My second week in Taiwan I settled in, and moved into the middle of a night market, where I was able to constantly hear, see, and taste Taiwanese culture. I probably ate about 100 dumplings that week, and picked up plenty of new words and phrases in Chinese.
At ICLP, our classes were fully underway, and I started getting in the groove with classes, homework, and experiencing Taipei. 4 hours of Chinese a day began to feel more and more normal, and I felt like of all the components of my language skills, my vocabulary was progressing the most.
I also played tennis with a Taiwanese friend, who spoke almost no English, which was a good opportunity for me to practice speaking and listening in a setting that up until that point had been all in English. Overall, this week was a really good assimilation week, and I feel that my experiences are going to continue to get smoother and smoother.