsiung Cultural Center. This is an excellent location because it is near Normal University where I can take Chinese classes. There are also lots of events, fairs, festivals, and activities that happen in the Cultural Center. For instance, every morning and evening I see Tai Chi classes and aerobic dance classes taking place in the Cultural Center. I hope to join one of these Tai Chi classes in the Cultural Center when I have a more concrete idea of what my schedule will look like. My current schedule is pretty relaxed; I take the bus to San Min Elementary School every morning and sit the whole day participating in orientation activities. Do not be fooled, though. Things have only just quieted down for us Fulbright English Teaching Assistants (ETAs). Everyday of last week was jampacked with activities. From applying for our Alien Resident Certificates (ARC) to waddling in the water at Qijin island, the Fulbright Program Coordinators kept us extraordinarily busy. Let me recap some of the highlights of last week when I did not have Internet.

When I first arrived, I stayed in the Hotel Kingdom with a fellow Fulbrighter. Since this fellow Fulbrighter and I were arriving a day before everyone else, we walked the city. My first impressions were:
1) There are a ton of scooters in Taiwan,
2) Taiwan's stoplights have a timer on them so you know how long you have to wait for the red light (pretty nice),
3) Aforementioned scooters do not pay attention to aforementioned stoplights, making crossing the street extremely crazy,
4) People love to stare at foreigners (well, they don't like to stare at me all that much because they think I'm a local. Then, they hear me speak and they laugh because my Chinese is "ma-ma-hu-hu" (so-so) and are impressed by my Caucasian friends who speak better Mandarin than I. It's a rather funny situation.),
5) There are palm trees lining the streets, and
6) There's a 7-11 convenience store almost every two blocks! At the 7-11, you can pay your utility bill, buy a SIM card (pre-paid phone card) for your cell phone, get hot dogs, umbrellas, etc. The function of the 7-11s here in Taiwan are much more versatile than in the United States.

The night I arrived, I had dinner with just our Program Coordinators (see pictures in Photo Set 1: Arrival & Settling In) and we went to the Taiwanese Film Archive.  The next day, I met all the other Kaohsiung ETA Fulbrighters. Most of them had a layover in Taipei before coming to Kaohsiung so they were able to chat and get to know one another. On that day (the 2nd day I arrived), our program coordinators took us on an AMAZING shopping excursion.

We all loaded up onto this huge tour bus and went to IKEA and Carrefour (a large supermarket) to buy stuff for our apartments. There are twelve of us Fulbright ETAs and three apartments; four people live in each apartment. Two of the apartments are near each other and are in the same security-guarded complex (that's my apartment, Apartment A, and Apartment B). Apartment C is about two blocks from where we live. We all loaded up into this tour bus and went shopping for four people and an apartment. You'll see pictures of us fooling around in IKEA (sitting at desks) here. After buying all this stuff, we moved into our apartments and were utterly exhausted the rest of the night.

The next day, we rested and took a boat tour on the "Love River" and went to Qijin island. It was incredibly fun and I got to see much of Taiwan. On the boat tour, I saw the Hong Kong Navy (I'm not too sure why it was there), and an oil rig. When we arrived at Qijin, a group of us decided to hike to the top of the lighthouse on Qijin island. The lighthouse was closed, but the scenic overlooks were absolutely beautiful. I had yummy barbecued squid for dinner later that day at Qijin. There was also a Taiwanese boy band playing in the open space at Qijin island. You'll see in the pictures a group dancing and holding a boat on top of their heads.

During the next few days, we applied for our ARCs (Alien Resident Certificate) visited Xiziwan Beach, visited English Village (a place where 5th graders and other students can come practice prearranged English dialogs), and ate/shopped at the night markets (specifically Liuhe Yeshi and Zhong Xiao).

Xiziwan Beach was very windy when we went, but the restaurant there was excellent. I've been eating some amazing food here in Kaohsiung. Kaohsiung is a seaport so there's lots and lots of seafood--my favorite!

In Kaohsiung, the government has been spending lots of money on establishing "English Village" sites. These are places where students can go to practice specific English dialogs. Since Kaohsiung, Taiwan will be hosting the 2009 World Games, the government wants the students to be able to interact with English speakers and introduce to them the city's history and people. However, the sites are not exclusively geared toward this goal. The English Village sites have over 20 environments (i.e. hotel, grocery store, airport, bank, post office, etc.) where Taiwanese children can practice conversational English. The English Village we went to in Ling Zhou was housed in a huge building with four levels. The ETAs will be participating in English Village a few hours each week in addition to teaching English at a specific school.

After visiting both Xiziwan Beach and one of the English Villages, the next memorable outing was at the night markets! I really like the night markets because I can practice bargaining. I got a wallet here for NT$150, which is a little over US$4. The food at the night markets were amazing. They had fish balls, barbecued squid (like the kind I ate at Qijin), bubble tea (which I never tasted until coming to Taiwan), and other assorted seafood. Liuhe Yeshi is the tourist night market and Zhong Xiao is a night market by where we live.

We've been very busy these past few weeks and now that I have Internet, I'll be updating much more frequently. This weekend, I planned a day trip for all of us Fulbrighters to go to Lotus Lake (Lianchitan) to visit Confucius Temple (Kong Miao), Spring and Autumn Pavilions (ChunQiu Ge), and the Dragon and Tiger Pagodas (Longhu Ta). It should be amazing and I hope the weather will be nice.

The weather so far has been very very humid and hot. I think it's a little more intense than Hong Kong. Kaohsiung is past the Tropic of Cancer so I wouldn't expect it to be cooler. I was very worried about the humidity damaging my clothes, but I bought so many water absorbers for my drawers and closet that I think I'm fine. My apartment also bought a dehumidifier to help dry our clothes in the laundry room.  If you come visit me, though, be ready to get drenched in sweat from the hot and wet climate.

So far, I am loving Taiwan and am so excited to meet the Local English Teachers (LETs). We meet them next week and depending on who we choose, we will go to their school. The Fulbright ETAs will all be teaching at elementary schools because our Kaohsiung group is the pilot group; the Foundation for Scholarly Exchange wants to be sure that the program is successful before moving it to the middle school level. It has been so much fun and I can't wait to begin the year, meet my kids, and mix with the locals!

I am now in Hong Kong. I arrived the day before yesterday after 23 hours of grueling travel. I traveled from Denver to Los Angeles International Airport and then to Taipei, Taiwan before finally arriving in Hong Kong. It certainly wasn't the most comfortable trip, but I did find some movies enjoyable. I was especially moved by this Chinese documentary on young Chinese children training at Li Xiaoshuang Gymnastics School. You can watch the entire film on YouTube. It's a very sad story of the hardships the the toddlers and families go through in pining for glory in gymnastics. It was especially wrenching when I heard the kids explain why they wanted to pursue gymnastics. I will not ruin the movie for you here, but I do suggest watching this film and discussing it with friends and family.

I am presently incredibly jetlagged. My family suggested I do the following to overcome jetlag:
1) Get outside and douse yourself in natural sunlight to reset your biological clock.
And,
2) Do not eat for approximately 12 hours before you want to wake up. In other words, don't snack when you're supposed to be sleeping on your new schedule. That seemed a bit obvious since you want to start a new sleep regime.

I leave for Kaohsiung, Taiwan next Thursday. It was a good idea to come to Hong Kong first so I could adjust to the time difference, climate, people, and language.  Since the flight to Taiwan is just about 2-3 hours, I'll feel more lively that day than if I just got off a 13-23 hour flight. I'm very excited about orientation and beginning teaching English to youngsters. To my fellow Fulbrighters who will be traveling soon to Taiwan, "Bon voyage!" and I can't wait to meet y'all!

Tomorrow, I will be getting my resident visa from the Taiwan Economic and Cultural Office in New York. I am currently in New York visiting family. Afterwards I will be traveling to Hong Kong from Denver, Colorado on July 19. Then it is off to Kaohsiung, Taiwan on July 31. I begin my training on August 1, 2008. Whoo!