Well, as the title suggests, it has something to do with rain. I think I've been in so much rain that I've had five years of Idaho's rain in a week. I know it's typhoon season in Taiwan right now, and holy cow, when it rains, it's going to rain like no tomorrow. The rain is pretty unpredictable too, kind of like the weather back home. It can be sunny one minute, and the next it's raining cats and dogs. I think I can hear the barks and meows right now. There's some thunder too.
Well, I guess I should update, since I had a few things going on this past week. Some rotary, and mostly hanging out with friends. Anyways, onto the update.
Last saturday, we had Rotary D3520 orientation for all the inbounds.I thought I was going to be bored the whole day, but it was pretty fun, I met some awesome people, and just talked with them. I got more pins on my blazer too, which is pretty nice. I also have some other stuff I need to pin on it too, but no pins. So after orientation, I was going to go to a night market, but my host family made plans for me already, so we went to Ximen. I had quite a bit of fun there, I was part of a "magic" act, and had some udon noodles, plus some Taiwanese ice cream. It's prepared differently, it comes in like a wrap, with peanut shavings, and some green leaf thing. It was quite delicious.
Sunday I went to Keelung and saw the beach, and reminded me of my home town. I kind of just had time to think and relax while I was there, I enjoyed it. It was like I didn't have much care for the stuff around me when I was there hahahaha. Anyways, I went to a mineshaft and had to duck the entire time, and I saw an old Japanese house. Other things too, like site seeing stuff.
Tuesday I went to the Taipei zoo with a few inbounds, and just had some fun with them. I had the most calories I've ever eaten in one meal here, because it was ice cream and whaffles. I haven't had that in a long time, so it was good.
Wednesday I went to a Lego exhibition and my first night market with a girl who went to Idaho two years ago, and one of her friends. I had fun at the exhibition, and took a picture of all the sculptures. So I'll probably post pictures of them sometime later, same with all my other pictures n' stuff.
That's pretty much my time in Taiwan so far, I have a Rotary presentation tomorrow, and I'm going to Taipei Main Station for lunch on Sunday. It should be really fun.
Note: Adding some pictures n' stuff today, and a couple of new pages.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
I'm in Taiwan :D
Well, I'm here, in Taiwan, enjoying the Taiwanese life, being an exchange student and stuff. Anyways, updating you guys on my life, since the past 5 days were all exchange related stuff.
Friday-Sunday: Alright, so I had inbound orientation at my sponsoring district(5400) in Ketchum, ID. I met some awesome exchange students. I had a blast with them and I hope they have an awesome exchange year in Idaho. I'm kind of sad that I can't hang out with them more, but I will most likely keep in contact with them over facebook or some stuff.
Sunday through now: Alright, so when I got back from the orientation, I had to finish packing. After I got that done, I went to the store and get some more medicine supplies. So I got on my plane to Seattle to spend the night at my travel agent's house. It was pretty fun, and I had some awesome food. After that night, I woke up at 06:00 having my last American shower, and my last bowl of cereal lol. So, I get to the airport at 8am, and got through security at 8:30 or so. I meet up with an exchange student friend, and she takes me to the other exchange student friends. So we hang out in Seattle-Tacoma airport for a bit. We fly up to Vancouver, BC and when we go through customs, we lose two people. So I'm with the other exchange student and were both hoping that we would meet up with the other two lol. We end up meeting with the other two, and adding two more people later on. So after that, we hang out in BC for about 3 hours, and get on our flight for 11 hours, going to Seoul, South Korea.
The flight itself wasn't bad, and I thought it was going to be long... They had some good movies on there, and I listened to some albums I've been looking to buy for a while. Looks like I might need to get them, sometime soon. During the flight, 2 other exchange students and I were watching movies, and we tried to get them to go at the same time, and we got it pretty close. We watched "21 Jump Street", and "The Hunger Games". I liked 21 Jump Street, and I laughed like an obnoxious American. The Hunger Games was meh, and I almost fell asleep during it lol. We arrive in S. Korea 20-30 minutes late, so we go through security, and we get seperated again. What the hell is up with us getting seperated? So we eventually meet up again, and meet with the California group, and the Boston group. Were a group of 13 exchange students, what more could possibly go wrong? Nothing bad happened though lol. We hang out in Seoul for a bit, and get on our final flight. It was pretty slow, and I sat by myself, but 2 others were next to me in the middle isle. So we arrive in Taipei, and I'm doing the giddy dance in my brain. I can't believe I'm in Taiwan was all I thought lol. So we went through the final checkpoint/whatever you want to call it, and were going to get our bags. We find them easily since they were the last ones to get there, since somebody forgot to fill their form out lol. We all get through and we get going. So we walk for about 20 seconds, and then we see a bunch of freaking signs. Now I thought to myself, "Wow, this is a big freaking welcoming party." So I'm thinking to myself, "Where is my family" and I look left and see my group as they're yelling my name, and we all get seperated for the final time. I get like a thousand pictures taken, and I forgot about my camera, so I felt like an idiot. I got the pictures from my second host sister though lol. Anyways, we get going back to my house. I have two houses for my first family, one is a sleeping house, and the other is where we talk, eat, and study. It's pretty nice lol.
Anyways, that's about it. That covered my hectic happenings in the past few days. I will most likely do a post every 2 or three weeks I think. So yeah, time to start this exchange studenting career xD. I'll post pictures later in my pictures page, and will put another page up with my other ways to contact me.
-Benjamin Michael Thomas
Friday-Sunday: Alright, so I had inbound orientation at my sponsoring district(5400) in Ketchum, ID. I met some awesome exchange students. I had a blast with them and I hope they have an awesome exchange year in Idaho. I'm kind of sad that I can't hang out with them more, but I will most likely keep in contact with them over facebook or some stuff.
Sunday through now: Alright, so when I got back from the orientation, I had to finish packing. After I got that done, I went to the store and get some more medicine supplies. So I got on my plane to Seattle to spend the night at my travel agent's house. It was pretty fun, and I had some awesome food. After that night, I woke up at 06:00 having my last American shower, and my last bowl of cereal lol. So, I get to the airport at 8am, and got through security at 8:30 or so. I meet up with an exchange student friend, and she takes me to the other exchange student friends. So we hang out in Seattle-Tacoma airport for a bit. We fly up to Vancouver, BC and when we go through customs, we lose two people. So I'm with the other exchange student and were both hoping that we would meet up with the other two lol. We end up meeting with the other two, and adding two more people later on. So after that, we hang out in BC for about 3 hours, and get on our flight for 11 hours, going to Seoul, South Korea.
The flight itself wasn't bad, and I thought it was going to be long... They had some good movies on there, and I listened to some albums I've been looking to buy for a while. Looks like I might need to get them, sometime soon. During the flight, 2 other exchange students and I were watching movies, and we tried to get them to go at the same time, and we got it pretty close. We watched "21 Jump Street", and "The Hunger Games". I liked 21 Jump Street, and I laughed like an obnoxious American. The Hunger Games was meh, and I almost fell asleep during it lol. We arrive in S. Korea 20-30 minutes late, so we go through security, and we get seperated again. What the hell is up with us getting seperated? So we eventually meet up again, and meet with the California group, and the Boston group. Were a group of 13 exchange students, what more could possibly go wrong? Nothing bad happened though lol. We hang out in Seoul for a bit, and get on our final flight. It was pretty slow, and I sat by myself, but 2 others were next to me in the middle isle. So we arrive in Taipei, and I'm doing the giddy dance in my brain. I can't believe I'm in Taiwan was all I thought lol. So we went through the final checkpoint/whatever you want to call it, and were going to get our bags. We find them easily since they were the last ones to get there, since somebody forgot to fill their form out lol. We all get through and we get going. So we walk for about 20 seconds, and then we see a bunch of freaking signs. Now I thought to myself, "Wow, this is a big freaking welcoming party." So I'm thinking to myself, "Where is my family" and I look left and see my group as they're yelling my name, and we all get seperated for the final time. I get like a thousand pictures taken, and I forgot about my camera, so I felt like an idiot. I got the pictures from my second host sister though lol. Anyways, we get going back to my house. I have two houses for my first family, one is a sleeping house, and the other is where we talk, eat, and study. It's pretty nice lol.
Anyways, that's about it. That covered my hectic happenings in the past few days. I will most likely do a post every 2 or three weeks I think. So yeah, time to start this exchange studenting career xD. I'll post pictures later in my pictures page, and will put another page up with my other ways to contact me.
-Benjamin Michael Thomas
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Getting prepared to leave (bored at 02:35 in the morning)!
Holy cow, it's already August. Time sure has flown by, it feels like just a couple days ago, I was starting this weird blog hahaha. Anyways, my update.
I leave sometime soon but I'm not sure on that yet, since I haven't gotten my visa back from my travel agent..They told me my visa has been delayed because they didn't have this document that I swore I sent to them, but oh well. I scann it and sent it via email to them, hopefully I don't have to send a physical copy. I'm cleaning up my room and preparing to move out of it soon because the exchange student replacing me is coming on Monday at 13:20. So my room is becoming really empty.
I haven't even started to pack yet, which I probably should start soon since I have no idea when I'll leave now. Just been busy with my introduction powerpoint for Rotary, and studying my Mandarin Chinese.
Onto what's been going on in my personal life that I'm willing to share with everybody. I've had a pretty uneventful Summer ever since I got back from San Francisco, but things got thrown around on Wednesday. I got a text on Monday from my friend and she asked if she wanted to hang out at the park on Wednesday, so I said yes, thought we were just going to hang around n' stuff. So I get there, and she tells me to follow her, I see some feet hiding and all I could think of is, "Oh dear, a surprise party," I was right, but it kind of ruined the surprise lol. Oh well, it was really fun though. Later on Wednesday night, I got to talk to one of my good friends that I've known for a while, that I haven't talked to for about three years. So I hung out with her all of Thursday and caught up and decided to hang out again some day before I leave. Other than that, I think I'm going to have a little get together and set fire to some of the weeds that need to be burned. Not sure on that though lol.
Well I think this will be my last blog post in the United States. Maybe I should do the obligatory introduction to my youtube vlog soon... Just depends really. Anyways, I'll update this sometime when I'm in Taiwan! Maybe after orientation. (*￣▽￣)ﾉ~~ 一会儿见！
I leave sometime soon but I'm not sure on that yet, since I haven't gotten my visa back from my travel agent..They told me my visa has been delayed because they didn't have this document that I swore I sent to them, but oh well. I scann it and sent it via email to them, hopefully I don't have to send a physical copy. I'm cleaning up my room and preparing to move out of it soon because the exchange student replacing me is coming on Monday at 13:20. So my room is becoming really empty.
I haven't even started to pack yet, which I probably should start soon since I have no idea when I'll leave now. Just been busy with my introduction powerpoint for Rotary, and studying my Mandarin Chinese.
Onto what's been going on in my personal life that I'm willing to share with everybody. I've had a pretty uneventful Summer ever since I got back from San Francisco, but things got thrown around on Wednesday. I got a text on Monday from my friend and she asked if she wanted to hang out at the park on Wednesday, so I said yes, thought we were just going to hang around n' stuff. So I get there, and she tells me to follow her, I see some feet hiding and all I could think of is, "Oh dear, a surprise party," I was right, but it kind of ruined the surprise lol. Oh well, it was really fun though. Later on Wednesday night, I got to talk to one of my good friends that I've known for a while, that I haven't talked to for about three years. So I hung out with her all of Thursday and caught up and decided to hang out again some day before I leave. Other than that, I think I'm going to have a little get together and set fire to some of the weeds that need to be burned. Not sure on that though lol.
Well I think this will be my last blog post in the United States. Maybe I should do the obligatory introduction to my youtube vlog soon... Just depends really. Anyways, I'll update this sometime when I'm in Taiwan! Maybe after orientation. (*￣▽￣)ﾉ~~ 一会儿见！
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