My Travel Adventures

Amid tense expectations on Sunday night, an email was finally sent out that school was cancelled the following day because of a typhoon. The government had ordered all schools across Taipei to close, and I heard many businesses did not open on that day either (interestingly, a rumour soon spread that the government had only made this decision to score points for the upcoming elections). My suitemate very foresightedly bought us some supplies to, well, weather the weather, and we holed ourselves in waiting for the worst.

My first week studying at the ICLP was very relaxed. My classes begin at 8:10 and end at 12:00, after which I have the whole day to do whatever I want. This week I spent all of my afternoons at the library.

For reasons not entirely clear to me, classes did not begin the week after we sat our placement exams. Instead, some people went on trips with the programme, but by the time I had found out about them in the summer, they were fully booked. Instead, I spent the week familiarising myself with NTU’s library system and its books on 17 th century Taiwan. The 5 th floor of the main library is a wonderfully quiet study place housing special collections on all sorts of topics.

ICLP scheduled another two days for ‘orientation’ after our exam on Tuesday. I don’t know whether this is part of growing up, becoming more Czech, or simply suffering from jetlag, but I have never felt more robbed of my time by a presentation. In the total of five hours, I think I learned two useful things, and even those two things I have already forgotten.

I departed for Taiwan on the Saturday of September 7 th . I arrived on the 8 th in an unremarkable manner, exchanged some money at the airport to see how exchange rates would compare to those in the city, and took a taxi to my hotel. I was tired and very quickly fell asleep.

After I visited Korea, I spent a peaceful two and a half weeks at home in Prague. I met some old friends, though most were out of the country, and saw some of the people I love to see most whenever I come back: the dentist and the hairdresser.