首兩個星期/找房子

Coming to Taiwan to work in a public school as a licensed teacher definitely has its perks: plane ticket reimbursement, paid vacation, being able to come on a resident visa (and thus not having to do visa runs, which I've heard about from other people and sound stressful). Then again, I come to Taiwan on a resident visa, which means I have 15 days to apply for my ARC card (basically an ID card that lets you come and go from Taiwan and verifies your legit status as a foreign resident; size of a driver's license), and to apply for my ARC card I have to have an apartment with a lease from a landlord. And so the apartment search began...

But before I fully get into that, I need to say that the first five days I was in Taiwan were amazing. Not because I did anything that exciting, but because I was back in Taiwan.

During my lunch break today I walked down to 大稻埕碼頭, a scenic park-like area down by the Danshui River, and while I was there began trying to figure out why I like Taiwan so much. The first year I was in Taiwan, 大稻埕碼頭 was under a lot of construction and wasn't really all that great. The bike path was closed and there were some relatively unattractive sheets of green fencing blocking off the parts of the park that they were working on.

Bringing things back into the present; the work there was done and what I saw this time was an entirely different experience. Everything looked new: new tennis courts, basketball courts, shaded benches with a nice view of the river, a nicely paved bike path, the mountains/hills around Taipei in the near distance, etc. I rested my arms on the railing and looked at the river and thought: "this is nice." Then I started making some inevitable Portland comparisons.

Portland has some nice walkways along the river; Portland is surrounded by nice looking hills/mountains; Portland has better food; better beer; cleaner air; come on now, why did you have to leave, what really makes Taipei or Taiwan that much better? Why are you here?

The answer actually came to me pretty quickly: quiet. 

Taipei proper is smaller than Portland by about a quarter, with more than four times as many people. At any given stoplight during rush hour there is an insane build up of cars and scooters; you always have to be on the lookout to make sure some random taxi driver or scooter isn't going to run you over. There are people everywhere. It can be loud. But I'm not talking about external quiet.

The voyage into adulthood has not been without its hiccups. Really, I've always felt a little behind the curve. Late to finish college, aimless at times, restless, bouncing around; what does my place in the world look like? Teaching; yeah that sounds good. I'll be a teacher; or will I; substitute teach; that's ok for now; no, this actually sucks; remember when I really wanted to teach abroad? Oh, that thing I've wanted to do ever since 2003? Yeah, that thing. Now it's 2011, and it happened, you got to teach abroad, this is fucking rad. But maybe the timing wasn't right, and now you're back in Portland. My mind is screaming at me. What are you fucking doing? What the fuck is Inside Track? Is this the direction your life is heading?

So, remember when I said that this about my apartment search and my first two weeks in Taiwan. That's coming. However, a linear thinker I am not.

I mentioned those first five days in Taiwan. They were glorious. I put on headphones, soaked in my surroundings, took pictures, and walked with a subtle, yet perpetual, smile on my face.

And then I realized that I needed to find an apartment. Not applying for your ARC on time results in $75-350 fine, and while I was enjoying my time at the Taipei Fun House, because they are awesome and anyone that comes to visit or that ever goes to Taiwan should stay with them, I did need a place of my own.

So I looked, and looked, and looked...

At first I thought that living in a larger apartment with other people could be good. I would be able to live cheaply, have a big living space, kitchen, and maybe meet some cool people. Checking out one apartment in particular cured me of that idea. I walked in and saw my potential roommates and immediately thought: "living with people would actually suck." It wasn't them, it was me.

I started feeling a little stressed out.

I began looking for my own place. Predominately using the http://www.591.com.tw/ website to browse apartments. And so I browsed, a lot. I probably scanned close to 5000 apartments, clicked on at least 500 of those to learn more, and felt even remotely excited about exactly 1 of those. Yes, I was being picky. My last apartment was big and cheap. That should have been great. Unfortunately, it also had big spiders, big cockroaches, a big uncomfortable couch bench, big rats running around above us, mold, and felt isolated from a lot of the city. This time, I really wanted to picky. I wanted to be fucking stoked about where I was living, but still do that on a budget. I was really beginning to feel like a stuck up and privileged asshole; the antithesis of my ideal self living abroad; or my ideal self in general; who even knows. 

This last weekend (8/31-9/1) brought both serious doubts about my return to Taiwan and a fortunate turn of events.

As the stress of the apartment search, and my expectations around it began to build, the first five days of elation sank into a distant memory. My questioning of one thing resulted in a questioning of all things. Here I am, away from friends, family, my wife, trying to build what? What the fuck are you doing? Why are you here? What is the point of this? What are you working towards? Yeah, not so quiet.

And then things worked out. My former co-worker Dan (apparently the golden child of foreign teachers living in Taiwan, no joke) connected me to his former landlord (who loved him and said to me "Dan 比你說中文好"), who had a place that I didn't want because it had no cooking capability. However, because I was Dan's friend, she decided to connect me to her friend, who happened to have a place less than a ten minute walk away from my school. Of course, she also loves Dan. 

But she liked me too, and now I have my little apartment box, and I love it. Ten minutes to walk to work. Five minutes to walk to 迪化街, or down to the river. Pretty much in the middle of everything. I definitely feel pretty lucky with how things turned out.

I got my rental contract, applied for my ARC, got my bank account, got some money in the bank, and then...quiet. The noise that began to build had been superficial. It was part of a transition to returning to a new country and trying to get settled. I had begun to feel frustrated about the apartment search, and panic about not getting situated within the required time frame, but I realized that I had never questioned my place here, just become impatient with the process. Now that the transition processes are complete, most of the calm and contentment has returned, and now classes start next week.

Pictures:

 Doctor says i need a backiotomy.

Train rides and cycling paths...

I think I will come to terms with the fact Andrea is destined to be the blogger of the household. Seeing the time and effort she puts into each of her stories is a sight to behold, and one that I'm just not capable of duplicating. I hypothesize that I probably treat my blog like I did pretty much every paper I've ever written during my years in school. I wait until a night or two before the deadline and then write my first and final draft and call it a day. Herein of course lies the problem. It's a blog, there is no deadline, and can then be put off indefinitely. Perhaps this is the irony of the title of my blog. The goal is to escape old habits, maybe document the progress, yet perhaps my procrastination is destined to be the last to go. I've had some thoughts rolling around in my head though, so I would never call the blog dead, just a little lame and probably needing to be shot. Before I do that though...

Danny Ohlsen recently became our first visitor to Taiwan. It was great to see a familiar face, and have the chance to be a tour guide around this city that we are starting to know so well. I also had two weeks of vacation for Chinese New Year, so his visit was also a chance to finally escape Taipei and take in a whole new Taiwan experience away from the crowded, bustling city.

Due to Andrea's school obligations (taking Mandarin full-time for those not in the know) it was just going to be the two of us for a few days, and so we decided to take a three hour train ride down the east coast to the coastal town of Hualian. I have loved taking trains ever since my European adventure over 10 years ago (I actually can't believe it's been that long), and so I was definitely excited to take a train ride that would showcase some of Taiwan's more natural beauty.

The train ride definitely didn't disappoint:

The biggest reason to go to Hualian is its proximity to Taroko Gorge, which is one of Taiwan's most spectacular natural destinations. We checked it out, and it was incredible, but it ended up playing second fiddle to what ended up being my favorite part of our three day jaunt to the south. Before I get to that though, I must back track for just a moment.

In Portland, a bicycle had been my primary mode of transportation. When I got to Taipei, I assumed it wouldn't be too long before I picked one up and started using it as my main means of transport to and from work. Then I saw that I would be competing with thousands of scooters, erratic taxi drivers, and plenty of people that view changes in traffic lights more as suggestions than obligations. There are certainly ways to circumvent Taipei's busy streets, and if I was really motivated I could have begun a daily bike commute. However, then I'd also be competing with humid 90+ degree weather and torrential downpours in the summer, and chilly saturation in the winter. The bottom line is that Taipei's MRT system proved to be a suitable alternative, and thoughts of bike ownership and commuting eventually faded.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, and I hadn't so much as sat on a bike for almost six months. I think the last time I went that long without riding a bike was when I was a teenager with a newly acquired '85 Ford LTD. So Danny and I are trying to figure what to do for our second full day in Hualian, and we eventually settled on renting bikes and seeing where the day and our bikes would take us. I picked out the biggest bike they had, which was still way to small, jacked the seat up, and we were on our merry way.

It wasn't too long before we found a bike path that followed a little stream through the city:

  

The goal was to make it the short ways from this path a different one we had seen that followed the ocean for awhile. That all happened pretty quickly:

Ah, having some good times:

We had the wind at our backs and were cruising so we decided to keep following the coast to see where it would take us. At one point in time we thought we were heading towards the highway that would take us further along the coast, but that proved to be a dead end, as the path had not reached its ultimate stage of completion. After turning around we decided to follow a different bike route that took us inland for a bit. A few turn here and there and we found ourselves looking at a map that showed the extent of our biking options. Liyu Lake...sounds nice. With an idea of our general direction plotted, we kept going...and going...and going. Every once in a while pausing for a photo here and there:

 

When I first arrived in Taipei, I was constantly thinking about how much certain aspects of the city reminded me of the big cities in Central America. I think it was a mix of the humidity, sooty buildings, constant activity, and power lines any and everywhere. The longer I was here the less I ended up feeling that way, but being out in more rural Taiwan, all those feelings came flooding back. The people looked more indigenous and weather worn. Old couples tended to their rows of vegetables, and kids rode around on their old bikes with rusty wheels and chains. At certain points if someone had told me I was back in Central America, I would have had little reason to think otherwise. 

I think the biggest similarity though was the dogs. Old, ragged dogs; the females obviously having nursed countless puppies, with nipples that practically dragged along the ground. I had seen them in every town in Central America, and Danny and I passed plenty lying lazily along the bike path that took us ever further away from our Hualian starting point. After about three hours we finally decided it was time to take a break and have some water and snacks:

 

After a twenty minute break we decided to press on, thinking that the stream passing under the bridge must surely have a lake source nearby. We continued on for another thirty minutes or so and then took another water break and did a time check. It was already past four! Our proximity to the equator means pretty short days, and we were already looking at a pretty good ride home in the dark; something neither of us was very excited about. Our hopes of actually making it to the lake had finally dimmed, and so we decided to call it a day, our destination unreached. It was not a great moment, and our faces showed the agony of a dream deferred festering like a sore:

 

After riding a few minutes away from the direction of the lake we passed a sign that said "2 km." While heading towards the lake the km markers had grown into the low 20s. Could it be that the lake was really only 2 km away? We decided to turn back around and make the final push towards the lake. It proved to be a wise decision. Another ten minutes and we found the lake spreading out before us. We made it! Hopefully it won't be another six months before I hop back on a bike.

For those unaware, a brief history on how I discovered an interest in teaching abroad:

In the spring of 2003, Andrea and I went on the first of our trips to Central America. While we were there we happened to meet an Australian girl named Melanie (I might be wrong on that, but for this story it's going to be her name). She was traveling solo overall, though at the time she happened to be in the company of a guy from Portland named Victor who Andrea happened to meet shortly before we went on our trip (a different story I suppose, though not worth telling, as he was kind of a douche). She proved to be far superior company, and it was during our conversations with her that I found out that she was traveling on money she had earned after spending a year teaching in South Korea.

As soon as she mentioned having taught in Asia, the proverbial light bulb went off above my head. I knew at that moment I would at some point in my life do something similar. Melanie related some of her experiences teaching and her general impressions of Korean culture, and I was sold, I was going to teach in South Korea. While Melanie was the first person I met who had taught abroad, meeting her seemed to release the flood gate, and over the last eight years I have consistently run into people who have done similar teaching excursions. Each time it reaffirmed my interest in doing something similar, and it proved to be motivating enough to get me back into school to finish my bachelor’s degree (which was required in South Korea) so that I would be on my way to a jet set teaching lifestyle.

While I had originally intended on teaching abroad shortly after finishing college (2005), that is not how things ended up working out. However, considering that time involved a stint living in Austin, a second trip to Central America, going back to school to take a stab at a more traditional teaching career, Andrea becoming an amazing practitioner of TCM, and watching the circular nature of life as people left Portland, only to return, and some to leave again, I would have to say my previous intentions were ill-timed. In addition, South Korea proved to be incompatible with our life’s trajectory, and was replaced by Taiwan as the eventual destination. I usually feel dissuaded from touching on abstract notions of fate, but my own experiences have led me to believe that things usually work at as they are meant to, and so it seems that 2011 was destined to be the year that my (and Andrea’s) journey abroad was to begin…