Taiwanese Foods?

I have been asked countless times during this preparation "journey" what I plan to eat for a year while living in Taiwan. If you've read any of my Semester at Sea blog, or shoot even if you just know me at all in general :) you know that I LOVE to eat! Needless to say I'm excited to try new foods.

That doesn't go to say though that I know exactly what I'll be getting into food wise though; so, I've been doing a little {actually a lot!} of research on what I may be eating for the next year.

Travel CNN has quite a list of foods that one should {supposedly} try while in Taiwan. After a year of living there I'm hoping to try quite a bit, and I will be sure to let you know what I think about them! (As a side note, I can't wait until smell-a-vision is a real thing, let's be honest smells of delicious foods are what I want to remember when I get home from trips!)

and without further ado... 
{clicking on a picture will give you a little more detail about what it is!}
Beef Noodle...sounds simple enough!


Bubble Tea..."tapioca" in tea


Iron Eggs...a chewy egg marinated in soy sauce {a little worried about this one!}

Pan Fried Bun...fried bread with pork inside

Stinky tofu...sounds self explanatory!



Any foods that you're dying to try or that you wouldn't dream about even touching?!

I Have a School!

OK....well technically 2! I continue to be asked if I know where I will be teaching at and I now have an answer (on a side note I'm not 100% sure why I was so excited to find out, it's not like I know any of these schools anyways! But nonetheless!). Initially we were given a list of each of the counties in Taiwan that had positions open and asked to rank the counties that we would like to live in, not knowing where to start I began ruling out places that were not options in my mind; counties that only had middle school openings, counties located on the western and much less populated side of the island, the teeny remote (like 11 sq. miles remote!) island off the coast of Taiwan...you know, rule out those types of options! I then, more blindly than anything, began to rank the remaining counties.
I received an email the other day stating that I had been placed in 2 schools nearby each other and that both schools were relatively small. Both schools are located in Hsinchu county on the northwestern side of the country just over 50 miles southwest of the capital Taipei (if you use the map above it is the light purple county).

The schools I have been assigned to are Hsin-Fong Elementary School, and Fu-Long Elementary School (again...like I said before I'm not sure why I was so excited to find out, clearly I have never heard of either of these places before! :) )

Since finding out my placements I have been scouring (ok trying to with the language barrier!) their websites. If you click on the pictures below they will take you to each schools' site to have a look for yourself!

Fu-Long Elementary School


Hsin-Fong Elementary School