Welcome To Taichung

Maura:
We walked out of customs in Taiwan and were immediately greeted by an enthusiastic woman shouting across the airport, "Maura! Tom and Maura! Welcome to Taiwan! St. James welcomes you!" This was Catherine, the school's liaison, and she will be with us for our first week in Taiwan. She took us on the high speed train down to Taichung, in the middle of the country, and brought us to the school. By then, it was about 7:00 at night and we hadn't slept in 27 hours, so we quickly met the principal Susan, ate some salad and sandwiches with Catherine and one of the English teachers/our apartment mate, Leighnae (pronounced like Renee, but with an L), were shown our room on the third floor of the school, and passed out.

The next morning, the school provided us with a lovely breakfast of delicious Taiwanese breads with nuts and fruit baked in and fresh lychee, which we had never had before (like a grape with a peel you take off and a small pit inside).  Then, Catherine took us to the school assembly where we went up on stage and were greeted by all of the children and teachers. We even saw Emma and Tiffany, who taught in the Mandarin class at Cambridge-Ellis with me last year! We then went on a tour of the school which is massive and very easy to get lost in. There are 300 children and 3 buildings. We visited two of the English classrooms in particular and got to play with the children, which was a moment of normalcy for me in this very different culture. The children then interviewed us, asking several interesting questions, such as, "Teacher Tom, are you a robot?" "Teacher Maura, do you like fruit? I have fruit for you." and "Who is your favorite friend?" (The Amandas, of course).

That afternoon, we planned to unpack, but ended up accidentally taking a 3 hour nap instead (whoops!). Then Charles, the retired rector of the Episcopalian church that runs the school, invited us to join him and his wife for tea. The church is located in the school, right below the apartment we share with Leighnae. Tea was in the apartment on the 8th floor of the tallest building of the school, where Tom took some pictures of the neighboring areas.

This is the shortest of the three buildings of the school.  The church takes up much of the second and third floors.  We are staying on the third floor.

Then we went with Charles and his wife, their son and daughter in law, Principal Susan, Tiffany, Catherine, the head of the language institute, and the current rector, Phillip. We went to a very nice Japanese restaurant near the school and had a delicious 10 course meal.

Charles is on the left, Catherine is behind Maura, and Tiffany is on the right.

The first main course was a beautiful sashimi boat.  Phillip and Susan are sitting next to Catherine.

Prawns.

Tom's prawn.

A cheesy mix of things that unfortunately included mushrooms was served in bamboo shoots.

This tasted pretty good, but it was basically a big fish in a bowl with soup.

Eyes and teeth included.

Five of the dishes.

Dessert was a little gelatin-type bowl and this fruit display.

This was the restaurant, Yamatoya.