Three planes, two trains, a bus, and a scooter ride later

So first plane from Tulsa to Denver went quite well I had a window seat. Here's a sweet shot of the front and inside of the aircraft. Took off at 6/29 8:42am. Started journey at 6am that morning, so almost 3 hours elapsed so far. 

 Look at that face! All excited and nervous.













 
Bye ground!          Sweet cloud shot

And I'm then I'm in Denver

             Love the flat escalator thingies

 


Still looking pretty. Took this at the Mexican Cantina in the Denver airport. If you're flying through and need some chow, I definitely recommend this place.

 










Very good huevos rancheros and excellent service. Next flight at 11:24am, but I gained an hour changing time zones, so actually elapsed time is 6hr 24min since I woke up to go to the TUL airport.

 

2nd plane. Rockin wing shot bro, can kinda see the Rockies

 

In le plane, and San Fran station. Headed to Taipei at 2:10pm, gained another hour so total travel time up to 10hr 10min since waking up if I'm doing my math correctly.I had isle seat so didn't get any sweet shots out the window.

Not my plane to Taipei, but thought it was super impressive. Engineering!!! There were so many Chinese and Taiwanese people at the San Fran airport, I felt like I was there already... but little did I know what wonders laid in store for me








Economy class for the win. Announcements over the intercom were first in English then in Chinese

Watched 2001: A Space Odyssey, Raising Arizona, Citizen Kane (actually got a little shut eye watching that one), Harry Potter 1, Taken 1, Intersteller.... Maybe something else I can't remember anymore. Sat in the middle and it really sucked. The window person gets to prop up against that business, and the aisle person gets free access to the bathroom, middle guy gets nothing. The person on my right... freaking Americans... she would randomly bust out into song but only 2-3 words of a song and then just switch to a different song. Some crazy blend of poorly sung pop songs into one. I was kinda going insane. I maybe got an hour of sleep, but was mostly dying for 13 hours.






In flight meal, it was actually pretty dang tasty. I got the Indian Vegan course, it was some sort of masala and rice thingy with some other grain/rice stuff, bread, and cheese.

In flight bathroom cause I know you were curious.

 

And there she is, Taiwan. An interesting observation I found out about international flights; as middle seat guy on the plane, I also lost window control. Almost immediately as everyone got packed in, the person to my left closed the shade. I was quite upset, because I at least wanted to watch takeoff and see the ocean. We also flew over Japan and wanted to check that. We were most likely above cloud cover, and I wouldn't have been able to see anything, but a man can dream right? About 30min into the flight everyone closed the window shade, I started to feel a little trapped, but later in the flight it made sense. We flew for 13ish hours and sort of followed the sun, so it actually didn't turn to night at any point. Even the stewardess' carried flashlights, so it seemed to be some sort of unwritten rule to try and assist people in sleeping. However, between no window, being unable to find any sort of position to get comfortable enough to sleep in, randomly-busing-into-music-while-stealing-my-armrest-girl to my right, and not to mention the screaming child that didn't let up for over an hour (though that was still more pleasant than random pop song one-liners) I really didn't enjoy the flight, but it was for sure a learning experience (wondering if I can at least change my seat to an aisle for the return). Was it all worth it? That answer coming up. 

Bam, TPE airport. I didn't end up taking a whole lot of pictures of the place. I saw the Americans also in my program congregating up outside of the exit of the plane, so I starting running. Since I already had some currency I didn't have to bother with that and went straight for Tainan. It was surprisingly vacant for a large airport, but maybe that was just the area I was in. Customs was painless. Spent almost 14 hours on the plane and lost like 11 hours due to time-travel, so got there at 6:30pm 6/30. Been up for about 23 hours at this point with a mega short nap somewhere on the TPE plane.

First bus ticket from the airport to the High Speed Rail. Trip was 20-30min and cost.... $1 whole USD. Didn't take a picture of the bus but it really looked like any other bus. I almost got out at the wrong place but noticed that no one was moving. 

Also first High Speed Rail ticket. As you can see that trip was another hour and 20min. I'm just going to stop counting at this point. Needless to say, I was awake for far too long.

High Speed Rail station. That dude in the picture came over to talk a bit. He's Canadian going to Tainan for a different program. Sorry brother, I forgot your name.

In the H.S.R. and disembarking, quite a nice ride actually. I dozed off for maybe 10min but then got worried I would miss my stop. A snack cart lady came by a couple times and I almost worked up the courage to buy something, but didn't. The H.S.R lives up to it's name, it's felt like a really comfy roller coaster. When the train went back underground into the station the air pressure changed and shook the cars around which was fun. Also all of the announcements were in both Chinese and English so that was pretty rad, though thankfully I could recognize the city names on the screen, so wasn't too worried. Everything was labeled super well, and this whole trip would be totally accessible to someone with zero Chinese skills. All of the ticket people I spoke to addressed me in English and were super friendly. I will admit however, even having the slightest bit learning so you can recognize characters without knowing them, greatly relieves stress of traveling, like seeing 台北 v.s. 台南. 

Finally met my language partner! 林成樺 or Chad was waiting for me at the Tainan H.S.R. station. This fine gentleman has totally volunteered his service in making sure I get to the school in one piece. After hearing about other programs in Taiwan, I think it's safe to say that the TUSA program is the best, and I haven't even started classes yet. The warmth and kindness I've received so far in Taiwan is beyond measure. What may have been a lonely experience trying to function in a new land with a broken understanding of the language quickly turned into being part of a family. This program is definitely more guided than others, and I could see potentially looking into a more free-roaming one after already having some background of Taiwan and better language skills, but the TUSA program is perfect for my situation.

 Tainan metro train ticket, outside, and inside of the train. This will spit us out on the far side of campus 3 blocks or so away from my dorm. The pink sign in the third picture says "priority for female passengers", I found that interesting.

Coming out of the train station and finally seeing what I got myself into. 

 Scooter parking garage, these little bastards are everywhere. Chad was kind enough to cart me on his to my dorm. He'll actually be taxi-ing me to various locations the next day, but that will be for the next blog post :P

 

And here I am, my dorm room. Still gotta set my stuff up, my roommate had arrived earlier that day. He's a really cool dude, but is probably going to read this so I can't brag too much :D. Stories of our first adventures on the next blog post! 

 

There is a whole lot of storage everywhere

 

 

And we have the little bathroom area. The toilet room only has a small window for ventilation, which ends up being a little unpleasant. I bought some smelly spray but it still didn't help much. We're going to try and find some alternative methods of not wanting to die each time we use it. The shower isn't bad and spits out hot water quickly though with the weather here I soon realized cold showers are way better. 

 Well there you have it folks! First night in my dorm. I actually end up staring at the ceiling and only sleeping for like 3 hours, but hey that's all part of it. Jet lag isn't being hella tired after you get off the plane, it's a much more devious, slow setting beast, where you should be going to sleep because you are incredibility tired but your brain says "no Zach! It's 3pm you should be at work!" I've since had a good nights sleep and am actually starting to like the minimalist bedding. Some sweet daylight running around pics will come next blog post but here's a little spoiler.

太谢谢你们！

(really need to figure out how to get my computer to default to traditional characters)