Recovery insite!

Well i successfully returned to good ol' Oregon last thursday.  All my flights and travel went very smoothly, despite some 4hrs of turbulence from Narita to Portland.  

I am still adjusting to my new/old time zone.  Sometimes this is referred to as Jetlag....what is that you might ask?  Well you basically feel a little out of sorts because your body is used to the other time zone.  In my particular case, i have been having more difficulty that usual.  For example, it is 1:06am and i am wide awake.  This seems to have been the routine since i have returned....

1st day of return: mostly slept all day and all night, exhausted.  only woke up because i was hungry and that was in the late evenings and middle of the night.

2nd -4th days.  I would stay up until around 10, fall asleep and wake up promptly at 2am.  Wide awake with no hope of sleeping. I would stay up until around 7am and then fall asleep until around noon. (fortunately this was still the weekend, so it wasnt a big deal).  After i woke around noon, i would be up until 10pm or so.

5th  and 6th days (today)- things were looking up, i came home after work, i took a couple hour nap.  woke up for a little while and went to bed around midnight.  To my joyous surprise, i did not wake up until i heard my alarm at 6am.  Great i thought!!  so i go to work and get home.  Take my nap after work (5-9pm, a little long). And now i am up, not exactly wide awake, but definately not struggling to keep my eyes open.

OK so sleeping patterns are definitely an issue with jet lag.  So is food and brain function.

Food: well i am basically hungry in the middle of the night and not so much around lunch time.  breakfast and dinner, i am kinda hungry.  Its the mid-day meal that is throwing me off.  I must say though, it is extremely wonderful to be eating my normal food again!  although i stand to have more Indian food and mochi!

As for brain functions, they dont work the same when you have jet-lag.  At least for me, i cant always think straight and my memory seems to be lacking at times.  speech can be a bit blurred and stuttery. Overall its probably equivalent to how some folks behave from having too much to drink! : )  

It just takes time to readjust!

Finally hit my turning point

Well it is day ...15?... 17?...18?...37?...43?....... ..who knows but it definitely feels like too long.  I am just about at my wits end after the day i had today.

For starters late last week, I was entertaining the idea of staying 2 more weeks past my 4 week plan, so that i could finish up a bunch of other stuff and stay for a series of important milestones in the project.  because we were so far ahead of schedule, it looked like it would work out.

so i kinda got the ok....and our entire plan was based on when we confirm the product....(now i cant really tell those of you too much about the details because it is all confidential, but i think you will get the point anyways.)...we were set to confirm monday....

well go figure, nope things just did not look right.  being that we have reviewed these same things over and over and over and this was about our 6th time or so. We were all very frustrated.  now we would try to confirm on wednesday....but unfortunately this change made the entire schedule bump out another week.............  YEAH!   sooooo that means 7 weeks!!!! I can tell you right now, there is no way i am willing to stay for 7 weeks...I will not do it and thankfully my team back home in oregon agreed. I said great! now we are scheduled to confirm on wednesday, if all goes well i will return sat.......today is wednesday...the end of the day............

so lets talk about food. on saturday i went up to sun moon lake with a coworker and her mom.  The mom was the cuties little ol lady...measuring in at about 4 feet something, teeny tiny/super petite, age 77 and wearing at least 5 layers that i can see (it was supposed to be cold).  She was just so cute and she would not let me out of her site as she feared i would get lost.  more about that in another blog.  back to the point, so on sat i didnt have a choice except for chinesse food.  i managed to choke some down and it wasnt too bad. still pretty hungry though....

so sunday comes around and as soon as i wake up, i know i have to get some decent food....(as you will see, decent becomes relative, as is everything, "all relative").  So it doesnt take me long to decide to go to subway and get a sub and .....well.....it starts to cross my mind that mcdonalds IS just beside the hotel....it wouldnt hurt for just some nuggets and the great buffalo sauce they have. 

So i head out...it was a beautiful walk(extremely relative) to the near by subway (about 3 blocks).  at least it was a very safe walk and i could view the city.  did i mention the low lying clouds that added a special touch to the view...which is great n all, but those arnt clouds, my friend.  That is pollution, smog, ...toxic even.  GREAT!  so i get to subway and its a pretty easy choice. a roast chicken sub, 12 inch.  I can have half for dinner and half for lunch the next day.  You ask about lunch today?  o no worries, i already have plans for that.  So on my way back from the hotel, i stop in at mcdonalds.  hmmm, no english.... and only a few pictures.  Thank God for value meals with numbers...I stand back from the counter and make sure i know what i want to order before i get up there, cause its hard enough to explain what i want, especially if i dont know for sure that is what i want.....at that point who knows what they will give you.  So it takes me about 10 minutes to decide....i went in with plans of nuggets, but actually left with nothing because its only 10:45am and they dont serve any chicken until 11. bummer

so i head back up to the hotel and drop off my sub, you would think i would just eat half and call it good and head to mcdonalds for dinner.  NOPE, my mind is made up, I want mcdonalds for lunch.  So i head downstairs to the little cafe and order a kiwi juice.  Just wasting time until 11:15 or so.  I dont want to go right at 11, cause maybe the chicken is undercooked.  but i dont want to wait to long after 11 cause then they might have already cooked it and then reheated it...so 11:15 should be just right for freshness(again relative).

so i am sitting outside in the sunshine (which i am pretty excited about) and the waitress brings out my kiwi juice.  Little did i know when they say kiwi juice, they actually mean they threw 2-3 kiwi's in the blender and added a little water....more like a kiwi and water smoothie.  O well, its just a time waster until i enjoy the tender juiciness of some mcdonalds chicken...

I read for a little while, choke down my kiwi smoothy (its sour by the way, not sour as in bad, but very tart, i especially dont like tart things).  So i finish up and head over to mcdonalds by 11:20, right on time! ; ) i stand back for a sec and make sure i know what i want. Then i walk up in line and stand behind the guy in line. He finishes up and walks away, the moment he takes the first step, this WOMAN comes up and cuts infront of me and starts to order. IM LIKE WHAT?  I look around and several people saw it but they didnt flinch.  Im thinking, did i miss something?  so i take a step right directly behind her, i am crowding her according to american standards, but i wont be having any more cutters taking my chicken!!!

so i get up to order finally and the girl cant understand which number i am saying.  to me it is a clear 9.  "number 9", "NUMBER 9", i say again and again, so finally i hold up my fingers and she gets it.  this is where it gets crazy, im not sure what happened, but when i left i had 2 bags in my hand and a big box of chicken.  I managed to order a small french fry, and the family chicken meal(9nuggets and 4 pieces of spicy chicken).  needless to say, i wasnt really too disapointed....oh and i had a coke too.

unfortunately when i got back to the room, the hole toile situation had occured(broke), so i had to wait to eat my chicken......but it was delicious.  my tummy was singing the praises of mcdonalds.

so then dinner comes and i eat half my sub.....great day for food, i must say.

ah yes, so now it is monday and i am supposed to confirm parts...but no...a few other things didnt go well that day either....so after a rough day, what would i like more than anything??????Mcdonalds! some normal food, especially after forgetting my sub for lunch and having to eat the chinese food in the cafeteria(by the way, did i mention it is free? all the factories offer free lunch to their employees).  So eat mcdonalds i did, actually first i ate the other half sub i had then i ate a number 6 from mcdonalds, a 2 piece spicy chicken meal with a large fry.  To top things off, i walked down to the cafe and also bought a chocolate cake roll desert.  yep ate that too.....ahhhh, normal food!  was very content.

gluteny is brutal though and things always have  a way of working them selves out.  I woke up at 2am in the morning after this horribly frightening, yet vivid dream and my stomach wasnt feeling too good.  I managed to fall back asleep, slept thru my 5am alarm and woke up after 6am.  Still not feeling well at all, nausious and other things. I was strongly considering not going to work.  I hung around the hotel for awhile and left a bit late.  had a little breakfast down at the hotel free breakfast place(rice, eggs, toast and banana).  All i could remember was that those things were easy to digest.  and I knew i needed to eat or i would be in trouble the rest of the day.

I get to work only about 15 minutes late.  Pretty quickly people are asking me if i feel well, because i am really pale.  no i dont feel well, matter of fact it feels like i am getting a fever. I eat about 3 bites of lunch(free cafeteria chinese) and i cant take anymore.  I was also sitting bymyself which is even worse because not only do i not understand the language to know if they are making fun of me, but now i am sitting by myself, feeling sick, hating the food and just plain ol irritated.  a little bit after lunch, my friend and coworker irene stops in the middle of our meeting (6 or so folks in them meeting) and says "Tiffany are you feeling ok?"  at this point i said, "what?" i was feeling pretty dizzy and didnt understand her.  So she asked again and i said "no, i think i have a fever and im real naseaous"  She puts her hand on my forehead and says yeah, i think you do too.   She says ill get you some medicine.  I kinda say, uh what kind of medicine, she says chinese natural medicine, it will make you feel better.  As skeptical as i am about this, i dont say to much because if they think it will work, then i will take it.   Pretty soon they are asking if they can use my driver to go get it i said sure.

As i am finishing up with the meeting and starting a new meeting, someone hands me these two small plastic grocery bags with clear fluid in them, a string tied around them to keep them closed and a straw.  Now i had seen people drink fluid out of a small grocery bag before, but until now i had not tried it.  

so i put the straw in  and took a sip.  It tasted like fresh coconut juice, and in fact it was. I thought well thats a relief.. I have had this before.  slowly but surely after drinking it i started to feel better.  Apparently all day i had been talking about how much i didnt want to eat any more chinese food, so lynn volunteered to take me to tgi friday's for dinner........mmmmm it was good, very bad, but very good.

ok...enough about food.  you get the point, i will do anything not to have to eat any more chinese food.  not sure why i got so sick, but am still feeling better.  I went as far as getting breakfast and dinner at starbucks today.  lunch was basically a pile of white rice.

as for the project..today was wednesday and we were supposed to confirm.  we had some minor changes in the morning and we were able to confirm in the afternoon.  that is for 1 part of the project, there are about 6 other parts, that did not confirm today and infact all facts are pointing to monday or tuesday before they will confirm......so ......that.....means....i  probably have to stay thru then. Definately not too happy about that.  And there is no way i can keep eating the mcdonalds and tgi fridays...im sure i already gained 5 lbs from it.  not sure what i will do....but i am sure  i will keep you posted!  

Good Night!

day 6

So here is a picture of the hotel i am staying in Taichung   It is a night shot from inside the van, so it is not great! The hotel is really nice...and quite pretty at night.  The view of the city of Taichung is also very pretty. I get to see it every night on the way home from work....

so some more fun facts about Taiwan.. This country has around 24 million people...i am not sure of the size...but i do know that it takes around 6 or 7 hours to drive from end to end...so what?.... that is about how long it takes to drive from portland to idaho, or about 3/4 of the way across pa....so it is very densely populated!!!!

So of those 24 million people, almost 10 million people own and drive SCOOTERS!!! yes I said SCOOTERS...here is a shot of a woman and her two dogs on the scooter.... they are actually 

driving on the sidewalk.  So in and around the towns and cities, scooters are everywhere, all over the place.  Not sure why this lady is driving instead of walking her dogs..but who knows?  

by the way, is that Spuds Mckenzie??? did he move to Taiwan?

Ok, here is another fun one, so you will hardly ever find ice water over here.  You wont find chilled bottled water or any type of cold water really.  So having noticed this, some of the expats informed me that, the culture here believes if you drink cold water, your body will make fat to help insulate your insides from the cold water.  So basically you will get fat if you drink cold water......uh WHAT?  are you kidding me?  

Since i couldnt believe this, i tried to confirm with several of the locals.....Well I wont say that the locals say it is true..but they do believe that you should not drink cold fluids because your insides are warm and if you drink the cold fluids then it disrupts your system...so its much better for your health to drink luke warm fluids or warm to hot fluids....so there you have it!  watch out for those ice cold drinks!!!

In case you were wondering, oh i don't know?...about convienence stores? well,  here in Taiwan all i have to say is 7-eleven, 7-eleven, 7-eleven, 7-eleven and 7-eleven....................................

 

unbelievable, there are around 40,000 7-elevens in Taiwan ....basically one on every block and you really cant travel too far without finding one....there is 1 7eleven for every 4000 people!  

Can you imagine there being 40,000 7elevens in pa, or in Oregon? no way!!!!

There is even a 7eleven at work, within the office buildings....truly surreal.

March 10th - Trip to Taipei

So today I had to head up north to Taipei to visit a couple of companies.  We decided to take the highspeed rail.  I was very excited about this because what would have been a 2.5 hr car trip was now just under and hour by high speed rail.    This is an image of the rail station.  The next image is a photo of the inside of the business class rail car. 

 

It was very comfortable and moved very quickly...approximately 186 mph.  

In between our vendor visits, we had time to visit the Taipei 101.  It used to be the tallest building in the world, last year.  I did not go up to the top because as you can see it is cloudy today, so we wouldnt get to see too much.  Its really really tall though, higher than the empire states building....

Here is a shot of me infront if the building....

just for proof i was there : ).....

On the inside of this building is a high end shopping center.  We went in to visit a specific store for my project, but i was pleasantly surprised to find a few stores! 

I have never seen nor been to a DeBeers store, so i was very excited about this.  I did not go 

inside, but kinda wish i had now....but we didnt have enough time.

So then when we went up to the next floor, what did i find directly above DeBeers?????????

A Tiffany's store.....how odd and coincedental!!!! 

Tiffany DeBeers...the GREATEST JEWELRY STORE IN THE WORLD!!!!!

So after we left the shopping center and visited with the next vendor, we headed to Fortune Tellar Row!

The ladies had told me about ancient chinese fortune tellers, so i asked if they could take me to one....just for curiosity....

So when we got here, we walked up and down the row until we found one that would be right for me....once we selected one, i sat down.  Since the fortune teller only speaks chinese, I had Irene to translate for me(she is on the right in the photo sitting in the chair against he wall.  She is a coworker from here in Taiwan.  

So i sat down and Irene told the fortune teller that we wanted the palm and face reading.  because of my age the facial location that would tell her the most were my eyebrows....: ) i hope they are not a mess? : )  So the fortune teller told Irene my fortune and Irene translated it for me.  It was a difficult process because Irene and the fortune teller would go back and forth talking for about 5 minutes and Irene would tell me 1 sentence......

We were finished after about 30 minutes.   overall, the fortune teller told me i would live to be 75 or 80, i would marry between age 32 and 36(in lunar years, which i am currently 31 in lunar years).  She told me all kinds of stuff about the age of the man i would marry and how i would have many choices of men to marry....all the information she provided was slightly random and fairly general...stuff that would apply to just about anyone...For example, she told me if i did not keep exercising, i would develope a disease.....: ) ok, and thats not happening with everyone?  it was a fun experience.  Oh and she advised me to watch out for men who lie about being married.....Duh!

ok another busy day.