I made it to Kaohsiung in the south of Taiwan. 36 hours to complete three flights, one bus ride, one train trip and a lift on a scooter.
I am staying at my cousin Xenia and her husband Estienne’s apartment in the east of Kaohsiung city. They have been English teachers in Kaohsiung for 3 years and know all the ins and outs of the city. In their spare time they show me around and I am very grateful for the support base given to me.
No one speaks English and ordering the right food becomes tricky. Xenia and Estienne introduced me to their usual restaurants and street vendors where I can order food from. I mainly eat across the street at the Buddhist restaurant where I order veggies with rice and look at all the strange looking people. Travelling and finding accommodation in Kaohsiung would be extremely difficult had it not been for Xenia and Estienne. I often go for long walks or take the girl bicycle for rides to the harbour and city centre, but communicating to the people, reading a menu or asking directions are complicated and often frustrating. I would love to speak to the Taiwanese about their government, social issues or lifestyle, but the communication gap limits me. I therefore just observe the people and their culture.
I have only been in Taiwan for one week and I am spending all my time in one city. My observations and understanding of the people and the country will obviously develop over time. The reason why I am only based in Kaohsiung for the moment is because I need access to the internet and a postal address to receive documents. I applied to go teach English in South Korea and I need to be in contact with my agent and finalize my contract. I’ll go up to Taipei to arrange a working visa for South Korea at the embassy as soon as very thing is sorted with my contract. I am therefore still waiting like I did back in Cape Town; I just chose to wait in another country. I have received news from Korea that they need me to report for work on the 26th of March and I am waiting to hear from my agent as I am making this post - so my time in Taiwan will be short.
It was my birthday on the weekend and Estienne and Xenia took me on a scooter ride through the city to Cijin Island near the harbour. I’ve been cruising around on Xenia’s scooter for the past week and I love it. There are so many scooters on the road and even finding parking for the scooter becomes a challenge compared to back home where I would park anywhere. Xenia and Estienne gave me a Lomo fisheye camera for my birthday (so amped on the camera!!), so watch the blog for some of those pictures coming your way soon.
I need to start making plans in terms of visiting the embassy in Taipei and seeing as much as possible in the short time I have here. I need to be here in Kaohsiung to sort my Korea job out, but at the same time I want to go explore the east coast. I have an opportunity to go to the east coast on the weekend, so I am pretty excited for that.
These photos are some of the images I captured while cruising around on the bicycle or walking through the busy alleys of the city.
Just making this blog post possible was a mission - Downloading a one month free Photoshop, working on a PC with a pirated Windows copy and using a mouse that hardly responds made it all the more difficult. My future blog posts might even be more complicated, who knows?
