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
Thursday, March 24, 2011
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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