Nothing says welcome to Taiwan like a typhoon, right? But don’t let me get ahead of myself
here. I left Minnesota about three days
ago, so I figured it was time to give a little update of what has happened to
me since then.
On Monday afternoon Lauren and Amy kindly dropped me off at
the airport (well, they more than dropped me off, they came in and assisted me
right until I got into the line for the security check. Thanks again you two!) From Minneapolis I flew to Dallas where I had
about an hour layover, although it ended up only being about 20 minutes by the
time I got off the plane and found my gate.
From Dallas I had an uneventful flight and actually managed to sleep a
little on my way to San Francisco and landed there around 1am my time. At that point I had absolutely no clue what
to do because I hadn’t been able to get my boarding pass for China Air in
Minneapolis although the guy there had said that I would have to go to another
terminal or something (I’ll be honest, I was in a state of feeling pretty
detached from everything that was happening so I couldn’t really recall much of
what he had said). So once I got off the
plane I knew my best bet was to look for someone to assist me. However, airports seem to get fairly deserted
in the middle of the night and it took me a while to find a worker, but once I
did she directed me to the International terminal which I eventually made my
way to. From there I had to find China Air
ticketing, which would have been a simple process if I had read any of the
signs, but again, I’ll remind you that I wasn’t at the top of my game so I
simply wandered about the general area and found all kinds of other ticketing:
Singapore Air, Eva Air, Virgin, United…eventually I thought of looking at a
sign and discovered where to go from there.
Then I merely had to go through security again and go to the gate. Once I got to gate A9 I was able to meet up
with several other Fulbrighters who were on my same flight so that was
reassuring.
I found seat 53H which was an aisle seat so that was
pleasing, and even more pleasing was that I had an empty seat between me and
the guy by the window…what was slightly less pleasing was that the man by the
window was fairly alarming. I guess I’m
not super justified in saying that…it was more of a vibe I was getting. Anyway, our only exchange when I sat down was
him glancing behind his seat to the little 4 year old behind him and then
looking over at me saying “If that kid kicks my seat for all 16 hours, I’m
going to start taking hostages.” I
managed to come up with some sort of reply, not bothering to remind him that
the flight was only 13 hours. By then it
was around 3:30am MN time so after sending a few last texts to some friends to
find in the morning I settled in to try to sleep. I managed to sleep for several hours and upon
waking up found the man by the window wanted to get out so I moved to let him
out and when he came back he seemed to think it was the ideal time for a
chat. He asked the flight attendant for
some more beers (he’d already had several) and told me he was trying to drink
enough to pass out so he’d be able to sleep.
Again, I managed some sort of reply and he began to ask me about my
plans. Well, I didn’t actually know much
of what was going to happen upon arrival to Taipei so I didn’t have much I
could tell him. He seemed to get a real
kick out of this and said, “I’ll drink to that,” multiple times as he took
another swig of beer. Then with a grin
he stated, “So, you’re a Fulbright scholar going to Taipei and you don’t know
if you’re going to be met at the airport or where you’re going to live or
teach. A girl after my own heart. Here’s to you.” (Another swig of beer and a
chuckle). I suppressed the shudder that
was starting and managed an appreciative smile (at least that’s what I was
going for). Next he told me a crude joke
which I will decline to repeat here and about then I decided it was time for me
to sleep. So that’s where that
conversation was ended.
The rest of the flight I managed to sleep on and off and
watch movies in between. Just about half
an hour from landing in Taipei the man by the window got up again and as he
returned to his seat managed to spill his scotch and ice on me. Fortunately by that time I think it was
mostly melted ice.
We landed in Taipei around 4:30am their time and gathered up
our luggage and were met by some Fulbright Taiwanese people. So I met people who took the Eva flight out
of San Francisco and we waited for the LA flights to arrive. Once everyone got there. We had to take a group picture which I wouldn’t
mind never seeing…let’s just say after over 24 hours of travelling I didn’t
look too lively. Next we hopped on the
bus they had waiting for us and drove the Kinmen Fulbright team to another
airport so they could fly to their island.
Then the Yilan group (that’s me) drove about an hour to Yilan (we had
already parted from the Kaoshiung group at this point).
On the bus ride there we drew apartment names out of a bag
and these are the apartments we’ll live in for the next month during our
orientation. After that we’ll know what
schools we’re going to be teaching at so we’ll probably switch around to be
nearer to our schools. We had about an
hour at our apartments, then got picked up again to go fill out some paper work
and have lunch. After that we were
supposed to go shopping for food and things we might need for our apartment
(they’re furnished with some furniture, but not much else). But when we got back on the bus we were told
that because of the approaching typhoon we had to make this a quick shopping
trip so we were supposed to just get the essentials for the next few days, like
dry food, water, and tape to tape up the windows. We got to the store (it kind of reminded me
of a Walgreens) and were told to meet back in 20 minutes, which isn’t a whole
lot of time in a new store where everything was in Chinese. But I think my two roommates and I did an
admirable job of getting what we needed in due time.
The rest of the afternoon we had nothing going on and were
told to prepare for the typhoon by taping X’s over our windows and having
towels ready in case any water made its way in.
I retired early that night (well, evening, since it was only about 7:30)
as the jet lag was catching up to me, but woke up around 11pm to a very windy
and rainy scene outside. For someone who
often gets a little nervous during a Minnesota thunderstorm, this was quite the
sight to behold. There were no objects
flying through the air that I could see, but the wind and rain were still a bit
terrifying (and loud) for me. However, I did notice that none of the locals seemed to have taped up their windows so that was slightly reassuring.
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