It’s been a while, so I am trying to sum it up the best way I can: I had a blast!
But to be fair, let me start with the bad news. Many of my courses suck. In two philosophy classes I feel totally left behind. This has something to do with the fact that UCM will only let me get credit for advanced undergraduate courses and for graduate courses. Since there are none of the former I usually find myself sitting among graduate and PhD students who are light-years ahead of me. It looks like I will be following only philosophy classes, one in Classical Chinese Philosophy, one about the End of Modernity and one about Kant, which is taught be an award-winning, former Harvard-teaching expert professor. The queer-studies course I enrolled in turned out to be in Chinese.
On Thursday I planned on going to a badminton class but I overslept. After an seemingly endless day of classes I met up with a local couchsurfer, Tilla (or Wan Ching). She’s studies German and we had a blast walking around and just chatting casually. We went to have some Thai dinner and I didn’t want to believe it: my Kant-philosophy class was also having dinner there. Apparently it is a custom that every Thursday night the class goes out together to get some food. We ended that night by going to a book-store and I was pleased to find a huge English section there.
The next morning I went to a yoga-class but it was already full when I got there. So I went to the library, which is totally kick-ass! The English-section alone is five times as big as Maastricht’s whole library. Plus there is a multi-media center, with hundreds if not thousands of movies to rent and there is even a cinema, which students can rent to watch films with their friends.
That night was a little bit of a bummer. I set up a meeting with another couchsurfer who wanted to show me a good place to buy a new camera lens. After an odyssey through Taipei, I finally met her and unexpectedly we had some dinner with two of her friends. And while I was sitting there, I realized that we were not quite on the same wavelength. It was the reverse feeling that I had with Tilla the night before. I felt pressured to converse and we had frightfully little to talk about. So I tried my best to do some small-talk. It turned out that she studies fashion design and her dream would be to work for Emporio Armani, who I am not particularly fond of. As we finally went toward the camera-street (a street full of camera stores), I learned that she has never been to a place in Taiwan outside of Taipei. By the time I bought the lens (which is awesome!) I was so tired of her that I invented the excuse ‘My room-mate just called me and he is so terribly home-sick that I must go to comfort him’. I felt terrible, both because the excuse sucked and because I should have been more honest.
Oh.. this is just a test photo for my new lens. And because I liked it so much I posted it. It shows Taipei’s Flower Expo from above (the model… duh!).
One of the funny things I found, though, is that in Taipei’s MRT (metro) stations there displays next to the bathrooms that do not only tell you when there are free toilets inside but it actually tells you WHICH STALL is free or not. I guess there are some people who think: “I will NOT use the bathroom unless stall 3 is free”.
Oh and I find that Taiwan is FULL of rule signs everywhere and full of stupid rules that are actually ENFORCED. There is a two seats in every train compartment, which are reserved for ‘people in need’ and are left free for those even in the most extreme of circumstances. I have seen trains which are bursting full but still would anybody refuse to sit on these seats. I find the idea great but I mean you can still stand up when a needy person comes along, right? And a Taiwanese even told me a story about a poor European who unknowingly sat down there once and whose picture was taken and distributed in online forums because of that. Plus you cannot drink water in the MRT stations. And there are waiting lines before each train exit (which I find cool!).
The next day I woke up late and tired because I had gone to bed to late. So I made it JUST in time to the Chinese Language Class placement test, which I miserably failed. So I decided to take advantage of the insanely good weather (which wasn’t made to last I was sure) and went on the rooftop of my dorm where I spent the whole day reading and getting sunburned… At night, though, I went out with Elisa and about 7 of her friends.
We went to see the amazing Palace Museum, which is the largest museum of Chinese art in the world (China included). Considering that it was the free admission night, it was so empty!
The most prominent thing on display: a jade cabbage
Credit to: Chinamuseum.info
It used to be a vase but the artist apparently messed up and remodeled it. Right afterwards we went to another main attraction: the Shilin night market. The first thing that happened was that a man approached us and asked us for our 7-Eleven receipts, which we willingly gave up. In return, though, he gave us a Chinese charm each.
I had some famous tea, which I didn’t like before we had some genuine Chinese food (stinky tofu and oyster omelet). We kept wandering around before we returned around 10pm.
Talking about leaving at 10pm: I have to notice a typical Taiwanese habit: going to bed extremely early. Every Taiwanese, except those who attend the clubs like Wax (my first night out), go to bed between 10 and 11, even on weekends.
Before I went to bed that night, I visited Alex in his new room. Which means that I now have a single-room. Sweet! At least as long as nobody else comes to claim it. Alex has a pretty nice view from his room. And after two weeks I realize: Alex, I’ll miss you.
To spare you an endless post… I’ll post the next days in a new one.
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