Arriving

After a four hour flight from Chicago to LA, a ten hour layover in LA, and a 14.5 hour flight from LA to Taoyuan's Chiang Kai Shek International Airport (near Taipei), I was happy to be on the ground. After going through customs and grabbing my luggage, I immediately went outside. The first thing I noticed: it was quite humid. I went back in, ordered a bottle of water using Chinese, and found the bus I planned on taking to the Taipei MRT (mass rapid transit (subway)) main station. It was the greatest bus ride I'd ever been on. After getting out of Taoyuan, the highway carved it's way through mountains/hills covered in lush green foliage, and along the sides of the highway was my absolute favorite: palm trees. The humidity could now be seen as haze in the mountains. We crossed over a river, and once the bus got into Taipei, I couldn't believe how crowded it was not only all the buildings, but all the traffic--vehicles and pedestrians. The bus dropped me off at the Taipei Main Station, and, from there, it was a five minute walk to the Happy Family hostel, which I'm still staying at. Of course, it wasn't so easy to find the first time, and it took some asking around till someone pointed me to the sign on the front door. I got to the hostel at about 8:30, dropped off my bags (in the"lobby" because the room wasn't open till noon) and was off to school to take the placement test and register for class.

The MRT here in Taipei is very convenient; it has routes going to many parts of the city and county. Talking to people who lived here beforfe it's construction, I hear tales of unbelievable traffic congestion. And by the way, I've never seen so many hordes of scooters. At the intersection right by the hostel, I regularly see over 25 scooters waiting for the red light, and that's just going one way! Back to the MRT, it's very convenient, but if your Chinese isn't that great and it's your first time trying to find where you need to go, it's a nightmare (maybe just a bad dream). This station has not just the local subway trains, but trains departing for all parts of Taiwan. After figuring out where I needed to go and getting some tokens, I was on my way. Once I got off at the exit for school, I walked in the right direction, but stopped a few school buildings that weren't mine before someone was able to point me the way. Almost everything here is difficult to do or find the first time, but after that, it's like second nature.

The first thing I did when I got to school was go to the bathroom. Like bathrooms back home in the states, there were urinals and stalls with toilets. Unlike those I'm used to, one of the stalls had a squat toilet. No thank you! After filling out some forms, I had to pay the tuition in cash, which is very colorful (blue, brown/purple, pink) and whose bills' sizes vary by value. I did fairly well on the proficiency test. After registration, I had 6 days until orientation--6 days to explore the city. I decided to walk back to the hostel instead of taking the subway. This was only the beginning of a lot of walking for me.