Tidbits from Taiwan
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
First Couple Days
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Monday, August 29, 2005
10:15
Bedroom, Taipei, Taiwan
Listening to a great piano tune right now, though haven't played any piano since arriving. Still hope to do it though. I also still haven't got around to doing a number of things including walking to Spencer and Mandy's house where Tonia and Elisa live. Speaking of who, Elisa, a nice German foreign exchange student arrived...Friday with all the Germans and is now the second person staying at the Huo's (Spencer and Mandy) apartment on the 11th floor of a nice building with a pool. The Huo's have two daughters (twins...seeing lots of those here) that are both on an exchange currently, forgot whereto. Since last written, I have attended a Rotary Club meeting where I sang to the group (like 15 people) the Chinese kid's song "Liang ger Lao Hu". That got a little laugh. Kunio Ba-ba is now, with the help of his home Karaoke system, teaching me another Chinese song, along this time a love song for the girls...yea-do. Having tea every night and incense every morning...seriously, its like a dream come true...heh.
Sat: We spent a good day at the beach getting buuuurned. I rode some crazy waves on our backs and then when we got got wise and some cash a nifty mini-surf board. That was fantasticly fun. We also we taken one at a time out sailing on Spencer's small boat. That was great...then I fell off. On Elisa's turn, the boat completely flipped. I was unbelievably smart when I forgot to put on sunscreen until half way through the day: one for the team. As a result, sleep has been a bunch of turning, yelping and waking during the night for two days. We met this dude from Australia teaching English with his friend (they didn't know a bit of chinese, and said it wasn't needed) with a cool accent and a fro named Joe. I also had a darn of a time trying to order Jiao-Zi from a stand, and almost ended up with a bowl of ice with tomatoes and other accessories in it before an English speaking lady stepped in...still chugging along with my chinese it seems. [hem...Some people might say that betel nuts taste good, and the local brew is said to tast fruity by others]
Sun: The Rotary orientation for the district took place right next to the 101 building, tallest in the world and full of clothes and food. Lots of rules and stuff, but I did meet a bunch of exchangers; some fun-loving Mexicans, some Germans, French guys, Japanese and other country people. There are four other people in that district (6560) going to Shiou-Fong with me who are Elisa, one of the Mexicans named Gaston, a Colombian girl named Liz, and a Japanese guy that I didn't get to meet by the name of Akira. The community festival that night was sweet, we ate lots of interesting stuff like rice stuffed into a hollow bamboo shoot, lots of noodles, almost tried stinky tofu and that Japanese drink where the glass ball drops into the drink (hard to explain). There was a bunch of performers including break dancing kinda stuff, clowns, cool singers, and even Mandy (Spencer's wife) performed with a dance group. Food was fantastic.
Mon: We (Me, Elisa and Tonia) have explored quite a bit of the city just around our area between my and their houses. Today we spent quite a bit of time looking for a Chinese restaurant for lunch that also had meat Jiao-Zi (Shui-Jiao), good tea, had customers, and was open. After about an hour we ended up at the infamous Mos-Burger, which sells rice-bun burgers with sea food inside and other good stuff. I got a bunch of little stuff: chinese book, chinese movie, little milk-yogurt bottle things, and new sandals.
Last stuff, er, still studying chinese, learning a lot and watching chinese soaps every night (they have cool kung-fu in them, so they are good) with wo de host family. I am picking up words and some phrases now. Not sleepy every minute of the day any more so I guess I am pretty used to Taiwan now. I also don't mind so much the blazing heat and icky sticky humidity. Good night.
10:15
Bedroom, Taipei, Taiwan
Listening to a great piano tune right now, though haven't played any piano since arriving. Still hope to do it though. I also still haven't got around to doing a number of things including walking to Spencer and Mandy's house where Tonia and Elisa live. Speaking of who, Elisa, a nice German foreign exchange student arrived...Friday with all the Germans and is now the second person staying at the Huo's (Spencer and Mandy) apartment on the 11th floor of a nice building with a pool. The Huo's have two daughters (twins...seeing lots of those here) that are both on an exchange currently, forgot whereto. Since last written, I have attended a Rotary Club meeting where I sang to the group (like 15 people) the Chinese kid's song "Liang ger Lao Hu". That got a little laugh. Kunio Ba-ba is now, with the help of his home Karaoke system, teaching me another Chinese song, along this time a love song for the girls...yea-do. Having tea every night and incense every morning...seriously, its like a dream come true...heh.
Sat: We spent a good day at the beach getting buuuurned. I rode some crazy waves on our backs and then when we got got wise and some cash a nifty mini-surf board. That was fantasticly fun. We also we taken one at a time out sailing on Spencer's small boat. That was great...then I fell off. On Elisa's turn, the boat completely flipped. I was unbelievably smart when I forgot to put on sunscreen until half way through the day: one for the team. As a result, sleep has been a bunch of turning, yelping and waking during the night for two days. We met this dude from Australia teaching English with his friend (they didn't know a bit of chinese, and said it wasn't needed) with a cool accent and a fro named Joe. I also had a darn of a time trying to order Jiao-Zi from a stand, and almost ended up with a bowl of ice with tomatoes and other accessories in it before an English speaking lady stepped in...still chugging along with my chinese it seems. [hem...Some people might say that betel nuts taste good, and the local brew is said to tast fruity by others]
Sun: The Rotary orientation for the district took place right next to the 101 building, tallest in the world and full of clothes and food. Lots of rules and stuff, but I did meet a bunch of exchangers; some fun-loving Mexicans, some Germans, French guys, Japanese and other country people. There are four other people in that district (6560) going to Shiou-Fong with me who are Elisa, one of the Mexicans named Gaston, a Colombian girl named Liz, and a Japanese guy that I didn't get to meet by the name of Akira. The community festival that night was sweet, we ate lots of interesting stuff like rice stuffed into a hollow bamboo shoot, lots of noodles, almost tried stinky tofu and that Japanese drink where the glass ball drops into the drink (hard to explain). There was a bunch of performers including break dancing kinda stuff, clowns, cool singers, and even Mandy (Spencer's wife) performed with a dance group. Food was fantastic.
Mon: We (Me, Elisa and Tonia) have explored quite a bit of the city just around our area between my and their houses. Today we spent quite a bit of time looking for a Chinese restaurant for lunch that also had meat Jiao-Zi (Shui-Jiao), good tea, had customers, and was open. After about an hour we ended up at the infamous Mos-Burger, which sells rice-bun burgers with sea food inside and other good stuff. I got a bunch of little stuff: chinese book, chinese movie, little milk-yogurt bottle things, and new sandals.
Last stuff, er, still studying chinese, learning a lot and watching chinese soaps every night (they have cool kung-fu in them, so they are good) with wo de host family. I am picking up words and some phrases now. Not sleepy every minute of the day any more so I guess I am pretty used to Taiwan now. I also don't mind so much the blazing heat and icky sticky humidity. Good night.
Monday, August 22, 2005
Jet Lag
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Well, I had a nice 22 hour journey to Taipei, marked by lots of Ginger Ale, ice, and plastic pillows. After leaving Seattle, saying goodbye to my wailing mum and getting on the plane, I went by Honolulu, which was nice and hot and had parts of the airport which were completely open to the outside, no doors or anything. The layover in Osaka was about 2 hours. I almost got lost though, not knowing which stop to get off on in the really cool outdoor train thing.
The plane ride from Osaka to Taipei was relaxing. Got my japanese seafood noodles and hot tea, some butter from Australia with bread, Italian dressing with my salad, listening to my new iPod (thats right) assembled in China, and talking to (gesturing with) a nice old lady from Osaka. Thats multicultural right there, heh.
Coming into Taipei, 9 at night, was gorgeous. The street lights in the cities were like bright snakes of fire of something, and the nice big mountain near my house. After giving my ticket to the plane people (they had forget to pull off the ticket in Osaka and were freaking out), I met up with some other Rotary Youth Exchangers off the plane. One girl named Noel from Tennessee, Chris from Canada and...darn it....one more girl from Canada. I'll remember her name.
Kunio was the first person I saw coming out of baggage claim with the sign (my name and a picture of a plane). He is very friendly and welcoming, and gave me this fantastic green slippers first thing into his house.
In the house, they have this awesome Japanese looking setup with a table at ankle level right next to the door, a shrine (is that what you call it?) with really cool Buddhist things and insense, lots of water, and three floors. The shower is fantastic by the way, it rinses out conditioner in seconds, which takes forever in the US. My room is their son's old room (now living/staying in Canada, the other exchanging to Texas). They have a piano, tv, lots of other cool stuff, and a patio on the top floor that looks at the mountain (cool looking chinese building on top) and has about a 270 degree view of the surrounding buildings and city.
We (me, Kunio [ba-ba], his sister, her friends and children, and some other relatives: Linda is currently in Canada till next week) went to lunch today at a Mongolian Barbeque. Fantastic food. I had octopus (first time), a egg dish in a cup type thing, some fish, lots of good meat and rice. Desert was good too, though I don't really know what is was. We all sat around after Bing-Xi-Ling (ice-cream) and the littler girls taught me a bunch of chinese words and characters.
Currently I am in my room, quite full and content typing as it pours rain outside and the dog barks. I really feels like China again...I freaking love it. I'll prolly be writing a lot these first couple weeks/months and then tone is down as I get more used to things. Over and out.
The plane ride from Osaka to Taipei was relaxing. Got my japanese seafood noodles and hot tea, some butter from Australia with bread, Italian dressing with my salad, listening to my new iPod (thats right) assembled in China, and talking to (gesturing with) a nice old lady from Osaka. Thats multicultural right there, heh.
Coming into Taipei, 9 at night, was gorgeous. The street lights in the cities were like bright snakes of fire of something, and the nice big mountain near my house. After giving my ticket to the plane people (they had forget to pull off the ticket in Osaka and were freaking out), I met up with some other Rotary Youth Exchangers off the plane. One girl named Noel from Tennessee, Chris from Canada and...darn it....one more girl from Canada. I'll remember her name.
Kunio was the first person I saw coming out of baggage claim with the sign (my name and a picture of a plane). He is very friendly and welcoming, and gave me this fantastic green slippers first thing into his house.
In the house, they have this awesome Japanese looking setup with a table at ankle level right next to the door, a shrine (is that what you call it?) with really cool Buddhist things and insense, lots of water, and three floors. The shower is fantastic by the way, it rinses out conditioner in seconds, which takes forever in the US. My room is their son's old room (now living/staying in Canada, the other exchanging to Texas). They have a piano, tv, lots of other cool stuff, and a patio on the top floor that looks at the mountain (cool looking chinese building on top) and has about a 270 degree view of the surrounding buildings and city.
We (me, Kunio [ba-ba], his sister, her friends and children, and some other relatives: Linda is currently in Canada till next week) went to lunch today at a Mongolian Barbeque. Fantastic food. I had octopus (first time), a egg dish in a cup type thing, some fish, lots of good meat and rice. Desert was good too, though I don't really know what is was. We all sat around after Bing-Xi-Ling (ice-cream) and the littler girls taught me a bunch of chinese words and characters.
Currently I am in my room, quite full and content typing as it pours rain outside and the dog barks. I really feels like China again...I freaking love it. I'll prolly be writing a lot these first couple weeks/months and then tone is down as I get more used to things. Over and out.
