So the moral of the story for getting residency? Don’t wait till your kids are past 6. So many more hoops they have to jump.
Itinerary: medical exam, grocery shopping, swimming lesson.
The days are slowly starting to blur together now that the kids have adjusted their sleep somewhat. Now we’re going to sleep at 10pm every night, and getting up at 8-9am, which is a bit late. It keeps all the adults up having to entertain them. So I’m going to try and get them to sleep earlier.
Taipei continues to rain rain rain nonstop, and I don’t feel like doing much. Except that there isn’t much to do at home either so we have to go out or else everyone goes crazy and watches too much TV.
The first stop today was a medical exam at 和平醫院 (He Ping Hospital). I was going to go on Wednesday but then thinking we had to have a stool sample, delayed it. We need the medical exam in order to be a resident here.
I’m still not familiar with the hospital system but it’s definitely a bit different than the US. In the US, we have primary care physicians and we go to their office for checkups and illnesses. I’ve never had major illnesses but I imagine when you get that bad you then go to the hospital where your doctor and the specialists at the hospital treat you?
Here in Taiwan, you can also go to the hospital to see your doc. And if you don’t have an appointment, you have to get a number (掛號). Everytime I hear my mom talk about it it sounded like it could be long lines so I tried to get the kids out the door as soon as they woke up and at breakfast.
We took the taxi to the hospital since it was raining and not close to an MRT line. It’s all the way on the west side of the city and recommended because it’s a women and children’s hospital so supposedly not as crowded. However, when we arrived, there were still a bunch of people milling around the lobby area. Totally different from Alta Bates, which to me is always quiet.
There were probably 50-100+ people getting their numbers and asking for info at two different counters. There was a huge escalator in the middle of the lobby to get to the second floor, which is where we were directed when I asked where to get a medical exam.
On the second floor, I was given some forms to fill out and then belated realized I should have gotten a number to get service. Luckily the two receptionists are super efficient and I already had all my docs, including 2 photos of Thumper (they seem to like photos in everything you fill out here), and we got out “number”. We waited in the waiting area.
There were 3-4 doors with signs of which number is being called and which number got passed (because the people weren’t there when they called) but will get now get called again. I learned that in Taiwan, you get a medical exam for many reasons, going to school, getting a job, etc. No wonder there is a whole department just for this purpose!
Our number was called to get our paperwork processed. They told us to copy our vaccination record. First we paid $12 US dollars for the exam, and this was a non health insurance cost! We then took a trip downstairs with 2 kids and 3 umbrellas to the convenience store situated in the hospital(!) where we could make copies and the kids, being hungry and bored because they don’t eat the breakfast I buy them, could buy more yukult drinks.
Back up we went to tell Room #2 nurse our number which got passed, we waited a bit, got called and all went in again to see the doc. On the forms we had to fill out, there were quite a number of exams we got to skip (stool, HIV, measles titter, chest x-ray) because Thumper was from the US or because she was too young. Thank goodness.
All this to mean that the doctor came in, sat down to look at the paperwork, and her vaccination records, chose a stamp from his huge array of stamps (another interesting thing about Taiwan’s, lots of stamps), stamped the forms and we were done. Took about 2 minutes. The forms then went back to the nurse sitting across from him for a bunch more stamping and out the door we went.
We took the taxi home, met our cousin, then went back out again because it was 11:30 by this time and I was hungry. First we went to the gyoza chain store I keep eating at whenever I spy one. It really is good food but nonethless the restaurant had the not too clean look where tables weren’t wiped too much.
After lunch we then walked to the 頂好 Welcome Mart. The last time I was here I went to a Carrefour, which is more Walmart like. This one is a more normal grocery store that’s probably twice as big as the cafe area of Berkeley Bowl? I went crazy over all the snacks and then lamented over the prices of cereal ($8!) and oatmeal ($4!). It isn’t something I would normally buy but sometimes you need home food for the kids when they refuse to eat other things. At the end I didn’t get them since they were so expensive.
We went back home. I put Astroboy down. Thumper watched TV and wrote a bit in her journal. Then I found an app for her to play her Chinese Chess and she entertained herself all afternoon playing that.
I’d been battling a sore throat the last few days so I left the kids home to go buy them. Something I would never do in the US and yet feel fine doing here. Probably because everything is quick and within 3-5 minutes walking distance. 
After a dinner of Trader Joe’s Mac and Cheese I’d brought from the US, we went swimming. Today Astroboy played in the warm pool while Thumper took her lessons. By the end of the hour, he had dared to put his mouth (but not nose) in the water to blow bubbles, and also tried to kick kick kick. Thumper’s teacher had her swim a distance which she already knew how to do. This I heard from the mom I chatted with since I was way too far to actually see what she was doing and I couldn’t get it out of her after the lesson.
By the time we got home it was 9pm. My aunt so nicely went out and bought me some dinner while the kids had more Mac and Cheese. My uncle taught Thumper how to use the 聞香杯 while he brewed tea. It’s a small tall cup which you pour tea in and then pour out onto regular cup. It’s used to smell the fragrance of the tea. She had a lot of fun pouring tea for everyone.
And that’s it for our day. It feels like we didn’t do much and yet at the same time we had so much to do.
