first week of school wrapup

it's saturday right around lunch time. i caught up on a lot of sleep last night and this morning i went for my first swim here. ntu has a very nice athletic center and it's really right across the street from where i live.

they have a bunch of boxes where you put your shoes before you even walk into the locker room, sort of like the things kids put their shoes in before getting into the ball pit at chucky cheese. the locker room has these raised plastic grid things which lets water drain to the floor beneath so you're not walking around in nasty puddles. same goes for the shower.

the requirement to swim here is that you wear skin tight clothing so i bought some swim shorts and a swim cap yesterday. i discovered that the shorts already have a tear in them so i'm going to find a sewing kit to patch them today. my swim was nice. either i've gotten stronger, thinner, or more likely, the swim shorts are pretty effective, because i noticed i was swimming a lot easier than i'm used to.

later this evening i'm meeting with my classmates at 龍山寺站 (longshan temple mrt station) for some fun at the nearby night market. there's a particularly famous section of it called "snake alley" where you can have snake soup, snake venom, and some exotic, expensive dishes. not sure what we'll end up doing but it will be hilarious trying to order food because the stands most likely won't have any pictures and maybe not have menus at all. i suppose we can just point at the dishes as they're being cooked or as people walk away with them.

the first week of class has gone pretty well. i was worried we'd be going slow, but after the first week, we're already writing our homework with characters. this week i think we've learned 40 characters and a handful of useful sentences. i get the feeling that my classmates are doing a lot of extra work outside of class too because we're moving along at such a good rate.

anyway, i'm happy things are starting to settle. it's such a nice luxury to just have a place to lay around. i'm using a whole lot of electricity at the moment, but i can't figure out how to reduce it except to stay out all day or to just open the window onto the busy road below. thankfully, fall is coming and it won't be so hot.

one other thing i've seen around the city is a lot of fires on the sidewalk. i think the other day was the first day of ghost month. it's been described to me as summer vacation for all the ghosts in hell. the gates are opened and they wander around with the living. the fires are burning "ghost money" as offerings to the ghosts so that they don't cause trouble. in an effort to minimize air pollution, these burnings are grouped together in front of large buildings instead of every family having their own fire. i don't know how often this is going to happen in the month, but i've only seen it the other day.

here's a picture of the delicious beef noodle soup i had the other night. the meat didn't look all that tender, but it just fell apart in my mouth. it was so good i-shuan and i ate half of it before i could get the picture. missing from the picture is the stewed tofu we had as an appetizer. this too was incredibly tasty. the place started as a small shop with only five seats. since it's done so well, they rented some more space in a taiwan lottery shop next door.





follow your nose, it always knows.

apartment hunting

i made my third trip to the bank today. the guard at the door and the bankers at the counter know me now, if not by name, then as the sweaty guy with a backpack who doesn't speak mandarin. the banker at the first counter, monica, even laughed a little with me because she knew i was coming in to do the same thing i did yesterday. things went a lot smoother. one more trip and that should be it for a while.

afterwards, i walked from the mrt station to the language center to see if i could find anymore studio for rent flyers on the bulletin boards. i found two more and tried to call, but when they realized i couldn't speak mandarin, they hung up. i called two others from the tsuei ma ma (tmm/催媽媽) apartment listing service but didn't get much further. i was pretty lucky that the landlord with the first listing spoke english. i might just go with that one if it's not already taken.

my roommate told me that he found his apartment through www.tealit.com, a website for english teachers in taiwan. i took a look at it, but i'm a little reluctant to be roommates with a lot of expats or living in an expat neighborhood. it just seems like i'd be living in an inferior imitation of home. if i want to be reminded of home, starbucks is the place to go. i keep hearing rem and grizzly bear. one way or another, i'll find a place to live and then i can get on with the business of actually studying here.

i've been doing more walking today to get a sense of distance. riding the mrt all the time is expensive and probably unnecessary for all the places i'm going. it turns out the walk from daan (大安) station to the north gate of ntu is 10-15 mins. not too bad. riding the mrt that far doesn't save me from sweating (the brown line stations aren't air conditioned), so i might as well just walk.

last night i had a crash course in menu reading followed with a pop quiz by walking around the eslite basement food court, trying to identify what each shop served. i failed. need more practice. however, i'm getting to be a pro at picking food in 7-11. soymilk good. brown rice milk disgusting.