Busyness

Dang, Taiwan keeps me busy. Anyway, here's the rest of the good stuff about Taiwan.

Afternoon naps

Everyone (well, mostly) in Taiwan takes an afternoon nap. This starts in elementary school and continues into the workplace. Since I work part time, sometimes I come in after noon and I see everybody with their heads on their desks, snoozing away. It's very strange. I like the idea though, hehe. Gives me a chance to take a nap after lunch.

Taiwan BBQs

So last week I went to a BBQ. First of all, it's pretty hard to find a good place to BBQ cuz there's no room in the city. So you have to drive out of the city, or find a park or something. Anyway, the weirdest thing is that they eat their meat with bread. They just bring a bunch of sliced bread, cook the meat and make sandwiches. Kinda weird, but I guess it works. The fish is really good though.

Umbrellas

Taiwanese have a strange attachment to their umbrellas. First of all, if it's raining and you don't have an umbrella, you REALLY stand out. People look at you weird and everyone thinks your hair will fall out (cuz of the acid rain). The other strange thing is that if it's really sunny out, ALL the girls will take umbrellas with them to shield themselves from the sun. I heard a story where someone went to the US to study and the first time it was sunny, she took her umbrella. Everyone looked at her weird. That's the last time she did that in the US.

Bowling

I skipped work one day and went bowling with some friends. It's pretty much the same as the US, except their heaviest ball (at that bowling alley) was a 13. AND all their scoring machines are pretty messed up. It kept giving the wrong score and resetting the pins when it wasn't supposed to. Taiwanese bowl with only 1 ball (they don't grab two so you don't have to wait for the ball return).

Burping

Everyone here burps. Guys, girls, kids, adults, old people. You name it, they burp. Out loud. And they think nothing of it. It's kind of surprising at first, but then you get used to it.

Restaurants

Two things you need to be aware of about Taiwanese restaurants. First, is that the food comes out when it's READY. This means that everyone's food comes out at DIFFERENT times. Every few minutes somebody else's dish will come out, and everyone will encourage them to start eating. This frequently leads to the last person's order being forgotten by the waiter/waitress and them having to start eating 20 min after everyone else has started.

The other thing about restaurants is that if you find a worm, bug, mosquito or any other thing in your food, this is NORMAL. Happens all the time. You tell the waitress, and they first make sure that it's actually a bug, then they'll either 1) say "oh, that's nothing" and you just keep eating or 2) they will replace your food. It is considered a pretty good thing if they will do the latter without arguing. This comes from first hand experience by the way.

Clothes

If you go to a regular clothing store, you will notice one thing missing: a dressing room. Unless you go to a shopping mall, or to a very upscale store, usually the clothing stores don't let you try on clothes before you buy them. After you buy the clothes, you can't get a return, only an exchange. And no gift certificates. You either exchange it for something then and there, or you don't exchange it.

Roaches and scooters

Here's how they keep students in college in Taiwan. Alot of the walls around schools and colleges look like this.



I got to ride a scooter for real for the first time tonight. Someone let me ride it back home from church. It was pretty fun, but scary. Only the 3rd time I have ridden a scooter. Also, if the cops pulled me over, I would have to pay $200 US. Dang. I really want a scooter.

Oh, here's a pic of a roach I just killed. My hand is there for scale. I went to the bathroom, and must of stepped on it in the dark. After I came out, it was on its back missing a leg. I squished it and took a picture. Score: Jeff: 1 Taiwan Bugs: 0. Oh yeah.

New English Bible Study pics are posted.

When I spilled my drink in McDonald's

Ok, so last week I go to McDonald's to eat cuz I haven't been there in a while. I get my order, and head up the stairs to the seating area. (Everything in Taiwan is built vertically, if you didn't know, no room to expand sideways) Anyway, as I set my tray down, for whatever reason, God was in the mood to laugh. I tip over my drink, and the lid flies off, drenching my pants in Sprite ('sui bi' in Chinese). Ok, great. No problem, normally. But in Taiwan, I have no idea to tell someone that I just spilled my drink and ask them to come mop it up. Oh well, I head over to the bathrooms, clean myself up and grab some paper towels to clean it up myself. As I head back, there's some guy mopping up the floor close to where I was. Anyway, I'm hoping that he sees the spill and goes over to clean it up himself. Nope. So I try in vain to clean up a tall cup worth of Sprite and Ice off the floor with a few paper towels. It doesn't work too well. Back to the bathroom. I spot a cleaning cloth, quickly grab it and resume my wiping. Only after I'm done, does the guy come over, judge my cleaning not good enough (it wasn't anyway), and start mopping up the floor underneath my table while I sit there pretending not to notice. *sigh* I wonder what he was thinking, hehe.

When I almost fell off the escalator

Let's see........when I came back from Sherry's wedding, I arrived in Taiwan at around 9-10pm. Then, I had to take a bus back from the CKS (Chiang Kai Shek) International Airport to Taipei (about 1 hr). After that, I got on the MRT to go home. Mind you, I was lugging around my luggage and carry-on after being on a plane for about 14 hrs. So all went well until I got to my MRT station and started heading up the escalators to ground level. As I got on the escalator, I tried to roll my luggage onto one of the stairs, but it kinda got skewed and was in between two stairs. "Oh crap," I thought. So as the escalator moves up, my luggage falls backward, and me being in front of it does not provide me with any leverage and it pulls me down the stairs with it.......falling right into the woman behind me who started screaming and tried to catch me. She actually caught me (which I'm grateful for) and she looks at me all weird and says "are you okay?" To which I promptly replied, "Sorry." *sigh*

4 wheeler

Here's two pics of me riding the 4 wheeler.

So I decided to create a blog to tell you all the funny and interesting things that happen to me while I'm here in Taiwan. There's already a backlog of them, but I'll just start with today. Today after our prayer meeting somebody let me ride their scooter around. One thing I'll never understand is the mitten thingy's tied to the handles that protects Taiwanese hands from the sun. The person said they don't want freckles on their hands. Very strange. Anyway, now I REALLY want to buy a scooter and ride it around Taipei. Of course I can't cuz I don't have an ARC (Alien Residence Card) and I don't have an international driver's license. One more thing to do when I visit home. Another reason is I don't have any health insurance here, or a legal will. Those are both very important if/when you decide to ride a scooter in Taipei. =]