Health Care in Taiwan

Today, I got to experience first hand the health care system in Taiwan. Experiencing these things first hand is never a good thing.

I arrived back in Taiwan about a week ago, and things were going very smoothly until yesterday morning. I woke up coughing and very quickly was forced to use my asthma inhaler. I was supposed to have an Erhu lesson (chinese two-string violin) at 4 PM and was very excited about this, as it would be my first lesson in an instrument I've wanted to learn for more than 5 years! But the 5 minute walk to the bus stop exhausted me so much that I had to call my teacher and cancel.

I spent the rest of the day indoors, coughing, sneezing, and hiding under my blankets. This morning, the ickiness continued. Thus, this evening, after a dinner of hot and spicy soup, two of my friends escorted me to the National Health Insurance clinic.

Having previous lived in India, I was apprehensive to say the least. I remember one doctor in India, when I asked a reasonable question regarding antibiotic dosage, he yelled at me "Are you a doctor?" and proceeded to prescribe completely inappropriate medicines.

Fortunately, Taiwan isn't like that. Although there was a slight language barrier, with the help of my friends we accurately described my symptoms. He checked my throat, lungs, temperature and a few other things, asked some questions and made a very reasonable diagnosis. Asked me some more question about medications and medical history and then prescribed a series of medicines. When I asked a question about one medicine and possible interference with another medicine, he intelligently answered my question and made it clear that there wouldn't be any problem.

At the end of the day, the cost was around $20 for a medical check up and several prescriptions.

All in all, as much as it sucks being sick, it's not too bad being sick in Taiwan.

Back again!

After a brief detour in the states, I returned to Taiwan late on Saturday night. Time to get into the swing of things! I am meeting some people about a few potential jobs that are lined up, as well as a new possible editing commission!

Right now the weather in Taiwan is hot and there are huge thunderstorms every evening. As much as I hate to use my AC, it's so hot and humid that I turn it on for an hour or so in the evening before bed.

Right now, I've just come back from a month away, so my apartment is completely empty. I need to run out, get groceries and generally get back into the swing of everything. Hopefully blogging will continue!

Doorbells

I hate my doorbell.

I should start with the basic fact that I have a doorbell at all. This is a major change in my life. In my entire adult life, living outside of my parents home, I have never once had a doorbell! Not in any of the three locations I lived during college, not during my brief stay in China, my first "apartment" in India hardly had a door, much less a bell. The second one had no doorbell. The third apartment had a little button outside the door. It had a picture of a bell on it and there was a small item above my bed that looked kind of like a speaker, but I was afraid to press the button to find out what it would do. It may have been a doorbell, but considering my entire "apartment" was the size of a mid-sized american bedroom and we didn't have electricity about one third of the time, we knocked.

A doorbell is just not part of my mental vocabulary.

You have to understand that after two years in India, I have a relatively low tolerance for technology. My friend's daughter, who spent most of her life that she can remember in India, recently arrived in Taiwan and has a terrible fear of elevators. India simply does not have them. And, after living in a country that generally doesn't have reliable electricity, the up-down locking scary moving electric box is quite terrifying!

As for me, I haven't coped much better. During my first week in Taiwan, I got into a fight with an electric door. My friend and I walked into a shop, with a sliding door, and the door was still open after we came in. Being a sliding door, and it was a cold, rainy day outside, I decided to be nice and close the door. It fiercely resisted. I struggled and pulled, occasionally managing to get it halfway closed, at which point I'd be forced to give up, and it would slowly, purposefully slide open again. I repeated this struggle three or four times before I decided it was best for me to get away from the door and hope no one hated me for leaving it open. About 10 seconds later, the automatic mechanical door slid shut with a buzz.

My doorbell is in this new category for me. I have a buzzer which rings on a little telephone in my living room if someone tries to enter the apartment complex and buzzes me. It has a television screen that should show me the person buzzing. The screen is broken, probably the only broken technology in Taiwan. I like it that way, it's a comfort.

But the doorbell. I'm not sure it should even be called a bell as it's simply an electric speaker. It doesn't ring. The noise it makes is as if you took a heavily sedated person, covered them in honey, sprinkled sunflower seeds all over them, put them in the middle of an aviary full of parakeets, put a string of small chinese firecrackers at their feet, allowed the parakeets to perch and eventually fall asleep on them and then remotely detonated the firecrackers.

The ensuing cacaphone and shrieking is what my doorbell sounds like. I suppose they believe that sounding like birds should be "relaxing."

It's not.

As most of my friends know, I am not comfortable with surprising sounds to alert me to your presence. My first three cell phones were always on buzz, lest the sound of them ringing frighten me (or cause my mom to dance fake ballet, but that's another story for another time.) One friend, realizing my phone was not on silent, called me while sitting in the same van just to hear me loudly cuss. In fact, it wasn't until phones could be programmed to ring with your Mp3 of choice that I allowed my phone to "ring." Currently, Kunga's soothing voice sings "ashang lolo" to me whenever you call. The result is that I don't pick up my phone, but instead start singing along and get very disappointed when it stops.

Fortunately, my doorbell has only been used three times. Most of my friends have been kind enough to either knock or meet me at the gate to my apartment complex. My doorbell was used once when I was shown the apartment and my landlady wanted to demonstrate the doorbell, once when my landlady came for my rent, and today when a friend came over.

Each time I reacted terrified, shouting in Chinese and English "Wait a minute!" while scrambling madly to get to the door, desperately praying that they won't firecracker the parakeets again. I usually bang my foot or knee on something as I rush to the door. I suppose the doorbell is inspiring at least.

The point is: I hate my doorbell. It scares me.

Shakey Shakey!!

So, I haven't written anything because there has not been much exciting news the past few days.

Work, study, relax, repeat.

Nothing exciting...until yesterday.

Yesterday morning I met the parent of some potential students. We went out for lunch, talked about tutoring and then just chatted about life around Taoyuan, and then he took me back to my apartment. I went upstairs to the 12th floor and started removing the stickers from some glass bowls I had bought and chatting with friends online. Suddenly I heard this odd, deep groaning sound and felt the bed swaying.

I looked up and saw the separator in my room waving and the paintings on the walls swinging. I know that on some really tall buildings, they can sway in a strong wind, so although my building is only 12 stories, I looked outside. There was no wind. That's when I figured out it was an earthquake and ran for the door frame.

After what seemed like a long time (but in reality was only about 10-15 seconds) the swaying stopped. I looked out the window and there was no damage, and then proceeded to message the friend with whom I was chatting: "HOLY F***, WE JUST HAD AN EARTHQUAKE" (censored, for more sensitive readers.)

Yep, it was my very first earthquake. A 5.7 in Yilan county, only around a 3-4 in effect here in Taoyuan but felt much stronger atop the 12th floor!

We had a few aftershocks throughout the night, but otherwise things seem to have calmed down. This was, according to the news, the largest quake to hit the island this year. It was scary, but there was no damage or injury.

Ah, adventure!

Food, Apartments and Gods

The past few days had been pretty boring, so no updates. Now I finally have stuff to talk about.

As I'm sure you all know, my first month in Taiwan has been dedicated to figuring out life. Papers, work, apartment, etc. I'm sure that all of you would love to read about apartment hunting, but I'll spare you too many details.

Rinpoche has been helping me a lot since arriving here. This is the Rinpoche I met by accident through a wrong number, but he's been helping me out a lot. Several of his students offered to help me find a place in Taipei. However, Taipei is like any other major city and it's very expensive. Tiny bedsitting apartments for too much money. After some discussion, I decided to go to Taoyuan instead.

My friend Lily (who is currently hosting me) introduced me to one of her friends in Taoyuan, a really nice girl named Mandy who helped me find Rinpoche's center on my first trip there. As it just so happens, the complex where she has her office had an open apartment. As of yesterday, I am the proud renter of a beautiful, top floor, new, well furnished apartment in Taoyuan. I might post photos. However, as my family knows, I'm a bit superstitious about posting photos of my apartment.

Big bedroom with a queen sized bed, dressing table, wardrobe, TV. Living room with laquered wooden sofas and chairs, table, lots of cabinets and drawers. Kitchen with 2 gas ranges, mid sized fridge, brand new washing machine. Tiny second bedroom which I'm going to turn into a study room. Oh, and a bathroom. Western style. Shower, bathtub. Hot water.


Rinpoche invited me to sing at a Green Tara empowerment that he and some other lamas were hosting. The ceremony was really nice and I met several nice Taiwanese students. Afterwords I was invited out to dinner with Rinpoche and several students.

We went to a restaurant called Kiki's cafe. It is apparently a very famous Sichuanese restaurant owned by a popular Taiwanese singer or television host. The food was unbelievable.

Crispy egg tofu. A faux tofu made of steamed egg then lightly fried on the outside. Softer than silken tofu.

Ground pork with chinese chives and fermented black beans, spicy, sweet and crunchy.

Crispy fried duck skin with green beans and chilis.

Mapo Tofu, tofu with ground meat and chilis.

Some sweet beef stew thingy.

Some difficult to eat pork thingy.

Cold chicken with chilis and garlic.

Cold Chicken with sesame sauce.

A big soup of lots of stuff, including sausage. Delicious, light broth.

The meal was stunning. The tea, however, was horrible. For the first time ever in my time in Taiwan, the tea was terrible! At my first taste, I recognized it as Lapsang Suchong 拉普山小種, a smoky tea that my parents flavor. I've always hated it, complaining that it tastes like sausage tea. My dad cooks with it, and that works well, but as a beverage? I'm not a fan.

But this? This was unforgivable. Lapsang Suchong iced tea, with lemon and honey. Sausage Lemonade. EWwwwwwwwwwwww!

The meal was good, though. But the tea. Blahhhh.


Yesterday I went back to Taoyuan with Lily and Mandy. Mandy and her family made Numb-Spicy Hot Pot 麻辣火鍋. It was pouring rain outside as we went out to sign contract on the apartment. The street was full of floats and cars decorated with flags and images of the Taiwanese gods. There was lots of music and parades all day and tents with life sized images of the gods. Yesterday was the birthday of one of the gods, not sure which one.

As Lily and I took the bus home, we watched the fireworks. I do love living in a place with local gods, like Thailand and Taiwan. Makes life more interesting.

A few relatively boring days

Not much exciting has been going on here, hence no updates. Life right now consists of paperwork and apartment hunting, both of which should be finished (at least to the point that is necessary for now) by tomorrow.

My biggest news is some sleep issues. I think once I've settled into my new apartment and routine I'll do better. Then when I'm sleeping better, I'll blog more!

\Houtong and a day around town

It's a series of public holidays right now, so everyone is taking a vacation. Monday is children's day, Tuesday is a day to visit the ancestors tombs.

Sunday, Lily grabbed a high school classmate and we took a train up to Houtong, a place known for its cats. Being that it is a public holiday long weekend, the train was beyond jam packed. We had to stand for the entire one hour ride.

We arrived in Houtong and i was surprised to see cat artwork everywhere. The town itself was clearly old and hadn't seen much renovation in recent years. There was an old, broken down coal refinery in the center. It seems that, like many towns across the world, this place's entire economy had rested on the coal refinery. When that shut down, so did the town. The town is full of old Taiwanese houses that are abandoned and broken down. There are very few places that are actually inhabited, and even those are very run down.

But there are cats. Plenty of cats.

In the beginning, it was just a few cats, but the locals who stayed behind started feeding them, and before long there were more and more cats. Now the town is famous almost solely for the cats. The cats, like all cats, ignore the visitors who flock around to take photographs.

After playing with cats and getting lunch, we headed back to Taipei, another difficult journey due to crowds and a very late train, but we did make it back!

In the evening, I was invited by a Rinpoche from Derge, who is also the uncle of a friend of mine, to attend some teachings, so I did that. We then chatted for a while about life in Tibet and India and Taiwan.

Today, the weather took a turn for the worse. Icky and misting rain. In the morning, Lily and I were lazy, which was nice. At lunch we visited Lily's parents who had a special treat! I have no idea what it was called, but it was a crepe filled with shaved peanuts, sugar, and different cooked vegetables. It was very delicious! I also now know one word of Taiwanese: Todaohu. Peanut. Lily's Grandma (who only speaks Taiwanese) was very happy with me!

In the afternoon, a friend picked me up to show me around town. We drove to some different places, then got Shabu Shabu for dinner followed by a foot massage. The foot massage was awesome, but those ladies who do it should be in the military or something. SO strong. Ow...

Worth it.

Day Trip to Wulai

This morning, Lily (my friend and current hostess) and I met up with another friend, Chia-Ling and headed up to Wulai. Wulai is up in the mountains and has several natural hotsprings.

As you go up, you pass dozens and dozens of hot spring resorts, all looking very inviting...

Wulai is definitely a tourist attraction and there are hundreds of shops lining the streets. But more than anything else are the food stands, especially Mochi oddly enough. Wulai apparently shares my belief that all food tastes better if it is grilled and served on a stick.

I tried:

Mifan: Thin rice noodles with vegetables
Grilled mochi with a sticky sweet/salty sauce
Grilled corn that appeared to be rubbed down with BBQ sauce (very good)
and the weirdest was a crepe with shaved peanut, oddly flavored icecream (I think it was sort of marzipan-ish, but I really couldn't identify it) and cilantro. Yes, cilantro.

Photos forthcoming.

Lily, Chia-ling and I went down to the river, which looked like a normal river except that people had made these odd little circles out of stone and were hanging out inside of the circles. When we came down, we realized that the pools closest to the shore were HOT. PAINFULLY hot. People had then segmented off parts of the COOOOLD river so that the hot water would pour in and mix to create a comfortable warm place to hang out. The contrast was shocking.

We found a nice pool, while another guy also using the pool kept rearranging the rocks to get it a bit hotter, which was really great. The water seemed to change temperature a lot, sometimes coming in luke warm then suddenly turning very hot. It was nice but we had to be careful. Also, the sand was sometimes REALLY hot. However, it was nice, kind of like the heated seats in a mini cooper.

After a few hours and me getting too much sun despite the sun block, we headed back to Taipei. Chia-Ling went home, but Lily and I went up to Shilin market to meet my friend Dora and get dinner. Dora took us to an unbelievable vegetarian restaurant. I wouldn't have believed it was vegetarian had it not been advertised that way. It was amazing.

The market was a madhouse. We didn't consider that it's a weekend of some public holidays so EVERYONE is on vacation and came to the market. It was impossible to move around even, so we decided against wandering the market. We might do that after a few weeks. Then Lily and I grabbed some coffee and headed back to Xinzhuang. We are both completely exhausted. I'm going to sleep. Tomorrow we are going to "A place with lots of cats."

Um...ok....

Touring the North

As noted, I arrived in Taiwan a bit more than a week ago. Current struggles are the basics:

-Get a work permit
-Get an apartment
-Get a set schedule of tutoring students

When I got up this morning, I wanted to know how the work permit was going, so I called my friend who is helping me, a local Khenpo. Khenpo lives around 2 hours by public transport from Xinzhuang, where I am currently located, so when he told me he was in Taipei (30 minutes) I jumped on the next bus. I expected we'd grab lunch, discuss any paperwork details and then I'd head back to Xinzhuang for a boring afternoon. Fortunately, I was wrong.

Khenpo la picked me up, said "you'll get a call tomorrow about the paperwork, but it's going well. Where do you want to go?" Not what I expected! I told him I didn't really know anything about the area, so he said "OK!" and started driving.

After about an hours drive, we were up in the northern tip, a resort area where lots of people go for the natural hot springs. We got a nice lunch and then went up to a public park in the mountains. The mountains were beautiful, lush and green. Right in the middle was a big stone gash in the mountain with steam pouring out. The whole place smelled like sulfur and you could feel the warmth of the steam and hear it roaring. it was impressive. As we went up to look closer, there were signs warning about the steam jets. The really shocking part was little puddles, that were fed by the springs, and were boiling!

I cannot wait to go with some girl friends to the hot springs for a soak...

After that, Khenpo la asked if I wanted to visit the coast, which was visible in the distance. I was thrilled!

On the ride over, we saw....a Tibetan monastery? Yep, there on top of the mountains. Neither of us knew of one in this area, and it wasn't an area where one would be expected, so we stopped for a quick look before heading to the ocean.

The water was pretty cold, but it was still fun to wade and look for seashells. I deeply regret not wearing sandals. I have sand in my socks.

I didn't sleep much last night (for some insane reason, despite going to sleep at 3 AM, I woke up at 7.) so I fell asleep in the car as we drove back towards Taipei. I woke up as we arrived at a music studio in Tainmu. Khenpo la introduced me to the producer who has asked to listen to my music...we'll see what happens from there!

We then had a delicious dinner of Hong Kong food and tomorrow...who knows?

Life is good.

Let the Blogging Begin!!!

Well, as a new adventure begins, time to start a new blog. This will cover my times and adventures in Taiwan.

I just arrived here in Taipei about one week ago and so far so good, but each day is full of some wackiness, so I'm starting a journal to get it all down.

Some posts will be private or at least viewable only to "invited members" so once I figure out how to do that, friends and family (read: people who ACTUALLY know me) might want to get in on that.

Most posts will be public. Let the blogging begin!