I have been trying to internet-ize this past week and it’s been patchy. So here are a few posts from my first days here in Taipei that I wanted to publish:

10pm 02 September

Arrived to Taipei. I am currently driving in the rain with a taxi driver who, upon looking at my house address, went “ughhhhhh.” I think I live quite a distance away from the airport.

Despite some rainfall the city looks great. I don’t know if I have entered it yet or not but it is massive .The lights don’t look out of the ordinary of any other city, but from first impressions, I think Taipei could swallow millions of people whole in one small gargle.

…. I just passed by a small truck hauling about 30 pigs on the highway. Haha, that is wild looking! The pigs were just piled on top of each other, some with their rears flying high in the air, only held in by a couple small iron poles. It’s time for the plump livestock to be migrated into the city for a fresh few meals tomorrow. It’s a little depressing, and for that I’m glad I’m not vegan right about now.

I am starving. I feel like I have been eating microwaveable meals for the last 30 hours straight. I am bloated and jet lagged and this taxi has now been driving me for a half an hour and we’re still on freeways. I think this could be a lot of $NTDs…

News Flash: Just saw Taipei 101 woooooaaaa! Wowwww! That building is like two empire state buildings piled on top of each other. My Lord.

(Later on that evening)

Well. What an adventure that night was. It ends up the international house I was taken to was the wrong international house. The taxi pulled up to a locked and gated entrance with a couple of signs in Chinese that I couldn’t understand, and the words, “after hours go around the back.” I assumed 11:00pm was after hours, and two Taiwanese people watching me motioned for me to go around to the back of the building. So there I went, two enormous suitcases and two heavy bags, yanking my arms off and down a back alley. A little old man and a security guard asked me something I didn’t understand, so I just handed them my directions. In English they replied, “In there, 11th floor.” All I’m thinking is, this can’t be right. A university wouldn’t make it this difficult for a foreigner to find a place to stay!

So up I went to the 11th floor to find a little old woman at a desk with a very cross face. I was definitely at the wrong hotel. Even more so, I was as large disheartening distance from where I was supposed to be.

Right after she called me a taxi, I glanced out of her window, only to discover that it was showering outside. Just imagine about a billion showerheads bulleting water at your body and you will understand the drenched wreck of a situation I was about to be in. The woman had given me an umbrella for free before leaving (very kind), and I was trying to juggle an umbrella, two suitcases, my laptop and a gym bag in the Sunami that just hit the streets of Taipei. I had just finished tying the umbrella hook to the drawstring on my pants when all of the sudden my left sandal broke. When the taxi finally came, I looked like a miserable, washed up guppy fish. Blah.

Over 2000NTD later, success. I live on the side of a mountain. When I arrived I received another pleasant, “Hmm, who are you?” They didn’t expect me until the 9th of September, so there was no room for me. I almost passed out right at the front desk. Finally they looked around and found that they did have an available room I could stay in temporarily before then. Hallelujah.

I slept until 3 o’clock the following afternoon.

03 September

Yesterday I went into town for the very first time. Going down the mountain in a bus does not seem safe at all. One day I swear It’s just going to topple over and we’ll all be flailing around like hot popcorn kernels.

I live quite a bit of a distance from the inner city.