It has been nearly 3 days that I finally have some time sitting in front of my laptop, writing down what I experienced since departing from Taiwan.
It was like a chaos swirling around me not with the end: The long flight was the first part. I tried to relax as I've wanted to be, but failed; the tiny space afforded for a passenger with economic level, makes it very hard to stretch the two feet. Fortunatedly I was assigned the aisle seat for the two flights including the one from Taipei to Kansai, where I transffered to the other one to Los Angeles.
"The hidden figures" was the only movie I watched during the flights. For the rest of time, my back hurted that I couldn't get to sleep. The interesting part was the brightness outside the window; I 've never had seen the sky turns black gradually then turned bright when it seemed to be the midnight if I were at the original place, Taiwan. Fly crossing the International Date Line means the last minute it's, for example, Saturday, now it's Friday, shifting more or less a whole day. Some people know that I was prone to be asked for directions; this time was particularly surprising -- asked by an old maam to write the "Custom Declaration Form" for them. The form was in written English, and the maam couldn't understand those words. The point is, they knew I was able to help them, even when I didn't say a single word in "Chinese" on a "Japanese" airline, especially the flight carrying a lot of Americans to their home.
We arrived earlier than the expected, around 11:35 local time. The process through the CBP was much easier than I 've had thoght, the officer asked only one question: "Where did you do your undergrad?" I guess he was just want to check if this was me, not others. Los Angeles is full of people with different ethnicity: white, black, Asians, Mexicans, just to name a few. One black guy smoking outside the terminal building asked me whether to take a taxi when I moved further to the island with a green sign on its top. I was nervous, exhausted and dehydrated carring two big-sized suitcases around, want to find a place to take a rest. Suddenly appeared a white colored bus, bigger than those in Taiwan, with an apparent "Santa Barbara Airbus" on its body. The guy appearing zealously taken all the stuff of the passengers to the trunk of the car. My reservation for the bus was 14:00, not 12:35, but the guy said that is OK, giving me a ticket for reclaiming my luggages and asking me to get on the bus. It was a long journey, like traveling from Taipei to Yunling. After making an appointment to Tsungda, who was to picking me up from the bus terminal to where I live, I took a short nap. In America, everthing is bigger: the mountains, houses, vehicles, etc. It was not long before I realized the scale on the Google map is actually quite different from most Taiwanese people expected. There were places to go shopping, eating and anything that is recreational; Sounds good huh? If I want to buy a drink in Taiwan, it would take 5 minutes less for me to do so; however in the America, you can go nowhere except having a car. Tsungda even asked me to consider getting a drivers licence soon, or I'll have to take the MTD bus to anywhere I want to go.
This place is darker at night than I thought. Tsungda told me since there's an airport near the school, there should not be any strong light in presence. I imagined walking around here in the darkness just to buy some vegetables, having unprecedented fear and pressure. Learning to be independent might be the most important thing right now. Tsungda drived me to K-martsa and Ross to buy things in an urgent need. The jetlag made my head heavy, not able to sleep around 1 a.m., just after I figured out how different a bed setting could be from what I've had experienced and finally settled down.
留言列表
