5/17 - Sunday - On to Tokyo

I'm writing this post at 7:40AM on Monday in my room in Tokyo. We finished our travels yesterday. Tokyo is an hour ahead of Taipei, so 7PM our time is now 6am the same day at home. Here's a random picture from the in-flight map:


Here is what we were served in-flight:


And if I haven't mentioned it yet, the recycling programs over here seem to be pretty advanced (picture below). Of course, another thing I don't think I mentioned is that there are HARDLY ANY trash cans around. I guess it's because they don't walk around with food and drinks, but for us it becomes a big pain when we do... lol.


Another neat thing is the use of cartoon characters in official things. For example the in-flight safety video or on this customs document in Japan:


The in-flight cameras are really neat. I took a video of the downward view and recorded our landing:

Landing in Tokyo from Joshua Belliveau on Vimeo.

After landing we had to take a train from the airport to near where we are staying. There were a lot of rice patties along the way:


We made it to the hostel. What a walk!!! We took the subway to a place near where we are staying, but we had to roll our luggage around 1/2mile before we got to the room. We even had a few bag's wheels break. Luckily mine was not one of them. Here's a map of the campus where we are staying:


The Japanese, as we've been told, are a very formal and rules based society. As such, they separated our group; girls are on the 7th floor, boys are on the 3rd. No food or alcohol is allowed in the rooms either. Strangely enough, we do have a small fridge though, so I guess I need to look into that rule.

BTW, I'm not sure if I ever mentioned the cockroaches and rats we saw in the street in Taipei outside the hotel. Well, I finally managed to capture a picture:


Also, I now have internet in my room (for a fee). What a relief!!!

5/17 - Sunday

Well, we made it to the Taipei airport. I checked both bags this time and squeeked in under the weight limits. At the hotel we were a little worried we wouldn't have room for all the luggage. We ended up filling underneath and the whole back row of the bus with luggage. Now there is a half-hour until we board and I figured I'd take advantage of the free internet terminal.

They keep telling us how busy and crazy Tokyo will be. Apparently we will be riding the metro for 2 hours to get to our hotel - with MANY bags too. This should be interesting!

5/16 - Saturday

Well, this post is starting on Saturday night at around 11PM. I really just wanted to check in and say I may not be able to post much tomorrow. We leave for the Airport at 630AM on Sunday (630PM Saturday for those at home). I'll be sure to put up more videos and pictures when I can.

As for today, it started out a little rough. For some reason the screen on my NEW camcorder decided to quit working! Luckily, we are 1 block away from the camera street here in Taipei! There must be 20 different camera stores within one side of one city block! I tried to get the old one fixed first, but they don't do that. So I caved and bought another new camcorder. I just couldn't be without one for the rest of the trip; We still have Tokyo to go! The new camcorder cost about the same as the last one I bought. Although this one has a MUCH better camera in it and actually takes much better video too! So I guess it wasn't all a loss. I am very happy with this new camera. I was able to barter some with the lady in the store too. That is another nice part about the culture here. While she wouldn't move much on the price, I did get her to throw in some extras (battery, bag, etc...).

We finally got our massage today. It was great at some parts, but downright PAINFUL in others. Those ladies twisted and turned us in ways that are just flat out unnatural ;)

After the massage it was on to an all you can eat and drink buffet. The food was excellent there too!

We walked over to Taipei 101 after that and some people went up in the tower. I didn't go again though. There was still a few stores I had to check out around town.

Well, it's about 90 degrees and humid outside right now (where I'm posting) and it's 11:15PM. I need to get finished packing since we leave in 7 hours. I'll post more soon.

Thursday

Well, it's Friday night for us now, but I'm still trying to catch up so here is Thursday's post.

Thursday we went to an organization called Joy English Enterprises. They teach English to locals here. From what they told us the school children here have their normal school time and then leave to go back for more school at night. Part of the additional schooling is math and science, or in this case, English classes. Apparently the kids here start learning English in 1st grade! It's no wonder they all seem to speak so well! We were originally going to have a couple of random people from Canada come with us for the company visit, but they had just flown in the day before. Seeing as we have to take our temperature 2x a day just to ensure we can meet with our friends in Japan, we definitely don't want to risk any swine flu problems.

After that we went to National Taiwan University (NTU) and went through a case study with some students. Here's a view of Taipei 101 from NTUL:

Taipei 101 from NTU from Joshua Belliveau on Vimeo.

At night was Taipei 101!!! What a great view! One of the students from NTU came along too. The elevator was crazy! It went up 89 floors in 33 seconds! Your ears actually pop on the way up! I don't have a video of that part, but here's the ride down:


And btw, no Dunkin Donuts in Boone, but I definitely stopped at one in Taipei. It was $1USD a donut, but the Boston Cream donuts were great! They were slightly different though, they have a hard chocolate shell instead of a softer glaze like in the states.

5/9 - First Full Day

Hello everyone, or should I say nihao. :)

It is now 12:10 AM for me here on Sunday. I started this post at 9:10PM on Saturday, but my laptop died. Now I'm finishing the post, so...

It was our first day to really go out and about. We had a full day planned. We started with half of our group getting an "extreme makeover." We each got dressed up in Asian attire and had our pictures taken by a professional photographer. It was a lot of fun, but with a group of 20 people it took us 4+ hours to get it all finished. I don't have any pictures of me in my costume on my camera, but here's Melody.

Next we went to Chiang Kai Shek memorial. Impressive building and park nearby! We went on a tour for some charitable organization after. It was rather funny. We were literally surrounded by photographers and staff when we went on a tour. The professors said it was because they are trying to promote tourism and apparently... we qualified. I've never had so many cameras around me at one time :)



Well, my battery is still dying since the outlets all shut off when we leave the room. So here's the abbreviated ending. We went to a museum and then by a night market... SOOO MANY PEOPLE!



P.S. We attempted to go out to a local club tonight. Our professor wrote the address in Chinese for the taxi driver. Our taxi got us there; I confirmed it with the bouncers. However, the 2nd group of students didn't make it to the club. We waited for a while and decided to head back to the hotel. Now we're sitting outside the hotel, having some beers with some ASU students that are now studying for their MBA here in Taiwan. What a day... more to come. Sorry I haven't had a chance to put more videos up. Hopefully I'll be able to soon.