July 4th: 5:59am. At Taitung University dorms. Am I living a dream?

Yesterday, at Incheon airport while waiting for our flight at 12:30pm:

We walked around to get lunch and buy some duty-free stuff. There was this nice Asian food court, where for about $6 USD I had noodles with black bean sauce and seafood, which I basically wolfed down in about two minutes, and was fatty and wanted more. So for about $5 I bought 6 plump pork dumplings and was super-satisfied/tried not to fall asleep in food coma.

We then ran into this Korean Cultural Kiosk, which was really cool. They had performances in traditional Korean gowns, and then gave us silk scrolls for us to paint Korean proverbs on. I kind of butchered mine, but it was still really cool that they had this outreach! Granted it was "above the iceberg" cultural stuff, but it was still fun.

We then boarded our plane to fly to Taipei, and it was a really relaxing flight. I listened to the Train album there (on-demand music!); I was super-excited to listen to it LOL. I also watched this kind of cheesy documentary on pyramids; do you ever get the feeling that channels like Discovery sometimes make documentaries that have extra special effects and sound effects to kind of exaggerate the "excitement" and "drama" factor?

First views of Taiwan from the airplane - tropical, balmy, beachy, white-capped waves, lush and green, tall buildings, a little dirty/hazy, but beautiful and a lot more balmy that I thought.

When we landed in Taipei, I spoke some Chinese with the customs lady. It was funny lol. I was talking in Chinese and she was responding in English - FAIL :D.

Ok, so for the next four hours or so, it was a little overwhelming - the hospitality that we received from the Alliance/Foundation, a entrepreneur-funded charity group that is hosting us and organizing ETA4's classroom presence. Just a little background info:

A major Taiwan charity/business exec named Stanley Yen, whose main business is in hotels, helped fund and publicize this. He is extremely well-connected in Taiwan and somewhat of a mini-celebrity (it was so funny - we driving around Taipei and talking about how famous Stanley is, and then all of the sudden we looked up and saw his face/name on a huge poster in a bookstore - he recently released a best-selling memoir. And on the domestic flight, we saw him shaking hands with politicians in the in-flight magazine!). Jeanette Low's dad was roommates with Stanley, and so that's how ETA4 got connected with Stanley.

Alliance representatives that we met - Emily, Pei-Ru, and this other cool guy that did WOOF farming but I forgot his name. They were all so super-nice.

They were so welcoming - my cheeks hurt so much from smiling so much. A whole entourage of Alliance representatives greeted us and ushered us in vans to the Landis Hotel - an expensive Taipei Art Deco hotel owned by Stanley Yen. They gave us Akemi, Kim, Jeanette, and me a free PENTHOUSE suite for us to "refresh" ourselves - pretty much just to take a shower. Everyone seemed to know who we were - even the custodial staff walking past our suite thanked us for "coming to teach English." They then whisked us away to a super-cool cafe where we had waffle desserts, sandwiches, and lattes on the house. Then it was to the airport for a first class domestic flight to Taitung. At the airport we met up with the rest of our ETA 4 team - Joanne, Jocelyn, and Agnes, who were here for at least a week in Taiwan chilling with their families.

The Alliance/Foundation/Stanley Yen's generosity was simply overwhelming. It made me 1) super-grateful that they appreciated our presence 2) a little guilty - I haven't even done anything yet, and they were treating us like VIP celebrities. It added up to a pressure that I was feeling that I had to be an amazing English teacher.

We got to Taitung and on the van ride to the university, I just lost consciousness basically. For the past 24-hours I had about three hours total of interrupted sleep, without even wanting to I just knocked out. We then arrrived at Taitung University and met even more VIPs, but unfortunately I was so dazed from my brief 20-minute bout of lost consciouness that I kind of don't really remember what was going on at this time = bad. LOL.

We put stuff up in our room, and then had a two-hour meeting with other volunteers working with us - medical students, arts students, and Taitung University students who are either supplementing our work, or working an an adjacent arts camp nearby. It was really nice meeting the other volunteers, but at this point I felt like half my brain had melted away and I needed 睡觉 zzzzzzzzz.

I had about four hours of sleep when jet lag woke up at 5am. And here I am. LOL.

So far, Taiwan has been incredible - the people, the island, the culture, the volunteering spirit. 我爱台湾！！！！ ;)

Miss you all.

LOVE