With just a blink of my eyes, time, time really flies, this is my 4th week stay in Taiwan. For the past 4 weeks, I have been trying to paint my experience and adventures in the school as well as the surroundings.

From the first day I stepped into the University Town in Sanxia, the place is filled with luxury condominiums and private housing. It is so different from what I’ve expected. And on the first night, I was staying with the director’s family. This happen on the 2^nd night as well because my homestay’s mum wasn’t free on the 2^nd night. Director’s family really depicts the typical Chinese setting family that instills moral values and principles on their children when they’re still young. At that point in time, it reminds me of my childhood time when my parents used to the same as well.

On the next morning, I was terribly cold till I was shivering when I brush my teeth. This may be due to my first time experience of living without the heater during winter. Then, I was sent to the school that I’m deployed to - Kan Yuan Junior High School. My first impression is that there is such a vast difference between University Town and the school. They are not the same in terms of houses, roads, shop houses and etc. And when I reach there, I saw Racheline and Charles sitting in the Principal room practising their speech. I just prepared the speech like 10 minutes before I reached school. HAHAHA..

Schoolwork starts promptly on the first day I start work in the school. The school is indeed very efficient and welcoming especially the students. I guess it is just because of new faces in the school. After a departmental meeting, we’re assigned to teach the whole school (13 classes) English lesson for 1 period each.

My weekdays routines are to teach the classes, plan lessons, help out teachers in school. On top of that, we have coffee-making lesson and baking lesson with ‘ah bu lao shi’(the guy shown in the photo). He is indeed a guru, he taught us how to bake bread. Just the day after we learnt how to roast and brew the coffee, we were assigned to man the coffee shop a.k.a. bug’s house for the rest of our stay here in school. From that moment onwards, we know that we are no longer specialized in English teaching but rather multitasking in various fields. Thinking at the positive side, it is a good thing for us as we can have experience as a shopkeeper and we learnt a new skill! The only bad thing is that the place is full of mosquitoes as the mosquitoes breeding ground is just right beside the coffee shop.. lol!! Also, it is extremely cold inside the wooden-built coffee house when the temperature is around 11 degree. I can still remember Racheline and I were shivering and we put our hands around the cup filled with hot water to keep ourselves warm.

Having the coffee shop to ourselves are also good for us to rest and take a nap after lunch as it is a distance from the P’s office.

Bread that we baked The Bug's House (Coffee Shop)

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