20 hours + 1 day

yay! so the 4 of us arrived safely in kenting, taiwan, where the weather and temperature was an expected, but unwelcome surprise.

had a few snags during the trip here. for me, i was almost denied my boarding ticket because the duration of stay on my itinerary on my eticket was longer than the 60 days of visit as stated by my visa. because of this, i had to argue with the people at the counter to explain to them that i was going for an internship and that i have a valid reason for staying past the visa. however, i couldn't get on the plane until i let them change my return date, which is the 21st of august at the moment. need to contact a few people to change it back to my original return date... complicated.

from LAX to tokyo, i was surrounded by many japanese people.. most to all wearing those SARS (h1n1) masks. made me a bit paranoid, so, following my mother's instructions, i wore one on the transpacific flight as well. i suppose it was a good thing, because the guy that sat next to me... well, let's just say that he wasn't in perfect health. started coughing occassionally, which made me go 0_0. hm, let's home that nothing happens to me... i'll be closely monitoring my health for the next couple of days.

then there was the 1 hour delay when we arrived at the tokyo narita airport. the typhoon passing through the strait between taiwan and china were proving to be bad flying conditions, so we had to wait for confirmation.. and also wait in line behind all the planes that were taking off (14 took off before us).

but despite all of this, we've all arrived safely and rather comfortably. =D

currently, i have a 1 bedroom apartment to myself (hopefully i won't have to share later if other students come?).. fully furnished with:

blue faux suede sofa
tv
internet
fridge
queen bed

[living room]

[kitchen]
[bedroom]
[bathroom]

woke up 3 times this morning (after going to sleep at 2:45 am). once at 5:30am, only to find that the sun is blazing high in the window in my room. then again at 6:30, and finally just stayed up at 7:30. looked out the window, and this is what i saw:

it's pretty nice, though the temperature makes it really hot and humid... stressing the words "hot" and "humid", haha.

well, it's almost 10am. we're all going off later to meet with tony fan and discuss details about our projects. i'll try and figure out how i can change the time zone on this blog so it doesn't look as if i'm blogging about the future. 0_0