Wednesday

I have a bit of time before we head out to the club so I've decided to do a short recap of today.


I woke up starving so I popped out of bed and went out with Claudia and Tatianna to a local breakfast spot. This is the same meal I ate the first day I was here with my buddies - the crepe with egg inside and special sauce. I don't know what it is and I don't care.


Tatianna and Claudia enjoying their crepes. After breakfast the girls took off downtown to do some sightseeing, but I had already committed to lunch and shopping with my buddy.

After another Skype conversation with Davin I met up with Frances and her friend Linda. We went to the store and they helped me pick out laundry soap and pick up my photos for my gym membership. Then we went to lunch.


I feel like we are always eating. This is a dish from the best restaurant on the strip outside the university gates (so Frances tells me). I have tried to come here twice before but it has always been packed. I let them order for me and they picked a rice noodle soup with chicken - I really liked it. We also shared a spicy sour chicken plate which was really really good.


Frances and Linda.


For dessert we had the typical Taiwanese dish - bubble tea balls in coconut milk (shown above). I now see why the Taiwanese are so small - they aren't eating cheese cakes and gooey chocolate chip cookies after their meals. Maybe I'll develop some better habits here. I've drank more milk these past few days than I have in the past few years. :O


Over lunch Frances and I came up with a great idea. In all of these restaurants you have to order by filling out a sheet just like the one shown above. What Frances is going to do is circle the items on these sheets that I really like, write the name in English and write the price. She will do this for every restaurant we go to together and by the end of the semester I will have one big book of all the "good" dishes (according to westerners) that I can pass on to future generations of exchange students. Good idea? I thought so.

After lunch I said goodbye to Linda and Frances. They were going to take me to get a cellphone but I thought the prices were too expensive so she is going to look around for a second hand one and get back to me.

I had the whole afternoon off so I decided to climb up a mountain. I looked at the name of this mountain over and over again so that I could mention it here but I've definitely forgotten.


I ran into Izzy, a sweet Polish girl, and Daria and they decided to come too. This is a picture of them at the top of the mountain. Daria is pointing out Taipei 101 located in downtown Taipei - where we will be going out tonight. I believe it is supposed to be the second tallest building in the world.


It is a really pretty hike up the hill - about an hour to get up and down. You can see the entire district from the top and there is a temple at the peak if you want to go further. The path to the temple is just to the right of Daria and I in this picture. I will go up one of these days, but the girls had class so we had to keep moving.

Some of you may be wondering why I've been at school now for three days and only "the girls" are going to class and I am not. This is the great thing about the IMBA program. The courses are only held once a week for 6 weeks max and they are completely staggered throughout the semester. My first class will be this Saturday (Entrepreneurship) and it will continue each Saturday and Monday until March 15th. On March 14th I start my second course (Confucianism and Leadership) and that will continue on each Sunday until May 9th. Marketing Research begins Mid-May while Global Cross Cultural Marketing begins later that month. Finally I have Consumer Behaviour which begins early June. There really aren't that many days of class and if I wasn't taking Mandarin Language courses every Monday and Wednesday I would have a ridiculous amount of time off. For example, without Mandarin I would only have two days of attending class in April...I don't think I would know what to do with myself. Just wanted to clear that up (mom and dad) so you know I'm actually making good use of that tuition payment ;)


Now back to the day. We ran into this scene on the way down. We don't know what they were doing but it looked like they could be picking rice?


A picture of me overlooking the city close to the bottom.

When we finished our hike I went to the gym for a bit and then back to the room to nap - I think my body is still adjusting to the time change. It's now 10pm and I am all showered and ready for the night on the town. Talk soon.