flatfoot

so i've been here a little over a week and it seems i've been trudging along all over the city. apartment hunting is kinda hit and miss. i saw a bunch of overpriced dumps yesterday. lots of foreigners getting sucked into overpriced rooms and then trashing the place. today i saw a nice suite and room in a shared apartment with a girl named uki. i met her at the guting mrt stop. the place was far enough away from the station that she came over on her scooter. so, i had my first experience riding a scooter in taipei rush hour traffic, with my laptop strapped to my back even. five minutes later, we arrived at the apartment. much cleaner than the ones yesterday. i liked it a lot except it's so far from the mrt. it took me about twenty minutes to walk back. fifteen if i hadn't gotten lost.

this weekend i went back to taipei city hall to check out the mitsukoshi department store. it's a collection of four separate buildings with a lot of stuff on all floors that i can't afford. the nice thing is that there are some street performers in the walkway between the buildings. i saw a performer do some acrobatic thing involving a metal hoop. imagine that dude da vinci drew in a circle rolling around and doing a lot of graceful tricks.



i registered for class today. after handing over almost 35K NT in cash, i tried to take the placement test. i took one look at the written part and got up to return it, saying "no need", hahaha. i couldn't read a single thing on the page. looks like i'm starting from scratch. well, at least the placement test wasn't elementary. i'd be upset to be spending so much money to learn numbers again.

after paying my registration, i was left with about $3 in my pocket, so my plans for not eating at 7-11 for lunch were foiled. i walked to my bank to get some more money and 7-11 just happened to be nearby... i did order some food tonight in a cafe. i pointed at a sandwich but the cashier didn't understand what i wanted. the man behind me in line had to translate. later on, i ordered a water. i at least know how to say that.