Sorry about the last few days of not posting. I didn't get lost ;) We've once again been running around like crazy for days. We've been leaving by 9am and staying out until the wee hours of the morning.
I bought my internet card for the day (obviously) and should have more time to post later on. Can't wait to show some more of my adventures.
5/18 - Monday Here's some pictures of one of the main buildings where we are staying:
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:
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!!!
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!
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.
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:
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:
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.
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!
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