Midterms are over!!!

Midterms are finally over. For two whole weeks everyone at YZU just studies for these test. Now I can finally hang out with people. I had 4 midterms test. The test were all pretty easy, except for classical music class which was very hard. Right now I am getting ready to go to Ali Shan. I will post pictures from there when I come back. For now here are random pictures I have taken.

 

Here is the way to Nei Li train station after you get on the main road. It is very loud with all the cars and scooters driving by.

Here is another shot of the same street.

This is a picture of one of my good friends, Yadia. We were eating at a restaurant called Jenny Talks. The food there is very good and we go there alot to eat.

We took this picture in the library yesterday.

This is another of my very good friends, Lia. She is a masters student from Indonesia.

I think it is so funny that Taiwanese girls never want to take a picture because they always say they don't look "pretty" enough for one.

A video of "Caves books" in YZU.

I'm still alive!!!

 



It has been a LONG time that I have posted anything on my blog. I'm sorry I guess I have been busy enjoying Taiwan and always forget to take my camera. Right now, midterms are next week so everyone is studying for them. Here I will post some pictures of Yuan Ze so you can get an idea of what I see everyday going to and from classes. I promise I will start posting more pictures on my blog from now on!!

 

 

 

This is where I usually start off my day. This is my dorm. Four people live in one room but right now I only have two roommates. Its not that bad, I feel I have way MORE room here then I do in UNCG's dorm where I can barely get to my bed because of the dressers and furniture are in my way. Last night was sooo humid we had the window open and both fans on but it was still very hot ><.

This is my fourth of the room. Bed D. I spend alot of time here watching YouTube videos and chatting with other people. They don't give us a bed we have to go to a store and buy it. Its really thin and you have to get use to sleeping on it. Also there is no wifi in the "old" boys dorms. We use LAN connection and Internet is cut off at 12:37am and we have a 2GB limit.

This is the view from my window. You can see the courts to the left and in the middle is the tea/rice fields. You can sometimes see people working there growing and picking stuff.

Just a picture of the hall way on the 6th floor.

This is me and my good friend David going to eat lunch.

This is one of the 4 cafeterias Yuan Ze has. There are 3 restaurants here and a milk tea bar. It is so awesome Taiwanese really love food and there is so much variety. Even though UNCG is sooo much bigger then Yuan Ze, Yuan Ze's food is 100 times better then at UNCG. Its really full now because everyone has a lunch break at 12pm.

This is one of my favorite things to eat for lunch. I don't know what it is called in English but it is sooo tasty and fills me up. It cost 50NT which is about a dollar and something. It has chicken, rice and eggs...the rest I'm not sure what it is but I still love it.

Here, you can get a better look at the track and field that Yuan Ze has. Alot of people use the track and there is always someone playing volleyball or basketball.

This is the main walkway in Yuan Ze it is the equivalent of "college Ave" in UNCG. I really like all the trees and the flowers look very pretty.

This is building 7. The way they built this building is very weird. Many people like to take pictures at this building.

I don't know what "No Din" means but in Chinese it says to please be quiet, or don't be too loud.

We all say that inside building 7, it looks like Hogwarts from Harry Potter when the stair cases move around.

This is a picture from building 7 over looking the small pond that Yuan Ze has.

More pictures XD.

This is a very pretty pond in Yuan Ze. They have Kori fish and turtles that live here and it is very peaceful to come here and get away from all the city noise.

I have yet to see a snake but I will keep looking out for them.

The rock of innovation between building 2 and 3.

This is building 6 where all my business classes are. Its the tallest building in Yuan Ze, I think.

Yuan Ze has many dogs who live in the university. This is one of the oldest dogs. Almost every students know this dog and another one. They usually hang out in the gate of the school with the guard or walk around near family mart to try to get food from people.

Another dog and behind him is the library.

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.