Meeting Miaoli: from Italian Dinner to Night Market

It has been a few days since I last posted. Sorry for keeping you all waiting, so get ready for a pretty long post. I have been busy getting acquainted with the new life and getting settled down. This is now my third full day in Tongluo town, Miaoli County in Taiwan. Everything is going well so far and I think I'm settling in quite comfortably, but first, let's back track to last Friday, my first day in Miaoli.

Friday morning, we met with our school representatives at NAER in Taipei and together, we went over and signed the contract for my employment. My school sent 2 representatives to pick me up, Mr. Zhen and Custa, my co-teacher for the coming year, who is also the main one in charge of helping me out. Then we all bid our goodbyes and each headed back to our designated town.

Once in Tongluo, Miaoli, I was taken to my apartment to meet my landlord and his wife. They were both very nice and provided me with much assistance to help me settle into my new home. The place is fairly small, pretty much a studio bedroom, with an attached kitchen and a private bathroom. The washers are located outside and are shared with other tenants in the building. While small, it is quite cozy and has everything I need, cable TV, internet and water included in the rent, small refrigerator, stoves, hot water, dressers and cabinets, A/C, and the landlord is even kind enough to provide me with my own bicycle to use, which may take some practicing since I haven't been on a bike since forever. After dropping off my luggage, we went to take a tour of the school where I will be teaching at, Tongluo Elementary. It is fortunately right by my apartment, only about a 1-minute walk away, extremely convenient! The school is huge and looks very nice, though I didn't get to meet many teachers since school hasn't started and many teachers were not there.

 Front door of my apartment and street view

Washers in the front yard, with my bicycle

 Inside my studio bedroom

View of the back of my school, right around the corner of where I live

Another great thing is that another colleague of mine, Shannon, is assigned to the same town as me, and lives only a 20-minute walk away, so we can keep each other company and look out for each other when needed. We also happen to have the same landlord. That night, our gracious landlord and his family treated Shannon and I, as well as our school representatives, to a fancy Japanese dinner in a tatami-styled restaurant in town. There were so much food and it was delicious, one of the most authentic Japanese meals I've had. After dinner, our school representatives took us around town to get our cell phones and pick up daily necessities that we needed for our rooms. What I love most is how friendly and welcoming everyone is here, and how willing they all have been to go out of their ways to help us feel at home in this strange land.

 Tatami room

 Seafood hotpot

 Shrimp tempura

The next day, after being able to do my much needed laundry, my co-teacher Custa picked me up and we met up with Shannon and her school representative Beta to head to Miaoli city, which is roughly a 30-minute drive away from Tongluo, to have lunch and look around. We had some traditional Hakka dumplings and meatballs, and Taiwan's infamous bubble tea. We then walked along a busy shopping strip and visited some of the shops. They also took us to a giant supermarket Carrefour to buy more grocery and things for our rooms. The place was like the equivalent of a mall here, with its own parking garage, had a variety of individual shops, a food court, arcade, and sold practically everything, even many American food. Luckily, the county government provided us with a good amount of allowance to help us settle in, so we were able to freely buy everything we needed. Later that night, Custa and her boyfriend Jason, who lives in Hsinchu city, took me to a nice little Italian restaurant, and we enjoyed a surprisingly good Italian meal, consisting of salad, pine nuts pasta in pesto sauce, and a seafood pizza. Who's to say there's no good Western food here!

 Shopping strip in Miaoli City

 Traditional Hakka meatball, chewy skin with pork and veggie inside

 Yummy wontons!

Taiwan is the homeland of the infamous bubble milk tea

 Sweet soup with a variety of mochi balls, beans and tapioca

 Beautiful bridge we passed by on the way to dinner. It changes colors.

 Italian dinner in Taiwan

Sunday we had all to ourselves, with not much planned, so I spent the morning unpacking my things, then walked out to the main street to learn my way around town. My impression of Tongluo is that it is a fairly small town, only one main street. However, that makes for much convenience since everything is on one street and is within walking distance. Since everything is condensed into one main street, the street is very busy and has a good energy and liveliness to it. There is pretty much a convenient store at every corner, especially 7-Eleven. 7-Eleven is pretty much the dominating store here, and serves so much more functions than just a grocery store. There, you can access the ATM, print and copy, reload money into cell phone, buy phone card, and even buy tickets for train, buses, and special events. They even have a sticker system that lets you collect stickers to exchange for toys and cute Angry Bird mugs. Yup, no lies.

I met up with Shannon later on in the afternoon and we went to have lunch together at a local noodle shop, where we got to try ordering food completely on our own, which was quite an accomplishment since we were still experiencing so much culture shock. For the rest of the day, we just did more shopping and stayed home to organize everything and took it easy.

 Zhongzheng St., main street in Tongluo

 Train Station

 Mail time! Mail men drives scooter here

 Beautiful touches of ancient beauty

Today was much more eventful than yesterday. I got up early this morning and decided to do some more exploring while it was still cool outside. I wandered up a hill behind my apartment to discover a nice path and some steps leading up the hill. I decided to be adventurous and checked it out, following the steps upward. The steps led higher than I thought and I was short of breath by the time I reached the very top of the mountain. However, one look of the scenery below and it was all worth it. The view was breathtaking! There is a patio at the very top where you can see the entire view of the town and the mountains in the backdrop. The path continued onward, leading to more nature trails, scattered with wooden pavilions and benched here and there. It led out to an open park area, with a small playground and some nice landscaping around a big lily pond. What a delightful serendipitous finding it was! The best thing is that I will be able to access this view anytime I want, since it's right behind my place. What a great place to go to watch the sunrise, or for a peaceful nature walk!

 Beautiful view of Tongluo town

 Cows in the park?

Restrooms

For the rest of the day, our school representatives took me and Shannon to have lunch at a shop by the train station, then we headed to the bank to open our bank accounts, which took so long, but I'm glad we finally have our accounts and ATM cards ready.

Custa, Beta, Shannon and I tried out the night market tonight, which I have been looking forward to ever since we arrived in Taiwan. Night market is one of the most famous trademarks of Taiwan and is definitely a must-go here if you want to experience the culture and the food. Here in Tongluo, we have a night market every Monday night, from 6pm to 9pm. It's certainly smaller than those in the larger cities, but still has a lot of unique street food and is nice to visit for some entertainment. There was street food galore, with many alluring and bizarre varieties such as chicken feet, duck's heads and tongues, intestines, pig's blood cakes, snails, and of course, stinky tofu. I got the chance to try many different types and we filled our stomachs strolling down the street. I had a lot of fun, and will definitely be back.

 Takoyaki squid balls, mmm...

 Fried quail eggs

 How fun!

 Oyster omelets, another trademark food of Taiwan

 Buying some fried duck's tongues and necks with my co-teacher Custa and colleague Shannon

 Pig's blood cakes

Alright! That should catch you up with everything!

Tomorrow and Wednesday will be training days for all Foreign English Teachers in Miaoli county. we will have to meet at another town, Toufen, for our training. That means I will get to learn how to ride the train tomorrow. I love trains and it's also an efficient way to travel around Taiwan without a car. It should be fun, can't wait!