Trip in Taiwan

Culture Class and Black Typhoon

2009-08-12T00:40:00.001-07:00

Black Typhoon - August 12, 2009

Hello, again! The typhoon is all the way over now (for Taiwan anyway; Morakot might still be roaming around China and the other countries near it). Everyone in the dorm was alright, and there was only some very minor flooding in Olivia's and my room becase rain kept blowing through a screen door and began leaking down the hall. Other rooms had worse flooding/leaking. My friend Annie's room was leaking from the ceiling and another friend, Emily, told me her room was damp and still had water in it from the typhoon and that even if she used towels and opened the windows it wouldn't dry. In other parts of Taiwan there was a lot of flooding, mudslides, and roads washing out. A few villages and smaller towns were hit and people have died and gotten injured. Xue Lan's family (my host family) live in a Hakka village but I think they came through alright; she said she had talked to them, at least, but I heard from Xue Lan that some of the roads around them washed out. It was/is pretty bad...the workers and helpers started cleaning the place up pretty quick though, on Monday, and by this time they've gotten a lot of the branches that fell down off of the roads and ground, and the roof on the scooter and bike garage that fell over has been moved somewhere else.

My friends and I were going to class Monday after the typhoon and I stopped when I got to the hallway that led to the classroom because a few of my classmates in front of me were looking at something. I got closer and saw that it was a sharpei-looking puppy asleep in the hall. There was a box nearby that puppy and three puppies were sleeping in it. My friends told me that the mom was hanging around and would bark at anyone who got close to them. I thought that the puppies were born during the typhoon but I saw one closer later when he was awake and his eyes were open. I wanted to go see them really badly but since I saw the mom again I didn't want to go near them and make her upset or/and get bitten. I went for a walk but found the mom in some red star flower bushes and she barked at me so I left. A girl in another Chinese class, Casey, went to the box when she heard a puppy crying from it and picked him up and he started sucking on her finger. Since we thought the mom was gone, Casey asked Jackie Chang when she came by if she could help them get some milk for the puppy. He stayed in the English Department office for a few days and I went up there once to feed him milk from an eyedropper (not regular milk, I heard it was soy milk, and when another student named Emily and me fed him he kept drinking it). He didn't like the eyedropper so you'd have to stick your finger in his mouth and keep it there before you gave him milk with the eyedropper. He's a strong little guy, he starts sucking on your finger and doesn't let go.

Emily, one of my friends, fed him first then asked if I wanted to feed him so I did. He was really squirmy so you had to hold him or else he'd crawl all over the place. We both got a lot of milk on him so he had a moustache...or beard. After I fed him he fell asleep in my arms and took a little nap. He is so sweet.

A U.S. student named David named the puppy 'Black Typhoon' since we found him after the typhoon, but I think something like Blacky or Sun Bear is better. Sun Bear might sound kind of wierd, but there's a bear that is black and has a crescent of white fur on the chest (a Sun Bear). The puppy was colored almost the same way and so he reminded me of that kind of bear. Maybe his name could be Sun or Bear (if I was naming him). He did kind of look like a bear, the way his ears and face were. He is so sweet though and loves to crawl around. Someone in Pingtung (I'm not sure who) is going to come and take him home Thursday. Casey wanted to take him home even though there would be all the legal stuff and quarantine she'd have to do, but someone else might already be his new family. I am not that sure. I heard from my roommate's friends that travellers come to Taiwan and adopt dogs because there are so many strays.

Well, since the blog is getting long, I'll post a picture and some videos. The first picture is of the Tai Chi Master who came to see us on Tuesday for Culture Class and the video is of Wu Shu (a type of martial art) and a video of the Taichi Master going through some movements of the 'Push Hands' Tai Chi style, which I studied by taking a class from Melissa :) I like the Push Hands style, it is the one I've learned the most of so I am not that knowledgeable in Tai Chi but I like the style because I still remember some of the poses now because of the Culture Class and it is slow and it relaxes you. The Tai Chi Master asked a few students to punch him in the stomach, and they did, one student (Mike-who isn't the guy in this following picture--that is Clark) did really hard but the Tai Chi Master didn't even look like it hurt. His stomach was really hard because it had a lot of qi (chi, if you heard the Japanese, which is like...breath, or energy) in his stomach/abdomen. It was still hard to watch though and I didn't feel like punching my teacher :( Plus even if I could actually punch someone like I meant it (I doubt I could) I still don't think I'd do that much damage.

I'm out of practice for Tai Chi though. I was ok, but when everyone did the poses after the Tai Chi Master showed us, when I did it with them I lost my balance a few times. But I realized I still remembered some of the poses after I started doing them. If you practice enough at Tai Chi your body will remember the poses and you'll automatically do them--you don't have to think 'Ok, now it's this step', you just see the pose in your mind and then let your body go through the pose (did that make sense? That's kinda how it was for me when I took Taichi anyway). The video file is too big to be put here I think so I'll put it on Youtube and give people the link. Well I'm eating dinner now--Hokkaido Corn Soup from a restaurant called Sub Buddies that has some Italian stuff, and some vegetarian curry from a restaurant I have been to a few times but don't know the name of and I keep forgetting to get a name card from the place. But I will be going there again and I'll remember to get one (I hope haha). Just in case you go to Taiwan and want to get some vegetarian curry, which is really good by the way, say 'Su si gali' (Sue-suh-gah-lee). If you want takeout vegetarian curry say 'Wai dai su si gali'. (Why dye sue suh gah-lee). I might not have really spelled it right but some people here can't read Pinyin (English letters, Chinese word) so it probably doesn't matter. Bye for now! Have a good week and weekend!

Storm Post

2009-08-09T03:03:00.000-07:00

August 7-9, 2009 (Friday, Saturday, Sunday)

Ok, I'm done with the food posts for now. I am not a pig, seriously ~-^
Well, the typhoon is going crazy. The wind is really strong and the small puddles from the rain that were in the hall are now...bigger puddles. There's a screen door right where the puddle is and rain is blowing in from outside. I want to go see how deep the puddle is but if it keeps raining I'll probably be able to find out sooner or later once it comes to our door. It's been raining nonstop since the typhoon started. Xue Lan told us the raining and typhoon would probably continue for a few more days, so I'm not sure of the status of class Monday, but the storm will probably have died down by then.

The President of TUSA got everyone in the dorm MacDonald’s food on Saturday and Jackie Chang (who writes to the students to make sure they’re doing OK and grades the culture journals we’ve been writing) ordered everyone in the dorm boxed meals for dinner. There were boxes of MacDonald’s stuff and bags of boxed lunches...they went to a lot of trouble because they got all the food during a typhoon and I really want to thank them somehow. I was kind of speechless when I saw that they’d gotten all the food for everyone. I bought food on Thursday to eat through the typhoon and didn’t know they’d get everyone meals. I’m grateful that they did, don’t get me wrong. I also hope that the people who delivered it were OK since the wind and rain were really bad.

I just went for a walk (Sunday 5:23) and saw that a lot of tree branches had fallen down, some trees were tipped over or their branches were cracked. One of the things that was damaged a lot was the roof over the scooter garage just outside of the dorms; the end of it fell forward and is touching the ground, blocking some of the scooters and bikes that were under it, and the next section bowed in the middle (a better way might be to say that it slumped forward after part of it fell and hit the ground) but the rest of the roof is still straight. It’s easier to show than explain but I don’t really feel like I should take pictures of the destruction.

It’s still a little windy and it was raining when I went back inside. A long time before I went outside for the first time since the typhoon started there were people walking around, riding bikes, scooters, and driving cars. I saw a couple people flying a kite like I’ve seen them doing in normal weather although...Taiwan usually has lots of typhoons...so I guess it’s still normal weather now.

Well dinner boxes were delivered for supper and I just finished mine. Instead of staying in my room I watched TV with some American and Taiwan students. I’m glad I hung out with them since I’ve been a recluse this weekend. Earlier a few people ate lunch in the student lounge and played Mah-jongg while watching Wall-E. I left partway through and took a rest but that was fun. People asked if I wanted to play Mah-jongg but I said no; I know the very basic rules and it's fun but I just wanted to watch. For any kind of game, I sometimes space out, and I felt like I'd be doing a lot of spacing out if I played. Watching was fun too.

The Mah-jongg set they were using was probably one of the sets people won in the Mah-jongg competition Thursday.

Well, it was a lot shorter than before, but I’m going to finish writing now. I finished my homework on Thursday and finished my slideshow for the Talent Show yesterday; I just need to make sure the timing is right and the captions stay on the right slides or else it won’t make sense. I uploaded the video on Youtube to show it to people and the caption order changed; if it stays on my computer and isn’t uploaded it probably (hopefully) won’t happen for the actual talent show. I hope I can get some footage of the Talent Show for you guys, as well as the skit my group’s doing if I won’t be on the stage for everything. Megan, Serge, and Annie (we were on the same home stay together) and I are in a group together and they have really good ideas. It’s fun how creative they are; I think we’ll have a good show because of them. They liked my slide show but I like their ideas a lot. Everything we did will make it neat a good performance.

Well, that’s it for now. Until next time.

Final Food Post

2009-08-04T06:14:00.001-07:00

Well, I think this is the last food post until I take some more pictures of good/interesting stuff. I might make another food post because I think this one might be long like the others.

I was out with my roommate, Olivia, and a few of her friends and I noticed we were passing by a bakery. We went inside (yay!) and there was a lot of good looking stuff. The first thing that caught my eye was a cute (and delicious) looking cake.

It had strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate cake. There were chocolate sprinkles around the edge and it was soooo good. I got some other cream things and Olivia told me that the people who owned Domalie (the bakery) said that I should eat the bread before the next day or else the cream stuff in most of them would go bad, so I gave one of the pieces of bread to Stan, who comes sometimes with the menu at lunch. I think he was happy to get it. That's what it looked like; it was probably sweet bread (really good bread that's like dessert bread).

The last thing I got was a doughnut with chocolate frosting stuff and chocolate sprinkles on top. I had it for breakfast (nutritionists everywhere gasp hahaha) and it was really good. It's funny I've lost a little weight since I usually try and get some bread/chocolate item to eat for a snack.

This is another view for the patchwork cake. I got another one like it the second time I found a bakery but it looked like a neopolitan ice cream bar instead of a quilt, but still had strawberry-vanilla-chocolate cake.

I went with a girl from the U.S. named Tina, a Taiwan student named Betty, and two other friends of hers to a hot pot restaurant. It was really good, but I didn't finish everything; there was a lot. I got vegetables and fish with mine. You just pick whatever you want from the plate they give you and dump it in a little round pot in the bar surface that you're sitting at. It starts boiling so the stuff you have gets cooked. The slices of fish I had cooked really fast and they were good. You can put everything in at once or just a few things. It's fun because by the time you've put a lot of ingredients in the pot you have a soup that tastes really good, with flavors from whatever you put in.

I had a mushroom that I put in the pot; it puffed up like Remy's mushroom in Ratatouille (haha another Ratatouille reference, have you watched it yet?). I thought it was cute and I actually ate it. I used to not eat mushrooms that much. It was really good and so was everything else. I liked the little skinny white mushrooms too. There was even a piece of pumpkin with my ingredients and I didn't eat a lot of that but I ate my piece of sweet potato. I love sweet potato now. I had a sweet potato on the homestay at it was still in its jacket and the potato was really yellow. It was soooo good. I saw a sweet potato like that first in a movie called Ip Man, who is the guy who trained Bruce Lee in martial arts. Never knew that.

Anyway the actors were eating sweet potatoes in the movie Ip Man and I wondered what they were; now I know, and they're a new favorite vegetable. I hope I eat them more when I get home (I never ate them before). When I watch movies sometimes I think "Man if you're an actor they don't just pay you, they give you food! You get clothes too but if you get food in movies and have to eat it for a scene you'll almost certainly get to keep it!" LOL.

Well that's all for now. Hope you enjoyed it! Let me know if there is anything you would like to hear about. I am open for questions and I like when people ask. I know there's a problem going on with the commenting system, so don't worry about that, though. If you have my email or know someone who knows me then just email me or ask them to ask me a question. Take care, everyone!

Picture Post #2 - Stinky Tofu is REALLY stinky sometimes

2009-07-26T01:19:00.000-07:00

Sunday July 26, 2009
I'm back! And you know, I wish I'd taken pictures of the vegetarian meal everyone had at Fo Guan Shan Temple. It was some of the best food I'd had. There were two soups; one was sweet and had cauliflower and a bunch of other veggies and some vegetable that looked like crab but probably wasn't. The other soup wasn't sweet but maybe more tangy and I can't remember what it had in it. Noodles or rice or something. It was good too though. There were apples for dessert and a bunch of other really good stuff. I think there was corn in one of the dishes. This is why I wish I had taken pictures though--I can't remember what what was there to eat now. But if I could cook vegetarian meals like the people at the temple I would become a vegetarian in no time flat. It really was that good.

I went to the night market in Kaohsiung in the second week. It was huge. There were people on top of people. Well, right beside each other anyway. You have to push through or else people will just keep going in front of you (which is what happened to me). My friend Tina told me that I'm too polite and she's right. But it was okay. We got separated a few times (mostly because I was leading) but we always found each other. We ate at a good place and got a mixed dish of meat (this was before I'd had the super awesome veggie meal) with gravy and noodles. I took a picture of it and the flash went off, which startled my friends and a few people nearby. I was using the 'Indoor Sports' setting on my camera which always flashes so I switched it to 'Food', which doesn't flash and takes really clear pictures.

It was good and very steaming hot when I got it. My friends all got the same thing. It was crowded in the eating area too and really cramped (not a good combination). I got at least two drinks in the night market because it was so hot--they were watermelon smoothies and they were really good. I like watermelon now in cubes but the smoothies didn't have seeds but tasted just like watermelon which was a plus.

I had stinky tofu for the first time at the night market. This batch wasn't so stinky, and its taste was alright, mostly bland, so there was some hot sauce looking stuff with it (which I didn't use--I'd already set my mouth on fire once and didn't want to do it again). I had stinky tofu on the weekend of my homestay when my host family and me went out to sightsee. We went to a restaurant and got stinky tofu and it really did smell stinky...it smelled a little like...well, it smelled kind of like sewage. So I guess that's why it's called what it is. I only ate one piece that time. I was walking down the hall in the dorms last night while doing my laundry and smelled the exact same smell and was glad I had something just cleaned to sniff at. I also had another first--I drank coconut milk for the first time. I had the same host family as another American student, Annie, and so she and I hung out over the weekend. We got coconuts that time and the lady who gave us them put a hole in the coconuts and we got sprayed with juice.

Xue Lan's (she helps with the program) parents were our host parents. Xue Lan has a brother and she told us he was shy. He seemed nice but we only got to stay a weekend and didn't really have an opportunity to get to know him better. But they were all very kind and Xue Lan's mother wanted to make sure we weren't hungry. She told us that if a mother's kids go hungry it's the mother's fault, I think even if they're grown up. Or that was just how Xue Lan's mother was. Xue Lan told Annie and me that her mom still treated her like a kid. Xue Lan really helped me when I was there--I was sick then and she gave me Chinese herbs to help my throat. It was powdery and tasted bad but I think it helped a little. The food we ate at Xue Lan's parents' house was traditional Hakka food (they live in a Hakka village).

This is the last picture until the next Picture Post. It's another lunchbox I ordered at school. It was salmon with some kind of glaze and the yellow thing in the picture is lotus root. It was a slight mouth pucker kind of sweet. I only ate a few of them. The black thing to the right of the lotus root was a mushroom, and the other black thing above the mushroom was a pickled plum which was really sour so I didn't eat it all. Some people pickle their own plums (in Japanese they're umeboshi but I don't know what it's called here) and those are super sour so I've heard. There was a miniature omelet with my lunchbox that time and it was good. I ate almost everything. Except all of the broccoli. It was a forest of broccoli...I couldn't finish it.

Well, that's all for now. I'll put another post up later. Bye!

Picture Post #1

2009-07-25T23:41:00.000-07:00

Sunday July 26, 2009

Well, I decided to mostly put pictures and videos up and talk about them but when I am in a writing mood there will be more journal entries. I thought because I take so many pictures I needed to focus more on them. Usually I only put a few up. I want to show you them too because there are a lot of interesting things around here. So welcome to Picture Post #1. And keep in mind that I'll make Q&A Posts too so ask any questions you have and I'll answer them ASAP.

First off may seem kind of off topic, but I'l going to start by talking about lunch boxes and food in general. There are a lot of places around Pingtung where you can get food and if you do take out the food comes in cute little boxes with drawings of...stuff. Sometime's it's kids, sometimes animals (like Hello Kitty), and sometimes there are poems on them.
This is one of the first lunch boxes I got after class. Someone will come into the classroom before lunch with a lunch menu and we can pick something from it. It always costs 80 Taiwanese dollars which is a few dollars in U.S. I usually get them, but students from the U.S. have stopped getting them and mostly go out during lunch and bring something back (meals out are 30-70 Taiwanese dollars). I just want food because usually by that time I'm really hungry. The time in the picture I had pork, veggies, rice, some egg thing, and brown pieces of tofu. It was really good (I loved the rice, tofu, and egg thing). I have gone out a few times during lunch but now I'm just ordering from that menu since I don't want to go out and have a coughing fit.

Yeah, I managed to get sick. I got sick late the second week and am still sick now. I went to the Student Health Center though and they gave me four pills (three of them were huge) to take at each meal and I got six packets of them. I have taken them all now and I don't know if they helped, or if I get worse before better. But enough of that. I'm going to tell someone I'm not really getting better and see if I can go there again.

There is a bakery and coffee shop place around Pingtung (and probably all of Taiwan) called 85 Degrees. I don't know if it's in Celsius or Fahrenheight but all of the cakes they have in there would still be melted on both of them. They have some really good cake and it's my dream come true. I got a chocolate cake with chocolate wafers between the layers and it was really good. I got a milk tea afterward at a tea shop (I was worried at first that it was a bar). I went with three male Taiwan students and a male American student named Ryan. He isn't the Ryan that I know from back home (as some of you know). It was fun going out that day; the guys played cards...something called "Rat". I didn't know how to play and I'm not that good at cards anyway (especially not new games) so I just watched which was fine with me. I was having fun drinking my milk tea anyway (milk tea is my new favorite drink).

85 Degrees is a really good place. It has tea and cake galore. It even possibly saved me because I had a coughing fit there and a very nice person named Clark bought me hot tea (the cake I had was cold and I forgot that it would probably make me cough) and didn't let me pay him back. He's studied Chinese before and he's in the class a level or two levels above me. He learned a famous song in class called Ni Shi Wo De Hua Buo (You Are My Flower) by Wu Bai and China Blue, and everyone at my house probably knows it by now since we had a WebCam Dance-Fest last night (there is a dance with the song). If you're interested I'll give you a link to the video I took of Clark and Mike and a few others dancing to it on the bus to Canting and the actual music video for the song so you can see the dance in all its entirety.

To wrap up the first part of the Picture Post and food talk I'll say that there was SO MUCH Tiramisu at 85 Degrees! I should get some next time (and eat it with a long spoon). I could have gotten a big box of it or a round cone shaped piece of it as you see in the picture but the box was a party cake box (though I could just throw a party sometime) and I've already resolved to try the Tiramisu cone next time. There is an 85 Degrees near the dorms. I should probably eat it out though because, thanks to me, whenever I eat in my room little sugar ants come. I'd say more about them but what I have to say would have to be censored. They crawl on me, they crawl on my computer, they crawl on my things, and I think they have even crawled in my clothes. But I kind of asked for it.

Well, I hope you enjoyed this Picture Post. I'll be making more in the future. Goodbye for now!

PS Wu Bai and China Blue are going to sing and dance at the World Games Closing Ceremony tonight. I REALLY wish I could be there...I totally know the dance now! I would record it for you guys but sadly I'm not going. Olivia, my roommate, is volunteering there so she'll probably see it--well, she will be really busy. Hopefully someone in the audience will record it and put it on Youtube. Thanks to mom for telling me that they would be singing in the Closing Ceremony. They'll have their own fireworks show while they're dancing too.

Well as I promised here are those videos. I'll put the music video first and then the footage I took so you can see where my friends got it from. :D Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-GJl6chhes - You Are My Flower

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwqYMWejBrE - The Tour Bus Version

Fake Post #2 (LOL)

2009-07-19T07:19:00.000-07:00

Okay, this is my second fake post. I am using it to answer questions that people asked on the comment page since although I have an account here I can't answer back for some reason. Cranky little site. But it's more fun to answer questions this way.

OK first, I hope you're still curious, sorry that the answers are overdue:

Starting from the most recent one about the Opening Games.

To Ralph: Yeah, I'm staying out of trouble. Oh, wait...is the weather staying out of trouble....ahaha yeah it is. There was still a typhoon because it was inevitable at that point but it curved off and didn't directly hit us. It did give us a lot of rain and lightning and thunder; Lulu would not have been happy. I heard the rain and knew it was a storm so I ran to get water from the machine in case it shut off the next day and lightning flashed when I was in the hall so I got water and ran back to my room.

To Elaine: I was thinking about that just today actually....it's a good thing the sculptor didn't mess up and forget to join the fingers together. But Buddha wouldn't flip people off! Lol ;) And I got some business cards from places I went so I can tell you the address there (if it's not in Chinese, or if it is, maybe I can just send a picture of it or something). Talk to you soon, but I bet you're really busy huh? When do your summer classes end?

To Ralph: I'm not sure what the mermaids are representing, really, but I could look it up. And I think she has a fan that she's writing the study guide answers on to use for the next test. ;)

To Caroline: MONKEYS! I haven't seen any yet, but if we were in Japan and it was winter, we might have been able to see some hot spring monkeys. Look their picture up because they're pretty cute. They're fuzzy and have red/pink faces.

To Elaine: Yeah, I got a name. :) It means 'White Beautiful Flower', if I remember right. I can't put the accent marks in on the computer, but I can write it...I might try and look for the characters and put it here. Or just write it and take a picture of the paper and upload that.
And yeah, it was a realy pretty sunset. And I think I maybe am getting less shy, little by little. I'm glad ^^
I haven't gotten bit by a lot of mosquitoes, but when I do they itch like crazy, even worse than Pocatello ones. But Xue Lan (works with the TUSA program and her parents were my friend Annie's and my host parents) gave me some green liquid stuff that's like the muscle cream--it's cold and tingly. It also worked really well; the bites didn't itch for the rest of the day and the one I used Neosporin on is still itching a little.

Well, that's all for now. I think I got all the questions. If you have a question you want to ask then leave it here or write me if you have my email and I'll put a new post here. Don't worry about asking; I think it's fun and I might use pictures to help answer a question. Goodbye for now! I have class tomorrow and I have to go to bed now.

Not Broke Anymore

2009-07-19T06:10:00.000-07:00

I'm a little behind in journals but I'll start writing tomorrow. I just got back from my homestay. A girl named Annie and me had the same host family and they live in a Hakka village. One of the people working with the program lived in the village too and it turns out that our host parents were her real parents. I wonder if we can be siblings. She has a brother and her dad was one of nine kids if I remember correctly.

It was really fun and I'll put some pictures from the trip here after the journal post.

July 15, 2009
Good news! I found a working ATM and I’m not broke or in massive paralyzing debt anymore. Well, I wasn’t to start with; I only owe a few dollars or so to my friends. The thing is finding those friends because I don’t see the same people every day. Today there wasn’t a Culture Class or study companion time because a few of the students who came signed up to teach English and that was today. I’m not sure if they were teaching college students or little kids but anyway, we had a free day today. We have a free day Friday too; after Chinese class from 9:00-12:00 we are done for the day (probably because this weekend is when we go stay with our host families). We leave Saturday at 10:00 and get back Sunday I think. If I remember and heard correctly, my host family lives in a Hakka village. I’m going to take extra water with me; usually I fill up my water bottle in the morning but it’s empty by lunch. I have some leftover water bottles that I’m going to use (and that mom said to not use if they had just been lying around but they were—sorry mom!

Sometime, I’m not sure when, I’m going to go out with a few of my friends to have dinner and then to go see the Harry Potter movie. SWEET. I want to see the Transformers one sometime too—if not in Taiwan then when I get back home. I wonder if it’ll be out on DVD then. I really like Shia LeBeouf! Whether or not people say he’s a good actor I like him. The spell checker thought his last name should have been spelled libelous. Did you hear that? They insulted him! Well, that just does it. Sorry, but I won’t be using Word anymore. I’ll move to Notepad.

Not really. That was a probably sad attempt at a joke.

Anyway, I am planning on going over my vocabulary when I get back from the outing. I’m still procrastinating, even in Taiwan. I took a quiz today and did alright on it; I need to practice a little more before my vocabulary words sink in. It probably didn’t help that we didn’t have study time today. I’m hoping to find some flash cards to use, and a new umbrella (since I broke mine recently...).
Last night was really fun, but I found myself thinking I should have asked my friends where we were going. I did feel a little more uneasy because they were boys (sorry Ralph, sorry William). I rode with one of the boys on his scooter and we went to a nice restaurant for dinner. It was the kind of place where you picked your main entrée thing and then picked three vegetables. I got corn, some spirally green vegetable that was spicy, and something else...can’t remember. Maybe seaweed. I had seaweed today at lunch (I went to the beach earlier and just took some home).
No, actually it comes with lunches and a few of us do takeout when one of the Taiwan students, Stan, comes to class with a menu. It’s always 80 Taiwan dollars (which is 5 or so dollars) and at first everyone ordered something but I guess once they got wind of the other ‘cheaper’ restaurants they decided to go out to those instead. Usually when you go to a restaurant you find stuff that’s anywhere from 20-100 Taiwan dollars—not very expensive. Stan told me that he found out American students don’t think that’s too expensive but I guess it is for Taiwan students. College students everywhere are, sadly, probably broke.

Although I have always bought the 80 Taiwan dollar lunch...I don’t see why five dollars is so expensive, whether it’s in Taiwan or the United States. Maybe I don’t have a sense of money but if it’s food and I can eat something and not be hungry then hey, long at it’s not 3000 Taiwan dollars (90 dollars, which I have spent as a group and I didn’t like doing that).

Olivia just got back and she got me a cell phone strap (like keychain) that is in the shape of Taiwan and it’s made of some hard leathery stuff. It has ‘Sarah’ on it, and a green oak leaf above the name (or a similar leaf), which is the symbol of Pingtung University (it is supposed to protect the students). She also gave me a cute hair clip with a pink flower on it. She says I can wear it next week for the excursion to Canting (I think I got the name of the city right, and I think Olivia did mean a city, otherwise I just wrote ‘restaurant’ in Chinese).

Well I’ll finish up because I don’t know when I’ll leave. The boys were really nice and responsible (although one was acting crazy and I found out he loves to swear...colorfully). It doesn’t bother me (much) but I think we turned some heads. He also said some things in Chinese that I doubt I should repeat either, even if I could, which I can’t and don’t want to. He’s the kind of person who would learn the rude way to talk before the polite (and I’m the opposite). I don’t really know him though, so I’m not sure what I think about him, although I didn’t feel that comfortable around him.

We went to dinner, then a café place (which I was worried was a bar and the crazy guy has been out drinking before, probably a lot) but I was relieved to find they had milk tea (my new favorite drink). In Taiwan people usually get half sugar in milk tea and it tastes really good, not too sweet or bland or anything. I don’t like green tea much because it’s bitter, especially when cold, but I’ll drink it hot. I’ve gotten used to it hot, but not cold (I don’t think it’s very good cold, and some people in Taiwan don’t like it either).

I got a nice cake last night and it was in a cool bakery place that was open to the street (meaning people just drive up onto the curb sidewalk with their scooters and park, and then you just have to walk a few feet without opening any doors to get to the front counter). They had boxes of Tiramisu cake that I wanted to get for you guys but I knew it’d be nasty by the time it got home (if I’d even be allowed to take it with me). I took pictures instead. The people running the place had cool Tiramisu cakes shaped like cones—I took pictures of them too. I’m uploading them now, along with some videos of elementary school kids playing a game called ‘Diabolo’, which I thought was ‘Diablo’ at first.

You have two sticks with a long string between them and you put a goblet-shaped thing on the string and roll it along the string. You pull your right hand up and down and keep your left hand still to make it spin faster. If I can figure out how to put the videos on my blog I will but in the meantime you can go look on Youtube at this video. It’s a fun game but really hard at first. The kids could do it so well and some had only been playing it for a few months. You can see what it’s like on the video. I found out that uploading them goes off without a hitch from the previous post. :) So I’ll keep that in mind and take more videos for you guys when pictures won’t cut it.

See ya!

I already put the Diabolo videos up so I'll put some different pictures and videos here. I have to say one thing though. Around the Hakka village area there was a place to eat and shop and stuff, and at the end of the shopping area there was this guy playing instruments. He was really good and I liked how he played. I even think that his playing made my headache go away. But this is the kicker. The things he played were a saw, a newspaper, a syringe (without the needle thankfully) parts of a recorder, a small bottle, and he had lots of other things he played. Some were fishing line, a banjo with a pot lid for the round part, and a paper lunch box with rubber bands on it that were like strings. The saw sounded like an er-hu (and sometimes reminded me of alien music), the newspaper sounded like a trumpet, the syringe like a flute, and the bottle sort of flute like too. He said if you cover the bottle a lot it's high notes. He also played a toothpaste tube with water in it. He'd squeeze it and it would sound sort of flute like too. I got a DVD that is two CD's and it has 100 or something instruments he plays. It wasn't that expensive either I don't think: it was 350 Taiwanese dollars for two DVD CD's and I remember that the first day I went shopping I spent 500 Taiwan dollars which was like 16 U.S. dollars (so pretty cheap for some reason! It seems like it'd be more expensive since it was two DVD CD's). I asked (Well, Xue Lan--our host parent's daughter--asked for me) if the format would be ok for U.S. DVD players and she said it should be. I'm going to try it now. If it works on my laptop I can show you when I get back.

Now, new pictures! Enjoy! :)

Mmm, look, this is my yummy dinner tonight of a boiled egg. Let's crack it open.

I can't wait, it'll be so good.

Aaaah! What happened to it?! I only bought it today!

Well since I bought it I'll just eat it.

MMMmmmmMM good.

Well you've guessed either that it wasn't really rotten or that I was just crazy. This egg might have been the 'Thousand Year Egg' that my friends in Pocatello told me about. They said something like the egg is buried for a while and the yolk is black and the egg is brown, but it tastes just like a normal egg. I don't know if this egg was made like that because when we bought them they were on a barbeque sort of buried in coals instead of underground. This egg was good, a little different than a normal boiled egg because it tasted salty and had the texture more like a gummy bear. Those are the not obvious differences.

Taiwan World Games Opening 2009 Kaohsiung

2009-07-16T23:25:00.000-07:00

Wow, the World Games Opening was a blast. I got a lot of videos but I'll just put the best ones here and explain them. I thought that pictures would be nice but videos better since there was a lot of singing and action. I got a video of a group of Hakka (Aboriginal people of Taiwan) singing, and for the chorus, the audience (or at least my area of the audience, I couldn't hear if anyone else was singing) sang along including me. It was really fun and the song was nice. My camera is way awesome; unlike my camera phone it records sound and isn't defeaning. I recorded taiko drumming at the Cherry Blossom festival and played it back when I got home. It was so shrill I think it might have damaged the speakers on my phone. The quality wasn't that good so I deleted it. Anyway, here's the video. Enjoy! I know I did. :) I will upload it as soon as I can but Blogger doesn't want to for some reason. I started uploading it at 3:00 AM Idaho time and at 5:44 AM it was STILL uploading. Usually videos process pretty fast. I was fed up so I quit for now. I'll keep trying. In the meantime here are some pictures from the games. Actually, I understand the problem now--the video has too many MB for it to be uploaded. Oh well. It still works on my computer and hopefully some virus won't come along and wipe all my pictures out because I just deleted them from my camera so I could take more. Enjoy the other videos I upload, then. :)

It's a really short video but I guess I'll keep it up. A bunch of people came out onto the stage and each person was holding a large balloon, the size of a Yoga ball. They ran around for a while with them and when they were done with that part of the show the balloons exploded and thousands of little balloons went up into the air. It was pretty cool. I have a better video of them flying though so I'll put that here.

Fake Post

2009-07-15T03:21:00.001-07:00

Hey! This is a kind of 'Fake Post'. I have a video I wanted to put up because what it's about is really cool. I took it when I was at Fo Guang Shan Temple. A girl named Mary (Taiwan student) and I were walking past a pond with a bell in the middle (that you throw coins at; if the coin hits the bell you make a wish). Anyway, there were barking sounds coming from the pond and for a long time I had no idea what was making the sound.
Play before you read so you can guess yourself what you think the noise is. Anyway, I thought it was a speaker at first that was supposed to be dogs because there were dog statues all around the temple. Two of those pictures are dogs and one is something that might have been a puppy statue but I thought it looked like a cat.

Anyway, I thought it was a speaker or that maybe dog spirits were around and barking at people who walked by. But it turned out I was wrong, very wrong.

Turns out that those barking noises you heard (I hope you watched the video before this! You did didn't you? If not I'll come there and scold you then make you watch it since it's really neat! ;) were being made by frogs! Amazing huh!? They were tiny little guys but they were so loud!! Apparently it was courting season so that's why they were so noisy.

Well, for the rest of this post I'll put other pictures from Fo Guang Shan Temple. It was really calming there, and there was an amazing view of the city below when we got to the platform with the giant Buddha. Like in Japan, the hillsides are just blanketed with really thick, pretty, deep green trees.

The large Buddha with size comparisons (there are 475 smaller golden Buddha statues all around the big one. I might have gotten the number wrong but it's around 400). There's a girl who's the photographer for this trip and we seemed to have unintentionally been competing this time--we took pictures of each other taking pictures of the other. Phew. And the other girl is Olivia, my roommate who is super awesome and way nice. Be nice to her if you should meet in the future.

Oh yeah, and you can also see the bus we were on in the picture with the girl with the camera. Isn't it nice? It had a TV that was showing a really dramatic Chinese soap opera. It was so dramatic it was funny...that's all for now! I'm going to dinner and then to see the newest Harry Potter movie! Want me to record it for you? JUST KIDDING. I don't want to get kicked out of Taiwan. :D And I don't want the death penalty either so I won't do drugs (like that'll be hard).

Bye for now!

The Trip Continues

2009-07-15T02:45:00.000-07:00

I'm gonna skip ahead before I give you the journal post: for culture class Tuesday we learned about Diabolo, something's that's easier to show than explain, and I just so happened to take some video of elementary kids playing Diabolo. But quickly I'll tell you what you have to have to play. You have two sticks with a string in the middle, a long one, and you also have a goblet-shaped item that's thin in the middle. You can put it on the string and it'll just roll back and forth if you lift the sticks. When you start playing you need to get the goblet thing spinning fast so you lift your right hand over and over and let the left hand follow the right. You have to concentrate a lot otherwise the string might get tangled. The kids, as I said before, were really good. One of the kids was rolling the goblet back and forth, then tossed it into the air, did a jumprope with the string and sticks, and caught it back on the string without missing anything!

I'll put the video now and hope it works. There! Now try to click it or find a play button. Here's my actual journal of events that day/week.

July 12, 2009

Man, can’t believe I was on the plane heading for Taiwan only a week ago. It feels like a ton longer because I think I’ve been doing so much stuff (I still think that even though I was playing The Sims a while ago and am going to now). Still no luck with the ATM so I’m holding off on having people pay for me until I can find a working machine to get money to pay them back. But last night if my friend Tina hadn’t bought my train and bus tickets I’d still be in Kaohsiung. Man, it’s raining and thundering like crazy now. The storm’s pretty close. I’m going to turn off my computer now. Last night a few of us tried to watch a movie but the TV didn’t work with the cables or something so we were going to watch it tonight but I think I’m going to bed now. I’ve been feeling kind of dizzy today and I have a little headache. It might be the heat or I’m tired. It’s 9:47 now anyway and tomorrow I have class so I shouldn’t stay up too late. Olivia and another student have been helping me try and find a working ATM. I hope I can soon otherwise everyone will be buying my meals for the whole trip (and it’s only the end of the first week).

In other news, a rat ran past me when I was taking a walk in the campus park today (he was cute; if you liked the movie Ratatouille you’ll know what I’m talking about), a weird-looking cousin of the potato bug landed on my head, and when it started to get dark I saw lots and lots of bats flying around!! It was really cool. I thought they were birds at first but then thought they looked too fluttery and fast to be birds (even if some birds are pretty fast). They were diving around and some dove close to the pond that was in the park. They were catching bugs and they were really fun to watch. They probably would fit in your hand; they were pretty small and cute. Well, I’m going to bed now. I’ll put more about the temple later. I’m starting to get lazy about writing every day but maybe I’ll write journals a few times a week since I don’t want to get behind, it’s fun, and it’s an assignment for when I get back. Night, everyone. Wish me luck with the ATM. There might be an international one in a 7-11, or so I’ve heard. A guy who came said he had trouble too but I think he found one.

One of the program helpers (can’t remember his name now *Update: His name's Stan and he's really nice and helpful) said that there are typhoons anywhere from 2-5 times a month if I heard him right. There will probably be one soon; they happen in July and August usually. And actually, I found out in class today (Monday) that there is a typhoon around Indonesia and it might hit Taiwan sometime but people aren’t sure if it will yet. If it does near the weekend we might not have home stay but if it does during the week class might be cancelled. It’s scary but a tiny bit exciting (if no one gets hurt but you never know). Well I’m off to an ATM in a 7-11 at 6:00 and I am praying that it works because right after that I’m going to dinner with my study partner Wu Yue (I'm so bad, I got her name wrong: well, Wu is her last name but her name is Yue Ying) and her friend Stan. If the machine doesn’t work and we don’t try another I either will have to have mountains of self control not to get anything and persuade them I’m not hungry (although I told them I was already so I guess that’s out) or one of them will pay for me (since Stan knows my money issues). Wish me luck with finding an ATM that works.

Tai Food = Very Hot. Group Meal = Very Expensive

2009-07-09T07:06:00.000-07:00

Pingtung Time

July 9, 2009

Phew, hot again today. I think I’m just getting used to it though. But sometimes when I’ve been sitting in an air-conditioned classroom for a while I like to go outside where it’s warmer. I think I liked the air conditioner better though after practicing a Hakka dance outside today. It was fun but everyone probably got really sweaty. We all held hands, too, so I bet everyone was wiping their hands off a lot. I stopped putting my sandals back on after they kept getting stuck in the grass and just danced barefoot so my feet got really dirty but I have just fixed that with a shower. I feel pretty, oh so pretty.

Oooh, guess what? I just rode passenger on Olivia’s scooter! I was scared at first...well, I was still kinda scared through the whole thing but I just held onto the back and thought about not freaking out or falling off. It seems to have worked. I think the program includes some insurance and I have proof of insurance with me but I don’t want to push it. It was pretty fun even though I was nervous though. Olivia said she was nervous and scared too but I told her she was a good driver (you have to be, with how the traffic is. Scooters zoom in and out of traffic and sometimes look like they’re going to hit other scooters but people deal with traffic pretty well no matter what they’re driving/riding despite what I’ve said about the traffic).

I’m pretty happy right now, but kind of worried also. I’ll start with the worried to get it off my chest and because the happy news will make it better. Olivia just said she went to pay the bills. She lives at the dorm, so I’m wondering what bills they are. She has a scooter, so maybe the gas, and she got an air conditioning card, so maybe that too. I hope if it’s something that involves me she’ll tell me and let me help pay it (or pay all of it). If it isn’t something that involves me I wish I could help too. Mainly I’m worried because if something was up that I’d done or involved me she probably wouldn’t say anything if it wasn’t....I guess...something important that would show up later. But what do I know, really. I just hope I’m not causing any problems for her. I probably am since I’m a newcomer here. I just hope I can be responsible for and fix whatever happens.

Anyway, the good thing is that a student named Chen Wu Chen (I think) was talking to me and I said ‘good night’ and ‘nice to meet you’ to him in Chinese. Wan an (which is actually when people are going to bed, I thought it was good evening, but there isn’t that in Chinese apparently). He said ‘hi’ and said that he knew it meant ‘yes’ in Japanese and said that he wanted to learn Japanese. Oh ho. I think he asked if I knew Japanese and I said yes. He said that Japanese is actually used in Taiwan because it was a Japanese colony a while ago (probably during the occupation) and that old generations of Taiwanese use Japanese; he said his great grandmother could speak Japanese and Taiwanese fluently. We decided that we’d meet again sometime and I could teach him some more. I was happy because he seemed excited to know some Japanese words. He asked me what some meant, and I told him, then we said to meet up because I asked if there was anything else and I said I could teach him more. I hope I do because I bet it’ll be fun (and I’m super excited because for some reason I want to teach Japanese more than English...maybe because it was just one on one and not a class. Plus, I said one thing in Japanese and say what it meant in Chinese which was super awesome). Some of the other girls know a little Japanese too. Today I was talking to my study partner (xueban) and we ended up talking about what languages we knew. I told her I’d taken some French, Spanish, and German, and she asked if I knew any German. I said a little, then said ‘how are you’ in German and said what it meant in Chinese (since I just learned that). It’s just really cool. Usually I’ve changed languages to English but changing to a language I’m learning and one that isn’t my normal language is just really cool.

Even if I’m a beginner and probably speak a little clumsily and messy, I feel really happy. I feel happy and like even if I kinda do badly at first it’ll be ok because it’s fun and I think like most places people in Taiwan are supportive when you even learn just a few words in Chinese and show an honest effort.

It’s kind of hard to describe the feeling. I guess it’s elated. I hope this isn’t a honeymoon period like I’ve heard travelling can have. That would be annoying, and I think I am genuinely getting used to stuff.

I still need to buy an umbrella and find a cure for my swollen feet. Something you want to hear I’m sure.

Maybe I was worried at the restaurant tonight because I was wondering if I’d been going out too much (although I’m not sure what else I could do since the campus cafeteria is closed because of summer break and there’s no cooking on campus, or at least in the dorms). Usually Olivia and her friends don’t go out, I think if school is in, but in the summer I think she said they do go out. Last night about 14 or more of us went to a Tai restaurant and at first got individual meals which got canceled when we got a huge group meal that cost 3000 Taiwanese dollars (90 U.S. dollars; good golly miss molly). Ooooh noooo. I am honestly not sure how it happened (but I’m glad I paid my share of 220 or something). If I could understand more Chinese I might have understood what had been ordered but I couldn’t so I didn’t. Whoohoo! Mmm, that isn’t a good thing is it?

The guys who came with us and sat at the other table did the same thing though, and a family at another table did as well too I think so I guess it’s something people do sometimes (and that we weren’t showing off like ‘Ooh! We have money!’).

But I was still kind of horrified.

Well, I’m winding down now. Before my camera for some reason decides to delete all my pictures again I’m going to upload them to my computer. It did this morning and I lost some pictures of my friends that I took at the Tai restaurant last night....moody thing. I hope it’s not breaking down...it’s a nice camera and it’s new. I’m pretty sure I didn’t accidentally delete them; I would have noticed.

One last thing: There's a chewing gum kind of thing in Taiwan that's really popular called Betelnut. The stuff inside is red and pasty, and it's bitter. The whole class today got one when the speaker for Aboriginal peopel of Taiwan, Professor Ling, came. I didn't eat it because I'd heard the previous day that doctors said 80% of people with mouth cancer also chewed the Betelnut. And I heard that without the statistic that it causes mouth cancer, and I don't really like bitter stuff anyway. Some people tried it but I don't think they liked it. I just kept mine. Since it's a nut/fruit thing I probably won't be able to take it back with me (if it even lasts that long). I took pictures of it.

Wan an. Good night people! Hope you’re summer’s going well. J

This picture is after we were practicing the Hakka dance. From left to right is Sam, Wu Yue Yin, and me. Yue is my study partner (xueban). I just met Sam today. I can't remember his Chinese name, but he told it to me. I'm different for each person; sometimes I rememeber their English name better and sometimes I remember their Chinese one better (but get it a little wrong sometimes). Anyway, isn't the face Sam's making cute?? Hahaha.

I got my Chinese name: It's Bai (Last name) Si (Shuu) Qian (Shee-in). It means White beautiful plant.

The character for qian is some kind of plant. Yue is really behind my name; she got a lot of characters for younger girls and showed them to me, and I picked three I liked. Well, that's really all. Goodnight!

First day of Chinese class.

2009-07-07T06:26:00.000-07:00

That's a fish statue that's a dispenser for fish food on campus for the koi that live in the ponds. A new friend of mine, Tina, said that it dispenses rice.

Tuesday July 7, 2009

I met another one of Olivia’s friends today (or I met her already but forgot her name). She’s called Faye and her roommate last year was from Idaho. She’s really funny and cute, and when she saw me she said my name a lot and then started singing “Sara” by Jefferson Starship. She sang a little then stopped and looked like she didn’t know the words. I said I didn’t either. I think she and Olivia are really good friends because they started calling each other weird. I said I was weird too and they laughed.

Whoo. This morning I woke up before my alarm again and then went back to sleep and then got up at 7:30. After Olivia and I got ready we went out to a place that was just a short way away from the university and got breakfast. It was 8:20 then and class started at 9:00 but the people there went fast and we got our stuff as takeout. I got an omelet, which isn’t a standard omelet—both times I got an omelet it was in a tortilla type thing. The first time it had lettuce (which was good) and the second time it had onion (which wasn’t that good; I don't like onion but it was still good). After my first Chinese class and three or four pages of notes later we were having lunch in another classroom. I’m not sure if it’ll be this way all the time but when there were about twenty minutes left of Chinese class a student came in and had a list of lunch stuff. He said we could tell them what we wanted and he’d go to a restaurant to get it (we’d give him money for it). Food isn’t that expensive in Taiwan; meals are usually 40-100 Taiwan dollars, which is 4-9 dollars or something, maybe more—that’s just a rough estimate from me. My omelette was 30 Taiwan dollars. I didn’t get any lunch because I was keeping my omelet since I didn’t eat it before class because we were in a hurry. I’m not really hungry now, though...although I have been eating a lot of peanut M&M’s (courtesy of Emily).

Chinese class was alright, but a little hectic. I learned a lot of greetings and phrases and words. Culture class was fun and I got a lot of papers with information about NPUE stuff and finally my schedule (which wasn’t handed out yesterday because we stopped the tour early due to heavy raining).

IT’S HOT!

I was getting a lot of water from the water machines today which are safe to drink from. Even people in Taiwan don’t drink from the faucet—I thought that they did because they were used to whatever was in the water but I found out otherwise. We got a True or False quiz that said “Taiwanese citizens drink from the taps but foreigners shouldn’t” (False--neither should). That’s something we learned in culture class, as well as don’t flush toilet paper down the pit toilets because the pipes apparently aren’t built to handle that kind of shrapnel. Hahahah...

Something that’s making people make a lot of noise is going on outside my room so I’m gonna take a break to check what it is now. I heard someone mention chicken. Maybe there’s gonna be a fight. Haha not really.

Back. I think I’m going shopping. I usually hold people up though because I’m doing something on my computer like the computer freak I am so I’m gonna dash off. Later!

Back for real and man am I hot an sweaty (the computer wanted me to say ‘man is I hot and sweaty’, shame on it). And tired. Which is why I forgot the ‘d’ on the ‘and’ just now...and the apostrophe that would have made it ok ;)

Well, I’ll finish this up. I studied with my study partner, whose English name I forgot but Chinese name is Wu Yue (I forgot the last part of her name though). It felt like we studied a long time but it was just from 3:30 to 4:30 and it was pretty fun. Wu said that my accent was not that bad and that she felt happy she was teaching me. She said I was smart once we were done after we’d been practicing accent for a while—it made me feel good but there are some words and accents that I slip up on. For example, the word and/or name ‘Yi’ isn’t said like “Yee”. It’s said like ‘ee’ as if the ‘Y’ wasn’t there. But anyway, I just tell myself it was only the first day and if I feel like I’m starting to get the accent then oh yeah, go me.

I also have been trying not to slip-up in public and say something in English like I have been. Now that I know a few more words I’m going to try and say what I know how to say.

I didn’t come to Taiwan to be scared of doing stuff, and I feel like I’ve gotten a little less shy around everyone even if I can’t talk to them a lot. Two of the students I was having dinner with tonight asked if I minded if they spoke Chinese around me. I said yes, and said it would help me practice. I hope I wasn’t coming off as hating to hear Chinese, though.

One word of advice, though: when you go to Taiwan and have a dish that looks like lettuce and sprouts, pieces of meat, and bits of red peppers, don’t eat the peppers thinking it’ll be OK. I did. A few seconds later I gasped, it was just so HOT. Then I started coughing and my eyes were streaming. I wasn’t coughing really loud or anything, so hopefully no one noticed, but later one of the students started coughing too. I noticed she had been smart and removed the peppers from her sprout salad thing. The food was still hot without them though but not as hot as with the peppers.

I’m going to try and find an umbrella in the coming days, preferably one that can kind of collapse and become only half the length of your arm. I want to get a full length one but if I did I’d probably have to leave it behind when I went home; I don’t think it’ll fit in my suitcase. I know I probably won’t need an umbrella in Idaho, but I could use it for the sun. Lots of people in Taiwan use them especially for rain and sun (but it’s not a good gift to get; it represents death or something like that).

A few things in Taiwan represent death; clocks and sandals. Also white, blue, and black represent death. People wear those colors and everything, but it’s not good for presents. And if you’re meeting someone important like the president of a school or something it’s not good to wear sandals; close toed shoes are better.

Well I’m going to stop now and try to chill out (literally). It’s still hot. Maybe I’ll turn the fan up so Olivia won’t be hot either when she gets back; she went to Kaohsiung with her friend Ray (the friend who drives us everywhere; I finally know her name, but it is on her door. Some of the students made signs for their doors).

I really like Faye; she’s so funny and nice. Olivia’s phone rang (it almost vibrated itself off of her desk), and I went to go look for her to tell her and I ran into Faye. She saw me and started singing ‘Sara’ again. I laughed and told her that Olivia’s phone was ringing and I wanted to tell her. Faye said that Olivia always gets calls from boys wanting to talk to her and that it was okay.

I probably shouldn’t know that, though. Anyway, I hope I get to know Faye, Olivia, and everyone better. They’re all really friendly. What I am kinda hoping for is that I’ll be accepted and people will be okay with me soon and we’ll be just like normal classmates and friends and stuff. It’s why I’m super happy that the trip’s two months; we’ll have a lot of time to get to know and understand each other.

Also by the end I’ll know a lot (I think) of Chinese and I’ll know my way around pretty well. There’s a girl named Emily who’s been here for a few years which I think is pretty cool. I thought she lived here but I think she’s just here for school like the rest of us but for a lot longer time.

One last thing: I want to remember names so I’m putting as many here as I can. A girl named Iva was helping me try to find an umbrella tonight. She’s really nice and can speak English well, but I was trying to use some Chinese words I’d learned today.

Few more things: If there is a typhoon or natural disaster (or an air raid, even) then classes will probably be canceled and won’t be made up. Typhoon and natural disaster are probably likely, but I’m not sure about the air raids.

Oh, I got pictures of the black swans! They're so sweet and make really cute honking sounds that are almost like cheeping...well, something like that. Sometimes people feed them but a girl named Tina (student from U.S.) went on a walk with me that day and we fed them grass. She said they bite if you try to hand-feed it to them so we just put the grass on the rocks. There was also a cool little bird we were taking pictures of but a kid threw his umbrella at it and it flew away.

Oh, yeah, I forgot to say that there's a mini-park around the campus. It's really pretty, and there are lots of fountains in the ponds in it. It's a pretty special campus.

Hanging out until "The Test".

2009-07-05T18:07:00.000-07:00

Pingtung Time

Sunday, July 05, 2009

I’m just hanging out and uploading pictures to my computer now. I just put some on Facebook. I updated my status on Myspace and got a 4^th of July greeting from Katie. Thanks Katie! It was three kitties watching fireworks and it reminded me of Minnie, Tabby, and Harry watching the fireworks (or what they'd look like if they did).

Tomorrow the opening ceremony is at 10:20 and then there’s lunch and a placement test at 1:00. There are different ones for student who have taken Chinese before and those who haven’t. Placement tests are at 1:30, and after I take it I get my school bag, textbook, and key to the study room. I think sometime I’ll get a student ID card and I already sent pictures of me in so I don’t think I need to get them taken again. Olivia and her friends are helping out with the opening ceremony and Olivia has to get up early, around 8:00, maybe earlier. She and her friends are trying on clothes for it and they look really nice. I think they’re having fun too.

We just had some spicy nacho Doritos and I bet all our mouths are on fire. I already burned my tongue today though so it’s nothing new. My only problem abroad so far is my perpetual refusal to wait for my soup to cool off (it's because I'm a pig :9).

Olivia, Mackenzie, and a few other of Olivia’s friends (I need to learn their names but I am nervous about asking, but I might sometime if I can stop being a chicken) went to a restaurant for breakfast and I got thick noodles in a really tasty broth. I ate so fast I burned my tongue; I did it the day before too, so I don’t really learn. But it’s ok. I just need to find some cold water bottles sometime because it got really hot today. We were walking around town, too, in a market kind of street. The streets are really narrow but people in cars and on bikes and scooters still drive through. Olivia’s friend is really good at parallel parking, even on narrow streets. Scooters are usually right by her but she never hits them; she’s a good driver, and really nice for driving us all over the place.

Usually, on streets, I think people end up driving in the middle of the street when a car or scooter is parked on the side of the street. Even when that happens there are people coming from the other way in cars, or on bikes or scooters, but they still get by. It’s pretty cool that they manage to do that all the time but it’s kind of a nail-biting situation, although people in Taiwan are probably used to it.

I didn’t post this last night so I’ll just do a quick update of what’s going on now (Monday, 8:50 AM). I woke up early and got ready for the opening ceremony. It’s in the International Conference Room on the 4^th floor in the Wu Yu Building, which I think I’ve found already. Around the campus there are streets like Wu Yu Street which probably leads to the Wu Yu Building. I’ve also already found the English Building which I am going to take my Chinese placement test in. I found some Chinese characters that I think says ‘English’. It might be the same in both Japanese and Chinese, but anyway, after that I found a poster that said English Department in English so it probably was right. 10:00 is the opening ceremony, 12:00 is lunch, and 1:30 is the placement test. After I finish the test my study companion (I think I’ve heard who it is but I forgot) will give me a tour of campus. Olivia and her friends, Penny, Cherry, and the friend that drives us around whose name I can’t remember (but I will!) had to go early because they’re helping out with the program. They all dressed up and looked really nice. They asked if I wanted to come with them last night to go shopping for shoes and I did. They got some nice black high heeled ones.

While driving around we saw a few stray dogs and Olivia said there are a lot in Pingtung, but that people will feed them. They don’t seem dangerous or anything so it looks like they can just wander around. It was cute because one of the dogs was walking around and then he sat down right next to a taxi. I said that if I lived in Pingtung I would have taken him home (probably after taking him to the vet and making sure he was okay). Olivia told me then that sometimes people who come to Taiwan, I think she said from America, have some permit and they take stray dogs home with them. They probably have to spend a while in quarantine though.

My cell phone alarm clock just went off for 9:00 but I’m glad I got up a little early. Talking about cell phones reminds me that I’ve almost memorized Olivia’s song ringtone; she gets a lot of calls. J I went to the bathrooms but there was water all over the floors and a few women were cleaning them; I think I wasn’t supposed to have gone in there but luckily I’ve already brushed my teeth and stuff. Well, I’ll write more later. I guess I don’t have to write a journal every day but I’m going to try and do that. Well, wish me luck on the test. A few others in the program haven’t taken Chinese either so if we do badly, we do badly together! Hahah.

I found some cold water; it's in a water machine. There's a blue spigot, a red one, and a white one. Blue is warm, red is hot (like, scalding hot) and white is cold. I think it's okay to drink, it's a water machine, but I'm going to ask to make sure. Another student used some this morning and she asked me if it was alright to use. Probably everyone who came has had a 'water talk'. Maybe I'll have built up immunity like everyone else by the end of two months if there is anything funky in the water.

One more thing, though: one of the girls, Emma I think (exchange student like me) said she saw black swans in the pond on campus which is seriously cool. I’m going to see if I can take pictures of them later; she said that even if you don’t have food they think you do so they swim closer.

And to explain the pictures: the Jacqueline Boutique was on the Market Streets and I took a picture and didn't have to run much to catch up with everyone. I'm glad I could get it (know why? :)

And that treehouse--it's on campus and Olivia's friend said it was a pumpkin when Mackenzie asked what it was. When it's night, there are purple, white, and blue lights on it and it's really pretty. Apparently couples go there to...do stuff...and Mackenzie wanted to go up there the second night and there was a couple there. They left, and I felt kind of bad. Olivia said that's why she tries not to go up there.

And the last thing before I start to go to the Wu Yu Building, there are lots of bushes with pretty red star flowers in them. I like them a lot and always stare at them when I go past (haha). I also always look at cats and dogs I see and had to tell Olivia once that I was sorry because I hadn't been listening because I saw a cat and was distracted. I bet she and her friends will get used to my cat and dog interest...I think they have already. Well, that's it for now. Bye~!

Taiwan Journal #2

2009-07-04T07:34:00.000-07:00

Saturday July 7, 11:25 PM.

Pingtung Time

I went to bed around 2:00 AM this morning (Saturday) and woke up at 6:00 and went back to sleep then woke up again at 8:00. My roommate Olivia was still asleep so I just tried to be quiet, but went to brush my teeth and stuff, but the door creaks. I don’t think I woke her up. The night I got there, the 3^rd, I suggested we get up at 9:00 because I looked at my schedule for the welcoming ceremony on the 6^th which said I had to be ready by 10:30 and I thought it was the next day. She kind of laughed, so I wondered if it was too late, but she said it was too early, so we agreed on getting up at ten. My bed is made of wood and it’s kind of low to the ground. There was a sheet and a blanket and a pallet kind of thing on the bed when I got to the dorm room I’d be staying in. The pallet has a bamboo wood looking side and a comfier looking side that is a flat mattress looking thing. I’ll take pictures later, because right now Olivia’s taking a nap. It’s kind of painful to sleep on my side or stomach with that kind of mattress (but it's still nice) so I sleep on my back but I hope very hard that I really have quit snoring when I sleep on my back.

Before Olivia went to sleep she asked if I was tired and I said maybe a little, but I’m not really. I wonder if all that green tea I drank on the plane got me wired, since I found out it has caffeine. I don’t think I have jet lag or culture shock yet. I might get the second sometime, but I’m not sure about the first. I didn’t get it when I was in Japan. Jet lag makes you tired but you can’t sleep, and I went to sleep right away when we got to the hotel the first night in Japan. I didn’t have a problem there. I think I got really homesick just once and then got over it. But it was two weeks. I don’t really have a cynical view of anything yet, not even my homework stuff. I’m nervous about it but not really nervous. I just have to do it and it’s not a ten page essay or anything (I hope).

The most I have to do on journals is two pages, and at the end I have to do a two page speech of talking about myself or something, which could be a problem since I have to speak Chinese but that’s a while from now. I have time to learn (and I’ve heard people are forgiving and will probably just be happy that I’m trying no matter how pitiful I sound ;). When I was shopping today the only things I said were ‘thank you’ in Chinese and ‘I’m sorry’ in English when I almost bumped into someone. I don’t know how to say that but I bet a guy who just got here does. He goes to Boise State University and says he’s taken Chinese before so the speech thingy doesn’t seem like it’ll be a problem for him (plus his accent sounded flawless). I’m envious, but not the bad envious, if there is such a thing. I think, and hope, I can get a somewhat good accent by practicing. I don’t think my Japanese teacher was that strict on accent in high school but maybe the teachers here will help us more with accent.

Well, I’m going to turn off my computer now. It’s getting hot and I don’t want it to overheat again and turn off (it did that while I was playing The Sims 3 and I lost everything!)

Well, not everything. I thought it would come back on where I left off like when the battery runs out and I plug it in and turn it on but it didn’t. Oh, well. I might play The Sims3 if I find out I have time...but I’m going to wait until I get my schedule.

I’m also going to try and figure out how to get my travel clock to stop beeping at every hour or else I might get kicked out of the room (hahah). I’m not sure how that’s going to go. It doesn’t have very many promising-looking buttons for turning that off. I like it though, it’s cool, and I can keep home time on the computer and Taiwan time on the clock and desktop gadgets. It’s 3:04 AM now at home (whoaa.)

That’s all for now. Time to give my laptop a break.

Bonus Section:

There are lizards in the bathrooms! They might be geckos. They have round things on their feet that look like suction cups. They were sticking to the ceiling, anyway. A few were standing on the lights and another was in a corner of the ceiling. I took a picture of the lizards and the camera flashed; I think that really bothered them so I turned off the flash.

I did the same thing though today. I took a picture when Olivia’s friend was driving us around town; it flashed and since it was dark it was really bright and it startled them. I think they said they thought it was a speed camera or something. I didn't take pictures after that, and I am not going to do it again. I'm glad I didn't cause her to have a car accident (especially since none of us had our seat belts fastened since the buckles are either not there or buried too deep in the seats to reach). I might get the reputation of haphazard photographer.

There are other animals around the campus. I was looking out over a banister into a courtyard and saw an animal running around. I thought it was a possum at first but it might have actually been a huge rat. The animal was moving fast so I couldn't really tell what kind it was, but I guess it's possible that it was a huge rat.

That's a picture of the animal; he's in the middle of the picture but even zoomed all the way in he was hard to see.

Olivia, her friend, Mackenzie and me have been going out to eat since the cafeteria in the campus building isn't open now. We had breakfast, lunch, and dinner together today. Two new people with the program came and other students were there when we went to dinner. One guy who'd just gotten to Taiwan today spoke Chinese already and he was pretty good. I learned how to say “My name is” from him. Wo jiao _____. (Whoa jee ow) That’s how you say it, but I’ll probably learn it again in class after I take the placement test on the 7^th of July (in case I forget it sometime). I’m getting tired so I’m going to go to bed now. Night!

First day of my trip!

2009-07-04T01:01:00.000-07:00

Friday July 3, 2009, 12:59 AM.

Pingtung Time

That's a picture of when Mackenzie (the other girl who came to Taiwan) and me were on the airport bus going to our terminal in Narita, Japan.

I’m finally in Taiwan after a 10-hour flight from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Narita, Japan. I’m in my dorm now, writing and thinking about how I should go to sleep. It’s hot and humid but I think I’ll get used to it (or I hope I will). When I got to the airport I went through customs and got my bags and when I went into the main airport area there were people waiting for me. One was a girl probably my age and she was holding a really nice sign that said ‘Welcome Sarah Baergen!’ She told me that she was entering it in a sign contest and hoped it would win first place (I think it will, because it’s really nice. I didn’t take a picture of it but it had clouds on it and a yellow plane and it was really good and cute).

The other person who was waiting for me took pictures of it though. I got a little tour of the town and it looks really nice. There’s a part of the city that’s lots of signs and shops and stuff and then there’s apartments and other buildings like that. I like Taiwan so far and my roommate, Olivia (she made the sign, and Olivia's the English name she picked; her Chinese name is Fong, and I may or may not have spelled that right) seems really nice. We went to a 7-11 and I got a bottle of water. The taxi ride was fun; I haven’t been in taxis much. The driver was nice and we talked a little bit, just saying hello and thank you. I was constantly trying to buckle myself in but there was just the seat belt and the buckle either wasn't there or was way down in the seat. Nothing life threatening happened though, and I'll just have to get used to no seatbelt. I'll use the crash positions they tell you about on the plane. :)

Well that’s all for now. I have some pictures and I will try to put them up soon. There was a huge shiny green beetle on the ceiling in the shower room, so I got my camera and took a few pictures of him.

One of the supervisors said I’d be busy tomorrow, so I am going to bed now, but at least I slept on the plane and got rest then (I was asleep when the plane was landing and woke up when it touched down).