Dec 26: Story worth keeping

johnny and chris were driving me back to my dorm from dinner and we're passing the pond

so they say, ok amy, we're gonna throw you into the pond so i'm like, ok. real serious so then its not funny if i don't protest so johnny keeps driving so i go Ha! and he slams on his breaks and i'm like oh shit and him and chris both get out of the car to grab me in the backseat so i panic and lock my door and then i lunge to the right and lock the other back door and then johnny's going to open his door so i lunge back and lock the front door and then go back across and lock chris's door and then suddenly its like...they're locked out of the car!! and i'm like whew, i'm safe! but then there's no driver, so i'm like great, how will i get back now and obviously i can drive, so i get in the front seat and jonny and chris try to block the car but obviously its a car, so if i keep going forward they have to get out of the way so i ended up driving slowly back to my dorm myself with chris on the hood and johnny running behind and we were passing through throngs of people so i think it was real embarrassing and chris tried taking his jacket off and blocking my view, but i kept driving so he's like shit she can hit people so he took it off and it was funny because one of the japanese girls, nozomi drives by on a moped and she's like...huh?? cuz johnny and chris are both outside but the car is driving and after i got out of the car then johnny just slings me over his shoulder to like take me back to the pond but i'm like kicking him

so chris has to come to grab my legs but its ok, i got out of it

11/22: Thanksgiving in Taiwan!

whoa sooo at the beginning of the week i was pretty bummed about not being able to celebrate Thanksgiving in the US ( for many reasons: 1] no turkey 2] no friends/family from home 3] no black friday shopping 4] no days off of school) but yesterday i went bowling and ate all you can eat hot pot with my lab (sooooooooooooooo much food). and i learned how to make my own hot pot sauce, complete with raw egg yolk (i hope i don't get salmonella). Then today I got everyone together to eat at Noble Family (shit i forget the chinese for it again...guan zuo shi jia i think) which is you order a steak and then get all you can eat salad, dessert, and other snacks. whaa so gooooood and so much food. we ate so much it def felt like thanksgiving. and then we went to McDonald's next door for some apple pie :)

strange thing: taiwanese people all think thanksgiving is a christian holiday.

11/13-11/15: Modern Toilet

11/13: i dont remember....

11/14: Went to Chung Li for shopping with Ben, Cyril, Shiho, Yui, and Nozomi and bought a pretty scarf. Then went back to YZU to have spanish class with Spike and Jacob and then met for dinner with the French and Emily also. We went to Modern Toilet and besides the stress of ordering, it was a lot of fun just because of the atmosphere.

11/15: Went running with Rong Kang, we ran 5 laps then i ran another 2 while he walked, then we walked like 3 or 4 laps then ran another 2. then later met with adeline to study Chinese...got through IQC 200

11/11-11/12: Sweeeet Shopping

11/11: Went to Carrefour with Adeline to walk around (to use her buy 1 get 1 Starbucks coupons) we walked around a lot and i bought 2 shirts and some other things. then i met up with lab people and other lab people to go to FE21 for shopping. I didn't buy anything :( cuz it was all too expensive, but 3 of the guys bought scarfs for girls (2 in the hopes of getting something) which is kinda funny. And also bought a sparkling lychee water that came in a clear soda can, so cool! then went bowling with the lab people who didn't go shopping. Played 5 games and got consistently worse! Tao kept switching turns with me to even out the scores lol. It was still pretty degrading. Then went to McDonalds. Then Tao walked me back. Then i finally got to talk to juan for a decent amount of time! :)

11/12: Woke up to the sound of jackhammers outside my window...woo .__. Not cool at all. So went to lab late from crankiness. Found out i had no class though, sweeeet. And got some lab stuff done but not as much as i hoped. Later PKd with Tao at Egyptian Ratscrew after they played baseball. then went to dinner and ate too much :( Then met up with Adeline to go meet the French guys for French night (Ratatoullie and french food!) and picked up Spike along the way. The whole day i tried to convince people to go with me to Carrefour to buy shoes cuz i wanted a pair and adeline wanted a bag. Anyways, we ended up going and none of them liked the shoes and then i bought 2 pairs! (buy 1 get 1) so 2 pairs of sweet ass pumas for $42uS :) down to the wire too, but i think it was meant to be because they ended up finding my size when they said the smaller pair was the last one. :) super happyyyyyy then watched Ratatoullie, great movie, made me feel happy

11/10: Chinese Lesson: Cell Phones

Cell phone = shou ji
Take pics = pai zhao
Other words I already forgot...but yea, I helped josh buy a cell phone and a prepaid plan. superb! and we ate at pizza hut which was coooool. they wrap up your pizza boxes in red and yellow ribbon as if its a gift :) I miss pizza hut trips. and the plan came with a tshirt and josh didn't like the color so i got it! sweeet

then i was hired the shave josh's neck hair...woooo, it was actually fun! i've wanted to shave juan's face but was always too scared, now i think i can do it :)

then i met up with adeline to take the bus to Chung Li to look for hotels for juan. she told me the one her fam stay in had cockroaches...so I thought it best not to go there. instead we searched for (and found!) a hotel i saw where we ate lunch buffet with the professor. and it was really nice and about to same price as the one in Taipei. and the mattress was soft! woooot! but unfortunately there was no space on one of the days :( but they will call me in a few days to tell me if there's space.

then shopping and eating!! i had a good chinese pancake with egg and some dumplings. plus an apple pie at mcdonalds :) then i bought a necklace and a fake LeSportSac make up bag.

nice day :)

11/9: Dramarama with Tea and Cake

wooo so i finally got a research project!! (::dance::) wooooo! later later i met up with adeline cuz she got some cakes from someone and we had tea that she stole from the hotel and she showed me pics of her family's trip to taiwan. its nice talking to adeline! good girl talk with her!

sigh but all day there was drama with the guys and christine so i felt like an annoying older sister today. i hope this stops!

11/1-11/8: Kending/Midterms

11/1: Kinetics quiz...such a joke, everyone cheats like crazy. It felt like a game trying to hunt down all the answers

11/2: Leaving for Kending! Took the HSR to Tainan and walked around eating food! Then took a rest in a FE21's starbucks and played cards. Met up with the other lab group and went to their professors house.

11/3: The guys rented mopeds and we drove to Anping to eat food and see some temples and others sites. I also got a short lesson on how to ride a moped! so cool! continued on to kending...the resort was awesome! i wasn't even expecting to be in a resort but it was beautiful!

11/4: walked around the resort and realized the water was too cold to swim :( the wen wei joined us while we were in the arcade. then played volleyball by the beach for a few hrs (everyone was in pain after) until dinner. Dinner was fun and good bonding with Wang Yi and Wen Wei! Then got driven over to Kending Old Street for some shopping. Coming back we went to the Sports Bar and each got a drink and then I taught them how to play Egyptian Ratscrew. It was hilarious; everyone was a little tipsy (yea...1 drink each plus sharing an LIT leaves asian people tipsy) after awhile and everyone got really into the game. Wang Yi kept getting in my space and then they were all making fun of how i played. then we ate steamed buns from the teacher

11/5: early morning had to go to the conference in Kending. I was disappointed once I realized we had to listen to seminars and not go play :( But finally after lunch we were set free by the professor so i made them go to the beach so I could get SOME nice pics of scenery in Kending since we didn't go to the National Park or the Marine Biology Museum & Aquarium (both famous places to go in Kending). Then bought more souvenirs and went to Amy's Cucina to eat pizza while we waited for the bus back. Took the bus to Kaoshiong to catch the HSR so I got to see Love River which was beautiful. Then took the HSR back to Taoyuan and taxi back home!

11/6: studied alllll day, and was antisocial

11/7: studied kinda all day, but played games with the lab and still antisocial

11/8: stupid ass Kinetics exam...don't want to talk about it so i don't remember it later on! just went back after and ran 2 miles and continued being antisocial, but now i'm ok!

10/31: Happy Halloween!

I brought my lab candy yayy. They all thought I brought it from America, but when I said I got it from Carrefour they all looked a little less excited. But they still thought it was cool so I was happy. Studied outside of that then met with Adeline Chris and Johnny to prep our costumes. I think they all turned out well. i was a homeless bum! the party was fun too, lotsa fooood!

10/30: 2nd Stressful Day

I shouldn't even commemorate this day with a post. Just basically studied all day and stressed about Kinetics. Went to class which was hella boring, only interesting part was that my classroom was around the area of the explosion, where you could still smell the smoke and they were cleaning up. you could see shattered glass and heavy smoke residue on the ceiling. but mostly it meant that i climbed up 4 flights of stairs to find out class was moved to the first floor. then continued studying. and then later went to eat some cheesecake with adeline and joe. at least tomorrow is halloween!

10/29: 1st Stressful Day

ah I tried to get so much work done today, and it didn't work out so well! i got maybe 1/3 of my hw problems done. i still havea quiz on thursday and i haven't looked at one of the chps. And i wanted to get a lot of studying done before leaving for kenting. sigh! its no use...someone even told me i was stupid today to put so much effort into studying for this class because everyone just copies hw problems...studying doesn't help. blah.

then ran into the french people and we went to artist and i got a waffle! (called Muffin...sui or shui bing) it was good. artist always makes me feel at home. i showed them some halloween pictures and stuff then we came back. anyway, possible drama is ensuing...

oh, and while at artist, the fire alarm went off and you could smell smoke from building 2 (chemE building) pretty cooool. everyone was screaming for no school tomorrow

and then i sliced my finger with my razor...yay for 3 bladed razors...

10/28: Batting Cage!

Today was super 6 hours of class...wooo....it was pretty awful, i can't lie about that. he also added 17 problems to the hw and a quiz on thursday, wtf!!! And my ear was hurting a lot, so i couldn't lie down on my right side. but after Tao wanted to go make copies of the solns manual so i went with. The copy store was closed so I ended up getting to see his apt because he had a printer. So i got to watch 10min of TV!! woooo, it was harry potter 1 :) then i went with him to the batting cages, cuz he's really good at batting and I want to get better. It was fun! but really tiring...he had me try to 120km and 130kmph ones! craaaaazy, i didn't hit any, but he said i am swinging well...just not hitting the right place. but i think i will be really sore tomorrow. then went to mcdonald's lol. I got a quesadilla/burrito from McCafe and a corn soup and OJ, mmmm. we had a good conversation! i learned some gossip about the lab, which cleared up some thoughts i had :P, then saw Jacob and Rafael too. then went back and went to the library to try to do my loads of hw. but anyways, still a good day :)

10/27: Happy Birthday Cyril!

Today I tried to do my homework for kinetics and got about as far as i could go, then got the solns manual. I went to meet Adeline to go see December Boys (with harry potter in it!) and we took the bus and all and when we got there, found out that it wasn't playing for some reason! Not cool! so we went to Sogo instead. I bought a pair of earrings then we went back and i got dinner on the way and we ate by the pond. Then we went to Jerome's room for Cyril's bday party! I got him a jar of Nutella and a birthday hat! Johnny tried to teach me the crypt walk and i think i almost got it. Then later the foam tiles on the floor gave way under me and i fell hard...my head hit a chair (on my ear of all places) and my hand has a bump and my arms has some scrapes...crazy! apparently it was cuz a bag of ice on the floor had melted. not cool! my ear is still a bit swollen :(

10/26: Funktion

Today was just me being really out of it because of going to search last night. I met up with lab for lunch then tried to do homework but just kept falling asleep, so i went back and slept until we were supposed to go running. Turned out Paul wore sandals to school today, very convenient, so Jack and Paul just ran a lap and then Stephen ran 5 laps with me. Then met up with Spike, Johnny, Chris, Adeline and Emily to go to Funktion to get cheeseburgers. Only to find out they didn't sell cheeseburgers anymore so we went next door to a restaurant called Design Fever that was really awesome! It was Japanese style where we sat so you take off your shoes and sit on pillows so it was so homey! We got a meal for 4 people to share and it was soup, salad, appetizer, pizza, and dessert. all were really good! then we just sat and talked until 11pm (when Design Fever closes, and Funktion starts buy 1 get 1 free drinks with Spike's card) when we went back to Funktion. I got a Peach Sour and it was really good. It was funny because when we got our drinks, spike wasn't there, and the waitress was saying the drink name in chinese so we all look at each other confused then turn to Emily and she's like lying on her side and looking like she was clawing at air, and it was soo hilarious I couldn't stop laughing for a few minutes because it looked like she was in her own world. She said later that she was trying to open the window, so it made more sense. So fun night, but we agreed to only stay an hr and so we left at 12. Then walking to spike's car, me and Adeline recognized the area as the night market we went to on the bus which was cool, slowly understanding the area...

10/23-10/25: Quick Week

Wow that was a fast weekday...I don't really remember what happened so I'm going to lump it all together...

Tuesday: I went running at night after talking to Christine and her friends and it was a really great run, ran about 10 laps without much thought. I had to take a walking lap in the middle to catch my breath so i ran slower after. But now Adeline and the guys in my lab want to run too, so yay i have partners.

Wednesday: In the morning got breakfast with Stephen and Paul. Later I went to Carrefour with Chris and Johnny because they were getting a mini fridge. It was good because I got halloween candy for my lab. We were supposed to go karaoke but then Guo Long had to do something so we canceled. Instead I watched a talent show because the japanese girls were in it. Before that I went to spanish lesson with Spike and Scott but we had no Spanish teacher so we just did Chinese for a little. After we went to get Curry Chicken but they didn't have it again but instead she gave us really good potato wedges for free!

Thursday: So busy! Class sucked as normal except i also found out i have like 8 chapters to read for my Kinetics midterm. then had a lunch with the professor and lab. It was to a buffet place in Chungli that was really good so I think i'll take juan there when he comes. It was just walking like 1.5 blocks from the train station. then i went to get my hair done with christine, but i was late. and it was cool cuz the guy ended up doing my make up too because christine wasn't sure how to do me. then rushed back and it was cute cuz Johnny got me flowers! All the girls got flowers but johnny got me the most! Anyway the dance itself sucked...there was some weird show then the dance team performed, then a magician performed. Then they kind of had a dance lesson...and then they only played slow dance music. Me and emily went to request faster music and she said we could wait til the end (which would apparently only be 10min, so it was a real short dance) and when they played faster it was still the old music, just faster. then played Hound Dog then it was over! So everyone went to search after...it was good again just I was tired.

10/22: what a day

awful morning. i felt like crap so i decided to sleep in and not go to lab or lunch and wake up to go to class. but got woken up by johnny telling me to come to see the japanese girls dance at this Japan festival and i was like crap i forgot! so i had to go and i was bleary eyed and felt really out of body. i came right after the girls danced anyways and then i just got bread and a bottle of water for lunch. then went to class and learned about p-n semiconductors, which I kinda almost understand...i just kept thinking that i didn't do EE for a reason yet somehow i got into doing solar cell research. then i went back to my room to do laundry and other things including figure out my schedule for next semester! kinda crazy to think about it. then went to dinner with the lab people and after we had to discuss the Process Control hw which was making paper helicopters. Meanwhile, this dragged out til 9:30ish cuz they kept doing Rock paper scissor competitions, which normally involves the loser getting whacked in the ass with a big roll of poster paper. there was also some stands outside for the japanese thing so Jack bought me cotton candy, cuz they went to buy something else. It was really nice, but i was kinda taken aback because I 've been feeling like they just hang out with me from obligation, like i'm the little sister they have to bring around. today paul called me for lunch (but i didn't see it til later) and then also called me for dinner. and apparently it was because he lost at rock paper scissors. they laughed about it, but its not very funny for me if you think about it. but i think its just cuz paul is real shy. anyways they walked me home to the dorm and then i was researching how to do my research...which feels like a losing battle.

10/21: Shopping!

Today I met up with Adeline to start our day of shopping. I finally stopped at the shaobing yotiao place to try it for my mom. In the first part of the day we had to do some business...I wanted to check out some hotels for Juan and Adeline needed to go to the travel agency for her parents' trip here. I was happy we actually made it to all the places in good time...thanks to me meticulously writing the walking directions (though I still almost went the wrong way a few times). In a search of salad for Adeline, we ate lunch at Dante's Coffee and she was so happy (4months without salad). Then we headed to Wufenpu Shopping District- recommended by Joanne (international student counselor type) and it ended up being a major downer. There were about a million shops full of people with no space. Everything we liked was expensive, and we ended up getting nothing. I almost bought a pair of earrings from Korea that were pretty but felt cheap and where $290 (~$8). I'm used to $1.74 earrings at Target so...couldn't do it. Then we finally gave up and went to Raohe Night Market. We were both pretty dejected cuz we had such a positive out look for our day. along the way we stopped at some places and all at once we each had new purses (hers for $390, mine for $150!) so we were both way happy and ready to shop again. Raohe was pretty awesome, lots of clothes. We had some fried dumplings that were realllly good. I bought a pair of boots for only $350 (down from $390, so $10US) and then Adeline got pumps and then boots and then we both got jeans. The jeans place was awesome! They give you a personal shopper who helps you pick jeans and then they tailor the pants too! pretty sweet. we went to the train station and found out we missed the last Train to Neili so we'd have to stop at Taoyuan and then taxi over. but, we were able to take the sweet high speed rail, which means comfy seats! not standing for 40min. The taxi ride home was crazy, running every red light and going real fast, but we made it so its all good!

10/20: Miaoli

Today the Geography class went to Miaoli; specifically, the Sanyi Woodcarving Museum (miaoli is the wood carving capitol of Taiwan) and Shihtoushan (Lion's Head Mtn). The Woodcarving museum was cool, but small. There was amazing carving of a hand holding a butterfly. It looked like it could break if a slight wind blew. Unfortunately, no picture taking, but it was really beautiful. Then walked along the road, cuz i wanted to buy some wood carvings, but there was nothing that popped out (that was in my price range). Then went to the mountain to see the sunset (Top 10 views in Taiwan) but the bus got lost so we ended up missing it! real lame. We even had a scare as the bus took a u turn and thought we were gonna die. But we finally found a buddhist temple that was nice. We had dinner there (all vegetarian but still good, its supposed to be famous for its vegetarian food). Then we went home. It was nice, me and Jerome had good bonding talk, and I learned a whole bunch of curse words from the French people.

10/19: Chung Yuan?

The day was typical and blah cept I went to the pond in the afternoon to edit a draft of my professors paper. The pond was really relaxing and the weather was perfect. Later I met with Adeline to try to take the bus that comes into YZU and goes to Chung Li. The goal for this trip was to find the Chung Li Night Market. I heard the bus driver telling some kids the night market was over there so we got off and followed. Summary of the night: not Chung Li Night Market, possibly Chung Yuan Night market. We each got a new shirt for $290 and also some hair things. I got a thin white headband with "diamonds" and Adeline got a really pretty hairclip. I bargained so we got em for $130 each. Food was also good. We got dumplings. Then I got this um dough...with peanuts...thing that was ok. Adeline got a croissant donut that was AMAZING. then I got a bubble tea...without bubbles :( Then she got a crepe. Then on the way back I realized I may still be hungry, so we went to a food place near the grad dorms to get noodles. I ate in Adeline's dorm and we talked. Then Ben and Johnny invited us to go to Search again, but we were both too tired and Adeline had work the next morning. But she showed me pics from a bar called Funktion where they have REAL cheeseburgers and fries! So i'm really excited and want to go there. Then we just went to go keep Johnny company because Chris wasn't there. Picked up Jerome. We ended up talking really late, but it was fun.

10/18: 45 Days

I only know that because I can renew my visa now. Rudely woken up today by my alarm in the middle of a really random dream about throwing pinar a surprise birthday party and making fresh smoothies. I hurried to class to find out that it was canceled (w00t!) only to be replaced by a 6hr class on Saturday...;( So i made my lab group presentation and went back to my room to sleep. Went to lunch with Chris today, stead of lab people and got curry chicken mmmm. Sat in the window and got to stare at everyone. Lab people walked by and Tao gave me an extra green tea which made Chris fake cry because no one buys him drinks. Then went to lab. In the meeting i was annoyed because my professor finally thought of a great project for me, which meant i wasted much more time. I also found out my cd drive isn't working properly. Later I went to eat with Johnny in the nice cafe and mmm it was good. Then met with Adeline to go to the library to study Chinese, instead of go to the boring ass chinese class.

10/17: Cold Day

First day I had to wear long sleeves all day. It's been maybe a week of everyone else wearing 1 or 2 sweatshirts though. I'm still not quite sure what the temperature is here (its all celsius) but I think its much more comfortable than when it was blazing hot. I did homework in the morning then went to lab to correct it. Had lunch came back, more correcting, then I started feeling dizzy and I had to meet Josh to go to carrefour. Anyways, josh gave me an oatmeal pie and it made me feel a bit better, so maybe it was low blood sugar. I blame Adeline's apple crumble, i've been eating like mad since having that. then we came back and got people together to throw around. Then went to eat at the fried rice place, though we didn't get fried rice. Then I came back to finish my homework!

10/16: Softball

Today I went to lab and just did some homework and made new cells. Then had class (very boring again) though at the end we made paper helicopters, and they said I was a natural because they couldn't make theirs fly. Then we went out to play softball. I just through around with Tao because I had no glove (they only had an extra righty glove) then I got to hit and it was fun since I haven't done that since 6th grade-ish. They play with a wooden bat, and it makes a nice sound when you hit the ball. They were all impressed that I could bat, though Tao was by far the best hitter. Nothing much after that, but had dinner at French time of 9pm, at which time everything closes so we ate from Family Mart. Johnny is sick now as well as Ivy.

10/12-10/15: Sum up week 5!

10/12: Haircut Day!!! Emily took me to Taoyuan to get a $270 haircut. It ended up being really awesome! The woman who cut knew what to do really quickly and just went to work even though i was still unsure about what i wanted. but then i ended up buying this haircream for $450 and now i regret it because i haven't used it. sometimes i shouldn't listen to emily, but most of the time something good comes out of it anyway, it was my idea to begin with. then we walked around taoyuan cuz there's tons of shopping around there, but we just looked at the little stores. i saw a winter coat that i loved but long story short, i'd have to come back another time to get it so i was sad. oh but i got some steamed buns that were AWESOME

10/13: Taoyuan and Search! In the morning i was debating whether i wanted to go on this Chinese Geography trip to Hsinchu and Yingge. Then I called Jerome and found out they were going to Taoyuan with Jerry so I invited myself so I could go buy my coat! I got Josh to come with me since they had already left. Good thing emily told me how to go the night before. We took the bus and it was really easy, just $15 (50 cents) and it went straight there. We walked through 2 dept stores (also got food at the top of Far East 21 which was yummy, a bowl of noodles and meat sauce and wonton soup and a chocolate bubble tea). it was chaos in Idee, but the belgians all bought 3 piece suits (for only about $250!!). then went to my store and I bought my coat, plus a short sleeve jacket and a button up short sleeve that was awesome! then went to hunt down some food. josh wanted an omelette thing so i got turnip cake from the same place. the belgians and jerry got this sandwich thing. the egg stuff was pretty good but they add this starchy stuff that makes it chewy that the guys dont like. they make it with oyster or shrimp. then we went back and got ready quick for Search again for Johnny's birthday. They got a VIP room but this time no all you can drink and the music wasn't as good as first. but then they had some dancers and the "best DJ in asia" who was really good and rapped a song to Johnny for his birthday. got back late again

10/14: Woke up early to meet my Sanyi in Taipei for lunch. I was so out of it!! but met my aunt and got there right on time. The restaurant was cool, its t he 85th floor of Taipei 101 so you get a crazy view of Taipei from the comforts of a restaurant. There's even a view when you go to the bathroom. Then got picked up by Eryi to go to her house and we stopped at the Jade and Flower Market. The flower market was AMAZING. They have beautiful orchids (many that i've never seen) for about $150 ($5US). i was so sad I couldn't take them home. I also saw a cool plant that you can hang, but I thought maybe it'd wither in my room like my turtle :( They have amazing bonsai there too. Then walked through the jade market (the REAL one, not the one i went to last time) and they had cool stuff too. iwill have to go back for gifts for people! then went back and got ready for the taiwanese wedding. the wedding itself was not that amazing. just a really long dinner. the actual marriage part was like 5 min and not very emotional. the best part is the girl gets to buy 3 dresses: 1 for wedding, 1 for toasting everyone, 1 for saying bye to everyone. the dude next to me kept getting more wine and his face was real red by the end. then went back, i was so tired that i lost patience with my aunt internally and really wanted to go home. i cleaned my room and stuff too.

10/15: Happy Birthday Johnny! Johnny's real birthday, and me and Adeline planned to cook dinner for him at Spike's house. It became larger with 10 people total. I went shopping with Chris, Gigi and Spike then picked up Adeline and we went to work cooking. Adeline knows really tasty but easy recipes!

Apple Crumble:
Slice up a bunch of apples in a pot, add lots of cinnamon and brown sugar and a cup of water and simmer on the stove til a bit tender.

Cut up butter in a bowl and add lots of flour and brown sugar and use your hands to mix and knead it til it looks like crumble.

Put apples in a cake pan and add the crumble on top. Put in the oven for ~30min. Serve with ice cream!!!!

Pasta:
Cook cubed chicken, add a lot of cream and a bit of dijon mustard. That's it for sauce!
Cook pasta...add sauce! Really good!

10/11: yay for ultimate

Ah, so I woke up late this morning due to not sleeping the previous night and tried to sneak in during class break. Unfortunately, Tao told me the teacher had asked where I was because he wanted to commend me for being the only one to ask him about the homework he never posted online. Apparently he's never had a more diligent student...(except I came late to class! how ironic) but if this was rutgers ChemE those people would be all over that. what's worse is my knees still hurt. Then redid my solar cells and then had dinner with Johnny and then went to toss around my frisbee with Emily. she was in soccer practice so me and johnny just threw. Then he taught me some soccer and its surprisingly fun, i'm sad i never tried it sooner. I was able to score some goals on him too. Then we tossed around again once Emily was done, later Spike joined us and then Ben and Cyril. It was fun, though Cyril had like a deathwish on me or something when he threw!

10/10: National Day (Happy Bday Taiwan!)

wow so I ended up not being able to sleep...too worried about not waking up and my knees were hurting a lot. so when i went down the elevator at 7:10am I ran into the Japanese girls and when talking to them I realized I didn't know what I was saying (or felt like it) so I had to think really hard with each word to check that I was making sense. When we got to the meeting point I found out from Jerome that Josh wouldn't wake up. So i went myself to see if he wanted to come. When I got there I tried to wake him up but all i got was one eye opened for 2 sec looking really glazed over. He wouldn't even grunt a "no". i debated whether i should force him to give me an answer but I've never seen someone so unresponsive so I just left. (turns out later he didn't remember i went there but soon after I left he had woken up and debated whether he should try to make it) I had johnny save me a seat on the bus and it ended up being in the back 5 seat row sandwiched between the belgians and Johnny. we finally left and they put on Die Hard 4 (bootleg copy) really loud so I couldn't sleep. It really sucked. got to Yehliu Geopark and I really felt like staying on the bus and sleeping, but I'm glad I didn't. It was really beautiful. They're all these rock formations formed by waves and they look like mushrooms. The most famous one is Queen's Head (and really does look like a Queen, or at least a pompous woman). It was a little disappointing that there was a lot of trash in the water washed up on the rocks in some places. I can only assume they just didn't get to cleaning it from the typhoon...next we met up to go to Ocean World to see their dolphin show. At first it was cool (though typical). There were dolphins and seals, then it was just some synchronized swimmers and divers putting on a lame skit to entertain the children. i almost fell asleep during it. Then we went to the basement where there was a small aquarium. They had some interesting fish/sea animals that I've never seen before. But they had a bunch of sea turtles in a relatively small space so I felt really bad for them. then went to lunch at a seafood place. It was pretty good. i learned how to peel shrimp (i had someone else rip the head off). then got back on the bus and went to Juming Museum. Juming is a famous sculptor and artist from Taiwan. He specializes in huge sculptures made to look like they were crudely carved from stone/wood, or rolled up metal. He has a series called Taichi, and also a lot of army things. His early work seemed to be a lot of people (some prostitutes...). at the beginning they showed us a video that went through the whole museum basically and a lot of people fell asleep. Then took the bus to Danshui, so I saw Fisherman's wharf again, but at night. Then Emily showed us around the Old Street where its pretty much all food. I had this "indian" style beef wrap and a fried shrimp roll. Then Emily treated us to Danshui food, which is fish ball soup (the fish balls had meat inside which made them diff from others), stuffed tofu (ya gai?) , and another soup i forget the name...then went to get ice cream cones (they make super tall ones) and donuts from dunkin donuts (not the same donuts at all :( ) then bus back home

10/9: Search Nightclub

Tuesday was a typical day of class and lab except that I had found out my solar cells had burnt in the oven (it didn't turn off for some reason)...so I'd have to do them over. That was a real downer but I just went back to my room to rest because I was supposed to go to a club in Hsinchu with Chris, Johnny, Emily and harold later. Then had dinner with Chris and Johnny then went back to get ready since we were supposed to leave round 9pm. Then we waited around for Harold and he was sleeping til 9:30 then more stuff, then spike came over and emily convinced him to come. We've been waiting like over an hr at this point and me n emily were getting annoyed because we were planning on coming back at 1am because we had to be out at 7:30am the next day for a Cultural Tour. Finally Harold comes and we decide to just go to a club in Chung Li (much closer than Hsinchu). when we think of leaving Spike wants us to invite everyone on MSN...so then we go about inviting and finally we have 11 people total going after over 2 hrs of waiting. the club was supposed to be free to get in for foreigners but then if you pay $300 ($500 for guys) then you can drink as much as you want the rest of the time (that's less than $10US!) so we did that. Me and Emily got a locker to put our stuff in and then it wouldn't lock ( i think because we closed it twice) and so we got one of the workers and he gave us another $30 to use a different one. Then we got in the drink line (there was just one line to get drinks...kinda retarded, but i guess it makes for less free drinks in the end) and find out we need the ticket we got and emily had hers in the locker, so we had to end up spending another $30 to open the locker. finally emily got her drink (I got my second, cuz in the time it took to get to the front i had finished my first). we were all drinking and finally start dancing and didn't stop til the place closed at 4am! this was bad news for all of us because that meant about 2 hrs of sleep. but that was seriously a fun time. i just danced with all the guys (me and emily were the only girls of the group) and chris and em pulled me up to this platform to dance. i think taiwan clubs are much less intimidating because there's less of those crazy good dancers everywhere so any decent girl looks amazing :P. it was also funny because guys would go up too and dance and they all took their shirts off like they were hot shit. during the night i also got burned twice by cigarrettes (makes you appreciate the no smoking in NJ), so i have a scar on one hand and there's a burn mark on my shirt. the guys were all dancing with each other too (though also danced with some random girls) but it was hilarious. I LOVE how cyril dances because he has this serious face (that is funny to begin with) and he just dances like he's too cool to do more, so a lot of the night i tried to be as cool as cyril. then Johnny is funny because he makes up moves so we'd just dance and i'd copy what he was doing. dancing with josh was funny because he's so tall its like dancing with Sheila. chris was just a player but now we just have this thing where we glare at each other so we'd dance like that. jerome just dances crazy like he's at a rave. harold doesn't do dancing; he smokes and watches and randomly yells. jacob was a short guy from honduras but i think his legs were the correct size for my legs in terms of dancing, which is sad! we met a guy Henry who was way touchy... dressed like he was an Aussie, so I just avoided him the whole night and had to grab Emily from him too. ohh at the end there was a slow song kinda so i was dancing with Josh then Ben interjected and he was dancing all ball room style which was cool and he dipped me! sweeeet! and me and emily would dance, she's so cute and fun! she had said she always needed a long time (of drinking) to go and dance but i got her to go with just one drink (and actually i drank 1/4 of it). the rest of the night ben kept bringing out 6 packs of beer for everyone. by the end my legs were so sore it hurt to walk and everyone was drenched in sweat. harold was trying to get everyone to go to a karaoke bar but i just said no. Karaoke is not very enticing to me and henry was going so I wasn't too sad to never see him again :P. so johnny and spike came back with me (Emily rode her scooter home). i showered and stuff and my knees were pounding. I ended up not being able to sleep at all because i was so worried i'd fall asleep without waking up, it sucked! but that night was sooooo worth it!

10/8: 1 Month Taiwan Anniversary

I can't believe it's been a month...! unfortunately this morning sucked. going to bed at 3am solved my issue of being woken up by my 2 roommates (i guess by being too exhausted) but now with a 3rd i got woken up by her :( So i decided to just get up to talk to juan. then i went back to bed...but one roommate came back with a friend and turned on music so i gave up and went to lab. Then i actually got to do my experiments so it was nice, it didn't matter if i was tired. then had class, my first solar energy class. it was pretty boring because the professor talks really slow, and its in english so he has to think. but it was funny, i taught him "Global Warming" and "An Inconvenient Truth" and "harvesting". Then went back and continued experiments. Then went back to room and watched Extreme Makeover Home Edition. Then went to get dumplings and 1 month cake with Josh (his 1 month was last wed). Very yummy. Then went back and tossed my disc around a little and i went back. i was supposed to run with chris but the doctor told him to rest for a week or 2 because his side has been hurting so i went myself. I was letting shit digest when Christine from 510 called and said she had bubble tea for me so i couldn't say no to that. When she came she gave me a big ass bubble tea and some mozzerella sticks (she was surprised that we had these in america). And then talked a lot, so it was nice, i like her. We will be setting up some girly tutoring dates so she can learn English from me. then i went to run and came back and now i'm just eating what she gave me. as a last attempt at being healthy, i gave the last stick to my roommate.

10/7: Post typhoon boredom

so today, it was obvious the typhoon had passed, except the elevator still wasn't working and it was lightly raining outside. outside, sooo many trees were uprooted and maintenance crews were out picking up all the branches on the road (so many they were using cranes to do it). we went to carrefour to just get out and I was able to get Neha's shirt and Adeline bought the converse shoes she had wanted to get last time. I also bought a seat cushion cuz this chair is killing my ass (its wooden, but the seat is slats of wood instead of one piece). Then got food at the Carrefour food court. Two of the guys got mcdonalds and it made me crave their apple pie (the crust is much better than in the US). Then went back and was really bored because everyone had work to do, cept my professor hasn't posted it yet so I just rewatched 10 episodes of scrubs and then Lock, Stock and 2 Smoking Barrels. Then ended up going to bed at 3am anyways. Also, the 4th roommate moved in and it was kinda annoying...it's enough with 2!

10/6: Super Typhooon!

Woke up early this morning and the wind was crazy! You could hear it banging against the window. It was supposed to be like 200km/h winds. Later I went downstairs to get some food and you could see how bad it was outside. Only Family Mart (like 7-11) was open so had to get shitty food. Then went back up and did some more Kinetics and Harry Potter reading to pass the time. At 6pm went to Adeline's room and we watched Walking Tall...which wasn't very good of a movie. Then went to get dinner at Family Mart. Johnny and Chris joined us because at that point the typhoon had died down a lot. So we just hung out there for a while. One of the YZU dogs came with a tube of lotion that it was playing with so it kept shoving it into my lap for me to throw it. It was fun. I tried giving it some food but it didn't like my ramen...these dogs have high taste. All in all a rather boring day!

10/5: SanYi visits

today I spent the morning searching for hotels/flights for juan then was gonna go to lunch with lab people when I saw that I missed a call from SanYi (my aunt) and she was already at my school! So i met up with her at the cafe on campus and we had lunch with her school mate who had driven her here. Then she convinced me to go back to Taipei with her and we first stopped at her other friends place who she was going to stay with for a few days. Her friend had a NICE apt, it was actually 2 apts before til the building converted them all to 1. So she has two of everything. Then we went to taipei 101 again, and ate there. Then went to Shihlin Night Market, which was cool. Lots of stores! Then came back here to wait for the typhoon to arrive!

10/4: Full thursdays...

woke up kinda late and had to rush to class. class was stupid because the professor just reads from the book. basically reads the page number, title, eqn numbers. we had a new student from india today named Sugarla. We need partners in the class and Jack still didn't have one so we pointed him out. but it was bad because he said it would be too hard since his chinese is not good. and everyone laughed so I felt really bad for her. after everyone else refusing to be her partner the teacher finally put her in a 3some with other students from bangladesh. anyway, I told jack he made her feel bad and I talked to her on the break time. after class we went to lunch and i ran into ben and cyril. then later was the group meeting. then i went to the library to try to read up on kinetics since the professor went through 2.5 chapters in 3 hrs. Basically chp 4 was him reading the section titles...yea thanks I can do that myself! Stephen said its because he doesn't know the material himself, last yr when they asked him questions he would say, that's a great question! then not answer it. Then met up with Johnny for dinner at Artist and went to chinese class. Obviously we just watched the same videos as last time, but this time was a "review" of that, so it went faster. Then Jeffrey taught some grammar which was really strange because he can't pronounce things well at all so he was teaching people the words wrong. But he did seem to know the grammar really well. so kudos to him. then went back and johnny and chris had dinner with ivy and shiho. i went back to the room and changed to gym clothes and later went down and ran 5 laps with Chris. then got all of Ben's pics which are great!

10/3: New Shoes!

Today I slept in kinda, and went to lab round 11am and just read some papers. Then went to library then met up with Adeline for dinner and to go shopping at Carrefour. We stopped at this small food place on the way and got these wraps made of veggies, meat and cong you bing (uh...scallions oil pancake? chinese pancake?) Pretty good, just hard to eat! At Carrefour I found a cute pair of shoes! They were actually a pair that I had eyed last time I came with my aunt but didn't look. Also saw some sandals but they didn't have my size. Then walked around the other stores next to carrefour. Adeline showed me the converse store! it was actually an outlet for converse and had the most converse I've ever seen , and styles i didn't know existed. Later we tried on clothes and I found a funky shirt that reminded me of Neha and so I tried it. It looked good, just so weird I'd never wear it. I took a pic of it to show to Neha later and see if she liked it, and she did! So that made me happy, now I just have to go back and get it. Then we bought some bread at the bakery and since it was late they had buy 4 get 1 free, so we did that and then they gave us 3 free slices of thick toast too. So it was cool. Then walked back. I was so tired and my roommates didn't sleep til late again. By the end I felt physically ill, so I thought I might be getting sick, but I think it was just lack of sleep because in th morning I felt a lot better.

10/2: First day of exercise

Today I got up early to get authentic Taiwanese breakfast so I was dead tired after we got back. I just went over the paper with my professor and then went back to my room and slept through lunch. Then I went to class. I wasn't sure if I wanted to take Process Control, but I think it will be a good idea. I think I will be too overwhelmed otherwise in the Spring. Teachers here really like to take the first 3hr class to discuss the meaning of the title of the class. I can't believe it...it's kinda irritating and really boring. But I guess it's nice they want you to understand. Then I continued trying to catch up in Kinetics, then looked through pictures of Shanghai from Stephen. Then went to dinner with Paul, Jack, and Tao under the dorms. The whole time Tao was pushing Jack and Paul to speak to me. Jack was ok with it but Paul was really embarrassed. I feel bad for him, and it makes me embarrassed to talk to him. But he promised that tomorrow he would talk to me, lol. Then went back to room for a little and read Harry Potter, then went to the library. On the way I saw some international students at Artist Cafe so I stopped to hang out with them. Then wen to library and on the way back saw them playing tennis so stopped again. Chris had gone running so I went and got changed and went running with him on the track, 5 laps! Yay. Then played tennis with Joe which was funny because I sucked, well no one was very good anyway.

10/1: 3 weeks, it's official!

today marks 3 wks in Taiwan! did laundry this morning and tried to look up research topics. Then met up for lunch with lab people then went to class. Before class, the professor asked me if I liked the teaching style. I said I liked it, but I can't participate because I don't understand the questions (all in Chinese) so if he just repeated the question in English, then it would be fine. So he said ok he can do that...except he DIDN'T! There's a break every hour and the guys had class next door. Every break Stephen would ask me if I wanted to switch my class to theirs. The first hour I said no it was ok, I think it will be a good challenge and I wanted to learn about many technologies (not just solar cell, which is their class). Then the 2nd hour I started getting annoyed because I couldn't answer anything. Then the 3rd hour, I had to buy MMs before so I could stay awake, and he showed us what he would go over in the class. There was no talk about specific things until the last few weeks! btw, we spent the first 2 hrs talking about the word "Energy". So at the end of 3 hrs I told Stephen I wanted to switch. I looked at their information and it was much more...not awful. I went to talk to my professor (who was also teaching the solar cell class) and he said it'd be ok to switch. then gave me the paper to review again by tomorrow. I also talked to him about research topics, and basically he just told me to improve on the electrode Wen Wei was making. SIGH, he could have just said to do that from day 1. Plus, that is so vague since there's a million things that could be different. Everyone makes cells different. Then he said I could make them my way (like I did at Rutgers) which I don't even know if that's ethical and plus I don't remember the exact combinations. Then went to the library to start editting the paper and then went to dinner with Josh. I checked out my turtle and he looked even worse :( We went to Napoli Pizza and got the most normal pizza, Hawaiian. There was some crazy ones like Mediterranean Fisherman (squid, octopus, seaweed, mayo, etc). But this pizza was good. Then went back and I decided to let my turtle be free. Maybe that would make it happier. I also didn't want to see it die...:( So I brought it to the pond on campus and put it down on the ground by the pond with its rock and a pile of food. I stayed for a few minutes and it didn't move at all...I hope it will be ok.
On a side note, I found out that the guys in my lab went to Danshui together right before I came to Taiwan, and they had gone to the beach at midnight to set off fireworks. But then Wen Wei and Guo Lung decided to do this.

9/30: Chung-Li

In the morning, went to lunch for Teacher's Day at a pseudo buffet place in Chung-Li. Some of Professor Liau's alumni were there too. It was a fancier place, where you order all the food you want (within 45min) so I got to try some new foods. I was getting annoyed though because the guys always say you can only speak english to me, but I keep saying I want to learn Chinese. I think more of the frustration is that I'm just not good enough at Chinese to be able to only speak Chinese to them. The guy and his girlfriend were sitting next to me and the girl (Lisa) was nice to me and tried her best English to learn about me. Then the guy (Wei Wen) would ask about what we were saying in Chinese and like discuss it, as if I didn't understand. It was really annoying. Later when Stephen was just talking to me, he interrupted and was like haha, you have to find the guy with the best English and assign him to talk to her. I wanted to punch him in the face. Later Stephen wanted to go to Sogo, (a big dept store that was across the street) because I had never been there. The rest of the guys decided they wanted to go back to the lab so then Stephen was gonna just go back too, but then Wei Wen was like we're gonna go so just come along so we went. I wasn't very happy about that, but Lisa was very nice, so then it turned out fine. There was a whole floor of stuff on sale (yay!) and I ended up getting a pretty skirt. I was about to not because I didn't want to spend a lot of money ($680 = $20US) but then I heard the girl ask, why doesn't she want to spend money, and I was like...true...and just bought it. Now I have to buy sandals to match though lol. Oh well. Then I went back to school and just fell asleep til dinnertime. I met up with Johnny and the only place open was the vegetarian stand under the dorm so we ate there. Some of it was ok...but some not so much, so I'm hungry again now. Then we went to the library because I need to catch up on my Kinetics. On the way back I ran into Christophe and we talked for an hr! Now I made a small bowl of ramen and there's little pig heads in it!

9/29: Day in Danshui

Met with Shiho to go meet up with Ben, Cyril and Jerome to go to Danshui. Somehow, I was the only one who got some amount of sleep even if it was only about 5 hrs. But Jerome didn't show and their door was locked. Found out later he had thrown up all night and josh had to help him. Then took train then MRT to go to Danshui--the last stop of the line. Shiho helped us get the MRT easy card so we wouldn't have to keep buying one trip coins and Ben found a map of Taipei that would be really useful. Once we got to Danshui we found that it was REALLY hot out. Danshui seemed like a really nice city actually, even though I thought it was a more historic place. The MRT station itself was nice. It had a Dunkin Donuts! And the Dunkin Donuts had misters around their seating area. There was a park surrounding it right next to the Danshui River so we took some pictures. After we were ready to move on, I saw a map floating in the river and I was like, haha Ben, there's your map! And unfortunately, it really was his map. Luckily I had my book, but that map wasn't very good. Finally the map floated up against the low wall so I just went and got it but it was soaking wet. Ben just ripped out the Danshui part to use. So almost immediately I got us lost a little bit, but mostly because all the side streets were little markets. It was really cool! Except the amounts of meat...by meat I mean every part of any animal you can think of to eat...organs, frogs, pigs, etc. Like I learned first hand that pig hearts ARE a reasonable replacement for a human heart, by the looks of it. We finally found Longshan Temple (another one), which was hard to find because it was in the middle of one of those little market streets. Then tried to look for Danshui Historic Street and Little White House and Red Castle, when we realized the map was shit. I got ice cream in a 7-11 while Ben asked for directions (it was my day off of being group leader :P) because I was about to pass out. Then we finally made it. It turned out it was really some old Customs officer's house. It was small, but the view was beautiful and the house looked very elegant and simple. Newlyweds were getting their pictures taken there. Then walked to Fort San Domingo. I didn't think this would be that great either but the view was beautiful. Then ate at a random restaurant that ended up being italian food, but had awesome milk tea :) And gave a dessert at the end that was yummy. Reminded me of my creme brulee, just without the actual brulee. Then walked the Fort Huwei, which we got a little lost too. On the way we found Martyr's Shrine. It was nice, but very empty. There was a cool circle statue that a sat in and was pretty comfortable. Then got to the Fort. This was allright, nothing really special, but we had bought a package ticket that included admission to here so had to come. Then got the bus to Fisherman's Wharf. The wharf, though small (relative to the one in San Fransisco!) and kinda empty, had a gorgeous pedestrian bridge. After a while there was also a rainbow behind it! Then we went off in search of a beach, which I was very skeptical about. Someone told me there was a beach, but she had heard it was closed now. Still we went. When we got in there it looked like shit. There was trash right in front of us on the little sand there was. The rest of rocks with barnacles on em. Still they wanted to walk down because we noticed a possible real beach. As we walked I realized it was really beautiful, and saw there was real beach farther down. Ben wanted to go deeper into the rocks so we followed but me and Shiho finally gave up because it was getting too unsteady. We continued on towards the beach, then went in search of a bathroom for me. We walked all around and finally found a bathroom but it looked really dirty and was $10 (30cents). So I asked a lady if there was a bathroom and she said to ask the store aroudn the corner. Went in there and they charged me $10 anyway, but at least it was cleaner and had toilet paper. Once I came out the sun was starting to set. At first it was just a normal sunset but as time progressed it was AMAZING. Even after we couldn't see the sun anymore, there were even prettier pictures. It was gorgeous and made me really happy. The water was also really warm, though we just walked up to our knees (that's when Shiho gave up and put her shoes back on to go to safe ground). There were tons of newlyweds and ladies taking professional pics on the beach (btw they were EVERYWHERE in Danshui, every tourist place we went had brides). Then it was getting dark so we decided it'd be good to head to the Night Market which was by the MRT station anyway. Ben noticed the bridge had neon lights on it now so he ran ahead to take a picture then met us to take the bus back. The buses are hilarious because they're so rickety and you get tossed around because they drive fast. We went to the night market, but this was a fancy one, so not as cheap. Cyril really wanted McDonalds so we went there lol. Danshui has specialty foods, but we ended up eating only non Asian things (though I had corn soup at McDs!) Then went on our journey back to YZU. It was funny because Shiho kept falling asleep while we were standing on the train holding on to the pole. Her head would fall and hit my shoulder (she's real short) and she'd wake up and we'd crack up (she's japanese...they laugh a lot!) . She also tried teaching us some japanese, which I mostly forget. But I taught her sand and some other words she didn't know. Also shared some french-borrowed english with Ben and Cyril and it was funny to hear the french pronunciation.

9/28: Happy Birthday Confucious!

Today woke up at 5:45am to get ready to go see a celebration for Confucious' Birthday! (also Teacher's Day in Taiwan). I got there 15min late at the meet up point because I was trying to get all of my turtle's things together. Then when we got tickets the train was right there and we would have made it but Jerome and Mark went to the other platform by accident, so we were even more late. But anyway, once we got there, I realized the ceremony had like just ended. And we would have had to get there at 6:30am to actually get in. So that was kinda sad. But there was a cultural show going on, so we still went in. Some worker lady pushed me to go in line to get a bag of free stuff, but then they ran out before we got to the front...sigh sad again. Then this woman stops us because we're foreigners and wants to interview us. It was pretty awkward. Jerome was really nervous because his English isn't perfect (not that hers was). Then we went to Baoan Temple, which was across the way. Out on the road, there were a lot of tables set up. One had calligraphy writing and you could just take them for free. One of mine meant to have a lot of good in your heart or something. The Baoan Temple was beautiful. I think it's my favorite temple so far. It wasn't very crowded (maybe because it wasn't the weekend) so it felt much more peaceful. Along with pretty roofs, it also had paintings on the walls and a lot more little rooms of worship that you could actually walk into instead of look at from the door. Then we walked back to the road because there were more tables. We noticed some calligraphy paintings so we watched. One woman doing bamboo was REALLY good. Then this guy who seemed like in charge of the logistics of that part started talking to us. I could not understand his Chinese at ALL, and his English was only a little better than that. He had the artists write our names on the paintings and gave them to us. He messed up my name, but then he gave me another one and I wrote out my name for him this time. This went on for a WHILE...it was getting irritating/amusing because his english was so bad and he kept like clearing his throat/laughing when he was trying to think of a word. Finally I tried to make an excuse that we'd go over to the other calligraphy table...but he knew those people too so he followed us. Then i just said we had to go back to school because we had class. Instead we went to eat. We found a noodle place and it was pretty good. Then we went back to YZU.Came back, and my turtle (i think I will name him Tahoe) still hadn't eaten anything. He kinda looked worse :( But I hope he will get better. Then came back and Stephan said they were going to give the professor a card for Teacher's Day. So i had to walk over there to sign it.
Then I slept for a while and just had ramen for dinner then went with Adeline to Johnny/Cristoph's apt. I first stopped to see my turtle and he didn't look good...his strength is definitely weakening it makes me sad. And Josh and Jeffrey were all making fun of the situation which made me more sad. But finally we left and went over and it was a lot of fun. I had tequila for the first time, and it wasn't so bad! There was also something called Manzanita, some french brand of apple flavored liquor that was pretty good.

9/27: 1st Chinese Class

Today I had class at 9am and it was Advanced Kinetics. Tao told me we had to give introductions of ourselves in English. When I got to class everyone had typed up essays and I had nothing written at all. So I just wrote some things down so it looked like I had prepared. We got our textbooks today too. Two NEW txtbks cost $1750 ($60 US). I looked them up online and in US, they would be sold for total $260!!! I can't believe it. Introductions were kinda funny. He called me up to do it first, which sucked only cuz I planned to see what other people said. Apparently I speak english too fast for them, cuz Tao didn't understand anything I said. Then there was a group meeting and I almost fell asleep again, but I kinda learned what a MOSFET is (semiconductor type) and then went over another paper with the professor. Then later went to Chinese class with Adeline. SO boring. Unbelievably boring. And it ended at 8:30 so i was starving. We were going to go to the fried rice place but it was closed so we saw a restaurant past it and went in. The lady was really nice and the food was really good. We got free iced tea and soup. We ordered this rice dish that had meat and then cheese and then baked. Real good, and it was fun having dinner with adeline, johnny and mark. Then came back and thats all!

9/26: Free food! works in Taiwan too

9/26: I went to lab late and talked to the professor for a while about life in Taiwan (as he always asks me). Then had lunch then learned how to coat solar cells. Then went with Josh to the fish store to buy things for my turtle. Unfortunately this dude was very cynical and said my turtle wouldn't be interested in water plants (even though the website said it would be) and was probably not eating because it was sick. He said my water was probably dirty or he needs more sun. He didn't have UV light because people would rather take it outside, but I can't because I'm not supposed to have him here :( Then I was gonna buy new food, but their food was not specific about what was in it either. So sigh...and anyway, that guy was right, my turtles not interested in the plants :(. Then I went with lab people to a free Buddhist dinner. Turns out it was a Buddhist club meeting and we got stuck there til 9:30pm. The food was REAL good, but we had to play getting to know you games...in chinese it is not so fun. But everyone remembered my name cuz it's the weirdest one. It was still a nice meeting, and it's not like I had anything better to do.

9/25: Moon Festival

Today was Zhong Qiu Jie (mid autumn/moon festival) . In the morning I went to have lunch and see Resident Evil with people in my lab. Then came back for the International Students' BBQ. It was right on campus. It was pretty fun to hang out with all those people since I don't get to see many of them all the time. There was also tons of food so I got my fill. Later on we ended up sharing cultural songs/dances (though USA didn't have anything to share since everyone knows our stuff pretty much). The fav was a dance called Chicachica from the French/Belgians that's kinda like Hokey Pokey but a lot more fun/funny. I also challenged a French guy to a coke drinking contest because they brought waay too much coke. He had half a bottle and I had a quarter and somehow he still won. But we both kinda lost because we had just chugged a lot of coke. Low key day, but still fun filled :)

9/23-9/24: Fun fun wknd

9/23- Went to Yingge. There's a Holiday Bus Tour for only $99 ($3US) that includes admission to museums and unlimited bus rides. So we first went to the Old Ceramics Street that has tons of shops selling ceramics. There were some stores selling very expensive sculptures that were gorgeous and others that sold teasets, etc. I saw really awesome gold dust cups that I really wanted to buy but don't really need. Then went to the Hakka Museum. It looked deserted except for the restaurant which was the part I wanted to go to. I ordered the creative lunch box, because i read that it comes with some Hakka stuff you can keep. And it was really cool, I got a Ceramic bowl with lid that said the name, plus chopsticks and a spoon all in a Hakka patterned cloth bag. The rest of the museum was kinda boring actually and didn't have much information but looked nice. Then went to Zushi Temple, that is architecturally revered. Then went to the Ceramics Museum. It was interesting to learn about different techniques of making ceramic things and also the progression to modern day technology. The gift shop was reallllly awesome, I wanted to buy everything there. They had ceramics from different artists. Then rushed back because we were supposed to meet Spike to go to his friends' BBQ. They were late so we just hung out in Josh/Jerome's room. It was really a lot of fun. I met Adeline, a French student in ChemE who Prof Wang had told me about. She was really nice, as were all the rest of the girls there. It felt SO good to hang out with girls. Got to try a bunch of different things then afterwards the girls wanted to play group games. Adeline was like oh no...and saying that they made the losers do really embarrassing things. It was so strange because we were playing like children games but the punishments were like, kiss this guy, or kiss a tree, or do a sexy dance for 1 minute. Apparently when they played other times it'd be, take off your underwear, and stuff. I tried to make sure not to lose but it was almost impossible. I ended up having to to kiss two guys. It was on the cheek...but I still felt very guilty. I guess it was better than what other people had to do. We learned a really ridiculous game called HaiDai (seaweed) where you make different wiggling gestures and if you did the same as the other person next to you you lost. When they finally got tired of that then we drove up to a mountain overlook to look at the moon. That was fun, but really cold. I got to hang out more with the girls, mainly Cheri and I think her name was Wendy? It was weird because they were all 27 yrs old but looked/acted like 22ish. They were a lot of fun though. Then we finally went home around 2am. Anyways, officially 2 weeks in Taiwan!

9/24: I had to wake up at 8:45am without sleeping well or very much and I felt like shit. My aunt showed up round 9:25am and just walked in without warning. I was pretty cranky. We went to Shihmen Reservoir which my grandfather was head engineer. That's pretty cool! We took a boat ride around and it was so beautiful. Unfortunately, halfway through my camera ran out of battery! So at the end there was gorgeous views and I couldn't take a picture. After we got off the boat then we went to eat at a restaurant overlooking the dam. Again, it was really amazing looking but I couldn't do anything :(. They specialize in fish and the fish we had was really good. Unfortunately, I swallowed a fish bone and it got stuck in my throat a while. Definitely not good. Finally i got it down but it still hurt a bit, and my relatives were thinking of bringing me to the hospital later. I was getting really irritated due to lack of sleep then this. Afterwards we drove back through the mountains (again, gorgeous views but no pics) and I fell asleep. I briefly woke up when we drove by some Chiang Kai Shek museum and i was groggy so they're like forget it and I fell asleep again. Then we stopped at Carrefour because my aunt wanted me to try Taiwan peaches. I just wanted to go home. Finally got back and then went online and took a 30min nap before having to go meet the guys to go to a night market. I rode with a girl named Emily on her scooter and she was worried I'd be nervous but it was fine. We first went to a restaurant that was all you can eat BBQ and hotpot. We just did the BBQ. They came out with a plate of meat and a plate of seafood. And you just grill it yourself in the middle of the table. It was a lot of fun. We ended up starting some fires on it by accident, and the server came over and thought we were doing it on purpose. Then we walked to the Night market. Apparently this was the same one as the one I went to with Stephen, etc but it looked completely different to me! Anyways, I saw some turtles so I really wanted to get one. Emily helped we figure out what the deal was . But finally we ended up getting conned anyway. We thought you can take home whatever you catch (with a paper net) but it was really catch 8 and get 1. Really sad, but emily bargained so I could just pay an extra $20 and get one. So now I have a baby turtle! Still no name though, trying to figure it out. Then we were walking back to where they parked and people were just BBQing on the side of the road and they saw white people and were like HEYYYY join us! We are all friends! And Jerry was like yea lets do it!! It's funny cuz in NJ that would NEVER happen. But they handed us a round of Taiwan Beer and Josh asked them about tattoos (they were a tattoo parlor) so we talked a while then finally left. Jerry was so happy he wanted to go to more BBQs (people just bbq on the side of the road!). But we just got a taxi back instead. But we all had so much fun so we plan to hang out again!

9/22: Another Interesting Day in Taipei

Met bright and early to go to the train to Taipei- this time with Spike, so I had much less pressure to be group leader :) First went to the Jade Market and I saw these pair of fat feet with spiders on em that apparently meant, be happy with what you have so i wanted to buy a pair but couldn't find some good ones. I did end up buying a pair of bronze and jade horses. Bargaining process: 1 for $1000NT, then two for $1500, then I asked for $1100, SOLD. So it was a little too easy so I feel I got gipped but that was still $33US for the pair so I think thats ok. They're a little beat up but i like them like that. Then we were supposed to go to the Flower Market but we just decided not to and we stopped somewhere to eat that Spike chose. We ended up getting noodles with oyster and pig intestine...mmm. Pig intestine is actually not bad, the way they cooked it made it taste like pork, but after eating a few, the mental block of eating instestine was too much and I felt like vomiting so I stopped eating. That was only have the bowl. Then we went to the Suho Paper Museum which I've been wanting to go to since the first day in Taiwan. It was really small but very modern looking. We got there just in time for the extra paper making session so first we learned how people make paper old style. Then learned about how paper was invented (some guy was washing clothes with a big stick and noticed that when he was done, the pieces of wood had stuck on the rock). Then we got to make our own paper! Ours was green and the pulp looked like vomit, but it was fun and surprisingly easy. Then, just because we were foreigners, the guide showed us how to make recycled paper. It was really cool, you just need a blender, some organic material that has fiber (certain vegetables) and used paper. You rip it all up in some water then blend it, then put it over a screen and mush it wish some absorbing paper and its done! Then she also whipped out some paper mooncakes (in celebration of Zhong Qiu Jie or Moon Festival) and said we were getting them cuz we came from so far. There were only 3 so me Josh and Jerome got one. Then we looked through the museum and there was a funny exhibit right by the bathroom about the progression of toilet paper: hand --> water --> rocks --> big leaves --> sticks --> rough paper --> ratty toilet paper --> today's toilet paper! along with two paper mache butts. There were also cool exhibits about the differences in paper made from different materials and for different purposes. Then we went back downstairs and there was a video to watch on the history of Taiwan's Tang Cao (pith tree?) which was one regarded as the finest quality paper by Great Britain. It was the core of the pith tree which felt like soft styrofoam. You slice it carefully to unroll it and when you write on it with water that paper expands so it looks like you are writing, just no ink. Now they are very rare. We went next door to a paper store and on the top floor was an art class with a gallery of their work. They all looked like paintings but were actually made using paper scraps, it was amazing.
Next took the MRT to Wanhua, where we first stopped at Longshan Temple (regarded the most beautiful/artsy temple in Taiwan by some). It was beautiful and had a gorgeous pond with 3 waterfalls and HUGE koi in the front. In the inside there were lots of people praying, burning incense, and giving offerings. There's these two wood pieces that you throw and if they are opposite (like heads/tails) then you are done praying and your wish will be answered. If not you must keep praying. Then we left and there was this guy sitting on the curb with bags of mourning doves it was so weird. The guy also had this small squirrel like animal climbing on it and he let us hold it. First ben had it and passed in on to Josh then I wanted to hold it and it jumped right on. 5 sec later pee was dripping off my arm. Then it was cute and was cleaning itself as people took pics of my pee stained arm. Then no one else wanted it (of course) so i gave it back and ran to the bathroom to wash it off. Then used hand sanitizer also.

Next off to Snake Alley (Tourist Night Market). Spike bought some dried squid for us to eat...it was ok. Josh really wanted to drink snake soup. Here they apparently kill the snake in front of you. We got to the main little store that did this and it had a huge boa constrictor on the table. Then i saw in a big aquarium on the side a lot of baby bunnies, so that made me sad cuz i realized they feed them to the snakes. The guy kept pushing us to stay for the show but we decided to walk to the end to see what else there was then come back. At that point I decided I wasn't going to go for this, I think I would be traumatized if i saw this snake get skinned alive. They also said they were going to show it eating a baby bunny. Definitely not for me. Then we saw this other place and all the guys were like crowding around and I couldn't see what was going on. Josh was like, Amy you see what's going on!? And i looked on the counter and i saw the body of a dead turtle (no shell) and a woman was talking and I guessed that she was showing it get killed by all the comments. Ugh, apparently she cut off the head and poured out the juices inside...blegh...This was not where I wanted to be. By the time we got to the end and turned back there were 3 more turtle bodies in the tub. Then we went into the snake place and they were making a big show of starting the event so I just decided to leave and come back in 20min. When I got back then I saw the boa and baby bunny still on the counter...both alive. Apparently nothing had happened. But they had eaten some snake. We waited some more and they still weren't doing anything. It seemed more like they kept saying theyd do it to get people to sit inside and eat. So we finally left, thank god, without seeing anything get eaten/killed. Spike then said we could meet up with other international students who were coming to Taipei to go to a club. Even though I was tired, looked like shit, and had a bag with two bronze horses, I still wanted to go. Josh said he'd go, but the 3 guys were tired. We went to an underground mall to kill time and in the meantime we all decided not to go. This was mostly because Spike said clubs close at 5am so we could catch the 5:30am train home...and we were planning on going somewhere else tomorrow morning so I'd be dead. But we are planning to still go out next weekend. That was mostly it. Oh, and all the fish are alive!