"A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions."

I'm FINALLY in my real Taiwan home! :-)

I spent my last day at the Shang An Campus with my Unicorn class, along with T. Michelle's Rainbows and Sparkles class, at the National Museum of Natural Science.

We went into the Life Science exhibit, which included dinosaurs, fossils, and an extreme look into the human body.
It was rather depressing reading their insights on our decaying bodies after the age of 25, they also had a world population clock which sky-rocketed in the 2 minutes I watched it.


I had wondered if smokers lungs were any different than air polluted lungs, my question was answered there as well.

T. Michelle, T. Glory & I :-)









We then went to the Space IMAX theater, where we watched "SeaRex" on a screen that encircled around the entire seating. The chairs reclined almost completely horizontal which was nice. The show was all in Chinese so I made up my own dialogue :-)

It was overall one of my best days in Taiwan. I woke up happy, the sun was shining, and then my kids made me feel so loved as they rushed out to say goodbye to me. I almost made it out without crying, but like that 90s pop star once said, almost doesn't count.

I went for mango shaved ice one last time with the Palace girls. Finished packing, ate at a delicious 100NT ($3) joint across the street from the Palace, then we watched Monster's University which was surprisingly great!

Saturday, Uncle Michael helped my move my suitcases and my bike over to my new apartment where I will be living at the remainder of my time here with Kelly. Uncle Michael is the full time Taiwanese helper of all the Cornel staff. We call him Uncle because he really treats us all like family. He's the one who fixes our broken AC when it goes out in the middle of the afternoon on a Sunday, fixes our bikes when the chain falls off, fixes anything really... drives us to places when we don't have a scooter, sets us up with activities outside of school like volleyball or bowling, plays water-sports with the kids, and many more things I haven't even had to ask him for. He showed me a scooter yesterday that I may get, but I am trying to knock down the price from 12000NT to 10500NT. He is a genuine, caring man. We are lucky to have him.

Saturday I spent all day scrubbing and cleaning my room and my FIRST own bathroom!! I am very excited to have my own bathroom. I spent a few hours scrubbing the floors, walls, toilet, tub, trashcan, and sink. I enjoyed the fresh start and now it really feels like mine!

Our apartment is AMAZING and quite spacious for two people. We live on the 9th floor, and we are 5-10 minute bike ride to Nan Men, the campus I work at now. We live a few blocks away from a university, which is nice because there is a track we can use to run! One downside, our apartment does not have filtered water so we have to buy gallons. We do have to use a key fob to get up the elevator, just as in the Palace. We keep our shoes outside of our door as well. The apartment is completely furnished when we move in. Surprisingly, we have really nice living room furniture.The T.V. doesn't work (though I can't recall ever watching T.V. here). We have ceramic tile in all of the rooms. A dining room/hallway area with a small two person table. Off of the dining room to one side is my bathroom, the other side is the kitchen. Our kitchen does not have a lot of storage for food, our fridge is half the size of a regular fridge and there is not much cupboard space. Off of the kitchen is our patio, it is spacious as well. Our washer and dryer are out there as well as the beautiful view of Taichung city and mountains!

                                                                  Sunrise at the apartment.

Down the hall there are four rooms. Kelly's room is larger than mine, she has a twin bed, a desk, and her bathroom is connected to her room. My room has a queen size bed, a miniature patio (as of now it's filthy), and just enough space for me to get around comfortably. We have a spare bedroom with a twin bed, a desk, book shelves, and countless things that have been left by previous teachers. Then we have a dressing room. The dressing room is quite unique. Kelly and I each have our own "closet" and drawers, though there is more than we need. The room has a big mirror and a chair too. It is basically our dressing quarters. Unusual, but neat.

After the move and all the cleaning, Saturday night I was ready to have some fun! Kelly, Brittany, and I went out to XCube. Foreigners are a hit here. It would seem like we are famous. We didn't pay to get in or anything else that night. We were pulled onto the dance stage within minutes of being there, the crowd holds out their hands to us, mimic our dance moves, and we encourage the Taiwanese girls to join us. We met many great people. Two we met were Gina and Vicki, both Taiwanese with very good English, we are making future plans with them.


A HUGE difference about the girls here versus the girls back home: here, the girls want to meet, dance, share, love, enjoy new people. Back home girls compete for a meaningless guys attention, call each other names on the dance floor, stick to their group of friends and don't enjoy those around them. It's things like this that make me never want to leave.




I started teaching "Little Critters," which is Old Jangban, 4-5 year olds. I will teach them for 5 weeks. Devastating because after 2 days they had stolen my heart. It was a bit stressful to get thrown into this class with no observation, no conversation about it, nothing really to prep me for it. There are 12 students, 4 are girls. My Chinese teacher is Teacher Tonya. She probably thinks I'm an idiot since I have been winging it these first days.
After playing outside the students have to change their shirts and get their hair blow dried because they are soaked in sweat.


The kids listen very well, they are engulfed in what I say to them and their memory is very impressive. We spend a lot of time singing songs, reading books, doing crafts, did I mention singing songs? The actual curriculum starts next week, so this week we are reviewing colors, shapes, and learning about baby animals. There are so many personalities in the classroom. In two days I think I've gotten about 30 hugs. 2/3 being from the same little girl Lisa.







I will say they serve an amazing lunch at Nan Men. We are given three different choices, and even some fried food. Today they had dragon fruit, BUT that doesn't beat Shang An having mango!

Fun Facts:
There is NO DIET soda, anywhere on the entire island of Taiwan.
Burping is considered a sign of good digestion, not something to excuse.
The giant skyscraper buildings being built in Taichung will host up to 5 families in the entire building!
Ghost Month starts next week!
--Thanks for reading! Feel free to leave questions below if you have any! -K