Ni Hao from Taiwan

Greetings all!

I've arrived safely in Taiwan and have been exploring a bit but most of the places were closed on Sunday. Traveling to Taiwan from Khon Kaen was kinda long. I had to get up at 5AM to catch my first flight to Bangkok. I arrived at my hotel at close to 10PM. Then I was off to Kuala Lumpur where I had to run to make my connecting flight. Once in Kuala Lumpur, I had to go through security at the gate again, where everyone is patted down at the gate, kinda annoying. The flights were pretty enjoyable but it gets a little lonely traveling by myself. On the Kuala Lumpur to Taipei flight, there was a little girl that was walking up the aisle next to me (I was in an aisle seat) who was vomiting in a bag up the aisle. She projectile vomited on the guy in front of me and across the aisle from me. I felt so bad for the guy and I was also so glad that she missed me. Other than that, nothing too out of the ordinary happened.

I started data collection today but to my dismay/disappointment, I won't be able to use this data in my dissertation. The curator had gotten confused or something because the collection I wanted to use had been returned to the National Taiwan University Medical School over a decade ago. The collection that I'm looking at now is prehistoric and the same one looked at by Howells three decades ago. So I'm measuring these skulls to test my measurement variability and all is not lost. Most of the skulls are badly damaged and fragmented so I don't have much to measure. It also means that I will have 50 less individuals to analyze, so less numbers. Yay! Thankfully, my aunt and cousin arrive next week for a week or so and we'll go sightseeing. Otherwise I will have wasted a lot of time and money being here. The collection is very well protected and I'm constantly being monitored by all the security measures. It's kinda scary.

Enough about my disappointment and onto the fun sights and sounds of Taipei. I'm excited to be in Taipei since there are a lot of sights to see. I should be done with my data collection by Thursday or Friday and my aunt and cousin arrives on Saturday. So far, I managed to walk around the area where I'm staying and have taken a couple of pictures. I'm getting my languages a little mixed up since I forget which is Thai and which is Mandarin. I took a bunch of pictures from around the area. I'm excited that there are sidewalks here!Here's my room. It's a lot nicer than the one in Thailand but it's also smaller.
There is a river that runs through the campus and the surrounding areas that is filled with tilapia.Here is a picture of the fountain and the front of the Academia Sinica activity center that I'm staying at.
Here's a picture of the building that I'll be working in.
Food is also cheap here, but not as cheap as in Thailand. I've eaten some pretty tasty food here and I've managed to find a McDonald's also. I have been craving french fries lately.

So that's all for now. I will be able to see more sights in Taiwan than I did in Thailand, so that will be fun. I'll post again when I get to see some more of the sights. Also, no mosquito bites in Taipei yet!

First Day in Khon Kaen

After my blog post yesterday, I went and took a long nap. When I woke up at 4 in the afternoon, I was starving and decided to venture out on my own. I walked to the Student Union or what they call the Complex. It's an indoor/outdoor building with lots of food stalls and restaurants. It was a harrowing 10 minute walk, since they don't have sidewalks here and the motorbike drivers and drivers are out of control. They also don't have crosswalks or walk lights. Along the way, I saw some wild dogs and some rats, which was kinda scary since my hosts told me I should avoid the dogs because they bite.

I went to a restaurant that served mostly noodle dishes (I only went inside because I saw that they had English subtitles under the menu). The wait staff did not speak English but luckily their menus had pictures on them. My Thai is pretty bad, so far I can say hello and thank you. I pointed at the first thing I saw, and it was describe as a fish noodle in red sauce. It looked pretty good and was really cheap. When my food came I was so hungry that I started shoveling the food in my mouth. Big mistake. Not only was it hot (it was noodles in a red broth), it was damned spicy! I like spicy foods, but this was too spicy for me. I managed to eat all of it while downing my iced tea(?). I stopped by the 7-11 to get some snacks and bottled water then proceeded back to my hotel.

I managed to watch some of the World Cup game but it was in Thai, and Thai television doesn't show you the score while they broadcast, or the teams, so you just have to guess who they are playing. I went to bed really early for me (11PM) last night and I woke up at 7AM this morning, but I'm still jet lagged. I am really tired in the middle of day and I it's hard to focus on my work. Hopefully by tomorrow I will have gotten over the jet lag.

I haven't been here that long but I've already attracted the local mosquito population, since I managed to get eight mosquito bites last night. A lizard got into my bathroom last night and I was so startled by it. I had no idea what to do with it and when I looked in my bathroom this morning the lizard was gone.

My guest room is pretty decent, it's very large and has seen better days but it will suit my needs. My one complaint about the room is the bed. It is rock hard and sleeping on it is like sleeping on a wooden board. Here are some pictures of it.
My hotel provides a breakfast buffet of traditional Thai food of congee, fried rice, a salad bar, and some fruit. Here's a picture of the restaurant and it's an outdoor restaurant that gets pretty hot during the day.
After breakfast this morning, Ann met me in my hotel to walk me over to the Faculty of Medicine. I got to met Dr. Panya, the curator of the collection, and they managed to get me set up. Dr. Panya is a really friendly man and I felt at ease when I met him. He also refused to let me pay for my lunch and he introduced me to some Thai fruit (guava) that I've never had before. They eat it with skewers and dip it in a sugar, salt, and hot chili powder mixture. I didn't particularly enjoy or dislike it. I couldn't eat the other Thai fruit like papaya or dragonfruit because I'm allergic and I don't like it. I still haven't come across the dreaded durian yet. Thai people also have a different way of eating than we do. They eat with a fork and spoon but no knives. The spoon is held in the right hand and the fork is used to pile food on the spoon. It's taking me some time to get used to this.

Dr. Panya and I talked about my research and I told him about the different techniques we use in forensic anthropology. I also started my data collection today and measured 11 skulls. This is definitely a slow start since they have over 800 skulls in their collection!

After I was done for the day, Ann walked me back to my hotel and we almost got run over many times because we were crossing the streets during rush hour. I was sweating like a pig by the time I got back but it doesn't appear anyone else is sweating as much as me. Hopefully acclimatization will occur in a week.

One thing that surprises me and makes me laugh is that everyone thinks I'm Thai here. They all look at me like I'm stupid since they talk to me in Thai and I get a blank look on my face. I've never been confused as being Thai before so that just cracks me up. I'm pretty sure they think I'm an idiot because I never wai (clasp my hand like in prayer and bow my head) to anyone because I'm not sure when it's appropriate to do it.

Tomorrow I collect more data and tackle more Thai words. I will try to take some pictures of the strange snack foods that I've bought, including some very strange toiletry products.