Two Florida Tech students, Eric Savage and Kate Broderick, of the Global Strategic Communication arrived in Taiwan early this morning for a three-week intensive study of Chinese language and culture, based at Tunghai University in Taichung. The program was made possible in part by a scholarship from the Humanities and Communication program at Florida Tech.

Ni hao! It is 8:07am, a beautiful sunny morning here in Taiwan! Even though it’s my first morning here, it feels as though I left Florida days ago… Oh, wait. That’s because I did. I have never truly appreciated how far the other side of the world is until you have to go there. I left early Sunday morning when the sky was still pitch black, and arrived around 2:00am this morning (Tuesday). Total time spent in transit:

• Drive to Orlando Airport: 1.5 hours
• Waiting in line to check my luggage: 1 hour
• Flight # 1 to New York: 2.5 hours
• Layover: 5 hours
• Flight # 2 to Tokyo, Japan: 14 hours
• Layover: 2 hours
• Flight # 3 to Taipei, Taiwan: 3.5 hours
• Clearing immigration: 1 hour
• Drive to Taichung: 2 hours

In total, it took over 32 hours to arrive! But from what I can tell, it is definitely worth the wait! We met our guide, a lovely Taiwanese student named Ivy, the second we arrived at Taichung. Everybody has been so welcoming so far! Keep posted this week for latest updates on how Eric and I are doing in Taiwan–I’m off to try a Taiwanese breakfast!