The Allen's Online Blog

We spent Saturday walking the streets to get a feel for the city. Unfortunately, most places were closed for the weekend, but the few that were open made our experience worthwhile! We saw a beautifully ornate temple filled with worshipers bowing, burning incense, and throwing red crescents on the floor in order to interpret their future. I wish we had pictures, but it seemed disrespectful to be snapping photos in the temple.
Our major cultural experience was lunch. We lost ourselves on a small backstreet and experienced a thing called "Shabu Shabu." The restaurant workers only spoke Mandarin, but God blessed us with an English speaking patron. The English speaker told us how to order by first choosing a meat. Then, two platters of food, one with our chosen meat and the other with mixed vegetables and loads of unknown items, were brought to our table. Everything was raw and we were given a pot of boiling water to cook our meal. We also made our own sauces from a bunch of unlabeled spices and sauces. It was incredible! Sunday, we took a group back to the "Shabu Shabu," but I was too sick to eat :(
Other random interests, we met a Canadian and a Chicagoian at breakfast
Monday started training, what a day!! We worked hard from 8 in the morning until about 7 at night. Then, after an authentic (and cheap!) dinner, we socialized with some new friends on the hotel roof. We had to be back in our rooms by 9:00 to await phone calls from our branch heads.
My phone call brought many surprises! First of all, this week of training is to prepare us for English language classes, but I just discovered that I won't even be teaching English! I'll be teaching math and scenic in an "English Only" school. Also, whereas the English classes have a strict curriculum to follow, I'll be writing my own curriculum. Housing, location, career, schedule, and transportation are all different from what I was expecting, but I'm still just as excited, if not more!

On a funny note, I had several embarrassing moments during our first day of training. On one occasion, one of the teachers was showing us motions for a song. He said "show me singing," meaning for us to come up with a hand motion. I burst out singing a nice, loud "la!" oops :)

For the sake of those who do not want to have to log in or an account with myspace, we will be using Flikr to share our pictures with you! The address is

http://www.flickr.com/photos/allenabroad/

Labels: pictures

Besides e-mail (if you dont have our e-mail please get it from one of our friends or family members) you can call us for free using Skype. Go to www.skype.com download the free program and set it up. Then call us our skype ID is allenabroad GET SKYPED

Labels: Contact

Greetings from Taiwan ~The Allens

Our Travels:

Our trip so far has been non-stop adventure! We left our apartment at 4:30 am to arrive early for our 7:04am flight out to San Francisco. We loaded up the car and departed (after a few 4 am adventures). We arrived at the airport and ran in to some problems with the fact that we had no return flight home booked. Apparently, there is a rule to fly internationally now, you must have a return flight booked before you can leave the USA. After we purchased a ticket for a date that we know we are not returning on (you can't just say to book it next year because it doesn't work that way!), we were allowed to go through security.

Picture this: Arrive at the airport at 4:45am for a 7am flight. Wait in a line that cant take care of you because you have no return flight book. Wait in another line to fix the problem. Then you are told that to fly out you need to book a return flight. Then wait in another line to pay for a ticket you might not get refunded and know you are not going to use. KEEP IN MIND WE NEED FLY OUT @ 7:04am. Purchase tickets for a large amount of money (980 per person, one way). Then are told that you can change them or cancel them for a fee. Rush to security to go through a special line because we leave in 1 hour. Get through security then arrive right when they are boarding the first passengers. Take a 6 hour flight across the US (ahhh a time change) to San Francisco, (Phillip has never been to CA). Arrive in San Fran around 10 am local time, 1 pm east coast time. Eat lunch because our bodies are confused, then anticipate a 13 hour flight. Board our humungo 777 with United.

Our flights were filled with movies, TV shows, plenty of trips to the bathroom, reading and talking. Jennifer had the pleasure to sleeping, however, I did not (Bad back does not help for sleeping semi-sitting up). We arrived at the airport around Friday 4:30pm local time and 4:30am east coast time. Met our driver (who did not speak English), after passing with ease through customs and immigration. Drove north to Taipei where we are currently staying in a hotel called the Golden China hotel.

The hotel is very nice, we have free internet!! We are here all week. Our first night was good as we arrived at night so even though we were exhausted we walked around for about an hour just so when we went to sleep we would sleep through the night. However sleeping for me was not that easy because in the past week I have averaged 3-6hours a night because we have been so busy. We went to sleep around 8:30pm and of course Jennifer was out like a light and then I went to sleep. I woke up around midnight thinking about the fact that it was 12 in the afternoon in the states so that kinda messed with my brain a bit! Then both Jennifer and I woke up off and on after midnight until both of us got up around 4:30am here (4:30pm in the states). I took a bath as my back is hurting pretty bad and Jennifer journaled. Then we got ready a bit and went to breakfast. Breakfast was a mix of American foods with Taiwanese food. There was ham that had no taste to speak of (was rather interesting), fried oysters, sausage, eggs, breads, cereal, salad bar, rice, and sushi. There were a lot of other items but I have no idea of what to call them.

Well I am signing off, we will be updating this regularly in our first week but as time goes we'll update it weekly. Today we will take some pictures and walk around Taipei. We start training on Monday. There is sooo much more to say but we will say some more later!! To view more pics you must have myspace.... get it and check us out at myspace.com/allenabroad

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