Taiwanese people are kind and understated. Their bugs, not so much.

I have never been so itchy in my entire life. I got dozens of bug bites while standing beside a park for a few minutes. My legs are covered in grotesque, bulgy lumps, as if someone flicked globs of cookie dough at me. I ran into a pharmacy and the man whose eyes are just visible over the boxes of medicine stacked on the counter, sensed my urgency and came to greet me. I pulled my skirt up, pointed at my bites and then mimed scratching myself.
Freaking bugs.
At an apartment two minutes from my university, I found a big can of Raid for cockroaches in the closet. The landlords said it was just a precaution. Then I pulled open a drawer and found traps for cockroaches...as a precaution.
I'm a little scared of them. I have this vivid memory of eating Dim Sum in Hong Kong a few years ago and feeling something tickling my leg. When I put my hand over my pants, there was a thumb-sized lump against my palm.
Oh, at another apartment near the Shida night market, this spider, the span of a Toonie, invited me to live with her. Only if she would protect me from the cockroaches.
Click the image of her, she's got Cyclops's sunglasses: