(upbeat music)
- Everyone welcome to my Instagram takeover.
My name is Rob I'm from Philadelphia, PA,
and I've been teaching English online
in Taiwan since June of 2019.
I moved here and have been going back and forth
between Taiwan and the US.
Since then, I am in a bit of a unique situation here
because my online company, Amazing Talker
doesn't offer a working visa.
So that requires me to think of other ways
that I can stay here.
So currently I am on a employment seeking visa
which means I have 90 days
to find employment here in Taiwan.
So I do have the possibility of an extension
if I can't find a job because of the COVID situation.
And the first time I came here,
I was on a tourist visa.
So typically what happens when COVID isn't happening
in the normal situation is you can arrive in Taiwan
on a tourist visa.
You can stay for 90 days and then you can leave
and then, you know, fly to another country
for relatively cheap, stay for a few days,
or stay for a night.
You just have to leave the country
and then you can come back for another 90 days.
So right now that's obviously not possible.
You have to come here and you have to quarantine
for 15 days and that's quite expensive.
So, as I mentioned before,
I work for a company called Amazing Talker,
and it's a very unique company
I've never seen any online teaching companies similar to it.
The commission fees are a bit high in the beginning
but as you make more money they actually go down
it's on like a tiered structure.
But I've never seen a company
that there's no ceiling to how much money you can make.
So it's really great, you know,
you can start off probably making
about the same you would make it any other companies,
but, you know, after I've been doing it for two years,
my income is definitely higher than any other teachers
online that I've heard of for.
I can explain more of that to you in person,
if you're interested.
Another unique feature,
since I'm one of the senior teachers on the website,
I'm able to interview teachers.
And if you click the link that I'll provide,
you can join the website through my link
and then I'll have a direct connection to you.
I'll be able to interview you
and yeah, and then I can potentially train you
and you can be a teacher on the website.
Although you don't need a qualification to join,`
I'm primarily interested in training teachers
who have already passed the TEFL course.
You know, so if you're thinking about doing the ITA course,
you know, I would suggest doing that first
'cause it definitely will prepare you for teaching online.
I know they've incorporated some online teaching stuff,
so I would highly recommend to do that.
I did the online course in 2019
and yeah, I mean, I'm not gonna lie.
It was really challenging for me.
I mean, sometimes it seems like people make it seem easy,
but I had no really no teaching experience
or no formal teaching experience.
So a lot of the methods they teach were new to me
as I'm sure they'll be new to many of you,
but, you know, it just takes hard work and dedication.
And it really prepared me well to come to Taiwan to teach
and they give you a lot of resources for people.
When I first arrived in Taiwan,
I used a company,
I used a recruiter to find a job.
The company is called Reach to Teach.
And if you're looking for a stress free way to get here,
I would definitely recommend Reach to Teach.
I used a woman and her name was Carrie.
I don't know if she's still there,
but if you can get in contact with her,
I'll connect their Instagram as well.
So, yeah.
And then as far as finding apartments,
I also used an agency.
Well, it's actually one guy who I found on Facebook
and he was super helpful, spoke great English,
was able to help me negotiate
and find an apartment that was wonderful.
So here's my apartment.
I think it was remodeled about a year or two ago,
so everything is brand new.
This is definitely not your typical apartment,
the big screen TV, nice couch,
we have our kitchen table and a decent size refrigerator,
which is very rare to come across in Taiwan.
Most departments are quite small.
Here is the bathroom, super nice with the window shower.
And then here is the toilet,
and my favorite part of the toilet is this guy.
He wasn't there when I came in
but I had them installed and if you don't have one,
you got to get one.
And on to the kitchen, kitchen is pretty nice,
got my toaster oven
it's the biggest one I could find
and microwave, sink, dry dish drying area,
and a double burner stove which is awesome.
And going to the back excuse the mess,
a little back area for laundry,
hang your clothes up there.
And then here is the master bedroom,
really nice size it's a queen size bed.
And my office as which I showed earlier
and there's two more rooms here.
One of them is used for my girlfriend's office
cause she teaches as well.
And this is where I have my gym and a third room.
And over there it's just some storage
which I won't show you.
So here's the market I go to couple times a week.
This side is mostly fruit and here's the fruit stand
that I normally go to get a watermelon
and they cut the rind off for you and everything.
You can see everyone's wearing a mask right now.
It's supposed to be__
- Hello.
- Hello hello.
It's supposed to be wearing a mask and social distancing,
but the just traditional market
doesn't quite follow that rule too much.
But yeah, it's pretty calm right now
during the weekends this place is completely crazy
packed with people in cars and just craziness.
(engine roaring)
So they have public bikes that you can rent.
You just get something called an easy card
it's like a prepaid money card
and you just go up and you tap your card on here,
and it's about maybe for a few hours
am sure it's about a dollar.
So super convenient and affordable way to travel in Taipei.
(engine roaring)
Taipei is pretty amazing because it'll have,
you know, all of its amazing modern buildings
yet have all of these traditional, super old temples
that you can go to and go inside
and really amazing to look at.
Here I am on a bike path
and this bike path will go all the way around Taipei.
And then they also have another bike path that people do
that goes around The whole entire island
takes like a week to 10 days to do.
And, you know, Taiwan doesn't have in my opinion
the best of anything.
They don't have the highest mountains,
they don't have the best beaches,
they don't have the best food,
but everything they do is really good.
So like there are mountains to hike, beautiful scenery,
there's rivers like this one, there's the beaches are good.
They're not great, but they're good
definitely better than most American beaches.
The food's amazing
it's unlike anything I've had before,
and the people are great too.
So definitely worth coming here,
a perfect place to live.
So before COVID on a normal day, maybe on the weekend,
you would have had people wakeboarding, jet skiing,
canoeing, parasailing, or kite surfing whatever it's called.
And yeah.
Just really there's basketball courts
people would play in basketball, play in soccer.
They really value outdoor activities
even though it's quite high
but it doesn't stop people.
So I didn't know this before,
also by the Riverside
there's also a giant roller hockey rink.
I'm sure they use it for soccer too
'cause there was two of them.
So a really diverse in the sports that you can play here.
Here's another Riverside rink,
but this one is not for roller hockey,
but it's for roller Derby.
That's another thing that's quite popular
you'll see people practicing their roller Derbying
or whatever you would call it
in here and on the bike path as well.
What a typical kind of side street view looks like
not many cars, you still gotta be careful
cause cars fly around the corner.
Here's another traditional style market
probably not that crowded right now.
It's the afternoon on a weekday.
But during the weekend,
this place is probably full of people
and scooters trying to get through, pretty crazy.
(indistinct)
But those of you who are afraid of being far away from home
and not having your comfort foods,
there is Costco here
and you can get as much stuff as you need
as much as you could possibly handle.
So no worries about that.
(upbeat music)