You need a so-called visitors visa when you stay in Taiwan for less than 6 months. So, this is applicable for me.  When you enter Taiwan you get a visa for 3 months and you have to extent it within 15 days before expiration. For me the time was there so went to the National Immigration Agency. Once I was there I filled in a form and copied some documents before I moved to the counter. There they told me that I was at the wrong NIA. Why? Well, I live in Taipei County and that means you have to go to the SAME agency at another place… No matter what I tried, rules are rules. So next day I went to the other place and here it as done within a minute! Stupid bureaucracy…

The Taiwanese government has a nice way to overcome that shops and other firms exempt tax payment. There is a code of 8 numbers on every receipt and with this code you can win prices up to 3 million NT. The lottery is once in the two months and this was the first time for me to check the numbers. I collected all my receipts for the months September and October. At least 300 so I expected to win something. However, didn’t even won the lowest price, 200 NT. Damn, Im pissed now…

I had to fill in the application letter for the NTU before I came to Taiwan. This included my personal information as well as a questionnaire: Are you addicted to chewing betel nut? Hmmm, I have no clue what that is, but to be honouts Im not addicted. After some research I found out that this is the Asian type of chewing on tabocco. The nuts are often sold at traffic lights or by so-called ‘betel nuts girls’! Taxi drivers use it a lot, because it keeps you awake. One betelnut has the same amount of cafeine as 6 cups of coffee!!

One week ago was not the best weekend here in Taiwan. I went to the nightmarket and enjoyed the Indian chicken there. The taste wasn’t good, but I was hungry so I finished it. This was on saturday and the whole sunday I felt horrible. Nevertheless, I was still able to undertake things and eat. However, during the night I felt warm, cold and warm again. Also needed to go to the toite every 15 minutes! So the next day, Ashley and her mom wanted (forced :P) me to go the hospital! First I refused, but maybe it was the best option so let’s go!!! After 10 minutes we arrived at the ER room of the General Veterans Hospital in Taipei. They immediately wanted to know my pulse, asked for my symptons, checked my blood and I had to give them a poop sample. What an experience… I was forced to stay in bed during the time my blood and poop were checked. Overall it took 2 hours. The final result was, what a suprise, that I ate something wrong! I could only drink water and at toast for the coming 3 days. In addition, I had to take 3 pills, 3 times a day after every meal! At the end of the day I felt better and took my last pill…
It is funny to see for what reason Taiwanese people go the hosptital. Even a cold is a reason and they get a package full of pills to combat the cold!! In the Netherlands, in most places I think, you just stay home for one day and the next day you feel better!! Nevertheless, it was a lovely experience to stay in the ER with all those old and sick people…

On tuesday night I enjoyed tasteful Chinese breakfasat. In the Netherlands we would call this ‘fast food’! However, the Chinese fast food is somehow different than in Europe. No kebab or fries! Here you enjoy papaya milk, omelet on a sandwich and some typical Taiwanese dumplings. Mostly, these kind of restaurants are open 24 hours and they have customers 24 hours longs! The food is not expensive and, I have to admit, the food is good!!

Finally, the month december is there!! This means Christmas and in the Netherands we normally have a 2 week Christmas break. In Taiwan we don’t have a Christmas break. Moreover, not even a day of on 25th or 26th!! They still decorate the shops and try to give you a Christmas feeling besides the fact that local Taiwanese don’t celeberate Christmas here the way we do in The Netherlands. There is a big Christmas tree in front of Taipei 101, the employees of the big malls all have a Christmas outfit and the shops sell gifts! In addition, shopping malls like the SOGO also have special Christmas discounts. So it is the best to avoid those places during weekends! I don’t have concrete plans for Christmas yet. Maybe, I try some cooking or go to a nice place  with friends to enjoy an extensive meal!!

Last weekend was nice weekend. Especially compared to the weekend where I was sick! Me and Ashley went on a trip on Saturday. We visited Yilan which is a place to the east! 1 hour driving away from Taipei! Yilan is not mentioned in the Lonely Planet and now I know why. There is not much to see except a, according the Yilan citizins, ‘famous’ alcohol/beer distillery. Well, I don’t really understand why this is famous, because there was really nothing interesting to see. So we decided to move on to the Taiwan Traditional Art Center. This is very popular among Taiwanese people thus it was a busy happening. Performance by people dressed up as animals, shows for the children and all kind of different shops selling local food and souvenirs. A nice place to walk around!! We decided not to take the same road back to Taipei, but to go via the coast road! It turned out to be a road with some beautiful scenery. We stopped by at a local fish market to buy fried crab and also walked around on the beach! It was already getting dark and it was only 12 degrees, but we decided to go to Jufen as well. Now we are there… However, the route we took wasn’t the fastest one. We drove 20 minutes up a mountain road. No other cars, no lights and no sign of life!! Once in Jufen we walked around in the old street. Again with food stalls, souvenir shops and teahouses! Dinner was a surprise for me, and it was a good one! We went to a Taiwanese chain famous for its dumplings!! In addition to the dumplings I had fried rice and fried noodle!! Overall, a lovely saturday!!

On sunday afternoon we visited the Taipei Zoo. Only for 1,5 hours which was too short, because the Zoo was really nice! The Taipei Zoo is really nice, especially compared to the zoo where I went to in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. In Taipei they have many animals, the cages are quite big, not expensive and it is clean!!! We didn’t have time to go to the Pingui House! That was a pitty, because I like those animals!!! But Taipei Zoo is definitely a nice place to go to for a day trip. I would advice not to go there during the summer. It can be hot there, because there is not much shadow!!!

I wasn’t expecting this when I left The Netherlands for my 6 months trip to Taiwan. I packed my suitcase carefully: Enough socks, underwear, shoes etc. However, I didn’t bring any warm clothes with me like a jacket. The last 1,5 week, the weather is not that nice overhere. By day it is ok, but during the night it can be cold. I don’t mean cold in the sense that you have to wear gloves and stuff, but just too cold to walk with a t-shirt only. Nevertheless, I received some positive news from The Netherlands. I will receive a package within the coming week. The content is a surprise, but I politely asked my parents to include a jacket in the package! So from next week I have more protection. Till that time, I can use two jackets from Ashley to protect myself against the Taiwanese weather extremes;)

There are not so many things that I can’t resist, but chocolate is definitely one of them. Unfortunately, they don’t sell that many (good) chocolate in Taiwan. Of course they sell M&Ms, but only in those small packages. I just want a big one!!!!!! Even at the big supermarkets they don’t sell big packages or other good bars of chocolate. The best you can get is Ritter Sport! Luckely, there was the opportunity to go to a wholesale shop and I was hoping that they had some nice chocolate overthere. Finally, after we almost seen everything, there it was: The big M&M bags. 1,5 kilograms:) Will be busy with this one for a while…

In one of my previous posts I told you about my first haircut experience in Taiwan. I was not that satisfied so to say… It seems that it is normal here to cut/shave your hair as a straighline in the back. It looks ridicolous, but almost all the Taiwanese guys have this in common! Secondly, the Taiwanese guys don’t really have a haircut, so maybe the hairsalons find it difficult to make something out of it?!? Thereore, I decided to go to a slightly more expensive one near my place, in the person of Ashley I took a good translator with me! We immediately made clear that I didn’t want a straight line in the back… The final result was satisfying. They did a good job in the back, but I still found my hair a little bit too long. However, overall it looks good!

Gladly, the mid-term exams are over!! It turned out to be not that difficult which was mostly due to the way the exams are made. The questions were not that difficult! I already have 3 out of the 4 results. Respectively a 87, 83 and a 95 for Chinese. So I am more than satisfied. The next 1,5 month will be dedicated to group projects for almost all courses. Hope this will also turn out to be not too time consuming. One of the things I recognized is that the Taiwanese professors don’t want their students to fail. For example, my weekly homework is almost always graded in a scale of 85 to 95. In the Netherlands we would never get high grades like this.

There was also some other good news from the Netherlands besides my package. My grandfather finally has Internet connection which means that he is able to write me e-mails (at least tries) and to Skype with me! My parents also told me that we will have a new cat when I arrive home. Our other cat died about 1 month ago and my parents immediately decided to take a new one. They already send me some pictures and he looks really cute!! Hope he can handle our dog…

Last weekend was another weekend without partying. No clubbin on friday or saturday. On saturday afternoon me and Ashley went to Yangminshan National Park. This is to the north of Taipei and is a nice area to walk around and enjoy the fresh air! We visited a waterfall and walked in a sort of park! After that, once the sunset started, we went up the hill by car to visit a place where smoke comes out of the mountain, because of the sulphur. Of course, the smell overthere was not that good, but the view was beautiful. On sunday, we decided to go to Keelung which is even more in the north. Here we went to a statue of 22 meter in height! From this point you had an overview of the harbour. The complex also included a temple, but the whole area is ruined by all different kind of children attractions. Race cars, stupid games etc. After that we went to a nightmarket to enjoy some noodles, rice and chicken roti! Overall, my weekend was relaxing and I got new energy for the coming week…

Last weekend was different compared to other weekends in Taipei. The thing is that the weather is getting worse! With worse I don’t mean that it is raining all the time (it did rain all the time), but it is getting cold!! For the first time I felt cold in Taipei. Breeze, cloudy. Brrr!! I was complaining about the hot weather, but this is also no my upmost desire! Once I wanted to go outside in the weekend I realized that I don’t have something warm with me. I lost my only sweater. Let’s do some shopping this week…

The weekend started pretty relaxed on fridaynight, but I felt more tension once the night progressed! This, because I had an appointment to visit the Shilin Nightmarket. Not for the clothes, but to eat local typical Taiwanese food together with Ashley, Alexandra (her German friend) and Alexandre (Alendra’s boyfriend from Suisse) I immediately had my regrets after I gave permission to lead me there! So, enjoyed a good dinner before I went to Shilin, because don’t want to ruin my dinner with this weird food creations. The first dish is the most famous one: Stinky Tofu. As the name implies: it stinks! So when you bring your chopsticks with the stinky tofu to your mouth you will immediately smell it! However, I am here now, so why not? Result: I even took a second piece, but don’t want to conclude that I enjoyed it that much! It was better than I expected, to put it that way! Not too disgusting, but definitely not my favourite! Second dish: Oyster Omelet! This was OK! You don’t taste the oyster that much and additionally I like omelet! On the other hand, a jelly piece of oyster doesn’t make the omelet look more attractive to eat! My third and last dish sounds the most disgusting and also made me a little bit scared beforehand: Pig Blood Rice Cake… The imagination to eat pig blood…. However, the ‘group pressure’ made me do it! And, to be honest, it wasn’ bad. Tasted like peanut! Overall, I enjoyed the nightmarket and it was a nice experience to try those dishes. Nevertheless, I am still not a big fan of Taiwanese cuisine! Well, they try their best….

In Taipei you also have big supermarkets like Jason’s or Carrefour besides the small ones like 7-eleven or Family Mart. Also showed my parents the Jason’s in Taipei 101 and they liked it immediately! Tasteful wines, food from all over the world and a good bakery! Taiwanese people enjoy their local food, but they also eat a lot of foreign food. So food from The Netherlands is also available here. Duo penotti (chocolate to put on bread), typical Dutch waffles and the so-called Pieterman Chocolate euro coins! Haha! Was surprised at the time I found out that they sell all this stuff…

It is a shame that soccer in Taiwan is not that populair as in Europe. They watch baseballor basketball all the time! However, there are different sport bars in Taipei where they broadcast soccer. Mostly this will be the English league! Not much attention for the Dutch league. The time difference is a con when I would like to watch the Champions League or so. That starts at 3 o’clock at night local time! So most of the time I just watch the summaries online. In addition, I also miss to visit soccer matches of my club! Me and my father have a season ticket and currently we are number 1! Not bad:) My father keeps me up to date during the games! Look forward to watch a game in the stadium…

I’m deeply sorry that I didn’t post anything for the last 2 weeks. My parents and girlfriend visited me and besides that the mid-term exams are also approaching. Will not give you a summary of things I did in the last 2 weeks, because that would be too boring. I want to tell you something about the differences in the way of living in Taiwan compared to The Netherlands. However, in the first place my thoughts are with my cat. He died when in The Netherlands when my parents were in Taiwan. We had the cat for almost 14 years so I will miss him:( Nevertheless, my parents already decided to take a new cat!!

It was also hallowen in Taipei on friday the 31st. I have no clue why they celeberate this western festival in Taiwan. They copy the US with many things, so why not halloween as well? For halloween you need to buy a costume of course. I went to the nightmarket and my friend and wore the same outfit. Totally pink including a pink swimcap! We looked ridicolous!! Halloween is getting more popular in Taiwan. It starts on kindergarten where the children go to class in a costume. That was really funny to see and at night they do the trick and treat! I also bought some nice t-shirts on that nightmarket besides my halloween outfit. However, it took a while to get them, because the salesman were on the run for the police. They don’t have a legal place to stand, so when the police comes by they immidiately start packing their stuff. Unfortunately this happened to us, so we had to wait for a while before they had the guts again to build up their stand.

The ’security’ people are one of the things you notice when you are in Taiwan. Those security people have the most useless jobs. For example, in the MRT you have to wait behind a yellow line even when there is no train approaching. I wanted to see what they would do if I put my foot over the line. I wasn’t even over it with my toe or a guy came to me. Good job:) Another example are the people who are controlling traffic. Nothing wrong with that! However, they do it on crossings where they have traffic lights! Most of the car and scooter drivers ignore those people, but at least they have a job…

It was so good to see my parents and girlfriend in Taiwan! Much better than chatting by phone or MSN. I use Skype a lot to contact my friends and family. It works perfectly and the costs for a phonecall are low when you call to cellphone in The Netherlands. When I call to my parents we both use Skype and then you don’t have to pay anything. My parents and I also turn the video on so that we can see eachother:) Obviously, there are also people who don’t have a computer. They can communicate with the traditional style: a letter! That is exactly what my grandma did:) So sweet. Also good to hear that everything is fine with her! Gave the letter a special place in my apartment…

I live in Taipei now for about 2 months and I finally went up Taipei 101. The tallest building in the world (not anymore I think, Dubai is higher by now, but who cares:)). In addition, Taipei 101 also has the fastest elevator in the world with a maximum speed of 1010 meter per second. Not bad… You go to the 89th floor from where you have a beautiful view. It is a pity that 101 is the only tall building in Taipei. So the skyline is not that impressive. Not comparable to Hong Kong for example!

I am in a good mood today and because the US election ended yesterday. No more spam on every website or television channel. It makes me nuts and I am glad that it is over! Most of the people I speak to hear in Taiwan are glad that Obama won. They believe in him! The first African American president! I am still cautious and will judge him after 4 years, but I am convinced that he will do good! To stay in contact with my friend I use Facebook. On this website you can also update your status. Yesterday almost everyone had something like: Go Obama or Obama = Change! haha!

Sorry, Sorry, Sorry… I didn’t write a post in ages. However, I got a good reason for thatJ My girlfriend, Celine, and parents visited me the past 1,5 week (my parents are still here) so I spend time with them. Will write a longer blog this time… I did a lot of sightseeing, eating, clubbin and good conversation with Celine besides my classes. Shall not talk about this too much, but will talk about the things that attract my attention during my stay in Taipei. How do I deal with those things? To start with, I received a sad message from the Netherlands. My sister mailed me with the announcement that our cat died. Our neighbours found him, our 14 year old cat! Sister was not at home, parents on vacation in Hong Kong and I am in Taiwan. Difficult… My parents were emotional that our cat died, but I didn’t pay much attention yet to his death. I think this will come when I arrive home. No cat in front of the door, no cat and dogs fight. It is good to know that my sister and the neighbours barried the cat in the garden. Flos R.I.P.

First I start with the some things I did wih Celine. After a wonderful first weekend we still have 1 week to go:) Celine did sightseeing on her own during the time I had Chinese class on monday morning. A girl, alone in Asia for the first time! Very brave:) She visited the 2 memorial halls and some other things before she met me at the university. Had some local meal for lunch before I went home to, unfortunately do some homework. We spend the night walking around, eating curry and ended in Brown Sugar. I talked about this before and tonight it was relaxing again. Lovely jazz music and a good singer. We were sitting in front of the stage and therefore the singer picked us during his show. Good entertainment!

It was time for shopping on tuesday night! First introduced Celine to Bongos (I go out for dinner every day, so I sometimes visit the same places;)) and after dinner Q, Celine and I went to Shilin nightmarket. Celine was in the mood for some shopping and Q and I were looking for our halloween outfit. At first sight, they treat halloween quite seriously. Decorated shops and houses and clubs arrange different festivities. Halloween is on friday the 31st. I am not going to collect candy with ‘trick or treat’, but I will definitely want to taste the atmosphere on the street. Dressed up of course! Back to the nightmarket… When we arrived the police was just patrolling along the market to look for ‘illegal’  traders. Think about Florence or Barcelona scenes: The traders show their stuff in the middle of the road. Meanwhile they listen to their walkie talkie carefully. Once they hear that the police is coming they load their stuff and hide in shop, run into an alley or just stand next to the street while pretending that they are innocent. They give some traders fines, but by far not everybody. What if the police don’t like you? The shitty thing was that this happened when we arrived and those people sell the nice and funny t-shirts. I finally found 5 nice shirts, including one halloween shirt. I was relieved that they sold those in medium, because the weird thing is that almost everything is sold in large. I think this because Asian people are tall…

Unfortunately I have mandatory class whole day on tuesday and wednesday. Lunched with Celine but met her after class at home. We had Teppanyaki for dinner (Celine liked it of course), showed Q’s house and afterwards had some drinks in Carnegier. In my earlier blogs I wrote about all the rules in the MRT. They have, for example, a yellow line and you are not allowedto cross that line before the MRT arrives. Celine and I wanted to test this… I crossed the line with my big toe and immediately a ’security’ guy approached me and warned me. I had to takesome steps back! You see many of those security guys throughout Taipei. They walk around in the MRT or they control the traffic. At least, try to control while it is not necessary. You can call it job creation… We were waiting near Taipei 101 at a busy crossing. However, everything was arranged with traffic lights, so no one is needed to tell what the drivers have to do! In the middle of the road there was a guy arranging the traffic and blowing on his flute. He made weird movements and everyone ignored him…

Thursday was the day my parents arrived in Taiwan. They have a good hotel near Ximen and easy to get there with the MRT. Around 5 o’clock we arrived at their hotel and it was good to see my parents again! They visited Bali before they came to Taiwan so they got tanned. However, my father fell from his scooter on Bali. Stitches in his knee and elbow. The good thing was that he wore a helmet, because otherwise he would have fallen with his head on the ground. I’m happy he sits next to me now:) It is pleasant to speak to your parents with Skype, but it is much nicer to see them in real life:) Skype is cheap and handy, but it it different. I skype on a regular basis with the people in the Netherlands. Last week, I called my grandfather and it was so good to speak to him and my grandmother! They were surprised to hear my voice:) Another nice function of Skype is the video function so that you can see eachother! When you don’t have a computer it is still possible to contact me. Just write me a letter! I received one from my grandma on the day that my parents arrived. What a surprise:) It was a sweet letter and everything is alright with her! Gave the letter a special place in my apartment….

Showed the campus to my parents on friday! Not the whole campus of course, but just gave them an impression. Visited the memorial halls and the Longshan temple in the afternoon. My parents have seen a lot of temples during that trips, but this was one of the best Chinese temples they ever seen. Beautiful decoration, extra ordinairy sight and we were there at praying time. That creates an extra dimension. Not only tourists who take photographs, but the local people who visit this place everyday! We ended up in La Bastille after the sightseeing. Here my father could finally drink his belgium beer:)

Yesterday was my first wednesday night since I arrived in Taipei that I was at home before 12 o’clock! Mostly we are attending the ladies night in Carnegies. However, I also have to get my rest and going to bed early is, sometimes, not bad. Unfortunately, I have the intention to go to bed early, but I am not tired yet around midnight. I am used to a completely different rhytm…

In my room back in the Netherlands I normally get tired around 11.30, This because I mostly arrive home at 6. Thereafter I am bored with watching tv, playing on my notebook or occasionally making homework. Here in Taipei I arrive home at midnight by taking the last MRT. You don’t live in your room, like in the Netherlands, but outside. The people in Asia live on the street. For example, in the Netherlands all shops are closed at 6 but here they are open till 10. In addition, you have the nightmarkets, teahouses and foodcourts. Suitable to hang around with friends. Playing cards or chatting it doesn’s matter, we always have fun!

About my rhytm. I booked some succes this week by going to the gym in the morning. More specifically, I was in the gym at 8! This is early for me, but I like to work out before class. However, that I go to the gym before Chinese class also has consequences for my fellow students. The fact is that the gym doesn’t have an appropriate shower. Read: Dirty! So I smell and look sweaty during Chinese class… Nevertheless, I will definitely continue with working out in the morning, because the gym is almost empty. This means that it is easy to do your own program. You don’t have to wait do your excercises what is the case at the end of the afternoon!

I also, unfortunately, choose a wrong course. The content is defying and interesting, but the classes are sooo boring! The professor literally tells the book. Same examples, same pictures. This is not too bad, because when a person is a captivative narrator it can still be interesting to listen. However, he doesn’t has this gift.  We go through the slides so slowly which he by the way reads out literally.  In addition, the content also includes difficult (long) mathematical formulas and he thinks we already know them. It is so-called basic knowledge! Before he even finished the first half of a formula I loss my concentration and don’t understand it at all. I, with my ‘brilliant’ mathematical background, will have several difficulties when we are talking about sigma’s, alpha’s and standard deviations. The funny thing is, or not, that I have another course on thursday. Guess who is my professor…

I also had a funny experience yesterday. My student assistant plays in a band and she invited me and Q to watch their first performance. We went, together with Q’s brother, to a mall where they have a small bar in the basement. The show already started when we arrived. Once inside, it turned out that it was a welcome party for new NTU students of a specific department. The attending students all looked very young (more high school students) and this was also how they acted. Throwing noodles, standing in a circle and yelling to eachother or making stupid jokes. Weird to see, but at the same time nice have this experience once. My student assistent played not bad at all by the way. However, they should tell the lead singer that she has to throw the microphone away. I was bad with KTV, but this…

Rest of the week a busy program. Cases to read, have to write an essay, Chinese homework and the mid-term exam period is approaching. However, the first thing I am going to do now is sleeping. Tomorrow I go to the airport to pick up my girlfriend! Looking forward to that…

After an intensive week learning the Chinese language it was time to do something relaxing and fun. Always wanted to go to KTV in Asia and on saturday the moment was finally there:) Mostly, you do KTV at big branches like Party World. Open 24-7. So, if you are in a mood to sing on a wednesday afternoon you can go there! At 9 o’clock in the evening we arrived at the place. There I was, in the ‘walhalla’ of karaoke in Asia… The KTV room was clean and ours could be used for around 12 people. There is also the possibility to order drinks and food by phone. The price of beverages are cheap compared to other bars and clubs in Taipei, so we immediately ordered a bottle of whiskey and some snacks. The people who joined me to KTV all speak Chinese. As a result we, unfortunately, started with some Chinese classics. Just to get started… At that time I was still preparing my voice for my moment of truth. Finally it was time for the English songs after the I-never-want-to-listen-to-this-music-again songs;) However, I was not in charge of the playlist, because it is in Chinese. What artists were selected? 5 songs of the Backstreet Boys, 5 songs of Britney Spears, 6 songs of Michael Jackson… I am not a big fan of this kind of music, but we had much fun. Especially with the ‘Earth Song’ of Michael Jackson. Q and I did a good job. Haha. Unfortunately, it was recorded on video;) All together, I had a great time. Can’t wait for our next KTV…

Monday I had my first Chinese test. We needed to write down the PinYin after our teacher pronounced it. Pinyin is the most common Mandarin Romanization, so without characters. The test went pretty good, but I have to adapt to the way all those letters are pronounced. For example, -iu is pronounced as -io or -qi is pronounced as -tji. We also started with writing Chinese characters and I have to say that this is the most difficult part. Even more difficult than the pronounciation. I’m so bad in art and now I almost have to make a painting to only say my name! Nevertheless, I am able to write my name and 1 till 10 now. Seems impressive, but it still looks like shit! Also trying to listen to people on the street so I get more feeling with the language. Of course, I don’t understand a thing of what they say, but I can here the tones. In addition, in the Chinese language you only use the whole verb. Thus no different form for I and you. That’s positive; not that much memorizing…

Besides the 5 days a week Chinese (from 10.20 till 12.10) I also have classes from tuesday till thursday which start on 14.20. So, I have 2 hours in between to have a good lunch! Most of the times Q, Peter and I have lunch together. There is the seduction of going to the Subway, it’s near the place where our Chinese classes are, but last 2 weeks I am trying to eat more Chinese food. However, I don’t pick the most exotic dishes. Go for the safe choice, like beef noodle or fried rice. Not bad, but it tastes like nothing and you are hungry again within 1 hour. So, after 2 days Chinese food it is time for western food again! I am glad that there are many restaurants near the university serving good western food. However, if I am hungry during class it is also possible to go to 7-eleven and buy a dirty, fat piece of bread with ham and egg. It is nothing, but sometimes still better then Chinese food…

I live in Taipei now for more than 1 month which results in the fact that I know several good restaurants to have dinner. And then I am talking about restaurants which serve western food;) Here are some examples, just to illustrate how bad it is to live in Taipei… I go to Bongo’s at least once a week. Tasteful hamburgers, good mexican food, lovely sandwiches for lunch and they even have German sausages. I admit that I prefer the hamburger… On wednesday’s it is Teppanyaki day for Q and me. Fresh Japanese food. After the Teppanyaki we often head towards McDonalds to get a McFlurry. When I am in the mood for pita bread, Doner Kebab, then I just go to Sababa. The potatoes are also so good here! Pizza? Alleycat’s, the pizza’s tastes like if they come straight from Italy. Look forward to show my girlfriend, who will arrive the 17th of october, and my parents, they arrive the 23rd of october, some of these places. Nevertheless, I guess I also have to take them to a nightmarket for the local food…

Today I experienced some typical Asian bureaucracy. Many students of the NTU have a bike, because the distances are sometimes quite big to complete it by foot. It takes at least 25 minutes from one side to the other side of the campus. However, you are not allowed to park you bike at any place you want. There are assigned places. Peter parked his bike on a place where it was not allowed to park. He left his bike for only 5 minutes, but it was too late. They took his bike. Therefore, he needed to go to the dump place. They told us that you only need your student card and your key. Once we were there it turned out that you also need a picture of your bike. You can get one from some kind of website. Ridicolous! And of course, we never heard about this before. Anyway, Peter didn’t get his bike, even when he showed that his key was the right one for the lock. Irritating…

The last couple days it is getting a little bit colder. More clouds, rainy. Hope the weather will turn around the coming weekend. By the way, with ‘colder’ I mean 25 degrees celsius. Still not bad Will continue now with my Chinese. Have to hand in my homework tomorrow. Write your name in characters 10 times…

A new message from Taipei! The news from Europe that the autumn has started satisfies me. I made the right decision, because here in Taiwan it is still 27 degrees. However, last weekend it was a little bit windy and rainy…

I think that everyone heard about the typhoon that hitted Taiwan last weekend. It was even on CNN! The toughest and heaviest of this typhoon season and already the third one since I arrived in Taiwan at the end of August. Nevertheless, there was no real damage in Taipei, but the typhoon caused much damage in the middle and south of Taiwan. Landslides, blocked roads and damaged houses. Everyone was warned for the coming typhoon, but (again) I forgot to buy food. And the shitty thing is that the typhoon was the heaviest around 6. Damn, I’m hungry!! Finally, I decided to go outside and it turned out that that the typhoon was loosing some of his strength. It was not even raining anymore around 7! Anyway, I am done with those typhoons now, because all the time they come in the weekend! The good thing, however, is that we were free from classes on monday. Not bad…

My apartment is on the 5th floor so I can hear and almost feel the heavy rains and wind pretty good. I could even see things flying in the air during a typhoon, but I still feel safe up here:) However, last week I discovered a nasty thing. The thing is that I suddenly have ants in my bathroom. Not one, but plenty of them! I immediately turned into an ant hunter of course! My first move was to kill them with hot water, but after an hour the ants returned! My second move was to use the shower and spill over their hole with water for at least 5 minutes. Didn’t work! Finally, I searched on the internet and found a method so that they leave: Garlic! The article stated that it definitely works, but not with me! After a couple of days I started to get really pissed, but 2 days ago they were gone! My advice: just use water instead of garlic! 

The food, as stated in my previous posts, is really good here in Taipei. Many good restaurants with Western food. In addition, for breakfast you also have plenty bakeries and I need those. I can only survive the day when I eat bread in morning. No noodles for me at that time! However, I’m starting to get bored from all those croissants and fat garlic breads. Therefore I decided to go to Jason’s. Jason’s is a big supermarket chain and it sells food from all over the world! I immidiately went to the cheese section once I was there. And there it was: Lovely Dutch Gouda cheese. They even had cheese in the shape of a wooden shoe. Can’t be more Dutch:) Of course, I asked whether it was possible to taste all the different sorts of cheese. The taste was so good!!! I also like to eat sweet things on my bread and the Jason’s thinks along with me. They sell typical Dutch chocolate to put on your bread! Lovely! In addition to that, I also bought some fresh turkey! Normally, I don’t like shopping at all, but this time it felt so good. Left the store with a feeling which is hard to describe! Haha. At least, the start of my day will even better from now….

Wednesday I finally had my first Chinese class! I’m curious…
The first thing I noticed was that our class is great. No one is familiar with the Chinese language and in addition I also know most them from other classes. We often laugh and joke during class. Especially our pronounciation. It’s so bad. The good thing is that we first start with the pronounciation part. Therefore you start with learning the 4 tones and I have to say that I’m slightly improving!! We also learned some common sentences (How are you etc), numbers and several useful words. It would be awesome if I can speak a little bit Chinese when I go back to The Netherlands. This language sounds really cool! It is also nice that we don’t use our Western name in class, but our Chinese. My name doesn’t mean anything, but sounds good! My Chinese name is: Yongnisi.

I am also busy with other courses besides the Chinese course. For example, I already handed in my first group report for Asset Management. This resulted in my first grade, but it only counts for 1% of my overall grade. Nevertheless, I was happy with our 9,2! Of course, I am busy with the university, but I also need to relax from time to time. This varies from watching a DVD to playing cards. The good thing was that Q and I were called by 2 girls last week. They wanted to have dinner and have a drink afterwards. So after we enjoyed our tasteful dinner (New Zealand food) we visited a teahouse and they wanted to play cards. And they knew some nice games to play. However, we defeated them with almost every game. We had lots of fun and had a good time! KTV is also a common thing in Taiwan. Also known as karaoke. I still didn’t show my singing skills, but we are planning to go on saturday…

Was gezellig! Naast het feit dat Taiwanezen van kaarten houden, iedereen in het tea house speelde een potje kaart, houden ze hier ook van KTV. In Nederland bekend als karaoke. Dit nog steeds niet gedaan, maar nu besloten om dit zaterdag te doen. Samen met Kale Keesje en Q mij al druk aan het voorbereiden…

A fellow student, Peter Chau, and I decided  to go to gym on monday. Finally we made an appointment to go together, but once we arrived at the sports centre it turned out that it was closed! Then we have to think about something else. We decided to go to a Arcade Hall and played all sorts of games for about 1,5 hours. From basketball, playing drums to motor and car racing. Of course we also tried the Tekken game, but all the Taiwanese people know the game too good and they made more a less fun of us noobs! haha! We had a good time there and will definitely come here again! Next time I will try Dance Revolution;) Went with Q to the Japanese Tepanyaki restaurant in the evening. Was our fourth time already, because the food is so delicious here! The concept of Tepanyaki also exists in the Netherlands, but it is quite expensive. Here in Taipei it costs around 4 euro. They bake the meal in front of you with all kinds of fresh and spicy ingredients. The Japanese like the garlic taste! We went to a small bar after dinner to hang out with some friends and to play pool!

Tuesday is, without the Chinese courses yet, the toughest day in the week. A total of 6 hours class! It starts at 9.10 am with Services Marketing. This course is taught in an interesting and interacting way. Participation of students is a must and this leads to good discussions among the students. It is better than some other classes where they only explain the book which is too theoritical and boring! Asset Management is my second course on Tuesday. The bachelor I follow in the Netherlands is more management focused, but I have decided to attend more finance courses at the NTU. Asset management is pretty difficult, but interesting!
The registration for all my courses is almost finalized. For some courses I picked it is required to fill out a Personal Information form. This also includes your autobiography. With this information they get everyone his own nameplate so that it is easier to communicate. Participation is important for almost all courses and will also be graded. Overall, this system is pretty good and handy!

I went to a beautiful place to eat on Thursday evening. It is in the north of Taipei and it takes about 15 minutes with MRT and then 10 minutes by taxi. The restaurant is called The Top and, as the name implies, is located on the top of a hill. From the restaurant you have a beautiful view over Taipei City. I was lucky, because the weather was good. Good for pictures, but my photocamera failed. Pictures were vague, no matter what I tried. Good excuse to come back again:) At this place you don’t order 1 dish per person, but several small ones. So we ordered Dim Sum, Chicken Thai Style, Fried Shrimps and Noodles. Delicious

The temperature at The Top is really pleasant, but the last days it is so hot in Taipei! Was glad that went up that hill to enjoy the fresh air! During the day it is sunny, no shadow and about the 38 degrees. Thought that the temperature would drop at the end of September, but at the moment it is getting hotter! The heat can also be positive, because you sweat a lot. This in turn leads to a loss in wieght! I already lost 3 kilo’s without paying attention to my food!
Of course, I also have to go to the hairsalon now I live here. For the first time in Asia. Went there with 2 fellow students. They treat you as if you are a king. They wash your hair twice. Feels like a massage! Very nice! The hairdresser didn’t speak English so Peter explained what haircut I preferred! However, I didn’t trust it at all! I was nervous in a hairsalon. First time in my life! haha! She started cutting my hair there and then she took another spot. No logic at all. Completely different than in the Netherlands! The result was not satisfying for me, so I asked her to cut everything. Next time another hairsalon…?!

Sorry for the late post… I was really busy the last 1,5 week with arranging everything for the University, working out and cleaning my apartment! I am in Taipei now for almost 4 weeks and I have absolutely no regrets about my decision to go to Taiwan. What a wonderful and beautiful city. Ironically, I read about Taipei in a magazine and it is said that Taipei is the most underrated capital in the world. I definitely agree with that! Living here is so nice. You can get at any place you want with the MRT, you can eat whatever you want (no matter what kind of Western food) and the people here are nice and helpful.

I only relaxed and enjoyed the country in my first 2 weeks in Taipei, but last week the serious things have started. Of course, my goal is still to get my 30 credits. That’s where I am here for. I am still not used to the fact that I have to study in such a different surrounding than in the Netherlands. Difficult to concentrate on the classes and material, but I am sure that I get used to it:) However, at the NTU not everything goes the way I want it to go…

It started with the course registration as I mentioned in one of my previous posts. I, as a Undergraduate student, cannot register for most of the courses, because these are Graduate courses. However, we as exchange students are allowed to take the Graduate courses. The solution is that you go to the first class and you get a signature from the professor (why the online registration system??). So, monday morning my first class, International Marketing Management. I was glad that I could find the location easily, but the classroom was not luxurious. No AC and I only had an old chair with a small desk. Once I entered the room I found out that I was not the only exchange student who want to take this class. The professor was also surprised about this great number of interested students. This because they like to work with small groups so that there is many interaction among the students. And, just as I expected, amost everyone needed a signature after class. But suddenly the professor stopped to sign the course registration forms. The reason was that there were too many students who wanted to take the course. After a phonecall to the International Office of the NTU they gladly decided to add another session on a different day. That was alright, but I already decided not to take the course. On tuesday I had my first class of Asset Management. Again, the professor told us that he prefers to work with a small number of students. So the students who were not registered needed to sign a waiting list (so did I) and some students will then be picked from the waiting list. Nice policy!! On friday I received the results and I was allowed to take the course:)

Also went to the gym. I have to work out of course to get rid of the extra calories from the beers The weighting room of the NTU is quite new, but looks old and the dressing room is dirty, Nevertheless, they have all the stuff I need! It is not smart to visit the gym between 5 and 7 pm. It is so crowded that you have to wait before you can do your excercises. They even work with numbers! So, my work out scheme is finalized now once I found out about this. Only go to gym in morning or during lunch break.

Wednesday night last week I visited a bar called Carnegies. My friend Q and I were dressed up for a night of partying! We wore pink All Star shoes, a pink shirt, pink underwear and a ridiculous cap. It was fun and we had a good time. However, the Carnegies is more for older people than us, but the music is better than in most other clubs. Next day I had classes in the afternoon so that was a pity, but I made it:) No I go for diner! Tomorrow I will write my next post about this week’s experiences…