The flight was 15 hours consisting of sleeping, eating, and watching movies/shows (i.e. ANTM, Red Riding Hood, Hop, Heartbeat, etc.) It's currently 10:38AM Taipei time. My flight arrived around 3:50am this morning, and I was fortunate enough to meet a local also on the same flight who could help me flag down a taxi and ensure that they were going to take me to the right place. NTU - Bot Shui Yuan dorm here I am. I met two of the student hosts (had to wake them up at like 5:15am), so that they could help me check-in and get my keys to my room. Unfortunately, the receptionist downstairs doesn't know how to speak a single word of english (did I mention that the taxi driver also lacked in his english...)...thank goodness for these students, otherwise, I'd be so lost. Taipei is beautiful - although I've only seen the buildings near my dorm, everything about it seems just so different; in a good way. I met Sammy, who is living right next door :) floormates! We are going to go to Ikea to get some stuff for our rooms and then go around and explore more of Taiwan. Exciting. Will continue posting more on my journey later...PEACE :)
This is my second post. Today was a longgggggggg day - had Chinese class starting at 9:00am, but had to get up at 6:15am to get ready and get my daily dose of Starbucks to keep me awake during the day. After Chinese, we had a 2 hour break - Mariko, Corinne and I went to two different banks to exchange money; unfortunately we were going to be late for our Explore Taiwan culture class at 2:00pm, so we just left Bank of Taiwan and quickly walked to campus to get to our class. It was definitely interesting - we learnt about the location of Taiwan, composition of Taiwan's population, distribution of population in Taiwan, decline of fertility level - Taiwan's "success story" and current problems/issues facing the people of Taiwan. I didn't bother to take any pictures today, as today, like many other days for the month will be exactly the same (no reason to...); but yesterday we did go to the Gongguan Night Market; we ate Stinky Tofu (mmm, it was actually really good!), and then we ate chicken fillet, and I took a bite out of a cream filled waffle like thing (pretty yummy! altho Taro tasted better!)...
On Saturday, the day I actually flew in, I went to check out Taipei 101 (didn't go up yet though...), but checked out the overpriced stores (couldn't afford anything..lol) and I met Sam's co-worker/friend Tanesha. We went to eat lunch at the food court; I got definite culture shock, didn't believe it when I saw my portion of food that I bought - it came in a real bowl and wasn't just normal fast food, it was AWESOMEEEEEE jap curry, SO GOOD....I could definitely get used to this (maybe should just stay here longterm....lol :P) Our little clique went to Chiang Kai Shek Memorial and then to Ximending - that's where I came across a Daiso Japan; bought some cheap stuff for only $39NTD per item!! so CHEAP! :) We also checked out the infamous Modern Toilet restaurant...wasn't good AT ALL....ewwwww...and the washroom was a gross washroom...you'd think that they would have a real toilet..not those squat one....guess not! I'm tired....gonna go to bed now...NIGHT!
