Day 10 -- June 3

Today classes started for myself. I was off at about 10 in the morning to a large lecture hall. The University offers different big lectures to help supplement learning Chinese. For me this was my first lesson in Chinese. It was about tones and pronunciation. It’s harder than any other language I’ve attempted to learn but I am up for the challenge. I ended up sitting next to a woman who taught Japanese in the UK. Hitomi-san was very nice, we had a bit of a discussion in Japanese which was lovely. Then I was off for two hours to get lunch.

    I ended up running into Geoff and Claire, who were also going to lunch. I tagged along and ended up at the KGB (Kiwi Giant Burger). This would be my first burger in Taiwan. And to be totally honest, it was ok. I was super thrilled, Claire likes eating food from all over but I really just want to stick with Taiwan food for now. I’m not really craving American food. So after thatI swung by the dorms and stayed cool for a bit.

    At two I left for my actual intensive Chinese class. My teacher or 先生 (laoshi, I believe is the pinyin) is named Chen and is absolutely lovely. She a little bit loud and very forceful, but I have total faith she will teach me as long as I want to learn. We have four Japanese, two Canadians and one Colombian in the class. It’s actually quite nice to be the only American. I had fun talking with the Japanese students, one of the Canadians also spoke a little Japanese, so we skipped out on English. I feel a little bit bad looking back because there were two students who were totally lost.

    Class last for three hours and by then I was ready to be done.We were given our homework which wasn’t too bad. I met Jillian outside the classroom and we headed to go meet Mikey. Except Mikey cancelled last minute. So Jillian and I took the MRT down to the 101. We didn’t want to go up it we just wanted to check out the area. It was very commercialized through there were bits of art that were very cool. We wandered for about an hour than got back to the MRT. We road to CKS memorial and got dinner. I just had a rice dish but it was very good! I really enjoyed it.

    We walked back to the dorms and now it is time to begin studying for the quiz I have tomorrow. The intensive class is much faster paced and much more... well intense. I will be studying a lot I am sure. It’s good though I will need it, I am excited to get started on this journey. Well here goes nothing!!