I can find everything here

Wow is all I have to say, I found gluten free cookies, rice cakes and real feta cheese here today! It was all an insane price but that is fine they are important to me and thus I will pay!

Taipei is great and everything is going well. The new job is wonderful, I have 4,5, and 6 year olds for the summer camp and then in mid August I will have a class, yes just one, (what a novel idea) I am hoping it will be kindergarten (depends on enrollment) and then I will have one after school language arts class every day. The school is in great spot and has great classrooms and resources. I am looking forward to all the things that go with having my own class even concerts and report cards…. ask me again around Christmas.

The apartment that I found is pretty good, not amazing but I do have lots of my own space and it will do for the summer, I will probably try to find my own place in the fall once I know the city better. There are 4 people who live downstairs but we seem to keep fairly opposite schedules so it works out ok.

Taipei is beautiful, there are trees everywhere and it is very tropical. The weather is around 30 everyday and humid. There are heaps of mosquitoes too, I could do without those. I spent this past weekend staying is a great little hotel not to far away and got some sight seeing done.

I went to a great little Buddhist temple, to an observation deck in the “old tallest” building and to some amazing markets. The streets here are filled with vendors and stalls like in Korea but the selection here is much different and I have seen more chicken/goose parts than I could ever want to. They eat everything, except the feathers. The fruit is divine, I could live just off pineapple, watermelon and mango’s. There is heaps of selection in the grocery stores and most people speak English, at least a little bit. On Saturday night I saw Harry Potter, definitely a high point for me. On Sunday I went to this great market that happens every weekend under a bridge it is divided up into a few sections flowers, jade and crafts, it was really neat.

Today I went to the world’s tallest building (at the moment) it is huge, it’s called the Taipei 101 building and has amazing stores including my dreamy grocery store and the hugest bookstore ( I stayed away from it). I want to go back and just wander around, it has amazing security and the whole thing is quite impressive, the bottom 5 levels are shopping and the rest is offices.

Hmmm what else can I tell you about, not much else has happened since I have only been here for 5 days! Getting out of Korea was a bit challenging but I did finally leave and arrived here in one piece with all of my stuff in tow.

Hope you are all well, I’ll write again soon.

Love
J