The weather here the past two days has been pretty miserable. Rain, rain, and more rain is in the forecast. I am glad I packed an umbrella because not having one would be unthinkable. I made a trip back to the Post Office and picked up my ATM card, this second trip was a lot easier than my first, and also went to the immigration office and filled out my VISA paper work. I was hoping to spend this week seeing the temples, hot springs and other wonderful things that Taipei has to offer but I am putting them on hold till the weather clears. Today after getting back from the post office and changing shoes/socks, they were SOAKED, I made my way through the underground Mall located very near the Taibei Che Zhan (Taipei Main Station). It is a pretty incredible place. Shops upon shops upon shops for at least a mile. One side of the mall was just book stores, all in Chinese, with everything you could want. The other side was all clothes and accessories mostly geared toward women and business men. One interesting thing I saw while I was exploring the underground mall was the massive amount of high school kids that just hang out after school. They find mirrors and plop down cd players and work on there choreographed dance and break-dancing skills. The ones who don't want to participate either watch, cheering their peers on, or crowd around each other with Nintendo DS's and Laptops playing the latest video games. The most interesting thing about all of this is that no one seems to mind hundreds of kids just loitering in the malls. Of course they are not causing any trouble, so I guess why not.
I am still adjusting here. Trying to find my niche in this busy and bustling place. I actually am really looking forward to the start of term next week. My vocabulary is so limited, I feel like a 2 year old in the big city. I can at least say that I am not sitting at home and watching the TV; something I remember doing far to much of in Florida and other places when the weather turned bad. Not much else to write about right now, my experiences have been rather limited this week. I am sure that things will be much more exciting once the weather clears up.
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4 comments:
Even a rainy day in Taipei sounds exciting to me!
Jake,
You hit on one of the vast differences between our cultures so far. Kids gather to have fun, keep dry and stay active, not to drink or cause problems. That's what happens here whenever there is a large group of unchaperoned kids, fights and such tend to break out or other problems have occurred and have ruined it for the rest who may just want to hang out. It's sad really, that we can't offer kids and teens a place to congregate where problems won't occur.
Hope you have a good book to read, or downloaded one!
"looking forward to the start of term next week"...music to our ears!..We hope you get a placement that will help you grow as a linguist and give you confidence to keep exploring the city and culture...the more fluid you are by March, the more fun we'll have with you... - Dad and Mom
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