The Kidlets...

...are super cute. For real. One thing I'm quickly realizing is that kids are kids no matter where in the world you are. They still laugh when you make silly faces or tickle their bellies. They still like Lightning McQueen and Thomas the Train.

I've enjoyed getting to know their personalities so much. I love to hear them laugh. It just makes me smile.

It doesn't escape me that here I am in another country doing what I told myself I would never do. I never wanted to be a teacher. Having to deal with parents and the bureaucracy of education these days seemed like too much work to me.

But it feels right that I'm teaching here right now. Will this be my career when I get home? Probably not. But I can say that this experience will do great things for my future.

Ethan, Thomas, and Mini.

 Ethan comes in daily and says, " Good morning, Miss Kristi. You are beautiful." What's not to like, right?

Mini and Nini- They're both sweethearts.

Eric

Yuna and Mina.

 Mina is seriously beautiful. She is seriously one of the prettiest girl I've ever seen.

 Mina had crazy hair after nap time and my co-teacher did her hair like this. She was so embarrassed! She wouldn't even hold up her head for a picture. These are my stealthy attempts.

Library Field Trip

Last week , we took the kids on a field trip to the Jhunan Public Library. It was very cool to see a library in another country.

The kids first went to an auditorium where they watched a couple of episodes of Tom & Jerry, a classic in any language. They loved it, all of the kids were giggling like mad.

After the show, we went and looked at some books. In this room, everyone has to take their shoes off in order to go inside. The kids were so cute and I got to "read" with some of the kids. I did my best, seeing as I don't speak or read Chinese.

Ali, James and Eric- All kids in my class.

Micah and James- I love these guys.

We didn't stay too long, as a child's attention span soon wanders. It was nice to see more of the city I'll be living in for this next chapter of my life.

Hsinchu City

Hsinchu City is the closest big city to to where we live. Jhunan is small with not a lot to do. We've been to Hsinchu twice during our time in Taiwan, and it's been crazy!

All these scooters are parked at the train station. Crazy!

To get there you have to take the train, it's about a 15-minute ride. The train station is about a 20-minute walk from our apartment.

The arrival/departure boards were all in Chinese, but lucky for us they would occasionally flash in English. We bought our tickets, which were around $30 NT ($1 USD) and headed to the platform.

The platforms weren't that interesting. If you've seen one train station, you've pretty much seen them all.

The trains are packed here! I'm fairly certain they have no maximum occupancy regulations. There were so many people on the train. It was madness!

We arrived and there were so many cars and people everywhere. It's a little bit overwhelming, really. Drivers here rarely pay attention to the laws and it's a wee bit dangerous to be a pedestrian in Taiwan. While walking across the street (I had the right of way), I was almost hit 3 different times in the space of 15 seconds. People don't like to wait.

We walked around a bit and lunched at a KFC that was amazing. Seriously. The best McDonald's and KFC we've ever had and it was in Taiwan. Delicious...ly bad for you.

Sogo's is a GIANT department store across the street from the Hsinchu train station. It has like 12 or 13 floors of merchandise. Crazy!

Our First Day in Taiwan

Our bus driver, "Uncle" Bob, picked us up at the airport around 7:10 A.M. The welcome sign was a little ridiculous.

We went outside to wait for him to bring the bus around.

When he pulled up, we realized quickly that the seats in this bus were meant for little kids. It made for an awkward ride on my part. Craig sat in the front for the trip to the school.

 This blurry picture of a seat is where I started out the drive to the school. It was super uncomfortable and the bottom pad slid off the frame. It was a little ridiculous. Craig and I were cracking up!!

"Uncle" Bob speaks almost no English, so it was a fairly silent ride as Craig and I were exhausted and didn't really feel the need to speak. "Uncle" Bob stopped to get us coffee and we had no idea how to tell him that we don't drink coffee. He was in the store before we even knew what was happening.

7-11's are very popular here. You can usually find one every couple of blocks. We've bought hot dogs for dinner there a couple of times since being in Taiwan. It's one of the only places we can get to on foot before we buy bikes. Apparently you can do a lot more at the 7-11's here than in the US.  You can bank, pay bills, send mail, and purchase cell phone minutes from 7-11 here. It's kind of crazy.

We arrived at the school about 1 1/2 hours after leaving the airport. Before we even got out of the bus, we were driven to our apartment down the street from the school. I'll post about that later. We were allowed to have 30 minutes to unload and to "rest" before we were taken back to the school to be shown around and to sign our contracts etc.

Following the business aspect, we were taken to RT Mart, kind of like Target or a Super Walmart, where we did some shopping and had McDonald's.

We didn't get back to our apartment until around 2 P.M. local time, which is about 10 P.M. in the US. At this point we'd been going for almost 24 hours with no real sleep. Add to that culture shock and jet lag and we were done.

After checking in with my family, I fell asleep at 3:45 P.M. and woke up at 4:45 A.M. I slept for 13 hours and it felt amazing! So, so, good.

Day 1 complete, only a year and a half left to go!

The Flight Over

I flew to Taiwan on February 14th, 2012 AT 12:05 A.M. I was lucky to have a friend of my parents to upgrade my ticket to business class. So I had a slightly larger seat and a few more amenities than those in coach.

Every passenger had their own tv in the seat-back in front of them.  You could watch movies, play games, watch the route the plane traveled and even send emails or text messages if you were willing to pay.

I watched 4 movies, In Time, Moneyball, Freedom Writers, Like Crazy, and an episode of Mike and Molly.  I didn't sleep very much at all.

Each passenger was also given a small pillow, a blanket, and a pair of slippers for the long flight. It was pretty cool.

For dinner I had steak and potatoes, a roll, and some fruit. For dessert there were mini-Toblerone bars and shortbread cookies. It was pretty good.

We landed at 5:50 AM. , 2:00P.M. in America, after a 14 hour and 10 minute flight.

 We were so tired!

The airport was super hot and humid and right off the bat we saw an ad urging us to fight against   human trafficking. That's reassuring.

The first stamp in my passport!!

We made it through customs easily. After leaving the customs area we sat next to a planter's box that kind of smelled like pee to wait for our ride. I'll continue the rest of the story in the next post.