Day 1 Report!
Well, its 2:30am local time and I just got out of the shower after having gone out.
The day started off with a guy from the office swinging by and showing me around the town a bit. He showed me where the 'MRT' lines are and got me a map. The city is VERY simple to navigate using the MRT. We walked around and he showed me the book store and some other places that are open 24/7, just in case I needed to go out and if I was jetlagged and on a wierd time schedule.
After he showed me around I came back to the hotel and ironed all of my clothes, since they were all very wrinkled and whatnot. Then I took a shower and layed around and watched some TV for a while, before he called me back. Oh, my hotel has this service where they give me a cell phone, and if someone calls the hotel it routes it to the cell phone automatically. And I can use the cell phone to call people, its very handy! Anyway, we went out to this restaurant/bar place and got food with a bunch of people on the team.
Everyone was very friendly! Almost all of the guys spoke pretty good English, and two of the girls spoke good English, and everyone knew at least SOME English, so I could communicate fairly easily with all of them. However, if I ask "What flavor is your icecream?" and get a response of "Yeah! hahahaha" I know I lost them. :P
The food was good, it was all american style. Short ribs and lasagna and stuff like that. I got the lasagna. It was NOT lasagna. It was like the chef had heard about Lasagna on the food network and decided to give it a try. It was made with some flat noodles that were much thinner than lasagna noodles, and also they were green. The filling was mostly cheese, but had calimari and bits of fish in it. Laying on top was a very large shrimp, still in the shell. If you are ever in Taiwan and want lasagna, I think you'll probably have to make it on your own. Don't get me wrong, it was good (I ate the whole thing), but its NOT lasagna. :P According to some of the people around me, Taiwan is pretty bad when it comes to italian food.
After eating we did shots of tequilla (shots here are 1/2 the size of shots in the US, maybe smaller!) and had a beer and a Jack & Coke, and when 1am rolled around we decided to head out. At first we were going to go to a club next door to do some dancing, but not everyone was dressed nice enough (they are just as strict on dress codes as nice clubs in the US). One of the girls who spoke good English gave me her number and we're going to go to a Regae party tomorrow night! Shes a product manager at work and seemed really nice. A bunch of people from work should be there. Its very difficult to remember people's names here though... They just dont stick like 'regular' names! One girls name sounds really close to Kinky though. I remember that one. :D
I decided to walk back to the hotel from the club. I figured it would take 15 or 20 minutes, but it was actually closer to 40. Oh well! I wanted to get a good look around the city and everyone said its very safe here, so I figured why not. I would of taken the MRT, but it closes up at midnight, so I was out of luck there. Once I got back I hosed off in the shower, and now I'm thinking about either going across the street to the 24 hour McDonalds and getting a Big Mac, or just going to bed.
Good night!! :)
The day started off with a guy from the office swinging by and showing me around the town a bit. He showed me where the 'MRT' lines are and got me a map. The city is VERY simple to navigate using the MRT. We walked around and he showed me the book store and some other places that are open 24/7, just in case I needed to go out and if I was jetlagged and on a wierd time schedule.
After he showed me around I came back to the hotel and ironed all of my clothes, since they were all very wrinkled and whatnot. Then I took a shower and layed around and watched some TV for a while, before he called me back. Oh, my hotel has this service where they give me a cell phone, and if someone calls the hotel it routes it to the cell phone automatically. And I can use the cell phone to call people, its very handy! Anyway, we went out to this restaurant/bar place and got food with a bunch of people on the team.
Everyone was very friendly! Almost all of the guys spoke pretty good English, and two of the girls spoke good English, and everyone knew at least SOME English, so I could communicate fairly easily with all of them. However, if I ask "What flavor is your icecream?" and get a response of "Yeah! hahahaha" I know I lost them. :P
The food was good, it was all american style. Short ribs and lasagna and stuff like that. I got the lasagna. It was NOT lasagna. It was like the chef had heard about Lasagna on the food network and decided to give it a try. It was made with some flat noodles that were much thinner than lasagna noodles, and also they were green. The filling was mostly cheese, but had calimari and bits of fish in it. Laying on top was a very large shrimp, still in the shell. If you are ever in Taiwan and want lasagna, I think you'll probably have to make it on your own. Don't get me wrong, it was good (I ate the whole thing), but its NOT lasagna. :P According to some of the people around me, Taiwan is pretty bad when it comes to italian food.
After eating we did shots of tequilla (shots here are 1/2 the size of shots in the US, maybe smaller!) and had a beer and a Jack & Coke, and when 1am rolled around we decided to head out. At first we were going to go to a club next door to do some dancing, but not everyone was dressed nice enough (they are just as strict on dress codes as nice clubs in the US). One of the girls who spoke good English gave me her number and we're going to go to a Regae party tomorrow night! Shes a product manager at work and seemed really nice. A bunch of people from work should be there. Its very difficult to remember people's names here though... They just dont stick like 'regular' names! One girls name sounds really close to Kinky though. I remember that one. :D
I decided to walk back to the hotel from the club. I figured it would take 15 or 20 minutes, but it was actually closer to 40. Oh well! I wanted to get a good look around the city and everyone said its very safe here, so I figured why not. I would of taken the MRT, but it closes up at midnight, so I was out of luck there. Once I got back I hosed off in the shower, and now I'm thinking about either going across the street to the 24 hour McDonalds and getting a Big Mac, or just going to bed.
Good night!! :)