So far, my impression of Taipei is as follows:
-It's hot.
-People here are really nice.
The first part, of course, didn't take long to figure out. Here it's pretty much non-stop heat in the eighties Fahrenheit and up, and usually pretty sticky and humid. When it rains the heat subsides a little bit, but I think I'd still take the heat over a huge downpour like the one I was caught in yesterday.
As for the friendliness of Taipei's residents, let's say we discovered that in less-than-ideal circumstances, but were nonetheless grateful. After arriving at the subway stop closest to the university, in the aforementioned humid heat, we tried following the directions I'd gotten from Google Maps, and couldn't manage to find our way to the dorm. So we lugged our suitcases around the perimeter of campus for an hour or so, making our best effort at asking strangers in Chinese how to find our address. All the passersby we asked were very kind and helpful, and one guy even spent ten minutes trying to figure it out with the help of his smartphone. Even when people didn't know the way, they were generally very polite (though we were confused when a slightly brusque cab driver didn't know where the place was. I think it's a very new building). Still, we were having trouble finding our way, and the heat was starting to get to us.
Finally, we found a student who not only knew the way, she actually walked us all the way to the dorm! We thanked her profusely and offered to buy her dinner. I hope she takes us up on it later- we would have been totally lost without her help.
Since then, I've been getting settled in, taking care of administrative stuff, and meeting some other foreign students. Consider this my arrival update, because today merits its own. Stay tuned for a post about Dragon Boat Festival!
View from my window in the morning. To the right there's a huge construction project, but I prefer this cityscape. You can see the mountains in the background!
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