I’m starting to settle down. On the first day, I was so relieved that ah bin and his friend from taoyuan were standing right in front of the arrival gate. I was quite afraid that I would not be able to find them or that they might forget to pick me up or something. Anyway, his friend drove us to a little shop for dinner. There, ah bin told me this will be one of the best dish you are gonna have in Taiwan because hualien’s food is a little bland. There I had dong fen noodles with some balls..they call it (wan zi) the dong fen noodles are pretty normal but the wan zi was absolutely delicious, with meat and some sauce in the centre. They ordered a few other dishes, veggies, pork joints I think, tofu. The pork joints or whatever that was, was super nice too. Very chewy or q, they call it.

Then his friend gave us a lift to the train station. The train ride was absolutely long.. but eventually I reached hualien and stayed over at some other AIESECers’ rented house. Had to sleep in the living room on the sofa, good thing there was sleeping bag, otherwise I would have frozen to death.

Next day, Jamie sent me to the elementary school. There I was given a room in the principal’s “house”. It is not exactly the principal’s house because he has his own house and doesn’t stay there but it’s meant for him anyway. There are 4 rooms, including the living room and I stay with the other AIESECer Amareen, or Ah Ming (what we call her because it’s easier). The house is big but run down and there are mosquitoes. But well, you really cant complain when you see their sincerity and that josh is sleeping in the classroom. I met the teacher Hui Fen who is in charge of me and Ah Ming. She’s really nice and friendly. And you can tell she really cares for the kids. So at night she took us and 4 other intern teachers out to the night market. The food there is awesome and plenty. I didn’t manage to try much cos after a few stalls I was really full. I tried this famous barbeque stall in hualien. It’s a bit like Yong Tau Foo because you select the food and give it to the person to cook just that they barbeque the food and the taste is great! And the range is a bit weird, like duck blood (the picture below), chicken butt, and well there are normal ones too. Below is a pic of bacon and some veggie, kinda normal Chicken butt is quite nice and is supposedly good for the skin! Okay then I bought grapefruit juice and this bao which is quite good. Oh and this QQ ball thing that a male intern teacher, ah hong, bought was damn nice. I should have gotten that. It’ similar to cheese balls but very different. Some interesting stalls I saw was this duck shop that was selling all the duck stuff, including the duck head!! And one of the Taiwanese teacher interning told me it’s crispy and even the beak can be eaten if it’s really crispy. And there’s this other shop called guan cai dian, which means coffin literally, they make bread toasted with egg and then cut out the center, put in chicken stuffings and close it. So it looks like a coffin for the chicken!

Then me, ahming, the 2 intern teachers, xiaohui and ahbao went to PK at the basketball vending machine. It was only my first time but I got third. Considering that everyone else there played before don’t know how many million times, it’s pretty good.
Then today was my first day teaching. I think I did quite terribly. Yikes. And I had an interview session which I think was not too bad, I hope.