Visiting Tainan and NCKU

NCKU, National Cheng Kung University, is located at the southern part of Taiwan in the old city of Tainan. NCKU was the next stop after visiting NCTU in Hsinchu.

Unlike NCTU, NCKU is very central, located on the east side of the railway. The 6-7 parts of the campus are separated by regular city roads and the area surrounding the campus is packed with places to eat, drink and do shopping. The NCKU campus is nice, with lots of green and buildings with a relatively decent architecture.

Weird things have already started happening here in Tainan. After about an hour and a half of walking around the campus and looking at things, I stopped next to a campus map and a guy came up to me and asked me whether I need help. I told him I was fine and that I was just looking around, and that’s when he told me that he’s been following me for the whole hour and a half wanting to come talk English with me. After I got over the initial shock he suggested that he joined me for the walk and practiced his English and I agreed. After walking around and hearing awful stories of the foreigner reputation here in Tainan (sleeping around, getting drunk, etc.) we sat down to eat something at a local place. It took seconds for a woman to come by with her kid and ask the guy I was with whether I would be willing to talk some English with her kid. The kid said "hello", I said "hi, how are you?", the kid said "ehh… yes… hi, how are you?", I said – "good, thanks. How old are you?" to which he responded with "yes, bye, bye" and looked at his mom with a face begging to leave.

The guy later took me on his motorbike to see a local night market with lots of Taiwanese street cuisine, and then back to my crappy YHI hotel. With all the running around, the jetlag that refuses to go away, and the heat – I’m dead tired.