Time to hit the books.

After my trip to Longshan Temple I was going to spend the next day at Taipei 101. Ultimately though I decided against it because it just didn't seem like the proper follow up after going to the temple. Instead I decided to spend my Thursday exploring Daan park. What a wonderful place. It is right smack dab in the middle of everything and it is a rather large place. Filled with walking paths and beautiful trees, most of which I have never seen before in my life. I walked around for a nice long while and then spent the rest of the afternoon basking in the beautiful weather and reading more of the Dalia Lama's wisdom. It was wonderful to see so many people, young and old, getting their walking fix and just taking in the parks natural beauty.

After the park it was on to another birthday party, seems like everyone I know around here was born in November. We went for some India food and I had some wonderful Veggie Curry, what a treat. I didn't get to speak much english during the evening which was nice, everyone could speak at least a little english but they really wanted me to work at speak Chinese. Needless to say I did more "practice" on my listening skills than on my speaking, but it was still nice to use my second language rather than my first. After the Indian food it was off to the KTV. A KTV for those who don't know is a Karaoke bar where you get your own room and rent by the hour. Rather than being in front of a ton of strangers you only have to make a fool out of yourself with your friends. It was a great way to celebrate my friends birthday. We all had a blast.

On Friday I spent the morning at school for my Orientation and class registration. The orientation was pretty interesting. Found out that Shida has about 30,000 alumni all over the world and that over 68% of the current students are from South East Asia. Even though English speakers were in a minority the Orientation was put on in Chinese and English and the powerpoint they had in the back ground was all in English. In the end I didn't learn much that I didn't already know about the school, but I can tell that I am at a good University. The staff seems very helpful and willing to do what it takes to make sure our time spent at Shida is enjoyable. At the end of the Orientation (for us English speakers) they launched in to Japanese and told us that if we didn't speak Japanese we could leave. What a relief because I had no clue what was being said.

I was very happy that I am enrolled in the intensive chinese program at Shida. I will have chinese class for 3 hours a day Monday through Friday and I am starting in the first book on chapter 16, which is about right where I left off back in Milwaukee. I have already started to look at my books and I can tell that the ones back home are a little better, but there is nothing I can do about it. My class only has 8 people in it, so I will get a lot of talk time with both my teacher and the other students. Well, tonight I am going out with some people from the Hostel, it should as always be a good time.