At a second glance

I finally moved into my own room in the dormitory! I like it a lot and it is bigger than expected. It feels very well to have an own room again. I still have to adapt to the taiwanese behavior to go out to eat. As a german this is very hard for me, because I am used to cook myself at home. Here there is just one small kitchen in the whole dorm (its 13 floors...) and there is just one plate and a rice cooker. Students don't need to cook here, because eating on the Campus or nearby is so cheap. Friends already showed me around and there are a lot of restaurant very close; also vegetarian ones. I could never imagine eating this huge amount of meat, even if I would not be vegetarian. You can have meat three times a day, and also in lunchboxes a huge portion of meat is included. (I wonder how all the girls here can stay so skinny...)

The taiwanese care about there students and provide everything that is needed on Campus. They are very keen to make it as convinient as possible for their students so they can focus on studying. Food, office supplies, ice cream, products from the NTU farm (yes, this University owns a farm and the quality of its products is very good!), Post office, Police office, rooms to study, waffels, drinks and even a gym for free and a huge sports centre with squash, badminton, swimming pool... you don't have to worry about anything! And nearly everywhere you can get a discount as a student.

On Tuesday I brought my Laptop to a Place called Digital Placa and with the kind help of Shino I found a guy who is going to fix it. I can pick it up next week and then I will load up some pictures! I don't have Wifi in my room, and I don't like it too much to sit in the Lobby for it. Until today I also had a problem loading all my devices. Here the power points just provide 110V, so I needed to buy a "converter" because my devices all need 220V - since I use this everything loads as fast as always and I am able to write you this Post!

I like the food and the drinks more and more. Until now my favorite drink is Milktea, it is not real milk, but soy milk with black tea, ice and sugar. It has a very refreshing and not too stronge taste. Everybody can choose how much ice and how much sugar he/she likes to have. This is a very consumer friendly way of providing drinks in my eyes. I also like the famous Bubble Tea even if the taste of the red beans is very strange for me.

Today I went to Wufenpu to buy clothes and - I am honestly surprised - the taiwanese clothes fits me (I chose a larger size than in Germany but still, compared to all the skinny girls I am a giant, or at least hips are giant...). I bought a lot of new T-Shirts and short throusers because I recognized I just don't have enough clothes for this climate! At first glance the clothes I bought seems to be a good quality for a very cheap price. So now travelling around can come, I got a room, I got furniture for it (and more pillows), I got clothes and I know where I can go to eat. Thanks to Chuling Chou I already have met so nice and friendly taiwanese students I feel so save and welcomed that I am sure Taipei will be like a second home for me soon.

Stay positive,

Yihua.