I woke up early again and was unable to fall back asleep, but oh well. I still seem to be more awake than the other students; I'm definitely more awake than the crazy people who went clubbing and didn't get back until 4:00am or whatever. They switched up breakfast on us this morning, which I suppose could be classified as "exciting," but not really. The fried rice was gone and there was fried noodles instead and the guava was gone too, which was disappointing.
We went to class today at Soochow University, which is a top-ranked, private university in an urban area in Taipei, unlike NCCU, which was closer to the mountain. I think I liked NCCU's setting more, unlike most comments I heard from Purdue students, but oh well. Professor Roan also commented that the girls at Soochow were more attractive, so maybe that was their driving reason. Unfortunately, they weren't attractive enough (or they were sitting behind me), because I still couldn't stay awake in class. That was especially bad since a) everyone around me noticed and pointed it out rather vocally and b) the professor has known my dad for a long time.
During intermission in class, I met a student named Nelson (and it took me forever to remember his name). He was an interesting character; he's currently an MBA student at Soochow, but he got his bachelor's in English "and a little bit of Japanese." We talked for a bit and we one-way-exchanged contact information.
For lunch, we went to a famous beef noodle restaurant with Nelson. I thought the food was really good and fairly "normal," but it seems the same people still didn't like the food, even without the spiciness. We ended up going to McDonald's afterwards and we got some food and ice cream cones, which are only like $0.30 in Taiwan (and apparently $0.15 in mainland China!).
Post-ice cream, we went to the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall. There was a Chinese opera rehearsal going on, so we watched that, which was pretty cool. Afterwards, we went up to the actual hall, where some soldiers in the honor guard were rotating shifts, ritual-style. It was kind of boring and everyone had to stay quiet, but I guess it was still something to see. After that, we got to go backstage on the opera set to see the area and actors, who were changing; some people got to take a picture with an actress that's apparently really famous.
They decided to be tricky afterwards, and didn't provide any transportation back, so we had to find our way back from the MRT. I'm proud to say that we aren't dead. I took a nap for an hour, even though some people went swimming, because I suddenly felt exhausted when I got in my room.
Tonight, my group consisted of both Matts, Juliette, and Brad. At first we were aiming to go to a cigar store, since Matt F. and Brad wanted to get some stuff, but what looked like a short walk turned out to be forever and a day, so we stopped when we got to the MRT station and split up. Matt and Brad went on to try and find it while the rest of us headed back to the Shilin night market to find dinner.
We ended up eating at the first place we saw, which was a hot pot restaurant. Our waiter was friendly and spoke [enough] English, so I think we did okay. The general consensus was that it was the ugliest hot pot ever, but it still tasted good. Matt and Brad joined us midway through; apparently they tried to get a taxi to take them to the cigar store, but simply got a point and primeval grunt, so they didn't end up finding it.
We saw pretty much everyone that wasn't in the hotel sleeping at the night market that night; I guess we all ran out of stuff to do. Juliette ended up buying a shirt and some magic cold/hot pack things, but that was it. We were out until around 11:00pm before we headed back to the hotel. I'm guessing everyone pretty much went straight to bed afterwards; I know I did.
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