Well, it’s been ten days here in Taichung now. Julia’s settling in to her job. We’ve got an apartment lined up. I think we found a good one. All that we saw reminded us that compromises abound. The challenge is discerning if the compromises that seem acceptable now will still be acceptable a few years down the road! I think we’ll be happy with our decision. It’s a newer building and an apartment that’s never been occupied. It’s also completely unfurnished, though the landlord will be furnishing. The good news is that we’ll get to help pick out the furniture. We looked at a few places that were ok as the apartments and locations went, but the furniture had the distinction of being even more uncomfortable as it was unattractive - which was a singularly impressive feat in a few instances of profoundly ugly furniture.
Life at the Windsor Hotel isn’t too bad - but it *is* getting a bit old, so we’re eager to get into the place as soon as we can.
Having our first weeks here in Taichung in a hotel is an interesting bookend to our 2 weeks in the hotel in Portland before we left... It has allowed us to ease into town and Taiwan, ensconced in a bit of a cocoon with numerous English speakers around. (I could really, really do without all of the Christmas carols piped throughout the entire hotel, including the hallways outside the room. They’re mostly cheesy Asia-pop renditions, in English, but covered up in bad synths and dreck... Dreck the Halls indeed. I was going to record some and embed here for you to hear, but that would have been unkind.) Had we ended up getting an apartment nailed down back in October, we’d have been there the day after we got off the plane - not bad, and I’m sure we would have managed just fine, but it would have been right into the deep end.
We’ve got our first lesson with our Chinese language tutor Monday morning, and not a moment too soon.
I’ve been having a blast exploring outside of town by bike - I say outside, but in many directions, this place sprawls like Atlanta or LA. So it takes a bit of effort to get outside of the urban areas. But it’s not impossible, the hills leading to the full on mountains to the east of town have loads of great, quiet roads. I’ve always enjoyed exploring by bike - though in the US, I can generally count on being able to understand and be understood if I have to ask for directions (though there were a few times in the wilds of North Georgia that left a bit of doubt on the above). Not necessarily being able to read street signs is an added bit of fun, so having GoogleMaps on my phone is helpful, but when I start getting out into the higher mountains, potentially away from cel coverage, I make a point to try to be sure I’m remembering turns and looking behind myself in case I need to backtrack to get back to civilization.
Riding through town in the mass of scooters and cars is wonderfully mind clearing, if lung clogging. It reminds me of riding in Manhattan. But even more intense given all the scooters. Small motorcycles, scooters and bikes are all limited to the right lane, so it gets crowded over there. The strange thing is I actually feel safer riding in the midst of this mayhem than on many roads in the US. From what I’ve seen, people are focused and paying attention - I suspect that Newtonian physics causes a Darwinian selection of the unaware. I'm working really hard to keep my understanding of Newton's work to the theoretical realm.
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