wheels, feet, wings

As many of you know, this semester, I am studying abroad in Taiwan at the National Chiao Tung University -- or, NCTU for short -- in the windy city of Hsinchu. Today is the beginning of my adventure abroad for a semester, and hopefully, a summer as well.

LA, California [2/2 - 11:25pm]
Before all this, I went to Pittsburgh to visit CMU a little, work a little, eat out a little with peeps, sleep a little… =] ok, maybe sleep a lot, but that's besides the point. I learned how to make more food from the little sis and her roommate, such as…. LASAGNA!! Yum. Except, since it was my first time making this delectable dish by myself, I sort of didn't put enough sauce or cheese in it. Oh well! My failure was still delish in my opinion =D. I also got some guitar lessons from a fellow ECEr. I can strum some Taylor Swift, Green Day, and Jason Mraz now wheee! Thanks JYP =P

What else did I do in Pittsburgh? Hmm. I helped out with some TSA booth! Haha, I hope my little half-finished statue makes it to Spring Carnival. Jumanji! I'm excited, but also sad that I cannot make it this year. Also went to some KPL rush events, did my info desk job at the UC, got some people jobs at the info desk, failed to get some people jobs at the info desk… yup.

By the way, I am writing this entry at the gate of LAX going to Seoul, Korea. Wooo! My plane landed at 9:30pm in LA and I had 3 hours to kill, so I ate some healthy healthy McDonald's, and wandered around a huge airport trying to find the airline connection bus. Sigh.

cell phone charging station!

Back to my story -- I got back home from CMU, and! packed, played Kingdom Hearts because I never really played it before, ate mom's cooking, and shoveled snow T.T because I had nothing else to do. The day of my departure, I woke up early to send off my mom who was going ahead to Taiwan first before me, and then I finished up my packing, ate some French food at La Madeleine with my dad, and did some last minute additional packing. Then, off to the airport! By then, there was a soft snow falling, but that was enough to ice up the plane apparently. All the passengers got on to the plane on time, but then we were delayed almost 2 HOURS because we were waiting to get "de-iced" before take-off. That's 2 extra hours of being cramped up in my economy seat. Fun stuff. They didn't even give complimentary peanuts.

UA tickets

My ticket to Seoul

No complimentary peanuts, but complimentary OJ

Anyway, not much happened on the flight; I watched a movie called "An Education" I think that's what it was called. It was interesting. "Go to college, people" -- that was the theme of the movie.

Oh. Time to board the plane! More later.

edit: In the air ~3 hours to Seoul [2/3 - 1:37pm DC time??]
Oh great, it being February 3rd - 1:37pm in DC means that it is February 4th - 3:37am in Seoul. I've officially spent a day traveling and doing nothing (except update this blog) even though it was less than 24 hours. Does that mean I've travelled forward in time? =O Oooh…

I finally remembered to start taking pictures when I got to LAX, but there wasn't really anything to see in the airport… just the cellphone charging station I think.

This flight was a little more interesting. I had some bi bim bap for the first time. It was pretty good; I liked that fact that there was rice with it =). The flight attendant thinks I'm Korean, so… I can't understand a word he says haha. All I know is that he says a lot of "sumida." I'm assuming it's something you add to be polite to customers and such? On this flight, I watched some "Astro Boy." Theme of that movie? Em.. "don't throw robots away or they'll be sad"? After that, I slept for 7 hours, waking up intermittently throughout the time. I keep waking up because people keep walking by me to go to the bathroom… -_- And my neck and butt hurts T.T boohoo. There's this guy that sleeps kinda funny too. He has the table down and pillow on top, then he hunches over and plants his face on the pillow. How is that comfortable?! It's almost like suffocating yourself.

Ooh, I feel altitude dropping! Or… maybe not. I'm imagining things. We're almost flying over Japan right now. I hope we get another meal on the flight. I'm hungry =(. At least I'm getting my dose of Korean music haha. And orange juice mmmm… breakfast soon! Om nom nom.

edit edit: Seoul, Korea [2/4 - 6:54am]

SEOUL! I had omelet for breakfast on the plane. I wish I knew what the other option was, but they ran out. Then, watched part of G-Force before we landed. The flight attendant will forever think I'm Korean. Seoul airport is pretty nice =) They've got these nifty internet zones/lounges and resting areas you can go to while waiting for your transfer flight. Bad thing is though, that you hear people snoring left and right... Another bad thing is that the OUTLETS aren't the same =( I can't charge my laptop!! Good thing for these handy dandy internet zones. Though, firefox seems to crash everytime I try to log in to facebook.

There are also these interesting Korea art galleries around too.

So... don't know which gate I'm supposed to go to. My flight time is scheduled 5 hours after I landed so the departure times didn't even show my flight. Sadness. There probably is another group at my gate anyway. La la la~ Jet lag has not hit me yet~~

edit x3: Taipei, Taiwan [2/4 - 5:04pm]
And finally! I'm here! After listening to the loud conversations of some Koreans (no offense to anyone, but it's kind of true), and being amazed at the escalators that automatically start running when it senses you there, or the automatic fountains,

or the bathroom seat covers that change with a press of a button (O.O) I boarded the plane to Taiwan.
Even after wasting 4 hours at the internet zone, I still got to my gate too early, as evidenced by these pictures:

empty gate

gate 32!

And now, a series of plane pictures...
...and that's how you set up the plane to take passengers.

They even have Go tournaments and STARCRAFT (-_-'') battles on tv...

And pepsi-cola planes??

As with both my other flights, I watched another movie; this time was "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" and the beginning of "Bandslam" on these nice touch screen monitors wow.

Lunch was some beef stew with rice. Not bad for a 2-hour flight. After I get off the plane, I get through immigration pretty fast, and meet up with my mom and uncle. I helped set up a wireless router for my uncle, and updated this blog!

My mom and uncle enjoying the new setup

Yayy~ Alright, I think that is it for the day. No more interesting bloops to cover. If you read this entire entry, I'm impressed. =). It makes me think I'm interesting. Until next time!

edit x4: [4:00am]
-__- Mosquito bites already!