Travel Start 旅行開始

Greetings from Tulsa,

In my hotel room at the Roadway Inn and Suites near the Tulsa airport. Booked several weeks in advance and got a single non-smoking room, so it only ran me about $65, plus there is a free shuttle to the airport in the morning. The front desk lady was super friendly and she knew my first name after I gave her my last, so that was pretty neat. I'm sure there's nicer places, and being right by the highway is a bit noisy, but for a one night-er I would recommend.

Dalton drove me up here which was super rad. We went and ate at this placed called Little Mexico down the street and then watched Road House haha! He just departed back to Fay-town, and I decided instead of pacing around in circles freaking out I would write up my second blog post.

Before I talk about how I packed, I must once again thank everyone for being so encouraging. I have amazing friends and family that support and love me so much. I really couldn't have done this without you all. I especially need to thank my last Chinese teacher. Her spirit for life and cross-cultural study inspired me beyond words.

Do I look like a tourist yet?

Anyway, with United Airlines I'm allowed one carry on bag, and one smaller personal bag which is quite nice. I was trying to fit my laptop bag in my carry on one, which wasn't working out so well.

 My laptop bag contains: 

- laptop, obviously

- laptop charger

- 2TB external hard drive

- iPhone charger

- iPhone headphones 

- laptop mouse 

All in this perfectly sized Casio bag (that I didn't steal, just borrowing, I swear I'll bring it back)

My carry on bag:
- Gifts for my new friends and host family
- 1 photo of Mom and Nana
- 1 pair shorts
- 1 pair undergarments
- 1 button up t-shirt
- 2 pencils, 1 pen, small stapler that just happened to be in there from school, forgot my journal in my truck though but can probably find something cooler
- Chinese dictionary
- Dostoyevsky's Notes from the Underground
- Michael Crichton's Sphere
Probably won't actually use the dictionary too much because of the internet and whatnot, but it's going to be a long plane ride. As for the other books, I just grabbed something out of my moving boxes real fast that I hadn't read yet. The idea being that if my luggage never makes it to Taiwan I'll still be perfectly functional. 

And my luggage bag, for which I'm using this backpacking bag, which is actually way brighter red than appears in the picture:

Included is:
- 3 pair shorts
- 1 pair jeans
- 1 nice purple shirt for fancy time
- 1 pair nice pants
- 2 pair athletic shorts (mostly to sleep in)
- 3 pair pajamas (mostly to wrap fragile stuff in heh)
- 5 button up shirts
- 7 neathergarments (pic included :P)
- 2 pair long socks
- 7 pair ankle socks (yeah too many.... probably just going to buy some sandals and not even wear my sneakers when I'm there)
- 6 t-shirts (my favorite band tee's including Wolves in the Throne Room and Negura Bunget)
- hair brush
- toothbrushing paraphernalia
- deoderant
- 1 tie (badly in need of ironing)
- hair cutting scissors (can't let my beard go too crazy)
- my nice headphones (if we have speaking homework, Skype, yeah I probably should have left these at home)
So probably too much stuff, but I actually still have quite a bit of room for goodies in Taiwan. It is going to be an 8 week program.

And I'm carrying on me:
- inhaler (haven't used in a long time, but just in case)
- Passport (really the only thing I truly need)
- Phone
- Wallet
- Boarding Passes

Since starting this post I've arrived at the airport, and am tying this outside of my gate.
 The shuttle driver from the hotel to the airport was a pretty cool dude. I got talking about my trip and school and then we discussed the feasibility of capturing runoff water for later use and impacted water laws. 

TSA was quite friendly and I didn't have any problems. I was a little bit worried because a couple of my gifts are glass, but everything went through nice and easy. Thankfully I'm more tired than scared at the moment, so this should go well.

This older couple is playing cards next to me, and this lady in front of me is talking on her phone in Russian (I believe), so I'm feeling quite inspired. Yeah long post of me talking about my packing, but hey, I need some sort of metric for later travels. Thanks for keeping up, and I swear the good stuff will be coming soon!

Two Small Friends 兩張小朋友

In 7 days I will be in Taiwan.
從現在七天我會到台灣。

I keep telling people that at least, but it still doesn't quite feel real. I'm going to be participating in an 8 week program through the Taiwan United States Ambassador Program (TUSA). This will be my first time out of the U.S. so I'm a bit scared, but mostly excited.

I've been in pretty regular communication with my assigned language partner 林成樺 (shout-out to Lin Cheng Hua) and I'm really excited to meet in person, I think we're going to be good pals. All of my friends and family have been super helpful and encouraging, so I think things are going to go well. I really appreciate everyone for donating money, time, and love to help make this trip happen.

I hope to use this blog and update semi-frequently at least with lots of awesome pictures, my thoughts on the country and experience, and any neat cultural thing I learn in an attempt to teach other people who may be potentially considering traveling to Taiwan. 

One of my friends at the University of Arkansas (henceforth UofA) had already been to Taiwan, and exchanged some currency with me so I will at least have enough to get a ticket for the High Speed Rail once I land, though I will probably go ahead and exchange some more right after I land.

My buddy explained that the New Taiwan Dollar NT$1000 bill is colloquially called 一張小朋友 (yì zhāng xiǎo péng you), 張 is the measure word used for paper and other flat things that are paper-like, so it's "one (measure word for paper) small friend" because of the children on the front.個 (ge) is the measure word you would use if talking about people.

So I'm currently in possession of two small friends haha, which ends up being about $65 USD.

Anyway, that should be enough for a first post with mostly text. I promise there will be awesome pictures on the way, once I actually get going haha. Next post will probably be about packing. Also might make some reflection posts on my 4 semesters studying Mandarin Chinese.

謝謝你們！