So, once I returned to Taiwan I had to hit the ground running. Despite massive amounts of jetlag I had to quickly get my application for my new visa in order and equally important: find a new place to live! As of March 1st I was homeless, so I had to race around to find for two weeks and find my new accomodations. At first I was planning to live with another teacher because her roommate was moving out, but in the end the teacher and I both decided that our lifestyles wouldn’t be compatible so we decided to look elsewhere.
The day was saved with only a week to go by my fellow teacher Terrance Mercer, a great guy I work with at ESP who, when called up by a worried Rob, said in his usual laid-back East-coast manner “no problem”. It turned out his landlord specialized in renting to foreigners, and had a few places available, fully furnished modern apartments that were a little more expensive that my old place, but very close to my office (which I wanted). In the end I took the first apartment I saw and began getting ready to move right away since I had to clean up the old place before I turned it back over to the landlord.
Pictured above is the old apartment on the day I left it behind. It was a nice 1-room apartment that served me well, but was a really to small to do anything but sleeping in. When Connie visited we were tripping over each other because it was just too small to be comfortable for two people. I don’t know how one of my neighbours managed who actually had two people living their apartment full time!
Now I have a nice newer and larger studio apartment with a bigger bed, sofa, kitchen and a lot more moving and clost space! If only we weren’t next to a Kindergarten with 100+ kids who have a habit of singing the same songs every morning…I often find myself singing along as I wake up…”Shake Shake Shake…Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!” O_o!