Hello everybody!! I'm really sorry about the long gap between post, but I have been really busy lately. I will be doing two blogs this week. This first one will be about updates and to let you know that I'm still alive, and the second one will cover all of my latest advetures. *Witty Comment, cool introduction, blah, blah, blah* Ok let's do this.
February was a pretty normal month. I made some improvement on my Chinese and all that good stuff. I read some pretty awesome books which are probably the main reason for the long delay. But the main awesomeness in this month was another trip to Taipei. As you may know, my host father owns a fairly large chain of restaurants in and around Tainan City. What you may not have known is that he also co-owns a restaurant on the 87th floor of Taipei 101 and, if I do say so myself, it is very High-end (pun intended). On February 25th, my host family and I rode up to Taipei in style. We all wore our most ravishing clothing. We took the incredibly luxurious first-class on Taiwan's High Speed Rail traveling at a smooth 186 m/ph. We sipped on the best wine the island had to offer as we watched the stunning countryside go by. We then disembarked a mere 90 minutes later, and, looking very suave in our apparel,... hailed a cab. 5 minutes later we reached our destination, and take the worlds fastest elevator. It went from level 1 to the 87th floor in less than 40 seconds which I believe is scientifically equivalent to the speed of smell... or something. Anyway, that was all cool, but the restaurant definitely topped it. The interior decorations themselves must have cost a fortune. All around there were intricate pieces of art made entirely of feathers from various birds. In our VIP room our "wall paper" was peacock feathers. The food was not as great as I thought it would be considering the lowest price to eat there is $300 per person, but I think my host father's main focus was the atmosphere. By far the coolest thing about this million dollar restaurant was the toilet-placement. The urinals were put right underneath a wall-length window where I could look down on all of Taipei while I "relieved myself." Awesome.
Alright so more awesome news, I have changed host families! On February 28th, I packed up all my stuff, walked the entire 3 minutes to my new house, and unpacked! I walked in the door and BAM! Everything went into turbo-mode. I 'm now speaking chinese all day everyday, I have gone to so many places recently that I've lost count, and I've learned more about Taiwanese culture than ever before. Obviously, I am very happy that I changed families because even though I love my first host family and they were great to me, this family definitely has a lot more to offer me in terms of the quality of my exchange. Not only that, but they are really cool people as well.
Okay so I know that this blog was really short considering it's been almost 4 months since my last one, but don't fret! I'm compiling a lot of pictures and information of the trips I've gone on recently and I will put it all in a very long blog for you guys by Next Tuesday.
Peace Out,
Tom Richter
