A scene in Daan Park.
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A schoolboy waits for the light to change.
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Above the traffic is the cityscape and beyond are the mountains.
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Sinsheng S. Rd. Sec. 3.
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In this picture you can see that the left turn lanes are clearly marked, and that their use seems to be optional.
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Daan Park, also known as Forest Park.
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Scooters.
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The intersection of Heping East Road Section 1 and Sinsheng South Road Section 2. Many large intersections have the type of elevated pedestrian walkway pictured here, which all seem pretty old and infrequently used.
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A caligraphy shop, with brushes, paper, ink and everything for your caligraphy needs.
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The subway trains and stations have signs in both Chinese and English, so it's very convenient to get around the city and easy to know where and where not to linger.
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The subway in Taipei is very clean. When taking it at night, I feel much safer than I did in the Los Angeles subway.
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Riding a bicycle on the streets of Taipei takes courage and determination.
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Traffic in Ban Qiao.
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Here are some friends of mine eating a famous dessert at a famous franchise at their most famous location. The table we ate at is a huge slab of stone, which is probably the most famous table of all the tables there. Clearly, words can't describe how famous it all is. I almost started to feel famous myself while I was there. The punchline to all of this, of course, is that I forget the name of both the place and the dessert. It's somewhere in Jiufen, though.
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This little meditative cat was very cute and calm, even while sitting next to a bustling walkway in Jiufen.
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An incense caldron at a temple in Jiufen. Through the caldron's arch, you might be able to see the statue of the temple's diety in the background.
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A garden pond at the National Palace Museum.
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Here I am with a couple classmates on a field trip to the National Palace Museum, Fall '05. On the right is Lixia, from Japan. In the middle is Lanyou, from Italy.
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These are my classmates on the last day of my first quarter, Fall of '05. The nice lady in blue is the teacher.
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Sue and her daughter Wendy, who I visited in Hsinchu one day.
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The local color.

Here's a scene outside a department store. It's hard to take a picture that doesn't have any scooters in it. So besides the scooters, there are two things I want to point out, of which I have close-ups:
These dogs nap in the shade of the shrubs. It was a hot afternoon, so this is the natural place for dogs to hang out. I often see this particular pair hanging around here. I don't think they are strays. This is just their territory. There are no leash laws here.

I don't think communicating to English speakers is the purpose of this sign. Using English in marketing is very trendy here, but most of the time they really don't care how it looks to native English speakers. There are a ton of hilarious examples of terrible English, but I'm going to try not to mention it ever again in this blog. I'm particularly fond of this one because I think fashion is funny anyway.

This is the landscaping outside the exit of the MRT in Panchiao.
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This is the inside of a taxi, which I thought was very nice. We took it from campus to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 

This table was designed for little kids, right?
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Brian at the park in front of a little gazebo.
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Brian and I found this little park just off the Shida campus.
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Made it out of Pan Chiao.

Yesterday Mr. Wang gave Brian and I a ride to the American Institute in Taiwan, the United States pseudo-embassy, so I could handle some visa business. It's the closest I've been to downtown Taipei, and I was able to snap this shot of "Taipei 101" from inside the car. Named for it's 101 floors, it's currently the tallest building in the world. I don't know how tall it is, but you can clearly see that by about the 90th floor, it's cleared the top of the lamp post.

After registering my passport at the psuedo-embassy, Mr. Wang drove us to Shida university and dropped us off. A central bank was conveniently located right across the street. Up until yesterday I'd been using ATMs to withdraw cash from my Washington Mutual account. The exchange rate and fee is not the best by that method, so yesterday I finally made it to a central bank and exchanged my travelers checks and US dollars. This also allowed me to pay my tuition and enroll at Shida university a few hours later.
The characters read right to left as, "National Taiwan Teacher's University" which for some reason is officially translated as, "National Taiwan Normal University." However, all the locals know it simply as Shida.


This is the building on campus where the Chinese Culture and Language Center is located. I expect all of my classes will be held here. I did poorly on my placement test during the enrollment process, so I'll probably be starting at a beginning level. I don't mind. It's been almost 6 months since I was enrolled in a Mandarin class at CSLA, so I'm in need of review. It also makes sense to start a new curriculum at the beginning.

This building overlooks the park next to Pet's Park.
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I think window plants go a long way in cheering up the otherwise sad architecture.
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A view of the temple next to Pet's Park.
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Pet's Park is next to another little temple. Those short little railings are to keep the scooters away.
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This pet store is next to the park. At first I thought the park was part of Pet's Park, but now I think Pet's Park is really only the store, not the park. But the park did have pets...
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All of the cats I've seen are rather petite. This one approached me, but didn't come within petting distance.
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A little lane next to a park. I saw a car drive down this too.
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A duck among the ubiquitous scooters.
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A family out for a stroll on Saturday morning.
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This is an english school for kids. I have a job interview here on Tuesday, so I'll be brushing up on my Chipmunk English, I guess. I should do fine as long as I keep in mind their motto: "Active. Confidence. Enjoy."
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A nearby 7eleven, which seem even more plentiful here than in Los Angeles.
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I'm not used to the way scooters zip around pedestrians on the paths.
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