Hello!
I'm sorry it has been so long. I have had many affairs to attend to and now I'm enjoying my new room, a five minute walk from my school. It is truly a blessing to be so close. I marvel every time I can walk to the metro without waiting in the cold 20 plus mins for a bus that has no set schedule. Now that it's colder, I had to admit, the wait was less bearable. I still need to pay the new landlord the rest of the deposit. Thankfully, I had a random subbing position for 10 hours teaching English to two classes. The money helped me a bundle. I believe God had a hand in arranging for the meeting with myself and the lady who arranged the subbing position. I felt that way the most when on my way to see the school to learn the curriculum. I passed for the first time in Taiwan the scene of the Nativity. Christmas is all commercialized and secular here unless you are near a church. So seeing this on my way to my destination in the metro gave me hope to my lousy week and the stress of finding a new place to live. Now that I have a new place I'm focusing on buying tickets to Hong Kong in order to "renew" my visa, which is another pain that I never had to deal with in Spain. Here they require you to visit the immigration office every 3 months or so to get your visa extended. I have already gone there twice because they didn't extend it fully when I hadn't yet paid tuition for the following semester to continue my studies. In order to keep my visa from expiring I must go outside the country and re-enter it. That will automatically reset the days for another 2 extensions. It is the most convenient and least stressful manner for me. Otherwise going for a Resident Visa would be another boatload of work.
Well, as for my Christmas. It was standard for being away from home. I went on Friday evening with my friend to attend church. I got to see a Christmas concert and hear Latin, English and Chinese song. My friend sang "Holy Night" in Japanese and I sang it in English. Although she doesn't attend mass, she is that special that she would go with me just so I wouldn't be alone. She is definitely a special friend. Christmas day, my friends arranged for a Christmas picnic that went indoors because of the rain. All week it was sunny and warm until Christmas! We enjoyed ourselves for lunch and then we got donuts from Mister Donut and went to a nice coffee shop near my friends' apartment. We talked and played cards into the evening before I went home to pack for the move.
I have my language exchange partner to thank for helping find a nice price for a short walk away from school. We found this place within two days. It is great knowing people who live here for sure. I find that people are often stunned by the rapid pace that I'm learning Chinese. It's not rocket science. I just hang out less and less around English speakers and more and more with my Taiwanese and other friends who don't speak English often or well and must use Chinese.
Since I'm not so thrilled by my new teacher this semester, I find it all the more important to do my best where I can outside of it with my friends and the people I meet.
Today, I don't want to forget to look more into the spiced milk tea I drank at the Indian Restaurant near my new place. I ordered the tea 印度奶茶 which just translates to Indian milk tea and it was amazing! The spices and milk blended made it creamy and yummier than any latte. I asked the waiter about what was put in it. My Japanese friends' language exchange partner was there to help us but I didn't get the answer I wanted. We just found out it had spices in it. I want to know how it was made so I plan on going back with a list of spices translated to ask what they used.
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