We're in Taipei, Taiwan!

We’re here!!
We arrived safely in Taipei! It was a LONG plane ride—we flew from Greenville-Spartanburg to Newark, where we had a 4-hour layover. The flight out of Newark to Taipei was supposed to be at 11 pm, and it was delayed about an hour. This was especially problematic because our son, Luke, was pretty cranky at the Newark airport. In fact, he was pretty cranky a LOT of the trip, and STILL IS! He’s completely exhausted and jet-lagged. He won’t sleep when we want him to, and he sleeps when we don’t want him to! As I’ve told many of our friends, when he’s great, he’s great, but when he’s bad, well, let’s just say I wonder if he has 3 sixes hidden on his head! On top of that, ever since he was born he’s had an Oedipus Complex (we call him “Ed” for short), so he’s been especially draining! Lauren did extremely well—occasional whininess and moodiness, but outside of that she was pretty awesome.

Fion, a college student, met us at the airport. She’s extremely pleasant, speaks English well, and has already offered to baby sit our kids during the Fulbright orientation.

My first miscalculation was an ATM withdrawal at the Taipei airport. For some stupid reason, I expected the ATM to show everything in USD, but of course, everything showed up in NTs (Taiwan dollars). Since there was a line behind me, I choked and withdrew $500. I thought to myself, “surely $500 will be enough for a while,” and after I was finished I actually figured it out and realized I only had about $15 USD. Our second mistake was that we left John’s large suitcase of clothes at the airport! We didn’t even realize this until we were at our National Chengchi University (NCCU) apartment, after a 1-hour van ride.

The original plan was to go straight to the hotel and stay there until Sunday—after Sunday we’d move into our apartment. The Fulbright orientation is close to the hotel, so we were advised to stay there until the orientation. During our van ride to the hotel the plans changed—we would instead go straight to our apartment, unload some luggage, and then go back to the hotel. John and I were in favor of this idea because we were very curious to see the apartment. It turns out the apartment is really nice! It’s a recently renovated 3 BR 2 BA with a nice kitchen and very conveniently located. We have a 32-inch LCD television with HBO, Cinemax, CNN, ESPN (this is especially important since we want to keep track of the Green Bay Packers and the Georgia Bulldogs), and wireless Internet access. We’re really looking forward to urban living and taking public transportation—this lifestyle will be drastically different from our situation in Clemson, SC! But I’ve always wanted to experience this kind of living and I’m thrilled to be able to walk everywhere and not have to use a car. While I was retrieving our left luggage at the airport, John was able to check out NCCU and Lauren’s elementary school, and he was really impressed. The elementary school is an experimental school that’s associated with NCCU and is supposed to one of the best in Taipei. We’ll soon check out day care options for Luke, which are also supposedly excellent.

My main concern at this point is my commute to Chinese Culture University. NCCU is our home base since they are providing housing and schooling for Lauren. However, my teaching duties are at Chinese Culture University, which I just found out is over a 90-minute commute! I knew it would be long, but I was hoping for about an hour. I don’t have to go there every day, fortunately, but I didn’t know it would be that long! Oh, well, welcome to city living! I’ve been acclimated small-town living for the past 10 years, I have to keep telling myself people who live in big cities do this all the time.

My other concern is cash. Not lack of cash, but carrying SO MUCH. The Fulbright foundation here pays us completely in cash. When we arrived, Fion immediately gave us about $60,000 NT (ca. $2,000) in white envelopes. A former Taiwan Fulbrighter, John Labadie, told me that when you get these envelopes, you feel like you’re committing a drug deal, and he was completely right! People who know me well know that I rarely carry cash because I lose everything all the time! My colleagues at Clemson University laugh at me because I lock myself out of my office at least once a week.

The climate has been mild—mostly cloudy and rainy. My Chinese is pretty limited, but I’ve already found some of coming back to me. It’s amazing—when you’re forced to do something, your brain finds a way to survive! But when I ordered dinner this evening, I was VERY lame…..