Hi there

Sorry it's been a while since I last posted. It's been a busy few days since we started work and Sunday seems like it was a long time ago now. 

Sunday was a pretty nice day. We woke up late and relaxed in our room at the hotel until about 12.30. At 1pm we met the other teachers at the primary campus and went on a bus tour of the city. It started off in our home area of Tianmu which is in the Shilin district of the city. It turns out that our apartment is actually in Beitou district but we're just on the border of Tianmu and Shilin. Beitou mostly comprises of the mountain areas from what I can tell. The area is stunning and so green. The road going up the mountain from where we are is called the Monkey Road, as there are apparently monkeys there. I've yet to see any. 

Anyway, after that we headed further into Taipei city which included the Chiang Kai-Shek memorial ....


and the Taipei 101 building...


To give you an idea of where our flat and the school are roughly in relation to the picture of the 101 building above, we are located near the mountains to the right hand side (above B1 of the map below).


I'm ashamed to say that we didn't go inside the Chiang Kai-Shek memorial building. It was stupidly hot so we stayed in the shade and went in search of a 7 Eleven for a cold drink. We are planning on going back when the weather cools down as there are some really interesting things to see there, including the museum and national theater. The Taipei 101 building was interesting (I'm using the British meaning for this one). It's like trying to get up the Empire State building so we just didn't bother. The shopping mall at the bottom was very high end and seemed to be full of watch shops. I'm not exaggerating when I say this as it was the one thing that everyone commented on when we got back on the bus. 

So that was Sunday mostly. We had a nice time although it was a noisy bus trip as all the kids were with us and they were hot and high on sugar and crisps. James developed a twitch and noted that this was the reason he had gone into secondary work and not primary. 

Monday - first day of work - was pretty good. Lots of meetings and tours and things. I had some department time which was nice. We spent most of the day unpacking the office and getting things sorted. In the evening, we moved some of our stuff into the flat and waited for the Internet and Cable guys to turn up. Thankfully they were early so we were able to get back to the hotel at a reasonable time. It was weird leaving the flat and going back to the hotel. We are eager to move in but still have some stuff that we need to buy in order to be able to do that. 

Our shipment is arriving tomorrow so we are hoping to be in the flat from tomorrow night. It will be nice to be out of the hotel though I will miss breakfast and maid service. Never mind. It will be great to finally get settled. 

By the looks of the timetable I will be supporting students in Maths, Biology, Science (KS3) and Geography. I'm hoping it's just GCSE and KS3 Maths but I'm not sure as yet. I'm not worried per say but I would like to know what I'm doing so that I can have a look at the textbooks and become familiar with the subjects. I'm taking this as an opportunity to improve my skills in these areas as well as supporting the students. 

Anyway, that's all for now but I'll be sure to post pictures this week of our flat and how we're getting on with settling in. 

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