Looting the grocery store!

As Joe and I we walking down the street by our apartment to go grab some dinner we noticed a ton of people walking out of the loading dock of the local grocery store by our house with huge boxes of food. We rarely see this loading dock open but tonight swarms of people were coming in and out of here everyone with big boxes of food. It got us really curious, as we continued walking down the street we continued to see more and more people walking past us and going into the grocery stored through the loading dock entrance. I began wondering what these people knew that we didn't. Finally curiosity got the best of us, so we decided to turn around and follow all these people in and see what was going on? As we entered the grocery store all we saw was mass chaos! Hundreds of people flooding the store, pushing and shoving past one another, looting the shelves and grabbing whatever they could and throwing it into their baskets as fast as they could. This scene honestly looked like everyone was preparing for the end of the world, the zombie apocalypse, or some sort of natural disaster! With the recent earthquake and all the heavy raining and flooding throughout the city the last couple of days I'm not surprised that the first feeling I had when I saw all this happening was panic. I thought "oh crap what is going on? Is something bad about to happen that we weren't aware of?" So I asked one of the ladies working there what was going on? She told us that the store was going out of business and they were getting rid of everything super cheap so we should stock up while we can. This put my mind at ease, but then it went into an instant frenzy! Joe and I joined in on the mass hysteria and started looting the grocery store as well! Pushing and shoving our way through the crowds to grab whatever goodies and snacks we could while they were still on the shelves, this was no place for the weak only the strong survive and get what they want here! You also always had to have an eye on your stuff you lose focus for one second or leave your basket unattended at all and someone will swipe your stuff right out of your basket! I'm not gonna lie this might have been the most fun I've had in Taiwan so far. It was almost like a game we didn't need half the crap we bought but my heart was pumping, I was sweating like crazy, and the fact that they weren't really ringing people up didn't help either, the way they added up your price was they rummaged through your box really quick and looked and how much stuff you had in there and then just through out a random price, so I wanted to see how much stuff I could get and for how cheap. I'm regretting not leaving the house earlier now because by the time we got here all the legitimate food had already been sold all that was left were drinks, snacks, and some frozen foods, But since we mostly eat out anyway we just stalked up on the "essentials" After it was all said and done Joe and I went to go get our crate of stuff priced. They looked through both our boxes really quick pretty much just counting how much stuff we had not even looking at what it was or how expensive it might be and said it would be 500 yuan each (the equivalent of about $16 US dollars) I was shocked I thought I would at least pay double that for all the stuff we bought. So we ran back to our apartment unloaded our stuff and went back for round two! By the time we got back all that was really left was soda so we decided we might as well stock up on some tasty beverages while we are at it. That ended up being about 100 Yuan each (about $3 US). So after it was all said and done we each spent a little under $20 for all this stuff not a bad night!

It's the end of the world!

Stocked up on the essentials

   

Earthquake

The other day around five in the morning I was woken up by my bed shaking. At first I just thought I was feeling things or I was still half asleep, or dreaming. But soon after the shaking became more and more violent. As I sat up in bed and looked around I realized that I wasn't imagining things and that my entire room was shaking not only my bed. I was still half asleep so I was super confused on what was going on hahaha it wasn't until after the shaking stopped that I realized I had just sat through an earthquake. That was the first earthquake I had ever experienced so I wasn't sure what I should do so I just went back to sleep. Later that morning I asked Joe if he felt the earthquake too, he said he did but he thought he was dreaming ha! So we decided to check online really quick to double check if it was really an earthquake or if we were just imagining things. Apparently the earthquake was a 6.0 I guess thats a decent sized quake from what I'm told.

dinner with the family

walking off dinner

Delicious but way more meat than I could handle!

Corn soup

The family

Met up with our aunt, uncle, and cousin tonight they treated us to an amazing dinner! They are always way to good to us!

gym time

Sorry for such a blurry photo iphones not the fastest camera in the world

My new home for the time being

When I left the states I wasn't too confident that I would be able to find a good place to lift and practice. But Luckily as Joe and I were skating around the local University campus by our apartment we found the University gym it's kinda ghetto, wait scratch that it's really ghetto! But hey you work with what you got. Luckily for me they have some pretty thick mats for practicing martial arts as well so a great place to trick and it's free..for students at least, but I hear they don't even bother to check so I should be good. I was a little worried I wouldn't have anywhere to train and was going to get really rusty while I'm out here but I got lucky and this will definitely get the job done. There is actually a World Gym (which I'm pretty sure thats what Golds Gym used to be called before they swapped names) by the school I teach at, but it's monthly fee is freaking ridiculous! it was like $700 U.S. for a year membership. No wonder everyone in Taiwan is skinny no one can afford a gym membership they rape you out here! Obviously I'm not going back there such a rip off! So I'm going to have to settle for this ghetto University gym so it's back to basics and fundamental lifts which might not be so bad. I'll have to force myself to do all the lifts I hate the most but that are probably the best for you anyway. Hopefully I can find better facilities later in the future but for now I'm happy with at least this.

First week of observation

So I just finished my first week of training at Kojen and the training has been interesting to say the least. They pretty much just stick you in the class room and let you observe the other teachers as they teach their classes. Which isn't exactly what I expected but it hasn't been all bad, and you get some one on one training with a teacher trainer. I actually kind of prefer it compared to the crazy training Hess was going to give us. I feel the training at Hess may have been a little more in depth and may have helped us feel more comfortable as teachers more quickly. but I think I prefer this type of training and feel it suits me better anyway, and it's actually been really helpful. Plus I really wasn't looking forward to the crazy training schedule that Hess was about to put us through. My administrator/trainer Howard or whatever his position is called not quite sure, has been great and really accommodating. The first week here at Kojen was an interesting one when I first arrived there had been some lack of communication between the head office/recruiting manager Christine and the branch I was to be working at. When we arrived we were under the assumption that everything had been worked out and we were good to go. However the first day I arrived at the Branch I was supposed to be working at I was promised I would have about about 18-24 hours of work, not at first obviously, but when I got here to speak to Howard I was told we were in an unique situation. The situation was that he didn't realize I was going to be there so soon so he actually didn't have any available hours for me, and was a little hesitant to bring me on. The reason being is my particular branch is kinda slow right now and many of the teachers there were only working about 14 hours a week and most of them were wanting more hours. Which in the back of my mind I had a feeling this could potentially happen. Howard however was really accommodating and did everything he could to help me work something out. So what happened was he had a some hours he was teaching that he was willing to part with. He also talked with another Kojen branch manager that had some hours available as well and they are going to let me split hours between my branch and another branch. So now I have a decent and comfortable schedule to start out with working between two different branches. Which obviously not ideal but not a big deal at least I'm able to work now and have a decent amount of hours. So it was kind of a sketch at first but it all worked out in the end. At first I wasn't too impressed with Kojen but luckily I got a good director who is really willing to help and work with me, so I'm super grateful for that this could have gotten way more stressful than it already was hahaha. Can't wait to actually start teaching though should be a good time!

Breakfast sandwich from "Wiener Burger" pretty tasty it's no Ernie's Sports Deli though. Only cost about a dollar though so no complaints.

first few days and medical check

getting photos taken for medical records and stuff

coming home from the hospital found this random "thing" at the Taipei Main Station haha!

Our apartment 

getting tested for tb they didn't bother to cover my junk when getting x-rayed. I'm not sure how I feel about this...I sure hope I'm not sterile now hahaha.

The view from our apartment it looks like we live in a shanty town!

First day in Taiwan raining like crazy (not sure why I'm posing like this?)

So we arrived in Taiwan a few days ago and have been working on adjusting to life out here. It hasn't been all that difficult so far the hardest adjustment has been the humidity I've found myself taking three showers a day. Hopefully I'll climatize soon and won't feel instantly "sticky" the minute I step out the door. Anyway we met with our Recruiting director Christine monday morning to sign our contracts and get our medical check at the local hospital...which was an interesting experience in and of itself. Hospitals here are way different than they are in the states not really ghetto...but kinda ghetto hahaha! Anyway while waiting for our physical check ups there was a large group of elderly women chilling in the hallway with me watching chinese soap operas. I was told this is becoming an issue in Taiwan, apparently there has been a steady increase in elderly people hanging out in the hospitals not for check ups, but they are meeting to hang out in an air conditioned building to hang out and watch T.V. so you can come to the hospital around the same time each day and have a pretty good chance of seeing the same old people every time! Haven't actually started working yet but I'll be sure to keep you posted on that as soon as I do.