Tidbits from Taiwan

Moving Host Families went very smoothly, not much change in rules other than some new chores. I now have an 11 year old brother named Henry, a 13 year old sister named Angel, and new host mom named Shirley. They are all fantastic and of course very friendly. I spent my first night in the host home, which is located on the 7th floor of an apartment building about 5 minutes drive from my first host house, playing basketball in doors with Henry then playing Playstation. He and I have started a habit of playing Xiang Qi (Chinese Chess), every night...he has started a habit of his one, that of beating me almost every time. I have also been playing it at school everyday during lunch with classmates.

We visited the Shiou Fong "Orchestra"/Music group last thursday for two hours, listening to traditional Chinese music played on traditional Chinese instruments. It was not quite as good as the "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" soundtrack, but still fantastic.

Tea is now my companion throughout my school days since...this week. I bought a nice package of lipton tea bags, a collection which I have been slowing erroding away. Drinking tea during the day has been extra nice now that, after a brief spell of heat, the weather has turned a tad bitter again. It makes the 'cha' all the more yummy. Once in a while I bring in Yerba Mate (de Argentina) to Chinese class where me and Los Latinos sip from the gourd throughout the 3-hour lesson.

Speaking of all this tea, we succesfully pulled off another group trip to Muzha Mountain for some tea and relaxation. This time however, the group got out of bed at around 5:30 and met at Muzha Station at 7:00 where we ate breakfast (these fanstastic tortillas with egg and a special sweet sauce, oh so good, that are very popular here - "Dan Bing"). As expected though, because of the earlier hours, we lost two of our number to the seduction of sleep. That left three people, Phillip (German), Zach (USA), and myself (Guess). We sat at the top of the mountain (sadly not as cold this time around) for about 6 hours before heading down. This time I had in mind eating lunch at a restaurant that I had spotted on the previously trip, that overlooks a rather large valley of lush forest and clouds. We never made it to that scenic eatery since I was distracted by a giant buddha sitting in a temple. After exiting the bus rather spontaneously and entering the wide open temple three stories tall (on top of the mountain, oh so cool) we talked with the temple people and over a nice cup of, heh, tea (which we were full to bursting of after 6 hours) they invited us and the rest of the exchange students to come back on December 11 for a Buddhist holiday, though I have yet to fully understand which Buddhist holiday that is. We did catch some noodles after the temple at another cool restaurant overlooking a different valley. We then, instead of do the logical action of walking on the road and catching a bus home, veered off onto a mountain trail that we had no idea of its destination, and had a great time running, jumping and climbing through the mountain to find our we down to the city. We trudged through some farms (getting some funny looks from farmers) and got slightly lost before crossing a stream and finding road again. I haven't figured out how to take a good quality close-up yet, but these mountains contain some very humungous [4-7'' spiny leg span] and very scary looking spiders lying in silent wait on very hard to see webs stretched across very narrow paths. Great fun. That night I saw a movie with a classmate named Anita. The movie was completely in Japanese with Chinese subtitles, which left me at a loss of understanding.

We saw very interesting dancing next to 101 (yes, the number is the name of the world's tallest BUILDING [1,670ft, there are two TOWERS taller than it in Russia and Canada]) and there was this guy doing flips and the craziest dance moves. I asked him afterward if he could do fire twirling (Poi, Glowsticking, Glowstringing) and, get this, he said it was to hard. Ha! We also ran in to some new exchange students from the only other district in Taipei. I later (Monday) went to one of the student's birthday party near Taipei Power Building Station. It was a fanstastic time, I beat a couple people at pool, played others games, talked and celebrated the girl's (Elsa) 18th.

Feliz cumpleanos compadre. Parece que te estas divirtiendo mucho.
David

Hey Matthew, so good te hear that you are happy and healthy! Just wanted to wish you Happy Birthday kid! We miss you, but then again we aren't used to having you around. ha Take care!
Amy & Bre

you're cute kid keep it up and i know your birthdays kinda coming up here so i don't know, you want a ppound of jelly beans or something? anyway love you keep having a blast and i'll catch you later

looks like you're having an awesome time man, it's good to hear about everything new in taiwan, have you heard jay chou?
stan