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.

Hanging out with my friend, Ivy : D

 Today I went to hang out with a friend I made online while I was in America. I had to take the MRT train to the "technology building station". I was so nervous I have never taken a train by myself before. But I was going to get over my fears and get on the train. It was a 10 minute car ride to DongHu station. There my host father showed me how to buy a ticket and read the MRT line map. I was going to take the "brown line" heading toward Taipei zoo for 14 stops. It was going to be a 35 minute train ride. So I bought the ticket and got a small coin that said "one ride coin" and past through the gate upstairs to the platform.
When I got on the train I was surprised by how little people there were on board. I then started to look around and notice that this train car is filled with women. I though,"oh no!!! I got on the train car that is only for women". I knew in Japan they had train cars for women. But in the next stop men got on the train car also so I relaxed.
Even though when I got on there was only maybe 9 people on my car about half way to my stop there must have been 40 people crammed into this train. It was so weird being so close to everyone. I finally heard the announcements for my stop. I am so glad almost everything in Taipei is writing in English under the Chinese. Even the announcements are in English. I had to push my way through a wall of people saying "bu hao yi si" till I got out of the train. I followed everyone down the stairs and put my coin inside the gate which opened and let me through. I walked to the front entrance of the station and waited for my friend Ivy to come.
I waited for a little while and then I saw Ivy. Today was very hot in Taipei and she went to change her jacket.

We walked through the campus of National Taiwan University. It was a beautiful campus. I liked how there weren't any scooters driving around.










There was a big event today at the school. They had like a Anime convention there and so many people were cosplaying. They looked like professional costumes too. There were people taking pictures with expensive cameras. We decided not to go to the convention we kept walking till we got back into the city. It was fun walking through the city I am so use to driving everywhere this was a new feeling.

We walked for a big till we got to this old looking buildings where people use to live. Now people do art in these houses. I think the temple with this tree looked beautiful. After looking at these buildings we walked around and go a little lost but found the MRT station. Ivy and me tryed
to find out where we should go next.







Ivy and me. Some how with all our walking we ended up in the red line. So we decided to take a 40 minuitte train ride to Tamsui the last stop on the red line. I bough a train card with 100NTD pre-paid in it and we were off. It was a long train and we had to stand through most of it because there were so many people on the train. I enjoyed talking to Ivy which made the train ride better.

When we got out of the train stations there were soooo many people. We walked around till Ivy turned around and said, "I am lost". haha. We asked a parking person where the river was and we walked to it. There were so many small shops selling everything you could think of.

 I really like Taiwanese sausage. I have eaten a lot of it in the South of Taiwan and have gotten use to the taste.

 Soooo many people. We went to Tamsui the most busiest day every! They have shops with Turkish men in them selling ice cream. But they make it a show by when they go to give you the ice cream he tosses it to his other hand and keeps tricking you while you try to snatch the ice cream from his hand.

This was some kind of egg snack. It tasted so good!! I want to eat more!! It only cost 35 NTD so it was super cheap.










When we were done looking at the sun setting we walked around more and I saw this random Christmas tree. It was getting late so everywhere else that we wanted to go was closing.















This is Ivy and me as the sun is going down. Everyone else was taking pictures of it. I don't blame them it was such a beautiful sight.











That is a small Island that you can take a ferry too. You can see the top of the mountain and the beautiful sky as the sun sets.

 The sun disappearing. It was so beautiful. I want to go again to see it.

We walked up a hill trying to get into some building that was built by the Spanish when they first landed in Taiwan but it was closed.












And of course food!! We ate at a hot pot restaurant. It was pretty good food. Very cheap for all the food we got. When we got done we took the "red line" all the way down and connected with the "blue line" to Grand Taipei station. Here, I borrowed Ivy's phone and called my mother to pick me up when I got to DongHu. Ivy and me said our goodbyes as she took the "brown line" to Taipei Zoo and I took the line going the other way. I had a great day with Ivy she was so nice and I hope I can hang out with her another day soon.
 

South of Taiwan Part 2

 Today the whole family went to Kaohsiung(this is how they spell it) we went to the mountains to see monkeys and a beautiful park. I really like Kaohsiung it is such a nice city I would not mind living here at all.

 Here we were just getting inside the city. Like with everywhere else in Taiwan there was a traffic jam. I love how you can see the blue sky. In Taipei it is permanently cloudy.

 This was the entrance to the metro. It is new and looked really pretty. You can see the little red lanterns on the trees for Chinese New Years.

More big buildings. A lot more were just being built so this city is very new and modern.

 We drove all through the city to get to the entrance of the mountain. This was a small temple where people can come to pray.

Here are two monkeys. They were everywhere running around. You could pet them if you are so brave. I am scared of these monkeys. I just tyred to avoid them as much as possible. When I sat down to eat a snack they come toward me I got scared and ran away.

 This is another temple at the start of the mountain trail. They were playing Chinese worshiping music.

 A baby monkey climbing on the sign. The 5 nos for peace. haha I think signs in Taiwan are funny to read if they are in English. The sign told us not to attack or hit the monkeys, not to feed them, not to bring our dogs or pets to the mountains, and not to look the monkeys in the eyes.

 This is a picture halfway up the mountain. It looks so beautiful. Almost like the movie Jurassic Park according to my host dad.

Climb, climb and climb some more. We did not even make it to the top. We took a rest on the stairs and then headed back down again.

 We then headed to the park. Here they had massage therapist giving massages. All the massage therapist are blind.

 Pretty lake

 Pretty flower

 I though this was cute. The Chinese character for love and the word love in English inside of it.

 I really like this picture

More funny signs in English. This one it says no releasing any animals like babies.

 This one says no worshiping here. I guess to many people came to pray and now it is not allowed.

This one says no pole dancing. My host mother said girls would come and pole dance on the light poles for money.

This was my lunch. Fried rice and fish soup. It was soooo good. The best fried rice I have ever had.

A video of the Parrots flying around and one landing on a girl by accident : o.

Taiwanese Grocery Store

 Today we had a family dinner at home. My host mother wanted to cook pizza for all of us : D. This is us eating at the table with the lights off and just candle light












We had to go to the grocery story to buy all the ingredient we needed to make the pizza. Here I saw some very pretty pots with colorful designs on the bottom of them. I never really seen them before so I took a picture of them.

The store had two floors the first was mainly electronics, clothes, and appliances. The second was where all the food was it. They had these escalators going up to the second floor. I felt really culture shocked walking around this store. I notice that in the electronics all the stereo equipment was turned up to the max blaring out music so it was soooo loud.

 Here in Taiwan you can buy liquor in a grocery store. At home I am pretty sure you have to go to an ABC store to do that.

I love Sprite!!














They had about 8 different types of nuts in this store. They had a little cup in the nuts where you can try the nut and see if you like how it taste before you buy it.






I saw many different types of meat at the grocery store. On the left bottom is cow foot and on the right of that is cow tongue. Doesn't it look delicious?

Here this lady was cooking meat so you could taste it before you bought it. You can take as many free samples as you want. My host sister ate a whole steak in free samples lol

 Some "Mexican" chicken and fish.

 More weird meat. I think that is like hear and lungs of a cow... I am not sure really.

On to the fish!

 Fresh Squid

Fresh frog

So many fresh fish!!

In America when you are done shopping many people just leave there cart where ever. In Taiwan you need to put 10 NTD into this lock so that it unlocks. The only way to get your money back is to return the cart and stick the key from another cart into it. This way everyone returns the carts.

I though it this was cool. It is a moving cart with Sushi on it. Each plate cost 30NTD and you can eat as much as you want. When you are done they count how many plates you have eaten and charge you like that.

Here is how the pizzas looked before we stuck them into the oven. They tasted sooo good!