Have Visa Will Travel

My passport is back in my hands and I'm booked for my trip to China next week. I will be returning to Shenzhen where my dedicated readers will remember I visited in 2005. I will get to see some old friends that I haven't seen for a while, and I will also be meeting a lot of new colleagues as well. Some good planning going on as well. I leave Sunday afternoon (that's middle of the night for y'all on Saturday) and will be there all week.

And since it's almost end of May - I give you

Things I've learned in Taiwan - May 2008 Edition

• If you're tall and are sitting in the back corner of the bus - be careful about leaning up against the buzzer to request the bus to stop. Hopefully you'll be smart enough to figure it out after one "false" stop like I did. The 2nd time, people actually had to get off so I was safe.
• Learning to speak Chinese is very difficult. Add the fact that Taiwanese is slightly different dialect (similar to how in the US we can hardly understand folks from England) makes learning Chinese by CD even more difficult. Learning to read/write Chinese is probably the hardest thing I've ever tried to do. At least I understand the concept!
• 3 umbrellas are needed in Taipei. One to keep at home (to take with if it's raining in the morning), one to keep at work (since it's usually clear in the morning but pouring rain in the afternoon) and a mini one to keep in bookbag (for when the weather changes between train stops.
• House utilities can ALL be paid at 7-11! This includes water, electricity, cable, phone, and internet! How cool is that? You take your bill, they scan all the bills in, you give them cash or credit card... DONE. Especially convenient when 7-11 is 30 second walk from my apartment.
• Cab drivers with DVD players and screens in the headrests are COOL! still looking at requesting them for the drives to the airport (1 hour ride).
• 0.5% milk tastes as crappy as Skim milk.... Back to 1.5% for me - either that or 4% as my other option!!

And that is all for tonight.