More Random Information about Taiwan

Clearly, there is a lot to learn when you first move to a new country on the other side of the world. I have learned a ton of random information in such a short period of time. So here are some more things I have learned in the last two days.

Every official receipt in Taiwan has a lottery number printed on it. Every two months, they post the lottery numbers and you can win anything from like, 20 bucks to a bigger grand prize. It is really kind of exciting. The Taiwanese government did this in order to increase tax coverage in the country. Here is an example of what one of the receipts looks like:

Something I forgot to mention in my first blog post is that it is SO hot here right now. I am in a constant state of sweaty grossness. So far its been about 87-90 degrees Fahrenheit while I've been here, but it feels a million degrees hotter. None of the Taiwanese people seem to be bothered by the heat, so I'm hoping I can get used to it!

One thing that has annoyed me so far is the light switches. They are in the most inconvenient places ever in pretty much every building. For example, my bathroom light is outside the bathroom by the front door, and my bedroom light is as far away from the bedroom door as possible. In the school, it is the same way. The light switches are no where near where I would think they should be. I keep flipping wrong switches to wrong things and it is frustrating. 

Squatty Potties. I had never heard of them, but they're pretty common here I guess. Basically, its a urinal laid down in the ground. I haven't had to use one yet because I have a "Western" toilet in my apartment, but I'm a little bit afraid. Here is what one looks like (its not a picture I took, but I found on the internet): 

http://threechannels.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/squatty1.jpg

Something I have enjoyed here so far are the commercials. They are all in Chinese, so I've made a game out of it. I try to guess what the commercial is selling, and I am usually wrong. And other times, the product is just really odd or the commercial is just funny. One of my favorites is for skin whitening lotion. The commercial featured two girls who had tan lines and were EXTREMELY overly upset about it, then they rubbed this lotion on them, became 20 shades paler, and were way too happy about it. Another commercial I saw had dancing kiwis everywhere and I still have no idea what they were selling, but it wasn't kiwis. 

If anyone ever visits Taiwan, I've got you covered on all the random, little things.