In Taipei again

I was so happy today that I got to see my host family in Taipei again. My host sister Vanessa has grown so much!! My Chinese has gotten good enough that I can half way understand what she is say. She is super cute.

Today we went off up in the mountains to let of lanterns with out wishing hopping they come true. Here I found Herbie's long lost Taiwanese uncle.

Here people write there wishes on the fence.

It was a rainy day today so not a lot of people were out and about. Taipei is alot warmer then it is in Taoyuan.

I though these little drawings on the wall were very cute.

Here Sylvia and me set off the lantern we have made up into the sky.

The classic picture everyone did when I was in high school.

We ignored the warning sign haha.

I love beef noodles!! But I still think the best ones are next to my apartment made by a old lady.

It felt good to be in my old room again. It made me think when I first came to Taiwan and felt super scared. It feels like it was a million years ago.

The view outside my room.

Taipei : D

Today I was off with my girlfriend to Taipei to meet up with one of her colleagues she use to work with in a cram school. We had to wake up early to catch the train going to Taipei from Toayuan train Station. It was a cloudy morning so I was hopping for a very cool day.

 I have been living with Sylvia's family for the past week. Tomorrow I will move into my new apartment. This is Sylvia's house it is 5 stories and my room is on the 4th floor. It is a very beautiful house!

 Here we are in the MRT station after arriving to Taipei. We are waiting for Sylvia's friends John to come so we can go eat together.

The restaurant we wanted to eat out wouldn't open for another hour so we walked around Taipei trying to kill off some time.

 We ate at a Japanese restaurant. This is a kind of hot pot called "壽喜燒" . It is kind of hard to explain what the Chinese means but it was very delicious!!

 First you drop the slices of raw meat into the soup to cook them.

 Here you can see the meat cooking. We cooked beef and bacon in the pot.

 The sauce you use is a raw egg with peppers.

 My desert was mango with green tea pudding.

 After eating John had to go to work so Sylvia and me waiting at Taipei Main Station for my host mother to get off work to go visit her and her family.

 Seeing my host family again was great!! I had missed them soooo much! We all went out to eat at a Vietnam restaurant. Here I am drinking Vietnamese milk tea. It taste like regular milk tea but with a coffee after taste.

 My host father, Jerry.

 Some egg rolls.

 Vietnamese beef noodles. They were good but Taiwanese ones are much better!

 Our desert haha. Pineapple ice cream inside a pineapple.

I had a great time in Taipei!! I can't wait to  go visit Taipei and my host family again! On the way back to Taoyuan Sylvia and me were so tired that we fell asleep on the train till we got to our stop ><.

1st week of school

Hard to believe that my first week of school is already over. It was a good week. Since I only have class for 3 days it dose not feel as long as classes in America. Let me tell you about each day.

Tuesday
I woke up at 8am even though I had a class at 9:10 because I had to go and pay for my student health insurance and get my school ID. I woke up and tried to take a shower but here you have to turn on the water heater and let it warm up the water first before you can take a shower. So I got dressed and walked to school. It was a long walk, even though it was only 8 minutes. It is sorta of a scary walk since all the sidewalks have cars and scooters parked on them. So you are basically walking in the middle of the road in some parts. I tryed to pay my student insurance but I had to wait till 9am. So I want to the international office and told them I will come later. They were very friendly and the nice girl drew me a map of the school so I could find everything.

I walked to my first class in building 6, second floor to Consumer Behavior. I walked in and saw only one person sitting down. Little by little the class filled up with people. I sit in the very front row. At least the teacher is really friendly and speaks English well. The first thing I notice is that Taiwanese students talk while the teacher is talking and that is perfectly all right. I guess since the teacher has a microphone she can easily talk over them. We started by going through ALL 70 STUDENTS and introducing our selves to the class. I notice that my class mates spoken English is not the best. After introducing ourselves we had to get ourselves into groups. My group has a Taiwanese boy named Tommy, a Korean boy named Sunny, a Korean girl named Victoria and and another Taiwanese girl I didn't talk to that day but asked for my phone number after class. I enjoyed that class I liked being back in a class room again.

I then payed for my student insurance and walked to the international office. There I got my student ID. My advisor Miss Linda told me that I was matched with 3 host families I can pick from. They all live in Toayuan and I can stay with them for one month. I am very excited for this opportunity. I can't wait to meet them and pick one.

My next class was International Human Resource Management. I sat down and waited for the teacher to come. Professor Weng was more strict then my last teacher. She studied and taught in many schools in the UK so she had a British accent that was sorta cool to listen to. She was nice and like in the last class we all had to introduce our selves which took like an hour and a half to do. She told us we would get into groups. In fact in all my classes I am in a group. We didn't really do much else but go over the class rules and leave. It was a pretty easy day all and all.

Wednesday
I only had one class today which was Global Industrial Analysis but I had to go to the International student orientation so I had to miss it. The orientation was pretty straight forward. I want to join the International student club. It looks like fun.
We then had to go to health check. OMG this sucked all the International students were compiling about this. We had to be weighed, took our measurements, took our blood pressure, took our blood, gave urine and stool samples, and took x-rays in the back of a small van. It was a experience to say the least. Since thursday is a holiday I don't have my last two classes so just a day to rest.

School is starting.

These past couple of days I have spent them with my host family and seeing my friend Ivy. School is starting on Monday and I feel sad that I have to leave my host family and leave Taipei. Sadly Zhong li, where my college is, seems so boring compared to Taipei.
Here are some pictures of stores I have gone to riding the MRT train. I think it is funny all these things you would buy in America. You would not believe how many stores carry things China makes to export to America but get stuck in Taiwan. I had a good time look at all these things.

All the things say on the bottom "make in China" but all the instructions are in English because they were meant to be sent to America.

More glass things.

 They wanted like 4,000 American dollars for these two Terracotta Soldiers. I don't know if they were real but they felt real when I touched them.

Why are they trying to sell this huge computer monitor??

 Old computer things. It was laughable that they still had this stuff. Like a micro card reader for Windows 95. And memory expansions that were only like 500 kbs of memory.

 I though this dinosaur carrying an egg looked pretty awesome.

So many things to look at @.@

 Nut crackers with American flags

 I am renting this apartment for around $200 dollars a month.

 I think it is pretty nice and so cheap by American standards. It is about an 8 minute walk to get to school so it is not too bad. I just have to be careful not to get hit by a car/scooter on the way to school.

I need to buy some sheets and pillows for my bed. I am happy with my new home. I am a bit nervous to start living on my own. But I know I can do it.