My First Work Exchange Experience: Days at the American-Style Bar and Restaurant Mr. HOT DOG

Text and photos by /Fox Lu (卢啾啾), excerpted from “Let’s All Dive into Passionate Work Exchanges!” published by Popular Wind Publishing

Looking back on my time at Mr. HOT DOG, an American-style bar and restaurant — this was my first work exchange experience. At that time, I had never been to Green Island before either. Because of this exchange opportunity, I formed an unexpectedly deep and inseparable bond with the island, one I hadn’t even imagined back then.

Mr. HOT DOG is a lively place. The owner, Ah-Jun, is nicknamed “Green Island’s Joseph Chang” (lol). He settled in Green Island in 2009, initially running a fresh juice shop called “Fresh Step Ahead.” In 2010, he moved to a new location and changed the business model — it became Mr. HOT DOG, operating as an American-style restaurant during the day and a bar at night.

Back then, I was still a university student, full of youthful energy (haha?), and naturally, I did my exchange during the summer break. There were many other university students doing exchanges there too — everyone was pretty wild. Whether during or after work hours, whenever we got together, we never ran out of things to joke about or silly things to do. No matter what happened, it all seemed fresh and fun through our eyes. After spending day and night together for just a month or two, we formed incredibly strong bonds. Even though we all went back to Taiwan and went our separate ways, we’re still in touch to this day.

Our working hours were split into morning and evening shifts. The morning shift was from 10:30 AM to 6:00 PM, and the evening shift was from 6:00 PM to 2:00 AM. When I had the morning shift, I’d party at night, and when I had the evening shift, I’d chill during the day. In the afternoons, we’d either go cliff jumping or snorkeling. After getting off work at 2:00 AM, if we didn’t find a beach to sleep on under the stars with the earth as our bed and flip-flops as our pillows, we’d at least ride around the entire island before going to sleep. But usually, we wouldn’t make a special effort to wake up early to watch the sunrise — instead, we’d sleep on the beach or in a sea cave and then watch it when we woke up. After that, we’d grab breakfast at a local eatery. Oh, and then it was back to work at 10:30 AM. ( ￣ y %剑?)%m

I always say that your first work exchange employer is super important — it shapes your whole impression of what work exchange is like, affects how many friends you make, how much fun you have, and sets your standards for working hours and workload.

I feel really lucky that my first work exchange job was at Mr. HOT DOG, and grateful that they chose me. I also feel lucky to have had such a great group of fun-loving friends. Although my original reason for wanting to do a work exchange was pretty simple — I hadn’t studied seriously for my final exams and just wanted to spend the summer somewhere by the sea — two and a half months later, I gained so much more than I ever expected.

It sounds unbelievable, but I really did discover new possibilities for my life, and it eventually led to my “Slow Island Travel for 20 Months” starting in April 2013.

Work and classes are so boring, want to go traveling?
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