I'm in Taipei. My hotel is lovely. I have an apartment set up for the third of September, a couple days after class starts. Orientation is on Friday, in the mean time I'm going to try and buy a cell phone and buy some electrical adaptors, maybe by getting a hold of Ying-Ying or Elisa's sister or maybe solo. It seems every store here has one person who can speak english, even though there's not really that many white people around (I'm getting a lot of covert attention.) I took the subway for the first time today, very clean and efficient with a Bart like ticket system.

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I have fond my Charming City Hotel to be charming indeed. I have a small suite with a sitting area, a full sized bed, and a huge bathroom. I had no problem getting here from the airport, or at least I didn't after I pointed to the name of my hotel on a big chart of all the hotels in Taipei set up for such language barrier problem cases. Since I got in so early the first day I just dropped my luggage at the front desk and went out for a walk. I only got one "good morning" and one "hello", but a lot of other people were obviously or subtly wondering what the white girl was doing. I walked to the university, which was only relatively close. I filled out all my registration papers when the place opened at 8:30, but when I couldn't take the placement test until I had paid my tuition, so I had to go find a bank. This wasn't as easy as I had hoped it would be, because although after 9 the ATMs were all accessible, they didn't seem to want to take my ATM card. Eventually through the wrong-directions of one bank I ended up across the street from an obviously Westerner-oriented hotel whose concierge went through some pains to find me the central Citibank branch. There, my ATM card finally worked, though after talking to Dad I know now of a couple other branches which will accept my card (I checked today and things are going to be fine). I paid my tuition and took my test, I think I may have tested slightly below my ability, but I guess that's where my Chinese is now, plus of course they didn't test exactly the vocabulary I learned at Columbia, they use a different book here. Oh well. I came back to the hotel around noon and was able to check in and take a long shower, and even play with the hot-tub like bathtub which felt good on my sore legs after all the walking.

Cabs here are relatively cheap, but I decided this morning to take my first crack at the subway system. It is delightfully easy and clean and smooth running. I got from my hotel to the school area easily and quickly. Everyone in Taiwan is pretty well dressed, maybe not in a suit, but still all the clothes are new looking, never shabby or ill-fitting. Most people here get by on scooters. A few people have regular bikes. There are several bus companies which makes bus directions too confusing for me, at least for now, especially given how cheap cabs are. There are cars too, but scooters really dominate. Anyway, today I stopped by the office of a woman who had given me apartment contact info yesterday and I happened to run into a 23 yr. old girl from Hawaii named J who also just got in yesterday and was looking for an apartment as well. I had tried calling the woman (Mrs. C) and hadn't gotten her, but when the woman at the university tried she was home, so we went right over and saw it, or rather I walked over and J waited at the university for a ride from a family friend who was supposed to pick her up. I thought it was nice (and only 5500 NT$), but J's family friend was emphatic about it being a great deal, so I decided not to bother looking further because I probably wasn't going to do better in terms of price, location, and roommate. It is a ten minute walk from campus on the third floor of a seven story building. Most of the people in the building are professors at Taipei University. They normally rent to families when they go to live in the city, but their younger daughter is going to Taipei U. so they wanted her to continue to have access to the apartment so it made more sense to just rent out the two rooms which had belonged to their daughters and let their daughter keep the master bedroom. There's cable and internet already set up. Laundry right there and air-conditioning. The whole place looks like it was recently re-done, clean white walls, new looking fixtures in the kitC and new looking tile floors. Full stove, oven, microwave, fridge all there for the sharing. One and a half bath. And I think I may even get the bigger bedroom since I showed up slightly before J, I guess we'll figure that out on the 3rd when we move in. Mrs. C even gave us two fruits I'd never seen before while she talked with J's family friend about the details. I wish I could remember what they were called, one tasted kind of like pear. J plays tennis so we'll see about renting racquets and stuff once we're moved in, though it sounds like she's actually good so I hope I don't embarrass myself if we do manage to get on a court somewhere. J spent a semester in Taiwan, so although she hasn't studied much more Chinese than me she's much better at it, ...

After the whole apartment thing I bought some fried pork, rice thing from a street lunch vendor. I've cracked open the Pocari Sweat, available right in my room's fridge (this one is for you dad), its not as good as it sounds. It's kind of like a weak grapefruit soda or something similar. Since then I've been marveling at how easy it was to set up my computer here in the hotel (I didn't have to buy a converter or anything, I'm not sure if that's just because they put me in an American-style room or if all electricity in Taiwan is set up like this, I'm guessing it has to be the former, but in case its the latter I'm not going to ask about buying converters so I don't look like a tool needlessly). And using the internet was as easy as plugging into the Ethernet ready box, surprise, surprise.

I get good cable so I've been watching TV while dealing with the time zone thing. I don't really feel jet-lagged, I just got lazy in my sleeping habits yesterday; today I'm going to try and go to sleep at a more reasonable local time.

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I ... bought my first real street vendor food with her ordering. Hen hao chi.

On the way back to my hotel I stopped at a place called "cha for tea." I think dad printed me out an article about them once, well at least someone did because I recognized the chain name. I had some lovely jasmine tea and sweet buns with red bean paste. They were slow in serving me and sat me by a sink in a corner where no one would accidentally see me, but the food and tea was good, probably would have been better with company, but I'm sure once classes start up I'll have all the friends in the world.

I also placed an order for a name chop in the ancient style using only Chinese (because that was the only way to do it). I'll pick it up on Monday.

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Elisa left this evening, but before she went she introduced me to a couple other good street-vendor foods such as shaved-ice (with such odd things as yams, oatmeal, those pearls from pearl tea, and kidney beans) a type of dessert, as well as In-du Q Bing (Indian Chewy Cake, kind of like a crepe with peanuts and some black stuff wrapped inside). She also showed me to one of the English language bookstores near her dad's apartment. There were few English books for an English language bookstore, but I guess more than in any other bookstore around here, after she had to go back to pack I went back to the department store under the bookstore and bought a journal, a camera that takes four pictures on one normal print, some postcards, a copy of "Goodnight moon" in chinese and a kickin' watch.

I saw the author of "Confederates in the Attic" speak (required summer reading), and he autographed my book. He won the Pulitzer prize and he was as articulate and thoughtful in real life as he was in his book.

Also I think Marlow was right when we talked today on the phone when describing Orientation. It's forced socialization between me and a bunch of random people who I'll probably not talk to for the next four years. Ahhh well. It's almost over, and maybe all this busy-ness is distracting me from being overly homesick. I can't wait for classes to start this Thursday.