Monday
After succumbing to jet lag on Saturday night after just one drink at Ximen Beer Bar, I got to properly explore some of Taipei on Sunday, going to Huashan 1914 Creative Park and Yongkang Street. The former is an arts district and the latter is a very nice walking street with several restaurants and cafes. Both were places I visited during my first Taiwan trip over 10 years ago and spots I didn't get to check out again during my last two visits, as those trips were mostly outside of Taipei. It was awesome seeing how both areas changed over the years.
Today was my first day at the new job. I spent most of the day with the other video editor, who really helped in onboarding me and is a cool guy. He had to run an errand to home in the afternoon so I went out to lunch with folks from the marketing teams, who were a mix of Taiwanese and fellow-foreigners. It was great learning a little about them over a bomb lunch of dumplings and noodles. 10/10 lunch, seriously, hot damn. And I'm soooo glad this company has the employee profiles on its website—it will help with all the new names I failed to remember—I've never been good at that, especially with my thoughts running laps in overdrive my head as the new guy. Though it's something I want to continue working at getting better at.
While I loved working fully remote these past 5 years, I'm optimistic about this hybrid gig and rebuilding my social skills that totally weakened during my time of living that comfortable work-home routine.
Besides getting used to the new job, I have a bunch of setting up shop tasks to do: apartment hunting, completing needed documents for my residence card, and then getting a Taiwanese bank account. It's task attack time.