Holiday Inn East Taipei

<br>So being my last day in Taiwan, I thought I'd reflect on what I loved most about this place and what I thought could be improved. I'll start with the dislikes first as there really aren't that many, and most of them you can't really blame Taiwan for. <br> Dislikes:<br> 1. The hot and humid weather - which you can't really blame them for being located in a tropical region of the world.<br>2. Lack of originality in street naming, e.g. Song De Road, Song Shan Road ...

I've just finished my 31 days short trip in southern-east asia...<br>actually i went to Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.<br>different culture shock makes this trip more interesting...<br>in Cambodia, they can eat fried cockroaches and other bugs... so gross!<br>in Laos, people are so friendly, they always say "sabaidy ...

... but wasn't hungry any more- it kind of threw my appetite. After dinner (which was around $3.20) we left to wander some more. One stand had cheese ice cream, and we tried it. It tasted kind of like cheesecake. Bu xihuan; I didn't like it so I went to 7-Eleven and got some apple juice. Much better. By 10:00 we were all exhausted so we returned to the dorm and went straight to bed; we had another lecture the next morning.

... to see it anywhere. The signs are no help--nothing is in English. The only explanation for this is that perhaps Taipei is divided by mountains, and there is another part of Taipei that I'm missing. There are mountains ringing the city--I'm assuming that is the end of the city, but perhaps it keeps going and Taipei 101 is on the other side of that. So, the moral of the story is, you should always travel with a guidebook.

... of course, one of the LAST ones to come out) I went to the tourist information booth to inquire as to how far my hostel was from the airport. I was told that it was around 1 hour away...but that there was an airport bus that went downtown that could take me there. I stop at another booth and ask about the airport bus and find out that the next one only leaves at 5:30 AM. At this point...I was tired, cranky and just wanted to pass out on a bed at my hostel. I also didn't want to ...

My first few days of teaching were simply hetcic and confusing. I was given this Gloria English School bag with a whole bunch of books in them. Apparently they were all books that I would be teaching from within the next year. I was excited by this...structure and organization is always a plus. I arrived in Taiwan in the middle of the of fall/moon festival and so had Monday and Tuesday off. My first teaching day was Wednesday. I had been faxed this 'schedule' from the school ...

Route: Bulao - Baulai - Laonung river ( white water rafting ) - Gao Chung village - Taoyuan town - Chinhe village ( Chiao Nien Si Hot Spring ) Total Distance: 26 km Altitude up: 300m Altitude down: 100m Waking up and seeing that the rain has stopped is encouraging.We buy some things for breakfast and have it on the veranda of the hut. Leaving just before 8:00 am we reach Baulai short past 9:00am. The traces of days of rain are everywhere to be seen ...

... ask again the boss decides otherwise - reason not asked. By the way the thermometer at this station shows 7 C, already on lower altitude. We walk the remaining 11 km,which then will make it 40 km for the day. My legs also feel meanwhile pretty sore and Tsai Chin gets another ride with a young aboriginal family - my mission is to walk, so I walk. It is now downhill all the time, that is tough on the legs, feet and hips - I feel pretty sore and ...

... of my luggage, but it was a sweet thought. After class they gave me gifts and when I opened them and saw how special they all were my promise to myself that I would not cry was broken. The small statue of the man in orange is of Sai Baba, an Indian guru, who was considered a saint by his Hindu and Muslim followers. He was alive in the late 1800's early 1900's. Throughout his life he tried to reconcile the two religions. He lived in a Muslim mosque, but was buried in a Hindu temple. One ...