Taipei, Taiwan!!

I'm in Taipei!  I have a lot of details to add to this about orientation, all the super cool other teachers, and going to the night market!!  plus pics

but for now i have to catch up on my ZZZZ's

Ok, I was exhausted and fell asleep with the computer in my lap while downloading pictures haha.  But now I'm up and have some free time before breakfast so I'll finish this blog.

I got to the airport yesterday and found out that my luggage was still in San Francisco, that was fun =)  But it's supposed to be being delivered to the hotel this afternoon so hopefully that will work out ok.  I had to take a taxi from the airport to the hotel because no one from here knew when I was getting in.  The ride was very long and expensive =/  but, I'm also giving that receipt to the travel agency because if I had been here on time someone would have been at the airport to pick me up.

I got to take a few cool pictures on the way in though and I'm going to make my picture albums on facebook, I think that will be easier than putting them all on here but I'll put a few of the good ones here.

I got to the hotel at 8:30 and had to be downstairs for orientation at 9!  I ran up to the 9th floor (well took the elevator of course, haha) jumped in the shower, threw on some fresh clothes and ran back down.  Orientation was ALL day long but was a crap ton of good information.  I learned a lot!  Then last night we went in groups to the night market which is definitely the first thing everyone has to experience when they get to Taipei!  The smells coming from all the different booths are sooo overwhelming, especially the stinky tofu, it lives up to it's name haha  Then we went to the shopping part of the night market and holy cow... I have never seen such a shopping paradise.  Turns out the Taiwanese... extremelyfashionable and trendy!   The night market is this one LONG street of booths and stores with clothes, shoes, toys, accessories, makeup, toiletries, purses and bags.... sooo much better than the mall!  And cheap!  I bought some lotion and an umbrella and the leaders said "you should have tried to talk them down"  and I was like well it's already a heck of a lot cheaper than in the states.  I saw some puma's for between $40 and $60.  My umbrella was about $6 and my lotion was about $8 (Victoria's Secret).  I need to wait until I actually start getting paid here and then take a weekend trip back up to Taipei to do some serious shopping =D

Alright, it's time for breakfast and then Mandarin Corner!  I'm excited to learn Chinese today because I missed yesterday's lesson

Here's some pictures of the city and the night markets.  In the first picture if look to the really tall building far away in the far left of the picture, that's Taipei 101, the tallest building in the world (currently) and we're going there tonight =)[gallery]