Taiwan Day 15

On the way to school, we passed by the front gates of NTU and I saw a wallet laying on the ground with 1000 dollar bills (around 30 USD) literally spilling out of it. Luckily, we were right next to NTU's campus police station place so I just took it there and told the policewoman "I found this on the ground" but then she started asking me all these questions in Chinese that I couldn't understand, so she took me by the arm and pulled me inside, which was at first kinda scary. Usually in America when you turn in a wallet, that's pretty much the end of it. Here, they counted all the money (twice) and recorded it, and had me fill out a form, that was all in Chinese. So obviously, there were troubles.

[in Chinese]

Policeman: Can you read this?

Me: Um...no. (Charlotte and her classmate also tried to help me read the form, but it was all very technical stuff like "what should we do with this money if no one claims it in 6 months, with very similar looking answers).

Policeman: Are you not Taiwanese?

Me: No...

Policeman: Do you speak Chinese?

Me: A little .___.

Arghhhh. It's just so frustrating when you think you're making so much progress, like being able to order your own food or ask for directions, but then you get thrown into a real-life situation and you are literally useless. I ended up just telling him to pick where I should check, and just signed where he told me to, which I would NOT suggest as a safe method for life in general, but at that point I really didn't know what he was saying, I just wanted the guy to find his wallet since the TWD + Japanese Yen totaled to at least $800 USD... What's funny is there was also one single USD in there, haha. Anyways, there were currency exchange forms in the wallet as well,  meaning he was a traveler who had just changed his money, and lost his wallet at the worst possible time. I felt horrible, but the police seemed really thorough, so I was pretty sure the guy would come back and ask them about it at some point.

Anyways, this whole adventure meant that I was late to class on the second day, but I explained to my teacher afterwards, and showed her the picture I took of the form, and she explained to me that the checkbox I marked meant that if no one claimed the wallet in 6 months, the money would go to the school. So good thing I didn't sign away my soul or something.

Class itself was pretty good, we had to recite the entire text ourselves using the vocabulary and grammar words as prompts. So memorizing isn't necessary, but you still have to know the text pretty well, and how to use all the vocab and grammar. I'm already learning a ton of new vocab just from listening to my classmates talk, which is great.

During lunch, we went to a Japanese restaurant by ICLP. I love it when I try to take candid pictures, and only one person realizes that a picture is being taken, hahahah. See examples below (Dylan and Matt):

All the food looked really good~

Udon!

Afterwards, had my second group class, where I found myself spacing out, even though the textbook is really interesting. I think I'm still adjusting to the constant deluge of Chinese, and it's hard to process it all, gahhh. And that brings me to my next point: my one-on-one class. Which is VERY STRESSFUL! Not in a bad way, because I love my teacher and she is super cute and encouraging. But because there aren't any other students, you have to be attentive and thinking and on point FOR FIFTY MINUTES STRAIGHT. And you don't really have time to process new things you learn, because you're already talking about the next thing. At this rate, I'm not surprised ICLP improves your spoken ability so much just within 7-8 weeks.

Charlotte and I tossed her frisbee around for a bit outside to relax after class, until I started getting devoured by bugs. So then we ran into Audra and got some bubble tea ^__^

Yes, that is in 3 cups of bubble tea in front of Char, since she finished what Audra and I couldn't, haha

Pictures of the bubble tea place, and cafeteria

Went to a curry place by our house for dinner, which was pretty good. Each dish cost about 5 USD, which I initially thought was expensive, until I realized that in America it probably would've cost twice as much, if not more.

Isn't Daniel charming.

When we came back, Shui's son was in the apartment, doing his homework etc. He had this pen that was clearly a pen that shocked you whenever you clicked it, even though he pretended like it wasn't. He kept laughing but saying in Chinese, "look! I'm pushing it and nothing's happening!" I knew it would shock me but I still wanted to try it. So I told him, "If this shocks me and it hurts, I'm going to cry." and he goes, "OK, cry then." SO SASSY. He's 10. Haha. So I tried it and it was horrible and fell off my chair and he just laughs at me -.- Curse you, curiosity.

Afterwards, studied more :(

OH! And the guy who lost his wallet eventually called me and thanked me for finding it. Yay!