Pingtung, my new home

Hello Everyone!

Just to explain, I haven’t been ignoring you all and not posting. This past weekend we were in Taipei and we had internet where we were staying. Then Sunday my team left Taipei to come down to Pingtung and get ready to live here for the next 11 months.

When we got here we found out that the internet bill wasn’t paid so we don’t have internet. Right now we’re at the school using their internet.

Life here has been pretty crazy! I like it; my team is so great! I love each person on my team so much.

The People!

My team is great. There are 8 of us total, Kyle is the leader, Camellia is the assistant leader and the rest of us are the ducklings.

Aaron, Alex, Kyle, Jared
Julia, Andrea, Camellia, Amber

So far we get along really well and have a great time together. It’s going to be a good year!

The Food!

Grossest thing that I’ve ate so far was definitely the sesame seed covered anchovy, GROSS! For lunch one day we had bamboo shuts, I didn’t eat them though. Today for lunch we had this tofu stuff, I didn’t eat it either, weird! One of the weirdest most disturbing things that I’ve ate (yea, that’s right, I ate it!) BLOOD CAKE! It’s rice dipped in blood, it pretty much tastes like really sticky rice but just the thought of what you’re eating is gross.

Another thing that you guys would be impressed that I ate was an onion pancake (because I don’t like onions). I actually didn’t think that it was too bad, it was crispy and good. Today I also ate dumplings and these other really weird things. Favorite thing so far was tonight we had some really good fluffy crispy cake stuff. It was superb. Also we had this pastry thing that you could probably find in the US but it was SOO good!

We have bubble tea all the time; it’s a Taiwan specialty. I DO NOT like the boba though. Maybe I’ll have to get used to it :/ Today I had caramel milk tea with boba in it, I wasn’t a fan. I went to a night market and drank this really good strawberry slushy/smoothie thing, I was impressed with it.

Ohhh, at the night market some of my friends ate chicken butt and chicken heart. I was kinda disturbed. You should know that I’m surviving so it’s okay you don’t have to worry about my food situation. We went to Costco today; that was awesomeness! We bought cheerios, now I’m happy.

Weird thing I ate--yellow watermelon, it was the weirdest thing.

The Place!
I like where we live, it’s a nice quaint apartment. We actually have 3 apartments, all the girls are in one apartment and then Jared and Alex are in one and then Kyle and Aaron are in the other one. Our apartment is the “hangout.”

Our apartment is nice; we have 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. The bedrooms are kinda small though, but that’s nice cause it’s easier to clean.

The School

Where we work is SO COOL!! We went there today and it’s so amazing. I’m so impressed with it and so happy to get to teach there. What we teach is pretty chill, we get to make up a lot of it. For instance when the kids come into the EV (English Village) they get a “passport” we get to make them up! I’m so excited about teaching!! We went and visited the EV today and they have an airport, a bank, a fashion store, fruit market and kitchen. We also get to make up some random things we want to teach! 

This is the airport with the airplane

The bank

When we went to the school today all the Jr. Highers stood there and stared, it was really awkward. They didn’t even say anything or wave they just stared!

The Work Schedule

So we don’t start school for 3 weeks! The school in charge is really nice and really generous! But when we do start work we’ll have to work from like 8 to about 4. Apparently Wed-Fri mornings we’re gonna go to another EV to help them out.

In the EV we HAVE to go bare foot so that’s like the happiest thing ever!

I have to go now,

D2