Hot Computer Lab

So, I made it. It's day 5 here in Taiwan. Sadly, no pictures will be included in this post, as my computer has yet to be hooked up to the internet- I'm writing this from the Teacher's Center in Yilan where we will have training for the next 3 weeks. But when I do have access to the internet in my apartment... oh ho! Will there ever be pictures.

We got to Yilan on Friday morning, after spending the night in Taipei. Taipei was a whirl-wind; jet-lagged meals, exhausted visit to the Botanical Gardens. It'll be really neat to go and see it when I'm actually awake. The trip from Taipei took about an hour and we passed through the longest car tunnel in Taiwan, which is actually the 5th largest car tunnel in the world (Taiwan likes to have those "world record" things- largest building, longest car tunnel. I think it's because it feels threatened). The ride was fantastic, incredible mountains and cool bridges.

I'm actually living in Luodong with two other girls in the program for the first month (and possibly for the rest of the year, depending on which school I am placed in). At first glance, our situation was somewhat frustrating. There are 7 Fulbrigters in Yilan, the Teacher's Center is there, the other apartments were newer, cleaner (ours was left a MESS), and all of the rooms had air conditioning (mine is the only room in our apartment that has it). Katie, Laura, and I all felt somewhat isolated. However, we moved furniture and cleaned some, found out that the area around our building is actually cool (pictures to come, I swear), and are generally feeling more up-beat about it. It's still a 40 minute trip to Yilan (25 minute walk to the train station, 15 minute train ride), which will kind of stink in the upcoming weeks when we have to get to the Teacher's Center without the help of the school bus to pick us up, like it has been. But if all I'm complaining about is travelling to Yilan, I think I'm doing pretty well.

As far as actually being here goes, I'm still in shock sometimes. We went to the night market last night, which is just stalls and stalls of stuff, to put it quite frankly, and an entire section devoted to snacks and drinks. It's noisy and crowded and overwhelming, but incredible. I'm still not used to walking up tea stand and have EVERYTHING be in Chinese, but hopefully I'll learn some characters of foods that I like that I can recognize on other menus. All in all, it's going well. Now to get the internet up in the apartment so I can type less and show more...