my google is Chinese. It's now official.

I MADE IT! aaaand I LOVE IT!

There is so much to write about and I've already been a hermit in my hotel room today, but I'll try to write as much as I can.

Wednesday
I left Wednesday at 5am from Holland after an exhausting 5 hours of sleep. I hit a small road bump when the airport workers refused to let me get on my flight because I didn't have a return ticket to the U.S. The airport employees weren't too happy because I didn't have a work visa for Taiwan yet either, just a 60-day tourist visa. After talking with the manager, they reluctantly printed out my boarding passes.

The flight was ridiculously long. I'm not 100% sure how long it took; I left Chicago at 10:50 am Chicago time and landed at about 2pm Tokyo time the next day. I think that works out to be about 14 hours. Sick. I sat by some super cute Japanese-American kids who kept accidentally sleeping on me. The first in flight meal was Japanese and weird.The second meal was a burrito... what?? The Japanese eat burritos? Not that I'm complaining, I love me some burritos, and this burrito was no exception in deliciousness, but it was the last thing I expected for Japanese meals.

I crossed the date-line on the flight. WHAT NOW, BITCHES; I'VE TIME TRAVELED TO THE FUTURE! Time to cross that off of my bucket list.

Wednesday/Thursday
I arrived in the Tokyo Naruta airport at 2pm, which I believe is about 1am Michigan time. My bladder was about to explode from the 87 complimentary Japanese Diet Pepsis I chugged on flight, so before squeezing through Japanese customs, I navigated my way to the bathroom. I rushed into the first stall and found... The [Japanese] Toilet!! (see this blog post for clarification). This toilet had additional features: MUSIC! Apparently the Japanese enjoy the sweet sounds of rushing water to sooth their bowel movements? I, of course, couldn't resist and selected the music. It was really loud and embarrassing and I couldn't figure out how to turn it down or off.

I thought it would be awesome to have a layover in Tokyo, but it was rather boring. It took me forever to find any sort of Americanesque food/drink and I had no clue what the Yen:Dollar exchange rate was anyway. Since it was quite late in Michigan time, I could barely stay awake. Even Harry Potter on my Kindle (Kindle = extreme awesomeness, btw) couldn't keep my attention as my eyelids dropped and I awkwardly napped while draped over my luggage. I later found a designated nap room and napped there in the 6 hour layover. Designated nap room? Heck yes!

My flight was delayed to Taipei, unfortunately. I think my flight was about 2 hours, but my sleep deprived mind could barely function enough to track time.

Once I arrived in Taipei, the Taiwanese customs people had no problem letting me in the country. WTF American customs people?

A driver from Hess was waiting for me and two other girls to drive us to our hotel at around midnight. Our room is super tiny and cramped for two people and I'm sharing with one of the girls in the taxi cab with me, Anna, from Liverpool (England). She is great.

I wish I could put pictures up of my hotel room and things that are more exciting than a hotel room, but I don't have a USB connection to my computer from my camera and my camera is not that great. I'm hoping to buy a camera here because I thought electronics would be less expensive here, but from what I've seen so far, they are more expensive.

Friday
Bright and early at 8am, Anna and I walked down to get the (icky) complimentary breakfast. Taiwan really doesn't have many tourists at all, surprisingly BECAUSE IT'S AWESOME, so basically anyone white we assumed was also working for Hess. Seriously, there are so few foreigners here that we constantly crack jokes when we spot a white person and pretend to yell, "HEY!! WHITE PERSON!!? WE'RE WHITE TOOOO!". We bonded immediately with some of the people and headed up to the conference room to meet our trainers.

The group contained about 50 or so people. There are more still; this is training group 2 and only people who needed to get the medical exam showed up (which was most of us). We split into two groups as to not overwhelm the Taipei hospital.

My group went to "tour" Taipei a bit. We went to some memorial thing of a Chinese dude. As you can tell, I was paying attention very well to our guide. Then we went to a temple. It was weird; people were praying with incense sticks and offering food to ... Buddha? I'm not sure if they were Buddhists or Taoists or whateverists. Overall the outing wasn't fantastic because it was hot as hell and everyone still felt awkward because we had just met each other. I could put pictures up to compliment my terrible descriptions, but again, not gonna happen.

Then we went to lunch and I had my first taste of Taiwanese cuisine. I was nervous because I had heard that the food in Taiwan was quite weird. However, the food they brought out was not that weird at all and even my picky taste buds enjoyed it! I had to eat it with chopsticks, which is challenging. I feel like I eat one grain of rice at a time with chopsticks. Sometimes I just end up scooping the rice on the chopsticks with my hands when I think no one is watching.

After lunch we got a medical exam. Pretty boring. I don't have AIDS which is good I suppose.

I went back to the hotel and napped because I only got 5 hours of sleep the night before and was still wrecked from the flight. Some of the people we met woke me up to go to the Taiwanese night market. We jumped on the metro, which was very clean, and found our way to the market. It was fantastic! The vendors aren't annoyingly yelling things at you as you walk by and the stuff is very affordable. The streets are packed and tiny so you accidentally bump into others. They have a lot of clothing and once I get paid, I'm going to see if I can find anything big enough to fit me (Asian girls are TINY compared to me so this may be easier said than done). I only bought a watch and an umbrella because I don't have a phone yet to tell me the time and it rains A LOT here. I even saw iPads being sold in the street... what?! I don't know how much they cost. We ate food at the market which looked sketch but was amazing. I ordered a simple beef&veggie and rice combo, but it was the best Chinese food I've ever had! It tastes like the stuff back home in the buffets, but cheaper and fresher.

My google and computer has become Chinese-ified, which let me tell you, is confusing.
I'll finish the rest of what has happened later. My first day of training starts in a few hours, but I'm up ridiculously early because my body thinks that I'm sleeping in until 2pm Michigan time when it's actually being obnoxious and waking me up at 2am Taiwanese time.