Hello everyone!
Well it definitely has been too long...
This past week I went to the Philippines! Filip, Alex, Ivo, Andrew and I made the trip to the Philippines. I had to renew my visa and why not take a mini vacation? So we left last Wednesday at 10 pm to catch our flight at 1 am, we flew from Taipei to Manila than from Manila to Caticlan. Finally arrived in Caticlan at about 6 in the morning and than we took a boat to Boracay. Beautiful island and beautiful water. We stayed in a perfect hostel that was right on the beach but on the quiet side of the island. We paid 8 bucks a night for a room with our own shower and toilet and breakfast included! What a steal. The place was great, we would hangout with the owners, who were very very nice, sit in the hammock, smoke some cigars out by the beach. Great place.
The first day we didn't do a whole lot, we finally got to our hostel at about 9 am and we were whipped, so we slept for awhile and just hung out at the beach. The second day we booked an excursion to Ariel's Point. It was like a 30 minute boat ride to another island where there was snorkeling and cliff diving. The cliff diving was awesome and crazy. The tallest one was about 50 feet and when you were standing on that platform ready to jump, boy it was all of 50 feet, so scary. The weather was perfect that day, so we had a blast cliff diving and snorkeling and hanging out, best day of the trip by far. The third day we kind of just hung out again at the beach, weather wasn't that great, so we just screwed around and walked around.
The fourth day again wasn't the greatest weather, we heard that there was a typhoon coming so that's why the weather wasn't the greatest all week, but we went to the beach anyway and explored some different parts of the island.
Our plane ride home was the craziest part of the trip. Apparently we booked a little puddle hopper from Caticlan to Manila during a typhoon. Never experienced such a horrible and scary flight in my life. I was sitting with my friend Andrew and he was bawling, people were screaming and people who didn't have there seatbelts on were smacking the roof of the plane. Turbulence was unbelievable and we couldn't land the plane. Every time we went low the plane would basically get out of control. Never been so scared in my life. The flight was supposed to be an hour long and it ended up being 3 hours. I have never been so happy to be on solid ground. Our flight from Manila to Taipei ended up decent, even though it was delayed almost 4 hours. Finally made it back home (never thought I would call Taipei home), but it felt good to be back here after such an eventful day.
Overall, Philippines was awesome, so glad we made the trip. People were super nice, super polite and genuinely caring. Except all the lady boys and hookers. Apparently there are lady boys everywhere, pretty disgusting actually. Ivo got followed home by one one night and it was pretty scary actually, he/she wouldn't leave so we had to be kind of forceful, weird stuff.
Well I only have 2 weeks left here in Taipei, can you believe that? Than I'm off to Singapore for 3 days, than meeting up with my bro and his friend Alec in Indonesia, than to Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong and Macau. Going to be a great summer!
再見！
－杜開
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Hey everybody
Let's see here, what have I been up to...
Time is definitely flying by, tomorrow will be 10 weeks already! If I wanted to, I could be home in a month already! But, I booked a trip to Singapore and Indonesia after school so I won't be home quite yet.
Anyways, this past weekend we did some sightseeing around Taipei which was nice. Saturday night we climbed up Elephant mountain which is right on the outskirts of Taipei and the view is like none other. Climbed up the mountain and once you get up top the view is breathtaking. The whole city is right before you and right smack dab in the middle is the Taipei 101. There's a few big boulders you can stand/sit on to get good pictures. We basically stayed up there for 3 hours watching the sunset over the city, absolutely stunning.
Than Sunday Ivo, Ed, and I made our way to Yilan and WaiAo to hit up the beach. Took a train from Taipei to Yilan which was a little over an hour and a half and found out we had gone to far so we had to take another train to WaiAo which is where the beach is. Finally got onto the beach at like 3 pm (always takes longer to get somewhere than what you think). Ivo and I rented a couple surfboards for like 8 bucks a piece and got to surf the rest of the night! I hadn't been surfing since California back in highschool so I had to try and relearn, there's nothing like riding a wave all the way lol. So that was a lot of fun, wish we would have had more time, but now we know for next time. We'll probably camp out on that beach one of these weekends and surf again.
It's crazy how people can make or break your experience. I was very blessed to have some good people to hang out with. Making great friends over here, definitely going to miss them when I go home.
Week from tomorrow I'll be sitting in paradise in Boracay, Philippines with Filip, Ivo, Andrew, and Ed. Can't wait for a couple days off from school, Chinese gets tiring lol. It's going to be awesome!
I'll try and post more often!
Kyle
Let's see here, what have I been up to...
Time is definitely flying by, tomorrow will be 10 weeks already! If I wanted to, I could be home in a month already! But, I booked a trip to Singapore and Indonesia after school so I won't be home quite yet.
Anyways, this past weekend we did some sightseeing around Taipei which was nice. Saturday night we climbed up Elephant mountain which is right on the outskirts of Taipei and the view is like none other. Climbed up the mountain and once you get up top the view is breathtaking. The whole city is right before you and right smack dab in the middle is the Taipei 101. There's a few big boulders you can stand/sit on to get good pictures. We basically stayed up there for 3 hours watching the sunset over the city, absolutely stunning.
Than Sunday Ivo, Ed, and I made our way to Yilan and WaiAo to hit up the beach. Took a train from Taipei to Yilan which was a little over an hour and a half and found out we had gone to far so we had to take another train to WaiAo which is where the beach is. Finally got onto the beach at like 3 pm (always takes longer to get somewhere than what you think). Ivo and I rented a couple surfboards for like 8 bucks a piece and got to surf the rest of the night! I hadn't been surfing since California back in highschool so I had to try and relearn, there's nothing like riding a wave all the way lol. So that was a lot of fun, wish we would have had more time, but now we know for next time. We'll probably camp out on that beach one of these weekends and surf again.
It's crazy how people can make or break your experience. I was very blessed to have some good people to hang out with. Making great friends over here, definitely going to miss them when I go home.
Week from tomorrow I'll be sitting in paradise in Boracay, Philippines with Filip, Ivo, Andrew, and Ed. Can't wait for a couple days off from school, Chinese gets tiring lol. It's going to be awesome!
I'll try and post more often!
Kyle
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Hey everyone,
Let's see, what did I do this week...
Monday after school Filip, Alex and I went to XinBeitou for the hot springs. I had been looking forward to going there the whole time I've been here! It was awesome, one of the best nights here. It's kind of out in the boonies, so we had to take like a 50 minute MRT ride to get there and than walk for another 15 minutes to get to the hot springs. So it was quite the haul to get there but it was totally worth it. They have 4 different pools. The first one if I had to guess was maybe 102 degrees, so it was very nice. The second one jumped up to maybe 105 so it was pretty hot, I could only stay in it for a couple minutes. The third one I couldn't even get in, it was probably 107 degrees, and than the last one had to be close to 110. I didn't even put my feet in the last one, but Filip said his feet were instantly burning. There were a few Taiwanese sitting in the last one, I have no idea how they can do that. I just sat in the first one for awhile lol. It was so peaceful and relaxing, my fricken back needed it, sleeping on that board takes its toll lol. Anyways, it was great night, was able to see more of the outskirts of Taipei which was nice.
School was pretty demanding this week. On Friday we all had to say a 10 minute presentation about our favorite place in Taiwan all in Chinese. It was pretty tough, lots of memorizing, and lots of work putting it all together but you learn a lot about grammar reciting a speech, so it was nice.
Wednesday night is kind of the 外國人 night. All the foreigners go to Roxy 99 for a couple beers and hang out. So we went there this week and hung out for awhile.
Friday we went bowling! We started out eating at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants and decided we wanted to go bowling. So we went to Ximending and found a janky bowling alley lol. Apparently bowling isn't to popular in Taiwan. We paid like 2 bucks a game, but the lanes were bumpy, not flat, dents lol, the bowling balls were terrible but it was fun lol. It was fun to do something different.
Another weird/cool/awkward thing we got to do this week was be models for a magazine my college puts out for recruiting lol. So like 10 of us International students met with a photographer and took a bunch of random shots around campus. So I guess we'll be in the latest issue for recruiting foreign students. Kind of cool I guess lol.
Filip, Ivo, Andrew and I are planning a sweet trip to Boracay, Philippines beginning of May. Can't wait. Boracay is supposed to be one the best beaches in the world so we are super pumped do lay on the beach, snorkel and whatever else, going to be awesome! Also trying to plan a summer trip. I have about 2 months to travel around Asia. I'm thinking Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Macau... possibly Cambodia. Any ideas? If anyone has been to any of these places I would love to talk to you!
See you later everyone!
Kyle
Let's see, what did I do this week...
Monday after school Filip, Alex and I went to XinBeitou for the hot springs. I had been looking forward to going there the whole time I've been here! It was awesome, one of the best nights here. It's kind of out in the boonies, so we had to take like a 50 minute MRT ride to get there and than walk for another 15 minutes to get to the hot springs. So it was quite the haul to get there but it was totally worth it. They have 4 different pools. The first one if I had to guess was maybe 102 degrees, so it was very nice. The second one jumped up to maybe 105 so it was pretty hot, I could only stay in it for a couple minutes. The third one I couldn't even get in, it was probably 107 degrees, and than the last one had to be close to 110. I didn't even put my feet in the last one, but Filip said his feet were instantly burning. There were a few Taiwanese sitting in the last one, I have no idea how they can do that. I just sat in the first one for awhile lol. It was so peaceful and relaxing, my fricken back needed it, sleeping on that board takes its toll lol. Anyways, it was great night, was able to see more of the outskirts of Taipei which was nice.
School was pretty demanding this week. On Friday we all had to say a 10 minute presentation about our favorite place in Taiwan all in Chinese. It was pretty tough, lots of memorizing, and lots of work putting it all together but you learn a lot about grammar reciting a speech, so it was nice.
Wednesday night is kind of the 外國人 night. All the foreigners go to Roxy 99 for a couple beers and hang out. So we went there this week and hung out for awhile.
Friday we went bowling! We started out eating at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants and decided we wanted to go bowling. So we went to Ximending and found a janky bowling alley lol. Apparently bowling isn't to popular in Taiwan. We paid like 2 bucks a game, but the lanes were bumpy, not flat, dents lol, the bowling balls were terrible but it was fun lol. It was fun to do something different.
Another weird/cool/awkward thing we got to do this week was be models for a magazine my college puts out for recruiting lol. So like 10 of us International students met with a photographer and took a bunch of random shots around campus. So I guess we'll be in the latest issue for recruiting foreign students. Kind of cool I guess lol.
Filip, Ivo, Andrew and I are planning a sweet trip to Boracay, Philippines beginning of May. Can't wait. Boracay is supposed to be one the best beaches in the world so we are super pumped do lay on the beach, snorkel and whatever else, going to be awesome! Also trying to plan a summer trip. I have about 2 months to travel around Asia. I'm thinking Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Macau... possibly Cambodia. Any ideas? If anyone has been to any of these places I would love to talk to you!
See you later everyone!
Kyle
Sunday, April 10, 2011
I put up a page view ticket and holy cow I am blown away by how many people are reading this!! I had no idea I had that many followers! I guess I should be writing in here as much as possible huh?
Well to be honest this week was a little on the rough side. It was hard to get back into the swing of things even though I only had a 5 day break. I caught up with a few people back from home and it made me miss a lot of the people and things back at home. I'm dying for a nice couch to lay on and some Judy Judy to watch :) I definitely should have invested into a better mattress when I first came here, this stupid 1" thick bamboo one isn't cutting it! haha. A lot of my friends have been telling me where they've been eating like the Dungeon and how they ate their chips and cheese, going to applebees and getting mozz sticks...dang do those sounds delicious right about now! I have found/been given a few Bible verses that were very encouraging this week...First and foremost Proverbs 3:5-6, love it. Psalm 71 was also a good one. I've also been listening to a lot of Kari Jobe and Kutless praise and worship...good stuff and makes me want to play some music!
Well this weekend my roommate Filip and a mutual friend Korona had their "birthday party" at JinShan beach. Filip and I had checked out this beach a few weeks back and thought it would be fun for a party if we had a bunch of people go. It's hard to explain how weird/creepy this beach is. First you take an hour and half bus ride to the west coast of Taiwan and get dropped off at the youth center. Now this youth center is creepiest youth center I've ever seen, it basically looks like a stone prison and no one is around. Than you walk through a bunch of crap and finally get to the beach. I've been told this beach was popular about 10 years ago and now it's basically a ghost town/beach. They have all the beach facilities there but they are all vacant and looks like a place where junkies would be hiding lol. The setting is straight from a horror film lol, I was just waiting for jigsaw to show up! Anyways, it ended up being a fun time. We had about 30 people from the Mandarin Training Center come to celebrate. We ended up making a giant bonfire, and people brought guitars and ukeleles so we jammed for awhile too. It ended up starting to rain a little bit so I decided to ride back with a few other people while the others decided to stick around and camp. Overall it was a good time.
Laid pretty low this weekend, I had a bunch of homework to do like a 15 minute presentation in Chinese...give me a break. Now back to the grind for another week, yippy!
Hope everyone had a great SB,
Kyle
Well to be honest this week was a little on the rough side. It was hard to get back into the swing of things even though I only had a 5 day break. I caught up with a few people back from home and it made me miss a lot of the people and things back at home. I'm dying for a nice couch to lay on and some Judy Judy to watch :) I definitely should have invested into a better mattress when I first came here, this stupid 1" thick bamboo one isn't cutting it! haha. A lot of my friends have been telling me where they've been eating like the Dungeon and how they ate their chips and cheese, going to applebees and getting mozz sticks...dang do those sounds delicious right about now! I have found/been given a few Bible verses that were very encouraging this week...First and foremost Proverbs 3:5-6, love it. Psalm 71 was also a good one. I've also been listening to a lot of Kari Jobe and Kutless praise and worship...good stuff and makes me want to play some music!
Well this weekend my roommate Filip and a mutual friend Korona had their "birthday party" at JinShan beach. Filip and I had checked out this beach a few weeks back and thought it would be fun for a party if we had a bunch of people go. It's hard to explain how weird/creepy this beach is. First you take an hour and half bus ride to the west coast of Taiwan and get dropped off at the youth center. Now this youth center is creepiest youth center I've ever seen, it basically looks like a stone prison and no one is around. Than you walk through a bunch of crap and finally get to the beach. I've been told this beach was popular about 10 years ago and now it's basically a ghost town/beach. They have all the beach facilities there but they are all vacant and looks like a place where junkies would be hiding lol. The setting is straight from a horror film lol, I was just waiting for jigsaw to show up! Anyways, it ended up being a fun time. We had about 30 people from the Mandarin Training Center come to celebrate. We ended up making a giant bonfire, and people brought guitars and ukeleles so we jammed for awhile too. It ended up starting to rain a little bit so I decided to ride back with a few other people while the others decided to stick around and camp. Overall it was a good time.
Laid pretty low this weekend, I had a bunch of homework to do like a 15 minute presentation in Chinese...give me a break. Now back to the grind for another week, yippy!
Hope everyone had a great SB,
Kyle
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Well spring break in Kenting was a great time! I had been wanting to make it down to the south to see the beaches, and even though Taiwan is not known for its beaches, Kenting was beautiful. We left very early Saturday morning about 4:30 a.m. we actually didn't even sleep before we left! One of the local girls here, Tammy Lee, set up this whole trip for us, so we had a full bus of foreigners on a 7-8 hour trip. France, Czech, Spain, Poland, Germany, Ireland were all represented, like I always say it's a fricken world hang out here, it's awesome. Let's just say the French people know how to drink lol, one the French guys started his partying at 4:30 am and didn't hesitate to make his presence known throughout the bus, could've punched the guy lol. Anyways, finally made it to Kenting at about 12:30 and went straight to the beach to get some rays. It's crazy how your mood can get so much better being in warm weather, Taipei has been a nightmare weather wise since I've been here lol! Rain and strictly 16 degrees for 7 straight weeks gets a little old. By the way, because I live with 3 European guys I am slowly learning the metric system haha. So 16 degrees is about 61 degrees Fahrenheit. Anways back to Kenting...Some of the group planned their accommodation beforehand and paid quite a bit, but Filip, his friends Ivo and Victoria and I decided to just wing it and hopefully find somewhere to stay. So Ivo brought his tent and we found an awesome campground 5 minutes away from the beach. It couldn't have been more convenient and cheap! I think I paid around 4 bucks a night, while the other people who stayed in a 50 person hostel paid close to 50 bucks, not to shabby. Set up camp and took a snooze and headed out. The first night the rest of the crew stayed in a hotel right on the strip and they had a roof that we could all hangout on, it was perfect. We were all chilling on top of the roof and than we hear the roar of some sweet cars coming down the street. A group of probably 30 Lambo's, Ferrari's, Maserati's and Porsches came rolling down the street, soo sweet.
While on the roof, some of the Irish and French guys thought it would be sweet to get up a little higher on the roof and moon the thousands of people on the road lol. The ENTIRE street was cheering and screaming for those guys lol, it was hilarious! I actually think it's on youtube, I heard a rumor that within 5 minutes of it happening there was 800 views on youtube lol. Crazy dudes. Finally headed to beach and just hung out around our little "firesticks." Every group would buy a little firework/firestick that burned for hours and sit around it. Another thing the Taiwanese love to do is buy fireworks and launch them off all night long, pretty dangerous but it's fun lol.
Next day was basically the same. Woke up and headed to the beach to get some more sun. We headed to a different beach the second day, and that beach had really good waves to swim in, so that was fun. Same thing as the first night, just hung around the beach, went into town to pick up some street food, which by the way, they have this sweet corn with a weird sauce and spices on top, soo delicious. Lived off of strawberry smoothies too.
The last day we just chilled on the beach for awhile and loaded on the bus around 5 pm and finally got home about 1 am. It was a quick but fun weekend, glad I made it to Kenting.
Hope everyone is having a great SB at home!
Kyle
While on the roof, some of the Irish and French guys thought it would be sweet to get up a little higher on the roof and moon the thousands of people on the road lol. The ENTIRE street was cheering and screaming for those guys lol, it was hilarious! I actually think it's on youtube, I heard a rumor that within 5 minutes of it happening there was 800 views on youtube lol. Crazy dudes. Finally headed to beach and just hung out around our little "firesticks." Every group would buy a little firework/firestick that burned for hours and sit around it. Another thing the Taiwanese love to do is buy fireworks and launch them off all night long, pretty dangerous but it's fun lol.
Next day was basically the same. Woke up and headed to the beach to get some more sun. We headed to a different beach the second day, and that beach had really good waves to swim in, so that was fun. Same thing as the first night, just hung around the beach, went into town to pick up some street food, which by the way, they have this sweet corn with a weird sauce and spices on top, soo delicious. Lived off of strawberry smoothies too.
The last day we just chilled on the beach for awhile and loaded on the bus around 5 pm and finally got home about 1 am. It was a quick but fun weekend, glad I made it to Kenting.
Hope everyone is having a great SB at home!
Kyle
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Well it has been awhile...
Well everything in Taiwan is going smooth and as best as I could ask for. School is going very well, I'm definitely learning a lot. It's crazy how fast we are moving through the books, but when we have 3 hours a day of class I guess we will go through the books quite fast. I have vocabulary tests for two days and the third day is a chapter test, so I have a test every single day of school! It's awesome though, I love how fast I am learning and how much I am actually retaining. My teacher is awesome, she doesn't speak any English so my entire class is in Chinese which also helps out a lot. I'll be honest, as much as I love taking all this Chinese, by Thursday I am almost burnt out lol. It's a ton of work and you have to be 100% focused in class to catch everything, so I can't day dream or snooze or anything! Overall, school rocks.
My roommates also rock. We've all become quite good friends and they love it when I correct their English. My roommate Filip probably knows more words than I do but it's hilarious when he actually speaks some of them lol, I am constantly correcting how he says words and we have a blast with that. I'm also learning a little of their languages lol, Tuukka is always telling me how to say things in Finnish and I've learned a couple words in Czech. We hang out altogether quite a bit, and we're having a blast. I never got the "dorm life" at GVSU so I'm living it right now and I'm lovin' it.
A pretty cool thing happened to us last weekend...Filip had found a Louis Vuitton wallet on the ground near the Taipei 101 (rich part of town) and there were business cards inside so he looked up the lady on facebook and we found out that she is a manager for red bull. Filip talked to her and she told him that they were hosting a red bull party at a venue that is very near to our dorm so we ended up going to that and we were basically VIP! We got in for free to see the bands and DJ's and we got all the free drinks and basically anything we wanted. It was awesome! So basically if she is ever hosting an event, we are invited. We thought that was pretty cool.
I went and saw the band The Far East Movement, they sing "like a G6" and "Rocketeer," that was a great time too. The place was PACKED, luckily we got there wayyy early or else there was no way we were getting in. But, that was a lot of fun too.
On Sunday Filip and I made a trip to JinShan which is a town to the west and it is on the coast. We went to check out the beach because Filip and his friend Korona want to have a birthday party on a beach where we can have a fire and everyone can bring their guitars and jam around the beach. So we take a 1.5 hour bus ride to this place and it was a complete joke. I don't know what is in Taiwan but Sunday was like 82 degrees outside and we showed up to the beach and there wasn't a single person there. We thought we were maybe at the wrong place but it was deserted. The beach was the crappiest beach I've ever been to. Filip was worried about where we were going to get firewood for the fire but there were branches and driftwood and crap everywhere. It's hard to explain on here how weird this city was. I don't think they had ever seen a foreigner before lol and here we are walking around in sleeveless shirts and swimsuits and flip flops, we were getting stared at by everyone. It was an adventure to say the least, but we had fun I guess lol.
Anyways, I will try and update a little more often. I hope everything is going well back at home!
Kyle
Well everything in Taiwan is going smooth and as best as I could ask for. School is going very well, I'm definitely learning a lot. It's crazy how fast we are moving through the books, but when we have 3 hours a day of class I guess we will go through the books quite fast. I have vocabulary tests for two days and the third day is a chapter test, so I have a test every single day of school! It's awesome though, I love how fast I am learning and how much I am actually retaining. My teacher is awesome, she doesn't speak any English so my entire class is in Chinese which also helps out a lot. I'll be honest, as much as I love taking all this Chinese, by Thursday I am almost burnt out lol. It's a ton of work and you have to be 100% focused in class to catch everything, so I can't day dream or snooze or anything! Overall, school rocks.
My roommates also rock. We've all become quite good friends and they love it when I correct their English. My roommate Filip probably knows more words than I do but it's hilarious when he actually speaks some of them lol, I am constantly correcting how he says words and we have a blast with that. I'm also learning a little of their languages lol, Tuukka is always telling me how to say things in Finnish and I've learned a couple words in Czech. We hang out altogether quite a bit, and we're having a blast. I never got the "dorm life" at GVSU so I'm living it right now and I'm lovin' it.
A pretty cool thing happened to us last weekend...Filip had found a Louis Vuitton wallet on the ground near the Taipei 101 (rich part of town) and there were business cards inside so he looked up the lady on facebook and we found out that she is a manager for red bull. Filip talked to her and she told him that they were hosting a red bull party at a venue that is very near to our dorm so we ended up going to that and we were basically VIP! We got in for free to see the bands and DJ's and we got all the free drinks and basically anything we wanted. It was awesome! So basically if she is ever hosting an event, we are invited. We thought that was pretty cool.
I went and saw the band The Far East Movement, they sing "like a G6" and "Rocketeer," that was a great time too. The place was PACKED, luckily we got there wayyy early or else there was no way we were getting in. But, that was a lot of fun too.
On Sunday Filip and I made a trip to JinShan which is a town to the west and it is on the coast. We went to check out the beach because Filip and his friend Korona want to have a birthday party on a beach where we can have a fire and everyone can bring their guitars and jam around the beach. So we take a 1.5 hour bus ride to this place and it was a complete joke. I don't know what is in Taiwan but Sunday was like 82 degrees outside and we showed up to the beach and there wasn't a single person there. We thought we were maybe at the wrong place but it was deserted. The beach was the crappiest beach I've ever been to. Filip was worried about where we were going to get firewood for the fire but there were branches and driftwood and crap everywhere. It's hard to explain on here how weird this city was. I don't think they had ever seen a foreigner before lol and here we are walking around in sleeveless shirts and swimsuits and flip flops, we were getting stared at by everyone. It was an adventure to say the least, but we had fun I guess lol.
Anyways, I will try and update a little more often. I hope everything is going well back at home!
Kyle
Monday, March 14, 2011
Hi everyone,
Getting into a routine over here so we haven't done anything too exciting. I have school now, so I don't have as much time to travel around! First full week of school went great, I have already had 2 chapter tests and I have vocabulary tests on the days I don't have chapter tests, so it's a lot of testing and a lot of homework but I like it a lot. My classmates are very nice, and it seems like we all get along well with each other and our teacher. I couldn't be happier with school.
I was sick for a day last week, I had a fever and was very achy. Not sure if it was something I ate, or if it was just a 24 hour bug, but it stunk. Thankfully it didn't stick around very long. A couple of my roommates had been sick a little while ago so maybe I picked up something from them, who knows.
Friday night some of the guys went out to TGI Fridays lol, it was delicious, just like back at home, it was expensive over here though..still a great time.
Than the earthquake hit Japan and we had tsunami warnings and than we heard rumors that we could possibly be getting nuclear pollution blown over here from Japan. It was a little scary for a little while, but thankfully none of it will be coming to Taiwan. So I am all safe here!
Well we have a couple days off from school beginning of April so we decided that we are going to head down to Kenting and go to the 4 day music festival, should be a lot of fun. I'm also trying to put together kind of an Asia tour once the semester is done, should be fun to figure out where to go.
See you everyone,
Kyle
Getting into a routine over here so we haven't done anything too exciting. I have school now, so I don't have as much time to travel around! First full week of school went great, I have already had 2 chapter tests and I have vocabulary tests on the days I don't have chapter tests, so it's a lot of testing and a lot of homework but I like it a lot. My classmates are very nice, and it seems like we all get along well with each other and our teacher. I couldn't be happier with school.
I was sick for a day last week, I had a fever and was very achy. Not sure if it was something I ate, or if it was just a 24 hour bug, but it stunk. Thankfully it didn't stick around very long. A couple of my roommates had been sick a little while ago so maybe I picked up something from them, who knows.
Friday night some of the guys went out to TGI Fridays lol, it was delicious, just like back at home, it was expensive over here though..still a great time.
Than the earthquake hit Japan and we had tsunami warnings and than we heard rumors that we could possibly be getting nuclear pollution blown over here from Japan. It was a little scary for a little while, but thankfully none of it will be coming to Taiwan. So I am all safe here!
Well we have a couple days off from school beginning of April so we decided that we are going to head down to Kenting and go to the 4 day music festival, should be a lot of fun. I'm also trying to put together kind of an Asia tour once the semester is done, should be fun to figure out where to go.
See you everyone,
Kyle
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
你好大家！
Well I thought for the last post I'd post the pictures I've taken so far to give a chance to the people who don't have facebook to see them.
Anyways, it's been awhile since I've posted about what's been going on. I also lose track of who I've told things to/what I last told on here, so if I repeat some things sorry about that.
So I have officially gotten back into school mode and I'm lovin' it. It's definitely a lot of work, but I already feel like my Chinese is getting a lot better. 3 hours is a long class period, but it goes by pretty quick surprisingly. Today was my third day of class and I already had a chapter test. We learn a chapter about everyday 3 days which is awesome. Vocabulary tests are usually the other two days, and than we practice grammar for an hour and than work on our speaking the other hour usually and than the last hour is for testing. It's pretty intense, but I know I will learn a lot.
The gym is right across the street from the Mandarin Training Center which is nice, so I get up around 9:30, chat with friends and fam online for awhile, do some homework, and than I take the free shuttle bus from my campus and take that right to the main campus at 12:15. I go workout for about an hour, take a shower, and go find a place to eat in ShiDa and then head to class. That's basically what I do everyday I have class. I like the routine. After school we usually go find somewhere else to eat and fart around downtown Taipei for awhile, than come back home and do more homework and drink tea! :)
So this weekend...Friday we went to the biggest night market in Taipei which is called Shilin. I posted some pictures of that. That was the one with the puppies and the game room and everything. That was a blast. I went with Tuukka, Emilia, Alex, and Alex's friend Sanna who was visiting from Singapore. After the night market we tooled around in DunHua and grabbed a beer at a bar downtown. Saturday, I didn't do much, I did some laundry which takes forever here. The dryer is horrible at drying, and if you try to airdry anything it gets wetter. Very humid in Taiwan. Also, it seems like everyone wants to use the washer and dryer so you have be on top of changing it out from the washer to the dryer or else it gets thrown onto the ground and gets dirty again, pretty annoying. Saturday night Alex, Sanna, and I went to a Hawaii themed restaurant in a mall in the rich part of town and grabbed a bite to eat. I don't know how many of you have heard of the hotel chain W but the Hotel W Taipei opened up recently and it has an awesome view from the top, so we went up to the top of that and checked out the view for awhile. Pretty good weekend.
Last night was one of the best nights here yet. It was Tuukka, Filip and I just hanging out in our room doing homework and stuff and we were just laughing our butts off the whole night, it was hilarious. We were just laughing at everything... I don't know we were just cracking up at everything, it was nice to get a bellyache from laughing so hard, it's been awhile. Once again, I have some pretty awesome roommates. Who knows where I would be without them! We have a blast together.
Oh, some other pet peeves I thought of lol
-Taiwan is a super clean country, but you can't find garbage cans anywhere! Seriously, you have to walk miles before finding a trash can, it's unbelievable!
-If someone takes a dump in our room, it rots like pure crap forever. We walk in and you are just engulfed by crap smell. Fricken sucks lol.
Man, I had thought of a bunch but now I can't remember them. If I do I'll post them lol, they make me laugh.
Kyle
Well I thought for the last post I'd post the pictures I've taken so far to give a chance to the people who don't have facebook to see them.
Anyways, it's been awhile since I've posted about what's been going on. I also lose track of who I've told things to/what I last told on here, so if I repeat some things sorry about that.
So I have officially gotten back into school mode and I'm lovin' it. It's definitely a lot of work, but I already feel like my Chinese is getting a lot better. 3 hours is a long class period, but it goes by pretty quick surprisingly. Today was my third day of class and I already had a chapter test. We learn a chapter about everyday 3 days which is awesome. Vocabulary tests are usually the other two days, and than we practice grammar for an hour and than work on our speaking the other hour usually and than the last hour is for testing. It's pretty intense, but I know I will learn a lot.
The gym is right across the street from the Mandarin Training Center which is nice, so I get up around 9:30, chat with friends and fam online for awhile, do some homework, and than I take the free shuttle bus from my campus and take that right to the main campus at 12:15. I go workout for about an hour, take a shower, and go find a place to eat in ShiDa and then head to class. That's basically what I do everyday I have class. I like the routine. After school we usually go find somewhere else to eat and fart around downtown Taipei for awhile, than come back home and do more homework and drink tea! :)
So this weekend...Friday we went to the biggest night market in Taipei which is called Shilin. I posted some pictures of that. That was the one with the puppies and the game room and everything. That was a blast. I went with Tuukka, Emilia, Alex, and Alex's friend Sanna who was visiting from Singapore. After the night market we tooled around in DunHua and grabbed a beer at a bar downtown. Saturday, I didn't do much, I did some laundry which takes forever here. The dryer is horrible at drying, and if you try to airdry anything it gets wetter. Very humid in Taiwan. Also, it seems like everyone wants to use the washer and dryer so you have be on top of changing it out from the washer to the dryer or else it gets thrown onto the ground and gets dirty again, pretty annoying. Saturday night Alex, Sanna, and I went to a Hawaii themed restaurant in a mall in the rich part of town and grabbed a bite to eat. I don't know how many of you have heard of the hotel chain W but the Hotel W Taipei opened up recently and it has an awesome view from the top, so we went up to the top of that and checked out the view for awhile. Pretty good weekend.
Last night was one of the best nights here yet. It was Tuukka, Filip and I just hanging out in our room doing homework and stuff and we were just laughing our butts off the whole night, it was hilarious. We were just laughing at everything... I don't know we were just cracking up at everything, it was nice to get a bellyache from laughing so hard, it's been awhile. Once again, I have some pretty awesome roommates. Who knows where I would be without them! We have a blast together.
Oh, some other pet peeves I thought of lol
-Taiwan is a super clean country, but you can't find garbage cans anywhere! Seriously, you have to walk miles before finding a trash can, it's unbelievable!
-If someone takes a dump in our room, it rots like pure crap forever. We walk in and you are just engulfed by crap smell. Fricken sucks lol.
Man, I had thought of a bunch but now I can't remember them. If I do I'll post them lol, they make me laugh.
Kyle
Sunday, March 6, 2011
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