Earthquake

We had a minor earthquake tremor on Sunday night!  It was the first time I've ever felt one.  I thought Aaron was jumping up and down in the apartment...haha!

Urban Forest

That's the name of our apartment!  We are very happy we found such a great place to live.  We were worried after our initial searching, but we've found a very modern (pretty hi-tech) abode.  :-)  We moved in on Saturday and went shopping for some essentials like toilet paper, towels.  Then on Sunday we explored the area around our apartment.  One of the best (so we've heard) bookstores and Starbucks is on the corner of the street--maybe 50 feet away from our apartment!  Our view out of the bedrooms is great and there is a park across the street.  I love people watching, so I've been glancing out every now and then to see what's going on in the park!

We are the only tenants on the 5th floor- 2nd Floor is EF Tours, 3rd Floor is a Beauty Salon, 4th Floor is a Psychologist office (but hasn't moved in yet).  The elevator always smells good because of the salon!  ;)  We discovered that our apartment includes security cameras in the bedrooms, dining room, hallway, and elevator.  So, as soon as we hear the elevator, we watch to see who is getting in the elevator and what they are doing.  Usually the women check themselves out in the mirror and fix their hair.  HAHA! 

We will take pictures of the apartment soon! Here is a picture of our business card that our real estate agent, Bettie, made for us  (BTW, her son's name is Kaiser!  hehe!):

Feel free to call us, or better yet, send us a package!  ;-)


Here is our rental car and our American sized parking space!  HAHA!  Aaron realized that parking in those spaces was pretty tricky, so the security guard showed him this spot.  He took it right away!  :)  The parking space is in the basement of the same building as Starbucks. 


It took forever for our internet to be set up because of all the wiring they had to work around throughout the building.  Then we went to IKEA!  IKEA in Kaosiung, Taiwan!  How cool!  (We also went to Costco, but I didn't take a picture of that.)  Kaosiung is the 2nd largest city in Taiwan.

Check out the scooters too:

My lunch today including a rice dumpling filled with pork and some sort of soup.  There is a place across the street from Starbucks that advertises that they make the best rice dumplings.  That's about all that's in English at this shop.  I just went there for lunch and risked asking them if they spoke any English and ordered a rice dumpling with 'pig'. They cook the rice dumplings in (I think) corn husks that are tied into a triangular shape and dropped into a big pot of boiling broth (again, I think!).    I have no idea what was in the soup, but it was good!  I do know it included what they call a Chinese doughnut for the dumpling part of the soup (that's the part of the soup that looks sort of slimy).  I got this entire meal for $50 NT, which is equivalent to about $1.50 USD!  So cheap!

 Here are some pictures I've just gotten around posting from Taipei:

Taipei 101

Our hotel

     

Eating chicken noodle soup with Chopsticks.  Go me!

Aaron at an American restaurant in Tainan.

 An Engrish sign at a department store:

Oh my, what a long post!  That's what happens when I don't have the internet for 4 days.  Talk to you soon!

I'm sort of a big deal...

I'm sort of a celebrity here in Taiwan. Three girls just asked to take pictures with me. No big deal.  :)

There is so much going on in Tainan in the evenings.  As I walk around during the day, many stores are closed and people are cleaning and organizing for the evening.  The city definitely is vibrant and comes alive at night.

Tuesday night we went to our first night market!  Too cool!  There were so many different people cooking and selling things.  There were socks and hats and a little bit of everything in between.  Fruits, veggies, and meats and other things I couldn't identify.  I smelled stinky tofu for the first time--BLAH!  I did try chicken feet too.  Just one.  It was chewy and didn't taste like much (not even like chicken!).  We would like to invited one of Aaron's coworkers to one of the night markets with us, so he/she can tell us about the different foods.  And maybe get us a better deal on some of the clothes.  We've heard you can bargain the price down, but because we're Americans, we will usually get the 'American price' for things.  I'm looking for a holder for my iTouch, so maybe that's the goal for the next night market. 


 Last night stumbled upon a different night market.  We started walking through and I saw chickens caged along this wall.  The next thing I see is someone butchering the chicken!  AAHH!  Blood, guts, and feathers everywhere!  Then there were seafood bits and fish heads everywhere.  I feel I'm so far removed from the food I eat in America.  I just go to Kroger and buy a pound of chicken and think nothing of it.  But here, you see the slimy scales of the fish before they are cooked...or they are just eaten raw.  Fish heads!  What the heck do you do with the fish heads?!

Hmmm...what's for dinner tonight?  Maybe there is another night market close by--no slaughter houses though, please!

Royal engagement

 I understand this blog is about my adventures here in Taiwan, but I just can't get over the fact that Prince William and Kate Middleton are engaged!  I just think they are too cute!  She's so pretty and seems very down to earth.

I love the fact that William gave her his mother's engagement ring too!  Isn't it gorgeous?!  (I like her dress too, btw!)

Oooh...and I can't wait to hear about all the wedding details!  I bet she is going to have an outrageous dress!  :)
Cheers!

International Apartment Hunters

After we arrived in Tainan on Saturday, we met with a real estate agent and started looking for an apartment.  I was so excited about this because along with looking for a place to live, you also get to see how others live and it is just a huge piece of culture that I wanted to learn about.  Well, ugh....the first place was awful!  It was dark, dirty, and stunk.  The appliances were old and the refrigerator was duct taped because it was broken.  Aaron and I took notes and acted enthusiastic about it because the owners were there and still hadn't moved all of their belongings out!  As soon as we got into the car, we had to tell the lady that this was not what we wanted and expected to see more in the top range of our budget.  The next 4 apartments that we saw were okay, but definitely not what we wanted.  The furniture was old and nothing was clean.  I just couldn't get over that--just cleaning the floors and furniture would have made a big difference!   So, Saturday's apartment search was a bust. I would have taken pictures to share with you, but they didn't let us. We were so tired that we fell asleep at 7pm without dinner.

Sunday's apartment search went MUCH better.  The first place we went to was sort of a Sex and the City meets Taiwan theme--very cool!  I know Aaron liked that it was more modern, but it was small and really girly!  It was like right out of a magazine. So, we told the lady that we would look at the other two apartments we were scheduled to see, but thought we'd take that one.  Man, are we glad we looked at the second apartment!  It's beautiful and spacious and in a great part of the city.  It even has a dryer and an oven which is unheard of here!  Even though we loved the 2nd apartment we wanted to take a look at the 3rd.  But it wasn't in as nice of an area and it wouldn't be move-in ready until December.  Again, I haven't taken any pictures yet, but I'll send some as soon as we move in (hopefully next week)! 

Breakfast is the hardest adjustment so far.  It has been an adventure in and of itself.  The Taiwanese (and I assume Chinese) eat salad type foods for breakfast.  They also eat congee (rice soup) that I have pictured in another post. They put all different types of seafood in it or pickled vegetables. The current congee soup at the breakfast buffet today was 'milk and fish congee'.  Umm..no thanks.  I feel that I can identify about 20% of the food on the breakfast buffet.  I'll be honest, I like trying new food but some of the breakfast items make me sick to my stomach.  I wonder if I am just so far removed for raw and natural foods that seeing a whole fish on a plate makes me queezy. 

I'm trying to be adventurous and taste new things so for lunch I ate this:

Again, I don't know what everything is, but this did taste good!  The meat was pork and the miso had shells in it.  It was served with chilled green tea.

Last night we went to an American restaurant that was recommended to us by Aaron's colleagues.  It was sort of like a country saloon and had things like steak and burgers.  Aaron ordered a steak and I had a chicken burger.  Well, I honestly don't think it was chicken.  How do you mess up chicken?!  When they brought us our food, they brought Aaron a  burger, so he corrected them and asked for a steak.  She took his back and brought out the steak within in a minute.  He steak was raw---chewy red rawness.  and I think the waitress messed up my order and gave me the ostrich burger.  Now, I've never had ostrich and I would have been okay with trying it, if I knew that that's what I was eating.  Neither of us finished our meal.

We might try the German restaurant tonight, so I hope we have better luck with it!

Tofu pudding

This looks disgusting, but it's good! 

Tofu pudding dessert topped with tapioca balls and red beans with brown sugar syrup. I did not add the red beans...yes, BEANS in the dessert!! ick!  The tofu isn't very sweet, but that's why it's surrounded by syrup.  mmm... :-)