Let the adventure begin!

View from the NCTU main campus

Hello there!
My 5-month exchange at the National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) in Taiwan has begun, hence, the blog. The point of this writing is to record some of my experiences here in Taiwan for the benefit of future exchange students, as well as, to inform you, my dear reader, about the exciting happenings during my stay here.

At the North gate of NCTU main campus

So here we go...

NCTU is located in Hsinchu, the windy city, as it is also known, which is in the Northwestern part of Taiwan  with a population of around 430 000 people. I got accepted to NCTU to study at the Institute of Molecular Medicine and Biotechnology. Almost a week has passed. I arrived on Tuesday night (8.9.) with a surprisingly light suitcase. Arriving was easy: plane landed on time in Taipei, clear signs and a little help from the airport staff led me to a shuttle bus, which took me straight to the High Speed Rail station. I had expected to take a speedy train of some sort that would take me to Hsinchu in an hour or so, but instead I ended up in what the locals would call pricey but super fast transportation that crossed the near 80km in 11 minutes for the lowly price of 140 NT$ (=4e) !!! To me that was more than okay. Then from the Hsinchu HSR station a taxi was the best choice as it was dark and I had luggage with me. I had a printed note in Chinese with me (provided by my uni organized buddy) that I just handed to the taxi driver and off we went!

Above the Gulf of Finland

Arriving at the front gates of the Bo-ai campus some 15 min later was such a relief and finding the right dorm was easy enough. I decided to apply for a dorm accommodation and got a place in dorm 3 at the Bo-ai campus, which worked out great, since my department is located right next door from the dorm.

The front gate at Boai campus

They willingly sell the bedding at the Dorm 3 office, so it was easy to get them there even though they were quite pricey. The dorm room itself is fine enough: four beds with a desks, shelves and a closets attached to each, providing a place for four individuals in one tiny room. So, there's little room for personal space here! :) So far it's worked out fine. There were four of us at the beginning of the week but already two have moved to the main campus. The main campus, Guang-fu (also Kuang-fu at times, don't know which or why) is newer, bigger and basically more convenient. It has everything when compared to the tiny Bo-ai: several dining halls, all the sports centers and swimming pools, multiple shops, and overall most of the teaching happens there. Lucky for me, my department (the Institute of Molecular Medicine and Bioengineering) is at the Bo-ai campus right next to our dorm. Hence, I've no need to be moving out, especially as the rent for the whole semester was 5650 NT$ (166e) ! :) The main campus is a bit more expensive but not too drastically. However, as there's a free shuttle bus going between the two campuses, I feel there's no need to move. Also, Boai is closer to the city center. The dorm lacks a kitchen so a fridge is nowhere to be found, but luckily there are these water machines that provide cold, warm and hot water, so drinkable water is always around.

Here's some pics from Dorm 3:

The next few days passed exploring the surrounding areas, trying to find places to eat, and finding shops where one could find some basic necessities for the dorm room. Here having four roommates comes extremely handy, since being lost together is much more fun! ;) Yet, you get familiar pretty fast with the good places to shop in. Although plenty is still left to be discovered! So far we've managed to keep ourselves quite busy with walking around the campuses & city and hanging around with other international students.

The East gate at city center

Thursday was the registration into the uni -day. Super exciting. Everybody seemed more or less confused about almost everything. :) A lot of emails had been sent about what to bring to the registration and boy they weren't kidding. :) If it said "have 2 copies of your passport" you better have it or off you went to the fourth floor of the library trying to find a computer for printing only to realise that there was a separate room right at the right back corner for copying and printing. So, after the confusing morning and afternoon nothing seemed clearer than it had originally. :) Yet, somehow everything falls into place and suddenly you've successfully registered into the uni and all is left is to go eat lunch.

The final excitement of the week was the medical check-up on Saturday morning. No one quite knew what to expect. All that we knew was that they were going to do a long list of exams including blood and urine tests, an x-ray and some general health inspections. Oh, and that the check-up would take place at 8.00-11.30. some of us decided not to be present at precisely 8 o'clock and upon arrival and completion of the whole thing we realised that we could have showed up much later. These examinations illustrated perfectly the plain organizational skills of the Asians. There were several medical personnel in each check-up point and you moved like cattle from one point to the next, at times giving blood or saying "aa" while someone counted your teeth, until after 30 minutes or so you had completed over 7 different medical check-ups and had an A4 paper full of markings of completed tests ready to be handed in. Once again you were left feeling utterly dumbfounded about what had just happened, yet, ecstatic that you'd survived one more bureaucratic necessity. Now I guess we'll just wait and see if those examinations and tests ever mount to anything.