Home Run! Moving House in a Typhoon

My kid and I's dream of a mountain manor where we can have chickens and a goat, providentially came true! Its a funny story how we found this place. I was late paying my water bill, so I went to the water department in Yuanshan (near my work, it was my lunch break) to pay it. They insisted I could pay at 7-11, but I was doubtful, only because whenever I am late with my Chunghua Telecom bills (phone, internet, cable), 7-11 doesn't work I need to pay at their offices.

In another example of Taiwanese kindness, the one lady insisted on driving me down the road to 7-11. I was perfectly capable of going there myself, but whatever, I was open, and then we started to talk. She grew up here, she went to the same little mountain school as my kid and her childhood classmate, still one of her friends, had this little house available to rent. Now this was back in February right after CNY and it was only abundant Grace that kept this house from getting snatched up until our lease ended in July.

 

 We moved out of our Yilan City apartment the end of July during this crazy weekend of an approaching typhoon and my friends visiting from Tainan. We decided to have the movers move the big furniture on Friday instead of Sunday because of the typhoon. It took them 2 trips in their blue truck, which cost me 4000 NT (132 USD). We sat out the storm in our Yilan City Apartment with our guests.

 My friend Chris Knight, a walker (he once walked the entire Ganges River), traveler, disaster manager, and animal lover was now walking around Taiwan with 2 boys, one an old friend of ours who is 12 (who also walked the Camino de Santiago with his mom last year) and his Taipei friend who is 14. They had been camping, sleeping at police stations, walking days, raising money for homeless dogs. Admire and marvel at their incredible journey at Footprints of Formosa.

One sweet dog Jiji had adopted Chris and was traveling with them (Z and I hope to adopt her the end of August). All four of them crashed with us for two nights during the typhoon, in the middle of my moving house, with most of my towels, bedding, and no refrigerator, but they were the easiest of guests. We ate at Balagov's, swam at the cold springs in Yuanshan, waiting for typhoon Nesat to pass. My kid thoroughly enjoyed having cool kids her age to play with and I enjoyed having some adult conversation!

Checking out political art while waiting for Nesat to strike

Yuanshan Coldsprings

Nesat hit fast and hard, all the windows flooded except the kitchen (balcony). We survived, our guests walked the next day from my house to Taipei 101 (nuts!) as we were hustling to clean my old place, which was a mess from the typhoon waters, trying to get our security deposit back (which we did). Then I was engrossed unpacking into our new, mountain abode.

Nesat destroyed the banana field in front of the house

Ah the house, its spanking new, no one has lived in it. Its in the middle of a tea farm, a tea field beside us, and tea behind us on the mt in the distance, my other neighbor has a ginger farm. The banana field (owned by my landlord) in front of us got completely destroyed from the typhoon, half of their pomelos that border the tea field and our house were on the ground, but the jackfruit survived unscathed. The landlady's mother has a vegetable garden beside us and if we don't pick the sweet potato leaves, okra, gourds, en choy ourselves, she molests us with bags of the stuff. We have been having en choy or potato leaf omelettes for breakfast almost daily.

Digging holes for flowers! "Mom I'm gonna dig a hole all the way to America!" When I was a kid we tried to dig holes to China😅.

The benefit of our new abode besides the quiet, the views, fresh air and proximity to my work and my kid's school, is that water is free. It just comes from the mountain. Another benefit is this place is made for bike riding. The roads here are small lanes, that circle in and out of the orchard farms, perfect for a late afternoon leisure ride when the day's heat subsides. The last benefit is we are gardening. I'm not sure how long we will stay here or in Taiwan, but for sure this is our last and final homestead. We have planted yellow and orange hibiscus, lotus, some flowering bushes I don't know they names of, garden herbs, dragon eye tree, lychee tree, and a cherry tree (which the monkeys prefer over the riper pomelos). I imagine how handsome it will be in 5 years, 10 years. It's peachy keen if we aren't here to enjoy it then, as I see it already in my mind's eye. For now we enjoy caring for them. The ground is unforgiving rocky, I broke one of the old lady's tools, digging out the stones and it was back breaking work digging those holes. The road to our home has this natural compost of fallen tree leaves on the road that have never been swept or cleaned, so we scraped 3 inches of the finest, blackest jungle humus and added it to our plants. So far so good.

 I tell people I live in Yuanshan because thats basically were we are, except because I live on the other side of a river I technically live in Jiaoxi! My address on Google map sends everyone down the road and lost, its mid August and I still haven't received any mail. I'm still waiting for my landlady to fix my mailbox that was blown away during Nesat, but still no green mailman on his motorcycle around these parts looking for us.

Adjusting wasn't hard, even with Chunghua taking 20 days to install cable and internet (we played lots of chess). The exception is getting used to the critters,  but so far no snakes. There are macaques behind our house in the mornings and evenings, they stole one of  my kid's shoes and sometimes are on the roof right after dawn. I nearly had a heart attack when I saw a side-widing centipede in my living room, which I wasn't able to catch and then 2 more in the shower. I located which farmer's supply store sell DE (Diatomaceous Earth) and sprinkled it around the outside perimeter and inside where I think critters would hide. It apparently keeps snakes away from the chickens, which is good to know, as we plan on getting chickens and a dog the end of the month.

Yet I was in a dilemma, a traveler's dilemma. I had the money, I found the cheap flights and guesthouse, we could of gone to Jeju Island- today in fact. (We could go there still). Twice I was this close to finalizing the payments of the air tickets and then I closed the window.  I think its a combination of being tired of blowing what little I have in the bank and starting from zero the next month (that was us after last month's Singapore trip) and wanting to take it easy. There are activities to enjoy here, we have yet to surf this year which is a sorry state since its now August (but the sun is so abhorrently strong), we could go diving here too. Mostly I didn't buy those tickets to Jeju because our home is so dang relaxing. I have the month off and our home is a sanctuary, and with my easy schedule, I cherish everyday being like a Saturday. I don't desire to be anywhere than where I am. Contentedness is highly underrated.

Yilan or Bust, Moving House

At the end of July while I worked my last week, my mom and daughter helped pack boxes. The whole month I was giving away and throwing away bags of clothes, toys, books. And I wouldn't consider myself materialistic or a pack rat, so I'm not sure what happened except six years with a kid at the same place  I had amassed a whole lot of crap.

AJ, Andrew and my Mom

When it was time to move my friend AJ and I rented a truck (he has a local driver's license) and together with one of his friends Andrew, they quickly and efficiently packed. I went to get some lunch and drinks for everyone, I was gone maybe 15 minutes and was astounded to find they were nearly done when I returned. What a strange coincidental blessing that Andrew for one miserable summer, worked as a professional mover, so he pretty much managed the whole packing of the truck. All 6 years of my life took an hour and a lot of sweat to pack into one truck.

Renting the truck was probably the easiest part of the whole move. Unfortunately the company is located in Yongkong district, but the man Yo-yo spoke perfect English and they were all very fast, efficient and professional. (Tainan Car Plus rental offvce in Yongkang 06-243-6655, No 169, Zhongzheng N. Rd, Yongkang 71081). It cost around 3,200 to rent the truck for 24 hours and after so many miles it was 4 nt a mile that added up, plus all the tolls that are automatically scanned by blue lights, that added up to 800. All in all, it was significantly cheaper to do it ourselves. (A moving company would be around 15,000 or more).

I'm very thankful for my dear friend AJ, who significantly helped be there to pack, move, get boxes, drive the truck, which wasn't easy. We played good music and were following this double rainbow between Chiayi and Chunghua, were caught in a thunderstorm around Miaoli, and stuck in Friday eve traffic between Hsinchu and Taipei. We arrived in Yilan around 830 pm but lost didn't find the new apartment until 9:30. It was a long day. My friend Steve who helped find me a temporary place was there with my new landlady and we all busted ass for twenty minutes  until our little studio was filled with boxes.

The next day bright and early AJ and I gassed up the truck and head back to Tainan to drop off the truck and the following day bring my mom to the airport. As you can see from the above map, Yilan at the northeast is in the exact opposite direction of Tainan in the southwest. It took about 6 hours one way.

The Case for Taiwan

It’s simple really.

I had planned on teaching high school social studies this fall in the TIR (Teacher’s in Residence Program) where someone w/ a BA can become a teacher. I applied for an opening at Arapaho H.S which is down the street from here, but I doubt I will follow through with this. Who knows? I don’t totally don’t want to close the door on anything w/o having all (or as much) info. I will talk to the Littleton Public Schools admin tell them my concerns and see what they can do for me.

If I take on the TIR program (after having been hired by a school first), then I begin classes in July, start full time in August and go to night school every Monday at Metro for the first year I teach. The TIR program is 2 years. From teachers I’ve talked to I’m looking at least to 60 hour work weeks, with the prep time, grading papers + Monday nights, I would never see Zenaida! I don’t really want to be away from her all that long so soon, she is still so young and so attached to me (and vice versa), she still nurses and sleeps with me. And I would still have to live w/ my folks for a year saving for a place of my own. ‘Im itching to spread my wings be independent. I’m too old to be with them.

Now, I’ve worked in Taiwan before, I known what I’m getting myself into more or less. I can get a full time job teaching ESL in a kindergarten, which is 9-5 and 25-30 hours teaching, 1 ½ hour lunch breaks, free lunch and breakfast. The cost of living is cheaper, I can immediately (or after 3 months) get my own apt. The best thing of all is Zenaida can attend the same school I teach (they start at age 2-3), so I can see her during the day, possibly teach some of her classes, take lunch w/ her, even nap with her if I wanted.

What has prevented me from not going to Taiwan sooner, is the shock it will be for Zenaida; she will be emerged in Mandarin, she will stand out as a foreigner, the crowds, the climate, and being uprooted from her home and extended family; it weighs on my conscious. I think she can handle it, we will be together, she will like being in school w/other kids, she will become fluent in Mandarin (and maybe Taiwanese and Hakka too). It’s temporary, only for 2 years max. We can come home w/money in the bank and I can pursue the TIR program and teach high school when she starts school .

So I've applied to some places throughout Taiwan. I would love to be near my friends in Taipei and live in Taipei country again, but I am also interested in living in other parts of the island and have applied to a school in Tainan and am making plans for a phone interview. I don’t think most of the schools have been too keen on me bringing a daughter into the equation. An exception is a school in Hsinchu, but they wanted me to sign a contract where they were going to charge me 1/3 of my salary to pay for Zenaida’s books, which is insane because she cant read or write yet. I think having her in an ESL school is an advantage for the school because she is so articulate for her age and has the vocab of a 4 year old. But these schools make their profit on these books, so many books.

I'm taking it one day at a time and see what happens. Its exciting really because anything can manifest right now.

I'm freeing some space, making room for grace.  Now the danger is having an attachment of what Zenaida and I’s life will be in Taiwan, should we go that route. The one benefit of international traveling is having these initial expectations and being so wrong because the reality far exceeds the expectations. It’s a blast. I miss it. I wonder if I have the courage or wisdom to make the right decision.