第一日(en route and arrival)

Welcome to Taiwan where the air is sultry, the shirts are besequined and the slums are fantastically shady!
At least that's what I got from the bus ride here (here being our sweet hotel IT IS CRAZY).

But before I tell you that story, let me tell you about the time I almost didn't come here and was going to be quarantined in Japan for 10 days. That's right, after 14 hours of breathing recycled air along with a few hundred strangers we were told to stay put for a little while longer so they could make sure everyone on the plane was healthy. Yeah, ok, H1N1 is a valid concern, fair enough.
So as we're all sitting there obediently some airport officials in full surgical scrubs and galoshes (along with the ever-present flu mask) get on to the plane like they're about to explore some distant planet. They even had a heat-detecting camera that they pointed at every person to make sure they didn't have a fever - pretty nerve-wracking.

I thought everything was going pretty well - I got my yellow document of healthiness and a nod from the inspector after only about half an hour. HOWEVER only minutes after I heaved a germ-free sigh of relief an agitated looking health inspector came speed-walking down the aisle to hand me a flu mask and slap a red dot on my seat and the seats of those around me. It turns out the old man in the seat behind me had turned up red on the heatcam -- a possible case of the swine flu????

Had this been the case, I would now be sitting in a cheap hotel room in Narita Airport, quarantined with about 10 other people. Luckily, the poor guy just had a case of old age.
So, after two hours of sitting on the tarmac we were finally allowed access to glorious Nippon, or at least our terminal. It didn't disappoint: anime everywhere, mistranslations galore, and dubious-looking snacks that turned out to be pretty dang ok. I know we had a rocky beginning, Japan, but I hope we're still cool. Thanks man.
After a four-hour nap (and flight) we hit the ground in the ROC! It was about 11:30 local time, 72:234 in our travel-addled brains. After literally walking straight through customs, we loaded up onto the Ming Chuan bus and took a 45-minute long ride to the campus, during which I made the observations I immortalized at the beginning of this post.
We made quick work of unpacking and squealing about the hotel rooms, took showers (this shower. THIS SHOWER. Not coming home because of this shower.) and fell into bed after watching TW music videos for a few hours.

And so ended the first day.