First Day. First impessions.

Today our day began about 6:00am. This was really early for me. We are also not allowed to go to sleep tonight until 9:00pm tonight and no nap. This is to help with the jet lag. I do not feel the side affect from jet lag yet, but we will see what happens. We had a tour of the school. If there is ever an emergency and we are unable to use the stairs we will be repelling out the window. Apparently sometime during the semester the fireman will be coming to help us practice this.
The most important part of the tour was how to properly sort the trash. As Taiwan is a small country with tons of people and very limited space, recycling is important to help keep it beautiful. If you mess up on the recycling process you will be fined for not recycling correctly. This work because instead of setting you trash in a trash can at around 3:00pm you hear a truck that sounds like the ice cream man. It is the trash people and you race outside giving one truck trash and the other recycling.
My first thoughts of Taiwan is that it has an interesting smell. It smells like fish and something else mixed together. The landscape is hills with Monasteries or cities with all the buildings pushed together so tight you start to feel claustrophobic. There is also a lot of smug. Sometimes when I breathe I feel as though I have sucked a bunch of junk that is sticking to my lungs. I think this explains why I see people wearing mask on their face all the time. The humidity is horrible here. It is about 82 degree, with 60 percent humidity. Yes, it is gross ans sticky.

I have arrived!!!!

It is crazy to think that I am in Taiwan! Many would think that a thirteen hour flight is very long and dreadful experience. However it was not as bad as I had expected. Each seat was individual equipped with its own headset and TV. You are able to make movie selections, listen to a variety of music, and play games. My favorite game was called world traveler. In this game you work on your basic language skills. On the plane I also made a friend. He is from Taipei, but had been attending school at UCLA. Upon arriving at the Airport we found all our luggage, but the person who was suppose to meet us was not there. Luckily they had left a message and we bought bus ticket to continue our journey down to Taichung were we would head towards Fang Yuan.

This was the best 1 1/2 bus ride of my life. We each had our own huge comfortable leather chair to stretch out in. I slept the whole time. Upon arriving at Berhan (the school we are teaching out) we had to drag our luggage up 4 flights of stairs. The first three floors are the school and the 4th floor is our living area. There will be a lot of walking up the stairs. I am in a room with 4 other girls. This might sound crowded, but the room is really big with plenty of person space for everyone. With the late hour it was off to bed with the excitement of getting up early to start training