24 hours of pure exhilaration and I'm finally here

May 16th, 5:52 AM, Toronto




Allright, I've said my goodbye's and made it into the loading gates at Pearson airport. My flight leaves at 7 AM for a 12:30 arrival in San Francisco. I've been to California but only in the L.A/palm springs area. Actually my California trip was the last time I went on a place...6 years ago.

In 24 hours from now I'll be landing in Taipei, Taiwan. It's hard to beleive that in only 24 hours a person can get to the complete opposite side of the world. What I'm doing today would have taken years and years for someone to do 1000 years ago. All we have to do is fork over a little cash and wait around in airports. However, just because it's easier doesn't means it's less far away. This really is an adventure and I'm looking forward to every minute of it. And right now I'm becoming very excited about flying. Isn't that every kids dream??

It feels great to finally be at the airport ready to go. I've been planning this trip, packing, and saying goodbye to people for so long that I never thought the day would actually come when Iwould be waiting in the airport typing away on my laptop. Time really moves sometimes, I'm going to have to watch out for that when I get to Asia. Asia!!! I can't beleive it.

Ok, now it's time to listen to my brand new iPod (I finally got one yay!). Will report back in San Fran.

Cheer.s


May 18th, Taipei




So didn't get a chance to catch up in SanFran...to be honest I spent all my time watching Flight of the Conchords! Which was great of course.

Here I am in Taipei in the golden china hotel with my new roommate Nate. He's from Ohio and is a very relaxed, down to earth guy. We've just come back from a short jaunt down the street. Taipei is actually quite a beautiful city from what I can tell so far. THere are really nice looking palm trees lining the streets and hundreds and hundreds of scooters.

The flight went on without a hitch (all 24 hours of it). However when I got to the airport there was no one waiting to pick me up so I decided to take a cab. A cab driver asked me to follow him and he led me down a flight of stairs and even further down an elevator to the back of a very dark, sketchy parking lot. He asked me to wait and disappeared around the corner. After about 7 or 8 minutes I decided this was crazy and started to head back upstairs when a man came out and asked me to follow him upstairs. Apparently he was some kind of aiport security and told me in broken english that he and his crew are trying to bust an illegal taxi service trying to take advantage of tourists. I pointed out the illegal cabbie who I had talked to earlier and he was reprimanded appropriately. So I helped solve a crime within my first hour in Taiwan!

Last night I walked around a little around the hotel and actually grabbed a snack from a street vendor down a side ally (sketchy I know haha).

I'm off to find a park. Will report back soon.

5 days out.

Wow, so 5 days. It feels like I've been thinking about and planning this trip for so long it would never actually come. HOWEVER, time does move fast and here we are, a mere five days from departure. I'm busy with all the pre-trip stuff like packing and the even more laborious task of organizing all the stuff I've accumulated in 4 years at university. I guess you could say I'm a bit of a pack rat, but hey, aren't most of us? We seem to always think that we'll need this or that in the future but then forget about it and it ends up sitting in some bin somewhere for the rest of your life...but at least we now it still exists JUST IN CASE!!

I've been systematically saying goodbye to my friends. It feels weird saying goodbye to someone that you usually spend so much time with. Like my roommate Tim, we've lived together for 4 years and now we won't see eachother for at least a year, crazy. It's all part of growing up I suppose.

On another note, it seems as if Taiwan is the cool place to go for Owen Sounders. I know at least 6 people from my little town who are there or are going there in the next little while. I'm not going there because of any of them, but it will be neat to know a few people who are there. Also it turns out my friend Jordan is going a couple weeks after I leave. He's from Owen Sound and I lived with him for 5 weeks in Quebec last summer for a french learning course...who knew a year later we would both be heading to Taiwan...me for teaching and him for a wedding, who knew.

Speaking of teaching, I'm actually really looking forward to it. I've never really done anything like that before so it should definitely be a great learning experience...for me and the little unsuspecting Taiwanese kids.

Ooohhh so close to riding a scooter!!!! Once I'm over I'll be posting bloggs and pics and all that for everyone interested.

Regards.