All Alone in a Strange Place

This is the first time ever that I have traveled some place completely, utterly, and totally alone and it is really HARD.

But before I go there let me talk about my last day in Taiwan. (Side note: we = Jenny, her friend Annie, Annie's friend Julie, and Jenny's mom). We drove to Bitan Lake. Something about/in the word "bitan" means emerald. It was very pretty and a great place to go boating, walking, and biking. We saw lots of little kids riding around on bikes with training wheels. What a great place to learn to ride a bike!

Next we drove into the mountains to Wulai Mountain. We stopped part of the way up to get popsicle. Jenny's mom really loved the popsicles so after we all ate the first ones, she insisted we all get a second. I ate a red bean one first which I didn't really like. The taste was okay but I didn't like the texture of the beans in the popsicle. After that I ate a milk popsicle, which was really yummy and had a few raisins in it.

Popsicle Place

View From Where We Ate

Popsicles!

We continued up the mountain and then stopped to take a cable car up to a resort (I have the name written down somewhere but I cant find it). While taking the car up we passed a beautiful waterfall.

Since it is the 7th month of the lunar calendar there were a lot of shrines set up with offerings to deceased ancestors. We went rowboating on a lake and Jenny discovered she is completely uncoordinated at rowboating. Eventually she got the hang of it and we made one completion around the pond (after Julie and Annie had already made two... haha). After that we went a tried a rope swing and did some archery. It was fun.

After coming down, we went to a small, old street. I bought a bracelet made by some aboriginals then we went and had lunch at a little family owned restaurant. I had rice in bamboo, corn, and other veggies.

Then we drove back into Taipei and Jenny and I met up with her friends Vanessa and Sheri to go to Shida Night Market. I spent the last of my money there. It wasn't as crowded as the other night markets I went to so I liked it the best. I had a yummy roll with butter in it and a delicious raspberry lemonade drink bought from a stand where the girls are known for being super cute and wearing lots of make up.

Yesterday Jenny and her mom took me to the airport. I had a pretty uneventful journey to Hong Kong. The only part worth noting was that I sat next to an old woman who was traveling with her family to China. She started speaking to me in Chinese. From the little bit of Chinese I know, I found out she is 61 with 5 kids and she has been to the United States. I think she also said she likes flying. She seemed to like talking to me and when we were landing she offered me some gum.
Once I got to the airport I had to sit around for a few hours. I discovered that when you are traveling alone and have all your baggage with you, its pretty much impossible to get food. So I snacked on food that was in my bags. I met Lingnan University students at the pick up area. There were three other Americans there but they all knew each other because they went to the same school in the US. They were pretty nice but focused more on talking to each other. During the walk to the bus, I started talking to a girl named Jing (I think) from the mainland. She was very talkative. She is majoring in Vietnamese but is taking a break to take some classes in Hong Kong. She really likes to travel and thinks that experience is more important than spending your life in the same place making money. She was pretty nice but I haven't seen her since because we are in different dorms. We got to campus and we had to take allll our luggage to our dorms. It was a long and hot walk.
My room is very small but I've managed to unpack. Last night a girl from OMIP (the international office), Elsa, took us out. I bought a cellphone and SIM card along with a few other things. Most of the other people who went from the mainland so they all stuck together and ignored me. There was one other girl from Korea, Kathy, who lives in the same place as I. We started talking and ended up eating dinner near each other. Elsa ordered me some vegetables and noodles. They were pretty good but there was way too much for me too finish.
After that I came back to my room and tried to organize my things. I was feeling pretty down and lonely and then to top that off I fried my power strip somehow. So I just went to bed.

I woke up early this morning and fought a hard battle with homesickness. I did get to talk to my parents on Skype so that helped. But I had the hardest time figuring out how to get the back of my cellphone off. I eventually gave up. When I came back from the bathroom this afternoon, Kathy had left me a note saying she went out to a convenience store but when she came back we should meet up. She ended up coming back to my room and then helped me figure out my phone (she got the same phone as I). I felt stupid but she did tell me it took her an hour to figure it out so I like to think that if I hadn't given up then I would have figured it out. She brought her computer to my room so I could help her connect to the internet. While she was here my roommate and her boyfriend stopped by so she could see her room. She seemed very bubbly. I don't remember her name she said it so fast. She's not coming for another week though. I don't know how she'll fit. The rooms are so small!
Kathy and I decided to meet up later to go to shopping plaza and buy necessities.
We made our way there and bought a few things and then stumbled into a KFC so we got dinner there. She is a picky eater like I am and she likes western food more than Chinese food. We both bought mattress pads. It wasn't that cheap but the mattress is so hard that I thought it was worth it. After getting a little lost in the mall, we found our way to the minibus place. We took it until the last stop and then we really got lost. Eventually we ended up in the bottom of a parking garage in a gated apartment complex. We could see Lingnan through the windows but couldn't get to it. Eventually a security guard found us and let us go through the apartment lobby and we finally got to our dorms.
Now I am exhausted and ready for bed. Tomorrow will be a long day because orientation begins.

My room

View from Window

Other View

I have to enter a code to get into the bathroom?