Off to Taiwan!

Sunday November 11, 2007

Before I left for Taiwan I had my test which went relatively ok, and then me and Lisa finished packing and headed towards the airport. We waited there for a long time because we got there really early, and then our flight took off at 1230 am and we slept most of other way there. We got to the Philippines airport at about 4 am and had to sit there and wait until our next flight left at 1120am which wasn't terrible. The airport itself as kinda dirty and I heard it was dangerous so we were scared to sleep but there were a lot of security guard everywhere and they wouldn't even let you in the building if you didn't have a flight. So we sat on uncomfortable seats for 5 hours and then checked in and sat in some different uncomfortable seats for an hour. But as we were leaving we had to pay 750 peso for using the airport haha, which is about 17 dollars, luckily I had withdrawn some money earlier so we could pay it. We got on our short flight to Taipei and landed and everything went fine and we got picked up at the airport by a driver. The hostel at first seemed a little grotsky because its basically an apartment with a bunch of rooms, and there are 2 stalls that have bathrooms in the kitchen, not in a separate room, and the showers are outside in things that look like porter-potties, and you could hear everything through the walls. BUT its actually really fun, the people are really fun, and they have a cat. The location is also really good so we never have to go too far from anything. So the first night me and Lisa just walked around because it was already getting dark and we didn't know our way around very well. Then on Saturday we got up and had sushi for lunch before going to the National History Museum and a Chang Kai Shek memorial which was fun, and then we came back to the hostel to hang out with the people here. As of now there is me and Lisa, about 9 girls from Thailand that are really loud, 2 korean guys, a chinese guy and girl, a funny australian guy, and a funny old man who are staying there so it makes everything pretty fun. Also the owner is from Mexico and he speaks to me in Spanish now because his English isn't that great, so I can practice my Chinese and Spanish at the same time haha. So now its SUnday morning and me and lisa are out to meet our friend Adam from IU and we are heading out to explore the city more. Also I didn't get into my program in Egypt for next semester, so I actually have to either go back to IU next semester or find something else to do... the more time i spend in Taipei the more it seems like a viable option...