An American makes plans to move to Taiwan.

12.14.2006

Meeting new friends!

Recently my mom introduced me to a student who works under her in the Library at the college she works at. She is a chinese girl from central China, her name is Annie. Annie is one of the nicest girls I have ever met and today I met her boyfriend, he is really nice too. I actually feel like I am more like him than most american guys. I have a few american friends I can realate too- friends from towson, but down here it was nice to meet new friends.

Annie introduced me to her 2 Taiwanese friends- Sha Sha and Sunshine, and their other friend who is palestinian, Mai. They are all really nice too. I know I keep saying nice nice nice, but really they are so sweet to each other. I never new friends could be so 'friendly' haha!

So yeah- I was really feeling great when I was with them. I hope I can get to know them even more - it made me feel happy about being single. I feel like I am able to just be myself, not worry about a girlfriend's opinion on what I do... but then again, maybe I will start to like one of these girls- who knows. I just want things to happen naturally. It feels good to just be silly and make them all laugh. I think its also hard for them to make American friends who can really relate to them, since i have at least been to their home country (the taiwanese girls at least.)

Well things are looking up for me with my social life. YAY!

12.10.2006

Cheap Flights To Taiwan

Well Jess just bought her ticket to Taiwan. On short notice before Christmas- that's an expensive ticket, well over what I paid for my first trip, which was around $1100 US. So I decided its probably a good idea to start looking for a ticket.

If I have a flight date set to august or September I think it will motivate me even more to get my act together. I have 2 freelance things going but I still don't have an everyday job. I think I said before I wanted to get together 4 - 6 thousand. I think the minimum I would want to go with would be 3k. I wanted to have at least 1k if I need to make an escape flight. I know a lot of people have come to Taiwan with basically nothing and been successful but I just don't like to risk things that way.

So I looked on Travelocity, Expedia, and Priceline for the prices in September and august. The winning price I found was on Priceline.com for Monday, September 17th 2007 - for $665 (one-way) from BWI (Baltimore) to TPE (Taipei.)

It seems that within July - September you get a range from around $700 - $1000 for a one way ticket. Monday flights seem to be cheapest and really, cheap is all I care about in this case.

Another thing that's cool is the $665 flight only stops once, in Korea. Last time we stopped in Chicago and in Japan, so this will be a different route. I can add another country to my list (although I know it barely counts.) Well anyway, I still have enough to buy the ticket right now but if I don't hurry up and start earning some real money I won't be able to get to my goal savings in time for September.

I just need to get more applications out- I have done a few, but they were longshots. Gotta keep thinking of my goals!