Some people step out of their comfort zones, I ran away from mine at full speed. That is the best description possible for me accepting a job teaching English in Taiwan. I do not speak Mandarin and I have never been out of the country (going to Canada while at Niagara Falls does not count) let alone off of the continent. The fact that I had sworn on several occasions that I would never teach seemed to add the flavor of irony as well. I was between jobs, though, and my life plan had been smashed to a pulp against the brick wall of life. When an opportunity to travel and have a great adventure came into view, how could I possibly turn it down?
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| Sunrise on my birthday |
The thing about going to the literal opposite side of the world, is you have to go all the way to the opposite side of the world. That requires an obscene amount of work and planning. Paperwork had to be filled out and sent in. A thousand different arrangements had to be made. Research was a big deal to me. I like to have information. You cannot form a plan without information. The trouble is getting good information can be like pulling teeth.
For the most part, though, I kept pretty cool through getting ready. There were some stressful moments, but for the most part I just kept doing one task then the next. The biggest stressors came late in the game. Trying to find a phone that would work in Asia at the last minute after the original plan fell through was not easy. I still had not found satisfactory information on how best to take my money with me.
Packing turned into a big curve ball. I had wanted to do it one way, but everything I wanted to take wanted to do it another. Cloths was the easy part. I knew what I needed and how much. Then my mother insisted on packing in even more. Needless to say I am well outfitted. It is the other stuff that is hardest to pack. What items can I not live without? What can I just buy there? I needed to have some comfort items as well. I chose my wolf blanket as one, and that ate up a lot of real estate. Books was the hardest part for me. I have so many that I want to use and read. Ultimately I only took those I felt I could get the most use out of or that I only had hard copies of.
So, the day before leaving I tried to relax. Had friends and family over and what would probably be the last bit of American food for a while. I am glad that I got to see almost all of my friends before I left at some point. We went up to Columbus to stay the night with my aunt and uncle for the night.
At 0430 is when the journey started. We got to the airport early and had some breakfast. Had to do some last minute rearranging of luggage to avoid a checked bag fee. Then there was nothing left to do except for say goodbye and head through security. Well, one thing. I stole dad’s hat.
The flight to JFK was pretty nice. Plane was only about half full. Then things started to get rough. At JFK I got a run around on where my next flight was. I had to walk to two different terminals and even then no one knew what gate I needed. It ended up being a lady at the currency exchange that told me. Somehow she was the only one that noticed that the same flight left from the same gate every day.
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| Smoggy NYC |
I had six hours to kill in JFK. That was tougher than expected because they did not have free wifi there. So that really put a hole in several plans I had. To add injury to insult, my shoulders were killing me. I had not expected to have to walk that much with my carry on bags (which I can fairly say were a tad to heavy). The upside, though, was meeting several people from Taiwan as I waited and having a little bit of conversation.
I lucked out once I was finally on the plane. No one was seated next to me so some extra room to work with. That was about the end of my luck. They had outlets to plug in laptops, but that did not work for mine. So no getting work done. I would have read, but I did not want to wake everyone else that was asleep by turning on lights. So instead, I watched movies. Oh, and massaged my aching shoulders. I would have given a king’s ransom for a masseuse about then.
So being on an eighteen hour flight means getting fed; a couple of times actually. The food was pretty good. It was also the first time I have had rice for three straight meals. The big, interesting thing about it was that I am fairly sure that one meal was sashimi (raw fish). Not something expects on an airplane, but good.
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| Watched my water bottle implode as we landed. |
Something that I did not expect was a brief landing in Osaka, Japan. Not the sightseeing tour I would have liked. Instead, everyone had to get off of the plane and make their way through security. I was ever so pleased to carry my heavy bags around the airport just to get back onto the same plane I had been on. I can, however, now say I have been to Japan. There was a heady kind of excitement to it as I got off of the plane and realized that I was stepping foot not only onto another country, but another continent. I did manage to maintain my decorum and not give an all too American, “Yippy ki-yay!”
After flying halfway around the world and over the arctic circle, the flight from Japan to Taiwan was relatively fast. Comparable to going from Ohio to Florida. I was excited to be off of the plane. Getting through immigration was a headache, to say the least, when I could barely see straight through. I made it though, collected my luggage, and got out of the airport with nothing to declare except that I hate airports. I actually probably had a few other things I should have declared, but they were not checking anyone's baggage so the heck with that.
There was a guy waiting to pick me up. It was a nice ride to the hotel. The van even had a TV. I cannot speak Mandarin, but I know “John Wayne” when I hear it. I think there may be an energy drink named after him judging by the commercial. The lights of the city blurred by, and I was only half awake. After half an hour I was checked into my hotel and meeting my roommate.
From the time I got up at 0430 in Columbus to the time I laid down in Taipei at around 0130 local time, about 33 hours had passed. More than 24 hours on a plane. I was more exhausted than excited. My journey was over, but when I woke up next, my adventure would begin.
