Wanshang hao! (good evening!)

I have to say the past two days have been radically different than the first two days! I have now met my lab group and have already observed/assisted with some of their "experiments" or labs. They are all super friendly and very curious about me! They have not had a foreign intern before, though there is one Indian PhD student in the lab. Yesterday we "sacrificed" a mouse to gather its sperm and Leydig cells, fun stuff! Then I proceeded to disect the rest of the mouse and got to remind the student the English word for all the different organs, which was fun! My genetics lab skills have been put to the test, though mostly I just do what I'm told! I think I am really going to enjoy my time working here, though it is hard for me to really assist much with anything since I am only here for four weeks, so mostly I will be learning. However, from what I see my labmates may learn more from me being there than vice versa! I am sure their English skills will improve dramatically, though I am skeptical if my chinese will ever even got off the ground...

Tomorrow I am very excited because I get to help one of the students who is doing research at the Taipei City Zoo! If I enjoy what we will be doing, I may be able to go there more regularly! I know we will be researching turtles, but I will learn the specifics soon enough.

Yesterday after meeting everyone and getting settled in, pizza was ordered for us. I could kind of tell the students were a little disappointed because they assumed that I wouldn't want pizza being an American, but this was NOT the pizza we are familiar with, even though it was Pizza Hut! There were several different types with various seafood; I asked what one kind was and they said "Japanese style." Well that didn't answer anything until they remembered the word "octopus!" If was actually pretty good!

It is absolutely ridiculous the amount of restaurants and food vendors there are here. Taipei is a shopper's dream, clothes and food are not only everywhere, but sooooo cheap! A decently sized dinner here cost about $1 in American dollars. But that doesn't mean that quality suffers whatsoever. I will hopefully be putting some pictures up of some examples :) here are the only ones I have remembered to take so far

Pyramid-shaped gelato, yum!!

yes, that is seaweed flavored Lays, not so yum I would think...

I saw this at the Taiwan version of a Walmart, which is just as huge vertically as Walmart is horizontally! There were many levels with sloping escalators so you can go up and down with your cart, genius! Pretty cool experience.

I feel like I am forgetting to say so much but mayber it will come back to me after awhile. There is no way to describe everything I've been doing and feeling but this will have to do for now!

Something else I will be feeling, my legs after my 35 minute walk to my lab everyday! But I am mostly just proud that I made it there today by myself without getting lost during the busiest time of the day, go me!!

Please keep in contact with me! And let me know if there is anything blatantly obvious that I am forgetting to talk about, becasue I am sure there is.