Days gone by - 5 weeks in!

First, apologies for not keeping up on the blog for the last week. I can't exactly say things have been busy, but when faced with the choice of updating a blog and laying around doing nothing... well, let's just say not a whole lot was accomplished. Since my time on the beach, my monstrous sunburn did in fact heal and is peeling nicely. It's ok though, since wearing sweaters mostly conceals the peeling one of my Chinese friends said wondrously looks like a snake. Flattering, right?

Well since the beach, not much entirely interesting has been happening. Probably my most recent highlight was the arrival of a mini-fridge and a microwave, courtesy of my parent's and one of my dad's local business contacts. It makes life so much more pleasant to have somewhere to keep extra food, so I'm not forced out into daylight in search of substance each day. So far it's mostly filled with a four pound jar of salsa, courtesy my other recent highlight. My friend Tiffany's roommate happens to have a Costco membership card, so last Thursday (incidentally, the same day I got my fridge), we packed up and scooted across town to the Costco. She so graciously reminded me earlier how exuberant I was in my appraisal of the many American food items available at Costco, but after being so long without it, it's hard not to become estactic at the sight of Goldfish crackers. As previously mentioned, I also found salsa, one of my most missed foods, and tortilla chips. Unfortunately for me, the salsa came in a 4 pound giant jar, although to be honest I've already eaten like a third of it. As for the tortilla chips? A fond memory of days past... pretty much meaning I gotta go back to Costco soon. I found some other stuff there too, delicious oatmeal cookies, Cheetos, bagels and cream cheese; pretty much all the foods I'd take to survive on a desert island with. My joy at these food items cannot be put into words, just understand that tears were almost present.

Of course, at Costco a funny moment did happen as I ran into one of my Chinese teachers in the salad dressing aisle. Although I had been speaking English with Tiffany and her roommates, I automatically switched to Chinese and had a brief conversation with my teacher before moving on. When I turned to find the cart, I found the three girls just standing there giving me a funny look, before asking me why I never spoke Chinese like that with them. Apparently I sounded fluent or something - it was a pretty awesome feeling either way.

This weekend I did go out with the family of my dad's business contact's daughter, which was pretty fun. The family was extremely kind and welcoming to me, although the fact that their 10? year old son wouldn't look me in the eye for most of the day. I understand that he's shy, but it did make things a little awkward to work through. We went to a kind of yuppie nature village area, where we looked at flowers and ate a traditional country meal and bought pottery things. At least I bought my mom's Christmas present, now let's hope I don't forget that I did. Then we went to a place called San ________ mountain area or something. I don't remember, but I do remember that apparently it's very famous for this certain kind of cyprus wood and that the shops are filled with the wood polished and carved into almost every shape imaginably. It smelled really strongly, but apparently that's a good thing. After I got back home on Saturday I was going to go out to dinner with a friend, but sitting down to check Facebook real quick at 4:30 turned into me sleeping until 12:30 in the morning. Oops. I woke for about two hours - enough time to eat something and pretty much fall back asleep. Sunday worked much the same way - sleeping, and trying to find some sort of motivation to get out of bed and actually do laundry and homework.

Today was vaguely eventful as well, as Tiffany, myself, and two of our classmates decided to go out to try this deep dish pizza place we found online, in hopes of finding wonderful Chicago-style pizza in the heart of Asia. We got on the scooters and buzzed a loooong way away from the school into this little area in the middle of nowhere until we found it tucked away. We were the only ones in the place, which might have served as a warning - not really for the food, but at least for the atmosphere. Immediately the guy behind the counter scolded Tiffany for wearing flip-flops, as he shuffled around in his house slippers. To call this guy flamboyant would be like calling Lady Gaga a little theatrical - there was just something about the guy and the place that had us all giving funny looks and giggling like children. The whole restaurant was decorated very art-noveau, what with all the funny shaped wooden and metal carvings adoring the walls and the Enya soundtrack playing. This was made all the more hilarious as the giant picture window out front had dozens of little lizards climbing up and down on the outside; much of the meal was spent in hysterics. Sadly, it wasn't even good Chicago style pizza like the review we found had claimed; it was certainly deeper than New York, but didn't have the right order or crust for Chicago style. It wasn't the worst pizza I've ever eaten, but it certainly wasn't the best either. Probably won't recommend it to the other students.

Now, really quick, I want to touch upon something hilarious at Tunghai University that I just recently noticed. After we had that typhoon a few weeks ago, I noticed what seemed like groups of students going throughout the school grounds picking everything up - at the time, I assumed that they grabbed volunteer groups to help clean up after the storm. But even after the campus was cleaned of sticks and leaves and such, I kept noticing students doing a lot of the yard work around campus. Talking to one of the Tunghai students confirmed what I speculated - that they were making the students do the cleaning of the school. Apparently this is something that only Tunghai does in Taiwan, and essentially it forces all freshmen students, as well as transfer students, to spend an entire YEAR cleaning the school grounds part time. They're broken into shifts of maybe 15 people, and each cleaning period is broken into two weeks. Within each period, students are allowed to miss only five days of cleaning, so essentially they have to clean at least 18 days a month. Cleaning can begin from 6:00 AM until late at night, and includes everything from lawn maintenance, trash pick-up, even bathroom cleaning. If a student misses too many days of their 'cleaning course', then they will actually FAIL the course and be required to redo it again the following year. If they keep failing, they're actually barred from graduation until they do their share of the dirty work. Amazing, right? Any opinions?

Also, I forgot, I went to the Taichung Science Museum and it was awesome. Lots of dinosaurs - very cool.

The sun is a cruel mistress - back from the beach!!

So here I am Tuesday afternoon, a couple of days before I usually try to post, but I'm trying to avoid homework and it's nice to get everything out while it's still fresh, so here goes. This past weekend a couple of friends and I went to the southernmost point of Taiwan to the beach/resort town of Kenting. We began our journey Saturday morning by meeting outside the main school gates at 6:00 AM. That was pretty miserable, especially I had about a 25 minute walk from my apartment to the school gates, so I got to wake up at 5:00. The good thing about the walk was that nobody was up and awake yet, so I got to walk around without having people stare at me. It was surprisingly refreshing.

We all got together and headed to the bus station, where we paid $230 NTD (about $8 USD) for a ticket to Kaohsiung, the second largest city in Taiwan and the big city closest to the southern tip of the country. It was about a three hour bus ride, where everyone in Asian fashion fell asleep immediately, and I was left awake to ponder the deeper things in life, like how people managed to use the dwarf-sized bus bathroom.

When we finally arrived in Kaohsiung, I was excited to get on with the last leg of our journey as we headed into the train station. Turns out we only went to the train station to use the bathroom, but my friends consoled me with promises of a bus that would soon arrive. We later had a vocabulary lesson on the difference between a bus and a van. It was not a big, safe, cushy bus like we had ridden from Kaohsiung, but rather a cross between a minivan and one of those long church vans - really it could only hold seven people, but we would later challenge that limitation. As long as I didn't pay attention to the heinous driving, it actually wasn't too bad - on the ride to Kaohsiung we got to watch the new Karate Kid with Will Smith's kid, and I laughed hysterically at all the language miscommunications and culture shock scenes. Thankfully we arrived safely after about an hour and a half on the road, and we unloaded and filed into the hostel we'd be staying at. For the other Americans out there, I am sure you can commiserate that a mere four hour trip to the beach is nothing to get upset over, but you would be surprised how many Taiwanese people complain about the long distance. They usually shut up after I point out the three day drive from Chicago to Florida, but still. For so little money, I would go to the beach way more often then people here do.

Because I knew we would be going to the beach that day, I had worn my bathing suit under my clothes to eliminate any time between me and the beach. It wasn't until we were standing outside the hostel with everything in hand that one of the students made the wonderful announcement that instead of going to the beach that day, we would go the NEXT day. Apparently we paid for the van service for a full day, meaning it was tour of Kenting time.

We started out by going to some dinky little house. I got out for about two seconds before learning it was where some movie was filmed; I got back in the car and sulked for a little. Next we headed to lunch, which was a pretty decent affair, with decent food and decent-er prices. Then we hit a suspended bridge where I could see tempting bits of beach in the distance, and coconut trees! Honest to god trees growing coconuts. Turns out that Kenting is at the same latitude as Hawaii, resulting in gorgeous weather, interesting animals, and actual coconuts. Awesome. Next we finally went someplace that didn't really suck - the beach!! Of course, we couldn't stop to swim, but that didn't stop me from wading out to my waist. Shorts got wet, but I was wearing my bathing suit so who really cared? Certainly not I! We splashed around for awhile and then sadly headed back to the van for our next stop. We headed to the southernmost point of Taiwan and some famous little lighthouse. The hike was more fun than the actual destination I think - it had just rained so trying to traverse the super muddy rainforest was hilariously entertaining. By the time we got to the lighthouse, the weather had cleared though, and after a few moments of marveling at the view, we headed back down towards the van where we were able to buy coconuts to snack on! It was seriously a lady standing with a pile of coconuts, a machete, and a handful of colorful straws. You paid, she did some fancy slicing and dicing, and voila, a coconut with a straw poking through. The milk wasn't very sweet or tasty, but it was the thought that counted.

Next we headed to the famous wood/mountain area, where we hiked all around the trail and saw some elusive Formosa Macaque (Taiwanese monkey) as well as some wild goats eating on the side of a mountain. The view was fantastic, and I immediately decided where my future house would be and what it would look like. From there, it was back in the van to rush off and see the sunset, which was picturesque to the point of looking absolutely fake. That was followed by a stop to buy some sparklers and we headed off to one of the coolest natural things I've ever seen in my life. As we walked towards this random destination, I marveled at the fact that there were no lights - not even for the really slippery dark staircase. This meant that we were able to see practically every star in the sky until we came upon a bunch of people around bonfires. At least, I thought they were bonfires - the closer we got I realized that it was natural flames coming out of the ground. It was a natural gas vent, and the fire looked exactly like my gas stove at home, starting out blue but rising into a yellow flame. Perhaps even more amazing was that everyone was crowded around these like it was no big deal. In the United States, something like this would have been roped off a long time ago to prevent some idiot from getting burned and suing, but here in Taiwan we could go and poke at the flames all we wanted. In fact, more that poked, people were making jiffy pop over the flames, and we used it to light our sparklers. Dangerous? Probably. Fantastic? Absolutely.

After that, we headed back to the hotel for a quick shower and clean up before heading out for a few hours to find food and entertainment. The majority of the students that went were Chinese though (everyone but me and one Taiwanese international buddy) and they take the motto "early to bed, early to rise" a little too seriously. We were in bed by 11:30 on a Saturday night in the middle of a beach town, and the next morning they woke up by 6:30. They woke up by 6:30 BY THEMSELVES. By the time they managed to drag my sorry butt out of bed the other five girls were already dressed and ready for the day, and wanted to go get breakfast. I thought that we were running late at that point, so I rushed getting ready. When finished, I asked if it was 8:00 yet (because the Chinese students decided that going to the beach at 8:00am was a fantastic idea) only to have them respond "Oh, it's 7:20, let's go eat." I tried to see if they'd let me stay in the room and sleep for another 4o minutes, but they wanted to check out. Biting back a string of complaints and bad language, I trudged after them to go find breakfast. Finally, 8:00 rolled around and we headed back to get picked up for the beach.

When we arrived, the beauty almost made up for the fact that we were there earlier than I get up for class. Because our driver knew some of the beach rental people, we got an umbrella and a whole slew of children sized plastic chairs to use for free. Apparently, the concept of big lounging beach chairs is lost on the Taiwanese, but at that point I didn't even care any more. I stripped, slapped on some SPF 50 and ran towards the water. Even so early I got plenty of stares, not only because I'm white as sin, but also because apparently most Taiwanese people don't wear bikinis. I was the most naked person on the beach, other than the guys wearing speedos. I have to wonder what kind of culture frowns upon girls wearing bikini bottoms, but feels it's totally acceptable for guys to bounce around all day. Some things can't be unseen. All the other girls in my group though simply wore one piece suits, modest necklines and attached skirts to cover up any hint of hip and thigh. There came culture shock number two - Taiwanese/Chinese girls don't shave. I can understand legs on most girls - they simply aren't as hairy as most Europeans and frankly some of them look like they do shave. But other girls really should shave their legs... and they don't. And not shaving underarms was another thing that really got to me. I didn't even know girl's could grow hair that long under there. Another image I just can't unsee.

So I was out swimming with the guys for awhile, because the girls didn't want to get their hair wet and I wanted to do some serious swimming. After awhile the guys got tired, and I stayed out alone until I felt something burning on my arms and hands. I swam to shallower water and lifted my limbs out of the water only to see that I had been stunk by a ************* jellyfish. I'm trying not to swear on these posts, but there was no other way for me to express my rage and discomfort without swearing. Frankly, I had absolutely no idea what to do. Thankfully some nice older Australian(?) guy came over and asked if I was ok, and suggested I go rinse it off with fresh water. I later found out that fresh water only makes it worse, but at least he tried to help. I got the stingers off my hands and arms to revel lovely bright red welts. At that point, I retired to the beach to sulk and lay in the sunshine. I didn't get long to sulk though, because the other students wanted to do one of the banana boats. It's those long inflatable tubes you sit on and get pulled around by jet-skis, and aside from the stupid looking safety hats they made us wear it was actually pretty fun. The most fun was watching the other people try to get back on the banana boat after the driver would flip us. Hilarious.

After that, we walked around the beach picking up shells, went for lunch, and went out swimming again. By afternoon the waves had gotten large enough to boogie board, which was really fun other than the big bruises I now sport on my ribs. After that, it was time to rinse off and get ready to go home. Because I didn't want to get sand in my main bag, I left it in the car only taking what I needed to the beach. When it came time to shower then, I had no dry clothes to put on, which really sucked. We actually had to pay to use the shower too, and didn't even have soap or hot water. I dried off as best I could, put my coverup on, and headed to the meeting point. At this point, we inexplicably ended up with more people than we came with, so I got to share a seat in the front of the van. It wouldn't have been so bad but the AC was on full blast and I was freezing. An hour into the drive, we stopped at a convenience store and I changed into some dry clothes. We got to Kaohsiung around 7:00 only to learn that the next bus wasn't until 9:00 and the cheap tickets were sold out. We had to pay an extra $2, but the bus ended up being worth it. Huge lazy boy seats with blankets and a personal blanket made the next three hours super comfortable.

We got back to Taichung around midnight, and I immediately ran to take a shower. It was then I discovered that despite reapplying my SPF 50 sunscreen every two hours, my back and legs were roughly the color of a tomato and I felt really sick. The next morning I tried to wake up for my 9:00AM class only to realized I had sun poisoning and could barely stand. I had huge blotchy red rashes all over and was super dehydrated with no sense of balance. Wisely, I went back to sleep for a couple hours. I couldn't skip my afternoon class because of a presentation, but the extra couple hours really helped me out. After class on Monday, I ran to Watson's (like a Taiwanese Walgreens) and tried (and failed) to ask for Aloe gel before some poor soul took pity and translated aloe for me. Now I have massive sunburn, lots of homework, and a long week ahead of me. No plans for this weekend thank god, let's hope it stays that way!!

All of the Small Things - One month!!

Here I am again! It's October 1st here, marking four weeks to the day that I left for Taiwan, and I'm still having an awesome time! Didn't do too many interesting things this week, after the weekend it was mostly spent running in and out of class, but I'll start with the weekend.

So Saturday morning I got up bright and early to go to Tapei, a little too bright and a little too early for me, but whatever. Got a ride to the meeting point from a friend of a friend which was a little slice of heaven, since it was a good 25 minute hike from my place. My little group of travelers split off from the main group almost immediately; whereas the other students headed off to see Taipei 101, my group did not pass go, or collect two hundred dollars, and we went directly to Danshui. Now I'll be completely honest, I had no idea what Danshui was or where or what would even be there. I pretty much just get on the bus and see where it takes me, and in this case, it too us to Danshui. It was one of the most useful ports in Taiwan long long ago when all manner of Europeans used it as a trading base. In fact, you can still go see the Spanish turned Dutch turned English fort way up on a hill, and although the hike is murder the view is spectacular! We wandered around Danshui for awhile eating all manner of questionable foods, including this famous egg thing that was described to me as an egg that is "boiled, then sun dried, then boiled, then sun dried, then boiled, then sun dried" over and over and over. This results in a normal chicken's egg turning the rough color and consistency of a bike tire... and maybe the flavor too. I gave the egg a fair shot, but I felt less like I was eating a snack and more like I was a dog gnawing on one of those Kong toys. Meal time was relatively safe otherwise though, and we spent a good chunk of the afternoon walking around the fort and surrounding college area. Of course, then I found that my traveling companions knew the location of Asian pop star Jay Chou's highschool, and we were right in the area. Bouncing around like a pack of giddy fangirls (which we all were), we probably spent two hours walking around the gorgeous high school campus making moony eyes and taking ridiculous pictures. All of our conversations started off with "Can you believe that Jay Chou _______ (ex. walked down this road, played basketball on this court, failed a test in this classroom)? We're just that cool. Finally, we headed back down towards the main foody areas of Danshui, where my Chinese friends spent a great deal of time trying to cajole me into eating squid balls and tofu cakes. Sneaky sneaky, but my self-preservation won out. Of course by then we were all pretty much exhausted, so when I saw a few members of our group that were planning to go back to Taichung instead of staying the night, I hopped boats. Probably not the proudest moment, but I had a lot of homework to do and I worried about not getting it all done in time. We went our separate ways, but I did have a consolation prize... before heading back to Taichung we got to go to the big night market in Taipei and eat shaved ice! Good stuff!!

Got back to Taichung super late, and thus most of my Sunday was spent lounging around watching Independence Day online and sporadically accomplishing school work. I was a bit jealous of all the people that had fun without me Sunday, but seeing the dragging faces Monday morning kept me in check. I knew I would be heading to Kenting the next weekend, so I figured it was important to do the right thing and be productive, at least for a day.

As for the rest of the week, the biggest highlight was starting Chinese classes, which for some inexplicable reason start at 9 in the morning. Some of you out there with kids and real jobs might say, "Nine? What a reasonable time to start studying a foreign language!" but for a girl like me, who's regularly online doing homework or something until one or two, it's pretty much hell on earth. I dragged myself to class on time pretty much every day, but staying active (and awake for that matter) was a lot harder to do. The way the classes are set up is that we are supposed to take 15 hours of Chinese a week, three hours a day, five days a week. Sadly, this scheduling did not work out for me. Most students at the CLC (Chinese Language Center) don't have to take other classes around the school like I do; in fact, many of the CLC students aren't even college students! The other three people in my class are all at least 10 years older than me - an American missionary with a wife and a baby, a married Korean woman with two kids ages 8 & 4, and a French/Englishman who's probably as old as my father. All have been living in Taiwan for several years, and all have taken classes through the CLC before. This means when we got into class, they were ready to go at chapter five, whereas I didn't have any of the vocabulary from chapters 1-4. For each hour of class, we are taught by a different teacher, and move about from room to room, and for this first week they mainly did a quick run-through review. It could have been worse I suppose, but my input was limited because I knew none of the vocabulary. If they had started talking about the Great Wall or the semantic elements of Chinese characters, I probably would have been set. Instead, they talked about useful things, which only solidified my belief that the book we last used in Chinese class was a fantastic waste of time and energy.

That aside, I nearly laughed when the third teacher suggested that I do all the homework for chapters 1-4 overnight so the teachers could see that I was up to speed. I gave my best "are you kidding me?" face, which apparently didn't translate too well, because she asked if I had finished it the next day. That time, I actually gave a rather well toned response of "umm, I have WAY too much homework already to be expected to do an ENTIRE SEMESTER'S worth of Chinese in a day." She smiled, nodded, and asked me to finish it soon. I smiled, nodded, and thought "no way in hell." Then of course, I got lectured for not being able to do all 15 hours of class a week. At Tunghai, the maximum amount of hours any student can take is 25, but unless they have a death wish, most students top around 18 or 20. With my ten hours of other classes (including one graduate level class), I decided that 10 hours of Chinese a week would be the maximum I could do without going completely insane and jumping out a window. My choice apparently wasn't as appreciated, as I was reminded again and again that I'd be missing out on content that my classmates were going through. I appreciate the fact that they're trying to help me, but I can barely keep on top of the work load as it is, and we haven't even gotten to midterm week. We'll see how this struggle turns out...

Other than that, nothing else new is really going on. Heading to Kenting for the weekend, which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful beaches in Asia. My friend Tiffany was worried for me, because apparently the weather is supposed to cool down to a low of 27 C, high of 31. For those of you who don't know how much that equates in Fahrenheit, it's a comfortable 80 degree low, possibly dipping into the 90s. Tragically cold.

That's all for now! Time to actually get some homework done for next week!

Holy Typhoon, an update!!

So my update weekly strategy fel by the wayside when I was bombard over the last week and a half with wicked amounts of class and social activities. I'm not kidding when I say that I've gone out more times in the last two weeks than my entire summer combined - two bbqs, brownie baking, dinner dates, lunch dates, homework is due today dates, and etc. All this together makes me pretty tired by the time I get home, and if you want to factor in the time taken to procrastinate homework, updating time is getting low. I'll try to bring everyone up to speed real quick (meeting friends for dinner soon!).

So since last week, I was having an epic crisis that kept me away from the computer (and the floor) for about twelve hours. When I was warned about big bugs, I was NOT warned about giant magically disappearing roaches that somehow find a way into my bathroom and then scurry back out again in less than three seconds. Cue complete panic mode... I still haven't found the creepy thing!!

Finally got my cellphone, which was more expensive than I was hoping, but it's awesome enough to be ok. I started out looking at used phones, but some of the the very basic pinyin-capable (beat up phones) were still like $90. I'm not even kidding you. In the country where everything was made, the cheapest you can get a decent used phone is like $90. In the end, I paid an extra $25 and got a brand new one that didn't look like it was going to fall apart at the slightest usage. Super cute too - I still can't understand why an adorable new phone is only like $20 more than a crappy used one, but oh well.

Chinese placement testing was Tuesday morning... Nora (the OIEP person) thought I'd be in advanced, but I was pretty sure I'd fall into Intermediate. My fantastic ability to follow obscure political references in Chinese still hasn't transferred itself over so well into basic conversational ability, and my speaking still really sucks. Plus I've forgotten how to write most of my characters... Fu would not be happy. It was less of a test and more of a five minute conversation with the teacher who also agreed that my grammar is great and my vocabulary sucks. They have me in class three hours a day, five days a week from 9-12, even though I told them I'm not able to take 15 hours. I figure I'll just not show up and leave early so my hours aren't overloaded. Speaking of hours, I forgot to go get my class paper signed... hopefully it's not too late to do that. Tragedy will strike if I can't take that international business class, since it's totally my favorite course ever (sarcasm doesn't translate well over the internet).

Papers are due every week in my graduate class, which really stinks. The subject matter at least is interesting, and the grad group is really cool though, they've totally taken me in. It's super fun getting to hang with the older kids (but not the really old classmates - some are like my dad's age!). It was pretty cool in class though when I was able to say I've read most of the books/articles he was showing us and was able to comment on everything he was talking about. Of course, he's ask me in Chinese and I'd reply smartly in English, but I have no doubt that my Chinese could not hold up to graduate level intelligence. Classes are held differently here though, not so much talking out in class or even raising your hands. Instead, everyone waits to be called on. This only kills me a little inside, so I've taken to writing out all my snarky comments on my notebook in no particular order. My favorite one so far? "We all must broaden our minds to the possibilities... oh my god Palin is a NUTCASE".

Other than that, there was a typhoon that kept me up all night Saturday, and I was so tired I didn't even notice the 6.something earthquake that happened Sunday morning. School was canceled Monday from the typhoon, which was pretty cool, especially since we got Wednesday off for the Moon Festival. Tuesday night I went to my friend Tiffany's house for a moon festival bbq, which was really awesome. We ate, lit fireworks, played mahjong, and chatted in a variety of languages. Spent Wednesday going out to lunch with a friend, and then cleaned my entire place top to bottom with a wet rag to avoid starting the paper that was due Thursday. Thursday was spent with the grad kids all day, from group studying in the morning, to class, to going out for Mexican food in the evening. MEXICAN FOOD!! Never thought I'd miss it so much... it was a bit expensive by Taiwan standards but not too bad for American costs.

Then finally today there was a welcome party for the international students, which was pretty much just a "come sit around for two hours and eat free food" get together. Came home, instead of doing my reading I took a three hour nap, and then went out again to eat with some of the other international students and buddies. Delicious pasta, yuuuum! Tomorrow I have to get up bright and early... we're going to Taipei!! The international group as a whole is just going for one day, but some of my friends and I decided to split off and spend the whole weekend there. Youth hostel away!! It should be great, plus I get to avoid going up Taipei 101 for another week haha~

That's all for now!!

Orientation is Synonymous with Mass Chaos

Another post so soon, I know, but they'll probably slow down when life gets settled here. I'm going to try and talk about the last two days in less detail, so my this post isn't a novel like my last one.

So orientation was Sunday, and I had agreed to meet the French kids at the on-campus 7/11 at 9:45. Apparently, there's more than one campus 7/11, but I still managed to find them simply by noticing how tall they all are. It was then that I met the three German students, who are also only staying for one semester, and together the seven of us headed off to the site of our indoctrination. The first part of orientation was splitting into our respective groups - the German girl Britta and I were in group one, and since she knows no Chinese, I got to pretend to help figure out what was going on. We joined our group, who stood away from us like we emitted some sort of deadly virus, and waited to be ushered into a dark series of rooms with no air conditioning. It was about this time I started wondering why in a country like Taiwan, there were any buildings left at all without A/C - personally it seemed like it'd be a priority. At this point, it became massively chaotic; people running everywhere, yelling, confusion, so Britta and I just hung out in a corner and watched the mayhem unfold. Finally, they started with a little introduction, cleverly introducing all the OIEP (office of international exchange programs) workers in a part of the room nobody could really see them. Phase one behind their plot to ensure we have no idea where to go or who to talk to for help. They introduced all the group leaders, made sure we got a packet full of little forms and brochures, then we marched back out into the sun to take a picture. Then, we marched back inside, and split into two groups - the Chinese/Hong Kong students and the Japanese/European students. I milled about for a minute before deciding to pretend to be European for a day, which ended up being a good idea.

So we were put in another unbearably stuffy room where we were questioned on our Visa types and given an explanation on class selection in very confusing English. I was able to follow mostly because the Japanese translator was pretty good, but I could tell the Europeans were pretty checked out of the proceedings. We got through everything and were given a cute little boxed lunch of things I didn't venture to eat. I try to be adventurous when it comes to food most of the time, my exception being really weird looking western food. If there's one thing travel in Asia has taught me, it's that their concept of western food is very different from our own.

We were then shuffled into another room where we were asked about bank accounts, and whether we wanted to go to a farm next Saturday. I'm not kidding.

Then it was time to apply for a cell phone, and I happily signed my name and handed over $400NTD (about $12USD) for my SIM card, only to learn it would take about a week to get it. Phase two behind their plot to ensure we have no idea where to go or who to talk to for help. I knew it was a plot because they seemed to smile when they said to call if we had any questions. Very sneaky, OIEP.

At that point we were supposed to go off on the campus and city tours, but my group decided to go see a movie instead. Knowing nothing about where to go on campus, the Europeans elected an actual staff member of OIEP to take us on a mini-tour, which lasted about ten minutes and consisted of "Here is bank, post office, book store, Chinese language center, and bus stop, ok?". With the regular groups having disappeared at this point, the Europeans decided to go their separate ways and after a few minutes with the French, I decided to go back to my room and cool off before the city tour that afternoon.

At 4:15, we met for the city tour (well, I was ten minutes late because I got lost - that campus is ENORMOUS) and all piled onto a bus for the longest and most uncomfortable ride ever. It took at least an hour to get through traffic, only for us to arrive at this Western food restaurant. We had dinner, which also took forever, then waited around for another hour or so for someone to show up and tell us where to go next. It was then decided that we'd go back to campus. In total, we spent about five hours on dinner; I suppose the city tour was the bus ride? Anyways, at that time a bunch of students decided to go out shopping, but being the good jet-lagged student that I was, I retired to my room to try and pick out classes for the semester (knowing that classes started the next morning). I spent about four hours of my own time mashing my way through the system, and finally became so frustrated with trying to figure everything out on my own in a foreign language, that I decided to go to bed and find someone to help me Monday morning.

Of course, when Monday morning came, I didn't really want to ever get up or leave my suite. I think it was mostly from anxiety at that point, anxiety caused by not knowing my classes and not knowing who to ask for help. I knew that if I didn't get the right classes, I wouldn't be able to graduate on time and staying another year is NOT an option. After about six hours of lazing about my suite (only so much can be done in 350 sq feet after all), I finally left to see what could be done about the chaos. I wandered around campus, asking for directions to the OIEP office and was directed instead to the CLC (Chinese language center). Not what I was looking for, but close enough. After a few minutes arguing that I knew Chinese classes hadn't started yet, it got through that I was trying to take other classes as well; amazing. A really nice, pretty cute guy helped me out with finding a bunch of the classes and figuring out the system, and then enlisted the help of another student working in the CLC to call the different departments and ask about what teachers and classes would be best for me. Finally, the kind of help I was looking for! They took my map and labeled everything, found people I could talk to in each department, and the other student even walked me to my first class that afternoon. Because our time was cut short by that first class, the guy told me to come back the next day around 10 or 11 so he could finish helping me with everything.

So I headed over to my first class, Principles of International Business, a course actually taught by an American professor from Chicago. My good friend Tiffany was also in the class, which was a major awesome bonus to spend time with her. After class, I headed over to her place for a bit and we met with her friends for dinner. It was decided that I should only speak Chinese, which was a great decision if not for the fact that they were speaking amongst themselves with extremely casual language. By extremely casual, I mean that they randomly drop important words or stop mid sentence. Where I was doing great listening and speaking earlier that day in the CLC, I was completely lost during dinner and felt more a fool for it. I did manage to get some decent payback though, when I was showing them how to sound more American when speaking english and completely took off with all the slang and fast-talk I could muster. Not so much fun to receive, is it?

We split then, Tiffany and I heading to the supermarket while everyone headed back home, and after shopping around for a bit we called it a day.

I'm here!!

Just like that! After boarding in San Fran, I fell asleep almost immediately... so quickly that I never got one of the immigration papers you have to fill out. By the end of the flight, I was wondering why nobody had passed them out so when I started going through immigration the Taiwanese lady was like "YOU NEED FILL THIS FORM". Of course, I didn't have a pen, but a really nice American guy let me borrow it. I just woulda thought that being awake or not, they would have figured I wasn't, you know, a Taiwanese national and given me a form anyways to find when I wake - but I digress. Thankfully I was totally konked by the time I got on the place, because I was seriously asleep before we got in the air. Then for whatever reason the airplane crew decided that TWO IN THE MORNING WAS A GREAT TIME FOR DINNER and woke me up for that (but didn't wake me for the immigration form??). Food was disgusting and I was way too tired to eat it, and they took forty million hours coming back around to pick the trays up so I was nodding off trying to stay awake so my face didn't end up in my food.

So yes, sleep came after that, and I slept that uncomfortable airplane sleep where you wake up every thirty minutes because you're sooo uncomfortable. I slept until about halfway through the flight until my brain decided "Haha, it's 12 in the afternoon!" even though it wasn't. I tossed around for awhile, then read my Kindle for a bit, then watched a couple of movies. I got to watch Prince of Persia, Robin Hood, and a freaking Anthony Bourdaine: No Reservations marathon! Who else got to watch THAT on their flight, huh? I'm now a huge fan of Eva Air. Finally, they decided to disturb everyone again for breakfast, where the choice consisted of raw yet surprisingly rubbery scrambled eggs or chicken jook that looked like vomit. I chose the eggs.

Finally, we landed in Taiwan, and I bustled of the plane in search of adventure! The search for adventure turned into the search for my luggage though, when it took 45 minutes for mine to arrive. I was about to have a heart attack too, sure that they'd lost it between my connecting flights. After that, I literally walked through customs (nice old Taiwanese guy told me to have a nice day - didn't search me or even ask me any questions!). Finally, I walked through the doors and immediately spotted my international buddy, a girl named Alan. Seriously though, this girl is a saint - my flight got in at 5:20, which means she had to take a 3:00 am bus ride just to pick me up. Amazing? I think so.

So we loaded onto the bus, and both of us almost immediately feel asleep there too (except for the moment when our bus nearly ran into another bus, and all the passengers were flung forward in a single violent motion that made me wish we had seat belts). Finally we arrived in Taichung, and grabbed the single most terrifying taxi ride of either of our lives. In Chinese, she spent the entire drive telling the driver "There's a car right there!" and he'd reply "我知道，我知道” (I know, I know) which did little to comfort either of us. Finally, we arrived, paid for the SIX DOLLAR super long taxi ride (cheap!) and I found myself standing outside a cosmetics store. I was just as confused as you are, especially when Alan told me there were a few horses that lived nearby and let's go see them.

I'm in a completely bewildered state at this point, dragging all my world possessions down an alley in search for this mystical horse. This old lady accosted us and started speaking rapid fire to Alan, and I was depressed I couldn't understand either of them until I realized they were speaking Taiwanese. So we found the mythical horse stall only to discover that the horse "isn't taking visitors right now". At that, we reversed back down the alley and stopped in front of an apartment building. Alan called her friend Carine who lived there, and we stuck all my bags in Carine's room so I wouldn't have to drag them around in search for an apartment. Alan then decided it was time to get breakfast, so we went down to this little corner shop and got the most delicious noodles ever in a plastic bag, and returned to Carine's room. Buying the noodles as well as tea from Family Mart cost a dollar - seriously. So we trudged back to Carine's room, and I chatter with her as Alan passed out on her bed. After about two hours of this (and watching HBO), they decided it was time to look for apartments and off we went! First place we looked at was in Carine's building, same floor at the end of the hallway. It looked a lot smaller than what I had imagined, but the view was amazing. Rent was a at the higher end of my price range, but it was clean, safe, and again, terrific view. From there, we moved on to two empty rooms in Alan's building, but they were amazingly even smaller than the rooms in Carine's building, and the window view just looked at another window three feet away. The big plus for me there was that it had a mini-fridge, but the size and window just couldn't cut it. Finally, as we were heading back to Carine's building, this old lady accosted us looking for tenants, and we climbed after her up the most ghetto old building on the block. Four flights of stairs later (no elevator) we arrive at a series of rooms with stained mattresses, broken lights, and tons of dead roaches on the floor. As the lady rambled on and on about how much better old buildings were, Alan and Carine looked at me in a way that suggested "Find something wrong with it so we can leave". Muttering something about not having an elevator, we fled.

With all those in place, I decided that the room in Carine's building would actually do me pretty well, having everything I wanted but a mini fridge, and being relatively closer to the school. At that point, I split from Alan because she had to go to work and followed Carine to go shopping with some of the other new students. We met up with them at the dorms, and I was given immediate gratification for not wanting to stay in the dorms. Not only was there no AC, when I went to use the public bathroom, I was greeted with an asian toilet. For those of you that don't know, an asian toilet is basically a porcelain hole in the floor with foot grips to crouch with. Thanks to my previous experience, I didn't do anything buy sigh and roll my eyes. Anyways, we finally met with the rest of the shopping group, which consisted of five Chinese girls and one poor girl from Japan who spoke neither Chinese or English. Thanks to my amazing language skills though, we bonded pretty quickly and mutually not knowing what was going on when the Chinese girls started chatting rapid fire, and I played translator for the rest of the afternoon. Went and bought bedding, trash cans, towels, and things for less that $40, and then went to another store to get more basics for cheap. Got these cute puzzle mat pieces to put on my floor, an idea stolen from Carine's room. I might add at this point, that Carine had been giving me rides on her scooter all morning to and from the school, and we even managed to carry my mattress and a whole bunch of other stuff while driving the thing. Riding the scooter is the most ridiculously fun thing ever, and I totally wish I could buy one myself!

Finally, shopping over, we returned to Carine's suite and she called the landlord to tell him I wanted the room here. I handed over 31,500 NTD (about $990) for six months rent and finally had a few blissful hours to myself. First things first, I set about taking a shower - the most blissful activity one can do after spending ungodly amounts of time on a plane. Sadly for me, turning on the hot water was a bit beyond my comprehension, so an refreshingly ice cold shower had to do. After that, there was a bit of time to wander about putting things away and making a list of what else I had to buy to live for a year. Carine wandered over again, and turned on the invisible hot water switch, and spent 40 minutes helping me set up internet, leaving me forever grateful.

It right about this time that I suddenly became absolutely and irrevocably exhausted, but the day wasn't over yet. Carine had planned to meet the French students out for dinner, and I was invited to come along as well. Dinner was fine, and was a melody of languages - most of which I couldn't even pay attention to because I was about to fall asleep face first in my food. Chinese, French, and English all started sounding like the adults in Peanuts cartoons, but after dinner was over, we waited for a bit then headed over the the French kid's apartment. It was very nice, more like a low end hotel than my building, but they were paying four times as much for the privilege.

Finally, a long time after that, Carine, Alan (who reappeared after dinner), and I headed back, grabbing some kind of desert before returning to my building. I inhaled the desert, excused myself, and promptly dropped dead on my bed

So Tired of Waiting... Departing!

So here I'm sitting in San Francisco, waiting for my flight to leave. I'm totally exhausted, it took all my effort to stay awake on the flight here (because if I'd slept then, I wouldn't be sleeping on the next leg). The next leg being San Francisco to Taiwan. Have I ever mentioned how much I hate flying over the ocean? Makes me a nervous wreck - no pun intended. My only solace is dreaming about ending up on the Lost island and snagging myself someone cute that was killed off during the show. Because otherwise my choices would be between Benjamin and Hurley... :/

I've got all my stuff packed, my entire life in two suitcases and a carry on. I'm pretty proud actually, my suitcases combined weigh less than 70 pounds. The big one is really light because there's only clothes inside it, but I had to sit on it to get it shut with my pillow and everything inside. The customs agent will be in for a great surprise if they decide to open that sucker up - my pillow will spring to freedom like those novelty snakes in a can. Good luck getting it shut again.

Is there any irony in the fact they were playing Karate Kid on the flight over? The new one, where Will Smith's kid goes to China. I laughed.

Also, why is it every time I travel I end up at the very furthest gate possible? It's midnight, the terminal is almost empty and my gate here is literally the LAST GATE on the OTHER SIDE OF THE AIRPORT from where I came in. It was quite a hike actually, and all these TSA people kept giving me funny looks as I trekked alone down the long path. Eventually I just started shouting "International terminal?" and pointing in what was (hopefully) the right directions, so the TSA people would nod or yell back.

Other funny thing, I realized this is the exact same gate I flew out of to go to Japan a couple summers ago with this high school study abroad group. I remember because we almost didn't make the flight after our plane in O'Hare crashed. Seriously.

I'm rambling at this point. Hopefully I'll arrive safely, and find a place to live and an internet connection, and I'll be updating with a more interesting post then.

Over and out!