Day 11 -- June 4

Today was perhaps the most normal day of Taiwan so far, there won't be many pictures. Nothing really to take pictures of. I got up around seven, did a bit of studying, talked to some people of Facebook, and got breakfast. I am becoming a permanent patron of Family Mart. I think I will try exploring a little bit for breakfast. I scoped out a place in the night market that might be open for breakfast, it’s hard to say. I headed off to my large lecture class around ten-ish. I ran into Jillian and Hitmoi-san ad we all sat together, I also met another student from France but his name escapes me right now...

    Class was good, it moves really fast though. I feel a little bit behind because I have absolutely no Mandarin, unlike most of the students. But I’ll figure it out, I actually feel a little bit bad right now, I’m mostly speaking in Japanese. There are a lot of Japanese students who do not speak English or Mandarin. It’s slightly odd. I hope as we continue learning Mandarin I will be able to transition into that language.

    When we got out of lecture it was absolutely pouring down. Big thick drops and hard, harder than I think I ever seen. Of course Jillian and I being the desert children we are were laughing as we got wet. Everyone was looking at us like we were slightly insane. We had to share an umbrella so we each got very wet because the rain was being blown about by the wind. Also the thunder and lighting were of epic proportions. The lightening doesn’t hit the ground, it says in the clouds then lets out the loudest boom, it rattles the windows. It was super cool, but rainy season has just begun who knows how I’ll feel about it by the end. From this experience I now own a sunny yellow umbrella....

    Language class, which only has 8 students, was quite intense. It’s three hours long, but it doesn’t feel like that. We learn so much that the time flies right by. Again there are many Japanese students in the class (Half the class). The teacher has taken to teaching as though all of us are Japanese, explain sounds using hiragana and such. It’s fine for myself and Xiao Long (James) but I’m not sure if Ruide and Shadia are appreciating the lesson. They seem to be doing alright though so I’m not too worried. We have a studied session tomorrow at 1, right before class so hopefully we’ll all do well on the quiz.



    I went out to dinner with Alex and Daniel. We ended up at a small dumpling joint, I had several different types of dumpling. I had fried curry and Korean as well as steamed curry. I was so good and very cheap. 5 NT for one dumpling. I was very happy with my meal. I came back to my dorm and studied more. The hardest part of Mandarin is the initial learning curve. So it I can clear this week, I will be over the hardest part in terms of beginners. And so goes another day in Taiwan.