Hello all,
Well, we haven't done anything to special the past couple days so this will be a little bit shorter of a post.
Friday we didn't do much, Tuukka and I went to our main campus and lifted weights for awhile, we walked around Gongguan and basically went back to our dorm. Friday night, Tuukka, Emilia, Vicky, Alex and I went out to eat to an Italian place, once again it was very delicious. There's an area in town that has almost any kind of restaurant you can think of, and we like taking turns at each one. It's pretty cheap too for how delicious it is. I think I paid like 5 dollars for some chicken, fries, salad, and coke. So it's pretty cheap. We usually go to our cafeteria for lunch, or grab some taiwanese cuisine from the 7/11. I know you guys all think I don't eat taiwanese food, but I am!
After supper we kind of split up, so I went with Alex and his girlfriend Nikki to Dunhua area, which is where the Taipei 101 is, it's more the rich part of town. We met up with some of Alex's friends at a sit down restaurant and bar and grabbed a beer. It was a good time meeting some new people.
Saturday was kind of a lazy day too. It was 81 degrees and sunny though! So I grabbed a chair and went on top of our roof and got some sun for awhile :) I actually ended up getting quite burnt, my chest hasn't seen light in months! It felt wonderful! That night Tuukka and I met up with Emilia and a bunch of people from her school because one of her friends was leaving Taiwan, so we went out to a bar and hung out there.
So, I wasn't to busy these past couple days, but it's been nice just hanging out and the weather is fantastic.
A couple things I've noticed here that really make me mad lol, I thought you guys would want to hear it.
1. The Taiwanese people walk so stupid here. They never move! They walk slow and do not move for anyone, I'll be trying to get around them and it feels like they purposely move over to block me, or they'll stop abruptly and tie their shoe, it's so annoying lol.
2. Another thing I don't like is that there is no toilet paper in any bathrooms here. I think I checked like 4 buildings for a toilet that has toilet paper. Do they expect us to carry toilet paper with us?! lol, I guess so.
Those are just a couple of my pet peeves lol, hope you enjoy them.
Kyle
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Hello everyone! Glad to get some feedback, I didn't know if I people were actually reading this! But, I'm happy you guys are, I love telling the stories.
Well yesterday was an awesome day. My friend Zach who is in Taipei teaching English, who I had my first 2 years of chinese class with, asked if I wanted to go to Maokong. Maokong is a place in the mountains where there is a lot of tea. So we took the MRT an hour out of Taipei into the mountains (Taipei is surrounded by mountains) and we took like a 4 mile gondola ride up the mountain. The views were incredible! We than got up to the top of the mountain and there are tea houses everywhere. Tea is a big thing in Taiwan. Everyone drinks tea and it is a huge part of the culture here. So we found a tea house we liked and picked out some tea, and we just relaxed at this tea house for close to 2 hours. You just sit and drink tea, it was an awesome time. It was fun to do more of a cultural thing.
Later that night, Tuukka and I went over to Tuukka's girlfriend Emilia's college which is probably a half hour from ours by bus. We met up with Emilia and her friend Vicky and we went and got some Sichuan chinese food. Delicious! We walked around her part of town and grabbed a strawberry smoothie Taiwan style. The smoothie is delicious but they add these weird like chewy, rice balls and some other like seed ball things lol. It's weird! But, I guess it gives it texture lol. Definitely never had anything like it before.
At night on Wednesdays there is a bar called Roxy 99, it's basically where all the foreign exchange students go to hang out. So we all went there. We were part of the first 200 people there, so you get a free drink which is cool. But it's different here because people get their 1 free drink and than instead of staying at the bar and buying drinks there, EVERYONE goes to the 7/11! It's so weird, people just hang out outside of 7/11 and drink there beer that they buy from 7/11. It's like the party is outside of 7/11 rather than inside of a bar. It's different but cool. So we hung out there for a couple hours and than headed back to home, it was a pretty early night. But, it was fun to hang out with the guys.
Another thing I forgot to add in my last post that was so bizarre! Alex, his girlfriend Nikki and I were eating some ice cream at Mcdonalds the other night and this guy and girl came up to me and she was telling me that the movie Thor is coming out soon and they need someone to play the role of Thor and tour around Taiwan to promote the movie. So she asked me if I wanted to be Thor and be the person that everyone takes pictures with....what is that?! Lol, I had no idea what to say to her, it was so bizarre! She said she would email me with more information, so I guess I'll wait and see what it's all about lol, I don't think I want to do it, but if it pays well, maybe I will. But how weird is that? Anyways, thought that you guys would like to hear that, pretty weird story.
Alright, I'm headed out to grab some grub, stay tuned!
Kyle
Well yesterday was an awesome day. My friend Zach who is in Taipei teaching English, who I had my first 2 years of chinese class with, asked if I wanted to go to Maokong. Maokong is a place in the mountains where there is a lot of tea. So we took the MRT an hour out of Taipei into the mountains (Taipei is surrounded by mountains) and we took like a 4 mile gondola ride up the mountain. The views were incredible! We than got up to the top of the mountain and there are tea houses everywhere. Tea is a big thing in Taiwan. Everyone drinks tea and it is a huge part of the culture here. So we found a tea house we liked and picked out some tea, and we just relaxed at this tea house for close to 2 hours. You just sit and drink tea, it was an awesome time. It was fun to do more of a cultural thing.
Later that night, Tuukka and I went over to Tuukka's girlfriend Emilia's college which is probably a half hour from ours by bus. We met up with Emilia and her friend Vicky and we went and got some Sichuan chinese food. Delicious! We walked around her part of town and grabbed a strawberry smoothie Taiwan style. The smoothie is delicious but they add these weird like chewy, rice balls and some other like seed ball things lol. It's weird! But, I guess it gives it texture lol. Definitely never had anything like it before.
At night on Wednesdays there is a bar called Roxy 99, it's basically where all the foreign exchange students go to hang out. So we all went there. We were part of the first 200 people there, so you get a free drink which is cool. But it's different here because people get their 1 free drink and than instead of staying at the bar and buying drinks there, EVERYONE goes to the 7/11! It's so weird, people just hang out outside of 7/11 and drink there beer that they buy from 7/11. It's like the party is outside of 7/11 rather than inside of a bar. It's different but cool. So we hung out there for a couple hours and than headed back to home, it was a pretty early night. But, it was fun to hang out with the guys.
Another thing I forgot to add in my last post that was so bizarre! Alex, his girlfriend Nikki and I were eating some ice cream at Mcdonalds the other night and this guy and girl came up to me and she was telling me that the movie Thor is coming out soon and they need someone to play the role of Thor and tour around Taiwan to promote the movie. So she asked me if I wanted to be Thor and be the person that everyone takes pictures with....what is that?! Lol, I had no idea what to say to her, it was so bizarre! She said she would email me with more information, so I guess I'll wait and see what it's all about lol, I don't think I want to do it, but if it pays well, maybe I will. But how weird is that? Anyways, thought that you guys would like to hear that, pretty weird story.
Alright, I'm headed out to grab some grub, stay tuned!
Kyle
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
So, is anyone reading my blog? I've only gotten like 5 comments lol, just making sure people are actually reading it!
Anyways, I'll just tell you about the past two days. Well yesterday started out with my daily routine. It's weird because the past 3 months in Michigan I haven't had class and I woke up at noon basically, but I'm here and I am wide awake at 6:30 am. I don't know if that's because my internal clock is still messed up from the flight, or if I'm excited to start my day, or if I'm excited to talk to everyone back at home...who knows. So, I got up and grabbed a coffee from 7/11, 7/11's are EVERYWHERE here, it's crazy that they can all get business. Went back to the dorm and Tuukka and I got ready for our registration.
We have quite the walk to campus, it's a very nice walk but it is kind of long. We probably walk 15 minutes to the MRT station, than we take a 10 minute MRT ride and get off at Guting station and walk another 10 or so minutes to the campus. So far I like the walk.
We get to the campus and being registering but we both forgot to bring our passports so we weren't able to do the registration that day, so we walked around the main campus and checked everything out. Pretty awesome campus.
I signed up for the intensive mandarin training which is 3 hours a day of class and than 4 hours of study outside of class daily. It's going to be a ton of work, but I am here to learn Chinese as much as possible so might as well do it!
Than at night Tuukka, his girlfriend Emilia, her friend Vicky and I went to a mall that is connected to the MRT. The girls saw a bunch of sales and got a bunch of clothes for hardly anything. It's a lot different guys, it's hard to find anything for guys. We grabbed an ice cream cone from burger king for desert. We didn't stay out too late that night.
This morning, woke up early again but Tuukka and I had to get to the main campus by 8:30 am to register, so we grabbed our coffees on the way and headed out for the routine walk. By the way, today the sun was out and it was beautiful 70 degrees :), perfect weather! We got all registered nice and smoothly and than we headed to the gym and got ourselves a membership to the gym, so that will be nice to be able to weightlift while I am here. Tuukka and I ate at a delicious restaurant that specialized in grilled cheese so that was a very nice lunch. I came back to the dorm and just chilled for awhile. Than my roommate Alex asked if I wanted to go along with him and his girlfriend Nikki who wanted to get a tattoo! I went with them and she got a tat and we just hung around near the Taipei 101 building. Than we stopped at Mcdonalds for some fries on the way back home. You can only get so much Taiwanese food, it gets old fast. So it's nice to have other restaurants around to keep me sane!
My roommates are awesome. So happy to have a great group of guys to live with. Without them, this trip would be quite stressful and not fun. Glad to have them.
Have a good day everyone!
Kyle
Anyways, I'll just tell you about the past two days. Well yesterday started out with my daily routine. It's weird because the past 3 months in Michigan I haven't had class and I woke up at noon basically, but I'm here and I am wide awake at 6:30 am. I don't know if that's because my internal clock is still messed up from the flight, or if I'm excited to start my day, or if I'm excited to talk to everyone back at home...who knows. So, I got up and grabbed a coffee from 7/11, 7/11's are EVERYWHERE here, it's crazy that they can all get business. Went back to the dorm and Tuukka and I got ready for our registration.
We have quite the walk to campus, it's a very nice walk but it is kind of long. We probably walk 15 minutes to the MRT station, than we take a 10 minute MRT ride and get off at Guting station and walk another 10 or so minutes to the campus. So far I like the walk.
We get to the campus and being registering but we both forgot to bring our passports so we weren't able to do the registration that day, so we walked around the main campus and checked everything out. Pretty awesome campus.
I signed up for the intensive mandarin training which is 3 hours a day of class and than 4 hours of study outside of class daily. It's going to be a ton of work, but I am here to learn Chinese as much as possible so might as well do it!
Than at night Tuukka, his girlfriend Emilia, her friend Vicky and I went to a mall that is connected to the MRT. The girls saw a bunch of sales and got a bunch of clothes for hardly anything. It's a lot different guys, it's hard to find anything for guys. We grabbed an ice cream cone from burger king for desert. We didn't stay out too late that night.
This morning, woke up early again but Tuukka and I had to get to the main campus by 8:30 am to register, so we grabbed our coffees on the way and headed out for the routine walk. By the way, today the sun was out and it was beautiful 70 degrees :), perfect weather! We got all registered nice and smoothly and than we headed to the gym and got ourselves a membership to the gym, so that will be nice to be able to weightlift while I am here. Tuukka and I ate at a delicious restaurant that specialized in grilled cheese so that was a very nice lunch. I came back to the dorm and just chilled for awhile. Than my roommate Alex asked if I wanted to go along with him and his girlfriend Nikki who wanted to get a tattoo! I went with them and she got a tat and we just hung around near the Taipei 101 building. Than we stopped at Mcdonalds for some fries on the way back home. You can only get so much Taiwanese food, it gets old fast. So it's nice to have other restaurants around to keep me sane!
My roommates are awesome. So happy to have a great group of guys to live with. Without them, this trip would be quite stressful and not fun. Glad to have them.
Have a good day everyone!
Kyle
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Well everyone I didn't think I would posting as much as I am, but I know how fun it is to read someone's blog, and I enjoy telling you about what I'm doing.
Well I guess you could say I'm STARTING to get used to it over here. Whenever I am alone, that's when it's the worst. When I'm alone all I want to be is at home. So I'm trying to stay busy over here, it's a little hard when classes don't start for another week or so, but there is plenty to see in Taipei.
So let's see, where did I leave off last time? Saturday night was pretty fun. I'll start off by saying that I have never been surrounded by so many people from so many countries. It's a dream come true. Saturday night we had a group of probably 18 people from all the different universities around Taipei. My roommates Alex and Filip have been here for 6 months already and have made friends from other universities. Anyways, we had a group of probably 18 people, people from Czech Republic, France, Spain, Guatemala, Austria, Sweden, Finland, and than me, the only American lol. We walked around Taipei and we kind of split up and grabbed a bite to eat at different food stands. I forgot my camera that night, but I had some traditional Taiwanese cuisine, it was like fried pork, with some type of noodles and a weird sauce, I wish I had a picture to show you because it is kind of hard to explain, but it was actually fairly good. For desert I got a strawberry smoothie, it was excellent!
Sunday was definitely a very lazy day. Alex and Filip are in classes right now and they had homework to do, so we all just kind of stayed in and hung out. For supper, we headed out to Gongguan district which is only about a ten minute walk from our campus. We went to the part of town where there are restaurants that are more from around the world rather than Taiwanese cuisine. You can only have so much Taiwanese cuisine before you have to get some normal food! We ended up at a restaurant called Sababa which is a Turkish restaurant. I was kind of bummed at first because I had never had Turkish food before and I was excited to eat something relatively normal! But, I ended up getting a chicken dish that was 很好吃 (delicious)! We went out with the normal crew, my roommates Alex, Filip, Tuukka and his girlfriend Emilia from a different university. Great time. Alex and Filip than showed us another university called National Taiwan University, which is the most prestigious university in Taiwan. The campus was beautiful! Don't get me wrong, our campus is very nice, but this campus was unbelievable! We strolled through there for awhile and than headed back to the dorm.
Like I said earlier, I think I am beginning to get used to the life over here. This morning I woke up pretty early and walked to the 7/11 and picked up a coffee. I think this will become a daily routine for me, reminds me of home. I'm glad I have some awesome roommates, I don't know what it would be like without them.
Orientation today and my placement test! Wish me luck!
If you haven't seen the pictures on facebook, get on there!
晚上好！
杜開 (Kyle)
Well I guess you could say I'm STARTING to get used to it over here. Whenever I am alone, that's when it's the worst. When I'm alone all I want to be is at home. So I'm trying to stay busy over here, it's a little hard when classes don't start for another week or so, but there is plenty to see in Taipei.
So let's see, where did I leave off last time? Saturday night was pretty fun. I'll start off by saying that I have never been surrounded by so many people from so many countries. It's a dream come true. Saturday night we had a group of probably 18 people from all the different universities around Taipei. My roommates Alex and Filip have been here for 6 months already and have made friends from other universities. Anyways, we had a group of probably 18 people, people from Czech Republic, France, Spain, Guatemala, Austria, Sweden, Finland, and than me, the only American lol. We walked around Taipei and we kind of split up and grabbed a bite to eat at different food stands. I forgot my camera that night, but I had some traditional Taiwanese cuisine, it was like fried pork, with some type of noodles and a weird sauce, I wish I had a picture to show you because it is kind of hard to explain, but it was actually fairly good. For desert I got a strawberry smoothie, it was excellent!
Sunday was definitely a very lazy day. Alex and Filip are in classes right now and they had homework to do, so we all just kind of stayed in and hung out. For supper, we headed out to Gongguan district which is only about a ten minute walk from our campus. We went to the part of town where there are restaurants that are more from around the world rather than Taiwanese cuisine. You can only have so much Taiwanese cuisine before you have to get some normal food! We ended up at a restaurant called Sababa which is a Turkish restaurant. I was kind of bummed at first because I had never had Turkish food before and I was excited to eat something relatively normal! But, I ended up getting a chicken dish that was 很好吃 (delicious)! We went out with the normal crew, my roommates Alex, Filip, Tuukka and his girlfriend Emilia from a different university. Great time. Alex and Filip than showed us another university called National Taiwan University, which is the most prestigious university in Taiwan. The campus was beautiful! Don't get me wrong, our campus is very nice, but this campus was unbelievable! We strolled through there for awhile and than headed back to the dorm.
Like I said earlier, I think I am beginning to get used to the life over here. This morning I woke up pretty early and walked to the 7/11 and picked up a coffee. I think this will become a daily routine for me, reminds me of home. I'm glad I have some awesome roommates, I don't know what it would be like without them.
Orientation today and my placement test! Wish me luck!
If you haven't seen the pictures on facebook, get on there!
晚上好！
杜開 (Kyle)
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Wow
Well everyone, very interesting start to the trip. Got off the plane in Taipei and had my friend pick me up and we took an hour bus ride into Taipei, but because of miscommunication with the university here, we walked around Taipei with all my luggage for close to 3 hours. Finally we found the dorm, than I walk in and found out that I needed to bring bedding, so I slept on a board with no blankets or pillows, it sucked. On the other hand, I have met all my roommates. I live with Filip who is from Czech Republic, Alex who is from Sweden, and Tuukka (Dookuh) who is from Finland. Awesome guys so far. Walked in the door to the dorm and Filip was here and he asked if I wanted to go to a concert, so within 5 minutes of being in the dorm I was already heading out to see the city. Might as well start the trip off right! Concert was fun, took a cab back to the school and zonked out for the night, though I was not comfortable and freezing my nuts off. Than today I woke up at some weird times and finally got up at about 10:30 and I walked around the campus a little bit, kind of a weird campus but interesting. It's been raining ever since I showed up so I haven't been able to see the campus in the sun, which I think it will look beautiful once I do. Palm trees everywhere and lots of greenery, it looks pretty cool. Than I got lunch with Filip and Tuukka and his girlfriend Emilia who is also from Finland. We ate and than Duukka, Emilia, and I went out to Ximen district and got all our bedding and everything, we had a blast walking through Ximen. Ximen is kind of a younger crowd so it was a fun atmosphere. We went out to a sushi place, which I couldn't get myself to eat....yet. That's coming lol. We got all our bedding stuff and headed back to Campus. So far a pretty fun day.
To be honest if someone was to offer me a free plane ticket home last night and this morning I would have gone home in a second. I was incredibly overwhelmed with everything, I didn't have the internet to connect with you guys, I couldn't find an ATM, and I didn't know a single person. Honestly I hated it. But, I feel it's coming around now, hanging out with Tuukka and Emilia was very fun and I've gotten to know them quite well already, so that was really nice. Anyway, we're about to head out and grab a bite to eat. I'll post pictures tonight!
Kyle
To be honest if someone was to offer me a free plane ticket home last night and this morning I would have gone home in a second. I was incredibly overwhelmed with everything, I didn't have the internet to connect with you guys, I couldn't find an ATM, and I didn't know a single person. Honestly I hated it. But, I feel it's coming around now, hanging out with Tuukka and Emilia was very fun and I've gotten to know them quite well already, so that was really nice. Anyway, we're about to head out and grab a bite to eat. I'll post pictures tonight!
Kyle
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Sitting in Seoul, Korea!
Well everyone the flight went decent. Had a crying baby basically the whole night, that was not enjoyable! But, it went surprisingly quick, threw on the ipod and just chilled. Food was pretty good too. I met some cool people along the way as well. I met a kid who is from Saginaw who is going to teach English in Korea and he had studied abroad in Taipei last year so I got to hear a lot of cool stories. Also met 2 families who are adopting from China so that was nice to talk to them too. Now I have another 5 hour layover than I am off to Taiwan! Stay posted!
Kyle
Kyle
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