I made it!!

I made it to Taiwan!! I want to write every detail but it will bore the heck out of anyone who reads this...too bad, I'm writing it all anyway. First of all, when I went to check my bags in at the Salt Lake Airport, I somehow ended up with the strictest Delta airlines employee there. He told me my 60 day visa wouldn't work and that they would stop me in LA or send me back once I got to Taiwan. Then he told me that China Airlines only allowed one carry on and that I had to stuff my laptop into my already overstuffed suitcase. When I met up with the other teachers, they all had a laptop and a carry-on so I was a little ticked that I had to fly all the way to Taiwan wondering if my laptop was okay.

I just have to write about my celebrity sighting while at the airport in LA. I spotted Bob from the Bachelor. He was the Bachelor from a couple of years ago who was really funny...anyway I'm a dork and tried to take a picture with my cell phone. You can't even tell it's him, though.

Okay- so we met up with the rest of our group (there's 9 of us) and boarded the plane to Taiwan at about 2:30 pm on Thursday 12-27-07. The plane was huge! There were two floors and two aisles with 4 seats in the middle and 3 seats on either side. Every seat had its own interactive screen in front of it and you could choose from a several movies, t.v. shows, all kinds of games, or a live camera view from the front of the plane. The food was okay but at about 2 in the morning the turbulence was so bad that I got really nauseous and couldn't even touch breakfast. Here's a picture of the the dinner they served on the plane:

It was chicken and rice, a roll, crab salad, fresh fruit, and a little dessert thing- in case you're wondering, but you're probably not.
The flight was about 14 hours and we flew into Taiwan at about 11pm (Taiwan time) Friday night which was actually about 5:30 am back home. It was just kind of weird that we left on Thursday and arrived in Taiwan when it was almost Saturday- it was like we completely skipped a day. Here are some pictures in the Taipei airport. We were so giddy and excited to finally be in Taiwan!!! I love our group...we totally bonded at our training in Provo and have picked up right where we left off.

We got our luggage and met up with Gerald (the school director). We loaded our luggage into his van and then he took us to buy five bus tickets because he could only fit four of us in the van. Since Elisha had taught here before, Gerald asked her to go with the group that took the bus. Here we are waiting for our bus:


None of us speak the language so luckily, when Elisha went to ask the bus employee to help us know when our bus had arrived, the lady was able to speak some English to her. I had to take a picture of the curtains- all the buses we saw that night had curtains that matched the interior of the buses. Here's Tammy!

The bus ride from Taipei to Taichung was only about 1 ½ hours. We got off the bus and Gerald picked us up in the van. The other four teachers had been dropped off at the school and they had already carried our luggage up the four flights of stairs. Thanks you guys!!! Some of the continuing teachers had stayed up to welcome us (it was about 1am when we got there). We picked out our rooms and beds and ended up not going to bed until around 3 or 4am. The beds are really hard but I slept like a log.