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