Day Two!

WOW.... what a day!

Nancy's Aunt, Angel, really is an angel. She has taken us under her wing and it giving us the royal treatment. Yesterday, at noon she picked us up from our hotel with her friend Eric. Eric is a colleague of hers who speaks pretty good English (hence, his reason for joining us) and he is great. His English is very good and he's a very outgoing person.

They took us to a Japanese place for lunch to meet up with Nancy's cousin, Chris. Chris actually lived in Philadelphia for two years with Nancy's family when he was in high school, so his English is pretty good as well. And, he's 27 years old! So, it looks like we have a friend! He gave me his cell number and told us we could call him whenever we need any help. He also told us that he can go out w/ us this weekend and introduce us to some other people, including some foreigners that he knows. So... it looks like we're on the way to having some friends in Taiwan!

After lunch, it was off to the job search! Angel took it upon herself to look up some job postings on the Internet and took us around town for interviews. We had no idea that that was the plan for the day, so we were dressed like bums and didn't have our resumes or anything else with us. The first place we ended up at was called Columbia Consulting Company. We spent some time there filling out the applications and were on our way out the door when a guy named Rob stopped us. He's a South African guy who is the director of the office and asked us if we could come back at 5:00 wearing some "smart" clothes for an interview.

WOW, Angel gets us a job interview on our SECOND DAY in Taiwan! This woman is on top of things! So we hurried back to the hotel to change. While we were there we asked for an iron to iron our clothes and instead of giving us an iron, they took the clothes down stairs and ironed them for us in 30 minutes! For free! So we changed and were out the door on a job interview, just like that!

The job interview was less like an interview and more like an introduction to the company. They told us about the job and said that they could tell right away that we'd be a good fit. Basically he said that all they had to do was make a phone call to the owner of the company and we were as good as hired. So hopefully they'll get in touch with us today and then we'll know more.

If we got the job our title would be "language consultants" and we would be teaching mostly adults in very small classes (3-6 people). The idea is for it to be a give and take, like guided discussions with instruction mixed in and a focus on conversational English. It sounded pretty cool and with the business flair it seems right up my alley (Let's be serious... I'm not exactly a huge fan of children!) I think Nick would rather really be teaching kids, since he is a teacher in the states, so it may not be exactly right for him, but we're still trying to figure things out and at this point a job is a job.

Today, Angel is going to take us on some more interviews, so who knows what will happen! I think she is going to be a huge help since we haven't heard back from any of the jobs we applied to over the internet yet. I can't even believe the hospitality she has shown us. We just showed up and she dropped everything and is now spending three whole days with us helping us out. From lunch to dinner. It's awesome! She's fantastic, and she is definitely a sharp lady.

So, it looks like Taichung may be the place we settle. It has its perks (the best weather out of all three cities) and some downfalls (the worst public transportation) but Taichung also has Angel and I can't imagine finding a replacement for her anywhere on the island.