Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Pre-Departure

It is nearly one month now till I leave for Taiwan, and in my excitement, I have decided to start my blog a little early. I meant to wait for my first posting until the week before I left, but I guess I am too impatient. :) So, welcome to my blog for the upcoming year! The purpose of which is to keep you all up-dated about my life and, hopefully, to entertain you along the way too.

































It is conceivable that you may not know where Taiwan is located. There is no reason for shame, unless you are one of those people who does not realize there is a difference between Taiwan and Thailand... I do love Thai food, but am not expecting to be eating too much of it on this trip. I have never studied Thai, but I do know a small amount of Mandarin (which they speak in addition to Taiwanese). While they do both share a tropical climate, one is an island and one is part of the Asian continent. And another little known fact - the first syllable of each word is even spelled differently: "T-a-i" and "T-h-a-i". Now if you already knew all of those small details, than you are ahead of the average American, and I commend you... :)

I will be spending ten months teaching English as a Fulbright scholar in the southern port city Kaohsiung (高雄 pronounced "Gāo-xióng"; meaning "high hero"). It is a four hour drive from Taipei, on the opposite end of the island. Kaohsiung is the second largest city, as well as the most densely-populated, on the island, with a population of about 1.5 million. In addition to being right on the Taiwan Strait, it is also bordered by mountains, notably Ape Hill (thus named by the Dutch because of the many monkeys in residence). The bottom picture is of the city at night (perhaps that is Ape Hill in the background?), and while I am sure it is digitally enhanced, I am still excited to live in such a beautiful place!