Ni How Ma

This blog will most likely contain several details that no one but me and maybe the girls on this trip will find interesting or entertaining, so consider this your warning. This is my first blog post...ever, and I have never been a fan of creative writing, so just bear with me. Here goes the long, detailed description of the first 36 hours of my trip to Taiwan.

Our plane left Salt Lake for San Francisco around 9:30pm on Wednesday (I still don't understand this whole time difference, but I am hoping that writing it out will help me) and arrived around midnight. I was saddened to leave the Jazz game behind in the Salt Lake airport, until I heard it was a disappointing game anyways. Flying into San Francisco at night was absolutely amazing. I have always loved the city, but something about seeing it at night, from thousands of feet in the air, brought a new sense of wonder and awe. We spent about three hours in the San Fran airport before our flight for Taipei, Taiwan departed. We were determined to stay awake until we got on our long flight in the hopes that we might sleep the whole 13 hour flight..ha. Those long three hours were full of playing BS, taking pictures of Katelyn and I cross-eyed, and making really lame nursing jokes, but alas...we didn't fall asleep; until however, Katelyn and I each took 2 Benadryl when we got on the plane and were sleeping soundly soon after we left the ground.

About an hour after we had fallen asleep, I was rudely awoken by a stewardess speaking loudly in my ear, telling me to put my seat up. I hadn't fully registered what was going on before she reached over me and began smacking Katelyn in the shoulder. Katelyn, enjoying her earplugs and eye mask, could not have been more bewildered by the situation. Our state of disorientation and confusion caused us to find everything way more humorous than needs be, but despite the uncontrollable giggling that lasted for some time, I was able to fall asleep soon after I finished my delicious airplane dinner. I slept relatively well despite a recurring dream of our plane crashing into the ocean with Katelyn telling me not to worry about it. Around 3:00 am (Taiwan time), the lights in the cabin went on again and breakfast was served. My most interesting observation while on the flight was definitely the aggressiveness of the Chinese flight attendants. I watched an elderly man make his way down the aisle, when an attendant came up from behind him, hurriedly shoving him with a breakfast tray saying "excuse me"..such a different culture.

After arriving in Taipei at 6:00 am we took a bus to Taitung where I ate at Moss Burger, a sort of glorified McDonald's. Naturally, the workers didn't speak English and to my luck, none of the signs were in English (though many are). Words cannot describe my joy when I saw they had fountain Coke Zero, from that moment I felt right at home ;) I did some grabbing and pointing and ended up with a delicious sandwich sort of things with an assortment of seafood on it...mmmm! While waiting for the high speed rail Katelyn and I took a trip to the 711 and found what has already become our downfall here...Hi-Chews. They are sort of like Starbursts or Mambas, but wayyyyy better! I also had the pleasure of trying coagulated pork blood rice on a stick and some sort of fish ball. I am really trying to put myself out there!

After 36 hours of traveling and despite almost being left in the High Speed Rail station in Taitung, I arrived safely with our group in Tainan. We went to the Chi Mei Hospital where we met some of the nurses we will be working with there. The people here are amazing! Everyone has been so warm and kind to us. I already love those who we have met. We are staying in the housing where some of the people who work at the hospital live. It is just a really plain dorm room, but I love it! The building has a rec room on the 12th floor with a workout room, pool table, ping-pong table and of course...a yoga studio, can't wait for that!! It is such an awesome view! Also, the top floor is an open roof, so I am hoping to spend some time up there...enjoying the sunshine, if it ever comes! It has been cloudy and humid, but is a pretty nice temperature! Anyways, I really like where we live! It is only a few blocks from Chi Mei Hospital and is right in the city, so there is lots of fun things to do close by.

The rest of today was mostly spent eating. We pretty much grazed the entire day! Some of my favorite things were the shaved ice covered in fresh fruit and sweetened condensed milk (xiao bing), this sort of rice/egg omelet thing, and tons of delicious pastries!!! Who knew Taiwan was known for fabulous pastries!? I definitely get the idea that much of my time here will be spent eating. Don't worry mom...to make up for not following my "wedding dress diet", I worked out today! It is a miracle...I know. Katelyn was a great coach today as I was holding my 1 minute plank. What a great friend! I expressed my feelings quite accurately during our workout today when I said to Katelyn, "I don't feel like I am on a nursing study abroad at all...I think I am at fat camp!" I am excited to work out consistently while I am here though...hopefully it will keep me from feeling guilty about the continuous grazing.

Tonight we had the wonderful adventure of getting massages at a little shop right across the street from where we live. All night of us were lined up in chairs enjoying our massages...pure bliss. Actually...to be honest, I think Sarah and I were the only ones with high enough pain tolerances to enjoy them, but I thought it was incredible! Sarah leaned over to me and mumbled something..later I realized she was telling me the Chinese man massaging my legs was "so in love with me". Quite curious...especially considering he didn't really speak any English to me and had to have been almost 40. Of course I was oblivious to the situation as I laid there half-asleep with my eyes closed. However, after he finished he kept walking up to me in the store with a big grin on his face and just standing there and waving. Maybe engagement rings don't exist in Taiwan. We left the store and went to eat pastries and Katelyn kept teasing me that he had followed us over there...even though he was no where in sight. Later on we were crossing the street to go home and there he was...passing us going the opposite way! We were on opposite sides of the street, but he walked parallel with us all the way until we got to our building! Not going to lie, I was creeped out! I thought maybe I should keep walking, but I figure our building has good security, so here I am safely inside...and exhausted! Though I don't doubt this will be a tiring next 5 weeks, I am looking forward to enjoying every minute of wonderful Taiwan! Wan an!