So first things first, I had to get my wisdom tooth pulled the other day. I've never had any problems with it before, or any of my teeth for that matter...but as soon as I got here it started killing me. It was really painful so I had to get it taken out. I found a dentist who went to Northwestern and spoke pretty good English. I was really nervous about it. But luckily he said it would be easy to remove. He gave me local anesthetic, no gas though because they don't really use that here. So the whole time I heard him kinda cracking my tooth and even though I didn't feel any pain it was still really tough to deal with. But it was done within a few minutes. Coming from the US, my worry was that this would cost me a fortune. Cause I don't have health insurance, I'm not a citizen of the country and I literally just showed up to this office, out of the blue. So I was ready to shell out a ton for this...
But it ended up only costing $1,000 Taiwanese dollars. Which is only 30 US dollars! When he said it'd be 1,000 I said oh 1,00 US, that's not so bad. I couldn't believe how cheap it was! 30 Dollars! It really is pathetic how backwards our health care system is when I can come to another country without insurance and pay less than in my own country. How is it that my country can not provide me with a reasonable health policy? It's really disgusting. How much is it to just fill a cavity even with insurance? That's one thing that is terrible about the US, hopefully if Obama can get elected he can follow through on his campaign and maybe make some strides towards universal health care...We'll see though, I don't think it will happen anytime soon, unfortunately.
Aside from my tooth it's been good here. Yesterday I decided to take a trip up North to Keelung. It's this port city all the way on the Northern tip. I took the train, similar to the Metro North I guess, about 40 minutes from Taipei. The reason I wanted to go up there was there was supposed to be this great island that has amazing cliffs and beaches that was only a ferry ride away from Keelung City. So after I got off the train I took a bus through the city to this port Bashu port. Now this was right after my tooth got taken out, and the taste of blood in my mouth and the crazy bus twisting around turns and stuff made me feel a little sick. But it was ok. After about 20 minutes I finally got to the port and it was really nice cliffs and stuff were all around the port and it was much cooler than in Taipei. After a lot of pointing and miming I was able to find out which ferry was leaving for Keelung Island, but since the ferry only leaves when it is full, I had to wait a while. I was on the boat, by myself waiting for the boat to leave and a Tawainese family came on. There was a Mom, Dad, a 10 year old boy, an older girls. a little baby and I think an uncle and Aunt. So the little boy comes over and starts talking to me, looking at my freckles and comparing his arm to mine. He seemed fascinated by them haha....
It turns out that the ferry has, of all things, a karaoke machine on it. So the Mom and her older daughter start singing in Chinese. Like they expected there to be one on board. At first I'm thinking this is going to be a long trip. I was still feeling queasy from the bus, tooth and the rocking of the boat....so I was thinking this trip might be a big mistake....
The kid meanwhile is still talking to me asking me where I'm from and with my little Mandarin I am able to answer him a little but. The whole time the Mom and her daughter are really getting into the Karoke as well. The 10 year old then brings over the song book to me saying "you sing, sing" and pointing to the songs in English. After a few minutes I gave in and decided why not....when in Rome after all. My song choices were kind of limited to a few English songs like Danny Boy, Let it Be and a few other gems. I decided on the Rolling Stones though "The House of the Rising Sun"....the kid was so happy I was going to sing he ran over and handed me the microphone then coaxed me to stand up....the rest of the family is encouraging me too at this point and still it's only us on the ferry...
I start singing and adding some stage presence and Jagger like dance moves. It was so surreal, being on the Northern tip of Taipei, singing karaoke on a ferry with a Taiwanese family...haha. But it turned out to be really fun. I was singing to the whole family and they seemed to be enjoying it..... Truth be told, I got really into it....the family is singing along and the 10 year old is so proud of himself.... And at the end everyone gave me a very nice round of applause.
It was really fun. Anyway the island itself was beautiful. It was uninhabited, and took about 30 minutes by ferry. The beach was all coral and there were huge immense cliffs and caves all over the island. All the people on the ferry were the only ones on the island. It was pretty cool. So lush too. There were all these rocks sticking out in the ocean and all these little trails all around to. We spent about an hour on the island and it was worth the long hike out there. The coolest part was going back to Taiwan, we passed from the Taiwan Straight to the Pacific Ocean, Where the currents meet you can actually see a sharp difference in the water, on the Taiwan Strait the water is calm as can be...but you can see a line where one side is calm, then on the other is rough. It was really interesting....
The island itself was great, but the karaoke was a lot more enjoyable, even though it was such a strange thing. Guess I'll have more of those while I'm here. Tomorrow I move to another hostel, met some cool people here so far so I'm sure I'll meet some more at the new place. Still no job yet but another interview Monday and I plan on spending today sending out more resumes....
That's all for now, time to get some $1 noodles for lunch!
All the best,
Brian
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