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!

9/21: the proud parent of new fish

Today I got to lab at 9am cuz Wen Wei was supposed to show me some of his experiments. When I got there, they were all going to class (and classes are 3 hrs here) so I just went back to sleep til lunch time. then went back and finally got to do something! The last step was 2 hrs so I watched Shrek 3 in between. There were some mooncakes in lab to eat so I tried one, and it was weird. Outside was like coffee tasting powder and then it was more like maji...chewy stuff and the inside was...this black stuff i dont remember what it's called but i liked all of it but the coffee part. But immediately my stomach was like ehhh. And it wasn't good for some reason. Then went to dinner with Josh and we got dumplings since the Belgians (non dumpling eating people) had gone to Taipei to get digital cameras. Afterwards Josh wanted to go look at a local fish store so we went. And then i was suckered into getting some too cuz i'm sad without pets. We were there for at least an hour deciding on fish and tanks. I finally chose what I want, then Josh chose his, but they were ghost fish or something and they fight with each other. The lady said it might fight with little ones I chose so Josh just chose other fish. I felt bad cuz he was the one who wanted fish in the first place, but he said he really didn't mind. We might still get the ghost fish if mine fish grow a little bigger and can defend themselves. But it was cool, the fish were so cheap! Mine were 3 for $49 ($1.50) and Josh's were 5 for $99 ($3). But with the rest of the accessories it totalled $1857 ($28 each). The first pic were my fish (panda corys) and below is the whole shot, you can see my little babies in the bottom right corner, they're really little, about 3/4 inch! Unfortunately, I now have the pet bug and want to get a baby turtle to keep in my room...we'll see

9/20: Laundry Day

So I didn't have class today, so the highlight was doing laundry. Before that I had woken up at 7:30am because my roommates wanted to eat breakfast together, cept they both had gone to bed later than me. For some reason one of them was awake but didn't think to wake up the one girl who needed to get to class at 8am. So I told her to wake her up and I just went back to sleep. Then got up round 9:30am. In lab, my professor asked to talk to me (and i got paid!) but just asked me about how Taiwan was. He said I should have 1-2 weeks of learning how to do stuff then we can talk about doing a project. So that should take me right into October. I got lunch at Artist, got a bagel and it came like it was a burger, cept the meat was pulled chicken. So it has lettuce, onions, mustard and ketchup...and i don't like mustard or ketchup but I had to eat it anyways. It was ok...then we had a group meeting and I almost fell asleep a few times which is really bad. So after I went back to go take a nap. Instead I did laundry! I was nervous cuz instructions are in chinese and there's no dryer really. Anyway, nice pics of laundry here, plus a pic of where people do laundry by hand...!

Then just tidied up my room...started Harry Potter 6 but fell asleep. Then went to dinner with Stephan, Tao, and Paul. Later I'm gonna go out to McDonald's with Tao and Paul...we'll see how that goes, Tao just tries to get Paul to talk to me. And apparently they like to go cuz there's a cute waitress there (apparently there are also waitresses at McDonald's here!). Maybe I can get them to talk to her today.
Pretty lame day...but oh well, can't expect all of em to be superb, atleast the weather was mostly gorgeous. ex: here's what it looks like on a good day when there's not a typhoon, complete with mountains in the back:

9/19: Video super star

Today I got to be part of an intro video for my lab's website. They needed a girl to be in it...and i'm the only one in the lab! I woke up early to shower (no cold water the night before) and get there at exactly 9am like they told me and they didn't end up starting til 10. First they had the guys and the professor pretend to work with one of the solar simulators. Then they had me come in to shoot some ICBE. They said that I would ask a question to the professor and be in charge of plugging stuff in. While setting up the professor tells me about the instrument in English, then asks me to repeat it. So I kinda repeat what I think he was saying and he's like good, maybe we'll have you do that. Stephan had told me that they weren't using any of the talk or sound so I thought it'd be all right since they'd just cut out anything I said. So when the director was ready the professors like ok she will explain it herself, the directors like with students? professor says no solo! everyone's like ooOOoo. Then the directors like how bout professor in the shoot? he says no just her, and then peaces out of the room after the first take. But at least the director said he wanted two other students there...so I could EXPLAIN how it works to them...i thought this was hilarious because I was the least knowledgeable person there. Then the guy tells Stephan to point at this power meter while i'm talking. Director's like "you can say whatever you want, its ok I'm not going to use it. You (pointing to me) please talk a little louder during the shoot, I will use your english." Whhhaat??? This is really funny. We do the shoot like 5 times with me explaining it over and over. Then he wants a shot of us 3 students discussing the instrument so we just talk about whether I actually explained it right since no one understood what i was saying, but I wanted to make sure I didn't make the lab look retarded to people who understood english. But that was my exciting morning, they all were like oooOooo you did a good job, you were great! But really had no idea lol. The director was happy cuz i smiled too, only cuz I thought this was ridiculous. Anyways, hopefully it will get put up soon and I can add the link here! The rest of the day was boring cept listening to the guys make fun of each other's english while trying to talk to me. I also finally fixed my computer (BY MYSELF :)) by finally finding where the system restore button is. There was something about Software Distribution 3.0 that happened every day this week that I think was the cause but I don't know what that is. But I restore it to before that. Then went to eat at a fried rice place that Josh knew about and it was sooooo good. I also tried starfruit juice which was a BAD idea. Don't ever try that...it's gross. I didn't know fruit could be gross, esp one so pretty looking. Anyways, the rice was sooo good, probably the best food i've had in taiwan so far and I saw Tao and Paul No. 1 from my lab there too. They have shelves of manga that all the guys read while they eat. Then the belgians went to watch V for Vendetta in the boys room, which I'm not allowed so me and Josh watched Million Dollar Baby which was very good. Not as sad as I thought it'd be so that's good. Still have 1 week til my next class! WOW

9/18: Typhooooooon!

So I woke up at 9:30am and no one was awake at all. I decided to go take pictures of the typhoon then talk to juan on skype. The typhoon didn't look too too bad, but I found there are rice paddies right behind our dorm which looks really Taiwan-y (in the pic is doesn't even look like its raining but you can kinda tell the wind is blowing on the rice). Then I went back to sleep and woke up when everyone else woke up. We went downstairs to grab food and the typhoon looked CRAZY from the inside. The food court is accessible to the outside so there was lots of wind blowing into the area. I got my wonton soup from the lunch lady who is nice to me. Ended up meeting some of my roommate's freshmen friends who were giggly about speaking English. They invited me with them to eat hot pot later and hey, nothing else to do so I said ok and they seemed like funny people. Getting back to the room i realized the day was gonna be REAL boring staying inside. Josh and Jerome were planning and walking to Carrefour (the local hypermarket- crazier than a supermarket or Walmart). My roommate was going to brave the typhoon and walk to the front entrance so I figured if she can do it i can too. I changed into some quickdry shorts and had tank top, long sleeve and rain coat over and just wore tevas since anything was gonna get soaked anyways. we go outside with out umbrellas and the wind is just crazy. my roommate doesn't have a raincoat under so she decides to give up and she doesn't want to go anymore. I was already soaked so I said wth and went the rest of the way. i got to their room dripping went and we head out to Carrefour. We stop in a pet store to see the cute animals then continue on. In carrefour, most people drive so we were the only ones dripping wet. and then i realized i had no money. So all I bought was a pastry. Which reminds me...i need to stock up my money. Speaking of that...somehow, since i've been here I've only spent just under $100US and that was a week of eating, stocking up on some dorm things. some other fees...yea thats cheap! we took a cab back after eating in the carrefour food court and went back to Josh/Jerome's room to watch Exorcism of Emily Rose. pretty good movie! and based on a true story which made it freakier. then it was typhooning harder so i didn't want to go back. Jerome saw it should be heading towards China soon so I waited til about midnight to head back. Then it wasn't raining very hard. Here's a pic of the bakery we went to yesterday...those cakes are awesome!

i forgot friday 9/14

9/14: no classes but went to sit in on my professors class on Optoelectronics and i actually understood most of it! and learned some new tech-y chinese words. he even called me out in class to testify to the expensive cost of txtbks in the US (to encourage everyone to appreciate their luck and buy the bk) i forgot what else happened but for dinner Josh promised me we'd go to a dumpling place he'd been to. We went and ordered loads of em, but Cyril and Ben REALLY didn't like it. I didn't know people could not like dumplings, but they even lost their appetite after it and had to take some meds once we got back. we hung out in the grad housing since they can actually have other people come in. and saw josh's photo album from his girlfriend that is really cute! their apt is nice because it has two balconies, though doesn't have A/C.

here's some pics i left off of my first post:
Dr Sun Yatsen Memorial my mom's apartment as a child, then my corner of the room and guys from my lab!

officially 1 wk in taiwan! 9/15-9/17

9/15: taipei! i went with Josh + belgians to taipei. I was elected group leader since I'm the only one who knows any chinese! started with buying train tickets at the train station. a round trip ticket to Taipei was NT$94 (>$3US) and this is about 30min ride! CRAZY. The train was decently crowded (lookedl ike a subway on the inside) so we had to stand the whole time. There was a nice girl who knew english pretty well who set us in the right direction once we got out. The Belgians wanted to get a camera at this place called Nova. It's apparently THE place to go to buy cameras, or any electronics cuz there's like over 100 stores selling only that. It took about 15min to find someone who knew what/where it was even though it was basically just across the street. Unfortunately, prices were not as cheap as they thought so they held off on buying a camera. Then coming out we ended up walking down a road called "Audio Video Street" because every store was selling cameras, etc. So we had to stop at every store! Me and Josh just sat outside on the curb. then we decided to walk to the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall so I went into a coffee shop to ask. It took another 10min and the dude drew a map for me and was shocked we wanted to walk it. Long story short, I got us kinda lost but then we got back on track after i asked another lady how to go. Then we saw a map on the street so finally got there! We passed president's hall and finally got to the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial and it was beautiful inside. The bricks on the floor made nice designs. There was also a really pretty garden with a huge koi pond and a big bridge in the middle. By then we were starving so went to the street and ended up walking down Bride Street since every store was selling gorgeous wedding dresses. Then found another Ikira Coffee shop that had goooood food and I got a green tea smoothie...mmmmm. We decided to squeeze into a taxi to go to Taipei 101 because we were tired of walking. So 4 of us squished into the back. When we got there we took a bunch of pictures of us and the skyscraper, then went into the mall full of Dior, Versace, Coach, etc. Nothing for us to buy. We walked across to another mall called New York New York where there was a Marks and Spencers. Nothing to buy there either. So we decided to try to head to this Paper Museum I wanted to go to. I remembered seeing a sign for a free shuttle to the MRT and so we tried to find it. I saw a bunch of people waiting by a bus stop so we waited there...until we saw a Free Shuttle Bus drive right past then we ran to catch it. Then we saw it just sitting there in front of a line of people so we were fine. Getting to the MRT (subway) station I had to figure out how to get those tickets. You pay by the distance you go and it costs $20 (>$1US) for the close rides we were taking and you get this plastic coin that works kinda like the Oyster Cards in London (you just place is on a scanner and it opens the door, then you deposit the coin at the end) It was pretty high tech compared NYC and A LOT cleaner and nicer. Once we got to the stop there was another electronics market so we looked at more cameras. Then tried to head to the paper musem...only to get lost again at this pretty park area. There was a gate that looked like it opened to some Colonial village and there were signs for the society of wilderness. I asked people in there for this place and it took a while to get some decent directions only to realize it was probably closed at that point. So i asked for some night markets to go to and he told me a place that involved going back to the subway. So we did that and had to transfer and go one stop. At that stop there was an underground mall so we walked there and i chose a direction to walk which ended up being wrong and almost ended up back at hte subway station we had transferred at so we had to walk back then find the street the guy had told me to take. Then I asked a police officer where to go and after saying the name wrong a few times, i finally got it right and he understood. We ended up at a market that didn't seem like the right name that the guy said, but hey it was a night market and we were hungry. And it had one of the words in my name (ning)! we went through looking for food and they got their first smell of "chou dofu" (smelly tofu)...twice...and so they pretty much didn't want anything that was at the carts there. we walked more, still no food. Finally saw a place with pictures of noodles so we sat down. We got a menu and were lost so I just got the general idea of what they wanted and asked them what they had. She insisted I get some soup too so I order a soup to share. Later when she brought all this then I realized it was the size of one person's portion so I was skrewed, and would have to eat both. Luckily everyone really enjoyed the food so they all thanked me even though it was Josh who chose to eat here lol. And they even helped eat the extra bowl of soup. After that we finally walked back to the subway and took the train home!

9/16: computer dies!
So I tried to upload all my pictures of taipei and so i ran low on disk space. Today I try to turn on my computer to see that everything look different...half of the icons are gone, the desktop pic is that green field and blue sky and i'm skrewed. I look in my docs and its empty, as well as my pics and my music! no one in the US is awake at the time so I called up Stephan from here to help because he mentioned he was decent at computer stuff. Luckily he was in lab so I took my computer over there. The rest of the day I spent walking back and forth from my dorm to lab getting various supplies for my computer and backing up all my files (luckily i found them again in a different spot!) They tried to convince me that I needed to reinstall windows as part of normal maintenance but that would involve reinstalling every new software i have installed since buying my computer...so i really wasn't up for that. I decided to call Dell the next day. In the mean time, we watched 28 Days Later which is REALLY gory...in one seen the dude pokes out his own wife's eyes with his thumbs (at that point i had to look away for the rest of the 2 min gory scene) I got food from a place downstairs called "artist cafe" which serves italian food and good drinks but is relatively expensive (~$65NT for pasta = $2US, $50 for a drink = $1.50 US) compared to the rest of campus food. Then i met up with j+belg to watch them eat dinner and met another student Spike who graduated from YZU but comes by to play soccer. Afterwards we went to go play basketball in the gym (again i watched, but with Jerome this time). I left round 9 to meet up with lab people because they were going to buy supplies for a BBQ they were having the next day. I got to ride on the moped again! and i bought some more supplies. Stephan recommended i get some instant noodles so now i can compare these to ramen in the US! I also got some pastries to eat since I hadn't had dinner, and a water bottle (a fake small nalgene for $2US). Meanwhile the other people had 3 full carts of BBQ supplies it was crazy. I learned some more words, it was like Chinese/English lesson time for me and Stephan. He showed me this Pig Blood Cake that is apparently really good...and i would have to try tomorrow...
then went back to the dorm and my roommate brought me "Dou Hwa" this dessert soup of ... tofu and the bubbles from bubble tea, and was pretty good. then spent more time trying to free up hard disk space on my computer.

9/17: went to internet people and FINALLY got internet on my computer. found i could use skype first time too. then went to meet my professor to go over his paper i was editting. Apparently he had submitted it and it was rejected for its poor english, i felt really bad for him but assured him that it really wasn't as bad as he thought it was, i guess the journal just wants it perfect. then went down to lab and went to get lunch with some of em. They told me one of the guys, Paul was really scared to talk to me in English, and i pointed out that he doesn't really talk to me in chinese either! So they said i had to insist on talking to him, i guess so he gets over his fear. i also got a watermelon smoothie. then went back cuz we had class. I had my Sustainable Energy Tech class that i was so excited about, only to find out it was all in Chinese and there were only 2 other students so it will probably be canceled. the professor was really nice though and he said the class would probably be participation based and maybe not even have exams! participation is a little hard because i dont understand half the questions. i think he knows i'm trying, at least i try to look like i'm thinking. anyways, if the class is canceled i'll just take Solar Energy Tech with the rest of my labmates, thats at least taught in english. then tried calling dell but they're not help. so they may take me on wed to go get it fixed locally. then went back to take a nap. went back to lab at 6pm for the BBQ to find out they canceled it cuz of the rain (oh, it was raining most of the day) so i told the guys cuz i invited them too, so we were thinking of just going to eat elsewhere. then i see 10 people running downstairs with plates of cut up food and stephan's like we're eating downstairs come look!! so we run downstairs and it's like hotpot. anyways, we decide to still go out to eat. which we felt bad leaving when they had invited me so wholeheartedly and i had made a big deal of inviting them too. oh well, we went to eat at Artist Cafe. then went to a local bakery...sooooooo good :) i love chinese pastries. and there was this cute little chubby boy. and he heard me and josh talking about the cakes and he's like (in chinese) "ahhh mama, they are speaking in a foreign language!", and the mom's like yes that's english, go say "how are you" to her! and he just looks at me giggling so i say, How are you? and he like bursts out laughing to himself. so he gets some confidence and yells "howru!" to the other guys and when they wave back he laughs like crazy. it was really cute. then we walked back and it started raining like crazy, not big drops like in NJ but like sheets of rain that soak you. i was wearing a rain coat but anything not covered by it was totally wet. anyway a TYPHOON IS COMING! so classes for tomorrow are canceled...that officially means i have no more class the rest of the week...yayyy best semester EVER (so far!) i'm excited for my first typhoon :) apparently i am the only one worried, so i'm guessing i can just take it as a cool/wet experience

meeting people at the library part 1

yesterday, mentioned i met a taiwanese salesman who lives by here (alex i think was his name). forgot to mention that the library plays music at 10:45pm to kick people out by 11pm. yesterday's selection was "when a hero comes a long" and elton john. who knows what today will be!

today, josh tells me about a creepy guy talking to him who also asks about me hoping to hook us up...even though we already talk...then he comes and talks to ME and talks about some other guy signing to him to me...whatt??? his name is derrik. well he inspired me to begin a series for people i meet at the library.

Summary of Almost first week (9/9-9/13)

9/9: Plane ride, pretty good! i was in deluxe evergreen class (right about economy) so I felt fancy with more room and reclining capabilities. It only sucked when i got to Taiwan at 8:40am (1hr late) which would be 8:40pm in NJ.

9/10: So I had the rest of the day still which meant more than 24hrs awake. It was really exciting touching down in Taiwan, it felt really foreign (it's all farmland around the airport) and I was able to get through everything smoothly and found my driver, got my youth travel card and was on my way. Once I got there, my aunt and uncle were already there and had made friends with my host. They had brought a bunch of stuff and we first went to put all my things upstairs. Since no guys are allowed to be in the girls dorm, my host, Adam, had to wear a bright yellow satin vest that I imagined said "BEWARE OF GUY" in chinese in red. My dorm was um...not as nice as I thought it'd be. My aunt had said she was pleasantly surprised by the condition of the dorms so I'm guessing she had a really poor view to begin with. It's 4 people to a room- each person has a loft bed with a built in closet, desk and some shelves underneath. There's two big fans on the ceiling and an A/C unit but you have to buy a card to use it.
The rest of the day was Adam showing me and my relatives to the different offices for me to "sign myself in", and it felt like nothing was really accomplished at the end of the day besides people knowing I arrived and having lots of photo IDs of me (all of which I forgot to bring and had to go back afterwards to give them). I was realizing how important it was to remember the chinese I learned (which felt like none) and felt really out of place and lost. They provided lunch which was like sardines and two pieces of meat (it was restricted) and some noodles and rice and cooked cucumber. i was getting scared that food wouldn't be that great either. so as the end neared (for my guide and relatives to go home and leave me!) I got more and more nervous since I had no idea where to eat for the next few days before classes started. I kind of implied to my aunt that I could go home with her (to help her with stuff) and she said ok and also insisted I stay an extra day until I HAD to go back to school. I met one of my roommates at that point and she was really nice and offered to help me with unpacking (and said my chinese was pretty good) but I was overwhelmed at that point since the closet was miniscule and dirty and had only half a drawer. So i didn't finish packing and went home with my aunt and uncle and immediately felt better about my situation though REALLY tired. Maybe I wouldn't be a goner.

9/11: time to go shopping in Taipei with my aunt and then go sightseeing with aunt and uncle! I was happy with some things I got (one of those soft set of drawers you can hang from a closet that ended up fitting perfectly, and this towel thing that wraps up your wet hair). I thought I was burdening my relatives but they seemed pretty happy with taking me aroudn Taipei. They showed me like every school my mom has ever been to, including their old apartment and possibly my dad's school. I also saw the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial (though we stopped only to take a picture) which the president had covered part of the name to hide its significance, but the overall area was beautiful and really magnificent (also included an opera house). Then saw the Dr. Sun Yatsen memorial where i got to go in and my uncle found an English guide to help me out (everything was in chinese). The English guide was pretty enthusiastic and ended up giving me a whole tour of the history of Taiwan which was only recently researched. My aunt showed where my family came from and moved to and also some other random things. That tour ended right when the last changing of the guard was happening by Sun Yatsen's statue (similar to Lincoln memorial) and so I got to see that too (they did some color guard moves). Then we walked around the grounds where these old guys fly kites REALLY high and kids run around having fun. I think it'd be pretty cool to get to grow up playing in that place (which my cousins got to do). Then went to Taipei 101 to eat and walk around the mall part. It's interesting because my aunt was telling me about all the random details that were significant in taiwan's culture, and i told her that I had seen the architect say he built it like bamboo. They were both shocked and never heard that, and then agreed that seemed true since it was green too. Apparently the current government did not let that idea through because bamboo is considered very mainland China and so not good. Speaking of which, I also saw the President's House which is awesome and nicely placed at the end of a road. He had some new motto and symbol that was like UN for Taiwan but the symbol was like a pitcher throwing a ball. That was to try to show the Taiwanese guy Wang who playes for the yankees who EVERYONE in taiwan loves. The first day I heard of him 3 times through different people and before that I had never heard of him. They were surprised. Apparently the president tries to be buddy buddy with him but Wang's like whatever. Also someone had just set up flares on the road outside the Pres's house that wrote out the word "Pi" which kinda means fart because of some other thing he did. I also got a prepaid phone. i saw on TV them show 9/11 and it was said yet overly dramatic so it bothered me.

9/12: went back to school in the morning to unpack then go to the international student orientation. I was excited for this, hoping to meet some more international students. and figure out more stuff that was going on. i was also happy that everything I brought now had a place in my room! so i ended up meeting another american from VA beach, Josh so it made me happy to be able to talk to someone who was native English. otherwise i've been having to speak very slow simply english and it's tiring. this is on top of having to think very hard with speaking, listening and reading chinese. but the orientation was funny when everyone introduced themselves and seemed very eager to meet new people and be friendly. the pres of international student association was also very friendly and welcoming and showed some events they hold. then people jetted right after so i was sad to not see them, but I talked to some of the students from South America (guatemala, nicaragua...and i forget) and I was trying to use my spanish and was COMPLETELY blank, i could only think of chinese. I only have so much room for foreign language i guess. i talked to my professor and was completely disappointed because I don't have anything remotely resembling a project to work on. he did however give me a paper to edit for $3000NT (~$100US). then i met his students and it was awesome because they were really happy i could speak and understand chinese and they could also use some english. they were so excited and they signed me up on MSN (using chinese...so I have no idea how to actually use it) and i tried to get down their names (MSN, english, chinese, and pinyin names for each person) and then had us take a group picture and then took me on a tour of the campus (which is really small) and there was a student club fair going on. they showed me how to "dian cai", or order food from the food court which i was nervous about. then we went to go to dinner in Chung Li. I GOT TO RIDE SHOTTY ON A MOPED. It was so cool! it really does feel like you could die at any moment though. Esp riding shotty all you have is holding on with your hands to the back handles or to the person in front of you but its fun to feel the wind and see everything not through glass. At all the red lights you can talk to your other friends too. we ended up going to the night market there and got some food from a food stand. Stephen ended up paying for me ($70NT = $2 for dinner!) then we kept walking and stopped at this stand you throw darts at balloons. I hit 3 balloons so I won a nice tall can of asparagus juice :) The next guy hit 2 balloons and got a tiny bottle of soy milk, then next guy hit only 1 and got a small pack of gum. I got the big prize! asparagus juice...haha. then we got bubble tea and I treated everyone and they were like omg that's too nice (even though they had taken me here, etc) but like each one was about 75cents US sooo I spent about $4 for 6 teas! then we played this basketball shooting game and i lost miserably. lots of cool things at the nightmarket, I hope I can go back later to actually buy things. then we drove back and the dropped me off. it was still early so I went to the library to use the internet and like ALL the international students were there so I was just talking to Josh for a while. Then this asian old guy came over ( i thought to complain about us talking) but he jsut wanted to know about us, why we came, what we study, etc. So it was pretty cool to have someone be interested in us. then walked home with the belgians. saw my roommates (met the other one for the first time) and the freshman was SUPER excited to meet me. Besides that she's excited about everything anyway. btw EVERYONE dresses nice and has nice hair and looks put together. meanwhile i'm sweating and have my hair tied back and am really dark.

shitty part of the day? no A/C in my room so it was humid as hell and i couldn't sleep and the fan kept banging the blinds into the wall whenever i was about to doze off. that was awful...seriously. 0 hrs of sleep.

9/13: first day of classes. i was supposed to have class at 9am and Stephen was going to show me and also introduce me to the teacher to say i had to leave at 10:30am for my health exam (which involves getting a stool sample...really gross). But then apaprently the grad students had to go get this exam at 9am so he thought class would be canceled. actually they started roudn 9:15 and then he finally realized half the class was gone so he moved class to 10:30am. So...i already missed class on my first day. The health exam was crazy elaborate and ended up taking about 2.5 hrs to get through everything (2 urine sample tests, 3 blood draws, blood pressure/pulse, height/weight, vision, lungs, skin, chest xray, i think that was all). then i went to have lunch with the Belgians (jerome, cyril, and benoit) and it was funny cuz they were singing SpiderPig (my FAVORITE part of the simpsons) but in FRENCH (suprecachon or whatever) so i learned it in french and they learned the english and they'd randomly break into song the rest of the day. one of the workers came up to ask me about them and i ended up buying food from her. i walked with them to this hypermarket (waaay better than a supermarket, for reals) called Carrefour which ended up being a 30min walk in hot taiwan day dodging cars and mopeds and eating their dirt. i was really tired and we went to the library after. i talked to Stephen and Paul No. 1 on MSN and then Stephen and GaoLung (they call him Milk) came over because i told them the Japanese students were here and Stephen is in love with them. and he tried to help me register for classes but it didn't work. they finally left and i agreed to go get dinner with them. but then i felt really tired so i said i might just go with josh + belgians but instead i went back to my room to lie down. my roommates were there plus a girl named 228 (no joke...she was both on Feb 28 and apparently thats an important day so everyone calls her that), the freshman is called 101 (her name is the same sound as chinese 1, 0 and so with taipei 101, she's 101). i can't imagine calling people a number, let alone 3. anyways we had a great time trying to teach each other english and chinese and ended up going to get an A/C card (thank god) so our room would be nicer. they invited me to go to some ChemE organizing club meeting (that's the best i could understand that they were describing) but i was already goign to dinner so i said i'd go next week. then went to dinner downstairs and i said hi to the lady i got lunch from, but didn't buy so i felt bad. but we had dinner and they invited me to come to a bbq with them on "Mondesday" (monday) then i went back to the library to meet up with Josh+Belgians and now its now.