Wow, time does really fly. I have been living/working/experiencing Taiwan for a little more than three months now and it is time for an update.
The restaurant business is very unique. Most stay open 365 days out of the year and open Monday through Sunday, meaning that you really don’t have an actual “weekend” or holiday breaks but rather scattered days off. It is also a business where production and sales are under the same roof which is great. I find it very satisfying when I prepare a dish and get instant feedback whether good or bad.
The weather is a lot cooler now. People were right, it does get a lot more comfortable in September. During the day time the weather is in the low 90s and at night it drops to high 70s which is almost cool enough for me to wear a thin jacket. I can almost survive a day without AC now…almost.
Work has become more intense. As I become more experienced in the kitchen, I gain more responsibilities which means that I pick up more hours at work. I have also become quite skillful at using cutlery as well as becoming fearless of oil burns on the fry top. As much as I like working in the kitchen, it is really wearing me down both mentally and physically. My shifts last anywhere from 8-16 hours and this is standing and prepping/cooking food the entire shift with one break (two if we are not busy). After working here, I have gained an appreciation for cooks who prepare our food and will no longer order food right before closing time.
I started learning Zhuyin Fuhao which is the basics of Mandarin at Mandarin Daily News in Guting . Zhuyin Fuhao is kind of like learning your ABCs for English but it is only used to pronounce the words and type them on a computer but is not actually what the final word looks like. I find this quite hard since for every word I have to memorize the Zhuyin and the actual way the word is spelled. Many of the Zhuyin words look similar and others sound the same so it gets pretty confusing at times. Hopefully I can master this soon so that I can start learning real words.
With both work and school taking up the majority of my time, I have found little time to actually explore more of Taiwan the way I wanted to so you will see less updates/articles in the coming weeks.
So in the kitchen we have this
tradition that if its your birthday or your last day at work we douse you with water/sauces/powders and any other ingredients that we can get our hands on right before your shift ends. This always results in wet shoes/socks/underwear/pants/shirts and everything else. On this day, it was Dragons birthday and the battle was epic.
(I am not that short BTW. It only looks like that since I'm crouching and everyone around me is ginormously tall)
