An Oaklander In Nanjing

Greetings everyone. It has been a while since I have had time to write anything, but after getting settled in Nanjing this past week I have found some time to go to a coffee shop and use the internet.

Since August 13th after I moved out of my Taipei apartment I have not had a steady place to lay my head down. since then I have slept;

-in a bus terminal, on a bus

-Friend Soso's floor in Kending

-hotels for a few days while on cycling tour

-friend Morice's house in Yilan

-my friend John's concrete floor for two days

-my friends Brendan's couch for 5 days,

-my friend Dennis's spare room for 5 days

FINALLY I have my very own place that I will be living in till the end of January 2012. I have already slept there two nights, and I am slowly getting it filled with the little things a new apartment needs, as well as clearing out all the old crap that was left behind. It is very curious the amount of things you can leave behind when you move out, and no  one seems to mind. So I have closets full of old bedding and cloths and shelves of random knick-knacks. BUT I have also found a type-writer, and old Pentax camera and a unopened French-press Coffee set. so it's not all garbage I suppose, and also I guess I dont have to worry about making sure the apartment is spic n span when I move out.

My first week in Nanjing has been busy, lots of running around with real-estate agents looking at apartments. It was the fourth day when I found one, not a lot of land lords are willing to rent an apartment out for just 5 months without raising the rent through the roof. I have already spend two full days on campus going to orientation meetings and taking placement tests. So far I have made plenty of other foreign student friends, as well as a few locals. I am not lucky enough for there to be a Bike Polo team in Nanjing as well, because that was truely a great way to make 15 local friends really quickly. So next week when school really starts to get going I'll be going to Student Center on campus to try to join some student organizations to meet some new folks. ALSO this week I will get to meet some potential roommates to live with me. Our roommates will also be our tutors. The school matches up each student with a few candidates based on their major (they said it was very difficult to find me some Geography student candidates, but they found two for me) And so this week I will meet with them and see how we get on together and I'll choose one who I feel will be a good roommate....

For those who don't remember, this is all apart of a program called The Language Flagship, a program that aims to get more American's out into the world speakings languages other than English to help strengthen America's role in the International Community. I will be taking Chinese language classes as well as Geography classes that will transfer over to my B.A. at  San Francisco State University. Chinese classes start tomorrow, but starting next week I will be "sitting in" listening to the GEOG classes and seeing which ones I like, and I have till the end of September to actually register for classes. 

Ok that's all for now. Get back to y'all as soon as some more interesting things happen.

Bed room

living room

roommates room

a view of my strreet

The Past Few Weeks

Greeting Family, Friends und Geographers,

I know it has been even longer since my last post but Oh Geez have I been buzy.

(pictures below)

August 12th was our last day of school, we had to take exit exams and give final presentations. The exit exam was the exact same as the entrance exam, but this time I didn't have such a confused look on my face the whole time, so I guess I know that my Chinese has improved a lot over this summer. The day after final I had to move out of my apartment and get ready for my Taiwan-wide adventure.

My brother Morgan showed up a few days before finals. He and I traveled south to Tainan for the Taiwan Bike Polo Championships. Our team was morgan, myself, and our friend Jay. We took third place. Another Taipei team took 2nd, and a team from Gaoxiong took 1st. After the tournament we got a ride to the beach town of Kending on the very southern tip of the island and stayed there a night visiting the night market.

Then our real biking adventure started. The first day from Kending to Taidong was about 100 miles of riding. Mind you our bikes are fully loaded with all of our gear, clothes, food and water. Day 2, was Taidong to Hualien, 125 miles!!! This was a hard bit of riding, and my poor polo bike looked like it wasn't gonna make it. I rolled in Hualien with 6 broken spokes on the back wheel. The next day we got a replacement, luckily from a Giant brand road bike shop, but the owner just happen to have a replacement in the back room. That night we planned on going through Taroko Gorge before getting on the train to the next city, but we realized that the gorge was so large, just passing through it would not be worth it. So we decided to stay an extra day and bike the entire gorge the next day, and it was well worth it. Taroko is the Grand Canyon of Taiwan.

We had to take a train from Hualien to Yilan because the road is just too mountainous to bike. In Yilan we me tup with my friend Morice who had helped me out with a place to stay last month when I biked from Taipei to Yilan solo. By this time in the trip we were both terribly exhausted, so we went to bed early and got ready for the last leg of the trip, Yilan back to Taipei. Morice was a great host as usual and made us Egg Pancakes for breakfast, then we headed out to Jiaoxi for some hot springs and then Toucheng to see the beautiful beaches of the Northeast coast. But by this time it was getting pretty late in the day, and so we decided to just take the train back to Taipei.

But once we got back to Taipei we still had a bit of adventuring to do, because we were homeless. I had already moved out of my place before we started the cycling tour, and so we had to do a bit more couch surfing at friends houses while I worked out a new place for us to live. But in the end it was all sorted out. I now am living in a friends empty apartment before he moves into it at the end of the month. It is a nice penthouse on the 13th floor in the middle of Taipei, great views. In exchange I water the plants and make sure the place doesn't burn down, done and done.

Sunday I move to Nanjing People's Republic of China, which will be another great adventure. Part of me is keen to see a new city, part of me is hesitant to want to go back to Communist China after living in the very free and open society of Taiwan, but I'll manage. BUT for that reason, I am not sure if this website is allowed in China, I won't know till I get there (for example, Facebook and Google are forbidden for people to use) So if for whatever reason I can no longer use blogger.com I'll let people know via email (brendanoakland@gmail.com) which blog site I have moved to, and I'll keep posting about China adventures.

I'll miss you Taiwan!!! Can't wait to come back.

Cheers.

Kending

Kending to Taidong

This Father and Son were doing the same trip as us, and we bumped into them periodically for two days.

Aboriginal art in the high mountains leading to Taidong.

County line, from Kending into Hualien county.

The heat is brutal, head cover is very important.

"Tropic of Cancer Marker"

Actual Tropic of Cancer Marker

Morgan showing his disgust with the southern side of the Tropic of Cancer (seemly the hotter of the two sides)

All police station have tools and air and water for cyclists. Cycling is very popular in Taiwan.

Champion Cyclist. Luckily he happened to have one of his own wheels in the back of his shop that I bought from him so I could continue the tour.

Taroko Gorge

Taroko Map

Taroko Map 

Morice outside his home in Yilan. Thanks Morice!!!!

Final day, outside the hot springs in Jiaoxi.

The last few weeks

Hey everybody!
   
     I know it's been a a little over a week since the last post, but I've been a) a bit busy with school, only 1 1/2 weeks left and finals are coming fast, b) a bit under the weather, not to mention getting tooth aches, so taking care of that problem in a foreign country will be an experience, and c) lazy. I think that last post took it out of me for a little bit.

     But not long after returning home from my biking adventure to Yilan I started getting more involved with the website Couchsurfing.com. If anyone is planning on making a trip to Anywhere and wants to save a few bucks on lodging while at the same time meeting some wonderfully hospitable people that can show you around the place, use this website.

     I met other people who were on there way to Taipei for a visit. A girl named Ellyse who was from Singapore originally, but now works out of Shanghai as a courier, was on her way to Taipei for a delivery. She had been here many times in the past and seen everything to be seen within Taipei city, so she wants to get out more into the suburbs and old villages. We decided to go to a place called Yingge. Famous for texiles and ceramics. We took the train out and saw a few museums and parks before heading back to Taipei to head to Raohe night market for dinner (raohe is one of the many night markets in taipei i had not yet been to)

     So that was all last Tuesday. Just over this past weekend I participated in my very first Alley Cat Race outside of the US of A. It was very exciting, because Taipei can be a very fun/dangerous place to ride a bike, especially when racing. So obviously I had to take a more conservative approach to "racing" Plus I didn't know the city layout nearly well enough, I ended up getting lost from my group of friends after the very first checkpoint and ended up tagging along with some locals that seemed to know which direction to go. In the end I finished the race 13th out of about 100, so pretty not bad if you ask me.

     Lastly, ole 博登 (Bódēng, thats my name in chinese) gets to finally have a date with a local girl tonight (a friendly date) as well as finally see the last Harry Potter flick. It's funny the girl Lynn and I were in the same boat, we both have been wanting to see it, but not alone, and none of our friends wanted to join us, so this worked up perfectly. Another reason couchsurfing is great, I met lynn that night at Raohe night market, because she met Ellyse and I there for dinner, as she was letting Ellyse stay on her couch that night while she was in town.... You see it all works out in the end.

Taipei City scape painted inside a bowl.

The weird blob on the right side is actually about 3 stories tall, but it was closed so we couldn't go inside and see the view from the top. The plates were all much much taller than I.

My good buddy A-Feng, and behind him, holding his bike down is Xiao You, just before the race starts.

Discussing race strategies.

Listening to the instructions......

... And GO!!!!