Mimi's Rotary Youth Exchange Year in Taiwan!

2009-04-20T20:15:00.000-07:00

I am long overdue for an update. Somehow these previous months I just have slacked so much, but now I’m ready to share and talk! Here is an entry I made just last week, which provides a deeper reflection on my mental state, and I’ll add more information regarding everything else.

This week has been unusual, at least for me.
I changed host families for the last time here in Taiwan last weekend, but it seems like such a long time ago already because I've been incredibly busy with tae-kwon-do practices for this weekend's Rotary district conference and adjusting into sudden changes of unexpected weather influxes, the abrupt departure of a fellow exchange student, and unsettling health problems. I didn't think moving host families would be such a relief, but it certainly has been. Don't get me wrong, my previous host families weren't bad but something finally clicked into place this time.

My 1st host family was great - it was the beginning of my exchange, and they were friendly and they took me to exciting new places and life was good. Then somehow in the middle portion of my exchange I got so depressed. No other way of putting it.

The thrill of being in Taiwan faded - Taipei is not too big, and I've done just about everything there is to be done here, so nothing was left to look forward to. The rest of the year seemed to be so much further along in the future - maybe even way too long.

I grew a little tired of spending all my time with the other exchange students doing the same nothing over, I didn't have any exciting Taiwanese friends and the manner of anything related to Taiwanese bothered me, I didn't care anymore about picking up Chinese because it was at the point where I felt I learned enough to satisfy myself by just barely getting by, attending school was torturous because I already graduated and sitting long confined hours seemed like such an insult to my time here, I hadn't heard back from universities so the uncertainty of my future drove me nearly insane when I like everything planned, I had "nothing" to occupy my time with because working on college scholarships when I'm halfway across the world gave me no motivation whatsoever, the unrelenting thoughts that I could be in the comforts of my own house where I could sleep in my very own bed surrounded by my books and papers and pictures and other unnecessary but dear miscellaneous that comprise the interior of my room would not let up, my inability with the simple matter of easy access to food I longed for (oh, how I missed Chipotle / Taco Bell / Wendy's sour cream & chive baked potato, Monterey's clam chowder, India Clay Oven's lamb wrap, my parents' cooking (pho/steaks and mashed potatoes/pasta/chinese or viet dishes), Trader Joes cinnamon rolls and cinnamon bread, salt and pepper chips or hot cheetos, pita chips with hummus or goat cheese or spinach and arthichoke dip, pho, yummy vegetarian dishes, omelettes or pancakes or other delicious breakfasts from Denny's or First Awakening, peanut butter / coconut pineapple ice cream, jamba juice smoothies, Reese's peanut butter cups, chili ... sorry I got carried away with my list for everything I'll drown myself and gladly gain extra pounds for when I return) would not stop, I missed the familiarity and understanding I had of my family and old friends back home because I couldn't work up the courage to strengthen my relationships with my 2nd host family or make new acquaintances, I was spending too much money trying to make myself feel better and feeling guilty in regards to the financial matters back home, I had to deal with the normal teenage drama of my own self-esteem, and other conflicts, so in other words ...booking an early return to return into the regular and predictable lifestyle back home was debated in my head many times.

In the end I am glad I didn't (that rather expensive surplus charge to alternate my date was due mainly in part). I tried sticking it out - I probably spent way too much time online, I attempted working out since I signed up for a membership at California Fitness, and I just counted down the days till my return and managed each day somehow. Looking back now on this period, it was a miserable waste but I would not be here now if it werent' for that.

However, now there's merely 70 days left. That's just about TWO MONTHS left : 8 weekends of fun, 2 more stupid menstrual periods, 8 weeks to eat danbings, drink zhenzhu naichas, ride buses and MRT and arrive late to share my time with good friends, do random shopping, laugh over silly little stuff, try new restaurants and foods, go to an unexpected place, receive or send text messages, meet new people, and just be as carefree as possible. This week I've had headaches just about every day, and I was exhausted all the time even though I slept more than my normal share of hours. Today I suddenly woke up (largely due in part to the fact that I've learned my host family's dogs get very enthusiastic and clamour excitedly about waking the early hours of each morning on the stairs right next to my bedroom) and started crying. I knew today I would see the other exchange students, I would eat really delicious food (probably way too much), I would walk around in this city without a care in the world, and that in such a short period of time ... THIS will end. Moments like this will be just a reflection on the past.

And it was so strange because this past week I've been relatively happy. Normally I'm a rather timid, weary, and quiet person, but I was so glad this week for EVERYTHING! I was dealing with the ending of my exchange year rather well - I told myself I'll see the other exchanges when I go visit them so I have places and plans, and returning home from this new life I will have other exciting things to look forward to : having the desire and capacity to rebuild new relationships concerning my family and friends, seeing everything in another view, attending Berkeley, it was all good.

But sometimes this overwhelming feeling of despair just hits.

And it scares me so much. Right now I'm okay, because writing it all out does me good, but sometimes, it's definitely not so easy. I don't know if I'll have the strength to say goodbye to these new dear friends and walk around without it weighing me down. I don't know if I can stop comparing the freedom of my new life to what seems to be my old boring life back home. I don't know about anything really. But that's what life is about : uncertainty.

So for now I'll going to make the most of my remaining time left here. There's much to look forward to, and even though that is easy to forget sometimes, I just need to remember what is important and I will be okay. After all I've learned, gained, and accomplished a lot more than I had ever considered possible.

So since my last entry was in March, I’ll just add on:

We had our Rotary trip to Hualien in the 3^rd week of March. That was really fun – we went to Taroko Gorge, which I’ve already gone to but it was nice going with the other exchange students because some had not gone there. We stayed in a hostel inside Taroko the first night, and it was not bad. The weather was definitely a lot warmer than in Taipei, so that was interesting!

It really sucked though because I started hearing from universities, and on one of those nights, I found out from UCLA that I got rejected. No big deal, but then I was worried about Berkeley. To make a long story short I did get into Berkeley where I will be attending in the fall, and I am so excited!

The second day we had some experiences with aborigines – we learned about the particular customs in one tribe. It was really surprising, because one tribe was entirely based on a matriarchal system. Apparently the women had all the control! We also did some dances, and then we biked. For dinner, we were left free to stroll around Hualien’s night markets so that was really fun.

The last day kind of sucked, because I was really exhausted since I stayed up the entire night because some of us wanted to watch the sunrise (it was cloudy though…so….I should’ve stayed in bed, but it doesn’t matter because the morning view was very nice). Late nights, and then we went on a whale-watching tour which was so cool, except we saw a lot of dolphins! They swam right underneath us, and the weather was just so beautiful. Then we stopped by the beach, also had a really nice steak lunch, and headed home.

Oh, and at some point, we went to this Buddhist organization called Tzu... something, I just threw away the paper, but it was really neat because they have this sort of museum. The unfortunate part is that I applied to their scholarship last year in the US, and I was a semi-finalist, and I was planning on applying again this year but I totally missed the deadline, but it was still a cool coincedence!

(Left: Nora, Flo, and I on the boat! Right: At the beach ... and Breff's on the far right)

Another weekend I went outside of Taipei to Pingxi and Shihfen, which is famous for it’s waterfall (biggest in Taiwan). I went with Rotaracts, and honestly, it was one of the longest days of my life. I was sick the entire week so I spent the entire day blowing my nose into tissues, and anyways we transferred trains too many times and waited in the pouring rain, in which I was wearing a rather light jacket and didn’t have my umbrella, and then we walked really far to see the waterfall BUT there’s this building that faces it and of course, it was closed so we couldn’t even see the waterfall unless we laid on the ground to look through a fence to see part of it. It was kind of really sad! I was so exhausted though although I had a great time because I know the Rotaracts put a lot of time into it, and we went to some other cities and saw caves and then made a sky paper lantern to send off with our wishes. There was also another event where we had a whiskey tasting, so Autochen (I forget the name right now) came and made a presentation and we tried different sorts. It was really neat.

Oh, and for one of our culture class days, we went to the National Palace Museum. It's ENORMOUS! It's really impressive, but at the same time, rather overwhelming. There's just so much to see, and even though the place is huge, there's also massive amounts of people as well.

And I'd like to add a quick note about the weather: it's getting into the spring season, so it's been really warm and humid. It sucks because it will pour really hard and then the sun will come out, and then it will start raining again. There was also thunder the other day which surprised me, and anyways, it's really unpredictable weather.

At school the other exchange student, Breff from Australia, and I have been baking a lot. One Friday we made brownies (Ghiradelli from Costo, YUMMMMMM) which was really fun! We gave a lot away to our classmates, who apparently liked it. Last week we made chocolate cupcakes that turned out much sweeter than we expected. But I loved it all, because I have such a sweet tooth anyways!

Speaking of teeth … I just got two wisdom teeth pulled out yesterday. I noticed I was experiencing some discomfort last week, and so I headed over to this dentist that is literally the next street over. Everything in Taiwan is so convenient – I love all the family marts, 7-11’s, and hi-life’s they have here! Hah, or if I’m cold, I’ll just hop into a store and buy a shirt. Or if I’m craving some type of food, it’s accessible. I was so excited, because last week, I was starving and we were in the Taipei 101 district area near Sun Yat Sen Memorial Park where there’s only businesses and absolutely nothing to eat and so I made my first purchase of ramen noodles in a cup! It was the coolest thing ever – selecting one from so many types, “cooking” it with hot water there, and eating as I’m walking on the street!

Oh, and another exchange student from Mexico, was sent home last week. That kind of sucked, but he broke too many rules for Rotary to overlook and it was a little disappointing because it made me realize that we’ll be saying our goodbyes to each other shortly. This bond between the exchange student is incredible – I really really really truly respect and love each one. I’ve befriended so many amazing people, and it really surprised me because there is such a variety.

Anyways, back to my extraction.

So I went in for a check-up, and then I was scheduled to come back 3 days later (hah, compared to the US where I normally have to wait like 2 weeks to grab an available appointment!). So yesterday I went in, and the dentist spoke pretty good English (thank goodness) and he showed me x-rays and he mentioned something about how we might hit some nerves in the process of pulling out my teeth, and I started to get a little nervous. Then he told me: “I have a friend from Florida who refused to have me take out her wisdom teeth because in Taiwan we only use local anesthesia instead of general", and at this point, I’m thinking … “okay, what is the difference between local and general?! WHAT ABOUT MY PAIN LEVEL?! What am I doing?!”

But anyways, the whole process went by so fast. He yanked two out, and it was over in 15 minutes. No kidding. And the strangest part is that I didn’t pay a thing. Before I came to Taiwan Rotary made us purchase insurance ($500 US if I remember correctly), and anyways so this whole procedure was included. And all the other medicine and stuff was included. My check-up. Seriously the health care system is much better here compared to the US! I remember when I was sick, and I went to the doctors and received probably way too much medicine (but that was effective) and it only cost me $4 US.

And I’m doing fine now, there’s some discomfort but my host family has been extremely kind and they got me pudding and some rice congee with thousand year old egg (yum!) and an ice pack! I’m not sure I want to get my other pulled out … apparently it’s more complicated, and to tell you the truth, I wasn’t too thrilled about having needles in my mouth to numb the area and then having him pull it out.

I’ve also spent some time with Taiwanese students at this one cram school. We went out for spaghetti one time and then we explored the Breeze center where I got to try handmade bread and I bought mini-presents at different stores. It was a lot of fun.

Oh, and I went on a boat in xindian with some of the other exchange students a few weeks ago. It was really fun, because I have actually gone there before but with my 1st host family and it was at night time. This time it was sunny and we had such a nice time because some of us (not me cause I was sick) got to dive off boards!

One weekend we also had a celebration for some exchange students – there were four birthdays! We went to KTV, and it was a lot of fun. I’m going to miss KTV even though I’m a horrible singer!

(Our theme was black & white!)

I think the last thing I will discuss is the Rotary District Conference. It took place last weekend at the Grand Hotel, and the first day it was really long. We were there early and ended leaving kind of late. In the morning we just wandered and then we had to walk through as our country representative. For the afternoon, the weather was so nice and we got to go to the Yuanshan club which has tennis courts and this enormous pool. It was perfect!!!

Later on we did some last minute rehearsals for taekwondo, and then during dinnertime, we performed. It went by really fast, and we looked pretty good! I have the video, so I’ll try to upload it. I felt so relieved when we were finished though because we’ve been practicing almost every Wednesday for our culture class and it was such a big deal for Rotary! Afterwards we had dinner and of course, we went around and toasted just about every table! Unfortunately I don’t think my club was there, which was a bummer, but oh well. Oh, and I did my presentation about my home country for my club last month. It went by okay, and I’m just thankful it’s over.

So here I am. I have so much to do before I return home, because I want to put together some presents for the other exchange students and spend some time with my new friends or acquaintances in Taiwan, prepare for university, and do a ton of other stuff. I have so much to say I could really write a book, but I just don’t have enough time. I’m really trying to plan out my remaining days carefully so we’ll see how things go!

And I’ve noticed that some people have contacted me or apparently read my blog entries on here because they will also be heading to Taiwan as well. Regarding this, I would love it if you guys could contact me directly, because I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to share my opinions and answer any questions whatsoever. I remember before I arrived in Taiwan, I was so nervous and I had so many questions to ask but nowhere to ask and it was actually really frustrating. I wish this is something that Rotary would change, maybe form some sort of international database so we have a source of information. Ah, I’m not sure where I’m going with this, but I really wish I had the time to write more except I have some errands to run! And I’m really craving zhenzhu naicha (boba milk tea) right now, and I’m attempting to try even more new flavors from little tea shops. The other day I discovered this delicious coconut jelly milk tea stuff!

I also upload a lot more videos and pictures on Facebook, because it is faster and the other exchange students can see them. On here, it is a bigger hassle which will explain why this entry is shorter.

2009-03-09T20:25:00.000-07:00

I have officially reached my 6-month mark in Taiwan. Honestly even after all this time I am still shocked that I am actually here. Sometimes my exchange year just seems like an incredibly long dream because I get the sense that I am experiencing something unjarringly real but at other times, it is as though I am merely observing as some random chapter in my life speeds by.
I have to admit that somedays I am a little tired of my exchange year here in Taiwan. I still love just about every aspect of it - I really do, but at the same time, I feel as though I have experienced enough of my new life here. I don't necessarily want to return home, because I am afraid of how I will cope when I return. Even looking back now, I am not sure how my thoughts are regarding the clear division between my new life and my old life. Things have changed, there is no denying that. I am hesitant because I feel as though my life back home may not offer me the safe comforts it did anymore. What do I mean? In other words, I am certain that my old life will be too boring for me now and I can't simply adapt right back into where I left everything. That is my current issue, and we will see how things go. I am trying to prepare myself mentally before my return, but who knows how things will turn out?

These past few months had it's ups & downs for me. In the last week of January, it was Chinese New Year. I took a trip down to Kaohsiung with my 2nd host family, and we visited their relatives. It was pleasant, but I have to admit that I was rather glad when we returned to Taipei because we were in the countryside. I never realized how much I appreciated the convenience of Taipei and the abundance of activities that were available here. We also went to Kending, which is renowed for its beaches. Even though it was still "winter", the weather was warm and the beach was nice. The traffic was incredible. We drove for many long hours, and it was too exhaustive.

One of the exchange students, Laura from Australia, left the day after I came home from my trip. She had been here for her whole year, and when I first arrived, if it hadn't been for her, I would not be where I am now because she was essentially the one who got everyone out and showed us around and knew what was going on. So when she left, it was really tough for me along with the other exchange students. We also realized how incredibly difficult it would be when our time to leave arrives too. Speaking of departure dates. I am returning home June 28th around 11:16am at the SF airport. It took me some time to figure out my return date, because I was originally going to come home around July 10th but I realized everybody was leaving a little before that and I would be a complete wreck if I ended up spending my last few days here saying goodbye to everyone and then being on my own.

When I return, I am going to prepare for college. Work. Play tennis. Explore California. Try different things. Learn how to really cook. Spend time with friends and family and others. Just stay as active as possible. I am devising plans now because I need to look forward to somethings at least when I return. I am going to hear from UC Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, and UCI about whether I was accepted or not at the end of this month. Hopefully it's good news. I'm really grateful that I'm heading into a university after I return, because for most of the other exchange students, they have to finish up another year or two of high school and I could not imagine doing that.

For the month of February, I went to the beach a few times in Danshui. It takes about an hour by MRT, and it's really nice there... definitely a huge tourist attraction. Since we were still on our break from school, some of us went there quite often. I remember one time, Flo and I went later than the others but we took the wrong bus and then we took the taxi and somehow we did end up at the beach. The beaches here are NOT nice. There is so much trash, and the landscape is not very attractive... and most of the time the water is freezing. At least compared to the Monterey coastline. But it is nice to hang out at the beach anyways, very relaxing.

I have also been working out, but of course, it is no easy task. I love eating here far too much, and I am constantly eating. It's worth it though. After all, when I return, I won't have easy access to most of these foods. I love the gym at California Fitness though, because it's convenient and it's really nice. And since some of my good friends signed up there too, it gives me motivation to continue working out and it's a good way for us to spend our time.

I had a chinese new year dinner with my Rotary club on one weekend. It was nice, but I still feel really distant from my club. It's primarily my fault, but I just have no idea what to say. Right now I feel like it's kind of pointless to try, but maybe it isn't too late. I have to do a presentation about my home country in a few weeks, and I am a bit nervous. However, maybe after they learn more about me and seem interested, then I can strike up conversations with them. We also went on a trip with several other Rotary clubs the day after my birthday. That was interesting, we went to Pingling, which is famous for its tea. So we had a lot of tea-related stuff. Tea bread. Tea leaves. Tea ice cream. The longest tea lunch course in history. Tea. Tea. and more tea.

Food.

Julianne's family visited her from France and they made this delicious meal for us with potatoes and cheese and salad and meat because Julianne's host family now is my next family and she is going to my family next. It was really tasty, lately I've been thinking about the foods back home that I miss insanely. There was also this little picnic that two exchange students, Bene and Marine P, made for some of us a few weeks ago. We tried goose liver and some other spreads and cheese, and overall it was really delicious. I am already envious of Brandon, my cousin, who is planning on studying abroad in france next year!

I also went to Taoyuan to visit my friend, Ida from Denmark, because her current host family lives there. It is really far to get there, as it takes over two hours to get into Taipei. It's a pity, but her house is really nice with swimming pools and all these other cool amenities. I went with Flo and Marten and we spent the night. We also visited the Lantern Festival, which was just so incredible. I loved it - the people, the booths, the lanterns, the music, everything! The one in Taipei disappointed me because it was too widespread and it just wasn't as comparable to what I experienced in Taoyuan.

It was also my 19th birthday recently. I planned a rather big celebration. I booked the VIP room at KTV, which is where we sing and hang out, and it was a really nice event. Over 45 people came, so it was really good spending time with people. I've never made a big deal out of my birthdays, and so this was something entirely different.

For one of our cultural classes, we had a mini tour of Taipei. We went to meet with the commissioner of education at the city hall where most of us voiced our passionate opinions about the school education system and how many "reforms" we would essentially recommend. School here is so frustrating - I hate it so much. It is the worst part of my exchange. I go to school just about everyday now. Monday - Friday except for Wednesdays, 8am-4pm. I sit. and sit. and sit. In the same classes... reading my own books, writing in my own journals, and staring off into space for hours on end. The clock is my enemy - the time seems to drag on and on. Without any question about it, school here is a big waste of my time. I already graduated from high school, there is no need for me to exert so much energy and time to even try and understand what's going on in my classes anymore when I am so behind and there is no real incentive. I talk to some of my classmates, but there's nothing to really say.

Okay, regarding my opinion on Taiwanese students. They are all incredibly friendly, really without a doubt, but their level of maturity is simply not the same as most of the exchange students. These students' lives revolve around academics - they have been pressured into this mentality that "succeeding in school is EVERYTHING, or what life is" from such an early age. Whenever I try to talk to them, what can our conversation consist of? They can only tell me that what they did over the weekend was study and go to cram school. They can only end another potential conversation when they tell me they haven't gone to any other places outside of their homes or cram schools or schools because they are always too tired or aren't allowed because they must study. They can only tell me they have not done this certain hobby or tried something out. How can I attempt to carry a conversation with someone who does not give me anything to really talk about? I can only talk about myself for so long. It is so frustrating. Their ignorance about basic activities makes them seem almost immature or childish.

And it is the same even with some of the older students. I went to Kaohsiung and I spent some time with my host family's cousins who are university students and I could not believe some of the conversations we were having. We were having dinner one night and they asked me what I did in Taipei because I was always out. I told them I go to different places, try different foods, take pictures, go to the beach, go shopping, visit friends, go to festivals, watch movies, etc. When I mentioned that I watch movies in MTV, they completely freaked out on me. They were like "You go to MTV's?! DON'T GO ANYMORE. YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED." (Keeping in mind, one person is a year older, another is 3 years older, and the last was 4 years older so we're basically in the same age groupe) So then I asked them why, and they would not even discuss why with me... that was their first mistake because it was not reasonable. I kept asking though, because it made no sense to me.

I am sure I have explained about MTV's before, but I will go over it again. MTV's are places where you can go and watch movies, rather recent ones too, and you get your own little theatre basically. You only pay $150 which is equivalent to say ... $4US, and it includes a free drink like milk tea. Not only is it convenient because you can choose your own movie and you don't have to deal with a noisy crowd or people milling around in the dark trying to find their assigned seats in the movie theatre when the movie has already started, but you can go with your friends and it's a lot cheaper.

Watching a regular movie at the cinema is expensive, it is almost $10US and it is the most annoyin thing ever because it is always so crowded and I hate how people are assigned seats. Why can't we choose our own seats? We always get stuck in some random corner and I can't even be with my friends because they are spread out away from me.

Anyways, so they argued among themselves about whether they should inform me or not because they thought I could not understand what they were saying (another thing, either the students think I am capable of understanding every single thing in Chinese or they just think I am completely stupid and know no chinese). When they finally got around to telling me (to tell the truth, I made them drag it out because I already understood what they were saying but since they made it very obvious that my chinese does not exist), it was to say "you need to stop going because people will think you go to have sex in MTV". Well. Needless to say, I was a little shocked and peeved. I have heard rumors about this occuring before, but this was in no way related to when I go to MTV with my friends. Even when I explained to them that it doesn't even make sense because we don't go to MTV with those intentions, after all, we're normally in large groups of 6+ people, and it is as normal as going to a regular movie theatre, they were still adament that I never go again. It really disappointed me talking to them, because afterwards, I realized that it was just too different for both parties to understand. On the other hand, I've met some really cool Taiwanese university students as well.

For another culture class, we went to the world trade center before we headed up to taipei 101. Unfortunately the weather was not too great but it was okay because I've been up there a few times already. But we got movenpick ice cream, which is so yummy. I love eating ice cream, unfortunately it defeats the purpose of when I work out, and it is rather pricey. They have a Coldstone right next door to California Fitness. I haven't given in yet... but then again, I haven't had ice cream in some time now!

What else can I say?

I just started Chinese lessons at my high school - our student teacher and school was gracious enough to hire a teacher to come tutor us two times a week for two hours. One of the lessons we covered was about elections, voting, and democracy. Interesting stuff.

The weather jumps from really hot to really freaking cold. It has also been raining frequently here. It really sucked because for the first few times I forgot my umbrellas. I definitely learned my lesson from that. I have like 5 umbrellas, because they are so cheap and somehow I always break them or leave them somewhere.

I've done a lot of reading. I'm going on a trip to Hualien with the other exchange students next week, and we'll be doing activities with aboriginals and whale-watching so that seems like fun! I've already gone to Hualien with my Rotary club, and that was a really enjoyable trip, but I'm excited to go with the others as well. I'm changing host families in a few weeks... and I'm kind of glad because my last host family will be more convenient. It takes me about an hour to get anywhere now, but it'd take me 10 minutes in my last host family. I had dinner with my host parents the other night at this Chinese restaurant, next time we're going to some famous Vietnamese restaurant.

2009-01-11T18:45:00.000-08:00

These past few months, December & January, were absolutely hectic - so much went on, so I'll try to briefly summarize some days.

Dec. 1st (Monday)
Flo (Switzerland) went with me to go work out at a gym near Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall. The monuments there are really impressive ... I will have to put up some photos of those when I get the chance. We've become increasingly worried about our weight, because all we do is eat all these delicious food, and we rarely exercise since we're always so busy, so we figured we'd try to get back in shape. The ironic thing is we worked out, and then we decided to get some Meet Fresh (Taiwanese shaved ice with jelly and taro balls dessert), so everything we burned came right back!

I ran into Young (the exchange student to US last year) at Ximending. It was really nice, because we got to catch up on stuff. I remember when he was in Carmel, it's strange because it seems so long ago. I remember I was so excited about leaving for Taiwan, but at the same time, I was insanely worried so I would ask Young a billion questions to try to prepare for my life here.

Dec. 5th (Friday)
At Jinghe High School, we made dumplings as a sort of cultural activity. That was kinda fun and easy, but at first I was quite bad at it. We made a lot, and gave some to the teachers and students. I love eating dumplings here, because they are so cheap and yummy. I also went to take pictures with Michelle, Nora, Flo, and Chelsea at Ximending, which was really fun. I've never done it before, but it is very popular here. It's really fun, because we have to be creative fast and most of the machines are in Japanese so we have to scramble to figure out how to do things since it is timed.

Dec. 6th (Saturday)
I went with Nora (Hungary) and Oskar (Sweden) to Shilin Night Market, and it was nice because it's one of the most famous and largest night markets so it's crammed with people. Then we played pool near the bowling alley; it was really fun but I suck. Some of our other friends joined us later, and I discovered that there is one stall that sells baked potato! There's actually a lot of American food available here, but most of the time, it tastes really different because somehow the flavor turns out too sweet or something that isn't really "normal". For example, seafood pizza is kind of strange. I don't really like it too much, but at the same time, I don't hate it. They also have rice burgers here, which I have yet to try, so I'm excited for that.

Dec. 10th (Wednesday)
For our culture class, we went to Yingge Museum which was a bit outside of Taipei. The museum was interesting; we learned about the ceramic industry and then we also made clay pieces. Most Wednesdays we have Tae Kwon Do, which I am very bad at. I just have no skills whatsoever when it comes to memorizing footwork or anything, even in the US when I played tennis, my footwork was always off somehow. Then some of the exchange students and I went to Ximending and we discovered that there is some sort of game arcade at the top of this building where Eslite Bookstore is in, and we got to play rooftop baseball/softball/ whatever it is that is in the hitting cages.

Dec. 11th (Thursday)
I've gone to the public library often but not as much as I like, because it has a nice collection of english books. The unfortunate thing is that the library is rather far from the MRT station, and I hate walking so far when I have to lug books with me. I can only check out five books too, and anyways, it takes me almost an hour and a half to get to the library from my house because I have to take the bus, change MRT stations a few times, and walk.

It also sucks if the weather isn't nice, because lately, it has been SO incredibly cold. I've never been so cold in my life. I need to go buy some nice warm winter clothes, because I have some jackets, but they are not that resistant against the wind. The average is in the 50's, so it is like back home, but here, it seems that no place has a heater. My school's classroom is freezing; and they like fresh air, so they leave the windows and doors open. I wear layers and layers, but I am just constantly cold. For New Years, it sucked because I was sick. My new host family now is freezing - I can barely sleep even though I wear two pants, two tank tops, a turtleneck, two thick sweaters, along with several scarves.

Dec. 12th (Friday)
In the evening, the exchange students were invited to attend a benefit concert for polio held by Rotary at the Grand Hotel. I would love to stay at the Grand Hotel; it is so impressive!!! The concert itself was very nice - there were really talented musicians there, and it was really amazing and moving when we watched a performance by a girl who experienced polio. However, the concert was several hours long, and most of us had to get home on time since it was rather far, so it kind of sucked. We also didn't get to eat dinner, so we were starving, which made it rather difficult for us not to fall asleep especially after enduring an entire day of regular school.

Not a very good photo of the Grand Hotel at night.

Some musicians playing Christmas songs.

Dec. 13th (Saturday)
My high school had their anniversary celebration, so they basically had a fair where each classroom sold something (mainly food). It was festive and fun, but so crowded with people since all the students (from elementary to high school) was there along with their friends and family members. I ended up buying quite a bit of food, because so many classmates were trying to convince me to buy from them.

Afterwards my host mom's sister and her took me to this temple that I had already went to, and then we went to purchase some stuff. Later on I went to Gongguan where I wandered around the National Taiwan University campus and some bookstores. I watched tennis for some time, and I tried to obtain some information on whether I can play. It's really hard, because I miss tennis a lot and it's been so long since I've played. Since I basically have to buy my own racket, this is a problem since I already have several back home, and I don't know when I'll get the chance to play here because courts aren't normally available and I don't know when or how I can play because I have nobody else to hit with.

NTU tennis courts. Right: Some anime festival where people of all ages dressed up that was taking place near it.

Then I went with Oskar to meet with the Roteract's, because we tried salsa dancing. It's rather interesting, because the instructor is Taiwanese but he lived in Costa Rica, and he is basially like one of the student teachers at Jinghe High School because she is also from Costa Rica. Salsa dancing was fun, but I was just so bad at it - I'm definitely not cut out for dancing or anything that requires footwork!

Dec. 15 (Monday)
I didn't have Jinghe today, so after chinese class, we went to grab some delicious Mexican food. I'm so desperate for Taco Bell or Chipotle; they have McDonalds, KFC, and Burger King, but not anything resembling Mexican food! I went to the library again with Michelle, so that was nice.

I don't remember when but Sandy Whittle sent me a care package for christmas filled with all these delicious goodies from back home!!! I was so THRILLED, because I hadn't received anything like this before and it really helped me a lot.

Dec. 17 (Wednesday)
We had tae kwon do, and then we had kong fu practice because RYLA coming up soon. We practiced a lot for the kongfu and for RYLA, because we also had to sing a song and devise games up too. It really sucked, because they wanted us to do so much.

Dec. 18 (Thursday)
I went back to the National Taiwan University to find out more about the different sports they have, and also about tennis lessons. The lessons are far too expensive, it costs around $300 US for 10 hours. I hate that I can't play, but there's nothing I can do about it. For now, I'm just sticking to working out at the gym or swimming, and I've recently learned how to play badminton, so hopefully I can get into that because maybe I can borrow badminton rackets, after all, it is easier and more common than tennis here. Later that night, I prepared to head out to Taipei 101 because some of the exchange students were having a Christmas dinner together. It was REALLY enjoyable. We had dinner on the 85th floor, and everything went really well - the meal, the atmosphere, it was just so nice. Definitely a once in a lifetime thing.

Dec. 19th (Friday)
At school I made pizza in my cooking class - it was kind of cool, but strange because we put lots of corn on my pizza. It's good though. Later on, I took the MRT to Danshui with Flo to meet Nora because she had invited a few of us over to her house. Her house is so nice - it's like four stories, and wow, she is so lucky. We had shabu shabu for dinner (basically like an endless hot pot), so we ate a lot and for quite some time before we headed over to Beitou to go to the hot springs. We went to the hot springs at 10 until midnight, and it was just amazing. I've never done anything like that, and it was strange at first, because we had to go naked, but it wasn't so bad. Staring up at the dark sky where I could detect some stars for once while I'm relaxing in a hot spring in the mountains overlooking Taipei is just something I can't get over.

Nora, Flo, and I trying fried ice cream!

Dec. 20th (Saturday)
We woke up and walked to her parent's Italian restaurant basically on the wharf. Danshui is so beautiful - I wish I could live there. Right by the water, and there's so much going on! We got some street food and then we headed back to attend the Christmas party that Rotary had for us. It was okay, we had delicious pasta stuff and then we played bingo and some other games before we did a gift exchange. I was so exhausted afterwards though!

Dec. 21st (Sunday)
I headed over to Erica's house because her host family is my second, and they invited me for a tea party with their relatives. It was nice, because I had already met some of them before, and we ate and watched a movie before I went home.

Dec. 23 (Tuesday)
We had our final for chinese class, and it wasn't as bad as I thought. Besides the talking I did with my host family, and the little conversations I had with my classmates, it was mainly my chinese class where I actually learned the most chinese. I ended up with an A in the class, so I'm really glad because hopefully I can use it to be placed in a good level if I continue taking chinese classes. Afterwards Bynum and Flo and I went to watch Twilight. I've read the books, and I definitely think the books are better. The movie wasn't so bad, but books normally turn out better anyways. Then we had another rehearsal for RYLA, which was tiring.

Dec. 24 (Wednesday)
We had kongfu/tae kwon do practice at the underground mall, which was kind of strange. Then we had to go really far to a music studio where we practiced singing our song (in chinese/japanese/german). I hated all this preparation for RYLA, because I had no idea why we were doing it, and most of it didn't really make sense and it was just really overwheling and frustrating overall. We learned some elaborate kongfu, some tae kwon do dance thing, some chinese songs? All at the same time as we're preparing for Christmas, ending our chinese classes (and struggling to get the right to continue our chinese lessons), preparing to change host families soon, overall I was so stressed out during this time.

During one of the culture classes, this is where we made clay figurines.

Dec. 25 (CHRISTMAS)
My chinese class met for the last class, and we went ice - skating at the arena. It was really fun, because our chinese teacher has never done it before. Of course, I fell a few times, but overall, I did okay. We went to eat some food in a coca cola restaurant and then I went home to watch movies with my host family. Christmas here isn't really a big deal. The students have school, and sure, there are christmas decorations and songs and everything in the stores, but the Taiwanese obviously do not exchange gifts or anything of that sort. I got some chocolate, a teddy bear, and other snacks from my host family. I didn't expect much for Christmas, so it was a good day.

Dec. 26th (Friday) - Dec. 28th (Sunday)
I went to school for a bit because we had some japanese students visiting and so we made a big paper lantern. Then I went to buy some stuff with my host mom before I left for RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Awards).

There were a lot more people than I expected; actually some people from Roteract were there as well so I knew a few people which was nice. The first night we registered and had dinner. The lodging was really nice - I liked the atmosphere and style of the hostel. I got placed in a room with four other Taiwanese girls. The cool thing is that I knew one from Rotaract and the other is the host sister of an exchange student that I know.

Overall, this particular conference enforced us to do so much stuff, so I'm going to have a hard time remembering. I do remember we did group activities in which we designed a team logo and played games and also had discussions about "how to be a leader". I met a lot of Taiwanese students; they were friendly but it kind of sucked because they wouldn't really make much of an effort to talk to me because they assumed I was Taiwanese. We watched performances from dance routines to some sort of exercising, and we had lectures or something (really boring, except for the one about how to be a global citizen because it was actually in English, and we covered important stuff).

We also did the flag ceremony for our country, and it wasn't the same as what I did last year at Tenaya Lodge in Yosemite, but it was still pretty cool. We also had "global village - show and games" which is where the exchange students from different countries had to do a game. I agreed to help Nora (Hungary) with her table, and so she devised this game where she asked people if certain items on a piece of paper were from Hungary. Most of them didn't know that a rubix cube is from Hungary, so that was cool. I mainly wandered and took a ton of pictures for everybody. I've discovered that I am the "photographer" for the exchange students basically, because everywhere I go, I take a lot of pictures. Right now, my camera is in a poor state because I dropped it once and before i knew it, all the screws basically came off. My father will send me a new camera shortly.

Saturday night we had a party, and it was kinda fun. We learned how to do ballroom dancing, which I actually managed to pick up somehow. Then there was a taiwanese band playing., and it was just kind of nice to be free after sitting through all day long.

Apparently we had sessions about "what Rotary can do for youths", which was about stuff we kind of already knew since we are going through one of the programs right now. I think the entire thing was in Chinese though, so that was hard to follow. We also had a session on "how youths protect themselves", and that basically covered sexual harassment issues.

*Here are some notes that I took from the session of :
How To Become A Global Citizen - Professor Chih-Cheng Lo
Perspectives, capacities, tastes, worlds
Metaphor : In each country, the map shows they are the center of the world.
Do not subscribe to simply one story - seek exposure to different perspectives, for the usage of media does increase knowledge. In doing so, one will develop capacities (such as language) to understand the outside world.
There are 27 nations in Europe with 29 official languages, so communication is key.
Efficiency is critical. One second late is forever late.
Similarities make you comfortable (differences of comparison such as between "stinky tofu" and "cheese")
The world is flat, cross-border competitive, enjoy globalization. Help the loser when you're a winner or survivor. "The poor deserve to be helped."
Open your heart and mind, languages equivalent to knowledge, common sense, brave enough, knowing yourself.
Complex interdependency vs. dependence (butterfly effect - something happens in another country can affect your own)
UN - international has become transnational
Global convergence vs. divergence (the more you interact with another, the most you find you're different)
Global governance and globalization (global & local)
To be a global citizen, start from yourself. Make your dreams come true by planning.
"World Culture" Mix: pure culture is hard to find, it is always a mixture.
Hyperreality. To have different perspectives, you don't have to accept it, just make your own judgment.

Everything went pretty smoothly for RYLA, it was an interesting experience. I just felt like we did so much, and everything was kind of fast-paced because we were always doing something and it was rather overwhelming. The last day we went on a bus where we sang karoke to Suan-Lien Elderly Home, a senior residence home outside of Taipei, where we had lunch and a tour of the facilities before we heard some speeches and then we got to talk to some of the elderly folks there. Surprisingly most of them spoke really good English, it was really incredible. We then proceeded to plant some trees before we headed home.

Dec. 29 (Monday)
All three chinese classes had the christmas party together, in which we just performed and then played some games.

I left with Oskar to go to our Rotary meeting, and we ate the buffet, which was amazing. Then during the meeting, we had to give a little speech and it went quite horribly. I had no idea what to talk about. I don't know if my Rotary club likes me very much; I never know what to say to them and when they do talk to me, since most of them are rather old, they talk in Taiwanese or something because I don't really understand it so we don't talk very often. I remember one Rotarian asked me what I talked about with my classmates at school, which was kind of strange but then I realized he didn't know what to say either. I would like to make more of an effort to talk to them and get to know them better because they are my sponsoring club, but since i only see them at the meetings, the extent of how that is going isn't so well. I also didn't realize till now that my Rotary club is mainly, well, all men.

Afterwards I went to buy some presents and I also ended up going to Carrefour to buy some food. Carrefour is really neat; I love how there are so many floors and they sell just about everything... it's almost like a mix of Ikea, Target, Costco, and everything. It was raining heavily, and I think that was the day I got sick.

Dec. 30 (Tuesday)
I went to my chinese school to meet up with Lucie (France), Juilliane (France), and Bynum (Alaska) because we were invited to go to Young's mother's elementary school for a Chinese New Year celebration. It's really amazing how connected the world is. Anyways, we introduced ourselves to her class and then we ate before we had this ceremony where we wished the grandparents of the children "happy new year" and they gave us a red envelope in which a lovely bookmark was inside. Chinese New Year is coming up soon, and it seems to be a big deal. there's a lot of decorations in the stores, and everybody keeps emphasizing the red envelopes. Then we went to Taipei 101 to the bookstore, but at that point, I felt so sick that I just went home.

Dec. 31st (Wednesday)
New Years Eve.
We had taekwondo, in which we had to basically perform to receive our uniforms. I didn't, because I cannot get the routine down, so it kind of sucked. Afterwards we headed out for some lunch before I went home to get ready to go out for the night. We went to KTV and sang karoke - it was kind of nice. Then afterwards we walked to Sun-Yat Sen Park, which is near Taipei 101 to watch the fireworks. Since we came a little early, it was so cold while we waited! And then the fireworks went off, and it was okay. They weren't spectacular, because it wasn't anything too special. Since I was with the exchange students, a lot of us got really sad because we realized that although there is a new year ahead of us, there is half of our exchange left and time has already flown by so quickly. Afterwards I headed home and I took the MRT - everything was really organized and efficient and it wasn't as bad as I thought.

The next few days, I stayed home and did nothing and packed.

Jan. 3 (Saturday)
I changed host families; it was sucky because I had so much stuff. I honestly have no idea how I will return home because I already have so much junk now! It was a little hard because the night before, my host mom started to tear up when she made me food and it really touched me. I had no idea I meant so much to her - I gave her a panda because she is fond of them and some chocolate and she keeps it right over the TV so she can be reminded of me. So I spent some time unpacking and then I had dinner with my host family. They're really nice, but the host dad speaks really fluent English (along with Russian and some other languages, he's a professor), so it's a little hard for me to use my Chinese. The host mom doesn't speak much english, so that's a bonus. The grandmother lives nearby and comes over for dinner, so that night I walked her home and she showed me photos.

I was really upset though because the first few nights I got basically attacked by a lot of mosquitoes. My nose, both eyeids, and my mouth was swollen the next morning! I don't know why they have so many bugs, maybe because they have quite a number of plants in the house, but still.. It really sucked because I tried to sleep covering my face for some nights but obviously at some points I had to breathe and I ended up with more bug bites on my face anyways. I remember one morning I woke up and I saw there were FOUR mosquitoes on the wall near my head. On Monday, I told my host parents to take me to a doctor because I couldn't put my contacts in and I looked and felt really bad. So they got me some medicine (they have this tendency to give a billion pills, no joke) and cream, and then we went to school (even though there was no point because I don't do anything at school) but then I asked if I could just go home since I hadn't been sleeping well lately since I've been scared of the bug bites and it is so unbearably cold in this new house. They don't have a heater, and I think the window in my room is not really effective because I can feel the air from outside. I wear so many layers, it is beyond believable, but I am just endlessly cold.

Since my chinese classes have ended, I have been attending regular high school at Jinghe. It is almost a cruel punishment, I would have to say. I get to school at 8am, and I leave at 4pm. In this amount of time, I sit in the same desk for almost 8 eight hours straight ... doing nothing. I have never done so much reading in my life. I love reading, and I have always never had the time for it, but this is extreme. I can't read for so many hours long, but then I have absolutely nothing else to do. I've writen a lot though ... I've tried to write down what I do for the past few weeks because I've already kind of forgotten everything. I've also picked up knitting, so that is nice although my scarf is slowly getting somewhere.

I've also tried studying my chinese, because I still have my books that I purchased from before I arrived in Taiwan but it is not really effective because most of it I already learned. And I can't listen to my ipod during class, because it would be rude but then it is kind of distracting having the teacher talking as well. I don't know how they realistically expect us to pay attention in those core classes - our chinese is still not that advanced, and at this point, we've missed so much material that it's tough to catch up. And plus, we're not here everyday,we don't have the same classes all the time, so really, we're just wasting our time. I am trying to sign up for more chinese classes, even though the rotary organization here does not want us to, which I find rather ridiculous because isn't the point of studying abroad here to learn Chinese? No matter what they expect from us, we cannot just pick up more chinese AT school. Our classmates are too busy studying and trying to learn, so anything we ask, we'll only slow everything down. The only time I do get to talk to my classmates are during the 10-minute breaks, but they have to clean or prepare for their next class or study for their many tests. So maybe in March, after I talk to my Rotary club and ask whether they will support me in continuing my chinese classes, I will register for a month long class nearby that my teacher recommended. For now, I just have to make do.

January 7th (Wednesday)
For our culture day, we went to a tea production factory where we learned about the process of making tea and then we got to drink tea and enjoy taiwanese snacks while the owner talked about the history of tea, it's influence on Taiwan, and also how much cheaper it is to create your own tea.

Afterwards we went to this historical street that was rather prepared for the celebration of Chinese New Year. We got some lunch - I had some sort of noodles with a peanut sauce and a papaya milkshake before we got some fruit and started walking around looking for a place to eat. Some of the exchange students and I talked about our homes, and about our entire experiences leading up to now. Then we went back because we explored this temple nearby where we prayed for good "marriage prospects" and some other stuff before we headed over to a puppetry museum. The place was kind of neat, because it was several stories high and there were numerous displays from different countries such as Cambodia and Vietnam.

January 9 (Friday)
I had calligraphy in the morning where we created decorations to place around doorways for the upcoming Chinese New Year.

It was actually really nice, but I have to admit I was kind of tired and honestly, it is so cold that I can barely function right. I haven't really been sleeping that well, because it is always so cold. Anyways, then we did some sort of flower pieces. It turned out really well, and I made a fair amount to give to my host family as a present. After school I proceeded over to meet up with some friends, because it was Michelle's birthday! We went to have some delicious pasta and then we ended up at Starbucks for a bit to have some cake and warm drinks.

January 10th (Saturday)
I saw the Kite Runner with a friend, and it was rather good. I've read the book before, but it has been a long time. There are many movies I want to watch here, and I was talking to some of the other exchange students today about how convenient and fantastic MTV's are here. Honestly it is so nice to be able to just watch a movie for only a few bucks anytime (including free drinks!) in a pretty comfortable place. Later on, I had dinner with my host family where we ate at a Vietnamese restaurant. It was my first time eating Vietnamese food since I've arrived here, and it was a bit disappointing because it tasted like nothing I had back home or in Vietnam.

January 11 (Sunday)
My first host family picked me up and took Erica (Brasil) to Miaoli, about an hour's drive outside of Taipei. We went to Hou Yen Shan Amusement park where we watched an acrobatics show and then went on some rides before walking through this enormous and seemingly endless 3-story museum. Then we had this really nice lunch before we watched a bit more of the acrobatics show and then we went to the hot springs. The weather was so bitterly cold, so Erica and I were definitely hesitant about the distance between changing and getting into the hot springs, but we did it and it was worth it. One hot spring was around 45 degrees celsius, so it was extremely hot but since it was so cold, we could actually get in without leaving in a really short amount of time. Afterwards we walked around the park for a bit, just taking pictures, and then we headed home.

And so lately the past few days I have been intensely working out, spending time with friends, trying to go out more in Taiwan to sightsee and learn, and just catching up on stuff. I'm trying to decide between several gyms if I should get a membership, because I really need to get back in shape and it is getting too costly to just work out without a membership at the rate that I am going. Plus, I miss tennis so much, and I need to get my energy out somehow, especially now when I don't have much to focus on.

January 14 (Wednesday)
Today I woke up and my right eyelid was swollen so that I could only open half of it. This is really wonderful, having so many health problems when I don't even think I have my health insurance right now. My host mother will take me to the doctor again tomorrow, and hopefully I'll get more little pills to take to reduce this swelling. I am fairly certain it was caused by a bug bite because last night I did notice there was a bug flying near my face, but I did not kill it, and I felt something on my eyelid. Tonight there is another one but I also did not kill it. I am just planning on closing my door all the time, because I know the bugs come from the dining room and living room and kitchen.

Today I went and did taekwondo and I had to do my "test" to receive my uniform. Surprisingly, I got it!!! For lunch we had some delicious niu-rou mian and then I spent some time talking with Marine S(France), which was really nice. I love how I can talk to the other exchange students and discover new things about them. I know I should befriend more Taiwanese friends. Although I do still have friends at the cram school, I went out with two Taiwanese girls for some Taiwanese dessert because they wanted to interview me and find out how I have been. And I have spent some time with the university students (namely Ariel, the one who first helped me when I arrived in Taiwan) because I watched my friends' dance performance and then had a shabu shabu dinner with them. I am also planning on seeing a movie or doing some sport activity with my classmates at school because they taught me how to play badminton and they know I really enjoy it, plus now they actually have some time to go out since they are on vacation.

Back to today, so then we had our cultural activity which consisted of making some sort of cow paper chinese new year related decorations. It was actually really tough, and I couldn't do it. We did this while listening to some Rotarians (and I think some lawyers) go over the rules of Rotary once more. Then we learned from the police academy, and it was actually REALLY useful. Unfortunately I only picked self-defense up a few moves because my eyelid started to get really swollen so then we had to search for some ice and get me some medicine. Then I went to discuss the Bible with my friend, Henning (Germany) at Starbucks while we waited for the others. We met up with our taekwondo teacher to have dinner with her and several japanese exchange students. Dinner was delicious, and then we walked over to the movie theatre because we watched 1895, a movie about the Japanese's reign over Taiwan.

It is kind of difficult, because I honestly feel as though my progress with my chinese has halted a bit. My host mom is trying to learn English too, and so I help her, but we spend a lot of time explaining to her in english because my host dad speaks really good english as well. So at home, it is hard to use my chinese so much. And I haven't written much chinese either, so I am slowly starting to forget that and I am going practice writing on my own from now on. And I really want to be active here, with my life in Taiwan rather than just stay home all the time on the computer so I go out. However, when I go out, I mainly go out with my exchange friends and we speak english constantly. We can speak chinese, but only what we have learned so far.

2008-11-02T06:43:00.000-08:00

Trips Everywhere!

This past month has been absolutely incredible – I’ve been so fortunate and I’ve gone on MANY trips! I love traveling so much, especially around Taiwan!

The first weekend in October I went with my Rotary club’s sponsoring Rotaracts to Kaohsiung. It was a little disappointing, because there was a mix-up (mainly my fault, I would say) and Oskar was not able to go. Because at our Rotary Moon Festival celebration, I sat with the Rotaracts but Oskar sat at a different table and they didn't get to invite him, which made things kind of awkward. I was also a bit worried because I really knew nobody, however it was nice overall because everybody was incredibly friendly. I met the others, who were mainly university students, at Taipei Main Station really early and then we took a bus for many hours until we stopped for lunch.

On our way there ... on our mini bus. We played cards, talked, watched tv, and I managed to lock my cell phone because I forgot my PIN. That led everybody else to call my cell phone company and try to figure out how to unlock it for more than an hour ... it was incredible really. I learned this really cool Taiwanese card game, which requires me to stay silent (I lost, of course) for periods of time. I also found out that Taiwanese people know how to play 13, yay!

Lunch was interesting, because I tried a bee. I was a little hesitant, but it actually tasted pretty tasty despite the fact that it looked … very much like a bee. Then we dropped our luggage off at our resort, and the resort was just so nice!

I'm in front of our resort!

Kaohsiung’s scenery is stunning – there are mountains and rivers everywhere. It was kind of nice to get away from the city, and just enjoy the quiet and clean air.

A little temple.

Then we got on the back of a pick-up truck to go river hiking. I was nervous about being on the pickup truck because we were really high and also quite close to the side of the mountain. Additionally we were going quite fast, but this was nothing compared to when we started river hiking. I had never done anything like that before – we got our gear (basically a helmet and some special slipper shoes) and then we did some warm-ups before we started hiking up a river. The experience was just so intense and exhilarating.

Left: I had to let myself drift down the river ... right: Moving as one team across some strong currents.

Free massage!

Left: Almost at the end! Right: Singing "Happy Birthday" and also learning some traditional Hakka cheers!

We started off by climbing over rocks and then just floating downstream for a bit, and then we kept going. Walking over rocks, struggling against the current of a river, and simply just allowing the pressure and the force of the water move against you was simply amazing. We river hiked for almost three hours, and halfway we stopped and did some traditional Hakka dances after we shared some cake because there was one person who had a birthday recently.

The transition from light to darkness outside our room ...

We headed back to the hotel, and the funny thing is that it started pouring right as we were going. Since we were on the back of the pickup truck, there was no protection and with the wind against our wet bodies, it got a bit cold and I was never so glad to go inside and take a warm shower. In fact, the rain knocked out the power for our resort and so for dinner we had no power whatsoever. We had an indoor/outdoor barbeque that lasted for several hours. The food was really good.

Barbeque!

The next morning I woke up a bit too early, and so my roommates and I had breakfast before the others. We ended up walking around the resort for a bit, before we all went off paintballing. I’ve always been a little scared to go (mainly because I was always invited by my guy friends who seemed to enjoy any opportunity to hurt people a bit TOO much), but this wasn’t so bad because I really had no idea what I was doing and therefore I didn’t really get hit. It was just so hot though in our gear and there were so many bugs! I really do HATE how easily I get bitten by mosquitoes around here – I assumed over time I would’ve become immune against it or something, but that has definitely not been the case.

Fields and fields!

Grounding sesame seeds into a drink ... yummy but tiring!

Left: Just getting started ... right: Our masterpieces!

Wheelthrowing.

For paint balling, we had two teams divided up and we had numerous little firing sessions. The sad thing is that I ended up not shooting too much and when we had our last round, I didn’t know, so then they made me shoot at random stuff to get rid of my leftovers. I enjoyed that more, because I couldn’t shoot at anybody anyways. Then we drove to another city and we went to wheel throw and paint paper umbrellas. We had to choose between those two activities, and since I’ve already wheel thrown at MHS, I decided to paint a paper umbrella. Well, I ran out of creativity after a bit so I had about 5 guys help me paint. In the end, my umbrella looked interesting to say. We also grounded sesame seeds to make into a drink. Then we headed home.

Happy Birthday to the Rotarians!

Then I was very fortunate because the next day I didn’t have to go to school since I had a Rotary meeting! My host mom got lost on the way there, because she wanted to ensure that I could arrive there safe and sound on my own next time. Then we spent some time trying to withdraw money from several banks afterwards. The Rotary meeting was okay – we first sang happy birthday to some Rotarians and then I ended up talking to several Rotarians that were involved with biomedical technology, an architect, and some others that I forgot. We had a speaker about art or something, but it was actually very boring because I had no idea what he was talking about.

The meeting was kind of long too, and then it was raining afterwards. My host mom and I took the MRT back to Taipei Main Station and then we walked in the underground mall, which I hadn’t gone to yet. It was unfortunate because before we left, my host mom asked me if I was going to bring my umbrella but I didn’t tell her that I left it at school, and so we left. On the way home, we had to run in the pouring rain and we were completely soaked. It was a bit funny actually.

Throughout the first two weeks, I was able to do different activities. There was one day when I went to eat pasta with some Taiwanese girls along with Goeran, Oskar, and Mathias. That was interesting - I learned how to get home on my own MRT station. It sucks because it’s about a 15-minute walk home. Anyways, another day I went to Daan Park to meet with some other exchange students to simply talk and hang out. We went to eat at Mos Burgers afterwards and I got to do some biking as well. There was also a day where I watched Eagle Eye in a real movie theatre. The movie itself was not that great, and besides the fact that the movie theatre was located on the 9^th floor or whatever and that we had assigned seats, it was no different. I also went to eat Indian food with Oskar, Gracie, and their Taiwanese classmate on a Friday, which was nice because it was a holiday! I miss Farmers’ Market sometimes, at least the naan wraps and gyros. There was also one weekend where the exchange students went ice skating at the Taipei Arena. That was actually very fun, but I was so sore after that day because it was painful since I fell numerous times. I also tried some Mexican food another day, but it was nothing compared to back home. I definitely miss Chipotle!

I’ve also gone swimming on my own at the sports center nearby my high school. It was a bit hard at first because I had no idea what I was doing, but I figured it out with the help of several friendly people. I love the swimming facilities because there’s an outdoor pool along with an indoor pool and then they have hot tubs and saunas along with massage pool things. Since I haven’t swam in a long time, I only did a little bit of swimming before I just collapsed in the sauna. I went to the night market with my host parents that night, which was nice. I also got a trim for $3, which was kind of cool.

Then there were two schooldays where my classmates had midterms so I didn’t have to attend. I was so happy! The first day I went with my host parents to Costco and we shopped for quite some time. Then I went to the MTV with some friends afterwards. The next day after Chinese class, I went to Ximen to do some shopping. The next day I went to Yongan Market with my host mom who took me to several stores – one was basically a general store with lots of inexpensive facial products and school supplies, another sold American food! I got jello, skittles, mac and cheese, and refried beans. I’ve been searching for chili, but with no luck.

left: taipei 101! right: coral exhibitions.

taipei's architecture is cool!

outside observatory at the top!!!

peter, the roteract's president, oskar, me, and another roteract. i finally understood what the damper baby signified!

There was also one weekend where I went to Taipei 101 with Oskar and some Rotaracts (it was their way of making up for the fact that they couldn’t bring Oskar along on the Kaoshiung trip). I went a bit early and so I got to go to Page One, which is this amazing bookstore they have there. I need to go back soon.

top photos: the rotaracts and i with our handy little phones that gave us information about certain landscapes. the bad thing was that we never really knew where we were at, because it was dark and we were always looking in the wrong direction.

Random note: so far in Taiwan, I've read mainly two books: The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera and The Witch of Portobella. I get a lot of time to listen to my ipod and reading or studying chinese on the bus because I'm always on it.

Then Oskar and I had to wait a bit before the others arrived, and then we went to the top. The first time I went was with Whitney and we went during the day. This time we went in the evening and we had a lot more time to explore. I got to go on the outdoor observatory and look at the coral display and other stuff. Then we went downstairs to eat before we headed home.

our dessert: i LOVE this stuff!!! taro balls, grass jelly, and beans + shaved ice = DELICIOUS! hen hao chi!

our dinner, some sort of steak thing that was yummy!

Me and a Taiwanese student, Stefani!

Night market!

sophie (the teacher/laoshi) & the students from cram school!

The next day I went with Goeran and some friends from cram school to this famous shopping place - Wu Fen Pu. It was very nice, and then we got to eat some sort of steak thing at this night market before we had shaved ice for dessert.

left: my classmates in front of the living mall for lunch! right: my entire chinese class in front of zhong lun gao zhong school!

We also had our midterm last week, and I did okay on it. I received a 94%, and although it was originally supposed to be some sort of reallocation depending on our grades, I am still in the same class because we did well. It was very nice because the day of our midterm, our teacher took us out to breakfast. Then I didn’t have to go to school afterwards, so I went to Ximen to go shopping.

right: my host mom and i at the market.
left: longshan temple night market.

display bowl of snake meat.

snake!

I also went to another night market and to "Snake Alley" with my host family. Definitely one memorable experience. I saw a bunch of different snakes, and so they actually have the snakes available to drink their blood and eat their meat. Supposedly it's good for your health. I didn't quite feel like trying any of it, although I do want to at another time. It was a bit disturbing because they would hang the snakes and then slice it open to get the blood. Then they just left it to die, and that part was the hardest - watching them die.

Our hotel!
Last Friday I left on a trip to Taitung and Hualien with my Rotary club. We left on the train in the morning and then when we arrived, we went on a bus to our hotel. It was a very nice hotel with many activities and accommodations. Oskar and I got some free time to wander around and explore before dinner.

We got to do archery, and the hotel had badminton courts, playgrounds, a lovely animal zoo, putting course, swimming pools and spas and hot springs, and some other stuff. Then we had dinner, which was interesting because the sister clubs from Japan had arrived. Afterwards there was a show about aboriginals so we went there for a bit. Then Oskar and I went to the spas and hot springs because fortunately, it closed late. I've never gone to a hot spring before, and it was just such an extraordinary experience. Floating in a hot spring completely surrounded by nature late at night staring up at the sky was unbelievable.

Oskar & I in front of the swimming pools and spas!
The next morning we had breakfast and then we got onto a bus and drove to Hualien. Along the way, we stopped at several places. We got to drive alongside the ocean, which was absolutely wonderful.

Some famous stream that ran uphill.

A cave ... to the right: A Rotarian, Oskar, and I resting on some lion figure in front of the cave.

We stopped and saw the famous Sanshiantai Bridge. I really loved it there. We also went to some cave or temple thing, and that was cool. Afterwards we had lunch, which was mainly seafood. Our last stop before our hotel was at the Taroko Gorge, and the views were wonderful. Our hotel was the only one in the gorge, which was kind of cool.

aboriginals. it was really impressive because they did these dances involving bamboo sticks and they were all quite coordinated. i could never do anything like that!

some marble carving? needless to say, everything was quite expensive there.

We had dinner and then we watched another aboriginal dance before we got to go play pool and then games in the arcade. The next day we got on our bus again and left to see more of the Gorge before heading over to a marble/jade production factory. Then we had one last meal together at this really lovely restaurant before we went home on the train.

Overall, the trip was very nice but it was a bit difficult because since it was just the Rotarians and their wives and then me and Oskar (he is the other exchange student in my club), well they mainly left us alone. Both parties didn't know what to say to each other, because of the language barrier (although they did a good job explaining some destinations and what not). I felt a bit bad, because it was sometimes a bit awkward and I hoped that they realized how much I appreciated the trip.

left: the harbor! right: yangmingshan mountains.

Then a few days later, I went on a three-day culture tour with the other exchange students to Yilan. We all met very early in the morning at Yuanshan MRT station, and then we got on the bus where we went over Yangmingshan. The views were really incredible. Time and time again, the scenery of Taipei amazes me…because all the buildings within the city create such beauty itself against the backdrop of the works of nature.

left: florence from switzerland, me, and bryanna from the USA! right: me and nora from hungary :)

We first briefly stopped to look at some slough before we stopped near some harbor. It was really nice to take some pictures next to the ocean. Then we kept going before we stopped at a beach. It was unfortunate that we did not really spend that much time there and that we were not able to go swimming in it – the beach was really clean and gorgeous, the water stunning. I would like to go back some time.

left: michelle from cananda! right: whitney from district 5230 back home

Then we had a good lunch with this lovely little buffet before we headed over to some sort of museum. We had a short-guided tour before we were on our own. We saw some ancient housing structure, and created our own boxes and stuff. Afterwards I wandered to read more about the history, such as the lifestyles, societal rules, education system, and other tidbits for a bit by myself, because everybody else was all tired.

Then we headed over to our hotel where we proceeded to the nearby night market to purchase our dinners. It was really nice just wandering around, because it was nice being on our own.

henning from germany!
The next morning we headed out for a bike ride. Of course, it was hotter than hot and I sweated like crazy. I liked biking, but I don’t think I was prepared for it because it was just so uncomfortable. The scenery was kind of boring, because it was just mainly rice fields alongside a riverbank. Then we had lunch at a big park, which was nice. Finally we left for our second hotel, Toucheng Hotel, which was located in the mountains and was sort of a hostel of some sort. The hotel was really nice, but there was so much walking involved because we went on some ridiculous hike to see passion fruit and to some other places. I was not thrilled because not only was I stinky and sweaty, but I am also certain I managed to obtain more mosquito bites (my legs do look as though I get beat up everyday).

Our hotel ... the little lake where we could relax and go fishing.

Nora, Me, and Florence on top of some rocks in the creek!
Building a cooking pit for the sweet potatoes.
We also went to see how some sweet potatoes were cooked in this certain way with rocks and stuff. We got to wade in the river to cool down, which was just so nice. I enjoyed that part the most, because I was so exhausted from everything we did and it was really relaxing. Later on we had a traditional BBQ and we got to go fishing around this miniature lake, which was kind of cool. I really liked the part where we made a big lantern and wrote our “wishes” (we wrote different messages in various languages) before we sent them off in the sky. There was just something extraordinary about this experience, because everything was so quiet and dark and our lantern that we created was flying up in the sky. I just have never done anything like that, and it was really serene.

Left: waiting for the sunrise.... right: 3/4's of the way up.
The following morning I woke up at 4:45am because I wanted to go see the sunrise. I thought it would be great, because we were in the mountains and we could also get a glimpse of the ocean in the distance. Well, what I did not know was that this sunrise watching consisted of hiking up the mountain. My friends, Henning and Dan, and I left but then we noticed how long it was taking and the fact that we were lacking a lot of sleep did not make us happy. We went ¾’s of the way before we told the others to go ahead because we were at a good place to see the sunrise and we were exhausted. Unfortunately there were clouds, so we didn’t really witness anything spectacular so we headed back to play with some bubbles for a bit before they went to sleep. I stayed awake, because I liked how peaceful it was. I’m normally not a morning person, but once I am up, I like to just enjoy the difference in the day.

Left: animals. Right: my shirt!

Then I went back to sleep for about an hour before I had breakfast. Lucky us, we went on another little hike in the humid weather to go see the animal farm. I saw water buffaloes and some other animals that I didn’t really notice because I was so tired. Then we made these spinning fly wood things, which were fun to play with. I then attempted to make a bird caller but it was too hard, and I think I did it wrong. Our next activity was to make our own t-shirts, and I really liked it because I got to do someone else’s shirt. Lunch was after, and then we left. Before we reached home, we stopped at this temple where we watched a video before walking around for a bit.

Overall, the trip was enjoyable because I loved how I got to spend time with the others. I feel that the other exchange students and I are closer now, and this experience really allowed me to understand and know some of them better. I truly care for the others now, because they are each so different and special in their own way. I can’t wait for our next trips!

I also got the opportunity to go to Jiufen with my host family a day later. We drove for an hour outside of Taipei and went on top of these really high mountains. We went to some Gold Mine, and there was so much walking involved because we parked quite far and then everything was spread out. Jiufen is just so beautiful though – it was completely worth it. It’s just incredible that there is a city sprawled out in the valley of these dominating mountains – the museums were also very informative and neat. I have to admit, I am disappointed I went at that particular because we left late in the day so we didn't have that much time to explore and I was still exhausted from my trip to Yilan.

Left: Jiufen... we also climbed all those stairs. Right: Tunnel

railways.

Some former prince's house.

model of the mountain. i'm standing in front of real gold!

I met a guy from Hong Kong who spoke Cantonese and it was really nice, although I have to admit that I am definitely losing my Cantonese now. We went to this wonderful night market. I don’t know how to explain it, but since we were on the top of a mountain, there were just these narrow streets and alleys that weaved around, and it was just nothing I had ever been to. There was also fog! Which is so surprising, because I would’ve never expected fog to be here. We had some delicious sort of dumpling for dinner, and then I obviously purchased some sovereigns before we headed home.

The next day I didn’t have school, because I had yet another Rotary meeting. However I got lost on the way there, so I didn’t go. I’ve also started my culture classes, and I am quite excited because we learn tae kwon do and we get to go to museums and do other fun stuff! I also don’t have to attend regular high school, so that makes me happy. Speaking of my regular high school, I had to do a presentation about Halloween to over THREE classes of students. It was really nice, because I gave a short speech (not entirely in Chinese though, it had to be translated) and then we carved pumpkins.

students hard at work carving pumpkins!

left: goeran and some classmates. right: giving my little presentation.

There was also a day where another exchange student, Miriam from Switzerland, left for home. We went to the airport to see her off. I have no idea how I will ever leave Taiwan, because there is just so much that I want to keep experiencing and that I don’t ever want to change. However, I do not want to linger on that. I have also gone to Miramar Entertainment Park to watch Quantum of Solace, but I did not get to go on the ferris wheel. Maybe some other time.

So to sum it all up, here's what I've discovered.

-I take far too many pictures.

-Taiwan is still too hot for this time of the year.

-I really like doing everything, but I never seem to have enough time

-Time is going by WAY TOO FAST.

-Somehow I spend way too much money!

-It is still really hard when I get homesick sometimes.

-I still get tired when people automatically assume I'm Taiwanese and either ignore me around obvious foreigners OR only talk to me when they cannot communicate with the others.

-I eat way too much! I really like roubao, zhenzhu naicha, danbing, tongyobing, han other stuff!

-Chinese is still quite hard!

My Month

2008-09-27T20:30:00.000-07:00

I’m really surprised that I have been here for a complete month. Time has passed quickly, and the days seem to blend into one another. Honestly I feel that I’ve learned and experienced an incredible amount in this period. I’m truly enjoying myself – trying all kinds of foreign foods, visiting different attractions, connecting with new people, learning to communicate, and essentially leaving my old life back in Monterey. Again, I feel so fortunate that I am here.

I have to admit though that … I definitely have some days where I’ll simply wonder, “what in the world am I doing here?” However I get over those rough moments by staying busy, just like I would at home. I like my exchange here so much – everything is quite exciting and different, and I don’t even want to think about what it will be like when I have to return home.

So I have been fairly busy since my last entry.

Chinese class has been going at a good pace. We have tests quite often…sometimes we’ll learn a section and then have a quiz right afterwards, which makes me panic like mad. For example, we will take a quiz after learning 15-20 characters with only five to ten minutes to study. I have to admit that memorizing the tones, pinyin, and characters for Chinese is really tough. The sad part is that I haven't even learned this other system ... bo, po, mo, fo, etc. which I need to learn how to read Chinese and also how to type it. I am struggling with the tones a lot – there are essentially four different tones, and most of the time, one word has several meanings depending on the tone. Writing the characters is hard too, because there is a specific order, and sometimes if you draw one little part wrong, well it turns into a completely different word. It is also difficult because we are learning Mandarin and Taiwanese. However I really like the teacher and my classmates. So far we have covered fruits, how to buy stuff, time, food, and some other stuff. Our assignment for this weekend was to go to another city, Danshui, and try the foods. I definitely like school here! :]

[My Chinese course! Our class is the best.]

[Our laoshi bringing us different foods to try!]

My schedule for the week is normally:

Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays
I wake up around 6am to take the hour-long bus ride to my Chinese school before 8am. Class goes until noon. Afterwards I go out to lunch with the other exchange students (normally Subway, McDonalds, or some other fast food chain) before we head back to our individual high schools. Then I take the bus back with Goran and then we have our afternoon classes from 2pm – 4pm.

[I got a passionfruit drink one time while we went to eat.... which was absolutely disgusting. I love the zhenzhu naicha though!]

[Some yummy Thai rice & a regular omelette!]

Wednesday
I walk to my high school by 8:10am, and then I have class with the PE class (room 407) instead of my regular homeroom 405 for the morning session. Sometimes the day can be long, but it is nice because in the afternoon I have computer class for two hours with room 405 so I can surf the net during that time.

My courses are:

8:10-12pm : English, Math, Physics, Chinese

12pm-12:55pm : Lunch & nap time!

13:00-15:55pm : Computer science for two hours (on a side note: my computer teacher helped fix my laptop! My SKYPE mic works, my sound works, my MSN messenger works! YAY FOR ME!), and then home economics (where there is this really strict looking military woman that comes in).

[Room 407 of athletes! They're very friendly and energetic...most of the time.

The bottom right photo is with me and this girl who wants me to call her "Banana". Some of the names that the Taiwanese people give me are rather entertaining.]

[This is during physics, where the teacher just basically lectured to the projector rather than to the class. I felt like sleeping too.]

Friday
I walk to my high school, and the day is sort of like Wednesday. Except I have my club in the morning, which is cooking. Very fun. We've made some japanese and taiwanese snacks.

[i can't believe I'm doing cooking ... for one, i don't even know how to cook.]

[Left: Pong ... Right: I forget her name, but she is always asking me questions about my life in the US.]

[I'm wearing my lovely apron and hat with some classmates. They're very nice.

Bottom photos ... my classmates mixing the batter. It was really tiring actually. Then to the right is the teacher cutting up some cake.]

[Oh, this is random but afterschool when Goran and I are walking home, we always see this boy and he is so adorable! He talks to us too. It's very cute.]

Oh, and my courses for Fridays are:

8:10-10am: Club activity

10:10-11am: English

11-12pm: Geography

12-12:55pm: Lunch and nap.

13:00-13:50 : History

14:00-14:50 : Military

15:00-15:55 : Citizens and Society.

Let’s see….
Monday, September 8th: I took a stroll to the night market nearby with my host family to pick up my skirt. When I first received my skirt, it was incredibly heavy and long so I had it shortened. Then we walked to the park across my high school. It was interesting, because even though it was almost 8:30pm, there were a ton of people out walking around the track or using the skating rink to perform t’ai chi. I also learned that there are tennis courts and swimming pools. There is also a water fountain where they have this water show.

Tuesday, September 9th: I invited Goran to have dinner with Ariel, Allen, and their friend Ricky. We ate at this delicious Japanese hotpot place, and I enjoyed talking and sharing ideas with them. We basically discussed everything - Germany, the US, Taiwan. It was really considerate of them to go to so much trouble for me.

[Left: Me, Goran, Allen, Ariel, and Ricky. Right: Ariel and me!]

Wednesday, September 10th: After school, Goran and I decided we could not stand just sitting in our classes for hours on end without doing anything, so we went to Ximenting to look for a bookstore that sold English books. We had some Subway, and then we ran into some other exchange students from our district. They were headed towards the Toilet Restaurant, and so we followed. It was pretty fun, but I wish we hadn’t eaten Subway beforehand because it would’ve been cool eating food from a fake toilet bowl! We walked to the bookstore afterwards, and I purchased “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” by Milan Kundera.

[The group at the Toilet Restaurant, and to the right, Jamie's meal!]

[The dessert in a mini urinal]

Thursday, September 11th: I honestly don't remember what happened.

Friday, September 12th: The weekend was the Moon Festival, which is where Taiwanese people celebrate the moon. Our student teachers gave us a presentation where we tried moon cakes and pomelos, and it was really cool and fun.

[Left: The student teacher giving a good powerpoint presentation. Right: Moon cake and the peeled pomelo skin!]

[Another teacher. I'm wearing the skin of the pomelo because it smells good, and apparently this is a custom that Taiwanese people used to do!]

After school, my host family and I took the bus and then the MRT to this really nice restaurant where there was a Rotary celebration. It was really cool because I sat at a table full of Rotaracts and they were so friendly – they served me all the food (which kept coming and coming!!!). They also invited me to go on a trip with them to Kaohsiung next weekend where we will be either kayaking/sailing, going to a hot spring, doing some pottery, having a barbeque, hiking, and some other activities.

[Roteracts]

The Rotarians were incredibly friendly – but again, they had a difficult time distinguishing that I was the exchange student from the US! When I went to make my speech, I started off in Chinese but then I had to switch to English because I didn’t know what else to say, and then afterwards, Rotarians and other people were coming up to me and telling me they were wondering why I spoke such good English, haha. There was constant singing - it was definitely very strange for me. At one point, they wanted ME to sing a song, but I declined. Overall, it was really fun, and I tried all sorts of foods! Most of it was absolutely DELICIOUS. There was just so much food though; we were there for almost 3-4 hours! It was kind of hard though, because everybody was drinking and they kept on toasting like every minute. There was also one point where the students from my table and I went around to each individual table to "toast" or "thank" the adults. That was rather tiring.

[Roteracts singing...]

[one of the dishes ... to the right is this sesame fish delicacy. it was not very tasty for me, but many taiwanese people love it?]

[seafood is very popular in taiwan.]

This was also the weekend where we had a typhoon, and I basically stayed home all weekend. That kind of sucked, but I got to rest, clean, and study my Chinese. At first I was scared because it seemed like a big deal (category three), but it just poured like mad constantly. Most of the damage was inflicted in mountainous regions.

Monday, September 15th: After Chinese class, I went to McDonalds with the others. We got back a little late, because we didn’t know where the McDonalds was.

[Some of the items are inexpensive compared to the US. I have yet to try the RICE HAMBURGER.]

Tuesday, September 16th: We went to Pizza Hut for lunch. We had this all you can eat buffet (maybe $6 US), and it was really cool. They had the strangest pizza there. I tried seafood pizza and beef pizza!

[Seafood and beef pizza .... interesting. They also have other strange toppings.]

*At this point, I am starting to realize that I am feeling remorseful that I don’t remember what I do in school those days. Maybe I will start to take notes, because now whenever I think of school, it is just a blur and I don’t want to forget anything.

Wednesday, September 17th: After school I went to the nearby street market with my host mom to buy some groceries and food. It was really nice, because I tried more food! However, we bought so much food that my arms hurt when we had to walk home!

[This is sort of like a taiwanese burrito - it had a lot of vegetables in it, and some meat. It was delicious, but enormous!]

Thursday, September 18th: We had a test in Chinese, which was a bit hard. After school I went to the market again with my host mom because she wanted to purchase some fruits and eggs. Afterwards I wanted to see another exchange student, Erica, because I was a bit concerned about how she was doing. My host parents had been asking me constantly which day I preferred to change host families: Dec. 12th or January 3rd. In our rotation of families, I will be going to Erica’s place next and she will come to mine. Whitney Chessum will be going here for her third host family, and then I will go to Michelle’s family. Apparently Erica’s and Michelle’s host families wanted to change as soon as possible. I knew that Michelle has been having some small problems with her host family because she was homesick and they didn’t understand, so they might have thought that she would be happier elsewhere. But I did not understand why Erica’s host parents wanted to switch soon, and anyways, I wanted to stay here until January because I was afraid it’d be awkward to spend Christmas right off the bat with a whole new family. Plus, although Erica’s house is only a few blocks away from mine, I am still living very close to the high school here and I would not have to take the bus to school.

Anyways I went over to my second host families host, and it was very nice. The parents speak English, so that should not be a problem when I switch over. It's also very cool because the grandmother speaks some Cantonese! Erica and I walked around the track near her house for a bit before we just got some drinks and talked.

Friday, September 19th: After school, Goran came over and then we headed to Ximenting and then Taipei Main Station to get to Guting. We met up with all the other exchange students – it was crazy. There were about 40 of us standing at the exit of the MRT station, and we were just introducing ourselves and talking. It was great. We got some food and hung out for a bit.

Saturday, September 20th: Sophie, the cram school teacher for Winnie, arrived to take me to her cram school. We stopped at Costco to pick up some pizza and then in the class, I introduced myself. Everybody was incredibly friendly and interesting!

[Most of the students had to go to more cram school afterwards, so only four students out of about ten were able to take me around. This is one girl who I really enjoyed talking to because she was clever.]

This student teacher for math made me fried dumplings, which was really nice. Then some of the students and I walked to the bus stop and then we took the bus to Taipei Main Station where Taiwan Storyland was located. We went inside and took a billion pictures. It was really fascinating, and I’m glad I explored the history of Taiwan in such a way. We had some amazing mango shaved ice – one of the most delicious desserts I’ve had here. Afterwards we took another bus to Longshan Temple. It was crowded, and I learned some religious information. We got some bubble milk tea (my favorite), and then we waited for Sophie to pick us up.

[Taiwan Storyland! It's a good thing I shared the mango shaved ice, because it was ENORMOUS! The best part is that the smoothie on the left, and the mango shaved ice were free because it is part of the admission price.]

[Many antiques were available. It was hard because the students were trying to explain most of it to me in English and Chinese, and so I only got the general outline of most of the information.]

[Longshan Temple - a very popular and busy place. They have about gods that you can pray to if you want to do well academically or to have a good luck in love. The photo on the right is in front of this pretty waterfall that you see when you first enter, because one has to cleanse their heart/body spiritually before they enter to pray so they can "clean their mind and dignify your body in a good position to worship the Buddha and learn wisdom". ]

[I found this very interesting and ironic. This is a monk who is praying ... while listening to his ipod. Need I say more?]

Sophie dropped me off at home, and then Erica’s parents came to pick me up. We drove to Sanxia and met her relatives. The place that we went to is new, and it was such a nice community! It had swimming pools, hot springs, spas, saunas, and gyms which were all brand new and fancy. So much fun. There was also this little girl with us, Amanda, who was absolutely adorable. She didn’t speak any English, but she was so charming! She reminded me a lot of my cousin Julia. We went to swim, and it was really nice because it was outdoors. I was complimented on my swimming, haha, by this pilot who spoke some English who was trying to teach this kid to swim. He was very nice. Then Erica and I went into the sauna for a bit while Erica's host mom went to the hot spring. Afterwards we left to eat a wonderful dinner, because we were starving. Then we ate this dessert that I later found out was turtle shell grass jelly. I almost had a heart attack. It was bitter, and I thought it was just the regular grass jelly dessert.

[The pools! It went under this bridge walkway into a separate pool. Very cool.]

Sunday, September 21st: We had breakfast and then we took the bus to this old historical street market. It was very nice, and I got a bunch of sovereigns!

[The street was very preserved, and there was also this temple where they had this ceremony which consisted of a lot of firecrackers and drum beating and dancing. We left quickly because it was very very very loud, and Amanda was scared too. Oh, and in the picture to the right, we are standing in front of a calligraphy store where they made the brushes by hand. It was very impressive.]

[Erica and I waiting for our bus.]

[This man was cutting up ice ... which was to be used in preparing food or something. I read about this before I came to Taiwan, so I was not as shocked. But still, now I am worried about the sanitary conditions here!]

[very loud ceremony]

[I tried this black egg that is green on the inside. It is very delicious, despite it's appearance. It is called the thousand year old egg or something in Taiwanese. To the right, this is when we were coming home, and I thought it was interesting because this is indoor .... fishing.]

Then we took the bus back to Zhonghe City, and I went to Erica’s house to eat lunch and watch some tv. Then I headed home for a bit, before I headed out to meet Goran at Ximenting. We went to Zhongxiao Dunhua to meet the others to go to the MTV. We couldn’t decide between these two movies: Scream and The Lord of War. In the end, we settled on Lord of War and it was very good. The MTV was really cool because we get our own room with a big screen and we can watch any movie really. They also provide one free drink (bubble milk tea!!!), and it is so inexpensive compared to the cinema in the US. Afterwards we went to go eat at some pasta place, but I ended up getting Burger King, before we headed over to Ximenting. Overall, a very busy and enjoyable weekend.

Monday, September 22nd: After Chinese, we went to this mall nearby and had subway. There were three people that visited us in our class today - one has been here for several months, another was our tae kwon do teacher, and the third was someone who was on exchange here a few years ago. It was nice talking to them.

Tuesday, September 23rd: My host mom took me to the second largest night market after Shilin. It was really cool, because I got to buy some accessories for school and more presents. I got a small hair straightener for $8? In the US, I brought one for almost $100 or $200!!! I was also going to buy a watch, but I couldn’t decide from four watches. It was also very strange, because I was trying to buy from a person who had set up store in the middle of the street which is illegal, and so he was packing everything up since the police were coming and so I ended up not buying one.

[yay for my hair straightener!]

Wednesday, September 24th: Since our Chinese homework was to go to Shilin Night Market / yeshi to try out different foods (loved that assignment), our class met up at night. It was really fun, because Michelle and I tried this egg/vegetable thing, and then we all got bubble milk tea. I also purchased a watch for $3! Pretty awesomeeeee.

[Most of the exchange students. Right: what I ate for dinner. There is also the delicious mango and strawberry shaved ice I shared with Michelle. ]

Thursday, September 25th: After dinner, I spent a fair amount of time talking to my host family. They were interested in my life back home (for example, what my schedule was like, and what my plans for the future are), and then I had to explain about college tuition. They were shocked, because they didn’t know it cost so much (I told them I might consider going into the medical field but it’s so expensive). I also got to catch up with some old friends, so that was nice.

Friday, September 26th: I woke up rather late, because I have not been sleeping well lately. However I got to school on time, but Goran and I stayed in the teacher’s office using the computer to check our email, go on freerice.com, to look up information as well, and to read about the exchange student coming in January because the other students were taking an exam. I was also almost yelled at this morning by a guard because I walked through the wrong gate, and he thought I was just another student once more. There was a motorcycle accident as well, but both parties were okay. I also saw a lot of wedding cars cause it’s supposedly a good day to get married. Class with 407 was okay - it was interesting because I thought they said I smelled bad because they asked the teacher to write "armpit odor" on the board, and they kept saying my name, but I guess they thought I smelled good or something.

At lunch I ate with room 407, and then I tried to do some Chinese, but after my nap, I was exhausted. Then I switched over to room 405 and it was kind of really boring. The civism and society teacher looked at my Chinese book, because it had Hong Kong characters rather than Taiwanese. Then after class, my classmates surrounded Goran and I to plan for tomorrow. We went to the office and talked with shaolaun for a bit. During one of the breaks, I didn’t have to clean today cause I was talking to the other student teacher. I really despise cleaning here - it is one of the most disgusting things I've ever had to do in my entire life. I applaud the students for being so diligent and even courageous. I helped pick up all the trash from the bathroom stalls ... meaning all the used pads. GROSS. The task itself is not that fun, and the smell from the bathrooms here are always so strong. We also talked to this other teacher from 404, who mentioned that he thought I was just another student. After dinner I was going to go swimming but then it started to rain, and I was really tired so I didn't go. I also saw the bowling alley and pool tables, because we took a short walk there after dinner.

Saturday, September 27th: I met Goran at Ximenting and then we went to Nanjing East Road to meet the other exchange students, and ROTEX. We went to this really cool tea place, where we played some games, and then we ate and mingled. Afterwards, some of the exchange students and I went to the MTV to watch Fight Club.

Oh, did I mention I actually used a toilet in the floor for the first time? And what's great is that I dropped my cell phone into the toilet. Disgusting... I know exactly why I waited so long before I really had to use this type of a toilet.

Sunday, September 28th: Today I stayed home all day basically finishing up this entry and attempting to finish up my stack of postcards and letters. The typhoon was today, and this one was different. The wind was stronger, and there was lightning. The electricity flickered a few times. School is cancelled for tomorrow. On one hand, it is good because I mean, who wants to go to school? But then I actually prefer going to school, because I don't like being cooped up inside with nothing to do.

Oh, and I forgot to add!

I think my Chinese is improving. My test scores in Chinese are pretty good - and we had an oral test the other day which I did a lot better than I expected! Most of the time I can get by communicating, but my Chinese is rather broken. Every time I go out with friends and I return, I try to explain everything I did to my host family. That normally takes up about half an hour to an hour each time. My host family and classmates told me that my chinese has gotten so much better from when I first arrived. And when I spent time with Erica's host parents, they said my Chinese is not too bad. It is kind of funny, because sometimes when I am talking to someone back home, I will automatically try to translate it into Chinese in my head! And today, I tried to count in Cantonese, but I almost forgot because I could only count in Mandarin.

Oh, and I just received photos from the weekend trip that my host family took to Danshui.

[Whitney's host family, my host mom, and I in front of some national museum. We didn't get the chance to go in, but Rotary will be taking us in the near future. Right: My host brother, me, and Erica, resting near a skating rink inside a public park in Beitou (a village in the mountain?)]

[Temples everywhere. Then the three of us standing in front of the Red Castle.]

[On the boat ride back from Danshui to Bali.]

2008-09-04T09:24:00.000-07:00

The Second Week

I will do another weekly update today, because I still have some free time (plus, I don’t really remember what’s been going on and this helps me recall recent activities/events). However, after this, my next update will be a month after I have arrived here in Taiwan.

Let’s see …

Bridge in Sindian City.

Last Thursday in the evening, my host family and I went to Sindian City to go on this bridge. I don’t know what it was called, but it was pretty cool walking on it (although I was concerned because it was a little shaky) since it had lights that were turning different colors. We got some pearl milk tea (yum), and there was a nice breeze since we were walking alongside the river. The river had a lot of little boats floating around, and people just taking strolls.

However, there was a slight problem. I drank so much pearl milk tea that I had to pee badly but the toilets were all in the floor so I didn’t want to use it. However, after looking for other bathrooms, we found one that was a regular toilet even though it's only for handicapped people. Then it sucked, because I didn’t have any toilet paper. Apparently it’s common to bring your own toilet paper. Fortunately my host mother was prepared, and that incident was resolved.

Then on the way back, we got some stinky tofu off this street vendor. When my host brother brought it into the car, there was this REALLY strong smell. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it wasn’t pleasant either. It was just strange. Then at home, we ate it, and it was okay. The taste was just different … my host family loves it though, but maybe I’ll acquire the taste eventually.

Stinky tofu.

The next day my host mother agreed to let me see my friend, Ariel and her boyfriend, Allen, for some coffee around dinnertime. Well, in the afternoon, my host mother took me to some street markets and we got some food and of course, I ended up getting some stuff. When we came back, it was almost time to meet with Ariel and Allen, but my host mother wanted me to eat some really hot noodles really fast. So I did, and then we went downstairs across the street to meet them because they were having dinner. It was a bit awkward because they were all conversing in Mandarin/Taiwanese and my host mother was asking them all these personal questions to ensure how trustworthy they were. Then she wanted to take a picture of them, which was slightly embarrassing, and then she asked for their National Taiwan University student ID’s to keep. I felt as though it was a bit extreme. Then we went looking for a coffee shop with air conditioning within this block (no luck), so we went back to our house.

Me, Ariel, and Allen (Ariel's boyfriend).

Then I spent the next few hours talking about my experiences in Taiwan so far and also my life back home. They also gave me a lot of information about Taiwan (for example, their school systems and other cultural tidbits). It was really nice just spending time with them, because they are really sweet people. Tomorrow they are taking the TOFELL test in order to gain entrance to some universities in the US for their graduate studies. I was really impressed with their knowledge and English skills.

Then on Saturday my host mother, Andy, and I went to Shimen. We took the MRT, and when we got off, we were in this enormous shopping arena. It was INCREDIBLE. There were just a ton of people everywhere. To top it off, there was some sort of festival going on with a ton of noise and people dancing. Then we went to Shilin night market that was nearby, and oh my goodness, literally there were so many people that they were just walking on the street. It was so hard to move through, because we were so packed together.

So many people on the street! But at night, it's even worse.

Some shoes I purchased.

I ended up buying a fair amount of clothes and shoes, because everything was so cheap! I got eight tops for only $3 US dollars each / $100 NT, six pairs of shoes for only $2 each / $68 NT, earrings for only 50 cents, bracelets, and some other stuff. I don’t even want to imagine how much stuff I’ll be bringing home…

On a funny little note, so my host mom, Andy, and I stayed up until 3am because we were watching travel & living and my host mom insisted I do this facemask. It was really strange… but I’ve noticed they make it a big deal to take good care of your skin here. Everybody wants to look “white”, and so people are amazed when they notice that I don’t really care about how tan I get.

Random Rotary poster in the street!

Taipei Main Station.

On Sunday, my host family took the train at the Taipei Main Station (HUGE, and rather confusing) to Keelung City, which is at the northern part of Taiwan basically and a seaport city. The train was very nice – it was clean, spacious, and fast. I enjoyed the scenery because we got to see mountains on the way. When we got there, we went shopping at another street market with a ton of food. We ate like five different things, oh, and we also saw another temple (they are pretty numerous around here). I really liked the pao-pao ice, because it had some sort of jelly in it. I also saw a lot of doggies, so they reminded me of Apple!!! I miss Apple a ton – I got her two pretty blankies and a little pillow the other day for only $2. We also went to this pet store, and it had this adorable puppy there. They sell puppies pretty cheap here… around $200 US. Good thing I don’t “live” here, because I would buy all of them if I could.

Pao-pao Ice!

"Kuai" = fast.

Scenery.

Cruise ship!

Then Monday, it rained all day long so we didn’t really go out. However, we did go see my host mom’s business partner or something, because they are making investments in Malaysia … something with palm oil. It was boring. My host brother got his hair cut, and then he drove, so I was kind of nervous. We made it home safely though. Then I came home, and watched TV.

My mandarin school.

Tuesday was my first Mandarin class. My host mom and I took the bus, and we were running late. It sucked, because the ride took over an half and a half. I came to class about half an hour late, but it was okay. We covered tones, and really basic phrases (“What’s your name? Where are you from? What’s your phone number?”). The teacher is really nice, and the other students are friendly too. Apparently we were put in the advanced class … the school is enormous, and it’s very nice. Class finished, and then I came back and my host mom decided that Andy should basically tutor me. So I spent the next two hours learning more Chinese – I was really struggling with some of the tones because some of it is just … sounds. It’s weird.

Again, my Mandarin school.

Wednesday I went to the bank, and FINALLY, I have withdrawn $650. I’ve been going to at least twenty different banks, and stood around in frustration because my host mother and the bank workers would puzzle over why I was refused cash withdrawals. The reason why I was having problems was because I can only withdraw $500 each day. So now I can repay my host parents. Then my host mother took me to see this cool temple, and some interesting trail up a mountain. It was extremely unfortunate, because I think that’s where I got my mosquito/bug bites. I have over 12 bites, and they are painful and itchy and ugly. I could barely sleep last night, because it was bad.

temple.

I have bumps everywhere... mainly on both legs.

Then we stopped at my high school, for a bit.

track across the school.

I went to the sports arena across the street from my high school. I want to spend more time there because they have TENNIS COURTS!!! …and this really modern and cool swimming pool facility. They also have this enormous track, and they have basketball and badminton courts along with this little rink for children to skate on.

They also have regular swimming lanes... yay!

Then today I had to take the bus to my Chinese school by myself. I HAVE NEVER GONE ANYWHERE BY MYSELF HERE. Well, except for that one time when I came home from Taipei 101 with Whitney… but I only stayed on the MRT for like two stops, and that was rather easy. So I was a bit nervous this morning …

Well, I hopped on the #307. I was concerned though, because I saw all kinds of different #307 buses, and I wasn’t sure if it was heading the right place. I gave my little paper with the Chinese writing on it explaining where I was headed to the bus driver and these two elderly people, but they didn’t really say anything to me. Basically they were all carrying a conversation that didn’t involve me when it was about me! I figured it was okay, because they smiled at me and stopped talking, and anyways, then I decided to move seats because I didn’t want to take the priority seats when more people started boarding the bus.

Fortunately, I sat down right next to a girl that was reading a magazine in English! I asked her if I was headed to the right place, and she was really kind, because she talked to the bus driver to make sure that he would call out the stop when it came up. Apparently the bus driver doesn’t like to call out the stops, which was bad for me. She was really interested in me, and it’s nice because she lives in Zhonghe too! I hope I will see her again someday.

The ride wasn’t so bad, but I’m still not sure I can make it on my own again on Monday. Everything goes so fast here. I mean, they start moving the bus when you step on the bus.

I went to the high school, and since I was early, I just talked with some of the other students. Then class started, and we learned about fruits and how to sing “happy birthday”. I also spoke with the teacher, because she wanted to know what ethnicity I am (like everybody else …). Surprisingly, she used to live in San Francisco and she actually knew where Monterey is!
After class was over, I went with Goran (he is from Germany) on the bus back to Zhonghe. He is really nice, and he reminds me of a student who has taken AP English with Mrs. Eagle because we discussed various topics that included Sigmund Freud and Nietzche. I wish I could have brought my notebooks and paperwork from my English class, but I never suspected I would need it here in Taiwan.

On a side note, my Chinese is improving. At dinner today, they were talking half in Mandarin and Taiwanese and then they asked me if I had any idea what they were talking about, and I actually did. I can recognize bits and pieces of Mandarin, but most of the time, they talk extremely fast.

Jinghe High School.

I would also like to discuss my first day at school. Today is Friday, and so I came to school for my reception. It was nice – there were just a ton of introductions to teachers and other people. Afterwards I went to my homeroom class basically. I gave a little introduction, and it was interesting. Everybody was really eager to learn more about me, and they were just staring at me the entire time. It was rather boring because they had an English lesson, so I sat there and just practiced some Chinese. Then break came, and like, a group of thirty girls surrounded me. It was a bit crazy. I went over to talk to Goran for a bit, and he was surrounded by a group of about 20 guys, so then these two groups kind of combined and we were literally in the center and everybody was just staring and listening to us talk. It was overwhelming.

Then class began again, and it was earth science. They had to describe a experience, a book, or a movie related to this topic. I didn’t get much from it, because the teacher was going fast and writing a billion things on the board.

Then it was lunchtime. The school serves food, and we get these steel containers to use. I thought it was strange because there were two separate lines, one for the guys, and one for the girls. I asked about it, and they told me it was because the students didn’t know each other yet.

My lunch.

I was a little bothered, because most of the girls would be absolutely excited to see and talk to me, but since their English was limited and I couldn’t really understand what they were saying, they would just talk for a bit and then just look at me without saying anything. Same thing with the guys. They would just stand and stare at me, but not say a single word to me. It was really frustrating, because they would talk to each other but basically ignore me.

So then after lunch it was NAPTIME. I was pretty impressed because everybody was really sleeping. I didn’t really feel like sleeping, because my desk is kind of small and so I just spaced out for the half an hour. Then I switched over to room 407, which is a class with Goran. I really liked this class a lot more, because when I gave my introduction, everybody was definitely more interested in me. The class was also more interactive compared to the other class where the students just sat and took notes the entire time without saying a single word. During my introduction, the guys were being kind of obnoxious though, and although I didn’t understand much of what was said, I got the impression they might have been a little too excited about meeting me. It was kind of funny, because they had those popping things or whatever, but I thought they were shooting something at me so I was scared.

Indoor baseball.

We had a quiz, and I didn’t understand the directions so I was completely lost. I felt dumb after I realized all I had to do was write down English words. That class went by really fast, and then I went to the office with Goran. We just went on the computers and waited until some student teachers took us to the “gym”. The students were playing baseball… INDOORS. It was raining, so they were all inside. Normally they would practice tae kwon do, but since it was Friday, they had free time. Again I was greeted by a lot of enthusiastic people, and then we went to the karate room or something where they were watching a movie. It was really weird because people wanted to take pictures with me on their phones.

Then we went to the table tennis room where I played for a little bit. I sucked, and it was hot. I got to talk to some students, and then I talked with the student teachers. I told them about how I didn’t really spend time with other students my age here. Then we went back to the office, and they called my host mom to ask if I could go with Goran and his classmates to Shilin night market. Then we waited again until they were done with school (yay, the extra hour is optional for us!), and then this enormous group of students met up with us. I didn’t know anybody since they were from a different homeroom, but they were very nice. It was so strange because we were walking to the bus and then to the MRT and there’s just a group of 20 students surrounding us two.

Just about everyone at the MRT station.

When we got there, we got some food. I got pearl milk tea again and some sort of oyster and egg omelet. Then we went to look for this particular type of shoes that Goran wanted to buy, and we ran into the other foreign exchange student from Austria and some Rotex students.

Oyster egg omelete.

I have to admit that I kind of dislike the fact that I literally blend in with the crowd, because sometimes people simply ignore me, and I get the feeling they think I’m just dumb because I don’t know what’s going on or what to say in Chinese sometimes before they realize that I am an American. I just need some attention NOW to get going on my own, but though I am getting some, it is not as much as the other exchange students it seems. So that’s really tough, and well, I tried on my uniform, and honestly, I am just going to be part of the mass. I have honestly never appreciated Monterey High’s lax policy about clothing. I feel that when I wear the uniform, I am not ME anymore. Everybody else appears to be content with just blending in, but I cannot stand how simply dull that is. It doesn’t matter though, because I do have some friends here, and although it feels as though everybody expects more from me, I think I will be okay.

Honestly everybody has been really sweet to me here. I didn’t think I would appreciate the little things so much – someone giving me tissue paper to use in the bathroom, people offering to buy me the pearl milk tea or my food, forcing me to sit in the chair instead of stand and lose my balance a few times on the bus or MRT, taking the long route home to ensure that they could walk me home safely… I feel really fortunate.

Now here I am. It seems as though I’ve been here for a really long time, because I’ve experienced so much, but then at the same time, it feels as though I’ve only been here for hours because it’s all still so new.

The First Week in Taiwan

2008-08-28T03:09:00.000-07:00

Friday, August 23, 2008.

I departed from San Francisco International Airport on August 22nd at 1:31pm, and I flew 13 hours nonstop to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport.

The flight was nice – there were about 10 other Rotary exchange students on the flight, and most of them were transferring flights from distant places such as Alaska or New York, but none were heading towards the same district as me. I sat next to Ariel, who is 21 years old, and she was extremely nice. She was going back to Taiwan from visiting her mother and sisters (one is in a high school, the other at the University of Penn) in Pennsylvania. Apparently she visits them every summer. She declared that she wanted to adopt me as her “younger jiejie” since her sister was in the US. I was a bit nervous about going through customs and looking for my host family (in fact, I wasn’t even sure if they were meeting me), so she helped me with all of that. I was so grateful to her, and I hope I will be seeing her soon because she wants to show me around Taiwan.

It was funny, because I didn’t have to worry about whether my host family showed up or not, because they sure did. My host family (dad, mom, two brothers), along with my grandparents and uncle were waiting for me with signs. There were other families waiting to pick up the other exchange students too. It was a really great scene! Everybody took a billion pictures, and then we all started heading home.

When we stepped outside the airport, the heat hit me really hard. It was around 6:30pm, and the air was quite humid and everything smelled different. I sat in one of the cars with my host parents and younger host brother, David. My host parents do not speak English, but since David left as an exchange student for New York on Sunday, he knew some English. With David as our communicator, the host parents asked a lot of questions about me – what I liked to eat, what sort of activities I’m interested in, etc. The ride home was an hour, because there was so much traffic. The scenery was amazing, because everywhere I looked, there were buildings. I’ve been to San Francisco and Los Angeles, but these were huge. I’ve never lived in a big city before, and so I was excited when I heard I was going to the capital, Taipei.

We got off the freeway, and started entering Zhonghe City. The traffic was extremely congested, and I was shocked because there were tons of cars and mopeds EVERYWHERE. In fact, it was hectic because the mopeds were just literally going right next to the cars. We arrived at my house, and then we went across the street to eat dinner. It was hard, because they didn’t know what I wanted, and I didn’t know what I wanted and so they ordered several different dishes for me to choose from. I had some sort of noodles, and then I had rice.

Afterwards, we went back and I unpacked.

Saturday, August 23rd, 2008

[Left: Host family (older brother, David, grandmother, mom, grandfather, and dad to the left of me. Right: The seafood buffet]

The next day my host mom took me to some sort of market for breakfast on a moped and just to look at things. I was extremely terrified, but we made it alive. Then we came back to go to this enormous seafood buffet place with my host grandparents and uncle as well. Afterwards we came back and I showed them a billion pictures of Monterey and my old friend back home. Then we went to Costco, and it was jampacked with people. It was astonishing. For dinner they ordered KFC and pizza, which was interesting. The pizza was tasty, and they ate the KFC chicken with plastic gloves (to keep their hands clean).

Sunday, August 24th, 2008.

[Left: Inbounds, Rotex, & other Rotarians. Right: The inbounds from the US.]

My host parents took me to some technology center where we met up with the other Rotary inbounds and also Rotex students. We had training, so we went over the rules and then we also discussed culture shock. Additionally, we did a talent show, which was fun. I really like the other exchange students, and the Rotex students were great as well. Since most of us have emailed each other prior to our arrival here, it was nice to finally meet everybody in person. Then my host family helped David pack because his flight was at 11pm. Then we took him to the airport, and he left for New York.

[At the airport saying bye to David.]

Monday, August 25th, 2008.

[In front of my high school.]

My host mom took me to my high school, Jinghe High School. We walked the route I’ll be taking. I’m a bit nervous, because I do have to cross some traffic (although the rest of the way is pretty because I walk on this path right by a river). The school is huge, and it’s cool because across the street there is a field and track and swimming pools. There is also a new hospital right by my school. We registered for the school, and then we went to this immigration center to do some paperwork for my visa. I ran into several other Rotary students there as well. We had to wait a long time, and it was exhausting. Then we took the metro to Zhongshan city, which is where my Rotary club meets. I really like the metro system – the transportation is so fast, easy, and accessible. At the Rotary meeting, I introduced myself a little bit in Chinese and then I spoke in English. A Rotex student gave a presentation about her year in Amsterdam. Afterwards we came back for dinner, and then we went to the night market. It was REALLY cool. They had so much stuff, and there was a ton of stuff going on. They had food and all sorts of things to buy. After we went through that, we stopped at David’s old cram school (he was taking extra math classes or something, along with English lessons there) where I met this family who was really nice. We went out for dessert, and we had grass jelly with beans and ice. It was delicious.

Tuesday, August 26th, 2008.
My host mom and I took the metro train again to the National Taiwan University for my Chinese placement test. We got lost, and it really sucked. We had to transfer subways several time, and then we basically ran about five blocks to the University because we were late. I was really tired after that, because the heat wears me down easily. When we arrived, we were briefly tested to determine which class we will be placed in. They asked us three questions in Chinese, and if you could answer them, you had to answer more. I did okay, so we’ll see.

Afterwards we walked around the campus and we went to the library, which was amazing. It was five stories high and brand-new. I went with my friend, Whitney Chessum, who is also from my district in California. Then we went to have lunch, and it was really good because we had different types of noodles and boba milk tea. Then our host moms let us go off on our own, which was GREAT. We went to several bookstores. I love the bookstores here. They are just wonderful. They have English books too, but the style of their bookstores is much different from the Borders at home. Some of the bookstores were several stories high, and all of them were cozy and unique.

Then Whitney and I took the metro train to Taipei 101. It was a good thing she was there, because I would’ve gotten lost. Anyways, we walked from the station to Taipei 101, and we passed two enormous malls. One was New York New york, and then other was the 3rd floor of Taipei 101 or something. It had really high end stores, such as Coach or Gucci. Of course, we went into the bookstore and again, I love their bookstores. They have little corners for you to sit or counters on top of bookshelves to just browse through books. We spoke with this really nice guy, Paul, who has been living in Taiwan for the past three years. He came from Rhode Island, and he was really interested in what we were doing here. Apparently his ex-girlfriend did the Ambassadorial trip with Rotary a few years ago as well.

[Whitney and I in Taipei 101.]

So then we headed up to Taipei 101. We took the elevator, and it was so fast. It was only like 40 seconds, and it was just exciting to know that we were on the tallest building in the world. We took a billion pictures, and I really enjoyed looking out over Taipei. The city is huge, and everything looked beautiful because there were rivers and mountains too. We ran into two other Rotary students, Michelle and Maddy, and then we spoke with this guy from Australia who is actually Taiwanese. That was cool. Then we left, and I went home.

At home, my family took me to this shopping center where they did their grocery. It was really cool, because it was several stories underground, and it basically had everything. Then we took everything home, and then we drove to this really tall mountain to climb a ton of stairs to enter this temple. I am not sure what it is called, but there were seriously a lot of stairs. I was tired from the earlier walking I had done, and so my legs were shaking after this. But the view was amazing from there. I could see Taipei 101 in the distance, and there was this great religious figure too. The temple at the top had a lot of people praying and just people hanging out.

Wednesday, August 27th, 2008

[In front of part of the temple.]
My host mom and I went on the moped to Tung Blossom Park, which is at the top of another big mountain. There was this lovely temple, and unfortunately I couldn’t go inside to pray, because I was wearing shorts. We walked outside of the temple where there were stands selling food and I had my lunch there. It was really peaceful, and I saw two big golden retrievers there, so I was happy. It reminded me of my puppy, Apple. Then we left and we went to another market to buy food. We also went to the bank again to attempt to withdraw money from my account. I don’t know why I’m having so many problems. I was finally able to get some money out, but I think I only withdrew like $6 US so that was disappointing. We’re trying again tomorrow.

[At dinner with my host brother and his friends.]
Then I went out to dinner with my host brother. It was a bit scary since we went on the moped, and I am pretty sure he goes faster than his mom does. We met up with six of his friends, and they were really nice. It was funny, because they were all guys, but they were very sweet with each other. We went to eat at this nice buffet place basically where we got a bunch of food and then cooked it ourselves in several different soups. Only one guy spoke some English, and they were all trying hard to answer my questions. Whenever I asked about a certain food, they would try to find out by discussing it for several minutes and then looking on this dictionary on their game system things. They would also get me food, and then try to teach me little words of Chinese. Since I couldn’t really participate in their conversation, I would notice little things they did (for example, serve food for each other or ask each other about their day at work). I thought it was really cute, and funny. I also learned about the lifestyles of “young people” in Taiwan. They wanted to take me to a movie, but we decided against it because it was getting rather late and I was tired and so were they. Most of them worked as computer sales managers or they were students. After we ate, we went to another night market and it was very busy. It was funny, because everybody kept staring since these guys were surrounding me since they thought I would get lost or something, and I was taking pictures of everything unusual, which made it pretty evident that I was a foreigner. Overall, I had an enjoyable time because it was my first real time hanging out with just Taiwanese people my age.

Thursday, August 28th, 2008.

[In front of the five story shopping mall.]
Today my host mom took me to the Global Mall. It was so nice and new. It was about six stories, with the movie theatres on the 5th floor. We are going to go see a movie tomorrow (Mamma Mia, I think), so I’m excited. We browsed through the stores, and then we had lunch. The food here is so cheap compared to the US. They give so much food for such an inexpensive price. I couldn’t finish my food. Then we came home, and I took a nap. We also planned for me to meet up with Ariel tomorrow. It sucked, because my host mom wasn’t going to let me go, because Ariel wasn’t part of Rotary, so I was disappointed. The other day Michelle and Maddy wanted to hang out, but my host parents wouldn’t let me go because they had not met them yet. I feel confined here sometimes, because at home, I had a lot more freedom. I know it’s for my own good, but it still frustrates me because I don’t want to stay home all the time and spend all my time only with my host family. But they made an exception for me, so I will be seeing her tomorrow. Also, we went to see this amazing bridge tonight in Sindian City. I'll post more about it later...

I also tried the famous "stinky tofu". It was ... interesting. :]