5/15 - Friday

Once again I'm a day behind my blog posts. It's Saturday night and I'm ready to talk about Friday night. We're told we will have internet access in Japan in our rooms, so hopefully I will be better then. For now I'll have to continue posting from outside our hotel room (where it's 88 degrees at 10:45PM and humid!)

Friday we took a 3+ hour bus ride to a company called Taiwan Biotechnology Inc. They are a subsidiary of AGV Beverage. The company makes drinks that are meant to improve your health, e.g. lower cholesterol, etc.... Their plant was really amazing! It was 95% automated. The automation allows them to keep a sterile bottling environment. They told us that the bottling area is as sterile as a hospital operating room! They fed us there while we listened to a presentation. The food was great! It was rice and turkey (and a few other odds and ends in the mix).


After AGV we went to Cheng Chung University and visited our pen-pals. I continue to be impressed with how well everyone seems to speak English. We ate more food with our pen pals and made a scented perfume purse. These purses are said to ward off evil spirits.

We stopped for food at the 2nd largest city in Taiwan on the way home. Some members of the group ate at Chili's. Melody and I continued to be brave and went to a local eatery. What a mess. This particular location did not have people that spoke English serving the food. I "thought" I knew what I was doing, as I had eaten the pork on a stick before. However, this time it turns out that you are supposed to take the pork of the stick and drop it into a broth as a soup. The lady tried to tell me, but I couldn't understand a word. She took my bowl and filled it for me to save me any more trouble ;) She then tried to ask if I wanted noodles or dumplings with it (in Chinese). She kept pointing at the menu (in Chinese). Thankfully our professor was nearby. Charlie was able to translate and save the day for me. :-)

We went out again at night. We went to a bar called Barcode at first. However, after waiting literally 30 min for 1 drink we were left. We ended up back at the same bar we had gone to a few nights before - Barbados. The bartender was impressed that I remembered her English name (Alison). I mentioned that it was our last real night out and she was sweet enough to come up and tell us a story. The short version is that the bad man went to hell and the good one went to heaven. The really impressive part is that she was cutting a piece of folder paper as she told the story and the pieces of the cutout spelled out Hell and then had a cross. I had her sign the cross for me with her real name. Here's the picture:

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.

Wednesday

Ok, yet again I only have a few minutes in the morning before we start our day. The days are so full here. We generally have some free time every other night, but I'm pretty exhausted then and typically just pass out.

Wednesday we went to the presidential palace. It was the typical historical tour that you'd expect. Although, for this particular tour we had a "substitute guide." He hadn't given a tour in English in 15 years - you can guess how easy it was to understand. Some interesting things there, but the tour was 2 hours. That was especially rough for some in our group that were quite hungover - and no, I was not one of them. I've been pretty good thus far on the trip. :)


We then went to a karaoke bar to learn how to do business in Taiwan. This bars are private rooms for karaoke for a group of 15 or so to go and have drinks and sing. It started slow, but was actually quite fun!

I'll have to post the videos and pictures later. Hope everyone is having fun back home! Thanks for following!

Bathroom somewhere in Taiwan

This is a somewhat random video, but something that has taken me by surprise a couple of times since we got here. This video shows the general concept of how the public restrooms work. The sinks are usually shared by men and women outside the bathroom. This particular bathroom was even more open for the guys. Yes, that is just a swinging half-door behind the urinal. The girls bathroom was just past this. Good thing I'm not shy ;)

Bathrooms in Taiwan from Joshua Belliveau on Vimeo.

Happy Birthday Loic!!!

Since I am in Taiwan I figured I'd show you an aspect of the culture I KNOW you'll like. This is a picture of a girl selling "betel nuts" on the side of the street. We have not had them yet, but from what I've heard they are somewhat like tobacco - addictive that is. No doubt the girls outfits draw extra business from some people.

I didn't take this particular picture, but I did want to show what they look like.

Hotel Street Corner Video

Here's the area where we are staying:

Hotel Street Corner Video from Joshua Belliveau on Vimeo.

Tuesday

Ok... Not much time again. Today was a company visit with Giant bicycle. Followed by lunch with local business people. We then went to a winery and on to a local specialty... "the love hotel". Pictures to follow. Now we are heading out for drinks. Talk more soon. :-)

Here's some windmills that we saw on the way to Giant bike.

Windmills from Joshua Belliveau on Vimeo.

One of our interesting meals from lunch:

Doesn't Look Like Chicken from Joshua Belliveau on Vimeo.

Me taking the head off the shrimp for Melody at lunch:

Me - No shrimp head for Melody from Joshua Belliveau on Vimeo.

Love Hotel videos will have to wait. That place was CRAZY!!!

I noticed I'm missing Monday's details too. Monday we went to make ceramics (I'm terrible at it.. lol). We then went shopping a little. We had noodle soup for lunch. It was an all Chinese menu, but the waitress spoke some English. The best part was going to the spa and relaxing and then going to bed early for the first time in days!!!

Here's another random tidbit... everyone here is so friendly! Very polite!