Karaoke - A Taiwanese Cultural Phenomenon and.....The Very Last Place We Wanted To Be That Day!

The day after our first night out, we had to go to Karaoke. In Canada, we know very little about Karaoke. We may have seen it in a few bars, we may have even gone up to belt a few tunes out! However, it is impossible to explain the scope and utter fascination with Karaoke over here. There are karaoke places on every corner. They are like small to medium sized hotels. The one we went to had 13 floors with about 10-12 rooms on each floor of varying sizes. Our room was big enough for about 50 people. The whole idea of a hotel sized building dedicated solely to Karaoke was somewhat baffling to us. After being here for a while and seeing how many karaoke places there are, you begin to realize that it is simply part of their culture. As hockey, snowmen and beaver tails are to us, karaoke is to the Chinese.
Anyways, being hungover in a large karaoke room, with over 50 people, singing various Chinese and English songs was quite possibly the last place in the world we wanted to be but by the end we found ourselves warming up to KTV... we're not planning to make a habit of it but it was certainly an experience!

"KTV" = Karaokeeeeeeing - A staff birthday celebration!

The First Week and First Night Out.

Our first week here was interesting to say the least. The city is very different from anything we have ever seen. It was hard to get past the poor air quality, the crazy traffic, and the unbelievable "signage" that we were obviously unable to read or understand. However, we got used to it pretty quickly and soon, were able to start appreciating the many good things. This whole transition was made much easier because of our "buddies", Michael and Laura. Michael and Laura both teach at Cornel (Michael at my school, Laura at Allison's) and they were asked to show us around town and get us familiar with our new surroundings. They turned out to be two of the nicest, most sincere and easiest to get along with people we had ever met. They took us to amazing restaurants, showed us all around, and helped us to understand more about this new, bizarre place we found ourselves in. They remembered the overwhelming feelings upon first arriving and so, were not pushy to try and show us everything at once. They made us feel very comfortable, welcomed, and made our overall introduction to Taichung, a good experience. Thanks Michael and Laura!

Our first weekend here, most of the teachers were going out for a "goodbye" party. We obviously chose to join them and proceeded to have our first drinking experience in Taiwan. The night proceeded as any night would and we had a good chance to meet some of the people we would be working with. We had some drinks, met some people and had a good night. Everything seemed normal until we woke up the next morning with the worst hangovers we had ever had. Looking back, we realize that our bodies were not used to the heat and we were pretty dehydrated. The combo of dehydration and getting boozed is never a pretty result. The whole 'worst hangover of our lives' thing would have been o.k. if we could have laid around all day on the couch. However, we had to attend a school function which was quite possibly the VERY LAST PLACE IN THE WORLD, we wanted to be. Please see above!

Our First Night Out in Taiwan

A few beers in......

The girls outside of FM (a local foreigner bar)

Allison and "buddy" Laura

Mark and "buddy" Michael

Our Trip to the Other Side

California coastline

Drinkin' in L.A.

Allison in L.A. excited about palm trees!

El Camino

As we stepped out of LAX, we saw this sweet El Camino. I immediately thought of Matt Hillgren and how he would love to take a ride through L.A. in this baby. So Matt, this one is for you.

Mark and a sweet El Camino outside the airport in L.A.

Our Trip to the Other Side........

Our trip over here was exciting, but painfully long. Going to L.A. was smooth and problem free. Stopped over for a few hours and sat down to have a few beers at LAX... Just so we could say we did. We had our last taste of overpriced American food and boarded the large and very full China Airlines plane to Taiwan. Allison fell asleep for a good portion of the 13 hour flight (because she was equipped with a sleeping mask) while Mark felt like his leg room diminished by 1 foot every 10 minutes and fought off the blinding lights overhead... He did not sleep, and in looking around, realized that he was the only one wide awake and in utter discomfort. By the end of the journey we had made our first Taiwanese friend who taught us 'hello' and 'Red Wine please' haha. Anyways, we survived and arrived safely in Taiwan. We knew it was all going to be okay when we picked up our baggage and loaded it into our cart that read: 'Thank you to fly with us.'