Day 7 -- May 31

Got up today around nine, my roommates keep turning off the air so our room gets very hot and humid by the time morning rolls around. My morning was fairly unspectacular, I chatted with people on Facebook and went down the the cafeteria to get lunch/breakfast. I came back up and essentially played around on the computer until 1:45pm. I left the dorm and headed to the Bo-Ai building which houses the Mandarin Training Center or MTC. Today was orientation.

    I met with Johnny and James, we headed to the fifth floor. The orientation itself was rather boring. Explaining how classes work and how to deal with offices of MTC. It was interesting having to listen to everything twice as they did the entire speech in Mandarin then in English.  We were then ushered up to the 7th floor to get our class schedule, books, and free sim cards. It was funny having so many languages in the room, people were trying to understand each other and only a few could. I finally have a phone in Taiwan! I am so ready and not a moment too soon.

    After orientation Nick and Jillian took me to the Minimal Cafe which has cats running around. I got a coffee, which was 120 NT!!! That really expensive, holy crap more reason to switch to tea whilst I am here. It was fun playing with the cats and hanging out with some friends. We got my phone working while I was there. We talked about expectation for classes as well as studying Mandarin. We also went and played with the cats as a form of therapy. Then after about an hour we left and I headed back to the dorms.

    I stayed in for about an hour then headed out with the intent to go find food. I ended running into Sean, Geoff, James, Edward, and Mikey. I asked if I could tag along and we all went to a Sichuan restaurant. The food was absolutely excellent. I ordered a tofu curry like dish, it was spicy but not unbearably so. The lady who was cooking/serving us was hilarious. She decided that James needed all the spice. He ate all of his food just to spite her. It was super funny. There was so much food, I couldn’t even finish it all. I felt bad, but no else could finish, except James, so we paid and left. Then we decided to go to a cafe and grab a beer.

    It was nice just sitting and getting to know the guys, we had some very good discussions. We stayed for maybe two hours then headed back the dorms. Thankfully my roommates turned on the air so I am no longer dying of heat stroke. I just found out that everyone decided to cancel the trip to Taizhong, I’ll be honest I’m a little bummed, but this is life. So I think tomorrow I will go temple hopping. There are many famous temples in this area so I will just get on the MRT and see where it takes me. Hopefully Yen will be able to come but who knows. I will make it work.