This is a long one (that's what she said)!

Sorry that I haven't blogged in a couple days, but we've been crazy busy! We haven't had too much class the last two days, but we've gone out as a group a lot. On Wednesday, a few of us decided to go to a place called "The Burger House." They serve American-styled burgers and fries. It was great to have a taste from home!

Last night, we all went out to a karaoke bar (Holiday KTV). Karoake is awesome here. As a group, you rent an entire room for a few hours. The room has a karaoke machine with 3 mics, a private bathroom, and access to an all you can eat buffet. The room cost $7843 NTD, or about $250 US dollars. We had soooo much fun. I will be putting video up on Facebook within a couple days time.

Today was filled with excursions! We went to the National Palace Museum (really boring). I love museums, but this one was pretty lame (did I mention it was boring?). We weren't allowed to have backpacks or camera's (pointless, and boring). I did get a few cool gifts from the souvenir shop though (only reason the trip was not a complete waste of time).

Then, we went to Taipei 101. Taipei 101 is the world's second tallest building (1,671 ft) with the world's second fastest elevator (55.22 ft/s or 37.7 mi/h). It was incredible! We went to the outdoor observation deck on the 91st floor (Jeremy and Nick pushed me to overcome my fear of heights...mild success)! On the indoor observation deck (89th floor), you could feel the building swaying back and forth in the wind (this is normal, because the stress due to wind would cause the steel frame to collapse if it wasn't allowed to adjust). There is a large, yellow, ball-like contraption that prevents the tower from swaying too much in any one direction.



We finished the day up at Chiang Kai-shek Square. There are some very traditional-looking buildings there, and the square is beautiful. I have tons of pictures, which I will also be uploading at some point.

When we're not in class, on a tour, or out to eat, we are usually found at the outdoor fitness center. We've been playing volleyball for about 2 hours per day since Wednesday. Yesterday, I took a nasty hit to the bend in my right arm, and now I have a really nasty bruise there. Furthermore, my entire right forearm is essentially a bruise, so I'm glad we didn't play today and aren't playing tomorrow; I need the break!

I'm having a great time, and enjoying nearly every minute of my time here (apart from the random annoyances due to interpersonal differences). I can't wait to share all of my pictures, videos, and stories with you! Love you all!

Lazy Post

Today we went to the Hsinchu Science Park. Basically, it's a bunch of research institutions in the same area near two universities. I'm having to keep a blog for my course here too, and I've already blogged about my day on there. So, instead of copying it over here, I figured you can just click on the link below and read it if you want.

I went to dinner with David and my southern belles (Becky and Paulina from Middle Tennessee State University). We had noodle bowls that were amazing. My spicy chicken dish was 好吃 (hǎo chī), or delicious! Then, the four of us did some shopping around Chung-li and now, I'm going to bed! G'night world!

I Can't Speak Mandarin; That's a Probelm!

July 13 - Day One of Field Trips

We went to Taipei and Danshui today. They were both really interesting, but I'd rather tell you a fun little story. We have two tour guides with anglified names, Stanley and Danny. You'll remember that Danny is sort of our group leader, but you don't know Stanley yet. Stanley is a student from CYCU participating in the Business Camp with us.

We've decided a few things:
1. Danny will never lead us astray.
2. Danny always appears when you ask for him, even from 10 miles away. It's instantaneous.
3. Danny's presence is felt before you see him.
4. Stanley is the most interesting man on the earth, and the coolest.
5. Stanley has no weaknesses.

Those are the simple rules we live by. Now to the story. On the way back to Chung-Li, Matt and Ivan started to doubt Stanley’s awesomeness by believing he had a weakness. They said lactose intolerance was his kryptonite. I remedied this fallacy by pointing out that milk was simply scared of Stanley, and wouldn’t stay in his body. Once again, there is consensus that Stanley has zero weaknesses.

Stanley then proved his own awesomeness by powning Ari. Ari said that he (Ari) didn't have any weaknesses. Stanley, without a second's hesitation, said, "Girls." The entire Business Camp erupted in laughter, because this is true. Then, Stanley paid for our taxi. The end.

July 12- Day One of Classes

This is going to be a short one (you're welcome)! We finally got to meet with the Business Camp and get to know everyone. The Opening Ceremony was pretty standard, and class was really interesting. We learned about the knowledge economy and management tasks.

My working group is Paulina (from Tennessee), Lydie (Anglo-fied from Taiwan), and Durant (semi-Anglo-fied from Taiwan). We don't really have topics like the Engineering Camp does, but we have a lot of group work. Neither Paulina nor I are business majors, but we managed to be the only group to give a presentation today without any criticism from Dr. Jih. Yeah, we're pretty awesome. Our team name is BAChungLi, or Bad Ass Chung-Li.

Side note- I'm thinking about changing my PhD focus into something linguistics-esque. Here's why: every time I speak a foreign language near one of its native speakers, he/she always starts rambling off in their language and I have to stop them. Dr. Jih thought I knew Mandarin because he heard me counting to ten and saying "Chung-Li." He told me my pronunciation was spot-on (and he'd been correcting everyone else all day!)!

After class, David and I went to dinner with some of the Business Camp and then walked the night market again. Now it's 9:10pm, and I think I'm going to go to bed. We are taking the train into Taipei tomorrow to visit a local company, and then taking another train to a village on the Taiwanese shore called Tamshui. Hope everyone is doing well!

Justin

PS- This toilet paper thing isn't as bad as I thought it was going to be...

July 11 - Day One in Chung-Li

We started the day off with a late breakfast around 10:15am at this little side-shop. I had a delicious dish that was essentially a pancake-wrapped egg topped with tofu and a syrupy substance. We also had a black tea with breakfast, but I wasn't a big fan of it.

After breakfast, Angie (our fearless leader) led us around Chung-Li (the city we're staying in) until 2:00pm or so. We went into a shoe store and to an RT Mart/mall complex. Ethan and I just randomly wandered around the store for 30 mins because neither of us wanted to buy anything.

The music in the RT Mart (and Chung-Li in general) is extremely random. While in the RT Mart, we heard a remix of Lady Gaga's "Poker Face" followed by the bluegrass instrumental "Home Sweet Home" (for those of you who don't know, I'm a bluegrass musician; that's how I was able to recognize the song).

We chilled in the dorms for a little while to cool down before going to a late-lunch/early-dinner (it's about 92 degrees with ridiculously high humidity). The guys and girls are in separate dorms on opposite sides of the CYCU campus. We also have different rules...the girls can only take their trash out 3 days a week, we can do it every day but Saturday...we can take our trash out from 9:30am-11:00pm, girls can only take theirs out from 10:30am-10:pm...guys can get into our dorms with our ID cards only, girls have to have a security card and ID card. It's pretty crazy. [Edit] Apparently they ran out of security cards for the guys and the girls' trash only runs on those days. Maybe not as bad as I thought.

After dinner and some rest, we went to the night market with the CYCU Engineering Camp. It was basically what we did all day anyway. A guy from the University of Michigan (GO BUCKS!), named Jason, joined Angie, David, Cassie, Jade, Jessica, and I on our shopping trip. He and I basically stood in the airconditioning while everyone else shopped. He's been here for 2 months and is learning Mandarin. I think we're going to try to hang out with him again at some point.

I'm starting to figure out which of the engineers I get along better with. Ethan, Phillip, and Cassie are the ones I like best. I spent a lot of time with Phil yesterday, a lot of time with Ethan today, and Cassie has pretty much been a constant since DAY. Everyone else is pretty awesome too, I just don't know them as well. At first glance, Zach and Ryan seem like your normal frat guys, but are really great once you get to know them. Jade is sweet, but fiesty and likes to walk as fast as I do...so, that's great. Loc is from Vietnam, so all of the Taiwanese folk keep trying to speak Mandarin to him assuming he speaks it; he does not. Jessica is pretty nice, but keeps to herself. I already knew David...obviously. Oh, Angie is really amazing. I enjoy talking with her, but I'm not sure she fully appreciates my sarcasm. She will by the end of the trip.

Miss you all!

PS- The beds here are extremely uncomfortable. We're sleeping on top-only bunkbeds (loftbeds) that have a 1/2 inch mattress. When someone sleeps on the mattress, it becomes about 1/5 inch. Ouch!

July 9/10 - Traveling

I arrived at the Dayton International Airport (DAY) on time (barely) and got through check-in/security without any problems. I slept for most of the plane ride to Houston. In Houston, we had a small layover during which we went to the Fox Sports Bar and drank our breakfast. I had an ammaretto sour; it was delicious.

The flight from Houston to Tokyo was much better than my flights from Dulles to Beijing and Dulles to Geneva. We flew on a brand-new Boeing 777 that was amazing! Whereas most international flights have 7 video channels that play movies at certain times, this plane had personal, touch-screen monitors that offered 137 different movies-on-demand. There were also about 25 TV shows and 500+ songs.

I started the flight with When in Rome and then slept for two hours. I woke up for some food, learned to count to 20 in German (I don't remember how now...I think "eins" is one and "sieben" is seven), and slept for another hour. Then, I watched the new Star Trek movie! After that, I pretty much slept the entire flight. I was only awake about 8 of the 13.5 hours.

The layover in Tokyo was annoying because there was nothing to do in our terminal. We sat and watched a re-run of some soccer match. During this time, I also freshened up on the important Chinese characters I've learned for the trip. Then, we had a nice little flight to Taipei...during which...you've probably already guessed, I slept. Flights are glorious when you sleep throughout them!

We rode a bus to Chung Yuan Christian University (CYCU) and were welcomed by our program directors. Their names are ___________ and Gary. Gary is David's and my program coordinator...the other guy coordinates the engineering program. Both of them have Anglo-fied names. David and I have a student "helper" named Danny (also Anglo-fied) who said he'd be back in 30 mins nearly an hour ago.

The dorms are really nice and roomy...this is probably because we're two people in a four-person dorm. The major downfall is that the Taiwanese do not flush used toilet paper. Instead, they throw it in a trash can and empty that every couple of days. Not to be culturally insensitive, but...gross. I don't want to smell shit for three weeks. Sorry.

Sorry this post is so long...I wrote it Saturday night while waiting for Danny to get here. David and I still have zero details on our program, but we're just going to go with the flow and see what happens. Hope you're all doing well!