first day of school

i had my first class this morning. when i walked in, there were already two guys sitting in there, speaking spanish. although i don't know much spanish, the sound of something familiar was pretty nice. three more students came in, and then our teacher, 劉老師 (liu laoshi). we're a very international class. i have classmates from honduras, paraguay, japan, germany, and new zealand. some are here on scholarship to do their undergraduate degree, some are here for a short time, and then some are sort of in between, like me. oh, and i finally got to use my chinese name 雷翔之 (lei xiangzhi).

we did a lot of work in three hours. a lot of what we went over today i've already seen before, but the thing i think will improve the most is my pronunciation. class is three hours a day, monday through friday. it looks like we're going to cover a substantial amount of material.

i spent the weekend cleaning up my place and buying little things here and there. i went to daiso last night and picked up a whole bunch of organizational things, like stacking racks for dishes and towel hangers. there's not a lot of space here. my bathroom is toilet, shower, and kitchen sink rolled into one. just walking around daiso last night was like watching humans dancing like tetris blocks. little rotations and sidesteps are needed to get down each aisle.

i also picked up my student id today, which means i can sign up for a library card and a gym membership. the indoor pool at ntu is supposed to be really nice. the only thing is that you have to wear skintight stuff to swim. not really what i'm used to but that's okay.

clean up after yourself

in at least two places i've showered here in taiwan, they don't have any use for shower curtains or bathtubs. at the hostel, the shower was a section of the floor partitioned off from the rest of the floor with a raised section of tile about two inches high. using a hand held shower head, you can bathe yourself and depending on your level of care, minimize the amount of water you let out of the partitioned area by meticulously aiming the shower head towards the corner, or if you're like me, let water go everywhere intending to mop it up later.

in my new place, there isn't even a partitioned section of the bathroom floor. the whole bathroom is the shower stall with a raised section of tile preventing water from running out into the rest of the apartment. this suits me just fine because shower curtains get nasty and water is easily mopped into a drain.

tonight i witnessed my first trash pickup in taipei. it looked like a block party. back home, ice cream trucks play music to summon little kids to spend their parents' money on candy cigarettes and overpriced ice cream cones. here, garbage trucks play music, fur elise among other selections, to summon everyone to take out their trash and whatever is the recyclable item of the day.

one thing i've noticed is that public trash cans are almost non-existent. instead, everyone is responsible for keeping their trash until the trucks come at night. all trash has to be bagged in special blue bags which are sold by the government to finance trash collection. since people have to pay for these bags, they do their best to limit how many of these things they need to use, which brings me to recycling. they are very systematic about recycling. my landlord gave me the weekly schedule for what items are picked up on what night. from what i've read, the collection workers give you a hard time if you don't sort and clean your recyclables very well. so, you can keep paying for blue trash bags, or you can recycle as much of your stuff as you can, or even better, minimize how much trash you have to haul down the block every night. you can see the results around the city. there's no stinking rotting garbage on the sidewalks. now if they could tackle the air pollution...

can i unpack now?

happy chinese valentines day!

after almost two weeks of hunting, i settled on the first studio i looked at. i signed a lease today for a place just across the street from the ntu language center. tomorrow i get to check out of the hostel and move into my new place. i have to say that two weeks is about the limit of tolerance i have for living out of my suitcase. there is something to be said for having furniture and a door with a lock. a trip to ikea and a few other places should be enough to make the place feel like home.

tonight i had a delicious meal although i can't really name the dishes i had. one dish was some kind of chewy cake-like bean sauteed with vegetables. another dish was tofu, intestine, and liver in an oily sauce. the last dish was homemade noodles in sesame sauce. all of this was complimented with a delicious bottle of carlsberg beer. the shop was loud and vibrant with old military songs playing. the flirty girl selling beer was disappointed that i didn't speak mandarin. everyone there was really enjoying themselves.

last night i attended my first toastmasters meeting. isn't it strange that i would attend a public speaking club in english while in a foreign country? after going though, i'm tempted to join them. everyone i met was very friendly with a good sense of humor. i had a good time at the meeting. next time they're going to have a joke telling contest.

i'm exhausted, but it looks like next week i'll be able to concentrate on school. can't wait to get started.

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.

out walking

i don't know why, but i keep waking up at 6:30 in the morning. today was pretty nice. the weather was a little bit milder than it's been this week, or maybe i'm learning the secrets of finding a/c and shade. i've started to pay attention to the way shadows fall to figure out what side of the street i should walk on and to figure out what general direction i'm facing.

today i made a trip to the ntu campus to look for more apartment flyers. i found a good one for a studio near technology building station for less than the others i've looked at. i also found out that the toilets in the language center are at the minimum bilingual.



i took a walk to the main library at ntu to see where i'll be spending most of my time in the near future. the basement has a nice air conditioned study room.




it's also five minutes walk from gongguan station and the gongguan night market. i've yet to really eat anything in the night markets here this time. i did have the stinky tofu last time i was here, but with all the rushing around, i feel like i'm entitled to a more substantial dinner than night market food.

i've also discovered a nice quiet place in the city on the ninth floor of the sogo fuxing store. there's a japanese rock garden and big windows with a view of the city. you can sit down here and eat a snack or just take off your shoes and lounge around. it's kind of a rarity finding a place like this. starbucks works, but i always feel compelled to buy something.





i've been meaning to compile a list of random observations:

1. no public trash cans. they have trash shelves when there are any places to put trash at all.

2. i saw two people on a scooter today holding, not towing, a dolly loaded with a box down a busy street.

3. middle aged women will take your seat in a food court and your place in line at the bank. i need to be more assertive.

4. fidgeting and looking up at ads on the mrt or in the stations makes you look like you just landed.

5. if you speak english, you can get ice water served to you in a large mug at starbucks. if you speak mandarin, you get ice water served to you in a tiny paper cup.

6. when on the sidewalk, don't look up with your mouth open unless you like the taste of water dripping off an a/c unit. better still, don't look up because you look like you just landed. more importantly, you should be walking in the shade under the awning.

some pictures from the first week

some pics from starbucks near daan station.




pics from taipei 101.

apartment hunting continued

btw, i'm enjoying the comments. i'm a little scatterbrained and not quite sure how many gaps there are in my story. it's good to get some feedback so i can fill in the blanks.

earlier this afternoon, i managed to find an english speaking landlord and took a look at a nice studio near linguang station. it's a quiet neighborhood and down the street from i-shuan's favorite breakfast place. when i met the landlord, she greeted me with a juice box, correctly guessing that i'd need it.

the studio is on the rooftop of a five story building. it's about the size of a dorm room and comes furnished with a bed, a desk, a closet, and a fridge. adjoining it is a little bathroom. although i've heard rooftop living is bad, the place seemed nice. it was cool and had a window facing the mountain (as in the mountain next to the building) instead of a street or another building. the landlord seemed very nice and made it a point to keep mentioning how she took care of her tenants. ntu is a 7-8 minute bike ride away so i could get some exercise from this point. i'm kinda leaning towards this one.