I Have Arrived

I made it! On June 21, I left for Taiwan and I arrived at about 6:00 am on June 23. The flight to San Francisco was very empty. I was the only person in my row. There would have been nearly enough for everyone on the plane to have their own row. Landing in San Francisco, I had a layover of about 4 hours. At that point I did not have a ticket for my next flight. I debated going out to the airline kiosks on the other side of security or just staying at the gate and waiting for a flight attendant. It stressed me out to think that a flight attendant might make me go out to security at the last moment, so I went to the airline kiosks. Besides, I had plenty of time I needed to kill. The line at the airline was very long. Many people had several packaged boxes to check. I asked a worker if I could move to a different line because I did not have any baggage to check. He directed me to a person without a line. 

The plane to Taiwan was the biggest and nicest airplane that I have ever been on. I was sitting in row 62 and there were probably at least 15 more rows behind me. The bathroom streamed classical music throughout the flight. I had a window seat and felt guilty for almost immediately asking the two men sitting next to me to get up so that I could use the bathroom. Before take-off a flight attendant came up to me and asked me if I was travelling alone. I was easy to spot because I was white and there was only one of me. She asked if I would be willing to switch seats with someone in the exit room who did not feel comfortable sitting in the exit row. I gladly agreed, because then I would not feel guilty about disturbing the two men beside me to use the bathroom. It was a good choice, I had more room and was right next to the bathroom. During the 12.5 hour flight, I watched some movies and slept for a couple of hours. While waiting in customs I ran into the woman that I switched seats with. She has been living in Santa Clara (where my parents recently lived for six months.) When I got through customs, someone from the school picked me up. The seven new teachers and I drove about 2 hours to reach Taichung. We checked into the hotel that we are staying at for the week. We then went to one of the school campuses to have lunch and meet with the other teachers. We got to see some of the students, who were adorable.

 After lunch, we went to the hospital to get physicals, so we can be approved for a work VISA. The hospital made it clear that we were in a different country. First, we had to strip down and change into a hospital gown to do a chest x-ray. The man operating the x-ray did not speak very much English. It took us several people through to figure out he was asking us if we were wearing a bra and if we had a baby." We filled out forms and waited in an area for them to call our names. Then, we did different rotations at a long table in the waiting room. They weighed/measured our height, did an eye test, took our heart rate and blood pressure, and listened to our heart. My blood pressure was high, which makes sense because I had just been on a plane for 16 hours. Also, I was paranoid that I would not pass my health exam and they would kick me out of the country.  They had me sit down and told me they would take it again in five minutes. They took my blood pressure again and it was still high. The nurse asked if I was nervous and I told her I had just gotten off a plane. She told me to just get some rest and exercise.  

The preferred method of transportation in Taiwan is by scooter. They are everywhere (see below). 

Drivers are a little crazy. 

Traffic laws in Taiwan. 

In the evening the other teachers took us out for pizza and shaved ice. We got to experience our first scooter rides. It was very nervous. It reminded me of when we went on ATVs on the sand dunes in Namibia (which you can read about here http://enternamibia.blogspot.tw/2012/02/xtreme-weekend-in-swakopmund.html). I held on very tight on the way there. By the way back I was wanting a scooter of my own.