- Taipei is very hot. Admittedly not as hot as Abu Dhabi, but there's a lot less taxi travelling and shopping malls, so the heat is much more apparent!
- Taipei is also pretty cheap. One journey on the MRT (Taipei's underground), which is very fast and clean normally costs around 50p. A bus journey costs around 30. Food is also incredibly cheap and it's pretty easy to only spend about 50-100NTD on dinner (50 NTD is about 1 pound).
- The whole city is covered in convenience stores. It's hard to walk more than a few minutes without walking into a 7-Eleven or a Family Mart. According to Wikipedia, Taiwan has the world's highest density of 7-Elevens per person (one per 4,786 people) and generally one convenience store for every 2,500 people.
Here's one by my hostel!
- The city is also overrun with scooters. Most people seem to prefer to get around by scooter than car, and loads of the kids (who are only 3-5 years old) get there riding on them. All the sidewalks have huge rows of them and they literally cover the streets in places.
- Along with scooters and convenience stores, the streets here are also covered in food stalls and restaurants. Many people here don't have kitchens and food here is so cheap that people generally eat most of their meals out. There are generally open restaurants and small street vendors on most roads you go on as well as a huge number of bubble tea stalls. Most districts also generally have night markets which are roads that are mostly pedestrian where there's huge concentrations of food stalls, and also sometimes clothes stalls and shops. So far the food has been pretty great, although many places only have menus in Chinese which can make them a little inaccessible for the time being (although I have learnt the Chinese symbol for meat so I can identify what is and isn't fish!).
This is the sign for the Ning Xia Night market which is very near me. It's apparently one of the smaller ones and is a very narrow lane which is crowded with street stalls, many of which have sit down areas too. So far it's my favourite as even though it's small, it's got tons of stalls crammed together and has had the biggest selection of food I've seen.
Inside the night market.
Some Beef Teppenyaki at the Ning Xia night market
Shaved ice is pretty popular here. The ice is almost like snow and covered with syrup and fruit. I had one today which had condensed milk poured on it which soaked through all the ice (which was definitely an improvement), but I didn't get a picture.
This was a wrap with peanut brittle, three flavours of ice cream (pineapple, taro and red bean) with cilantro.
I haven't been very good at taking pictures of my food so far, but will probably make a post at some point in the future once I've tried more things and been a little more adventurous!
Finally, the school has been pretty good so far! There's two other English teachers working there with me-both girls about my age from the states who are really nice and I get along well with. The kids are all really cute and seem to love all the English teachers which is nice (the ones who know you always shout your name and wave when you walk past). Everyday I teach 6 hours of Kindergarten class (I have three classes who have me specifically as their English teacher and then I also teach every class once for their science lessons) and then on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays I teach the P-Classes, which are after school classes for slightly older kids (I have one of 6 year olds, and then one of 8 year olds and one of 10). The curriculum isn't always that interesting (they mostly have books with some vocabulary and dialogues which you have to drill every lesson), but we teach them through games and we also sing lots of songs, so the classes are generally pretty fun!
Anyway, that's all on what's happening here for now! I'm currently looking for an apartment, although the hostel is comfortable enough while I wait. Will keep you updated!
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