I'm in Taipei!

I am so excited to be writing you all from Taipei! My flight arrived last night and I got a good night's sleep at my hotel.

It all started out well, as my good friend Ted helped me clear the last of my stuff out of my apartment. (Damn, I didn't know you could fit that much stuff in a 1969 BMW 2002! And by the way, Ted, if you didn't take that stuff to Goodwill and just put it into a dumpster at SFO, like I said, no problem!)

At the airport, I checked in and had plenty of time to relax before the flight. I called my voicemail to check it one last time. I noticed that the old Chinese woman next to me was trying to make a phone call on a phone that had an "out of order" sign on it. From the depths of my memory came some words, "Huai le, huai le!" (“it's broken!”). The woman smiled and moved to another phone. I felt like I was already in Taiwan (and grateful that the broken towel dispenser at clinic gave me an opportunity to learn some handy Mandarin!) and was off to a good start!

My Chinese neighbors on the plane were very nice and told me about Taiwan an helped me with some Mandarin. Since the flight was thirteen hours, I watched several movies and I would get up about every two hours and exercise in the back or about half an hour. For once, I wasn’t the only one doing qigong exercises in the back of the plane. Since most passengers are Chinese, there were already several older Chinese men who were doing the same thing. One of them, surely proud to see a young waiguoren doing qigong, smiled at me.

I saw an incredible movie on the plane about love and perseverance, and it touch me deeply. No it wasn't "Catwoman", but that was a fun mindless movie that I watched, too. It was called "Wicker Park" with Josh Hartnett. It reminded me that Love is something so primal and powerful. Like a river, true love cannot be stopped. Perhaps temporarily, but in the end, Nature prevails. This is not a first-date movie, nor a Hollywood feel-good romance. Go rent it.

I arrived in Taipei at about nine in the evening, and by the time I got through customs and to my hotel, it was about midnight. Fortunately, I had forced myself to not sleep on the flight because I knew that if I slept, I would spend the next four nights in Taipei completely wired (this from my Thailand experience this past summer).

This morning, I brought my camera with me as I walked through downtown Taipei and took some photos. This is a big shopping area, near the Taipei Train station and the Mitsukoshi Department Store Building.

In the next few days, I will be making contact with my contacts here, looking for roommates near the University, and looking for a job. School starts on March 1st, and I am thinking of taking some conversation classes before then. Dr. Choong also gave me directions on how to get to the snake market (snake soup, anyone?), but I may not make it there, um, today.

People are very nice here, especially those who know some English. Most people, however, don't speak much English (although I understand most people can read and write it better than they can speak it). This is all good for me (generally), as it means I will be forced to learn Mandarin more quickly, and that there will be work for me teaching English.

I am missing all of you. Thank you all for sending me off in a way that felt really fun and nurturing (we did hit almost all of the shi-shi restaurants in Berkeley, didn't we?).

Love,
Roni

P.S. If you'd like to see more photos of my first days in Taiwan, click here.