Move D

I went to this dance party on Saturday night that was held in an abandoned building complete with a cement wall with shards of glass embedded at the top and barbed wire above the glass. Intruders beware! There was a DJ playing house music and a make shift bar to order drinks from. It had the makings of a small bottom of the basement Rave. It was a fun time hanging out with some classmates, dancing and exploring this abandoned building. Apparently they will be having a few more parties this spring so I might have to check that out.

Learning Mandarin Chinese

I have always wanted to learn another language but never found the right environment for it. I studied Spanish in high school and college but didn't learn or retain much. I have contemplated the idea of learning another language for a while and figured it needed to be done in an environment where there were plenty of opportunities to use it and really where using it was a requirement for survival. Taipei is such a place. Yes, you can make it without learning Chinese and many people in service jobs here speak and understand enough English for you to get by but that is the limit. You are just getting by. You can't participate in much that is available or make any local friends unless they speak English, or whatever your native language is, well. Unfortunately, I have met westerners who have lived here for 5, 10, even 20 years and they can barely speak enough to order a cup of coffee.

I decided this would be a good opportunity to take another crack at learning a language and so far I think it was a great choice. I enrolled in an intensive mandarin class at National Taiwan Normal University's Mandarin Training Center. It is one of the oldest, largest and most well known MTCs in the world. My class meets 3 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 12 weeks and we have about 3-4 hours of homework assigned per night. It is a lot of work considering I'm also taking classes for my MBA and am studying to take level one of the CFA in June but well worth it. My teacher is great and my classmates are all nice and good people to work with. I have been in classes for 3 weeks now and feel that the class is moving at a good pace. I wish I had a full year to study so I could learn a lot more but I might just have to continue my studies in the States. The great thing about studying here is that I learn things in class that I hear everyday on the street and have an opportunity everyday to test out what I've learned in class on real people. This will be much harder to do outside of a Mandarin speaking country.

Kaohsiung City

I decided to check out another city this weekend so I jumped on a speed train to Kaohsiung City on the south side of Taiwan. It's about a 5 hour drive but the speed train made it there in 1.5 hours. Yay speed trains. It's a cool place with nicer weather than Taipei and probably nicer people but I was only there for a weekend so that statement is based on my limited experience and what others who live there have told me about both cities.

I stayed at the Angels' Backpacker Hostel near the Formosa Boulevard station. It was cheap and had a very centralized location.

I checked out a few local bars that cater to westerners. These were the Brickyard Pub, Brickyard Beer Garden and Lighthouse Bar & Grill. I actually ended up going to Brickyard Pub each night I was in Kaohsiung and met a great group of cool people.

Besides the bars, I went by the Kaohsiung Museum of History, the Dream Mall, Lotus Pond and the Love River. You can take a ferry to Cijin Island and visit the Cihou Lighthouse.

Amazing pork and rice at a restaurant down the street from my hostel.

Pier 2 Art Center, which is a strip with local street art.

Just in case you didn't know, don't drive off the cliff.

I walked up to the old British Consulate and looked at the museum. There is a lot of history in Kaohsiung and a great view of the city from the consulate.

After a long day of walking around I found this awesome dumpling place so I parked myself there and cleaned them out. This place became a regular late night visit for me.

The Rueifong Night Market was a must.

Brains, anyone?

If Taipei is the NYC of Taiwan than Kaohsiung is the Los Angeles. It is a big industrial city that is more spread out than Taipei and more laid back. It has great weather and the cost of living is much cheaper than Taipei. I'm paying NT $14,000 per month for my small room in a 5 bedroom apartment and am sharing a bathroom. I meet multiple people who have their own 1 bedroom apartment and are paying NT $5,000/month in Kaohsiung. It seems that most of the foreigners in both Kaohsiung and Taipei teach English because it is a relatively easy job to get and to do but your money goes so much further in Kaohsiung.

I still haven't figured this out yet but people put the toilet paper in the trash can next to the toilet instead of inside the toilet.

Sir, would you like fries with that...ATM fee?

I figured I would have to pay high fees to take money out of the ATM while in Taiwan but I didn't expect them to be as high as they have been. The first time I took money out of the ATM was at the Taipei airport when I arrived. A few days later when I checked my bank statement I say I was charge a US $5 ATM fee and another 1% transaction fee, all courtesy of Bank of America. After needing to go to the ATM three times to pay my rent, my deposit on my apartment and to buy food and other necessities I figured I needed a cheaper way to access my money. Taking out more money per withdrawal wasn't an option because I was already taking out my daily max. The next thought that came to me was to find a Bank of America partner bank if Taipei to reduce my fees. As we all know Bank of America has no friends so that was a lost cause. Next, I decided to see what would be involved in opening a local bank account and sending a wire transfer from B of A to a local bank in Taiwan.

I went to three local banks and was told I need to get an ID number from the immigration office in order to do so. I did that. When I came back I was told that the application needed to be complete in Chinese. Given that I couldn't even write my name in Chinese I left and came back another day with a friend who could speak and write for me. It was like being 3 years old all over again. "Mommy, what does that word mean? Cat, you f***ing idiot." After obtaining my account information and ATM card I thought I had my solution around these fees, which amounted to around US $12 for each ATM withdrawal. Later that night I went home and called Bank of America customer service and spoke to who had to have been the dumbest women in the entire building, maybe even in the entire world but I'm trying to be nice :-). I would have been more satisfied if they put the vacuum cleaner on the phone instead of this genius. For every question I asked this woman she gave me three responses that were all different. I had to spend so much time trying to figure out which answer was the correct one. I keep asking her "is that your final answer...Ok, is this your final answer?" After getting off the phone with this person I went online to set up my transfer. I enter the information and placed my transfer. When I received my confirmation I realized that the exchange rate they gave me was awful. It was much worse than the rate I was getting at the ATM. It was so bad that I actually would have saved US $65 by just taking money out of the ATM and paying the ATM fee. Needless to say I will not be doing anymore transfers and have yet to find a good solution to my fee issue. I guess I'll just have to stick with the ATM fees until I leave in June. And yes, I would like fries with that!