Saturday, December 6, 2008

Life So Far



I suppose I should make a first post since I've been living in Taipei for over three months now.  Life is good, I like my work and my coworkers.  Taipei is a good city, everything is fairly convenient as long as you're not too opposed to walking for a little while or spending some money for a taxi ride.  

The subway system is wonderful here, although its odd that everyone seems to like to either sleep on the subway or conciously avoid eye contact by any means possible.  My general consensus is that people here are afraid of strangers and as a stranger to me, they'd like to keep the status quo of the relationship.  

I went to go see a play last week with some friends, it was in Chinese so I'm pretty proud of myself for understanding most of it.  My language skills have definitely improved here.  The play was called "Speaking in Tongues," a play originally from Australia, I think, but reproduced by the National Taiwan University theatre club.  It had a good plot line that was well written and well performed, which delved into the issues of marriage and extra-marital affairs.  

The end of this month should be a lot of fun.   A bunch of us from the office are taking a hiking trip in the storied Hualien area of Taiwan.  We'll be hiking and bike riding around the mountainous area that is a favorite nature area of Taiwan.  Hopefully I'm not too out of shape...

Then for Christamas I'll be heading to Japan to go skiing with a friend from back home who is living in Kyoto right now.  I've never been skiing before so that should be entertaining.  I've always wanted to go to Japan so this will be a fun way to get a taste of it.  Although I'll only be in Japan for five days, it should be enough for now.  

Then New Years will be spent with Rudy!  He's coming to visit for about two weeks so I can't be more excited.  I'll have to show him around Taiwan and its a trip that I'm really looking forward to.

Note: Picture is of a mountain area north of Taipei that my cousin took me to.