Zhonghe City Living

Finally found a place to stay. It is not actually in Taipei, but in Zhonghe City, which is a suburb of Taipei, and the commuter subway into the big city takes about 15 minutes. After getting the place, David, my roommate, and I decided to run to Ikea and Costco to spruce the place up a little and make it habitable. The Ikea was kind of boring, it was exactly like every other Ikea I have been to, except the food court was slightly cheaper. The furniture and sheets were not cheaper, however. I’m not sure how Taiwanese people afford all this stuff, but the sheets, pillows, and assorted room fixings costs me at least 100 bucks.

I got a job, maybe. I’m not entirely sure how I’m getting paid, or what the stipulations for my employment are, but every Wednesday and Friday afternoons I take the Bannan Line subway, get off at City Hall, and take the Blue 5 bus to an afterschool childcare center. I have two classes of 12-year olds, and I’m going to have to find some way of keeping the little rascals in line for 90 minutes. I had to give the administrators a demonstration of my mad child-rearing skills, and after 30 minutes of pleading with little Leo and Bruce to stay in their seats, and little David to stop reading the Chinese translation of Harry Potter while I was teaching them how to spell January, the powers-that-be revealed their absolute desperation and decided to hire me permanently. Permanently is probably a poor choice of words because I signed no contracts, and very well may never see the $17/hour I was promised for my six-hour work-week.