Okay, so this was a very slow day for us. Our first stop for the day is the Taiwan white house. It is a HUGE building. We went on a tour and of course they do not allow pictures. I only got a few good pictures of the outside of the building. Also, our tour which was supposed to be 1 hour turned out to be almost 2 hours long. It was really funny, because among the facts about the history of taiwan were the circumstances going on during the tour. First and foremost, our tour guide had a lot of trouble with english so he would randomly go into mandarin with Dr. Chen translating. Also, he studied german for many years so he would randomly go from english to german as well. It was all rather funny. Also, to my amusement most of the class was hungover from the night before so watching them try to get through this whole even was more than amusing. Lastly, to add to my amusement, I gave Charles, my roomie, some benedryl becuase he said his allergies were bothering him. It was so funny watching him fall asleep on his feet at points in the tour. Moving on, after our tour of the white house we collected our belongings and went to lunch before regrouping at a local coffee shop for studying the Quanta computer case.
I spent the next 24 hours cramming all the knowledge I could about this case into my head so that I could not look stupid when we went to NTU for our case study with the NTU students. The Quanta computer case is about several organizations banding together under the OLPC to create a $100 computer to help bridge the information gap between countries. Quanta, being the largest manufacturer of laptops and parts hopped on to this initiative inorder to gain a strong footing in an emerging market. In the end, it turns out that the $100 computer just isn't possible. However, the currently built pc'es both by Quanta and rivals are currently running about $176. We went into a lot of detail about Quanta's business approach to joining the OLPC project and the cost-benefit analysis. It was all really interesting. I have never really thought about it in that perspective. Speaking of studying cases, I have the Sony case when we get to Japan and I had best get cracking on that sometime in the near future. Lastly, after finishing a 2 hour discussion on the Quanta case we went to Party World and did Karaoke. 
We did take some time to go over the importance of Karaoke in business relations in Asia. As it turns out Karaoke is very popular. Not only is it popular to sing and drink, but it is very popular to have business meetings over Karaoke. After a couple of hours of Karaoke, I ducked out early to grab some dinner and try to get caught up on the school work associated with this trip. There is actually a lot to keep up with. Lastly, before heading home, I ran into some of the other students and went to TGI Friday's for dinner. I usually didn't eat american food this whole trip because I am trying to sample all the local cuisine. At Friday's, our waitress was really nice, so we took our picture with her to commemorate our visit. Her name was Miranda.
We did take some time to go over the importance of Karaoke in business relations in Asia. As it turns out Karaoke is very popular. Not only is it popular to sing and drink, but it is very popular to have business meetings over Karaoke. After a couple of hours of Karaoke, I ducked out early to grab some dinner and try to get caught up on the school work associated with this trip. There is actually a lot to keep up with. Lastly, before heading home, I ran into some of the other students and went to TGI Friday's for dinner. I usually didn't eat american food this whole trip because I am trying to sample all the local cuisine. At Friday's, our waitress was really nice, so we took our picture with her to commemorate our visit. Her name was Miranda.
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