So it has been really hard to find any time what so ever to write on my blog. We have been in Tokyo now for 4 days and have had a blast. The culture here is very different from Taiwan. I would almost say that I do like Tokyo better. It is much like America however they are possibly more advanced in many areas than we are. There trash cans everywhere are always laid out in a way that you must recycle certain items. Some of us were actually quite confused with that too. For example at McDonalds there was a place for paper trash, plastic trash, left over food and left over drinks. It is smart though because it helps with the waste issue. Here there is not the abundance of scooters like there was in Taiwan. Everyone here walks....Everywhere... We have probably walked a 50 miles or more since we have been here in Japan. My feet are killing me. They are not use to walking around all day long.. I think the women here are amazing in the fact that they wear heels all day long.. It is really something to see just how many of them wear ridiculous high heels too. Very seldomly do you ever see people wearing flip flops. We are staying in a really nice hostel and we each have our own rooms and bathrooms. The only negative thing is it is about a 15 min walk to the subway station which is our only means of transportation. We have met some really cool people while being here though. It is really amazing how well a lot of them speak english... It makes me feel really dumb because we have about 3 maybe 4 words in Japanese that we can say. We have visited a all girls college where we had the chance to do some interactions with the students as well as a company visit to Ernst and Young. Thomas Brown whom we met there took us out for a really nice dinner where the last scene of Kill Bill was filmed.. He was extremely generous and had a tremdous amount of knowledge and advice about following your dreams and going for it. The food in Japan is really good and we have got to experience a lot of different foods since we have been here.

Last Day....

So today was our last day here in Taiwan and even though I am very excited to see Tokyo I am kind of sad to be leaving here. I really love the culture here and the people love Americans. It has been such a amazing experience to see the different areas, to experience the different food and meet some awesome people. I hope that I will have the opportunity to come back here one day. Today we had 2hr massages.... that were interesting to say the least. The lady put me in crazy positions like a pretzel.. It was maybe somewhat relaxing.. well I felt really good afterwards however it was close to torture during the process. I bent in ways I didn't think my body was able to. Here are some of the pictures of the place...

Yesterday we had a company visit to Joy enterprise which is a business that operates schools and learning programs for the children here to learn english. It is really interesting how they all want to learn english so much and there is high demand for native english speaking teachers here. We also visited Taipei 101 which is to date the tallest building in the world... I was a littl nervous with that. The elevator ride took around 30-40 secs to get to the top. It was a crazy weightless feeling and my ears felt like they were going to explode. The picture of me and Josh is in front of the Mass Damper which is a 20ft in diameter ball that helps with the swaying of the building. I swear we could feel the building moving while we were up at the top.. It was so incredibly impressive. More later I need to pack... we leave at 6:30 in the morning.

Finally a yummy meal that hit the spot. I have truly enjoyed the cultural expeience and the many different food options here however I have missed so good old American food. This cheesburger, fries and coke was like heaven. More to come just had a few minutes to write.

Day 3!!

On Monday we started out by going to Yingge Ceramics Street. This was really a much nicer area of Taipei. Nice rock street, lots of little shops all selling different types of potteries such as saki sets, tea pots w/ cups, little plates and even larger cooking pots. We were able to paricipate in making pottery in one of the local studios in the same area. I had never used a pottery wheel and found it to not only be a lot of fun but really relaxing as well. Mos of us enscribed chinese characters on our pieces representing our names. When we finised seeing the Ceramics Street we then went t the hotsprings resort. This had to be one of my favorite activities. We were unable to take pictures inside but I found a few online that show you the inside. It was amazing to say the least. Inside there was an assortment of different pools some hot, some cold, some just lukewarm, some even salt water, while others had certain added minerals. There was one pool though that had massaging activities. There were different shower heads to hit your back & neck, then there was these places you could lay down and have massage neck to toe. My favorite was the bench you could sit on in the water that had these amazing foot jets. After walking countless miles the last few days this was like heaven. As we were getting ready to leave I took some photos of the area. The little hut with the billboard at the top was quite interesting in that the sign was basically for a hotel with a lady service.... if you catch my drift. After leaving there we drove back towards the hotel an had a rather chill night walking around the city which is quite the happening place. I added some pictures of the street corner right at our hotel. Oh and another picture of some of the million s of scooters we have seen. It is crazy how many scooters are driven here. Not many people drive cars so there is just the ridiculous abundance of scooters. Ok so I lied about the spa pictures ... I couldn't get them. But you can check out the web site http://www.dabangan.com.tw/facilities/01.php.

Sunday morning it was the usual breakfast routine and then we loaded onto a bus to head for the coast. It took us about two hours to get there on the touring bus, that let me say came complete with karaoke. Oh karaoke…It was not really all that bad on the way to the beach however on the way back some had had several “pichoo” (Beer) and the singing was dreadful… piercing pain to my ears let me jump off the beach awful…ha ha. We stopped almost at the beach to explore a little market area in the mountains. As you can see in the pictures where we parked and got out we were not really sure where it was that we were going.

After we were all completed with our makeovers we went to have lunch together at a very authentic Chinese restaurant. So I will share with you how little we knew about the culture. Because our group was so big we ended up at two large tables with Dr. Chen (professor/ native of Taiwan) at one and just students at the other. The table without Dr. Chen had an interesting experience when ordering the food. We just assumed that we should each order something off the menu( ya know like you would pretty much anywhere you go to eat). Wrong… apparently the culture tends to share food more often than not so the portions are a little larger than we had expected. Needless to say we found ourselves with an abundance of food that we were having a hard time finishing. Oh did I mention they don’t do the whole leftovers box and they generally think it is rude to leave food on the table and not finish. Ha Ha… We were in quite the pickle. I don’t think any of us at that table ate dinner that night we were so fool. After lunch we experienced monster ice which is a popular dessert over here. It is basically shaved ice with fresh mangos and sauce over top and sherbert. Really really really good….ummmm… just reminiscing (lol). I unfortunately did not take a picture of it…. Sorry. I am sure we will have it again though before we leave so I will try to remember then.

After the delicious monster ice we went to the National Palace Museum to tour some of the historical artifacts of Chinese culture. It was a massive museum that you could easily get lost in with all the rooms and hallways. We stayed there and watched a concert of traditional music being played as well. After the museum we headed to one of the largest night markets. I knew there would be some chaos and a lot of people but it is hard to even imagine it until your right in the middle of it. All I can say is WOW!! More people shops, food vendors, and interesting look things than any human brain could process at one given time. It was a little overwhelming to say the least. The picture I posted doesn’t even really give it justice. We had been told that the food was really good at the night market however I really didn’t see much that I thought to be edible..ha ha. They eat a lot of really strange foods over here and they are all cooked in ways that are really unusual to us. They have this one thing called stinky tofu and you guessed it.. it stinks. Oh does it stink.. It is quite unbearable to just walk by, the odor is so pronounced. So when walking through any food area you are hit with some rather good smells and then some really unappetizing bad smells. I just can’t figure out how you could eat something that smells that bad… This concluded Friday so as you can tell we are doing a tremendous amount of things each day we are here.

BTW... Happy Mother's Day to everyone!!!!

Catching up...Sorry!!

Ok everybody… I am sorry I haven’t been keeping up with my posts. We start early and seem to not finish until late every day. I might need a week off just to relax and catch up on sleep. We have only been here two days and we have done so many things already.
I will start with Fridays events. We woke early as we always do and had breakfast at the hotel…(which I will remind you is not your normal continental breakfast… pictures to come!) We ventured our way over to “Lishe”, which is a makeover station to put it simply. We had the option to dress up in traditional Japanese and Chinese dress with make-up done and have our pictures taken professionally. It was very interesting to say the least. Here we were looking like complete fools in front of people we really didn’t even know yet because the trip was just starting to get underway. I have posted a few pictures to share the experience.

The “Lishe” makeover store was right across the street from chiang kia shek memorial. We had our pictures not only taken in the studio but also all around the shrine grounds by the way. Ok so anyways after we had completed our photo shoot we were able to go explore the gardens and walk through this massive temple. There are two buildings in the photos. One is white with a blue roof which is Chiang kia shek memorial. The other orange colored roof is another one of the buildings on the site however. Both of them were essentially massive as you can tell in the photos. The gardens along the side of the property were beautiful as well. The picture with the white bridge is the gardens that I am talking about.

Interesting flight!!

So here are a few pictures of our lovely experience upon arriving to Japan to make our connection to Taipei. It was quite an experience. When we landed they had us stay in our seats and then all these people got on the plane wearing these crazy outfits scanning the plane for anyone with a fever. We just so happened to be sitting 2 rows up from someone that was apparently sick... sick with what we didn't know but nonetheless they had a fever. Everyone including myself and both professors got held on the plane until they could run a test on the boy to make sure it was not the flu. It was a close call because had he of been positive we would have been quarantined for several days and at this point we weren't even at our destination.

Finally here!!!

So I have seriously been traveling for 29hrs straight. We are finally here and checked into our hotel. The plane ride was longer than I had ever anticipated. I did manage to sleep some on the flight though which has made it easier to adjust to the time difference. I plan to post some pictures later because internet is kind of difficult to come by here. I have so much to talk about though so check back later. Just wanted to let family and friends know that we are here safe.

Taiwan here we come!!!

Sooooo..... We meet to go to the airport at the nice early hour of 4:45 am... umm 4hrs from now..haha. Staying up all night tonight to try to make adjustments for the time change early and plan to sleep on the plane. We will see how well that goes though... my luck I will be sitting by a young child screaming the whole flight..lol. I think I seriously visited Wal-Mart 4 or 5 times today... I think I might have been better off if I would have made a list... opps. Needless to say I am finally packed and ready for this fun adventure. Traveling all day tomorrow so I am not sure when I will be able to post, but I will let everyone know when we arrive. Talk to you guys soon!!

Anxious!!

So I have decided that my least favorite thing I like to do is pack.... Actually wait a minute.. I would say that my least favorite would be unpacking with packing following..lol. Today I made my last stops at Wal-Mart gathering last minute essentials to take with me. This trip is getting more and more expensive by the minute..ha ha. The goal for today is to be completely packed so that tomorrow I can enjoy the day and relax before this seriously long bit of traveling we will be doing (a solid 24hrs of planes, airports and commuting).

3 Days!!!!

Starting to pack and get everthing in order for my trip. Really getting excited now!!