taiwan

Planning for Bali

A fun guide for a short trip to Bali!

Ticket Planning

If you are new to the blog, I am a student currently studying abroad in Taiwan. Since that was my beginning destination, flights might vary depending on your country of origin.

I started planning this trip almost as soon as I got to Taiwan. I knew that I would have quite a few weekends to go to different places so the best tool for my situation was google maps. There are several different features to help you choose when/ where you want to go. For Bali specifically- I knew the exact weekend I wanted to go because of my school’s spring break. I just put into google flights the dates and airport that I was leaving from and google flights shows you several nearby destinations and their prices for your dates. If the prices for a destination are cheaper than usual for your dates google flights puts them at the top of the list.

Denpasar happened to be one of these destinations for my dates. I didn’t know what Denpasar was, so I looked it up and it turned out to be Bali! At this point I was sold because I’d already seen so many amazing pictures of Bali and people are always talking about how it’s “goals” and on their bucket lists. I’m pretty sure I’d said this myself at some point, so after about a week of research for flights and exacting my dates I decided to use google flights and book my round-trip flight with Scoot.

I can’t stress this enough! Scoot and google flights have a partnership so that some tickets are cheaper if you use google flights to find them rather than going straight onto the Scoot website. Make sure to click the link on google flights so you can get the best price.

My flight was $8,601 TWD which is about $287 USD. I was provided 10kg (~22 lbs) of combined carry-on baggage (a big bag and a personal bag). Scoot is a budget airline, so any more carry-on weight, any check-in bags, seat selection, and food are all extra. I departed on a Thursday and would be returning on a Tuesday (cheapest days to fly) This is a little expensive compared to some other destinations in SE Asia, but both the price and the time of this flight were amazing when compared to America, so I was content. Both of my flights included layovers in Singapore. There first was a 2.5 layover (10 hr trip in total.) For my trip back to Taiwan I paid a little extra to have a 11 hr layover in Singapore from noon-midnight. This gave me a chance to use my layover time to explore Singapore and enjoy the city! I arrived back in Taipei at 6 am on Tuesday which gave me plenty of time to get back to campus, shower, and nap before my 1 pm Tuesday class.

Picking a Place to Stay in Bali

I did not enjoy my experience at all with my hotel. It was actually an Airbnb. A lot of hotels and hostels are beginning to do this- list their rooms on Airbnb. I chose to stay at Bisma Suites in Legian. Here were my biggest problems on the Airbnb side of things: 1. The suite is actually listed as a guesthouse. This isn’t true. It was what you would expect in a regular hotel room- minus and mini-fridge and microwave. 2. The pictures are not at all what was actually provided, and Airbnb should be more on top of this 3. The suite is listed to be in Kuta in Airbnb’s website, but it is actually in Legian which is about 4 km (2 mi) away, making it hard to enjoy any of the Kuta food or nightlife unless you’d like to pay for transportation. In total I paid $89.5 for 5 nights, 4 of which I split with a friend. There were plenty of other, more specific problems that I had with this accommodation, but those will be detailed in my Week 7/ Bali post.

I am not recommending completely passing over Airbnb. There are plenty of properties that are worth the money. Here are some tips on finding a good place on Airbnb:

  1. Only choose properties with a good cancellation policy! You can reserve far in advance for security but cancel if you find somewhere you like better.
  2. Read the reviews (especially the most recent ones very carefully.) If the same problem is mention in numerous reviews, you can assume that it’ll be your problem too. Also, if it’s bad enough for them to mention in the review, it’s probably something that’s also going to bother you while you’re there.
  3. Do not rely on ratings. Of course, you’re going to want to only look at properties with a larger amount of higher ratings, but some people just put 5 stars to get it over with. The ratings are definitely skewed.
  4. Be prepared for mediocre or even bad English. Hotels and resorts purposefully hire people who can speak English because they are in the international business and have more at stake compared regarding customer service and experience. Many Airbnb accommodations are family owned or are very small businesses. It’s a little easier to get away with things for them, and they don’t usual hire outside of family or friends even if the people working can’t speak English. There’s definitely going to be lots of talking with your hands.
  5. Try to find a property with a super host or Airbnb plus status. These are the most reliable accommodations as they have been thoroughly vetted by Airbnb.

If you’re going to Bali alone the sad truth that no backpacker ever wants to hear is that: there aren’t that many hostels. Bali is a huge tourist destination and is jam packed with hotels and resorts. Like my Airbnb, many of these places are $25-40 USD a night. You can go anywhere from these low budget (but still good quality) inns to the luxury resorts. There really is one thing for everybody in Bali. My tip is to at least have your own room (even if you stay in a hostel.) Days in Bali are long and tiring so you’re going to want to have air conditioning, a personal bathroom, and a nice bed with privacy at the very least.

My preferences when looking for a place to stay in general:

  1. A pool- There are several beach clubs in Bali where you can pay to spend the day there, but if you’re already paying for accommodations, why not kill two birds with one stone?
  2. A bar- This is actually a tricky one in Bali. For some reason real alcohol in Bali is outrageously expensive and hard to get your hands on. Many bars and restaurants use fake alcohol in their drink specials. If a bar is usually a criterion for your accommodation, I would think about forgoing it this time and just buying something at Duty Free so you can have your own party without spending too much.
  3. Housekeeping- My suite was supposed to be cleaned everyday with fresh towels (as listed on the Airbnb description) but this wasn’t the case at all. My towels were actually stained, and they didn’t even have enough towels to change ours out until two days after we asked for new ones. This is a primary reason I’d recommend a private suite in a larger hotel. There’s going to be sand and dirt everywhere (and you’ll probably smell like cigarette smoke) from being out all day. You’re going to want to be in a clean environment when you get back to your room. If you stay somewhere smaller take a close look at the reviews and even, ask the management about the cleanliness of the accommodation.
  4. Location- I don’t mind walking and I don’t like paying for transportation, so I usually try to find accommodations close enough to the beach/ city center where I’m comfortable getting there alone any time of day but far enough out so that the buzz of it all doesn’t disturb me. While Legian was decent in this aspect, all the food that was close by was touristy and expensive compared to the traditional Indonesian restaurants that are more common in Kuta. Before you book or at least are no longer able to cancel, I’d ask the management of your accommodation how long it takes to get to popular beaches/restaurants/venues by foot and how much it’d be for transportation.
  5. Air conditioning- I mentioned this before, and it seems like a given, but you’d be surprised at how many places don’t have it! You’re not going to want to suffer in that Bali heat without some help.
  6. Laundry- If you plan on staying in Bali for longer than a week but plan to only bring carry-on luggage, you’re probably going to need to do laundry at some point. At some accommodations it’s self-service, and at other places they’ll do it for you. Either way, make sure they at least have a washer machine and you’ll be fine. If they don’t have a dryer, they’ll have a drying rack/ hanging lines. This method is more common among the local Balinese anyways.

Where in Bali should you stay? What should you do?

  • That’s a great question. There are so many options. The answer really depends on how long you’re going to be in Bali. I’d say a good way to split it up is two different locations for every week you’re there. The most popular destinations are Kuta, Ubud, Seminyak, Legian, Uluwatu, Nusa Dua, and the Gili islands. Of course. there’s a bunch of other places too but these are where everything is happening.
  • You should choose your place to stay depending on what your activities are going to be. Bali is very hectic, and everything starts super early in the morning, so it’s best to plan all of your excursions before you get there. This helps because 1. You avoid getting scammed which is a prevalent pattern in Bali 2. It’s easy to avoid transport fees if your accommodation is near your excursion. I highly recommend Airbnb experiences for this. It is very easy, organized, and you can pay with USD to avoid nasty bank fees and using up all the money you got from the ATM when leaving the airport. You can also use TripAdvisor to find some notable companies with good reviews. Sometimes you can book on their website, sometimes you just give them your details, show up, and pay upon arrival. It depends on the company. However planning in advance is always better in Bali because the prices are set online (no bargaining with a local that’s trying to rip you off), you can do currency conversions and budgeting before you even book, you can your whole day rather than walking around trying to google what to do next.
  • For a short trip (1 week) I recommend staying in Kuta and Ubud. For my trip I went surfing in Kuta, did a Nusa Penida snorkeling tour, batik class, Temple tour, and finally a wood carving class. While I did plan all of my experiences in advance, I didn’t plan my transport, nor did I change the location of my accommodation. This caused a lot of grief and if I’d known what I’m telling you all my life would’ve been much easier. A sample itinerary of what I should’ve done (with the activities and accommodations I actually had booked.
  • Wednesday Morning arrival in Bali
    • Local Taxi to Legian-10:30 am ($80,000 IDR) -MAKE SURE that you have change i.e. bills smaller than 50,000 IDR because drivers notoriously never have change!
    • Bag drop off at hotel- 11 am- Check-in wasn’t until 2 so I booked my surf lesson for 11:30
    • Surf lesson– 11:30-2- I went to U2PU Surf School (Airbnb) for my 2 hr surf lesson. It was only $11, and the instructors are awesome. Water and free pictures are provided
    • Lunch- 2-3 pm- There’s of course a bunch of restaurants near the beach. Most of them have western food with almost western prices. They had a buy one get one specialty drink happy hour but that’s when I learned that the alcohol was bad.
    • Check-in & Chill out- 3:15 until the end of the day- I was super tired because I had literally finished 12 hrs of traveling then went straight to a surf lesson so I took a nap by the pool, but I also could’ve gone back to the beach to chill there. After my nap I decided to walk on the beach for awhile. There aren’t many Warungs (local restaurants) in Legian, but once you get to the edge of Kuta (about 1 mi. away) you’ll start getting to the cheaper food. Many of these restaurants have live music as well.
  • Thursday
    • Nusa Penida Trip– $107 All day- This was also booked on Airbnb. It included an optional breakfast, free sea sickness pills, boat trip to manta bay, crystal bay, and a coral reef for snorkeling, land trip to Kelingking beach, and lunch. We finished around 5 pm and were returned to our respective accommodations. Since I was staying in Legian, transportation was included, but there’s an extra charge for those staying in northern Bali such as Ubud.
    • Shower & Comfort- 6pm- I got cozy! All I was gonna do was eat dinner and sleep, so I made sure I was clean then I walked to dinner, back home, and slept!
  • Friday- This is where I am changing from what I did to what I should’ve done
    • Morning- Taken a Kura Kura bus to Ubud. The ride on the bus from Kuta to Bali is about 2 hrs. (1-way trip is 80,000 but I recommend a 3-day pass which is 150,000) You have to buy these tickets online before you get to the bus. I recommend screenshotting you ticket, or day pass so that if you don’t have internet, you won’t have a problem getting on the bus.
    • Drop my bags off at my chosen hotel/hostel. Depending on how far it was I’d probably walk. If it’s too far, try your best to hassle an ojek (street motorbike) down to a reasonable price. Don’t be afraid to walk away if they’re trying to scam you. There’s always another one.  It’d be a little early for me to check-in, but most accommodations let you store your bags so that you can still be out and about without your luggage holding you back.
    • Afternoon- Grab another ojek to take me to my Balinese Batik class. The location of this class is actually outside of central Ubud so there’s no way to casually catch a taxi or ojek. Ask your rider to come back for you about 30 mins. after the scheduled ending time of your class.
    • Go back to your hotel & check-in. If it’s in central Ubud then you can walk around and check out the temples and even the Monkey Forest (80,000 IDR) or the Tegenungan Waterfall (15.000 IDR)
    • Eat Dinner! Chill out! Have a good time for your first night in Ubud.
  • Saturday
    • Culture Walk! – This will be a 13 hr tour with pickup at 6:30 am. You wander all around Bali’s most picturesque landscapes. A lunch buffet is included in the price. There are lots of tours like this all throughout Bali, but this tour has consistently great reviews for all of the guides and a great value.
    • Dinner- Try something you haven’t had before! Listen to the abundance of live music that is offered all around Ubud and Bali itself.
  • Sunday
    • Morning/Early afternoon- Grab a taxi or Ojek to get to the Art Studio. The ride is a little over 15 min and anything over $140,000 IDR roundtrip (because you have to ask them to come back) is a scam. Again, tell the driver to come back about 30 mins after your scheduled ending time so you have some wiggle room.
    • Wood Carving– Make your own personal wood carving. You can choose from a turtle, different types of masks, or different types of flowers. It’s a lot of work in the first place, but for this class specifically, the teacher does a lot of carving for you. If you like to be independent (even if your work is trash) I’d recommend looking into other classes but if you know you’ll be worn out because chopping at wood is intense, then this is the class for you!
    • Make sure your driver came back! If they didn’t, the studio is actually right outside of Ubud so you can call a gojek. The only problem with this is that some drivers are afraid to go into the city (since it’s not allowed.) You might have to have them take you as far as they can and either grab an ojek or taxi to take you to your next destination.
    • Spa day– Book this as far in advance as you can because it fills up quickly. If you interested in a flower bath but don’t need anything too fancy, Karsa spa is the place to go! Everyone says that a massage followed by a flower bath is amazing. Karsa has several spa packages that manicure/pedicure, different kinds of massages, body scrubs, facials, hair treatments, healing practices, and more! The Saraswati package includes either a manicure or pedicure, a 75 min intuitive heart massage, followed by a body scrub & bath combination, and the either a facial or hair treatment. This package lasts 4 hours and is $850,000 IDR. (~$60 USD)
    • Whoever dropped you off, make sure you tell them to come back again! Karsa is a little bit in the cut so you’re not going to easily find someone to take you back to central Ubud. The trip is only about 10 mins though so don’t pay more than $50,000 IDR.
    • It’s dinner time! You know what to do. Walk and eat. Just walk then eat. Take a dip in the pool when you get back to your accommodation if it has one!
  • Monday
    • Go home. That’s it. That’s the whole bullet.
      • Jkjk, for my social media aficionados, I hope you got that. If not, it’s not the end of the world but just know it’s a thing.
    • Anyways, it’s time to get back to the airport! Depending on what time your flight is there are a few different options.
    • Leaving before 2 pm–
      • Check out about 3 hours before you flight leaves. I don’t recommend getting a super early morning flight (Before 10) because the prices to get to the airport are going to be outrageous.
      • If you have a 10 am flight, be packed up and ready to go by 7. You’ll have time for a quick breakfast and should be leaving Ubud by 7:30. It takes an hour to get to the airport by ojek, maybe allot 15 extra minutes for taxi. You should be at the airport no later than 8:45.
      • The drop-off is actually somewhat far from the airport, but there are lots of signs in English that will tell you where to go from there, or just follow the other people that are walking there. After that, you’re on your way home!
    • Leaving after 2 pm– Leaving after 2 pm allows for a little more flexibility with getting to the airport.
      • 1. The easiest way is by Kura Kura bus. If you bought the 3-day pass and are still within 72 hrs of when you first used it, you should be fine. If you’re not within the 72 hrs you can either buy a new one-way ticket for $80,000 IDR or use a different method. If you are taking the Kura Kura bus, you should be on the bus 4 hours before your flight leaves. Check the timetable on their website because there’s only 4 buses from Ubud to Kuta a day. From the DFS bus bay, just take a gojek, or a taxi (bluebird if your bargaining skills are weak) to get to the airport. Another 20 min ride. Dropoff rules are the same as the leaving Before 2 pm.
      • 2. Another method is the easiest but also most expensive method. You can pre-arrange transportation which will usually run you about $200,000+ IDR if you book with your accommodation. You could also just get a taxi/ojek on the street which would be about the same or a little let that the cheapest private transport. If you’re doing this, you should leave about 3 hrs before your flight leaves.
      • 3. The most difficult but also the cheapest option to get to the airport is for stubborn and frugal people like me who like to scam the scammers. For this option you should be travelling alone and travelling light. From your accommodation take an ojek to the Bali zoo. From the zoo just call a gojek to the airport. It’s not too difficult but may take up a bit of time since you have to haggle down the ojek driver, then wait for the gojek driver to arrive once you get to the zoo. By doing this, you can get to the airport for as low as $80,000 IDR. The zoo is only about 15 mins outside of Ubud so it’s close but gojeks are allowed there. If you’re doing this leave about 3.5 hrs before your flight leaves. There’s a good chance you’d get to the airport early, but you want to allot time in case something doesn’t go to plan. You’ll go straight to the airport, and again, drop-off is the same.

There are lots of other things to do in Bali that weren’t included in my itinerary! Feel free to search both Airbnb, Tripadvisor, and other blogs for excursions if you just want to get a feel of what Bali has to offer, or if you’d prefer booking them online. If you like to go with the flow, you can always book in person when you get to Bali or just wait until last minute because some activities online don’t actually fill up. Other than the activities that I name, other popular Bali activities include: spending a few days in the Gili islands, cooking classes, Mount Batur hike, white water rafting, waterfall tours, ATV rides, pretty much any water sport, and so much more!

Budgeting and Money exchange

If you ain’t talkin money I don’t wanna talk.

-Young Dolph
  • Roundtrip flight from Taiwan- $287 USD
  • 5 nights at shared Airbnb- $85.5 USD
  • Excursions- If you do everything, I included from the sample itinerary, it should set you back about $290 USD
  • Spending money- For 6 days a 5 nights in Bali, I’d recommend bring about $250-$300 USD in spending money. In all actuality I only spent about $200, but my itinerary was different, I am very good at haggling, I didn’t buy too things while I was there, and I tried to not spend that much on food!

I was being conscientious of money because I only withdrew $200 USD worth of IDR at the airport and wanted it to last me the entire time I was there. I did a lot of walking instead of transport and was very selective with the things I spent money on. If you want a genuine vacation where you don’t want to have to worry about funds, I recommend just bringing the $300 (if travelling alone, less if you’re travelling with others.) You’ll probably have some left over anyways if you’re not frivolous.

All in all, for a low-budget, but action-packed Bali trip (from Taiwan), plan to spend about $965 USD.

Best Way to Get/ Exchange Money in Bali– is in the airport!

If you’re coming from the country where your debit card was issued, I’d suggest taking your money out at an ATM before you leave. Then exchanging your currency at the airport. There are a ton of money changers in Bali but they’re all trying to scam you. The best rates are in the airport and this is probably where it’s easiest so you can just change your money right after you get out of customs.

If you’re coming from a different country than where your debit card was issued, like me, I’d recommend bring a bit of cash with you to use in the airports. Then, when you arrive in Bali, withdraw your desired ($300) from an ATM over there. Yes, there are fees, but you already knew that. Everything in SE Asia is cash based so it’s necessary. If you’re going to be abroad for a long period of time, try to find a bank that will reimburse your international ATM fees. With PNC’s student account, I am charged $5 every time I make an international withdrawal, but I am refunded for two of those fees at the end of my period. So, I always withdraw big amounts at the ATM, so I only have to use it twice a month and don’t incur any extra fees.

There’s also ATMs all over Bali. If you go this route, just make sure to always pull on the card reader to prevent credit-card theft. It’s a thing no matter where you go.

Phew!

All in all, this is the meat of what you need to know while planning your Bali trip! What to expect when you actually get there, and the chronicles of my individual adventure are going to be in two separate posts that are coming in the near future.

If you have any questions, think I missed anything, or enjoyed this post, feel free to comment on this post or send me a message using the toolbar. I love hearing from you all!

Week 3 Pt. 2 & Week 4


Friday and Saturday of week 3 and all of week 4 weren’t too exciting so, we’re just going to put everything together!

Week 3 Friday: I may or may not have the best temper, and I don’t let things go too easy. As a result of this, I’m still very upset in the morning. My roommate said nothing to me, so I said nothing to her. I just spend the day trying to figure out my current class schedule, planning classes at Pitt next semester, working on my Chinese homework, and exploring google flights for more places to go (my favorite past time.) I really just got a lot of work done on Friday. Since I had just made some new friends the same day, I had lost some, I decided to reach out. I asked my new friends if they were doing anything fun on Saturday and if I could come. They said yes. They were going to Jiufen. I got excited to go out with my new friends and explore a new part of Taiwan.

Week 3 Saturday: I went to Jiufen! It was raining that day, but also hot. I was a little late going down the mountain. I knew I’d probably be taking pictures, so I wanted to make sure I was practical and cute. Had to make sure to hit the double whammy. It took a while to get there. We had to take a public bus, then the train. then another public bus (but it looked a felt like a charter bus.) It took about 2 hrs. to get there by public transportation. and was a little less than 150 NT$ which is about $5 USD. I’m going to be honest and say that I thought I was going to die a few times, but I have what I like to call transportation-induced narcolepsy. I always get so tired when someone is driving me around. The roads were slippery, we were up on the mountains, and they bus we were on was big and had to make some sharp turns. I was fine though. Thank goodness for sleep. I think it solves all problems. When we got there, we didn’t do anything other than eat, drink, and walk around, but that’s all you really do anywhere in Taiwan. It was extremely foggy, but the scenery was still breathtaking. There is so much greenery and fresh air in Taiwan because of the lack of development on the island. I have a Taiwanese friend who would vehemently disagree with that statement, but he’s a whole other story. I drank so tasty Jasmine tea right out of a teapot, ate yummy Taro Balls (get the hot ones not the cold ones), had some good 小笼包, tasted a mountain of ice cream and you guys….. I did it. I ate a piece of intestines. I already don’t like spicy food and don’t drink milk tea. I really don’t like being THAT American that’s not open to trying new things, so I tried the intestines just like I tried the stinky tofu. As I suspected, I didn’t like it, so at least I can say I’ve tried it and don’t like it as opposed to me refusing to eat it. We sat and ate some other stuff, took more pictures, and waited a lot. There were a million Japanese and Korean tourists there so we would all me walking in these narrow outdoor stairwells and streets, but people would stop to take a picture every 10 steps, and there’s no room to go around them, so it took forever to get any one place. One of the friends I made is actually going to Bali the same time I am so we’re going to meet up and hang out. I’m excited! Over all, I had a great time and was excited to meet some new people!

Week 4 Sunday: I went on a date with two tinder guys. FYI: Hookup culture is very different in Taiwan and Tinder works differently. While some people are on there for the traditional purposes of the app, several Taiwanese people are on there to meet foreigners and make friends: which is why I downloaded it again. I met this one Taiwanese guy that lived in Seattle for a while. His English is really good, and while he’s a character, he’s cool for the most part. This is the guy that thinks Taiwanese air quality is bad, smh. However, he did take me to this amazing Beef Noodle Shop: 老外一品牛肉面 in the Zhongshan district. It’s Taiwanese beef noodles cooked by a Persian chef who came to Taiwan a brick ago, speaks perfect Chinese and is married to a Taiwanese woman. When I tell those noodles were BIG POPPIN! Whew Chile, it was like it wasn’t spicy, but it was spiced, and I felt like the beef was so fresh, the owner had a butcher shop in the back. Those noodles, and his bone soup, and his dumplings are all so delicious. This man has cultural appreciation down to a TEE. It’s also super affordable, only around 135 NT$. The closest MRT station is the Xingtian temple station. Go go go!!! After we were done eating, he drove me to my next stop for date #2. Hehehe yes, I am a finesser like that. The other guy confused me and is boring so we’re not even going to talk about that one. I will say that I had to buy my own drink and it was like 200 NT$ for a lemon drop that tasted like lemonade with no alcohol. A LEMON DROP IS SUPPOSED TO BE A SHOT. At least I learned not to go back to that bar or text that guy again. Neither of them is worth my time. We love a good learning experience. Still haven’t spoken to my roommate and I just leave the room because #1 when I’m mad, I try to remove myself from the situation because that person’s presence just makes me madder and #2, I never get any work done in my room.

The rest of the week: I don’t remember what happened on what day and it doesn’t really matter so I’m just gonna word vomit here. I went to one of the cultural ambassador’s hip hop dance class. I can’t hip hop dance for my life, however it was fun to watch everyone else get really into it.

I got a ton of fricking mosquito bites in the two days that it was really warm, and the sun was out. Surprisingly none on my arms, but ya girl decided to wear a dress and shorts so there were 29 in total on my legs.

My roommate and I didn’t talk the entire week until Thursday when she said she was moving out, but she wanted us to be cool. At this point I wasn’t made anymore so I was super open when she asked to talk, because I was going to ask her the same thing the next day. She said she didn’t really realize what happened, just that I wasn’t in the room and wasn’t talking to her, so she felt the tension. (I also did something else that was slightly petty. We all have minor slip-ups that resemble to our younger, less-wise selves) Now mind you, she hadn’t said anything to me either, but this was forgiveness time, not argument time. I told her the situation through my eyes, and she told me her side- where she basically said that she didn’t know what was going on, which is dumb because she was standing there the whole time and she could’ve asked me at any point buuuuuuut NO DRAMA. I have a class with this girl 6 hours a week and we’re going to be the only ones that are here in June. (Even though that won’t make a difference for me because everyone has already been excluding me from everything for the last week) Ok! I’m done being shady! Sometimes you just gotta get these things out ya know. Also, this is a personal blog, not a super professional one. I make lots of mistakes, and I’m documenting them all here, so I learn from them. One of my biggest goals over the past year and a half and for this trip has been self-growth especially regarding communication and destructive behaviors. My current me is less shady and less petty that previous me and hopefully future me can cut all of that bad stuff out in due time, but for now a bit of shade might be thrown out here and there.

My old roomie moved in down the hall with one of the CIEE ICLC girls. She is doing the academic year program instead of the semester program. I don’t know if that has anything to do with her not getting a roommate at first, but it might. Apparently, she was getting a roommate soon, so now I’m just getting whatever roommate she was going to get. I’m nervous because, this person could be any student at NCCU. I highly doubt that it’s an international student, because the majority of international students have their housing situation settled long before they even come to Taiwan. It’s most likely going to be a Taiwanese (or maybe another nationality) girl that straight up attends NCCU. The nervousness stems from the possibility that this person might not speak English. I’m sure you can imagine possible problems that might arise when you and the person you’re sharing a room and bathroom with can’t even speak the same language. I went to April to ask if I could move to I-house or possibly get a single room. I knew both of them were long shots, but it never hurts to ask. I-house was full with an already long waitlist as expected, and apparently single rooms are only for Doctoral Students. The doctoral student thing doesn’t make any sense to me because why would a person in the late twenties want to be living in a college dorm, but NCCU is far from everything. I still don’t get it, but alas, it is a battle that I am not equipped nor willing to fight. I also don’t get why someone would be moving in a dorm 1 month after school starts but apparently there’s a long waiting list. That doesn’t make any sense to me either though, because if there’s a long waiting list for the dorms too, then why didn’t the other CIEE girl from before not have a roommate? This are all questions I have and have thought about, but I just take everything day by day and hope that I won’t get another roommate. For some reason, I have a gut feeling that that’s not gonna happen and I will get another one, so I’m keeping all of my stuff in my closet and on my side. Whether I do or don’t get another roommate I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts, and if it has to end, I’ll try to be friends with her and make the best out of the situation.

Saturday was our Scavenger hunt! We went around the city and solved little puzzles and ate famous food and got good bubble tea. Ngl, I was lowkey tired and hangry the whole time, but I was putting in SO much effort to be happy and have a good time because one of the ambassadors, Ian worked really hard to put it all together and I didn’t want to bring anyone else down just because I was a grump. Fun fact: It rained basically all of weeks 3 & 4, so it was real gloomy which I think contributed to my grouchiness in these weeks. I do, however, feel like I am more naturally grouchy than most people. I do not know why. Maybe I watch too many Oscar the grouch scenes from Sesame street and also The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland was one of lil’ Brit’s favorite movies. I dare you to ask my mother how many times she’s seen that movie. If you triple it, that’s probably my watch number. Watch your children watch people, it could model their whole life. Anyways, we went to 3 different places: Gongguan (which I’ve been to quite a few times), Dongmen, and Raohe night market. I’ll detail all of my awesome food in my food post that will be coming in the next week or two so stay tuned. It was beautiful, again I had fun. It was a really good ending to a mediocre week.

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My Terrible Awful Thursday


Thursday of Week 3 needs its own post! It was a VERY long day to say the least.

This day was never going to be good. I could feel it in my bones. I have to tell you some background. So, the enrollment system here is weird and confusing. I’d already be registered for 2 of my classes but I was still waiting to get into one of them. If I’d gotten into that class everything would work out fine. I’d have 2 classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1 class on Wednesday and no class on Mondays or Fridays. The only problem was that the class that I wanted to get into was full. I was number 41 on the waitlist (waitlist here works differently, but why in the world are there so many spots?) and I’d emailed the professor about getting added into the class manually but never got a reply. At NCCU if you aren’t added to a class through normal means, you can just show up and have the teacher sign a form that says you can manually add the class. So, this is what I did. However, since I didn’t receive and email from that professor, I had a contingency plan in place. I usually have contingency plans for things that are important to me. Things never go right the first time so, PLAN, PLAN AGAIN.

The specifics of my contingency plan are confusing so I won’t detail the whole process, but I will tell you the SLEW of extra classes that I had to attend this week. I went to that class on Wednesday that I mentioned. It’s a southeastern religion class. It was in the morning, which of course was not ideal since I had to go to the gym before. I went to that class and it was boring as heck. #1 Nothing I am studying has anything to do with southern Asia. I’m definitely an eastern Asia kind of gyal. #2 There were lots of grad students in this class which means lots of work. #3 Everything was basically discussion, based on the reading that I knew nothing about. It was also just discussion for 3 hours straight. Can you pay attention to people flat out talking for 3 hours? (with only a 7 min. break halfway through) Because I most certainly cannot. I was just on my laptop for most of the class doing who knows what. I asked her to sign my add form (just as a precaution) but she almost didn’t sign it! She said there were lots of people in the class and her feedback wouldn’t be as valuable if she had a million papers to grade. While I understand this, I’m also like “LET ME IN YOUR CLASS.” I didn’t actually say that, I kind of just stared at her until she agreed to sign my paper. I told her that I wasn’t absolutely sure if I was joining in the first place. She’s also the one that decided to make the class write those long papers. Don’t punish me because you played yourself! Jkjk, she’s the one that set the limit for the amount of people that could be in the class because she knew her limits but nevertheless decided to sign my paper. Even though I’m not taking your class Dr. Work- you da bomb! So that was a contingency class on Wednesday. I had 2 of them on Thursday.

So, my first dilemma of day occurred at approximately 9:10 am on that rainy Thursday morning. Now one of the classes that I am already registered for was at 9 am on Thursday morning. It was actually what I predicted to the favorite of my 4 classes: Popular religion in Taiwan. This would also be the first week of Thursday and Friday classes since there was a holiday on Thursday and Friday of the previous week/ first week of classes. I had to forgo my Popular Religion class for a contingency class: Globalization and Public Policy. Now, I didn’t want to take this class at all, but I was panicking in case I didn’t get into the class I was waitlisted for. (Art, Society & Popular Culture) I woke up at 7:30 to go to this 9:00 class and see what it was about. So, I get to the building it is in, but whoops. For some reason, someone decided to create 2 different buildings, but join them together for 7 of the like 18 something floors and call them both the General Studies building. One is just the “north building” and the other is the “south building.” This is where I really got screwed over y’all. If you know me, you know that I have an utterly disastrous sense of direction. If you don’t know me, my sense of direction is TERRIBLE, as is both my short term and long-term memory. Please don’t say that I’m too young to have memory problems. I’ve heard it all before. Just add it on to my short list of developmental defects. (lisp, duck feet, misaligned knees, double hand tremor… etc.) (All of these things are super minor and I’ve learned to live/ hide all of them, so I feel like defect is a bit strong of a word) I’d already attended 2 classes in the north building while I’d never had any in the south so you’d think I’d go to the north building. Even though it was against my better judgement and experience, I went to the south building. I went to the floor it was supposed to be on, but the majority of the floor was dark. I started walking around like a dummy, still not getting the picture, until 2 ladies stopped me and flat out told me I was in the wrong place. I knew where to go from there but one of the ladies gave me directions and I just let her talk because I didn’t want to be rude. So, I take the elevator down a few floors, cross the bridge, then take the elevator back up. I finally get to the classroom, about 10 minutes late. There’s only like 4 students in this tiny classroom. Granted, it was a class for master’s students, but still tiny. I sit at the first chair when I get in and am handed a syllabus. I start reading through it. It says the final paper needs to be 15-20 pages. I sat there for about 2 minutes solely trying to decide if I wanted to be safe and just stay for the rest of the class in case I had to take it because of lack of a better option -or if there was no point in staying because there was no way I am writing a 20 page paper on something that I couldn’t care less about.

After spending a whole 4 minutes in that classroom, I announced that I came to the wrong class and skkrt skrrrted my way right out of there. I had already told the professor of Popular Religion in Taiwan (the class that I was missing), that I was not going to be able to make it, but since I wasn’t going to do anything better with my time, and it’s a class I was interested in, I decided to go. It’s far from my first class so it took me about 15 minutes to get there. I was like 30 minutes late, but the professor was excited to see me. Technically Popular Religion in Taiwan is a grad-level class as well put there were much more people in this room. Our professor lectured on Chinese zodiac and some related subjects for about an hour. After the short lecture, we took a field trip! We went to a temple that was only about a 12-minute walk away from campus. I actually talked to my professor the entire time there. I told him about my research proposal. He thought it was very interesting and mentioned that we were going to cover a Chinese medicine unit in class, so he’d try to expand on that. He also told me that if I needed any help or guidance to ask him! This just got me more excited to potentially do my Chinese medicine research. We got to the temple and it was beautiful. There was actually a celebration going on because the following day would’ve been one of the deity’s birthdays. There was a decent amount of people at the temple as well as special decorations, music, and singing!

After finishing up at the temple, I went to grab a quick lunch. I was going to go with some other CIEE people, but I needed something quick because I had less than an hour before my class…. which was also up the horrendous mountain. This is the class that I was afraid that I wasn’t going to get into. You better believe that I was in that building 20 mins. before the class was even supposed to start, I WAS NOT going to be late, which is out of character for me. About 5 minutes before class was going to start, I made my way to the classroom. It was FULL. Granted, it was another small conference room, but all 25 people that were registered for the class showed up and then some. There were only like 3 chairs available in the whole room, so I snagged one and my stuff down. I am what my mother calls a bag lady, so my backpack is always super heavy, and I can be seen carrying 10,000 things in my hands at all times. I went up to the professor and introduced myself. Y’all want to know what this man said to me? “No.” He straight up said no even though I tried to bargain with him. The class was already to full and he wasn’t going to be manually adding any students. While I was disappointed, I fully expected and mentally prepared for this, so I just went back to my room to strategize. My schedule was really riding on the class from this morning or the class that was full so of course I was frustrated. However, I’d been frustrated all week, so I was tired of stressing. I decided to just chill out until my next potential class later that day and I’d plan after I’d attended that class. So, I chill out for 4 hours, don’t even remember what I was doing. I know what I wasn’t doing. Stressing!

Boom. 3 pm hits. The contingency class is at 4. I start moving my booty getting ready to trek back down the mountain. I go to the classroom that the class is supposed to be in. I’m there like a half hour early, so I just go to the back because that’s where the only visible outlet is, and it seems like my laptop is constantly on 20%. After about 20 minutes I’m like “ok, class is starting soon, people should start showing up.” There was a sign on the door and from my rough translation- it didn’t seem like it had anything to do with my class, but I sent it to April, the CIEE coordinator anyways just to check. She confirmed that it did not, in fact, have anything to do with my class. 5 more minutes goes by and I start to panic. It’s now 5 mins. until class is supposed to start and there still wasn’t a single other soul in the room. At this point I get up, go to the hallway and start looking around. That’s when this girl comes up to me. She asks me about the class, and I tell her that we have the same questions. 5 more minutes of us trying to figure out what the heck is going on leads to nothing and now it’s technically time for class to start. Still, no one else has shown up. At this point I’m still very confused but feel better in knowing that I’m not the only dummy that showed up. I pack up my stuff and we go to the first floor to try and see if there’s anyone we can ask that knows what is going on. We can’t find anyone so, at this point, I am messaging April to see if she can find out what’s going on, and the girl I was with, Tina, is messaging her friends that were also taking the class. April finds out that the class was just straight up cancelled. She didn’t say why but I am assuming because there might have been a lack of enrollment. Anyways, Tina’s friends went up to the classroom anyways, so we went up there to meet them. One of the girls, Mae confirmed that she got an email saying the class was cancelled. However, it got sent to her NCCU email which no one checks which is why she didn’t know. I didn’t know because technically I wasn’t in the class yet so I couldn’t have gotten the email.

The 4 of us, Tina, Mae, myself, and the other girl, Monica, are all sitting in this room talking about classes and potential new choices, since we all needed to find one that would replace the one that got cancelled. I’m super hype because I just made 3 NEW FRIENDS. For some people, making new friends is a daily occurrence, but for me, it’s something that I really struggle with, so this, my friends, was a big deal. Anyways we talked about classes and where we’re from and other random stuff. I’m not going to put everyone’s business on MY blog, but I will say that Tina and Mae are both American, and Monica is from Singapore. They all live in I-house which is like a dorm for international students on lower campus. It’s nice and convenient unlike my MOUNTAIN dorm that doesn’t have a mini fridge or an included mattress. I-house has a lottery and is competitive, and my luck sucks, so I didn’t get in. After talking and them telling me about a bunch of fun I-house stuff they do and other aid for international students we parted ways. They had another class to go to, and I just went back to my room. I was so happy! Again, FRIENDS! YAY!

I get back to my dorm and do nothing for a little while, but tonight is the night. KTV! We were going back, but this time with some of the other CIEE students and more ambassadors. There were 10 of us in total this time compared to last time’s 5. There were actually supposed to be more, but we all know how people love to bail. We take the bus there around 9:30. The bus ride wasn’t too long but it was drizzling and the walk after the bus was fairly far. We get there start singing and ordering beer. As a part of going to KTV they give you a minimum amount that you have to spend on food & beverage which amounted to 100 NT$ per person. I wasn’t upset because I was going to need alcohol to drown out my lack of pitch. In the end I ended up ordering 1 regular can of beer and 2 mango beers. Now I definitely am not a beer person, but regular Taiwanese beer is better than American beer and the liquor was EXPENSIVE, so I just went with it. However, I will tell you that the mango beer I ordered was shabangin’. I was pleasantly surprised and will be taking several of them home with me when I leave this country. We were all singing, dancing, having a great time. Around 11 I got some wonderfully wonderful absolutely amazing fantastic news.

I got an email from Patrick (Director of Pitt’s Office of Undergraduate Research/ my mentor & boss) offering me a 2019 Summer Undergraduate Research award. Can y’all say BOOOOOOOYAH?? It’s actually funny because I am writing this before I’ve even formally accepted the award. I have to print out the form and sign it and scan it back to him. It’s a whole process that’ll most likely be done on Sunday. Never mind that, PATRICK I ACCEPT!!!! I was so worried what I was going to be doing over the summer because I don’t get back until June 28th which is mid-summer in college time. Most internships and jobs start at the beginning of June and I’m a junior who really needs something to look good on my resume. With this grant, I’m going to be conducting research on the cultural and religious aspects of Chinese medicine while I’m in Taiwan and while I’m back in America. I’ve done research in the past, but never anything having to do with a social science, never anything where I came up with the research idea, and nothing where I am the FIRST AND ONLY AUTHOR. GO ME!!! My research is starting at the beginning of May and ends in the beginning of August. As of right now I’ll most likely be writing a comprehensive article detailing all of my findings but that might change depending on what I find. Stay tuned chickas! This is also very exciting because the award also comes with a class over the summer so I’m getting credit, interacting with other awardees and hearing about their projects and it gives me much more flexibility for the summer. As of right now the plan is to stay in MD when I get home, work on my research project, shadow my doctor, drive for uber, study for ochem in the fall and the MCAT whenever I decide to take it, and take care of my lil PUPPY. I am so excited for Wes! This paragraph wasn’t actually supposed to be this long but excitement, amirite??? After I got the email I was in real disbelief because I always doubt myself. A bad habit yes, but I was on a cloud for the rest of the night! I shouted out that I got it and everyone said congratulations and we sang Allstar. Truly iconic.

12:30 rolls around a we realize that we should probably go home. Buses and the train stop running at 12 so we all decided earlier that we were going to have to take cabs or ubers back to the dorms. 2 of our ambassadors didn’t live on campus so they took separate modes of transportation home, but the rest of us all live in the same place, so we were carpooling. This is where things went downhill. We leave the KTV building because we didn’t want to loiter, but it was kind of cold outside, so we were rushing. One of the ICLC kids, let’s call him Craig for the sake of me about to rip him a new one on the worldwide web, calls the first uber. His uber is something like $335 to get to the dorms. There are 8 of us so it is clear that we are going to need another uber. Why we didn’t call a cab when it could’ve possibly been cheaper? I have no idea. This is the American mindset. Anyways, the question of who else has uber pops up. I do not volunteer at all because for some reason I always get screwed over when I call the uber. This was no exception. Eventually after lots of pricing, back and forth, and people’s ubers “not working” I end up calling the other uber. My uber is about 100 NT$ more expensive than Craig’s uber. I’m not too happy about it because we’re coming and going to the same place so we should all pay the same. I come up with a bright idea. Wow! What if we just add the two uber fares together and divide by all 8 people. That is fair. That way, everyone is paying the same thing for doing the same thing. Just as we did with taking the bus to go to KTV and paying for KTV itself. No one pays for how many songs they sang. Everyone was there! So, everyone is paying the same! I apologize readers. This is a topic that still gets me riled up so there might be ranting at some points. Anyways, I suggest this while everyone is still there and no one explicitly says anything, but I was not quiet about it, I said it a few times and I saw nodding as well as eye contact. They knew! Since Craig called his uber first, it came first, and 4 people: him, my roommate, Maddie (my Bali partner) and another CIEE girl hop in. After two mistaken car identities, our uber finally comes, the remaining 4 hop in, and we’re on our way back to the dorms. While in the car I get the final quote for our uber, so I ask in the group chat how much the other uber is so that I can calculate everyone’s fare. At this point, I’m just gonna show you guys the receipts, because, DRAMA. Please excuse my language, but we’re all adults and I need to fully convey the atmosphere in order for future events to make sense. I was also tipsy so don’t mind the typos.

Ok people, first off, I’d like to say that we are literally talk about 50 cents in US dollars. CENTS! Craig here is referring to when I refused to pay for any of his 6 pack because I ordered individual beers and homie was trying to say I took from his six pack even though he was across the table and that wouldn’t have even made a lick of sense. Pay for what you drink Craig. You’re not going to boss this little black girl into doing it. I’d love to get into all the sociological concepts of men, especially white men being at the center of American society, and certain gay men (Craig is gay) thinking that certain rules don’t apply to them because they fit into one minority category, but this is not a sociology class. It’s just a blog about my life in Taiwan. Taiwan- where life does not revolve around the white man. I definitely could have handled this situation better, but I am a hothead who had 3 beers in her system. I am a person that is big on fairness and behavior. I escalated the situation, yes, but that was after I was left on read for 15 minutes because every person in that car knew they were wrong. Then Craig just made it worse my having a temper tantrum, so y’all know I had to check him. This is a battle that some people would decide not to fight, especially because it’s so minor. I didn’t really care about the money, but the concept that Craig, my roommate and the other people in the car knew what was fair but decided to disregard it for their own benefit rubs me the wrong way. I also will never let an individual talk to me that way, especially in front of other people! If you let them get away with it the first time, people will continue to walk right over you. As a young black woman, the first idea is for people to walk all over me. If you can’t tell by all the young girls that go missing in metropolitan areas and are never found because of a lack of police involvement, or the entire R. Kelly situation, people just don’t care about black women. In general, I don’t care if strangers “care” about me, but it is important that I am respected. This is a mindset that I’ve built up over the years and extremely grateful to have especially because I want to get into a career field in which black woman almost cease to exist. I MATTER. That may be a lot to draw from an argument about ubers, but it’s not the situation that matters, it the principle that it came from. Anyways, so yeah. That happened. Eventually our uber pulls up to the gate at the bottom of the mountain, but guess what? It was closed and locked with no attendant. So, we got out and trekked up the freaking mountain at 1 am. I was already mad but at this point I was hangry, mad about the situation, tired, a PLETHORA or negativity. After I had been in my room for about 10 minutes, I received a message from Maddie. She offered to pay the difference in what everyone should have paid and what she actually paid. I told her it wasn’t necessary because everyone in my car had already settled it. She told me that the pennies do add up and she completely understood where I was coming from. No one else in my car was as riled up as I was, but we’re all different. I knew what was right and s/o to my girl Maddie for making sure that I knew I wasn’t crazy or just being dramatic. After talking to her, I just went to bed and my terrible awful Thursday was finally over.

I’d just like to point out that I realize that my entire day wasn’t terrible! There were some good parts too. It was just an extremely long day, and the end of the day’s events affected the entire following week. But that’s all going to be in the Week 3 Pt. 2 and Week 4 post.

Week 3 Pt.1

大家好！(Hello Everyone) So week 3 officially ended on Saturday/Sunday. It was a very long week in which many events occurred, so I’ve decided to split the week in half for time reasons and ease of reading. I’ve only been here for 3 weeks, but the third week, by far was the hardest. Let’s get into itttttttt.

So, at the end of week 2 I said that I couldn’t remember what I did no Sunday and that is was probably lazy. The lie detector determined that: that was a lie. It wasn’t actually a lie, but rather my inconsistent memory derping on me again. Like 2 days after writing that post I remembered that I spent the whole day SHOPPING. Since shopping is clearly a very important aspect to travel and Taiwan in general, I’ going to write a separate post about Taiwan shopping and fashion. For now, just know that I spent 7 hours shopping and I was pooped and broke afterward. That, ladies and gentlemen, was my Sunday.

MONDAY: Again: no classes on Monday. I’m pretty sure I went to the gym (gotta get buff) and then went to go teach some 7th graders English! The university that I attend is named NCCU. There’s also a NCCU affiliated high school. I’m not quite sure what the exact grade range is at this school because schools work a little differently over here, but there’s at least a bunch of 7th graders. There’s only about 10 in my class. 5 girls and 5 boys. The boys are rowdy of course, my compared to some of the other classes, they’re little angels. We played hangman with the words being US states. It was super easy because this one girl’s English is really good and the rest of them have decent English, but it was only for an hour and they seemed to have fun.

TUESDAY: Wow. Week 3 was the hardest week but Tuesday, 3/05/2019 was the hardest day I’ve had in Taiwan, YET. As I’ve mentioned before, I have a pretty mild case of social anxiety. I worry a lot and have a hard time communicating with people. I often worry about many things, not just social interactions. As a pre-med student who attends a very prestigious state-related institution, I have to compete with a lot of people and am often times told that I’m not good enough. In addition to that I am young. I am black. I am a woman. This makes me have to work x3 sometimes x4 times harder than everyone else I am usually pretty good at pushing these bad thoughts out of my head and keeping my eye on the prize. (MY MEDICAL LICENSE WOOP WOOP) But sometimes these doubts and worries get into my mind and I start to worry. At first, I thought that my worrying was fine and that my anxiety was manageable and I could figure it out on my own. This is one of my personal flaws. I think I can do everything alone without help from anyone. (This is partially due to social anxiety and thinking everyone hates me!) However, on Tuesday, I started to worry and I literally could not stop. I don’t even know how it started, but I know what it turned into. I worried about not getting into the class I wanted. I worried about where I was going to work over the summer. I applied for the research award but still hadn’t heard a reply. I wouldn’t be returning until mid-summer so finding a job: especially an internship would be near impossible. I never finished my practical so I’m still not an EMT. I’m going to be a senior and don’t know what I want to do after I graduate. I really want a puppy for graduation, but since I don’t know what I’m doing/living, I can plan for a lil’ baby. If I move away to teach, how long would it be for? Should I consider a Fullbright? My grades suck so should I get a master’s or do a post-bacc program? The MCAT is really hard, I didn’t do well in any of my science classes and I am terrible at standardized testing.

All of these negatives thoughts and more just kept coming. I left my dorm and went down the mountain to eat. Even though this stuff was going through my head I thought I could get over it and get some work done. I went to the library to see the kind of study environment that was there. Nothing I couldn’t use, but there were no outlets for me to plug my laptop into so I knew that I probably wouldn’t be there too long. I tried to get some work done but all I could do was worry about all of these things and I was on the verge of a full-blown anxiety attack. I didn’t want to break down in the middle of the library, so I decided to leave and go back to my dorm and take a nap. Sleep was the only thing that I could think of that would allow me to stop thinking/worrying so I was asleep for 3 hrs. I had Chinese class at 5 so I went to that. It surprisingly went by very quickly even though everything we were doing was review. It was fun, I really like my teacher. It was a good distraction. Afterwards, I just grabbed a quick dinner and went back to my room. I decided to be productive and do what I wanted to do earlier that day; get some work done. While this day sucked, it made me realize that I don’t think that I just have social anxiety, I think it’s just generalized anxiety all around. Part of the productivity of that night was looking into possible English-speaking therapists in Taiwan if it came to that as well as some useful techniques to help with Generalized Anxiety Disorder. (GAD) It was a goal of mine to work on myself and some of the less than pleasant aspects of myself while I am away, so that’s what I’ve been and will continue doing.

•WEDNESDAY: I had a really bad day on Tuesday as a result of me not being able to get out of my bed, I didn’t go to the gym. Since I don’t have class until 4 on Wednesdays, the gym was my #1 priority! I went to grab something small to eat so that I’d be energized for my workout. I lollygagged for about a half hour then went to the gym for 2 hours as usual and had a great workout. Now that I’m talking about, I remember sometime earlier in this week (maybe Monday?) or last week I tried to max out on squats, but again I have a hard time asking for help and I didn’t have a spotter. My legs buckled and I fell backward (you’re supposed to fall forward) so the full 170 lbs. of weight fell on my neck the crashed to the ground. It was really loud, and I just got up super quick because of course everyone was staring, and I wanted to show that I was okay. Despite getting up even though I didn’t know if I was okay, I was, in fact, okay. It was at that time that I learned that if I wanted to get stronger AND be safe, I had to ask a stranger to be my spotter. (which I did later in the week) Sometimes you don’t learn your lesson until your almost paralyze yourself! I would say that’s ok, but it’s not so always asked for a spotter, kiddos. Even strangers in the gym care about your wellbeing. As I said my actual work out on Wednesday was good. I then went back to my dorm took a shower. After that shower I went to a potential class in case the schedule I wanted didn’t work out. There’s no real point into saying much about this class because I didn’t end up actually registering but I thought it was worth a mention. The whole process will be explianed in Week 3 Pt. 2.

• Before the class that I was actually registered for, I decided to check out the activities fair. Unfortunately, the sun was out, and the weather was beautiful on Tuesday- the day that I spent mostly indoors. On Wednesday it was rainy and sad. I decided to check out the activities fair (which as outside) anyways because I’d been talking about potential clubs and activities for weeks because I need something to do with my free time. I looked at cheerleading club, but unfortunately, I had class during practice time, so I didn’t ask for too much information from them. I talked to ballroom dance club, Animal health club, and a children’s camp club. I got some flyers (all in Chinese) that I just sent to my CIEE buddies and they helped to translate them. Ballroom dance is self-explanatory. The Animal Health club goes to veterinary clinics a few times over the course of the semester and helps stray dogs and cats to get neutered and spayed. Help as in actually aid in surgery and recovery. (We love a country that lets untrained students with a simple love of animals, aid in surgical procedures) Their welcome party was next Thursday though, so I had some time for that one. I found out that the kid’s camp club was primarily done over the summer, so I decided to drop that idea because I’m already going to be busy and not even present for the entire summer. I had a good time at the fair and eventually and went to my Social Media and the Digital Narrative class. I didn’t read the reading which actually was not relevant nor necessary to the class that week. We got assigned groups, so I met some people that I haven’t seen outside of class but if I do hopefully I’ll have the guts to say hi. It was boring, I barely paid attention but still rose my hand and said something very general about the one part of the movie that I listened to. This has been working well so far because my professor knows my name (and likes me maybe?) because I participate more than most even though I’m never on task. This trick usually works with most professors in most classes. In my 6 semesters, it has proven to be one of my most useful tools. Wednesday night I went to Ballroom dancing club and had a blast! Took 2.5 hours to learn to short and very simple routines, but idk, you guys might see me on the next season of World of Dance. Derek Hough, I AM COMING FOR YOU.

Me this week as expressed by the one and only: Derek Hough

College tip: DO NOT answer right or wrong questions out loud. (whisper it or tell your friend next to you.) A professor isn’t going to remember that you answered “yes” or a multiple-choice question, or a calculation correctly. If there is a right answer, it is usually expected that you get the right answer. It’s not surprising or impressive. Instead you should participate in discussions: where anything you say will sound insightful. The professor will just build on it or reword it to something similar that makes sense even if what you said had nothing to do with the discussion or is completely incoherent. It’s always a win.

Well this is the end of the beginning of my terrible awful week, but more is on its way!

Week 2

Hello Hello Hello! Week 2 is over and it’s time for me to tell you about it.

Yay! So, at the end of last week, Sunday to be specific, all of the students from the other Taipei program, Intensive Chinese Language+ Culture (ICLC), arrived. The biggest difference between these programs is that the CBPE program includes actually NCCU courses so we are enrolled at the university like any other exchange student. The ICLC students are enrolled through CIEE because they’re only taking Chinese classes and once a week Art in China class offered by a professor that used to work in CIEE.

At first, Danielle and I (my roommate and only other CBPE student) were nervous for the other students to come, but it’s been really nice. We were nervous because we had all of our ambassador’s attention to ourselves. So, when the ICLC students and the ambassadors/our new friends’ actual “buddies” (each student gets 2 ambassadors to be their buddies) they would drop us and go be friends with the new people. Luckily this wasn’t the case. There’s something like 25 ambassadors for only 9 CIEE students. We have come to realize that there is enough love for everybody.

On Sunday and Monday (24th and 25th), when they first got here, there orientation was very similar to the CBPE program orientation. Since Danielle and I had already done the orientation packet and power points, we opted into ICLC meals, but we left when they were doing other stuff. We’ve been finding some other cafes and cool spots to hang out in while we’re on lower campus waiting to do something.

NCCU classes started this week. Classes work a little different here when compared to Pitt or most American schools. For a 3-credit class, instead of having it 3 times a week for 50 mins, I have a 3-hr. class once a week. As a result of this I don’t have classes on Monday or Friday. I am truly living my best life. That’s not even the best part. Yes, it is, but there’s another good part. (2 of them actually) Firstly, the only class that I have on Tuesday is my Chinese class, and for some reason of which I do not know, Chinese classes weren’t staring until the next week. Woohoo! The other good part is that for some reason NCCU decided to have the first week of school at the exact same time as a major holiday. Thursday was Taiwanese Memorial Day and Friday was a deferred holiday. So yes reader, you guessed it. I only had class on Wednesday for my first week of school. It was my Social Media and the Digital Narrative class. The gist of the class is just to look at how social media has affected different aspects of society. It’s more work than I was hoping for, but again. This semester is about self-care, and C’s get degrees! (Only when you’re abroad and can only get transfer credit. If your GPA transfers back to your home school, you should work very hard.)

So, before this week started, I made some goals. I wanted to start going to the gym every day and speak as much Chinese as possible. Since I have so much free time this semester, I have really made a point out of trying to develop healthy habits. I floss my teeth every day. I’m drinking lots of water. (Yet, somehow, I’m still always dehydrated) I’m not over/under eating. I’m reaching out to people more often. These are things that I have struggled with doing in the past, mostly because I didn’t prioritize them and didn’t have time to focus on things that weren’t priorities. Now they are my priorities and I feel great! I went to the gym on Mon-Wed which is every day that we were on campus. I tried to speak as much Chinese as I could, but since it’s been awhile since my last class, not too many coherent sentences were coming out. I put a hold on that goal until I started Chinese classes and could beef up on my skills. Other than these fun things, I watched some Netflix & Hulu, planned my trip to BALI -more on this in the future, and just doing other boring planning stuff for things in my life. I like to plan. I’m a planner even though nothing actually ever goes to plan. I’m a good adapter too hehe.

Tuesday night, we went to 通化夜市 or the Tonghua Night Market. Taiwan has lots of night markets. They’re kind of like a bunch of small shops that sell food, bags, clothes, souvenirs, and other small things. There are also a lot of carnival games and prizes at the night markets. I feel bad for parents because I know the kids that go want to play everything. All of the food was very unique to Asian cultures. While most of everything was Taiwanese or Chinese, there was the occasional Japanese or Malaysian booth. One of the dishes I tried was 臭豆腐 or stinky tofu. As one can draw from the title, it’s tofu and it expels a pungent odor. It’s extremely popular in Taiwan so I ate it for the sake of trying. Surprise Surprise! It was nasty. We are told to say that if we don’t like something, to say we’re not used to it. （不习惯）Usually I’d love to be polite and I said I was going to look at all the differences in culture with the perspective of the Taiwanese, but y’all this stuff smells so bad and it tastes almost as bad. That’s all I’ll say on the subject but just know Brittany is not a fan of stinky tofu. Other than stinky tofu I was prodded to try some other things such as pork intestines/pork lung. While I’m sure they’re just as tasty as can be, I have to draw the line somewhere and I shouldn’t be eating pork anyways so those were a no for me.

On Wednesday, after my class, I met up with some of the ambassadors (we all had late classes) and took the bus to to Welcome Dinner. The food was pretty good, we played 3 truths and a lie, and one of the ambassadors- Ian danced for us! It was a good time. After dinner, we departed to begin our 3-day excursion. The CIEE Taipei center planned this to coincide with the holiday so everyone could go, and no classes would be missed. Here is the schedule of our trip:

The CIEE center rented a coach bus (smaller and nicer than American ones) to take us to all of our locations during the excursion. After about an hour-long bus ride, we arrived in 较细 Jiaoxi and checked into our hotels. Since there were about 30 people on the trip, we had to split into two different hotels that were about a 5-minute walk from each other. Jiaoxi is famous for the hot springs and skin eating fish. Now I’m not talking about Piranhas, I’m talking about the small little fish that were all the rage in America a few years ago. Several nail salons offered a new service where customers could pay to get a pedicure from fish that would simply eat the dead skin off of your feet. Now I haven’t heard anything about that in years, so I’m assuming the FDA was like “naw” and must’ve made it really hard to be able to have that at American salons, but they’re everywhere in Jiaoxi! It’s a lot different though because the fish tanks are as big as a carnival tent and a bunch of people all have their feet in at the same time. As most things in Taiwan, it was pretty cheap to get it done. (I can’t remember the exact price but less around $5 USD) We were only in Jiaoxi that evening so I didn’t have time to do it, but if I’m being honest, I probably wouldn’t have done it anyways. When I do things in everyday life, I try to live by “WWJD.” “What would Joy do?” If you didn’t already know, Joy is my mother and if I wouldn’t want to tell her about something I did while I was here, especially if it could affect my health, I probably shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. I’m pretty sure my mommy would deem an unregulated fish tank full of dead skin a no no, so I just passed on that.

The other thing that Jiaoxis is famous for is their hot springs. Here I was thinking that these hot springs were going to be like the springs that run off of the Arenal volcano in Costa Rica, but no. They’re just ginormous bathtubs in whatever hotel you decide to stay in. While I probably should’ve taken one of the huge baths- as I was extremely sore from the gym and having the experience itself wouldn’t hurt, I was too tired and went to sleep before I could, and we left too early in the morning (Around 9) for me to take a relaxing bath. Why was I so tired you ask? Well friends, as soon as everyone had settled in their hotel rooms, we decided to go out on the town and walk around Jiaoxi. After enough walking, we went to 7-11 and got some beer and a small (really small) bottle of vodka to share! We went back to the nicer hotel and somehow squeeze 30 people in the decently sized room. They had a loft! We played a bunch of simple drinking games and mafia (one of my faves.) I actually got too tired to actually drink more than one beer, and my roommate and I left around 12:30. Some people were apparently up until 3 am but I would’ve been dead so again, a no for me.

The next morning, we had a weird breakfast in a shack in the parking lot next to our hotel, then headed out for the Yilan Cake Factory. Yilan is very famous for their Yilan Ox tongue cookies. They’re just super thin very long cookies that can be made of just cheese and dough (what we made) or other ingredients that the factory makes and sells, in their cookies.

Making my cookies. Any anger that I may have had, I got out by smashing this dough.

After getting our cookies, we headed left out for lunch. I think we had a little extra time on our hands so made a stop and spent some time visiting the 妈祖 temple in 南天. (Mazu and Nantian) There was a boat yard, so we walked around that a bit then went to take a look at the temple. I love temples because I believe that Chinese Religion is very interesting (I’m taking a class about it this semester) and the art in the temples is simply breathtaking. Every single thing in these temples was handmade or hand carved and any picture from any camera could not do the amount of detail justice. Many temples are very similar, but I never get tired of the art.

After we left 南天 we made our way to Taroko Gorge. A gorge is basically a canyon with a river running through it. It was so beautiful. Mostly unbothered nature at its finest. We were more toward the bottom so the cliffs we SO tall. It makes definitely humbled me when it comes to how small I am in comparison to the rest of the world. (BUT BEST BELEIVE IMMA MAKE MY MARK/ A DIFFERENCE SOME WAY SOME HOW) Somewhat scary, but absolutely an experience I enjoyed and would do again.

We left the gorge and made our way to 花莲. (Hualian) Once again we were in the hotel for a very short amount of time, but we arrived much earlier. We were on our own for dinner this night, but there was a night market and 很有名的小笼包 (very famous steamed buns) a few blocks away. It was raining cats and dogs so Ta’ Morra (an ICLC student with CIEE) and I got very tired and lowkey just wanted to get something quick and not outside. She ended up getting noodles, but I didn’t want those, so I got those super tasty steamed buns and some dumplings to go with it. The rain lightened up and the ambassadors that we were with wanted to go back to the night market so that’s what we did. We walked around and ate, and window shopped like any person at a night market would. As we were about to leave, I wanted to stop at a mini seafood place with raw and fresh oysters and clams. (my absolute FAVORITE) At first, I was just waiting in line just to ask the cashier guy how much everything was and while we were waiting there were 2 guys on the grill. Both of them were tatted up and one was kind of cute ngl. We tried to ask them how much everything was (in Chinese) but then they just pointed to the guy we were already waiting to talk to. This really isn’t relevant to the story or the weekend at all but the not cute guy on the grill was holding a blowtorch to one of the giant oysters. He was working on the oyster the entire like 7 mins that we were standing there so props to those guys for putting in the work but also, I want to taste blowtorched oyster. I feel like it’s a delicacy. Back to the story- a few minutes after we asked the guys, the cute one passes me an oyster bigger than my head with salsa on it. At first, I was panicking because 1. I didn’t know if it was free and didn’t want to have to pay for it when I didn’t order it 2. I didn’t know how spicy the salsa was, so I really could’ve died. From the body language that I was getting from the guy and the ambassadors I just assumed it was free, so I SLURPED the heck out of that oysters. It had to take it in two slurps because it was so big. The salsa was slightly spicy but definitely tolerable. Right after I finished the oyster, the cashier guy told me the prices (I don’t remember how much the clams were, but the giant oysters were 200 NT$ each which is fair. I was full from my buns, dumplings, and other night market food the ambassadors bought that I tried, so I took a pass on staying out for longer just to spend a rack and be glutinous. However, that oyster was shapoppin’ and mark my words. I WILL be back.

During this whole day I was also in a lot of pain because my muscles hate me and even if I stretch before and after a hard workout, they fill up with lactic acid and are hard as rocks (in a bad way.) So, when I got back, I decided to take a bath before I took a shower to get these babies to soak. I had another long day ahead of me the next day and I didn’t want it to be as bad. After my bath and shower (you can’t get clean if you just sit in dirt), I hit the hay.

The next day I actually don’t remember at all what we had for breakfast, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say food. We started the day’s adventures with the Sugar refinery. The most interesting thing about it was the general scene and the ice cream. We only spent about an hour there. Then we went to the Wetlands. It was basically a bunch of grass and water. It was land that was wet. Not too much going on but it’s so refreshing to see all the green and breathe such fresh air. Those mosquitoes were ruthless. I work jeans and they bit me through my pants. Be careful out here in these skreets. After the wetlands we had lunch at a very mediocre restaurant then made our way to the beach.

The beach was a rock beach, but you weren’t allowed to take rocks from the beach, or you could get fined. Me being me, I hear the word “fined” and run the other direction, so I didn’t take any rocks home, but I did buy a coconut. They had guys near the parking lot with carts full of coconuts. I love real coconut water and cannot drink and of that stuff in the boxes of America, so I was so happy when I bought mine. I named him Larry and we really enjoyed our time together while we still had it. We took lots of pictures at the beach then finally started our 2.5 hr. journey back to NCCU.

For some reason my leg muscles were fine on this day but I’m pretty sure I slept on my back and shoulder wrong the night before and they were still sore so again, I was in a lot of pain. I finally gave in a took some strong Advil from a friend so that I could make it to NCCU and buy some tiger balm before my body gave up on me. We had a meal box on the bus on were just chilling when we got back. On Saturday, I was so tired that I went and got lunch around 12 then went back to my room and actually stayed there for the rest of the day/night. It was my recovery day. I feel like I was slightly more productive on Sunday but not enough so that I can actually remember what I did. Anyways, this is the conclusion of Week 2. It was long and tiring but I had a great time!

Getting to Taiwan

Whew Chile, let me tell you. It was a long day+. (I put the plus because technically it was more than 24 hours of travel, but it all felt grouped together, so we are going to say one day.) So, the supposed itinerary was supposed to be this:

Saturday 2/16/2019 ||| New York EST
  • 5 am- Leave for the Airport
  • 6 am- Arrive at the Airport, Check Bags, Say Goodbye
  • 8:15 am- Board Flight for San Francisco
  • 8:40 am- Depart for San Francisco
  • 3 pm- Arrive in San Francisco
  • 4:30 pm- Board Flight for Taiwan
  • 5 pm- Depart for Taiwan
Sunday 2/17/2019 ||| New York EST
  • 7 am- Arrive in Taiwan
  • 7:30 am -Depart from Airport
  • 7:45 am -Arrive at Hostel

Total Travel Time: 26 hrs 45 mins. Now this is what was SUPPOSED to happen. However, this is me that we are talking about so this is what actually happened:

Saturday 2/16/2019 ||| Eastern Standard Time & Pacific Standard Time
  • 5:30 am (EST)- Supposedly leave for the Airport
  • 5:35 am- Stop at CVS
  • 6:05 am- Actually leave for the airport
  • 7 am- Arrive at the Airport, Check Bags, Say Goodbye
  • 8:15 am- Board Flight for San Francisco
  • 8:40 am (EST)- Depart for San Francisco
  • 12 pm (PST)- Arrive in San Francisco
  • 3 pm- Board Flight for Taiwan
  • 3:30 pm (PST)- Depart for Taiwan
Sunday 2/17/2019 ||| Taiwan Time
  • 9 pm- Arrive in Taiwan
  • 10 pm -Depart from Airport
  • 10:30 pm -Arrive at Hostel
Me during the whole trip

So, let me tell y’all what happened. My day never really began or ended. I’d left my home at like 1 am on Friday (the day before I left) to engage in my last day tomfoolery. I went to sleep and the next morning I got to see my Zeus one last time and hang out with some friends that I had not seen in a while before I left. I then went to a friends’ house to get my hair done. I wanted to get it braided before I left and 1. it took me forever to find someone who would do it for cheap 2. I want it to be as fresh as possible so it would last longer. My hair took ALL NIGHT. We didn’t finish until I want to say 1 am on Saturday. I then had to drive from there (Silver spring) to DC to grab some things. I drove back to my mother’s house where all of my luggage was. (at this point I am tired because I haven’t slept in 24+ hours but I thought that it would be good to not sleep before the plane so I could sleep a great deal when I was on the plane.)

I finished packing and cleaning my room around 5:15 and we were out the door by 5:30. Since I’d been busy on Friday, I didn’t have time to pick up a prescription that I needed while I was abroad, so we stopped at our CVS across the street to pick it up. There was only one pharmacist there and homegirl had an attitude that I really didn’t appreciate. I stood there arguing with her and calling my insurance for a half hour because they messed up the pricing even though I’d called them 2 days prior about it and they said it’s be fine. We couldn’t even talk to a representative at the insurance company because it was 5 am, they were updating the system and didn’t have access to any of the records. Just my like, huh? Anyways, we paid the ridiculous amount of money for my medicine because there really was no other choice and went on our way. At this point I was stressed out because I was tired, hungry, mad that CVS is full of bozos, and the fact that my mother insists that I will miss my flight if I do not arrive at the airport 3 hours before departure.

We finally left for the airport and said goodbye. Everything was smooth sailing at IAD, and I waited to board for about an hour. During this time, I checked my ridiculously heavy carry-on at the gate FOR FREE. (y’all know I love me some free anything) You can usually do this with any airline, just make sure that everything in this bag can pass through TSA. Even though you’re checking it, you’ve got to make it through security, to the gate first. When I sat down, I was talking to this lady sitting next to me who was complaining about how long the flight was, and I told her I had a 14 hr flight right after this one and she said, “Oh goodness, then I guess I better shut up.” We chuckled and made the occasional small talk until we boarded. It turns out she was sitting in my row, but she was in the aisle seat and I was in the window seat. I slept almost the entire flight, which was nice because I forgot to nab some om my mom’s melatonin pills.

When I arrived in San Francisco, I was on a QUEST. I was hungry as all get out and I wanted a burger. Not breakfast food, not a panini or assorted fruit. A good ole American burger and some fries. I’m usually not a burger person but I have acknowledged that it would not be likely that I’d have access to one in Taiwan so I that it what I was craving. Before I set out on my quest, I wanted to find my gate for the next flight and set my bag down. The international terminal was a way away so I’m glad I did that first. Once I found a spot where I didn’t think my bag was going to get stolen or picked up by Airport security on account of it being suspicious, I started looking. I literally explored the entire international terminal and went back to the domestic terminal where I got off of my first stop looking for a burger. I was in the airport so of course everything was expensive, but again, I am me, so I was going to get the cheapest on. I went to a restaurant and got in line for takeout even though my plane was definitely going to start boarding in like 20 minutes. They host that was there then told everyone in line that if they didn’t have at least 40 minutes to wait, they should probably go somewhere else. So that is what I did. By that time my plane was going to start boarding in 10 minutes, so I no longer had time for the oh so precious burger that I had desired. I gave up on that and just went to one of the faster places that just warmed up pre-heated food, and I was going to get mac n’ cheese. It looked pretty fancy. That is when I got a glorious text. My plane had been delayed by 30 mins. Apparently, they couldn’t find a gate for it? Idk but I wasn’t mad. So then, I decided I had the time, a smooth 30 minutes before boarding began, and since I had a seat assignment already and overhead carry-on I could actually just show up at the end of boarding and be fine. So, I went to Gordon Biersch, which was less busy and similarly priced to buy my $18 burger.

When I bought the burger I also bought and orange as well as a Mighty Mango NAKED smoothie for the plane ride. I sat down at the bar to wait and this strange man comes to sit next to me. I forget his name so we’re going to call him Gary because he looks like he could be a Gary. Gary has on what looks to be very similar to a surgical cap, but I have watched enough Grey’s anatomy to know the difference. He orders some sort of alcoholic beverage and kind of just looks around for a while. Eventually the bartender asks him what he wants, and he says he doesn’t know- mind you they gave him the menu 5 mins ago and he hadn’t bothered to look at it. Exactly 15 secs later he stops he and says he does know. He wants mac n’ cheese. The bartender says it’s a kids’ size, is that ok? He proceeds to say that he wants 2 of them since they are small. I chuckle. This full-grown man in regular clothes wearing a phony surgical cap orders 2 mac n’ cheeses for like $8 each which are probably going to be fake cheese (since it’s for kids) 15 seconds after he told the bartender he didn’t know what he wanted. He then acknowledges my chuckle and we get to talking. Rather, he gets to talking. While still waiting for my burger, he tells me that he’s wearing the cap because he’s just had surgery. Apparently, he had started balding in his early 20’s (he was like 28-32 or something like that) and he’d always been self-conscious about it. He now had a stable job, so he flew to Florida to get hair surgery and was on his way back home. He asked me if I wanted to see his head, and I said “No, it’s all right” but he showed me anyway. He also told me how he was lowkey heartbroken because he was going through a “mild breakup.” This girl that he had only been on 2 dates with had apparently been stringing him along, but just told him that their “relations” (this is a PG blog so I’m paraphrasing his words) weren’t good so she thinks they should just be friends. He was upset because there was potential, but when they tried to have “relations” he had too much to drink which resulted in a lack of “relations.” After all of this and of course some other unsolicited information about his life my burger came out. I wished him good luck and hit the mom walk to get to my gate. Yes. Yes, he was.

As I was entering the international terminal, I looked at the schedule board to find out that my plane had been delayed another half hour for a total for one hour. So, I finished my walk to the gate with a leisurely pace and find a good place to plop down until it was time to board. Right as everyone was lining up, the flight got delayed another half hour. The people line up were pretty upset but I was glad to have time to eat my burger without being cramped or rushed, walk around before this long flight, and be able to call my loved ones to update them on my status. I finished my burger and finally boarded my flight after 1.5 hours in delays.

I had another window seat, and there was a Taiwanese girl next to me and somewhat of a redneck but very friendly man in our aisle seat. I was excited for this flight because I remembered from my flight to/from China that long flights such as this one that I was on have AMAZING movies and TV shows. It’s all the new stuff, which is exciting because I have not ventured outside of Netflix in a long time. However, as soon as I sat down, I realized that I did not have a single pair of headphones that was compatible with the TV. I brought 3 pairs, but 2 of them were Bluetooth and my only pair with wires was for my newer iPhone and I didn’t have the adapter. So, I had to use United’s crappy earphones and could barely even hear what was being said in the movie. I watched Crazy Rich Asians. Thank goodness for subtitles and I can’t wait to visit Singapore. This flight was 14 hrs long so I slept a lot, I worked on some blog posts, I watched that movie, and I was also working on a research proposal for a grant that I applied for. They gave us some weird crackers for snacks and drinks like any other flight. We were also given meals, I had chicken with veggies. It didn’t taste awful, but my stomach was definitely in pain when I got off the flight.

When I did get off the flight, I had to go through customs, which took a while. They didn’t rescreen my bag which was nice but just waiting in line to get my fingerprints scanned and my passport stamped felt like a lifetime. When I got through customs, I had to exchange money. That line wasn’t too long. I was please to find out the 30-1 exchange rate. When I finished exchanging, I headed to the baggage claims and all three of my bags were already on the belt. I grabbed them and headed toward the exit. I first went to the information help desk to find out the best way to get to my hostel my bus. (Again, I am cheap.) The lady and I were talking for like 10 mins. After she told me everything I needed to do, I realized that I had way too much stuff to get on the bus, so I just decided to take the L and grab a taxi. I went to my hostel confirmation email where I then saw that apparently the latest time for me to check in was 8 pm. (it was 10) After that my reservation would be cancelled and I wouldn’t get a refund. Before I started to freak out, I just decided to call hoping to goodness that someone would answer. Someone did answer! Instead he offered to pick me up for a similar price to the taxi, so I agreed and waited about 10 mins for him to get to the airport.

His name was Rex. I don’t know if he owned or just managed the hostel, but he was super friendly and cracked so many jokes. He brought me to a convenience store and helped me to pick some snacks before we made our way to the hostel. He told me they usually wouldn’t have answered the phone, but since my program coordinator, April, had called to notify them of the car that was picking me up in the morning, they knew that I was probably still coming. Wow, thank goodness for April! Anyways I arrived at the hostel, ate my Taiwanese version of Ramen/ talked with the Korean boys that were in the common area, took a shower, and headed to bed. I didn’t actually sleep that much, because, ya know, jet lag but I did some more work and called my favorite people around 7 am because it’d be 6 pm at home and everyone would at home would still be awake without it being an outrageous time for a phone call here in Taiwan. At 10 am, the car April had sent arrived, and I had a terrible stomach ache still (I was also getting over being sick) so I was a little car sick, but I got to NCCU, and my first day started, but that’s a whole other story.

Sorry this took so long to get up, but thanks for tuning in folks. My next post: My first day will be coming soon!

Week 1

Hello people! If you didn’t know, I am in fact, still alive. I didn’t think anything would happen to me but just in case you were worried, I thought I’d put that out there. So I’ve officially been in Taiwan for 1 week. I still have to write a post about my trip here and I’m also going to write about moving in, but for now I’m just going to sum up the entire week.

What have I done this week? Well on the first day that we got here, I was greeted, checked into my dorm and went to the CIEE office to meet our cultural ambassadors, our program cooridnator, and my roomate, Danielle. We did icebreakers to meet each other and orientation paperwork and all that fun jazz. When we finished, Danielle and I got to pick out some things for our dorm which will all be detailed in another post. Then we went to lunch at a dumpling place called 八方云集 ba1fan1yun2ji2. It literally translates to “All directions come together.” The food there ranged from about 5-30 NT$. 1 USD=30 NT$. CIEE paid for everything but 6 dumplings was $1 and they were oh so very tasty, therefore everyone was happy. I will defintely be returning there.

After lunch on the first day, some of our cultural ambassadors (students at NCCU who have joined the CIEE “club” to make American friends, help us with anything and show us the best of Taiwan while we are here) took me to get a Taiwanese SIM card for my phone. This is very important because even though lots of places in Taiwan have free wifi, it’s vey splotchy, especially on a mobile device. It took forever because the plans and the man explaining them to us were very confusing, but eventually we settled on an unlimited plan. There’s a bunch of boring logistics to my individual plan but I will say that I paid about $140 USD for 5 months of unlimited high speed data. MAKE SURE that if you are using the same phone from America and you’re just switching SIM cards, that you talk to your provider so that they can unlock your phone. I ran into lots of problems with this so it’s best if you talk to them far in advance before you leave for your trip so you have lots of time to resolve any problems or make decisions. After buying my SIM card I just went back to my room to finish unpacking. We went to dinner and my first day was finally over.

The next day, we had a bunch of boring orientations that I could’ve just read myself. My morning was pointless, but my evening was a blast! There wasn’t much inbetween other than a lot of netflix and hulu. Both of those became common themes trhoughout the week. ~ A neat trick for hulu~ I wasn’t able to watch any of my usual shows becuase my hulu said that they weren’t available in my location. To bypass this, I downloaded the google extension SetupVPN which basically tells whatever site you’re on, that you’re in the country of your choosing. I obviosly chose the US, and sometimes it gets weird and puts you in Canada but just keep connecting and disconnecting until you’re in a US location and it should work! In the evening, Danielle and I along with our cultural ambassadors took the bus and MRT (their version of a metro system) down to 西门 xi1men2, a touristy neighborhood and metro stop in Taiwan. We were going to the lantern festival which signifies the last day of the Lunar New Year and Chinese Spring Festival. There were so many people (人山人海）but the lanterns were beautiful and several of them we Pig themed since it is the year of the pig. After walking around a bit, we ate dinner and went back home. NCCU is far from everything so the trip takes about an hour on public transportation. I made some phone calls to friends and family and went to sleep.

The next day we had our chinese placement tests. Danielle and I are going to be the only ones in our class but we still had to to take the test so that our teacher (老师 lao3shi1) could hauge where we are and prepare accordingly. Yes Danielle and I are roommates and the only ones in our chinese class so we will be spending lots of time together over the course of this semester. The next day we went back to 西门 for a historical walking tour. I don’t like history so I was pretty bored but I got some excercise in, and by going I knew I wouldn’t regret not going which gives me the best feeling of content. We stopped halway through anyways because it was 3 hours long and we were hungry. We did a bit of window shopping but nothing too adventurous.

As the week goes on there was more Netflix, a very annoying 2 hour long fire drill, which in hindsight I don’t think was mandatory, and SO MUCH FOOOOOOOOD. Even in Taiwan I’m still not much of a breakfast person, so I haven’t had too much of it but for reference’s sake it’s delicious. 我很喜欢蛋饼。( I really like dan4bing3) It’s like a Taiwanese egg crepe. Honestly all the food here sounds pretty freaky but I have yet to try anything that I have not enjoyed. (Saw pig intestines on a menu though, and that’s where I draw the line) The portions here as reasonable so I usually spend about $3 USD for lunch/dinner, I’m always full but never have to take any food home. It’s actually kind of weird to do that here. They don’t have take-home boxes. The one time Danielle didn’t eat her noodles she asked for a box and they just put it in a plastic bag lol. So if you have a small stomach and don’t like your food to touch, Taiwan is not the place for you. (Maybe you can bring your own tupperware? Kind of like we do in Pitt’s cafeteria hehehe) When I’ve had more to eat I will absoulutely be making a post on food. (maybe 2 posts) I also just want to make a point to say that I’ve already been to the cat cafe twice and I went to KTV which is karaoke and had Taiwanese beer. The cat cafe is free as long as you get a drink. So far I’ve seen 4 furballs which isn’t enough but I’ll live. KTV was fun but expensive. I was also reaffirmed in the fact that I can’t sing to save my life.

Some cultural differences that I’ve run into
  • Lack of trash cans
  • Measurements
  • School shuttle system
  • Restaurants
  • Metro Card
  • Dorm Trash

Not going to get too deep into these but I just wanted to mention them. In Taiwan, there are no public trash cans! Like actually 0 I have not seen a single one on the street. There are very few inside of covenience stores and restuarants so you usually have to ask whoever the person at the counter of wherever you go, if they can throw your trash away. It’s actually much more inconvenient and annoying that you might think.

Measurements are obviously different here, becuase America uses a different system for most meausrements. So usually when I mention miles, degrees (Fahrenheit), or pounds to my cultural ambassadors, we have to do some converting to do.

I live on upper campus at the univerisity so I usually take the shuttle to get to my dorm. They run about every 5 mins. now that school has started but you have to pay 15 NT$ each way, and while that’s only 50 cents in America, it’s kind of annoying that it’s not free. Then again, students only pay $1600 USD in tuition a year so I understand.

I kind of mentioned restaurants in my expectations post, but it’s even more different that I thought. Most of the restaurants here are fairly small 10-15 tables and all you have to do is write the quanity of what you want on their paper menus, bring it up to the cashier and pay. I’ve never waited more than 10minutes for my food and at some restaurants there is complimentary tea and soup.

The metro cards here are so great! You can use them for the bus and metro, but also at convenience stores that take them. Most 7-elevens do, and you can reload the card there in addition to the machines in the MRT station.

So this may sound weird, but I love taking the trash out in my dorm. Instead of the trash room that most US universities have, everyone in NCCU waits for the trash truck to come. It comes around twice a day around 2 and 9 pm. It goes around the city with a tone similar to an ice cream truck. When it gets up to the dorm, I can usually hear the truck first because I’m on the first floor right by the entrance, but inside the dorm speakers, Fur Elise by Beethoven plays for a few seconds. At first it’s alarming, but then it’s pleasant. Everyone goes down with their trash at the same time and kind of looks like the scene from spy kid’s where the robot kids are wating to get their brains, but less evil. It makes me feel like I’m a part of a community. Anyways this is Week 1 but there’s lots more to come.

Since Taiwan is 13 hours ahead of New York, waking up and bedtime are the best times for phone calls! I usually use facetime, skype, or whatsapp for calls but almost everything has some kind of video call feature these days. I suggest trying them all to see what works best with your camera and connection. Skype is my favorite!

If you go on the the facebook page for the blog (make sure to like it for updates) there’s lots of pictures of the lanterns and even the Twinkle Twinkle Pig which is an electronic Pig that is basically an edm light show that people seem to love. Just watch the videos. If you want to see other pictures of my group and food from the week, that’s where I’m putting all the pictures. (照片 zhao1pian1) Just click the gear at the top of the page and the facebook icon to get there!

Saying Goodbye

2/10/2019

Hello! Yes, um, I am skressed. Skressed the heck out. It has really started to hit me that I am moving to an entirely different country, 7840 miles away from home and my mother for 19 weeks. I’ve never gone without seeing my mother for longer than 2 months. If you’re a momma’s girl too, you probably know about the pit that has slowly been forming in my stomach.

It’s not really just leaving my mom that has me nervous. It’s leaving all the positive relationships that I have made over the last 2.5 years. After trying for so long, I finally found a good place for myself, so at times it feels like I’m throwing something good away and just leaving. Yet, I know that this is not the case. I am going on the trip of a lifetime that everyone in my life (including strangers) supports and praises me for doing. Yes, it will be hard to miss getting to know my g-little! It’s going to devastating to miss 3 of my best friends’ graduations from college, but also my little sister’s graduation from high school. (She missed mine for gymnastics though, so I’m not as upset about that one.) It’s going to be hard to leave the country knowing I haven’t seen my friend in the hospital one time since she’s been there, and I won’t be able to see her until I get back. These things and so many others are so difficult, but change is good, and all of these things will be waiting for me when I get back. Especially you Alex Warner! (Go Donate to her gofundme please and sign up to be a living donor! We gotta get this girl a kidney.)

2/16/2019

It’s the big day!!! I am currently writing this in the San Francisco airport as I await to board my delayed flight. I can write a different post to tell you all about this crazy day I’ve had. HOWEVER, this one is about putting pause on one chapter of my life while I start a new one. Let’s just say I got writer’s block. (I think that was witty, but I also think I am the funniest person ever so interpret it how you will)

As anyone can imagine, saying goodbye is hard. Everything I wrote above (in blue) was written right as I was leaving Pittsburgh. I have great friends. They encourage me to want to do better things with myself whether it be striving for that 4.0 and medical school or getting over my anxiety and fear of talking to people and actually communicate my feelings. They make me want to do it. I think that’s one of the reasons saying goodbye was hard. Of course, I thought about not getting in that car to leave Pittsburgh and not getting on the flight to leave home, but I did it. I did it because these people help make me strong, and they encourage me in everything I do. They’d be disappointed if I didn’t get on the plane, and everyone knows that disappointed is worse than mad. Wow, I’m getting sappy. If you’re thinking about studying abroad, I think it’s really important to have a strong support system, especially if you’re doing a program like me, where I know absolutely no one and am in a country where almost everything is different.

Before I left Pittsburgh, I wanted to see and spend time with as many of the people that I’m close to as possible. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time to see everyone and do everything. That doesn’t mean that they don’t still love me and won’t miss me when I’m gone or vice versa. To everyone who went out of their way at some point in the last few weeks to do something with me, thank you so much. It means the world. To everyone who I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to, I love you too and I’ll see you when I get back. Now that really sounded like I was dying, or I was going to end the post, but I have more!

P.S. Shout out to my beautiful sissies for my going away gift! They painted a box for me and each of them wrote at least one letter with words of encouragement for whenever I need them throughout my trip. I’m sure I’ll use it at least 3 times a day just so I can read the letters in their voices.

When I got back home to MD I didn’t do much. I don’t really hang out or talk to anyone from high school other than Shleigh. I wanted to see some of my old coworkers, but our plans fell through because “someone” (me) didn’t get her hair finished in time. Anyways, the at home goodbyes were a little easier because there weren’t as many. I spent the week mostly with my boyfriend (Kyle) taking some time off to spend time with my parents and celebrate Shleigh’s 21st birthday. All in all, the week was pretty chill, and even though I know each day meant I was closer to leaving, I didn’t really have any feelings. Rather, I think the excitedness about this new experience but the sadness in leaving my loved ones and comfort zone neutralized each other. I got to say goodbye to Zeus and Thurgood, (idk how I am going to live without a pet for 19 weeks, but I guess we will see) Kyle’s family, Shleigh and her family, and even got to talk on the phone with Alex for the first time since her accident a few days ago. My two mommas and Kyle drove me to Dulles and helped me check my bags and walked me over to the security check. Of course, I cried, because my mother has that effect and I am going from long distance relationship to Xtreme long distance relationship, but I decided to do this and I know it’s all going to be worth it.

“With every goodbye, comes a new hello.”

Funding my Trip

If you know me, you know that one of my biggest personality traits is frugality. As a result of this, I had to find a program that wasn’t going to break my bank. Luckily, a lot of study abroad programs (even some in Europe) are cheaper than the out-of-state tuition that I pay at Pitt.

Pitt Semester Fees

  • Out of State Tuition- $16,026
  • Transportation- Free with ID
  • Books & Supplies- ~$250
  • Housing- $2100
  • Personal Expenses- I have no clue
  • Meals- $1400 (probably less but this is a ballpark)
  • Total- 19,776 + whatever personal expenses I have

Now of course, there’s a bunch of random money things that are involved in any one semester, whether that be going home once or twice during that time (usually about $60 roundtrip), or the parking tickets I’ve received because Oakland is the worst, or fun things I can do with my friends! I suppose all of those can be listed under personal expenses, but every semester at Pitt has been wildly different for me, therefore I have spent different amounts each semester. However, I generally don’t spend too much because I don’t work too often, and these are all expenses that are my responsibility.

Proposed Abroad Semester Fees

  • CIEE Participation Confirmation- $300
  • Pitt Study Abroad Fee- $300
  • Tuition- $14,933
  • Housing- $2050
  • Insurance- $167
  • Meals- $1500*
  • Airfare-$1010**
  • Local Transportation- $200*
  • Books & Supplies- $100*
  • Visa Fees- $160***
  • Personal Expenses= $2150*
  • Total Costs- $22,870

* These are rough figures. It could be more or less while I’m in the country.

** I have found that airfare to Taiwan can be as low as $700 roundtrip if dates are flexible.

*** If you are an American citizen, you can actually obtain and Taiwanese visitor visa, in-country. No application necessary, but it expires in 90 days. (I’ll address this a little later in a different post)

At first glance, it is clear that the study abroad trip would be a little more expensive that a regular semester at Pitt. However, there are numerous scholarships and other resources to help fund trips abroad. Much more so than a regular schemegular semester. There’s always a way to finesse the system in one’s favor, and so, I did.

Where Did I get my Funds?

  • My pocket- $1300
  • CIEE Gilman Go Global- $2500
  • CIEE GAIN Grant – $1500
  • Pitt Student Aid- $12,483
  • STTW Scholarship- $5000
  • Gofundme- $1373
  • Total: $24,156

Scam today, before today scams you.

-Joanne the Scammer

Yup. I DID that. I got a profit off of the semester! As a result of generous people who simply want this young black girl to succeed and experience Taiwan, very little of my own money has/will be spent. First, I want to thank everyone on the Show Them the World (STTW) Scholarship committee as well as everyone who donated to the Gofundme. All of these people believed in me enough to donate their own money. Now, what the heck are these scholarships, and how did I apply/ get them?

So, my pocket clearly isn’t a scholarship. That’s money that I saved up over the summer with the exact intention of using it for study abroad. (It started out as $1600 but some of those unexpected expense came up…….)

Anyways, the two CIEE scholarships I received were directly from CIEE. For students that receive a federal Pell grant, CIEE offers need-based scholarships to its students. For the Gilman Go Global Grant, all I had to do was apply for a Gilman Scholarship. The best thing about this is that I didn’t even have to receive the Gilman grant to receive the CIEE scholarship. I just had to forward the application confirmation that I received from Gilman- to the CIEE scholarship staff.

The Gilman grant is a popular study abroad scholarship that students all over the US apply for- so it’s super competitive. While any applicant should always try their hardest, I happen to have lazy spells and like to call myself a realist. My GPA, resume, and writing skills are all mediocre compared to the rest of the country so I figured I wouldn’t be too competetive for this particular award. Therefore, I didn’t put much effort into this application and decided to direct my focus to more feasible goals. (While I did not receive this award either, I also applied to the Fund for Education Abroad scholarship. The more, the merrier…right?)

The CIEE GAIN grant is a scholarship that pays for roundtrip airfare to the student’s destination. I received this simply by receiving my federal Pell grant and confirming participation in my program by the deadline. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

My Pitt student aid is the aid (federal and school provided) that Pitt is putting toward my semester abroad that they would usually put toward my regular semester. I also received a work study award for the year but unfortunately work study is not eligible for study abroad semesters :((( It’s ok. I don’t have a work visa anyway.

The Show Them The World scholarship is an endowed grant that was so graciously introduced to me by my lovely Pitt study abroad advisor- Leslie Ann Smedley. (She’s really the bomb y’all go to her with all of your Pitt study abroad needs.) It’s a grant for black students with 3.0+ GPA that have demonstrated financial need and have never studied abroad before. The application was like most when it comes to essays and all that jazz. (There were only 2.) However, there was also an interview! I really enjoyed the interview because rather than asking me questions most of the time, the scholarship committee told me to tell them about what I want to do and why they should help me do it. I was lowkey shook at first, but they seemed to really be engaged in what I was saying and they clearly were since they decided to give me money. The scholarship itself provides varying amounts of money depending on the student. They gave me $2500. However, Dean Bonner (our dean of students) and the Office of the Provost always match the award; giving me a total of 5000 monies.

Last but of course not least: my Gofundme! 18 extremely generous people have helped me to raise $1420. (After gofundme fees I had $1373.) I started the campaign all the way back in September so that I could have as long as possible to raise money. I am especially fortunate for this award because it helped me to pay off the last of the tuition for my trip before I even received the STTW scholarship. If these amazing people didn’t donate, I probably would’ve had to put it all on credit cards or take out a loan and both of those things are evil so that was a last resort. Thanks again people! The campaign is still open for anyone that still wants to donate. This will allow me to eat fancier food, go on more surrounding country trips (Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, Hong Kong…etc.) and bring back nicer gifts! The hyperlink to the campaign is at the beginning of this paragraph and there’s also a link on the social media menu.

In lieu of gofundme, I’d prefer donations to be made through venmo or cashapp so that no one loses any money. My username is brittanyjrf on both platforms.

A FUNdraising tip is to request people on venmo and cashapp like $2 for your trip! I decided not to do this just because I didn’t have to, but if you’re having a hard time finding money- go for it. The worst they can do is deny it and maybe talk about you in their group chat. You never know, some people really might surprise you.