Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Monday, Mom, Dad, and I flew up to Salt Lake on the first flight out. I honestly don't remember anything about that flight because I was asleep before we even left the runway (something about going to bed at 1:30 and waking up at 4 am). When we got to Salt Lake, we went ahead and checked me in for my flight to Taiwan so that we could just check my bags in and not have to lug them around with us all day. Good call. After picking up our "Pregnant Roller-skate" (that's what Dad kept calling our rental car), we went downtown to Temple Square and walked around for a bit before going to the 10 am endowment session.
Can I just tell you how amazing that was? I'd never been to a live session before, and I loved it! My grandpa was able to come to the session, to, and it was just so nice being with him and my parents in the Celestial room. I think that was the best way possible for me to start out my new adventure.
Well, after going to the temple, we went to P.F. Chang's and had lunch with Chillylint and some of my aunts, uncles, and cousins. Thank you to everyone who came! There were a lot more people that showed up then I expected, and it was just really nice. The food was also wonderful, even if it was overloaded with garlic.
After taking a much needed nap at Grandpa's, the parents and I made our way back to the airport. We got through security only to find out that my flight had been delayed for 2 hours, which meant that Mom and Dad would actually be leaving for home before I left for Taiwan. I met up with 5 of the other teachers there at the gate before we boarded; it was good to get a little more acquainted with them.
The flight to LAX was as uneventful as ever. I decided not to let my self sleep so that I could hopefully fall asleep better and sleep longer on the flight to Taipei, so I ended up watching
Up! instead (but had to finish it on my next flight because the movie was longer than the flight to LA).
When we got to LA, we had two hours until our next flight was supposed to take off. To get to the international terminal, though, we had to leave the secure area, go outside and walk for a million miles, and enter in at another security checkpoint where they checked our passports and whatever else. Then we booked it to our gate where we met up with one more teacher. She told us that they had been paging our names since she had gotten there, so we went up to the counter. The girl working at the desk got on the radio and said something like "It's OK! They're here now!" I am not real sure why they were so concerned? No idea. We got our seat assignments and were practically the white people to be seen.
That was the longest flight of my life! There was not a lot of legroom, so it was kind of hard to get comfortable. They served dinner towards the beginning of the flight; by the time they got to us (I was sitting next to Kylie, another teacher, and a bunch of Asians), they only had the fish left. The rice was... um. I've had better rice, and the fish (which I did try) was not good. I ate the roll and about half of the "dessert" (some type of gelatin or pudding- it wasn't bad, just not really super good, either), and then I finished watching
Up! and one other movie. It was my goal to stay awake until I knew it would be close to night-time in Taiwan. I think I went to sleep around 5 pm Taiwan time, but it wasn't a very restful sleep and I kept waking up. I probably slept for about 4-5 hours total on that flight; the rest of the time was spent trying to sleep and failing, for the most part. Around 3 am (Taiwan time, again), they served us breakfast. I had sausage and egg with fruit and orange juice. I ate about half of the eggs (there was some weird sauce on them that was like gravy or something, and the sausage was disgusting), the fruit, and drank my orange juice. Oh, there was another roll, too, which I also ate. My legs were really sore, so I stood in the aisle for a while, trying to get the circulation going again. I had been moving my feet as much as possible when I was sitting, so I was hoping that would keep me from swelling up like a balloon, but it didn't. (The swelling is finally starting to go down. I don't know what it is, but every time I go somewhere humid, I swell up, so the humidity hasn't helped matters any.)
At the airport after passing through customs (don't judge me by my appearance; I just spent 18+ hours traveling)
Getting through Immigration was a breeze for me, once I got the little paper all filled out. One of the other girls, though, had accidentally put down her visa number from when she went to China down instead of her Taiwan visa number. The guy got a little upset with her, then he looked at her passport and said. "Utah. Mormon. No wonder." He was very nice to me, though.
They had several of these cute/weird statue things outside of customs. I didn't take a picture of my favorite one, though (it had a sign that said "Welcome to Taiwan"), because it felt like too much effort at the time.
Getting our bus tickets was interesting. I still don't know what happened because we couldn't communicate very well with the people at the counter, but there was some sort of problem that was worked out. That's all I know. When we were getting on the first bus, there was a little... incident with the luggage. Somehow I lost my balance, and now I have a beautiful, swollen knee! I am not sure how well you can see it in this picture, but it's a pretty good-sized lump. Add that to the other swelling, and I have some really fat legs! I hope it goes down, because they make me sad. At least I know all the other teachers are dealing with swollen ankles, too.
On our second bus, there were some communication issues again. We stopped at this place called Discovery World that seems to be some sort of amusement park, and the bus driver seemed a little confused about why we weren't getting off. He asked us (in Chinese) where we were going and something else that I couldn't understand. We showed him our ticket stubs, and then someone else showed him our travel instructions from the school and we got it all figured out. Thankfully, Francis and Gerald were already at the train station to pick us up when we got there.
At the school, we brought all of our luggage upstairs (4th floor- no elevators), went and ate some lunch down the street (fried rice for me; everything was loaded with scallions. Melissa, never come visit because you won't be able to eat anything), but it tasted OK. Jessica (another teacher, also one of my roommates) got some dumplings and let me have one. It was pretty good, but, again, too many onions!
After lunch, we took a little tour of the school, and then Gerald also took us around the city. We got out and walked around the park at one of our stops. It was such a cool park!
waterfall with lots and lots of koi
a really colorful pillar
There's this monument thing at the park that is very intricately carved. Other than that, I have no idea what it is all about.
This is Jessica by the entrance to the basketball courts
Kendra rolling the stone in the lion(?)'s mouth
Very interesting exercise equipment
Heather and Jessica on the ... whatever it is.
We also stopped at a department store downtown. I need to figure out how to get there again, because it was amazing! There were at least 3 floors of all ladies clothing. While we were walking around, we got accosted by a salesperson that wanted to spray our faces with this stuff. I still don't really know what it was, but I think it was some kind of refresher? After dinner (chicken sandwich that I did not love, but it was OK), we came back home and started moving in to our rooms finally. My room is very large; there are four of us in here. Unfortunately, the AC doesn't work, so we're just suffering through the super humid air. The beds are only marginally softer than the tile floor, but there is plenty of storage space. We went to sleep around 10 pm.
I woke up just before 6, and the sun was already completely up. Before breakfast, we filled out our work visa applications and some other paperwork for our medical exam that we are having tomorrow. Breakfast was at another place down the street. This I liked. French toast with strawberry jam. The jam tasted like candy!
Soon we are off to do some more things. I don't actually know what all is planned for the rest of the day. We have received our bikes, keys, and bike locks and gone grocery shopping. There I found something resembling cocoa puffs and honey and bread, as well as a few other small things.
Anyway, better be off! Hope all is well with everyone in the States. I'd love to hear from you!
Labels: Taiwan
