Arrived!
Hi Everyone,
I am sitting in front of the hostel computer, typing on a computer which somehow has support for even fewer languages than mine at home. It hasn't even quite got English down right, so I'm trying to write this post amid a sea of little squares, and I can't tell what any of the buttons really mean.
BUT, I just slept my first night in the "World Scholar House," Taipei. It's a pretty nice place, though cramped by American standards. When I have a chance, I'll upload some pictures. Right now, I'm staying in a room with 3 other people. One guy works for the British Trade Office, apparently (why is he staying in a hostel?) and the other two are a couple from England or someplace else where they have weird English. In any case they seem pretty nice, though I only really met them at around midnight and they were pretty sleepy. It's about half the size (maybe even only a third) of my dorm room, and it has four bunk beds, a well-functioning air conditioner (a necessity) and a window. The bathroom is Asian-style, sort of. To be more accurate, a poor conversion of Asian-style to Western. One thing that might interest you is that many toilet facilities in Taiwan don't have enough water pressure to handle toilet paper. So, you put it in a trash bin to the side. Lovely! But not as miasmic as you might think. You'd think that this nation's pluviosity (state of rainyness) would make it smelly, but it's not too bad. I learned that word from "Akeelah and the Bee" last night on the plane over. Good movie!
So, I have a plan for today, sort of. I will go eat breakfast immediately after leaving the computer, start calling people who have apartments I want to take a look at, though that raises the question of how I'm going to do that. I can use my phone, but only at $1.99 a minute.
Then I will just walk around all day finding a place to live. Don't get me wrong, the hostel's not bad! It's actually quite nice.
Plus, I met two friends (by necessity) yesterday on the plane - my seatmates. Well, rowmates. To my left was Taiwanese Random Girl from San Francisco, who was really quite open, actually had an opinion about things, and spoke good English. She's of indeterminate age, between 25 and probably some upper number I can't guess at (people don't age here). Friend number 2, though I actually talked to him first, was a Jewish guy who became Mormon and works at an electronics company in Burnsville, MN. He is the liaison between the home office and their factory in China, although he is about to marry a Taiwanese girl. He invited me and RTG to his wedding reception. But he's Mormon, so I'm assuming there won't be any wine at his wedding reception, though I doubt that could stop the Taiwanese family.
That's enough for all of you for today, I hope you're feeling great (I am) and I will return again soon with new tales. This was kind of rushed, and may lack the quality of future posts. For that, I apologize!
Zai jian (see you later),
Andrew
I am sitting in front of the hostel computer, typing on a computer which somehow has support for even fewer languages than mine at home. It hasn't even quite got English down right, so I'm trying to write this post amid a sea of little squares, and I can't tell what any of the buttons really mean.
BUT, I just slept my first night in the "World Scholar House," Taipei. It's a pretty nice place, though cramped by American standards. When I have a chance, I'll upload some pictures. Right now, I'm staying in a room with 3 other people. One guy works for the British Trade Office, apparently (why is he staying in a hostel?) and the other two are a couple from England or someplace else where they have weird English. In any case they seem pretty nice, though I only really met them at around midnight and they were pretty sleepy. It's about half the size (maybe even only a third) of my dorm room, and it has four bunk beds, a well-functioning air conditioner (a necessity) and a window. The bathroom is Asian-style, sort of. To be more accurate, a poor conversion of Asian-style to Western. One thing that might interest you is that many toilet facilities in Taiwan don't have enough water pressure to handle toilet paper. So, you put it in a trash bin to the side. Lovely! But not as miasmic as you might think. You'd think that this nation's pluviosity (state of rainyness) would make it smelly, but it's not too bad. I learned that word from "Akeelah and the Bee" last night on the plane over. Good movie!
So, I have a plan for today, sort of. I will go eat breakfast immediately after leaving the computer, start calling people who have apartments I want to take a look at, though that raises the question of how I'm going to do that. I can use my phone, but only at $1.99 a minute.
Then I will just walk around all day finding a place to live. Don't get me wrong, the hostel's not bad! It's actually quite nice.
Plus, I met two friends (by necessity) yesterday on the plane - my seatmates. Well, rowmates. To my left was Taiwanese Random Girl from San Francisco, who was really quite open, actually had an opinion about things, and spoke good English. She's of indeterminate age, between 25 and probably some upper number I can't guess at (people don't age here). Friend number 2, though I actually talked to him first, was a Jewish guy who became Mormon and works at an electronics company in Burnsville, MN. He is the liaison between the home office and their factory in China, although he is about to marry a Taiwanese girl. He invited me and RTG to his wedding reception. But he's Mormon, so I'm assuming there won't be any wine at his wedding reception, though I doubt that could stop the Taiwanese family.
That's enough for all of you for today, I hope you're feeling great (I am) and I will return again soon with new tales. This was kind of rushed, and may lack the quality of future posts. For that, I apologize!
Zai jian (see you later),
Andrew
posted by Andrew at
8:34 AM
1 Comments:
most taiwanese people seem to understand me pretty well. i'm able to go back and forth at a decent pace a lot of the time, though there are certain people who have a more difficult time with my chinese... but then again i mumble a lot in english as well. the woman on the plane could understand me. having english ability makes it easier to decide whether they are simply being polite or actually believe you speak well. what are you up to?
By
Andrew, at 3:19 PM
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