7/6/09 Itinerary

Ni-How! (Hello in Chinese!) We are slowly learning Chinese words for important things like Please, Hellow, Thank You, You are Welcome. The hardest things to get used to are the cultural differences and the language barrier. But more on that later!

The school schedule works like this:

8-12 am: Teach students at San Shin (The teachers move from classroom to classroom, which is different from the schools that I went to but I have heard other US schools do this, "traveling teachers").

12-4pm: Adventures around Kaohsiung ( the early deadline is because a few of the host families have the teachers ride the bus)
5 or 6pm: (at my house) Dinner! Traditional Chinese dinner - Smorgasbord of fresh foods and flavors. This is one of my favorite parts of the day because we get to watch our host family interact with each other. This is fascinating to me. I love it!
6-10pm: Night adventure to night market or other places. People in Kaohsiung have it right and have the fun out door things at night since its soooo much cooler to do so. OR Internet and reading time. Our host family loves to read and go on the Internet. They are just like an American family in this regard but there is a sense of community since the Internet is only in the living room (LAN).

Folayan and I rarely make it to bed before 11 pm since we both miss our families and love to talk to them and, with the time change, we cant do so until around 9 pm which gives us precious time with the people we love.


Monday's day venture we went to the department store by my house. It was our first time alone without a native speaker. There was a lot of pantomiming and calculators but we fared very well. See the President Department Store entry below!