From Sam (MSU student) - June 2

Our First Day of School

Getting up Monday morning was a hassle for all of us because we were still getting over our jet lag from our arrival on Saturday. After a shower and getting dressed, we all assembled in front of our apartment to make our way to school. The students from Notre Dame met us at the 85 degree Celcius café in front of our bus stop, and after a few minutes of arguing about which bus to take, some of decided on the 802, and the others took the 513- little did we know that both buses go to the same stops. Before I climbed aboard the bus, I ordered a Cappucino Ice Smoothie from the café. Man was it good!

Upon reaching Fu Jen Catholic University, we were directed to room 220 where the dean of foreign languages, Mr. Lascek, greeted us to Fu Jen. After some opening remarks, we journeyed to room 210 where we were given our placement tests. Adam Jones scored the best out of us all, so he was moved to an upper level Chinese course. The rest of us were placed in the same classroom and begin with the basic Chinese grammar.

Our classes are divided into two periods; 8-10 & 10-12. Our eight o’clock teacher is Feng Laoshi and our second period teacher is Qiu Laoshi. When class let out, we all went to grab a bite to eat and head back to school for Orientation. After orientation, we caught the bus back to our apartment to rest. We then made our way down the street to the Seven Eleven to grab something to drink and went up on our roof to sit and view the city. It is a really nice view from up there.

We even persuaded some people to come to their windows and talk to us. I think they were curious to talk to us because we are Americans. It’s not often that these people see American citizens sitting on the roof top viewing the city. After a while we all got tired of the roof and we came back down to our rooms to get ready to go eat supper. Everyone decided that since we had eaten some bizarre Chinese cuisines that we were going to eat some good ole American style McDonald’s. This is when we got a little adventurous and we made our way into Taipei City. We road the 802 all the way into the city and got off at Ximen. From there, we roamed the streets and shot in and out of random stores scanning ahead for the next best thing. That’s when I heard someone say, “Look!” pointing up in the air at a tall building. In the windows, we could see arcade games as far back as the room would allow. We all decided that it was time for some kid fun. We played arcade games for about an hour and finally made ourselves leave before we ran out of money. After a little more roaming, we decided it was time to head back to our apartment. We reached home in time to find ourselves doing some homework and falling asleep in our bed.