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!
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!
1 comment:
i like your pictures!
-Nancy
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