Finally Arrived

I can't believe that I am actually here. The journey here was long. I stayed up for 26 hours straight through out all 3 of my plane rides (PDX to San Fran, San Fran to Tokyo, Tokyo to Taipei) and then the bus ride to the campus here. This morning when I woke up I took a shower in my bathroom, which does not have a stall around it. The shower is open to the rest of the bathroom, I was afraid that I was going to get everything wet, but it was not too bad. Then I met some of the other girls and we ventured to the 7-11 for our breakfast. The 7-11s here are different than in America, they have everything. They are more like a rite-aid or Walgreens, people go there for many different things. I was able to have plain yogurt and fruit for breakfast.

After breakfast we went on a tour around campus and then through the city. The city is so big (2 million people I think) that it is divided into districts. We went to the post office and the bank and then out to lunch. I paid less than $2 American for my lunch today. It was great. Shauna (the graduate student who will be teaching us on the trip) and I are the only vegetarians so we had to go to a different restaurant than everyone else because the one we were at had meat in every meal choice. Here the culture is to eat out for every meal, but I bought eggs and bread from the store today so that I can make breakfast for myself in the morning. While I was in the store I dropped my first carton of eggs and one broke and splattered! I was so embarrassed and did not know what to do, but the lady who worked there just gave me a new carton and said it was all right. Oh man!

The weather here is very different. It is very muggy, the air is so thick. It is going to be really hard for me to get used to the air that is down town. My throat hurt when we got back to the Fu Jen campus because of all the exhaust and pollution. There are motor scooters EVERYWHERE! So many people ride them. And the driving here is crazy, literally. I don't think that there are rules. Some intersections don't have a yellow light, it just goes from green to red. But everyone runs red lights anyways. I would never want to drive here, so today we did a lot of walking.

We are no longer going on our weekend trip to Hua-Lien because there is a typhoon that is supposed to be arriving here. We are going to try to reschedule our trip so that we will still be able to go. This weekend will be full of rain. We got a little taste of it today when we were out shopping in the town. It just started coming down, and practically sideways from the wind. Everyone just went about their lives too. The people are neat to watch.

I haven't had any real problem with the time transition, which is nice. Right now it is 9pm here and 6am back home in Oregon. and I am tired and ready for bed. Such a crazy concept, especially when I look at the clock on my computer because it is still on the Pacific time zone. I am ready for a good night of sleep and for more adventure tomorrow.

Here is a link to my online photo album with more pictures!
http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2146009&l=b2ff6&id=19712929

I miss everyone a lot!