Tainan! part I-Logistics!

anyways. three days after I arrived in Taipei (I arrived on Sunday night), I took off to Tainan, TW for the Joint International Conference of Biophysics and 14th Annual Conference of the Biophysical Society of ROC ( 第十四屆生物物理聯合研討會) hosted by National Cheng Kung University (國立成功大學). The conference ran from Wednesday-Saturday. Wednesday morning, at 5:50am, I meet Yo-Hsuan Chen down at the lobby of our dorms so we could take the MRT and the public bus to get to Academia Sinica(中央研究院) so that we could take a 5+ hour shuttle bus trip to Tainan. For me, it wasn't early, since I was waking up around 5am every morning anyways. It was actually nice to get up and do something once I woke up instead of trying to go back to bed in my hot, hot dorm room. (didn't help that the sun shines directly into the room during sunrise). On the shuttle bus ride there, everyone from my lab was on bus B and I was on bus C, since I registered much later than they did. But I didn't mind so much, as bus C was pretty empty and I had my own row. Still, it would've been nice to be on the same bus (though honestly, I don't think it would've mattered much since they all slept on the way there cause it was so early for them - and at this point, the only person I knew from the lab was Yo-Hsuan... LoL).

here's pictures of Taiwanese tour buses
bus interior...
We took some bathroom stops on the way, and man, each rest station has SOO many bathrooms, here is just like 1/20 of the bathrooms in a particular rest station. i don't know how many there were, but there was alot

too bad the majority were squat toilets.
So we arrived at Tainan, and since Yo-Hsuan is from Tainan, she meet up with her friends and told me to follow Jing-Yeh Chen and Larry Chen instead. We walked around for a bit looking for a 7-11 (did I mention that Taiwan has a crap load of 7-11s?) so that we could buy a map of Tainan, since neither of them knew the area well and we did not stay at the hotel that they rest of the conference members stayed at to save money. (our hotel ended up being a 25-30 min. walk away). We stopped for lunch, and I ordered a bowl of curry flavored pork noodles. It was ok, considering that I don't really like noodles, and the curry wasn't a strong curry flavor as I would have liked it. After lunch, we wandered around until we found our hotel, Fuh Dih Hotel. A-Yeh and I talked quite a bit, and he's quite interesting. haha.

here's a picture of our hotel sign...
front door...
our room!
i shared a room with Dr. Jean-Fang Gwan (she has a Ph.D!!!). I would really like one of those. (wishful thinking -.-)

we headed to the conference venue around 2:30pm. Basically, the conference consisted of lectures by professors, researchers about their research in various topics. Overall, it was pretty boring, but I am glad I went, it really gave me a chance to get to know some of the lab members (and the members at Academia Sinica) pretty well. (Since we work in a cubicle and all do our own research, my lab does not have a social environment =[ unlike LJue's)

National Cheng Kung University Hospital...since the NCKU's Medical College is linked to the hospital (so is NTU's!), ths hospital was right behind our conference lecture hall

shopping mall or hospital?
I've noticed hospitals in TW look/act more like shopping malls. There are so, so, so many people that go in and out of the hopsital, it's crazy! A-Yeh agree's with me that it is not necessarily the best thing, since it could increase the spread of viruses and the introduction of new viruses to the hospitals would not be surprising since the daily people-flow is so high. Not to mention, hospital cafeterias look like shopping mall food courts in America. I think that some people just go to the hospital for lunch/dinner sometimes. (I totally would if I lived in Taiwan) NCKUH has a much smaller food court and options than NTUH, though.

the proper entrance to the conference venue...
NCKU Medical College!

here is one of the few lectures that me (and the other group members) attended. we didn't even stay for the whole lecture in this particular picture and began ditching more and more. haha

can you spot me? I am wearing a bright green shirt and my hair is in a pony tail. I am sitting next to A-Yeh (and he's wearing white).
we had coffee/tea breaks twice a day throughout the conference, the food was amazing! each break had so many items to choose from it could qualify as a meal. I cannot believe that the registration fee was one 400NT for a non-student. The amount of food provided was rediculous!

can I eat the whole table?

我每天都在醫院裡面!
>.<