Pre-trip meeting

Hey everyone!!
As you may know, I will be spending this January in TAIWAN!! I couldn't be more excited for my upcoming trip. One of the requirements of the trip is to keep a blog, and I know... I haven't left yet, but I figured I would get a head start and let you know how preparations are going!
So today we had our first pre-trip meeting. This was the first time that us participants were able to meet each other, and we began to find out some of the information for our trip! It was a little bit longer of a meeting, but I learned quite a bit of useful information!
There are three primary objectives of the trip which are biomedical research, academics, and international experience. Our research while in Taiwan will be using zebrafish as a model for heart failure, and investigating various Chinese herbs and marine species that may help heart failure attenuation. It is also a chance for international collaboration, as we will be working with various labs during our trip. We will also have the chance to investigate alternative medicine, have various ecological, geological and student interaction while there. Of course we will also have the chance to experience the culture, language, food, etc.
Its going to be a looooong flight! It will take us about 17 hours in the air to arrive. We leave on Christmas Eve from MSP and fly to Tokyo, Japan. We have a short layover and then complete our last leg of the trip from Tokyo to Taipei, Taiwan, arriving late in the evening on Christmas Day.
During our trip we will spend:

• Week 1 in Taipei
• Week 2 in Pingtong (half of a week)
• Week 3 in Taipei and Taichung
• Week 4 in Taichung
• Week 5 in Taipei (half of a week)

It will definetily be a full trip! While we are traveling around we will have the opportunity to work at Academia Sinica, China Medical University and Tunghai University. I can't wait to see what is in store for us!

I have my packing list now to start working on... Here's to hoping I will be able to make the weight/size requirements! I will periodically post updates on how packing and other prep is going, but once I arrive the updates will (hopefully) be pretty much daily! Thanks for following along!