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.