One Amazing Decemeber 2008

To start this blog off, i am going to quickly tell you about the last thing that has just happened or the most recent event in my life. I just paid 300NT or $9 for the best hair cut ever (sorry Lorrie). The actual hair cut looks ok, but the lady was fast and precise, which also included a shampoo with a long head rub/massage and finished by rinsing my hair and giving me a shoulder, arm, and hand massage. she has some magic little fingers. haha

So back on track with the main story. December started as any other month with lots of school work and group projects coming closer to their deadlines. A friend of mine has asked me to substitute for 3 weeks while he went back to Canada for the holiday's so it he showed me the two school where i would be teaching which are both about 20mins scooter ride from campus. Tuesdays and Thursdays i would teach at a new elementary school from 4:30-6 then have to rush back for class at 6:30 on my tuesdays and wednesdays i would teach a soccer class for kids about 4-6yrs old who are all really cute and just funny to watch as they try to kick the ball that is almost at there knee's. I started December 16th substituting and it has been easy money so far (well once i get paid the last day). The kids at the school where i teach english are not motivated what so ever to try to learn, but i can not blame them because they go to school from 7:50am - 6pm and even 8 or 9pm for some students taking extra classes. They are also the typical lil brats since they are from rich families and allowed to do whatever, and they only want to play a game called "Big Two's" which is a card game and pretty boring if you ask me. so its pretty much a joke everytime i go and the soccer classes i just have to entertain 12 kids for 1 hr a week which is a lot harder than i thought it would be since they have the attention span of about 3 minutes so its always hard to come up with another drill that they could possibly try to do since they are so young and just want to run in circles or pick their noses. haha

My MOM class has the FORD project we are working on and have the chance to win our group of 6 $20,000NT which is almost $500 and from the looks of our groups rough draft, we seem to be the favorite pick by the Ford Manager Jesse who is helping us create an Automotive industry plan the Taiwan Government can put into place which is based a lot off of the Australian Auto Industry plan their government has put in place. My group is looking at new technologies and alternative fuels which would best fit Taiwan. I am researching Bioethanol fuel made from sugarcane which Taiwan was one of the Largest sugarcane producers in the 50's and 60's so the possibilities of becoming a mass producer to support a new biofuel economy seems reachable to me.

A big highlight of this month was our IMBA Kenting and Taitung trip where we only stayed in Kenting for one night and left in the early morning, but ended up being a very wild and late night/early morning from having a few drinks at a bar/dancers (not naked ones, sorry guys) and then a fire on the beach and late night dip in the pacific ocean. It was one of those nights where you have to just cut yourself off and head to bed which was around 3:30am and wake up at 7:30am to leave for Taitung. We visited Taitung University and the head professors gave a speech and just introduced their school. Kenting is the Southern most point or close to it of Taiwan and Taitung is on the East coast which is very beautiful and they do not allow commercial developers so its very clean and just beautiful views every where you look. The school their over looks the ocean which is a pretty site to see. After the school we went to visit a farm that had some horses and cows and even a sled ride down a large hill where some people were rolling round hay bails just for fun which their hands. haha it was a hot tourist spot their surrounded by mountains and their main selling product was milk, milk ice cream, and other healthy snacks. The pictures that will be loaded from this trip will back up my story so far of all the natural beauty. So that night we stayed at another hotel that had some natural hot springs (not as cool or nice as in Green Island) but still relaxing. I did not drink this night given the fact i was pretty hammered as you could put it the night before. After our dinner was a very interesting show put on by two russian girls our professors hired at a KTV or karaoke bar. Well the owner was creepy enough and i dont have pictures of this place, but the girls ended up being strippers, but kept their small outfits on due to the presence of a few young children of parents in our program. I was very shocked to see our entertainment provided and later found out it was acceptable and very common to have strippers at weddings, parties, and even funerals. So you can see the reason i was so shocked because this would NEVER be allowed or happen especially at a wedding or a funeral. But a fun fact to know.

The next day we left early again and i was able to get a good nights sleep with no drinking and prepare myself for the bike ride which was 11K or just over 6 miles. This was for me the best part of the trip because it was exercising and i had a plane ride in a mini plane for about 20mins and $30 dollors or 1000NT. I was very very hesitant at first, but did not want to pass up the chance to see a birds eye view of such a beautiful place and for such a cheap price. There was not need for any documents to sign or waviers, just got a helmet and jacket and took flight. I finally relaxed about halfway through the flight and then became scared again when he was coming in low and fast (to fast to land) until i realized it was just a fly by and the landing came later. It was such a rush and great experience and i am glad i got up the nerve to take a ride. At the end of the big loop was a go-cart track where 8 of us battled for for glory. I did really well and would have had 2nd, but Pablo from Bolivia spun me out towards the end giving me no time to try and catch him. I dont blame him for wrecking me because there were no rules about bumping so i was trying to wreck everyone when i had the chance. haha rubbins racing....well that was the main points of the trip and was a great getaway from a busy month of work.

So xmas eve, i had sander and maria come over to my new apartment i moved into Dec. 17th and we cooked a big relaxing dinner and watched Fred Clause, a movie my mom sent me for xmas. I was able to skype the family on xmas eve and it was great to see everyones face since this is the first time i have been away from home for any holiday really, especially xmas and soon new years. Its really sad to be away from home, but its just one of the things i have to deal with for having this amazing trip so far in Taiwan. I woke up early the day after xmas to call home and chat with everyone again and i even got to call Amber who was at Uncle Jims with everyone and see that whole side of the family and share some laughs and quick stories. Also on Xmas i asked Nina to be my g/f and i am now in my first relationship over seas and i think things will be great with us. There is a language barrier, but it motivates me to learn more chinese and it gives me the chance to better her english so its a good tradeoff. She is very beautiful and nice and ill try to get some pictures of us soon.

Well this sums up my December and my head is still tingling from my hair cut earlier haha. I love all of you and want to wish everyone happy holidays again and ill be in touch.

Love Always,

Logan

Ford trip/3 midterms/2 group presentations/Thanksgiving and Taipei

Ok, so from the title of this blog, you can see that I have been really busy the past 3 weeks. 11/7 our MOM class took a trip to the Ford Motor Co. in Taiyuan. We had to meet our group at 6am at the Kuang Fu Gate across from the Country Club and was told not to be late and yet we did not leave until 6:30am b/c the teachers were not on time nor the majority of the group so I could have had another 30mins sleep which did not matter because the 3hr bus ride was perfect for it. At the Ford Co. We started with the Upper Management introducing themselves then started our plant tour to the assembly line and the Engine manufacturing. It’s absolutely stunning how precise the assembly line is. They manufacture I think 5 different cars(I did not take notes) that are all mixed in together throughout the line up (meaning, they do not just make the focus car one day and the ford escape another day) Their software program is great. It has every part from the bolts to the exact doors to come in at the perfect time the car gets to the specific spot on the assembly line. It’s easier to explain if you are looking at it. haha. Anyways the plant was very clean and professional with the workers working hard (no slackers). They fed us lunch in their cafe on site for all their workers and then we headed back to the conference room for the managers presentations. It was a long day at the Ford plant and we said our good byes and headed back to Tainan. They happen to stop for dinner about 45 mins off our course home and it was a place with more interesting foods. I ate pig fat, some kind of intestines, a whole fish cooked in front of us with scales in all on it, some chicken, a mini squid or maybe it was a crawdad thing which was really good, and of course we had rice. I did not enjoy too much of the food so I was still very hungry by the time we arrived back at school.

So I have had 3 midterms which ended up being 1 each week for the past three weeks. I hated my BDM midterm which consisted of 5 Statistical questions which was poorly written out and took me 3 hours to complete. I got a 74, but should have done much better, but the teacher said anything over a 60 you’re in good shape, I just have to do well on my group project in the class and I can probably have an A in the class or a high B. So my second exam was IT PM which was open book and I feel I depended too much on the book and not my own personal knowledge which caused me to second guess everything and ended up with an 88. My 3rd midterm was in MIS and I will find out this coming Wednesday what I scored. In the past 3 weeks I had two group presentations in my IT PM class which I am glad to have gotten over with and the group project is on schedule.

Thanksgiving was just around the corner and I could not wait to eat all the bad memories of studying for hours over the past 3 midterms, but soon realized I did not have any plans nor heard of anyone planning a Thanksgiving dinner party. It was last Wednesday before thanksgiving when I was studying for my MIS midterm that was later that day at 6:30pm. My friend Kyle Webb from Texas who is American/Taiwanese helped me plan our last minute TG party where we had found a restaurant which prepared a full TG meal (16-20lb turkey, mash potatoes, stuffing, gravy, pumpkin pie, and they couldn’t leave out the green tea) all for just 3000NT or $100US. After I got off work Thursday at 12N Kyle took me to "AJ's Burgers" to try for the first time and I had a double bacon/cheese burger and fries that was actually really good and the closest thing to a burger from home. I was really tired from not having much sleep the past couple nights from studying so after the big burger, I went back to the room to grab a nap and also a movie before I met back up with Kyle at the track to run off the burger and get ready for the huge meal we had planned at 8pm. I went back to shower before I met back up with Kyle to pick up the turkey and after I left the track with my bag and Kyle continued to run a couple more, Kyle called and said someone had stolen his bag which had his wallet and cell phone in it. So a bad beginning to a great night and Kyle is calm person and was able to keep it from ruining his night even though he had to make a lot of calls to cancel his credit cards and all the other information. We had a later start than we planned, but we got to the restaurant to pick up the Turkey that I was so surprised to see as it lay in a nice big basket. After we picked up the food we had to find some more plates and forks and a few drinks. We got lucky and found place that was closing its doors, but allowed us to buy some paper plates at the last minute. It’s great that Kyle speaks Chinese or else this Thanksgiving dinner would not have been possible for me to plan and put together alone. It was hard to resist not jumping into the back seat and eating everything b/c the smell was amazing. We got back and Kyle got his perfect parking spot and everything was set up in his apt when we realized we had forgot the "GRAVY" and you cannot eat turkey, mash potatoes, or stuffing without gravy. So I had to make a bunch of calls to ask for 30 more mines while we drove all the way back across town to get the big bag of gravy we sadly forgot the first time.

Well our friends started showing up and we were all starving so I had the privilege to cut the turkey and it was just a great experience to finally share a part of my culture with all my friends. At the party we had friends from Pakistan, Italy, Estonia, Taiwan, Canada, US (me), and I think the Philippines. We had about 16 show up total so we were able to split the price at only 200NT a person or $6. To top off the night one of my favorite movies "The Count of Monte Cristo" was on TV :). My friends all came together and gave me a great thanksgiving dinner while I shall remember forever as my first Thanksgiving away from home.

It was even better when I was able to Skype my family at home around 1:30am my time to see all of them before they had their big thanksgiving feast. Saturday morning I was also able to wake up early and Skype home again to talk to my Maryland cousins and my gramma. It really put a huge smile on my face to see everyone and talk to them as they came in town to visit the family and gramma "90th" Birthday. Happy bday gramma or Sheng ri Kuai le in Chinese :)and sorry to wake up my roommate Clark when I had to call them at 9:30am here, I couldn’t pass up the chance to talk to everyone.

So Toni and I left for Taipei Saturday on the 1:50pm bus and I was able to watch a couple movies and get a good nap on the 4 1/2hr bus ride. We arrived at the Taipei Main Station where I stayed just around the corner may 2007 in Hotel Flowers with my Study abroad trip with ASU. It was great to go back and have the quick memories and even more amazing that I was able to find my way to my favorite restaurant which was a few blocks away and delicious. I am really glad I did not get Toni and I lost as I tried to recall my steps from over a year ago. Sander and Maria also made the trip to Taipei and we were able to meet up with them before Toni and I went to our hostel to luckily get the last room available and it was only 500NT a night or $15US. We had a fun time that night and got back to the hostel at 5am to sleep a few hours and catch a bus back home to Tainan at 1:40pm. It’s fun to just get up and go somewhere for a quick weekend and I recommend my friends and family back home to just get up and go on a quick trip to get away and just have fun.

I finally made it home and looking ready for a movie and bed. I love all you here and back home and I am always praying for all my family and friends’ health and safety.

Love yall,

Logan

IMBA "Welcome Party" / First Halloween in Taiwan

So classes have been going on as scheduled and we held our first ever at the IMBA NCKU University Professional International Case Study meetings. Since I was working in the IMBA office on Friday mornings 8-12n I was put in charge of the registration process for the morning events. Long story short, I sat in the basement under the stairs from 8am-12n with only about 30 mins of actual work of signing up people. I had to work on homework before my 6:30pm class, so I was not able to make it back for the afternoon Case presentations. That Friday for my MOM class we had a guest speaker Jason Liu who was the CEO of Mazda here in Taiwan. He has traveled all over the world and had many interesting things to tell us about. His topic of discussion was explaining Brand Value and how Mazda tries to strategically use it to increase sales, and retain customers by creating brand loyalty. Mr. Liu was a great speaker and since his profession was in the Automotive industry, I felt a quick connection in his presentation to home (thanks dad). Later in the presentation he opened the floor up for questions and I had to ask if he had ever been to a "NACE" convention in Las Vegas. Since I have been to a couple NACE shows over the years with the last one being in Las Vegas, I was hoping to hear his thoughts and comments on the show and the Las Vegas experience, but he had never been to NACE since it is mainly for collision repair companies and manufacturers of the products for that industry, but he said he has heard of it, and hopes to go in the future. He did say he has been to the show in Frankfurt Germany which is the largest of the Car shows in the world (not sure if I spelt Frankfurt correctly). Anyways his presentation was great and with a few advertisements he showed us, it made me think of getting a Mazda for my next vehicle (but still probably wont).

The next day was Saturday which was the night of our "Welcome Party" that the senior students hosted for us Juniors. Everyone dressed in their Traditional Countries dress for the event. It was really cool to see the diversity of everyone. The party was at a very nice hotel and we had over 250 students with their friends and family members. There was so much delicious food and of course they arranged a bar which everyone seemed to love. A couple of the Senior students performed a skit to really "break the ice" with everyone and someone it came out that I was known as the "cute/hot" new Junior, but I am too tan for some of the girls taste, haha and Raquel was also mentioned as being the cute/hot female junior of our class. After they made me stand up in front of everyone while my face was blushing and surprised that I have not heard all this commotion about me already. hehe. Well after the dinner, still in front of everyone (including our professors and their wives) the seniors wanted to have a drinking challenge against us juniors so each team was consisted of 8 students. The game was just to chug a wine glass of beer one at a time until the end of the line. Well "WE WON”, but one of our teammates drank his right as they said start without knowing he had to wait his turn, but we still won by more than one person so I don’t like to accept the disqualification. Both teams were a good sport and shook hands. The last part of the party at the hotel was of people from different countries performing a traditional dance or song. So we had to be out of the Hotel by 11pm due to our reservation expiring, so the after party was a bus ride to the club "Fusion" where we all danced and partied till about 2am then shared cabs home.

The next weekend was Halloween so just about everyone was excited to dress up and celebrate a Western Tradition. I still had a week of classes to get through with Homework due in BDM and MOM. My Chinese class was cancelled for that Thursday because the Chinese language center had planned a field trip on Saturday which everyone could have signed up. The trip looked like a lot of fun, but knowing previous Halloweens, there was no way I was meeting at 7:30am after a night of drinking to ride a couple hrs on a bus for another party. So Friday was the big day, and after work I spent the rest of the day up until class searching all over town to find face/body paint to create my outfit. Tony and Ulle searched around town on our scooters with me until we finally found an art shop with non-toxic face paint and we found some bamboo rice farmer hats at another store to create our outfits. I had MOM class where we had another guest speaker Bob Crowley, who is the HR Director for Ford in Taiwan. Mr. Crowley is from Australia and has worked with Ford for 29 years. He talked about what it takes to become a successful international manager and his past experiences. Mr. Crowley brought many gifts to pass out to students who asked good questions. Towards the end of class the topic of compensation came up so I had a question I felt fit the discussion. My question " As the HR Director of Ford, how do you deal with keeping a high morale and motivation among your employees, when in 2006 Ford lost around $12.9 million and the CEO was paid over $39 million while laying off thousands of jobs?" he said the key to keeping the trust in employees is clear effective communication. He continued by saying that finding a CEO is very competitive based pay and the majority of his $39 million was stock options which he most likely lost as the company lost money. Also by explaining the reasons behind certain decisions and the rationale behind it, employees will not feel left out or in the dark on matters such as these. He thanked me for the good question and gave me a ford racing jacket collection edition. It’s really cool and sporty looking just a tad bit small, but it will come in handy I’m sure.

So after the class I hurried back to the dorm to start dressing up and painting up my face with Tony, Ulle, and another friend from soccer Kyle from Ontario who has only been here a week. The night started at the "country club" then to the Armory bar. It was packed and everyone loved our costumes and took a lot of pictures with us throughout the night. Around 4am we went to the Orient club since they were no longer charging admission and danced for about 1 1/2 until we ended up having breakfast at a restaurant near our dorm and watched the daylight creep up on us. It was a lot of fun and I slept till 3pm the next day and then worked on homework.

Most recently or Last night, we have been set up in "Families" with local MBA business students at NCKU. I have 5 new friends; Elaine, Davis, Candice, Albert, and Beryl. We had a fun eating game we all played as a group (15 groups of 7 or 8) where we had a member of our team (4 at a time) go up to the front and eat a traditional Taiwanese dish (mine was oyster omelet) and one of the dishes had wasabi (green Japanese spice) and we had to pretend we had the spicy dish to convince the other groups to pick you from the person who had the real spice dish. If the groups guessed the wrong person then they had to drink a very bitter tea which I thought was disgusting and it gave me goose bumps. lol anyways after the contest my group joined up with some others and we all went to eat dinner (shrimp rolls which I have been waiting to eat since I have been here). They were delicious like I had expected and we finished the night we a few of us playing pool in a game place that was only a 100yds from my dorm and I had no clue it was there. So hopefully I can play pool more often and not be terrible when I finally get to come back home.

So my past few weeks have been fun, but of course I miss home and these holidays coming up. Thanks again for everyone reading my blogs.

Luv Always,

Logan

My new Italian friends and The amazing Green Island Scuba Trip

Well my classes are starting to get harder still and my group projects are picking up, so it’s hard to find time to sit down and tell my new stories. So to get things going, since I have been living here in the Prince Int'l Housing, I have seen some "white guys" with a European accent I could not distinguish and each time we passed one another we always said hey, but kept walking or w/e we were doing at the time. So a couple weeks ago, pretty much after my last blog post, I went to my Wednesday night soccer practices and saw the guys from the dorm and finally introduced myself since it gave me an easy ice breaker "hey, don't yall live in the Prince dorm". So I was talking to Tony and Ulle and they are on a 4 month exchange program for Architecture (from North Italy, where they speak more German than Italian) and they were planning to cook a nice traditional Italian dinner for their friends here and invited me to join. Tony called me the next day to let me know they were cooking that night at the dorm kitchen (our kitchen is located on the roof of our dorm) around 9pm whenever I finished working out and had time to come up. When I arrived, I was greeted with a warm welcome and I met Penny (local Taiwanese girl), Mathieu from France who speaks great Chinese and a couple other languages, Alessiandro from Italy just visiting for a couple weeks and recently just left for home 2 days ago (Oct. 15th) and a few other local Taiwanese friends Tony and Ulle had met will being here. Alessiandro is a really funny guy and loves to wear the traditional Chinese handmade shirts and act like he knows Kung Fu. The guys ended up cooking an unbelievable large amount of pasta with tuna and a light sauce. it was very delicious and then came more food consisting of a fresh salad with peppers, olive oil, and some other veggies. The guys love to cook and hopefully we will have more of these cookouts.

So the next night I had asked Tony and Ulle to come hang out with some friends, so we met up at the "country club" and waited for Sander and Maria to call and meet them at a restaurant/bar. We got the call and found out it was too far to walk, so Tribuu (from Estonia who speaks 8 or 9 languages, and Tony/Ulle did not believe me until they met her and she knew all there languages plus about 5 others. haha) had her friend named Power from Nigeria, who I just happened to have met before at soccer practice, come pick us up and take us to the Taiwanese restaurant/bar during the night to meet up with their group and enjoy a few beers. It was a relaxing atmosphere and just a good chance to talk with everyone, until we went to the Orient club and danced for the rest of the night and headed back home for bed.

My Green Island Scuba trip was only 2 weeks away and you would think an awesome trip your looking forward to would seem to take forever to come up, but it was just the opposite and I was packing my bags before I knew it. Not to jump ahead to quick, to fill in the last two weeks, I had bought a scooter from a guy I met at soccer who is one of the head guys there, so the two weeks consisted of my normal class schedule and then meeting Erik at the DMV to have the titles transferred and the "ORY" put into my name. It did not go as smoothly as I planned b/c Erik forgot to bring his ARC and passport so we had to plan another time to meet. Before we left, we went to get the ORY inspected which was a requirement to have insurance put on the scooter. We met up a few days later and completed the transfer and I am now officially the owner of a 125cc 1997 Yamaha scooter. Yea don't be too impressed with the name b/c it really needs a lot of work, but I got a good price and now attached. Once again my good friend Anthony from Malaysia offered to be my translator to go to a local scooter shop where I had the oil changed and a new spark plug that seemed to improve the performance of my delicate machine. haha The engine still needs a tune up and my right mirror is about to fall off, but it just adds character to her and the risk of being blindsided. (don’t worry I’ll get it fixed soon). So that’s enough about the time before the trip so here it goes.

I had my bags packed and walked to the IIMBA office to meet Raquel (my friend I met on Facebook before I came here). I showed up a few minutes early as I normally would for a meeting to realize, I was supposed to drive my scooter to follower her where we were to meet Greg (our dive master) and catch a ride in his van to TaiTung. So I went from relaxed and calm, to sprinting back to the dorm to get my scooter key, sweating, praying the scooter would start, and make it back to campus to meet with Raquel. haha it’s funny now that I look at it, but at the moment it was very frustrating. So we finally meet up with Greg and his g/f or wife I’m not sure, and then to French guys Pierre and Roland who is 100% Chinese, but raised in France so he has a French accent. I just thought it was different to expect to hear Chinese or broken English and then a French accent comes out. haha that just goes to show, you should not judge or assume things about people. It was about 10:20pm when we finally got on the road and it was about a 4hr trip to make it to Taitung where we had a home stay for the night. I think the trip should have taken about 6hrs, but I think Greg would have a great career as in Ambulance driver. The driving rules are not very strict here in Taiwan and if we would have driven the same way in the U.S. I think we would have quickly had a police helicopter flying overhead and a new episode of COPS. I was white knuckled the whole ride while Raquel slept like a baby. We arrived sometime after 2am to our home stay that was 500NT $15US for the night, but a really nice place. You can all see the pics on the slideshow when I get them posted. We had to wake up at 5:30am to get everything together, eat a light breakfast and drive to the port to catch the fairy/boat to Green Island. The sunrise was so pretty that first morning and I believe everyone will agree from the pictures. So before I left for the trip I have heard nothing but terrible things about the boat ride to Green Island and everyone I talked to said they were puking and it was the worst 1 hr ride of their life. To prepare for this I took my motion sickness pills when I first woke up so getting on the boat at 7am gave it time to kick in. The boat took off jumping across the waves and I was just waiting to start feeling nauseated. I was extremely tired from working the 8am shift Thursday morning and the next day waking up at 5:30am with only 3hrs of sleep only added on. I felt my eye lids touching and before I knew it, I was waking up as the boat pulled into the Green Island port feeling refreshed and amazed that it was an easy boat ride after all for me even though many people did get sick.

We loaded our gear on the dive shops truck and waited for another one to pick us up and take us to our new home stays for the weekend. The package included a 125cc scooter for 2 people to share, and I had no idea that scooters could run as good as this one did. Since I only had the experience of the ORY, the scooter was amazing and so much fun to ride. We dropped our stuff off in our room and headed back to the dive shop where we loaded our dive gear on the truck and drove the scooters about 8mins to our dive boat. We were about to be out on the water by around 11am to start our two dives. I can't remember all the dive sites but I’ll just list a few (chicken head, The giant mushroom, chicken feet I think was another one), anyways all of our dives for the trip were relatively close to each other, but contained so many different scenic views where some had man-made reefs with large steel frames, huge coral reefs and crevasses formed by the volcanic island, and another man-made reef that consisted of hundreds of concrete cylinders that looked like linking-logs (the childhood blocks to build log cabins). My deepest dive was around 30m which is almost 100ft. I never had any problems equalizing/ clearing my ears which could have made the dives unbearable. I do need to work on my breathing pattern which will come with time, b/c after each dive I finished I had a slight headache that I was told can be caused by CO2 build up from skip-breathing (a term used in diving when your breathing is not fluent or natural or holding your breath just a sec between breaths if that makes any sense). The Island was beautiful and was created by Volcanic activity a long time ago. Green Island also has a famous prison that is no longer used, but it held political prisoners involved in corruption. To learn more about Green Island and the facts/history just visit www.greenislandadventure.com.tw, or google Green Island Taiwan.

After the 2nd day's first two morning boat dives, Raquel and I set out to drive around the Island (which only takes 30 mins non-stop by scooter) to take pictures and enjoy the beautiful scenic views and enjoy a nice small road trip. haha, I realized that every time I came to a point where we had to take a picture, I didn’t think I would see anything prettier, until we drove another 1/4 mile to see another shoreline with even prettier volcanic mountains jutting out of the ocean, more white beaches, and even greener trees. The pictures will explain things much better b/c I am at a loss of words to explain its beauty. There is a hot spring located on this island which is one of three salt water hot springs in the world. Another one is in Italy I think and the other is in Japan. The hottest pool they had, I could not even put my feet or hands in for more than a few seconds. It was amazing to see people sitting in it, especially when looking back at my pictures I took a pic of the sign explaining it and at 60Deg C or 140Deg F. You can boil eggs in this pool and is one of the attractions so I really don’t feel so bad when everyone laughed at me was I casually stepped in the pool and frantically jumped out with a little yelp. I was amazing to see that the human body can endure such extreme temperatures. I stuck with staying in the 40Deg C pool or 104Deg F that was something could relate to from back home. The cool sea breeze only about 200ft away made for an amazing place to relax. So the last day (Sunday) was a little rainy so it was cold to be out of the water which was around 86deg F. We were all exhausted after doing 7 dives in 3 days, one which was a night dive from the shore and a little scary (since I was scared to be pricked by the hundreds of sea urchins laying out at night. we did see a sea turtle at the end of our dive which made it all the better. So the boat ride back to main land was just as good for me, I slept the whole time and stayed awake for the ride back to keep Greg talking and awake and I was back in my dorm by 10pm Sunday night.

I had a group presentation the next morning at 9am for my IT PM class which just a project proposal. I felt like it went well and should be a good group I guys to work with. I guess the last thing to say in this blog is about my Chinese class yesterday. During our 5 min break I sat out on the balcony overlooking the campus that was being mowed and weedeated at the time. While closing my eyes, the smell of the fresh cut grass and sounds of weed eaters brought me back home for a few seconds until I realized it wasn't real. Because if I was really back home and hearing weed eaters, most likely it was in my hand and I would be sweating with grass and rocks flying back at my face which really isn’t a pleasant feeling. So I quickly snapped back to reality and laughed out loud at my own personal humor, but the smell of fresh cut grass is the same everywhere and is a great memory of home.

I hope everyone back home and reading this is doing great and feel free to email me anytime at www.logan.reittinger@gmail.com

Love Always,

Logan

The first weeks of class and the amazing cookout

So to pick up where I left off, I have already been through almost my second week of classes now, but ill fill you in with the first week. My class on Monday is IT project management and it is from 9am-12n. We went around the room introducing ourselves by telling where we were from and what experience we had with project management. The majority of the class is in their late 20's to 40's and have many years of work experience so when it came to me all I could say was that Clark and I started a project management club at our undergraduate school in our college of business. We had to start from scratch to create a good system to pass on the next semester to the new president and vice president. It was a great experience and a large task for me to take on, but a great experience and most importantly brought me closer with ASU and a member of the Deans Council Student Advisory or DCSA which consist of all the presidents and VP's of all the clubs in the college of business. At the end of the class we had to create a group for our team project. To jump back a second, while the introductions for going on a man name Maurice who is probably in his early 40's said he had his on scuba exporting company so I was interested to talk to him more. My group came to be me, Maurice from Canada, Mickey from Pakistan (note that not all middle eastern are terrorist and are really great individuals to get to know), and Muggi from Mongolia. They all seem to be very intelligent and since I’m the youngest in the group by maybe 20 years they thought I could be the computer expert of our group. I was talking to Maurice about my interest in scuba diving and he asked for my height and said he could give me a full body wet suit he has laying around the shop. I offered to pay him for it, but he refused and the wet suit ended up being brand new and fit great. I look forward to working with this group throughout the semester.

My Tuesday 6:30-9:30pm class is BDM business decisions methods. Since it was the first day we just went the syllabus and I would later find out that all of my classes will have group projects. We did have a guest speaker from SIU southern Illinois university who ASU beat in football during play offs awhile back. I was not really impressed with his presentation or his school which they had an exchange program with NCKU. I feel ASU has a better International business base which we do have a major for, so hopefully when our vice dean or chancellor comes to visit NCKU along with Clark and I next semester/year we can hopefully set up an exchange program for our schools. Anyways we got through the class and formed groups. My group is Clark and I, and a guy named munkuu from Mongolia. Should be a good group of guys.

For Wednesday I had MIS managing information systems at 6:10-9pm which did not last but have the class. My teacher is Dr. Victor Chen who is a good friend of my professor from ASU Dr. Charlie Chen who was on my Japan/Taiwan study abroad trip. To get through this class we went through the basics and did not get to form complete groups. This past Wednesday we still did not come to a conclusion on groups. After class Sander and I was meeting up with Pablo from Bolivia who told us about a foreign soccer team and to come play on Wednesday nights and Sunday afternoon. The team travels around playing all the other foreign teams from cities all over Taiwan. Sander and I both had a great time and met many more people a lot from Canada, then a guy Dan from England, and some south Africans and lots more, but it is so hard to learn so many new names especially when I’m bad about remembering names anyways. This past Wednesday was even a better night, my conditioning was still terrible but I played a lot better and almost had a few goals, but did get an assist from a throw in back post. I met another few guys who live my same dorm. Tony and Ullee are both from the northern part of Italy and I don’t remember seeing Ulle play, but tony is a great player and is a nice guy. They travel a lot on the weekends around Taiwan and I plan to make some trips with them in the near future. I didn’t get home from soccer until 12, but went out to the bar to meet up with Sander and some other Estonians who were hanging out in town. I ended up learning so much about Estonia from talking to sander and his friend Indrek. They all grew up learning a few languages and Indrek was a couple years older than sander an since Russia dominated much of Europe during the soviet union he was raised to learn Russian, along with Estonian, English, and some German. The winters are very cold there and they have months where night fall is only for 3o minutes and then months where there are only a few hours of daylight. Also an interesting fact I learned is that Estonians do not like knights. Knights called a meeting over 800yrs ago with some kings or high power officials to have negotiations, but ended up killing all there kings so they are known to Estonians as not noble people, but liars and the exact opposite us Americans or kids grew up with the king Arthur stories to fantasize about. Indrek was extremely brilliant and said he had the most useless or random knowledge than anyone which from the conversation did not fall short of being true.

Anyways back to the classes. I am not signed up for any Thursday classes, but now my Chinese course that started today is from 3:10-6pm. It was a lot of fun and the class seems to be very beneficial, but it’s going to take a lot of studying and practice to really learn the language.

My Friday class is from 6:30-9:30 and its MOM multinational operations management, but every time I see the acronym I think of my mom (love you). This is going to be a great class because we will have a lot of guest speakers including the President of Ford motor co. Jeff Nemeth. We will also have a weekend trip to Taipei to visit the Ford motor plant which I really look forward to.

So last Saturday was just a hangout day, I pretty much just played around the room watching movies and waiting for the COOKOUT trip.

So the COOKOUT was probably the highlight of my trip so far. We all met on campus by the Kuang Fu gate where 3 tour buses picked up our huge group of IIMBA students and their families who joined. We split up into groups of eight and were given 1000NT or $31usd to shop for groceries to cook for dinner. My group was Clark, Marcin and Ola from Poland who are really nice and great to hang out with, Anthony, and David from Malaysia, Cory from USA and Sarah from Taiwan. We ended up spending around 1500NT which every group ended up doing, but had so much food from chicken strips to squid on a stick, and bird hearts. Yes that is true bird hearts and they were actually really good. Another unusual food I ate was rice that had been soaked or marinated in pig’s blood for many hours then scooped out and mashed into a rectangle to be put on a stick like a Popsicle. The ones we had really did not have much taste, but I hear the ones at street corners are a lot better. They gave each group a box of coal to start our BBQ with and all the plates and utensils to eat with. On the blog sight are the photos from the cookout everyone can check out. Before we started cooking we had a small tour around the park which included a short boat ride tour around a dam. We were lucky to be the first group to go so we had some day light left to see our surroundings. There was one hotel overlooking the dam which was very high-end and cost around 7000NT a night around $250usd. It was a nice relaxing ride before we began the big party. It took a while to get our fire going without lighter fluid, but it turned out great.

After we had the majority of our food cooked, I began walking around to other groups to check out their food and just be social. Everyone's food looked great and it was interesting to see all the different ways people prepared their meals. So I was approached by Sarah from my group to sing karaoke with her so we picked out the song "wanted dead or alive" by Bon Jovi. It came for our turn and as I looked around I was standing alone in the spotlight without Sarah insight. Clark was nearby so I called for him to sing with me and us Lit Up the Stage. hah it was a great time and I think everyone enjoyed it. Everyone had a few drinks in them so I think we may have sounded ok. After about another hour they started playing some Spanish music and that was when everyone came together and danced in circles and lines and even our Head Director Dr. Wu was dancing in the middle of the group which got everyone in an even better mood. We took lots of pictures throughout the night and finally around 10:30pm the party started to slow down. I thought everyone would have been sleeping on the bus ride home, but it was like the party never stopped. We had karaoke going the whole way back and some group singing. I believe there are a few pics from the bus or maybe even a video in my Picasa web albums. Overall the cook out was amazing and I hope we get to have another one next semester.

As for the future, I am going to be able to pick up my ARC card alien resident card Monday, I'm wanting to get a scooter hopefully tomorrow so I can drive to soccer practice this Sunday at 3pm. Hope everyone back home is doing great and I will probably wait to write my next blog in a few weeks probably after my scuba trip 10/10. I love all of you and thanks again for reading my blogs.

Love Always,

Logan

Days of Orientation/New friends

The past couple days have been great because we started orientation and finally met some new friends. Yesterday morning started off with a Yoga session at 9:30 in the basement of the Student Activity Center where I quickly realized how much my body lacked in flexibility. At the yoga session I finally met my friend Raquel Acosta who I met on Facebook before I came out here. She is from WA and has been here for 1 1/2 years teaching English and about to start the IIMBA program the same as me. The yoga teacher went through some "basic" yoga moves where I was already feeling every tendon and muscle ripping from the bones. I put myself or better yet, tried to put myself in positions I never thought any human was capable of doing. My body physically makes it impossible to reach around my back with my right arm, sitting Indian style and try to grab my right toe. Yea that was not happening. I made it through the yoga in a pool of sweat and barely able to stand on my weakened joints.

My next stop of the day was the pool to swim a few laps and I only made it a few laps until I was out of the pool and the people staring because I was finished in about 8mins. I did swim at a fast pace and I am not in shape for it so I felt it was enough and headed back to the room to relax for a while.

Clark and I had a campus tour at 2pm where we finally met some new friends who we later went out with for dinner and shopping supplies. I first met a man from England who was probably in his 40's with long nasty hair in a ponytail and a strong scent of body odor. He was a nice guy and though I can’t think of his name at the moment, we continued to have small talk the rest of the day. Mike was the next guy I met. He is from Arizona, but has lived in Taiwan for the past 8 years and learned little mandarin. He married a Taiwanese girl he met in AZ and teaches English here at a local elementary school. He is a larger man in his early 40's and always smiling. My next friend is Anthony, he is 24 and from Malaysia. He speaks very good English and also about 4 other languages, Mali, Chinese, and some other stuff, but in all I think it is amazing just knowing how hard it is to learn one other language.

The campus is beautiful with a lot of history behind it. Taiwan has been controlled by the Dutch, China, Japan, and now finally the Taiwan R.O.C. The trees all around campus are huge with hundreds of small trees wrapped as vines covering them. I have pictures on my Picasa webpage ill link on here to see my pictures so far of Tainan. We also went to a museum on campus which was very interesting and cool to see how things have changed around the university over time. Our last stop of the day was the new library which was amazing. I would rank it alongside our library back at ASU when it comes to class. There are 6 floors, 3 that go underground and 3 that go above. They have a section in the library where you can listen to just about any book on a CD. Another interesting part was a room that I could not describe the smell and I forgot the name of the air being pushed through, but anyways it preserves the books and the books are not allowed to leave the room due to their fragile state. The smell is almost nauseating and I’m glad we did not stay inside very long.

After the tour, Anthony planned to meet Clark and I outside our dorm at 6:30 then go eat dinner then off to Carrefour which took a cab ride only 125NT each way which is about $3.75US. Carrefour is a discount shopping area along with a grocery store. There I bought some ping pong paddles, bottled water, apples, oranges, a soccer ball, and some school supplies. Jennifer also came with us and happened to know Anthony's friend whose name I always forget, but it ended up being a fun night and just another good chance to see some more of the city.

So the next day we had orientation from 9am-5pm and it lasted the entire time. We learned more about the university and history of Taiwan and how the Dutch, China, and Japan all owned/controlled Taiwan at one time. At the orientation I met a few more friends and then later that night we all went out and I’ll get to that wild party night later. At orientation I met Martin who is from Poland and also in the IMBA program. The orientation was extremely long and drawn out, but the end was the best where 2nd year students came up and showed pictures and talked about their first days in Taiwan. One of the guys was from Costa Rica and just before he came Costa Rica and Taiwan's governments had a clash and shut themselves off from one another. So when he got here, his money in is bank back home was locked down from being withdrawn and the Taiwanese were not very fond of him since their countries were in a big argument so his bike was stolen, his scholarships were cancelled, his money was froze in his bank back home, and he fell and injured his hand which needed 3 stiches which he could not pay for or use insurance. So long story short he was able to get his bank account straightened out, his scholarship back, and paid for his hospital bill. After all of this he still loves Taiwan and does not regret coming.

Finally the orientation was over and we were to meet back at 6:30 to catch a bus to watch the Lions play which is the professional baseball team in Tainan. We had a special deal with the team that allowed us to meet the players and be on the field during warm ups. They also allowed 9 of us to be on the field and when our home team was introduced to the field a player came to their position with a signed baseball as a gift. The game was televised nationally and we are supposed to get copies of the footage showing us on TV and being on the field. This was a huge honor and was just an amazing experience. At the game I was able to meet some more friends like Joe from Canada, and Sanders and his girlfriend Maria who are from Estonia. I was very surprised to find out how many people even knew how to play the game, the rules, and the purpose or even swing a bat. I always thought there was not much to baseball until I spent half the game explaining everything about the game. How many players, the positions, what the pitcher and catcher do, strikes and balls, outs, double plays, fair balls and foul balls, running the bases, etc... It was fun to teach them about a game I grew up playing and enjoyed so much. We had free drink coupons and I also had some fries and a corndog with I’m not sure what kind of meat inside. I want to guess and hope it was pork. Our team was destroyed in the game 6-2, but my player who gave me an autograph ball hit a 2 run homerun in the bottom of the 9th. We all went back and planned to meet at 10:30 at the "Country Club" to start drinking before we went out on the town. I will have to say that the Country club is actually a 7-11 across from the Kuang Fu campus gate where there is a table and very common to see people during the evening just hanging out and drinking. The laws are not the same as back home and it’s ok to drink in public for example outside the 7-11. The other big difference about the party scene is people do not start drinking/pre gaming until 10:30 or 11pm and no one goes to the bars/clubs till about 1:30 or 2am. I thought this was really weird, but was told that most the people teach English till 9pm so that’s the main reason the party’s start later and the bars do not close till everyone leaves which can be around 6:30am.

We went to the first bar called the Armory where I rode on the back of a scooter with a friend Sarah who is from Canada. I normally don’t like riding with girls even in cars, but this was a new experience of riding on the back of a scooter with a girl. Scared a first, but she ended up being a good driver and I had a good helmet which made me feel better. The bar would cook food the whole night and my friend Aaron and his girlfriend who are from Canada ordered Canadian fries which are French fries with melted cheese and brown gravy poured on top and they were amazing. Sanders and his girlfriend came out with us and it was great chance to get to know them better and hang out with more people from all over the world. We left around 1:30 from the armory and went to a popular club called the Orient which had a 400NT cover and then free drinks. The dancing was really fun and I was able to meet an American guy who was a pitcher for the Lions and was originally from Houston. He has played for the MLB before coming out here on the cardinals and another team, but with the music was really hard to hold a conversation. He said he left because the pay was a lot better than back home and he loves it. I stopped drinking about 2 1/2 hours before we left at 5am and which I am very glad I did because Sarah did not stop and I was sober to drive her scooter back. She rode on the back to give directions and driving the scooter in Taiwan was by far one of best times of my life. There was almost no traffic so it was a good time for me to learn to drive out here and had her on the back giving me directions and our other friends with Clark on the back of a scooter beside us. I felt like a hells angel until I realized I was on a moped haha. We got back and Sarah had some friends hanging outside the country club so Clark went to bed and I went to meet some new people. We sat out there till 6:30am where I saw the daylight creep upon us and then I decided to call it a night. Sarah had sobered up and drank coffee from the 7-11 so she was safe to drive home and had her other friends to ride with.

The same day at 1pm we had another orientation from 1-5pm and everyone who went out with us last night had the look of a long night on their faces. I’m not sure if I had introduced Jay Gaddi who is the office manager and also a student in the IIMBA program. He had to wake up at 9am that morning to create a PowerPoint for the orientation he was holding that same day. Jay is from Ontario Canada and a great asset at the university. He plans the parties and still finds the time so stay professional.

The orientation ended up being really fun when we did our group activities where we split up in groups where I had Jess from the Philippines, Willy from Ecuador, May from Thailand, and David from Malaysia. We talked about cultural differences on 5 questions: What is considered on time? Do people still live at home after college with family? Is there any traditional dress in your country? And how important is work/socialization? It was wild to hear some of the differences such as, being on time in the U.S. is being there 5 or maybe 10mins before the meeting where as in Ecuador Willy said people show up around 1 hr. late that is normal. David said at weddings in Malaysia it may start at 6, but people do not show up till around 8. For business meetings the U.S. , Malaysia, and the Philippines all agreed that on time or 5-10mins before is good where Thailand said 10mins late was ok. Another big difference was the living arrangements. In the U.S. we are encouraged to move out of the house at 18 or when we are finished with school, but in Ecuador, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines live at home until they get married. Once a couple is married, the wife moves in with the Husbands family to live so there is typically an extended family in every home meaning kids, parents, grandparents and even great grandparents.

Finally the orientation was over and a few of us went to dinner at a Thai restaurant then walked around the city some and looked at cell phones for Clark and I to buy soon. We went back home and showered and napped before we went back out again for another 5am night which I will have to get used to because that is just the norm here. The Typhoon has been causing some high winds and lots of rain the past 2 days so the walk home was not very pleasant.

That’s about it on the orientation days and it’s been a lot of fun and just amazing how many friends I have made from all over the world. I start my first class tomorrow where it will not be uncommon for me to have people from over 30 different countries in one class. I can’t wait.

I also want to let everyone know that I am being very safe when I go out partying and not to worry too much because I would never put myself in an unsafe situation or where I did not feel comfortable. The Taiwanese people are very nice and it is a safe city to be in. Love all of you and I’ll continue to keep everyone updated. We have a BBQ trip planned in the mountains next weekend so that should be another good story and pictures to add.

Love Always,

Logan

Registering for Classes/first few days in Tainan

Yea so I'm trying to think of the interesting things that has happened since my last blog and the first thing that comes to mind is the crazy traffic. I may have mentioned it before, but there is no "pedestrian has the right away" here. I feel like I'm playing frogger and just crossing my fingers as scooters and cars pass in front and behind me not letting off the gas. They break every rule imaginable and they do have laws, but its understood as a norm to just get where the hell you need to go however possible. Even if that means drive down the side walk.

Well Clark and I were able to register for classes yesterday. My sleep pattern is getting better because I first woke up at 3am the first morning, then 5:40 the 2nd night and finally 7:30 this morning. I was also able to get another mattress/cushion to sleep on so its not as if I'm laying on a shortened pool table. Anyways we walked to the middle of campus to the You-Ping administrative building to get started with our paper work and Adam was already working to assist other students coming into the program. Well I started pulling out my paper work and came to my passport photo copy which was not there (I have feeling its laying on a table back home on the game room) so I had to run back to my dorm to get my passport and have it photo copied to turn in. This was not just a trip across the street to my dorm. At a steady paced jog to a fast walk in all it took about 15-20 mins of running through the extremely humid weather to get back drenched in sweat and almost forget to take off my shoes when entering the office. They required 2 passport photos which I had, but I knew the registrar’s office where I had to make my next stop at or the place where they verified my notarized photo copy of my diploma.

Clark and I then set out to find a place to get our picture taken and found one a few stores down from the 7-11 where we had to pay our other tuition fees not included in the free tuition. Yea I know it sounds really sketchy, but when I presented the forms they knew exactly what to do and I was in and out in just a couple minutes. The photo copy store guy had two dogs in there, one that growled at me and another miniature collie that loved me and I felt it had never had someone actually play with him just from seeing the excitement on his face. Or he could have been really surprised to see a white person, im just glad he wasn't racist.

well we had to wait till 2pm to pick our photos back up so we had a couple hours to just hang out so Clark and I just came back to the room where we sat down and studied the Rosetta stone cd for an hour until my head was about to explode. Well we took care of all our paper work for the day and the registering for classes where they just sent an email this morning saying we could not waive the accounting, statistics, and economic classes we have already taken in undergrad and transfer credit, but they will be able to exempt them, meaning we would just have to pick 3 other classes to replace them. My friend Nick Huang who goes here that I met through Facebook a while back said he was able to transfer his credits and will work on helping me get them passed if possible.

So out of that there are two things that will possibly happen. If they truly won't let me waive the classes (Note: I am planning on majoring in IT and strategic management) then I will take 3 classes under the International marketing major and try to double major which needs 3 classes for the major or each major has to have 3 major courses other than the original core courses. The second thing this means is since I have to take 3 extra courses then I will have to do those next summer meaning I may not be able to come home or at least for the amount of time I was expecting. So that is the main problem with that because if the possibility that I may be gone for a full 2 years.

Off that topic and to a happier note, yesterday Jennifer and Adam took us to dinner, but on the way they took me to a shoe store where I was able to get some running shoes to train/workout in. I’m not sure the name of the little restaurant it was just a small one down one of the alleys. I got pork with rice which was delicious and since Adam and Jennifer said their drinks were not very good, they went down the street to another store and got us some iced milk tea (which sounds gross, but is very good). We came back to our dorm and Jennifer brought a bottle of red wine with her and we stopped in the 7-11 so we could all get a beer and I also got the new extra mattress for my bed. We just hung out listening to music and looked at more pictures from home. Adam’s (I’m not sure I mentioned is about 5'3 105lbs) 12oz Heineken and one little paper cup of red wine had him trashed. I had 2 of my 34oz monster Kirin canned beers and a class of wine and felt fine. It was a good way to break the ice in Taiwan. Adam and Jennifer both made it home safe as I told him to Instant message me when he made it which I was scared he wouldn't be able to even ride his bike. The drinking age is 18 here and Adam is 19 so don’t think I’m giving alcohol to minors when you see the picture of him.

Anyways that’s it for today and I have orientation starting tomorrow. I heard we are supposed to go to a Uni Lions baseball game and have a special time where we get to walk out on the field during the game break. The Lions baseball team is the #1 pro team in Taiwan as I am told. So I look forward to seeing more of the campus and I’ll be sure to keep you updated.

My Address here

No. 118, Shengli Rd.,
East District, Tainan City 701, Taiwan (R.O.C.)
Room 1341

The Big Trip

Well it all started when my mom and dad dropped me have at the Charlotte airport at 3:30pm Thursday September 4th 2008. My plane flight was not until 5:45pm, but it is always a good thing to get there early. It did not take long to check my bags and get through the security check so I had plenty of time to just sit back and get a classic Whiskey Sour and begin reading my book "The Deception Point" by Dan Brown. I only got through about 20 pages and felt I would save the rest for the planes since I had three to catch.

After listening to an hour of music it was finally about time to board the plane. As I was seated in 13A and ready for the 40min flight to ATL the pilot chimes in and says the door is having trouble closing, but we should be ready for take off shortly. After 20mins of a stand still I hear a man behind me say "hell just leave the door open" lol it was funny with the tone he said it in as it reminded me of Ron Whites skit on blue collar comedy tour.

We were in the air and back down in no time. I was eager to meet up with Clark and his sister Cheri who is a Delta pilot. She came along to ATL just to be with her little brother a couple hours more. While walking out of the terminal I see a sign with LOGAN REITTINGER and a pretty girl holding it. Clarks sister really broke the ice with her small token of friendship. We only had 40min until our next flight to LA which snuck up pretty quick. Clark and I said our goodbyes to his sis and boarded the plane as she was going to catch the next flight back to Raliegh.

Clark and I had seats next to one another for the 4 hour flight to LA. We were near the front and one of the last ones to get on and had no place for our bags, but our laps/feet. For the full 4 hour flight, my knees did not bend or move in any way which caused a pretty big cramp. We ended up buying a movie on the flight for $6 and watched The Forbidden Kingdom with Jackie Chan and Jet Li. The movie was pretty good and the rest of the flight we just listened to our I-pods and tried to stay awake so we could sleep as much as possible on our LA to Taipei flight which was 13 extremely long hours.

Once we got to LA we were both starving and had to pee like a race horse since it was too crowded to get up on the plane. We decided to eat at the California Pizza place where I ordered a hawian pizza and Clark a pepperoni with a bud light which really surprised me. We had a 3 1/2 hour lay over. It was very long and boring and I could only joke about our 13hr flight ahead of us. While we waited, Clark watched some cartoon movies on his lap top and I just sat in a seat near the terminal where I met a man in the Airforce about to leave for South Korea for a year. He was married, had 3 kids, worked on F-15 fighter jets, and was leaving his family for a year since he was not ranked high enough to be allowed to bring his family. I would have never guessed him to be in his mid 30's, but he was a nice guy and I wished him well as his plane boarded before mine.

We finally boarded the dreadful flight from LA to Taipei. Clark changed his seating for an exit spot where he had an abundance of leg room where I saw a few cute girls and gammbled on getting a seat beside one of them. In short I was one of the last ones on and was sitting beside an 80yr old man who spoke zero English. The only good thing was we did not have someone between us so I didnt have to squeeze my arms in. I started watching Forgetting Sarah Marshall when the movie went off and I tried to figure out with the remote how to get it back on when I was quickly stopped by a steward who told me I kept hitting the call button on and off for a couple minutes. He eventually had to reset the computer which took 15 or 20 minutes and I happened to fall asleep. It scared the death out of me to see a stranger tapping on my shoulder when I thought it was the creepy old man, but the steward told me the movie was ready just as I lost all interest and was falling into a deep sleep. After I finished the movie I dosed off and was awoken again I think an hour or 2 later for dinner. I had the chicken and rice with pasta salad bowl and a coke. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but my appetite was just not there to finish it all. After the meal I watched What happens in Vegas with Ashton Coucher and Cameron Diaz. It was a good movie with kind of a chick flick hint on it, but overall it was funny and free unlike the ATL to LA flight. I took another nap, listened to some music, and finally (after im not sure how many hours) got up to stretch a bit and use the bathroom. I only took one stretch break because I didn't want to wake old man rivers who seemed to sleep the whole time. He was so old and fragile I didnt want to make him move unless I really had to go which just happened to be the case. With about 3 hrs to go they fed us breakfast and I had eggs, sausage, and a hashbrown. The breakfast was actually really good and did not last long. The long trip finally ended with us flying into Taipei breaking between the clouds with the sun rising at our backs. It was one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen, but vanished as quickly as it came with the dark gray clouds/smog of Taipei.

We finally landed and had no problem getting through customs, but my happiness of being off the flight was switched to anger when I was left at the baggage claim missing my large bag with all my clothes. Luckily I keep my medicine, my other bag, and extremely important stuff in my carry on. Once I filled out the necessary paper work Clark and I set out to find Terminal one to catch our bus. After a lap or two around the airport we saw a sign with Skytran to terminal 1 and took the flight of stairs and boarded. Once we were in terminal one our next mission was to buy a bus ticket to the Taipei Main Station. The ticket only cost $125NT (1USD = 31.5 NC) so do the math and you get our price.

We finally get to the train station, but we are dropped off on the opposite side of where we were the last year for my Japan/Taiwan trip so we walked in the first door and just happened to come across the ticket center that was on the bottom floor. We seemed to make perfect timing because once we bought the bus ticket we only had to wait 5 min to leave and the same with the high speed rail. The whole time we are walking around the train station I am carrying one of Clarks big bags that the strap broke and weighed about 48lbs which gets heavy after walking around the whole station dodging people.

We get on the bullet train that goes around 264km/h which I think is about 153mph. We were the 2nd to last stop and the total trip was about 1 hr 30min. It was a fun ride, my eyes were heavy and I dosed off for about 25 mins. We got off the train and headed toward the free shuttle service bus to NCKU which ended up being another 25 min ride with stops and traffic.

We were a little confused about when to get off because the bus driver was only speaking mandarin, so we had to walk through the crowded bus all the way to the front and ask a couple times where the NCKU stop was, he only pointed around the corner and nodded. Well, we got off at the stop (which from looking out my bedroom window is around 6 blocks away) on the other side of campus. We had no clue where to go. So with all of our luggage except (my main big one) I walked into the NCKU medical center and asked for directions. The ladies at the information desk did not speak english, but an elderly taiwanese man walked up and asked if he could help. His english was good, but none of the ladies really knew where the IIM "Institute of International Management" was so they were able to get us into the campus, but still no one knew where the IIM office was. I just remembered I had an email in my pocket with the administrative office lady Silvias number where the old man was willing to make the call. We got in touch with Silvia and she did not even know how to get us to the right building, but she led us around to the other side of the campus where we rolled slowly until we found the building. Silvia came running outside and was very happy to see us. In the office we had two student volunteers to help us get into our dorms and get us settled in. Adam was a sophomore in undergrad and just came from baseball practice still wearing his uniform and Jennifer was a junior in undergrad and both of them spoke decent english, but we had to talk slow. Note that Adam and Jennifer are not there chinese names, but they go by these to make it easier for everyone.

I was extrememly tired and very sweaty from walking every where while carrying the 50lb bag of Clarks with my back pack on. Adam felt the need to walk as slow as he possibly could. We made it finally and I had to fill out all of the intro paper work, pay for two months rent up front and $500NT for an electric card to run our A/C and lights. We finally got to our room and I told Adam they had lost my bag at the airport and showed him the address I wrote down for them to send it to. He quickly asked around and found out it was the wrong address and that just put me from being extrememly tired to almost a nauseating feeling that I would never see my bag again. I still had the airport baggage claim # and Adam called and before they left he was able to correct the address and the bag was to be sent later in the day.

Jennifer and Adam took us to eat lunch around 2pm and I had not ate anything since 2am that morning from the plane ride. We went to a resturant around the corner called the Toffee Cafe where I ordered a deep fried pork chop with creamy noodle sauce. It was delicious and I can't wait to eat at all the other places around. After lunch they took us to a store on the side of the road that had a lil bit of everything like Wal-Mart. lol we were able to get our mattress pad which is really a thin piece of cloth with a little bit of coushin in it. It feels like I'm sleeping on a coffee table. I believe I will go buy another mattress pad for $650NT which is almost 20 US dollars or see if my mom can send out a lil twin size temperputic sleeping pad and vaccum seal it to make it smaller if thats at all possible. Anyways, we got the rest of our supplies such as, towels, pillow, TP, paper towels, cleaning supplies, and a blanket. We came back to the room and I let Jennifer and Adam look through the majority of my pictures I have on my cpu while Clark and I unpacked and set up our room.

Jennifer and Adam left and Clark and I just hung out messing with the internet and sending messages to all of our friends and family. We were extremely thirsty, so we walked across the street to the 7-11 and grabbed some drinks and some pringles along with an umbrella because a small rain storm came through. As we were walking back there was some lightning going on just as we looked over and saw a person swimming laps in the pool. I wanted to go yell at them to get out of the pool (just my lifeguard instincts) lol but I figured he would not have known what I was saying anyways to understand. We just spent the rest of the evening hanging out in the room listening to music and fell asleep by 9pm this time. It was a long, but adventurous first day and I look forward to keeping everyone updated. This will be the longest blog I'm sure, because it was the first day and I just couldn't stop typing.

Anyways, I love all of you and I'll be in touch.

Luv Always,

Logan Reittinger