15 Reasons Why I Like about Living in Taiwan

1.) The People - everyone here is always very kind and considerate. If you are lost, having a hard time trying to communicate, parking, or literally anything, people here are more than willing to give a helping hand.
2.) Manners - people in general are a lot more polite here.
3.) Church Family -  I felt very welcome in my new church and I love my new friends and church family.
4.) School - I was a little bit nervous to go to school (the only other time I went to school was in 7th grade)especially in a different country. I wasn't sure if it would be too hard or how I would like it, but I'm loving it so far!
5.) My Teachers - all my teachers are wonderfully and are helping me grow academically and spiritually. I'm so thankful for all they are doing. I'm very happy that they speak English as well. ;)
6.) School Friends - I have so many wonderful, fun friends at school! It makes school a lot more fun and interesting. :)
7.) Food! - fried rice, Chinese noodles, dumplings, bubble drinks, oh they are all so good! Actually, my whole family has been craving American food, but me? Nah! Give me the Taiwanese food! :D
8.) Night Markets - these are always fun to go to. Look in cool shops, eat good food and bubble drinks, and look around.
9.) Transportation - definitely thankful for the buses, MRT, and the scooters. It would be very difficult to get to school and back without them! And the scooter is way faster and easier to get around. It's fun to fly past all the traffic.
10.) Views - Taiwan quite beautiful, especially on the mountain. Looking down on the huge city is a breathtaking sight.
11.) The Beaches - of course! Love swimming in clear water with hundreds of fish swarming around you.
12.) Weather - sometimes a little bit hot, but overall, it's great weather! Nice and warm.
13.) Places - there are so many fun places to go and they are usually really cheap! I love going to the bowling alleys, and not to mention Taipei 101!
14.) Our House - our apartment turned out to be really nice! Not to mention we have a pool... (My dream! Lol!) very nice on hot days.
15.) The Langguage - even though I don't know Chinese and it's a super difficult Langguage to learn, I hope to learn some. Plus, it sounds really cool and the Chinese characters fascinate me.

Moon Festival Weekend

 
“Wow!” I whispered to myself as I gazed upward as far as my neck would allow. I had just stepped out of the MRT station along with my family and friends from school and there it was, jut right there towering above me in all its magnificence: Taipei 101.  For those of you who don’t know, Taipei 101 is a very famous building. It is the tallest building in Taiwan, in fact, it was the tallest building in the world at one point. It has 101 stories, hence, the name Taipei 101.


My friends were dying to take me to the 101 for a while, so, we decided to go on my friend, William’s birthday. So, there we were, starting on our grand adventure and tour of the famous tower.
Stepping into the fastest elevator in the world, we zoomed up to the 91st floor, the highest floor visitors can access. I gazed out the tall widows down on Taipei. The city is HUGE! Massively tall building and skyscrapers poked up from every space on the ground. Freeways were jam-packed with buses, scooters, and other vehicles. The site was breath-taking! Best of all, they sky was really clear so you could see everything, everywhere!

“Come on, Enjoli!” my friend, Vivian beckoned me. “We’re taking a group photo!”
And boy, did we take group photos. They insisted on taking a group photo at every turn! Haha! It was fun though. We did all sorts of poses. Now I’ll have lots of pictures to remind of the good memories we shared.
After we had finished touring and taking hundreds of photos, we went back down and had some lunch. I had a rice burger and a mango bubble drink (Of course. Bubble drinks are like my favorite thing in the world!).

 The next day was Monday, BUT, I didn’t have to go to school because it was “Moon Festival.” So what did we do? We had some more fun. Along with some church friends, we went to the beach! About an hour’s drive away, we went to the beach to snorkel. We had to climb over rocks for about a half a mile until we got there. I felt bad for the men who were trying to hold the cooler. Finally we made it though. As soon as my mom gave the ‘ok’ because our sunblock had dried, we rushed down, jumped of the rock, and swam around.

It was a whole other world under the water! Tiny, bright-colored fish swarmed around me, bigger fish swam for cover in the coral, and little crabs crawled over the rocks. We forgot to bring bread, but we smashed up some leftover sushi and gave it to the fish. They went nuts! They flocked all around us as they gobbled up the tiny pieces of food. 
The water felt amazing and I felt like I could swim forever, but, my stomach soon won and I reluctantly crawled out to eat some lunch. 

As I was eating, someone asked me teasingly, “You going to jump of that big rock over there like those people?” while pointing to a huge rock cliff that people were jumping off of, into the ocean.
“Are you kidding me? No way!” I exclaimed. Soon, I finished my picnic lunch.
“Are going with me to the cliff? You can at least jump from the smaller rock!” my Dad questioned while motioning to the huge rock looming over the water.
“Well, okay.” I agreed. I plunged into the water and swam with my dad to the cliff.
I only hesitated a second as I jumped into the salty waters. When I came back up, my dad was climbing up to the highest rock again.
"Come on!" He said. "It's not too scary!"
Filled with some new-found courage (that came from where? I don't know.) I scurried up behind by dad, along with another friend, Shin. I stood on the edge and looked down.
"Uh... This looks really scary..." I said nervously. I waited for my nerves to calm ( which they never did completely) and then finally my dad started the countdown, "3, 2,1!"
"AHHHHHHHHHH!" I screamed all the way down until I hit the water.  Sputtering, I came up.
"That was fun!" I grinned as I climbed up to do it again. I did it four or five more times before we had to leave.

It was a fun weekend. I really feel bad for all of you back in the States who don't get a Moon Festival weekend. :p

The School with Seven Floors, Glass Walls, and All ipads

I was nervous; very nervous as I hopped of the moped and walked through the automatic glass doors, into my new school. On my right was a security guard (!), straight in front of me was an elevator that goes to all eight floors of the school, and all around me were Chinese students milling around and talking to each other. I noted that I was the only white American student there. Everywhere around me they were openly staring at me and whispering to their friends. Talk about awkward! I pulled out my schedule. "Looks like I have History first on the 3rd floor,"I thought. So, I hopped into the elevator and made my way to room 304.
I picked a seat in the second row waited for class to start. My heart was pounding but I wasn’t exactly sure why. Maybe I felt alone. I could feel all the classmates’ eyes on me. Soon, class started. First, we did a little activity so the teacher could learn our names. Of course they all had a hard time pronouncing mine, Enjoli. In the middle of class, the principal came and said he’d like to say a prayer for our class and for anyone that was new. I thought that was neat and I really appreciated it. Very slowly, but surely my nervousness started to melt away. Our teacher then had us play 20 questions on a history object or place. None of them had played it before so I gave a lot of answers.

By my next class, I was feeling a lot more comfortable. After math class I thought, “No homework yet. Yay!”

Next was lunch, so I hiked up to the seventh floor, grabbed my lunch and sat at a table. Soon, a girl came over, introduced herself, and invited me to sit with her and her friends and their table. I agreed and was happy that I didn’t have to eat alone.

At the end of school (It ends at 4:30…) they had some chips and soda upstairs for everyone like a welcome back party or something. By then, I wasn’t so nervous and they weren’t so afraid of me anymore! They approached me, asked me my name, commented on my long hair, ask if I was from America, and the usual questions. A bunch of people wanted to be friends with me on facebook.

I decided that the first day of school had been good, besides a bunch of butterflies in my first class.

I am making new friends and slowly get used to everyone and everything in my new school. I am actually enjoying it. WHAT?! Did Enjoli just say she’s enjoying school?! Yes I did. Surprising, huh? I’ve never hated it, but I’ve never necessarily liked it either. The Taiwanese are all very friendly and I’m liking it here so far. :) 

 

Next Adventure: Taipei, Taiwan

           My emotions toppled and tumbled over each other as I took my first look at Taipei, the capitol of Taiwan. This city was soon to be my ‘home’ for the next two years. I gazed up at the towering sky-scrapers and the unique buildings with their cool Chinese-style roofs, I looked at the Chinese characters pasted over everything in sight, and I stared at all the traffic and the hundreds of mopeds stopped at the stop light.  I admired the beautiful, rolling hills of jungle right outside the city. “What an amazing place!” I thought. 

            “We are here!” someone from our ‘welcoming party’ announced. We walked over to the second van that was packed to the roof with our luggage. The heavy, dense humidity made it hard to breathe for a second. It reminded me a lot of the Philippines. Now, we had to somehow lug 20, 50-pound suitcases our carry-on and backpacks out of the van and down the 97 steps that led to our house. Phew! Was that a job! Thankfully, we had a team of 11 people to help us (counting our family).

            Inside our house we were encountered with a pleasant surprise. Some of the church members had bought us all sorts of important stuff; towels, silverware, dishes, pots and pans, food, and lots of other necessities. We were touched by their kindness. 

            After they left we went right to work. I walked in my room and started unpacking … and thinking. The house was really nice, the people were really nice, and the city and all that I had seen of Taipei was beautiful. “I think I’m going to like it here” I thought. At the same time though, I was very homesick for my family in Wenatchee. I had had mixed feeling over the whole trip. I knew this was God’s will, and Taipei was wonderful but … Wenatchee was my home and I missed it and all my friends.

            That night as I lay in bed under my fan, I told God, “You know what? Taipei is a wonderful place filled with wonderful people. Even though I didn’t necessarily want to move, thank-you for telling us to. There must be a reason why I am here. Even though I miss Wenatchee terribly, I know it is Your will that I be here and I’m going to make the best of these two years. Thank-you for being a great God that cares!”

"How many kilometers do you have to drive to America?"

"How many kilometers do you have to drive to America?"
This is what one of the Tanzanians asked before I left. It was quite funny, they didn't understand how far America was and that you couldn't drive there. At least not all the way.... :)

It was really hard leaving everyone. The last day of school was a great yet, sad day because of this. It was the first  day I had gone to school that week because I had been sick with the flu, strap throat, and a few other things. I was just itching to get to the school! I did not want to spend my last week in Africa, sick! I was a little better by Thursday and decided I had to go to the primary school.

I knew this would be my last day so I had brought all my little gifts and trinkets and planned on giving them out to the kids.

Bible class went well as normal. I sang with Standard 3 and told them a story. At the end of the story, we played Bible tick-tack-toe. They didn't have a clue what it was or how to play it when we first got here, but it was a favorite among the children once they learned it. I added a little twist to it this time. Whichever team won, everyone in that team got a marble. They looked at in awe, turning it around and round. One of them tried to put it in their mouth.

"No! Don't eat it! It's a marble. You roll it on the ground, not right now though. After class you can play with it." I quickly told them. 

It worked out perfectly, each team won once and I gave them all marbles. At the end, Brianna told them all that this was my last day.

"Oh no! Why does she have to leave?" they wanted to know.

"She has to go back home to America. You should say Thank-you for everything she has done for you." Brianna suggested. 

"Thank-you teacher!" they all shouted as they repeated after her.

"Don't forget to say good-bye to her before she leaves, too." added Brianna.

Math class was also a lot of fun. I did something a little out of the usual. I wrote a problem on the board, then had one kid come up and write down the correct answer. If (when) they got t

he correct answer, I would give them a prize. 

They were so excited to get their prizes and most of them got the answers right away.

My favorite first grader, Heifsiba was hilarious! When he's counting and it goes past ten he doesn't have enough fingers! So what does he do? Well, off comes the shoes and socks and there he is counting his toes on his desk. The funny things was, when it was his turn to solve the problem on the board, the answer was above ten. I didn't even think about it when I wrote. Of course, he couldn't take off his shoes and count his toes up there. He usually gets ALL his problems correct but he was having the hardest time! He kept getting the problem wrong - because he couldn't count his toes! I thought that was so funny!

The last class was English with Standard 7. I would think of creative ways to ask questions and give them prizes throughout the class.

In some ways it was harder to leave standard seven because they were more like my friends. Most of them were 13 o 14, but some were my age, 15 as well. Like at church they called me "Enjoli" instead of "Teacher."

 When I was leaving the classroom, Neema came up to me and said, "Thank-you teacher for the gifts and everything else. You are a good teacher." I thought that was so sweet. I was so glad I could make a difference in at least one girl's life. 

My Dad had come with me to the school that morning because I wanted to show him the school, my students, and the classrooms. It was pouring outside so my dad had brought one of the trucks up.

I threw my things in the back seat and then turned to say a hard good-bye to the crowd of African kids gathered around me that I had learned to love so much.

"Teacher." said one girl from Standard 1 despondently, "why you leave?" It just broke my heart to look in those little, sad eyes. 

I lifted her head up to me and said, "Abigail, I have to go home. I'm sorry. I'm going to miss you and will never forget you, okay?"

All the children were so depressed and it was hard to keep myself together! 

Many hugs later, I hopped in the car and waved cheerfully to them as we left the Primary school. They all smiled and waved as hard as they could until we turned the corner.

Oh how I miss those brown little faces! It has made me even more determined to go back as well as become an elementary teacher as I've always wanted to be. I just thank God every day for leading me to such a wonderful place and to be able to really experience God's love. <3