Daily Archives: December 2, 2013

Earning an honest living (under the table).

Kaohsiung, Taiwan, , , , , ,

A long time ago, when Steve and I first conceived of our world trip (okay about 8-9 months ago for real) we brainstormed all sorts of ways to earn our keep. Most of them revolved around me getting a job in Asia that would utilize my language abilities, but in the end, we decided against most of them for a) not being in my career plan and b) not being conducive to a life of flexible travel, which was what we were most interested in. What we settled on was that Steve would try to do some contract work, like making mobile apps or websites, and I would try to tutor English. I even made some spiffy business cards and picked them up before I left Chicago. While we hoped to earn some cash, we would operate at a net loss overall, and sure, spend a large amount of our savings, but the trade-off, we theorized, was being able to do exactly what we wanted.

Fast forward to the beginning of our third month abroad, and since we arrived in Taiwan, we’ve been buried under personal projects, a crushing inability to get out of bed before 10 am, trying to make our social lives work in a country 14 hours ahead of most of our friends, and a lot of graduate school applications (okay, that’s just me). So far in Kaohsiung, I have succeeded in passing out a sum total of two business cards. So it came as a surprise that our first opportunity for honest income was today!

Continue reading Earning an honest living (under the table). →

Sunsets and the seaside of Kaohsiung.

Kaohsiung, Taiwan, , , , ,

Living in Taiwan, it can be oddly easy to forget that we are on an island, albeit one that is very large. In each city we have spent a bit of time in, we have never been far from the ocean. A map of Taiwan reveals about a ring of a dozen big cities which hugs the coastline. The middle of Taiwan is mountainous and features just two roads which cross from the east to the west coast. That being said, sometimes it’s easy to forget because we barely budge from our apartment in the middle of Kaohsiung, hemmed in by low-rise apartments and large boulevards and streets.

From Cijin Lighthouse, looking toward Shoushan and Xizihwan.

That all changed when we finally visited Cijin Island. Long one of the attractions of Kaohsiung, it will horrify most residents when they hear how long it took us to finally make our way to Cijin (about three weeks, all right?). Right off one end of the MRT’s Orange Line, at Xizihwan Station, one can take a five minute stroll to Gushan Ferry, and board the shortest ferry ride in the whole world (approximately 4 minutes sailing) and disembark 15NT the poorer on Cijin Island, a long spit immediately off the coast of the city. It actually used to be a peninsula, but was severed at the southern end to create a second port of entry for Kaohsiung, which is Taiwan’s second largest city and 9th largest port, as Steve has become fond of noting.

Continue reading Sunsets and the seaside of Kaohsiung. →