First Day Thoughts

Well I'm here, and currently it's 1:45am and I'm wide awake (oh the joys of time changes). You see I made the mistake of going down for a nap at around 2:30pm Taipei time and now almost 12hours of sleep later I'm wide awake!!! My body thought it was night time in Vancouver and so I didn't wake-up.(It's like 10:45am in vancouver)

Anyhoo, well my first day has come and gone here but really I was awake during weird times. I got-up on the plane at about 2:30 Taipei time and then went to bed 12 hours later (yeah I'm a baby I know). But in those 12 hours of wakefullness these are my stories: 1)The crazy Hess driver 2)Berlin the camera salesman, and 3)Learning about squatting toilets

Well the whole airport deal was really quite uneventful thank goodness. The air canada flight was pretty choppy and not a lot of fun, but Singapore airlines were great. The food was good, the service was good, and everything was purple so what more could a girl ask for. Now the dirver who picked me up had a sign with my name on it and I found him in like 2 mins, but once we got into the car he was no longer the quiet polite Taiwanese man but instead a "Taiwanese driver". You see everyone here has to cut eachother off when passing lanes to get anywhere. What they do is tailgate the car infront and change lanes when the car beside them is pretty much side by side, so then the driver has to squeeze in between the two cars making for a pretty freaked out Lindsay.

When I got here Wendy's brother and his wife were here to welcome me. They're pretty much my age and Christi he knew you (hello small world) because his father lives in hope (Pete Schlamp??). Anyway they're really great people, I feel like an awful person because I can't think of their names at the moment (they told me when I first came in but then I forgot them like seconds afterwards and then I felt like a tool asking again so yeah....) But I spent the day with Jacky I think?!?!? And she is fantastic. She showed me around Wendy's place and took me to little shops and the superstore of Taipei called Carrefour. There we met Berlin. He helped me with buying my camera with very broken English but english all the same and was really helpful and cute. I guess here the Taiwanese get to pick their english names themselves and he picked Berlin which is really fun. He showed me everything, even the importance of putting the wrist strap on at all times, he modeled this importance at least 5 times. It was fun.
The grocery stores here are similar to home, exept that everything is in Mandarin and powdery pink, purple, or yellow colours. But everything I need is there, so no worries about the peanut butter, it's here man.

Last story, well I haven't actually seen these in person yet....the squatting toilet! You see they don't really use our toilets here except in fancier places like the airport. But instead they have these holes that you squat over and do your business over. I'm a little freaked out. Will it be like camping everyday?!?! I see drama in my future, oh yes I do.

But anyhoo that was my first day, I didn't end up eating that dumpling at the food stand but tomorrow I will. Oh and I drank tap water, which I shouldn't have done. 12 hours later though I feel fine.