Delicious beers enjoyed with new friends
The Starbucks if burger joints in Asia in my opinion
Today's rainstorm and my dorm view
This one is for you Haun- my Taiwan "medicine"
Some small highlights from Taipei so far...arrived Sunday at the airport and was greeted by Peggy from the training center. She took me to hook up my phone, exchange cash and got me all settled at the dorms - super friendly! Upon arriving and starting to unpack someone knocked on my door and I opened it to find several other (mostly western medicine) doctors inviting me out for dinner. We grabbed a bite to eat and after talking to them and hearing their stories, backgrounds, etc. I realized how excited I was to be here and all the incredible experiences and people I have and have yet to encounter! So, a few Taiwan beers down and several new friendships forged, night 1 was over. Training started the next morning and I have only been in the hospital for 2 days but I have met 3 out of the 4 doctors I will be working with in the next 2 weeks. Though language is creating a huge barrier, I am able to observe different needling techniques and styles and seeing TCM practiced in a hospital setting. Dr. Guo, whom I worked with today is amazing. He worked with the 3 students from my school 2 years ago and was inspired by them to learn English. He is an amazing man and doctor and I am very excited to learn more about internal medicine in particular from him! Outside of training and beer drinking, I was able to find the local pool only 5km from my dorm so I bought a month pass and am thrilled about it. English is not very prevalent here so ordering food, getting around, etc has been interesting however the most comforting feeling so far was realizing the universal language of being a swimmer. As soon as I dove into that water it didn't matter what language anyone spoke, we all understood each other as swimmers. It was, as cheesy as this is, a truly magical moment and I realized how much swimming has impacted me as a person. No matter how far away I am, a pool will always bring me back to my home. Outside of that so far, we just missed a 6.4 on the richter the day we flew in, the cracks in my walls are proof, I have 4 friends from highschool coincidentally here now whom I will likely meet up with later in the week and there was an incredible thunderstorm this afternoon that was totally magical. It's hot as heck and humid here and I'm loving it! Until next time...hope you are enjoying the posts!
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