Day 2

So today was nice...uneventful and relaxing. I spent a lot of time researching Taiwan and reading Grapes of Wrath. I also finally figured out how to get cable in my temporary apartment, so that was pretty cool. The highlight of the day was a lovely 3 hour lunch with fellow new employee Nancy and her husband Mike at Mos Burger. I had a rice burger, which basically means that there is no bun; there are sticky rice patties. And then instead of a burger, there is some kind of like teryaki beef or something like that. There are also shrimp burgers and chicken burgers, and you can get a regular hamburger bun, but I definitely like the sticky rice. Anyways, I liked it! I also took some pics of my empty apartment. Here are a few of them. I'm hoping my shipment will arrive on Sat.

The street front door to the staircase...the 5 flights of stairs I have to walk up to get to my apartment!

One of my two bathrooms. The other one has a tub.

The master bedroom. To the right of the bed is a closet much like the one in the office picture below. At the foot of the bed is the door to the master bath.

The kitchen. Here you get a side view of my least favorite part of the apartment: the 1980s vomity yellow refrigerator that smells mildewy. In Taiwan, the tenant is responsible for all appliances. I paid the previous tenant $100 for it and I don't want to have to buy a new refrigerator, but I just might have to because this one thoroughly depresses me.

The other side of the kitchen with a door out to the porch where a washer and dryer (in much the same state as the fridge) are located. They are my 2nd least favorite part of the apartment.

This is the living area, taken from the main entrance. The sliding door goes to the porch. There is an addition room down the back hallway. Overall I'm pretty pleased with the place. It's is brighter than most Taiwanese apartments, and the view from the master bedroom is really nice. I'll put up a pic of that soon. I couldn't today because it was very overcast.

So after the visit to my apartment, I had dinner at the French Bistro downstairs. I had a delicious roasted pork sandwich on French bread and a side salad. The surprise of the day was when I spotted my favorite dessert treat on the shelves at the bistro...Quadratinis!!! Finally, I went for an evening stroll along the river.

Tomorrow I'm off to MegaBank to establish my account, and then I will brave the public bus system and head out to Ikea. But before I sign out for the evening, I remember I promised to show you the crosswalk signal. What I love about it is that when you can walk, there's a little green man who just strolls along while the the countdown appears above him. But at around 5, 8, or 10 seconds (depends on the size of the intersection), he takes off in the full out sprint, until his time is up. It makes me smile every time. I'm still working on my camera skills, but at least you'll get the idea.