Because I spend a lot of time at school, doing the same thing, for this post I decided to write about a bunch of different things in no particular order. It's really strange to have settled into a routine here, and after a month it feels so normal to take the bus to school, you-bike home, take the MRT to meet up with friends, eat at the night market, buy pretty much anything at a 7-eleven, eat traditional food at midnight with my host mom, etc. Every once and a while it hits me that I'm living in a completely different part of the world, that my everyday life looks nothing like it has for the last 17 years of my life.
Since my last post, plenty of interesting things have happened, and I have a lot more activities planned in the coming months. At school, I did a unit in PE on a Japanese martial art (I'm assuming it was Japanese because we spoke Japanese, but I don't actually know what it was). That was really interesting, especially because martial arts have been something I've always wanted to try. A lot of what we did during class was about discipline. We had to sit on our knees in a very specific way for 15 minutes at a time, by the end of which pain would be coursing up our legs and it would be difficult to move them. We would do long series of fast blocks and punches on the teacher's whistle, and while we were doing them he would come around with a bamboo stick, which he would use to whack your arms or the top of your head if you didn't get your arms out of the way or block it quickly enough. It wasn't too hard, but it still hurt a bit and was embarrassing if you got hit in front of your classmates, so we all tried very hard to avoid such humiliation. We also did some ab workouts during this martial arts class, as well as kicks and squats. Overall, the unit was very interesting and unlike anything I've ever done in PE in the US.
I've also started culture class at school. Most of the other exchange students meet up in a big class once a week to do culture activities, but apparently it's arranged by our schools, and my school doesn't know about it, so instead we do something similar twice a week at school. After Chinese class every Tuesday and Thursday, Hayden, the Canadian boy at my school, and I go to the office where we spend an hour or two with any combination of four student teachers who are training at our school. So far we've played some math games, and watched about two hours of arial shots of the island. It's fun to talk to the student teachers in Chinese and it's very informal and relaxed.
A couple weeks ago I went to the night market near my house, Raohe Yeshi, with a bunch of other exchange students, with the goal of buying and trying anything we hadn't seen before. My friend Lucia, from Spain, has a youtube channel about her exchange, and she wanted to make a video about night market food, so we all helped her. It was really fun because it gave us a good reason to try all the strange looking foods we pass everyday. I had some chicken foot, fried corn, some guava juice, a giant piece of bread filled with peanut butter, and Raclette cheese, which is melted cheese common in France, but which looked a bit sketchy at the night market. Still, I have been craving cheese since I got here, and the small amount that I ate was delicious after a month without any. Another thing I tried a the same night market on a different day, which I feel like I should mention here because it was very interesting, was a cup of sweet, crunchy pieces, kind of like Cheetos without the cheese, soaked in liquid nitrogen. They didn't taste like much, but were very strange to eat because they were so cold that it was hard to breath while you ate them, and they made steam come out of your nose if you kept your mouth closed. It was fun, but a little scary to try.
A few days after we made our group video, I went back to the same night market with my host mom, and upon arrival she told me there were only two places we could eat there. My host mom is very conscientious about how healthy the food we eat is, so when we entered the night market she pointed out many of foods I had already tried to inform me that I should avoid eating them. Luckily, she just laughed when I told her I had already tried them, and while I of course want to eat well while I'm here, I'm still glad I at least tasted so many unique foods. Night markets are truly the epitome of Taiwan's, or at least Taipei's, culture. Walking through them you can experience food from around the island, the language of the people selling food, the religions of the many temples often inside or nearby the markets, and of course the sticky heat which concentrates between the hundreds of bodies shoving against each other in the streets, moving in a single stream between the carts and small shops. I had an amazing night with my host mom, and it was great to bond with her over dumplings, shaved ice, and some bb gun target shooting games.
On the subject of food, I have to say that the thing I probably miss most so far is food. Because I'm so busy, I don't usually feel at all homesick, and I love the food here, but because it's so different, and without much diversity, I often miss the most simple American foods, things I never thought too much about at home, but that I could always rely on as an easy, delicious snack or meal. The things I miss most are cheese and bread, both of which are almost impossible to find here, at least in any form similar to what you would expect in the US. Pasta is fairly common here because Italian food is really big, but it's never quite the same. For the past three weeks or so, I've been craving a grilled cheese sandwich and some mac and cheese. Other things like burgers exit here, but can be hard to find and are often expensive. The only common American food I've really had since I got here was a bagel with cream cheese. My friend Natalie's host dad told her that food homesickness is very common, and therefore he brings her to eat some kind of american food about once a week. I've been trying all sorts of different traditional Taiwanese foods, and haven't eaten almost anything I'm used to for over a month. It's great, and exactly what I would hope to be doing, but every once and a while I really want some pizza, or some pancakes, or a reese's peanut butter cup. I know that a lot of exchange students have been known to get really home sick around Christmas, and I can already anticipate this because homesickness has certainly been a problem for other students already. Therefore, we're planning to mostly hold out on eating our home country's food, and then all get together and make a bunch of the things we love most from homes during the holidays. While it's generally crucial to stay active and engaged in the culture to avoid homesickness, it can also sometimes be just as important to do or eat something familiar, especially when you particularly want to be home with your family. I don't mean to talk about homesickness as something really negative, but I just thought it was worth discussing a bit because it's often part of going on exchange, or being away from home for any amount of time, and these are just some of the ways I've noticed it in myself and among my friends since I've been here.
This past Saturday we had to go to school because we would be missing school next Monday. A lot of other exchange students were excused by their schools, and on Friday I still hadn't heard anything about it from my school or from my host mom, so I was hoping that would be the case for me as well, and that I would get to spend the day with my host mom. However, at 11 the night before, I found out that I would have to go. I didn't know what our schedule would be like, so I wore our regular uniform, but it turned out that we were using Mondays' schedule, which meant everyone else was wearing their PE uniform. I really have nothing good to say about having a regular school day on a Saturday, but it does make sense that when we get a day off of school, we have to make it up to stay on top of our classes and assignments.
On Sunday I met up with Lucia, Natalie, and Maria from Canada, to go to Maokong. We took a gondola from Taipei Zoo up for about 20 minutes over beautiful mountains. There were amazing views of the city all the way up, and floating above everything in our little car was incredible. We passed over beautiful temples and fields. When we finally got to the top, we disembarked, and started off down what was pretty much the only road in the small town. We passed by lots of food stands, and the road, which was becoming more of a track, trailed around the side of the mountain. We eventually turned around, and stopped for shaved ice and watermelon juice on the way back. The shaved ice was amazing, well worth the short trek. We stayed for a while longer, enjoying the views, then took the gondola back down. For dinner we went to a huge supermarket with all sorts of food from China, Japan, France, America, Italy, etc. We brought our food to a really pretty park nearby where we sat and talked for a while, before heading home.
On Monday after school, I met up with Mati to go to the National Music Hall with a few other Rotarians for a concert. We didn’t know what to expect, but when we go there we found out that we would be listening to a choir, and more importantly, that our club President was singing in the choir, and was one of the most important members (based on the fact that there was huge picture of him and a bio in the front of the program, ahead of the conductor). The choir sang mostly ballads, which was interesting because they would have some of the singers act out the story during the performance. Many of them were about historical events in China or Taiwan.
After school on Tuesday, I finally figured out what my host mom does at work, and what all of her meetings are about. I went with her to a filming studio, where she explained to me that they were filming tv shopping. We went into the set, which was actually a huge fake house. After all the cameras were set up, the actresses came out, and I was surprised to see that my host mom was one of them, because I knew she was also the CEO of her company. After the filming, she told me that the tv company was one of her clients and bought the product that her company sells, so I guess as part of the arrangement she would appear in some of their shows. Going to the shooting with her was definitely one of the most interesting experiences I've had since I've been here.
On Wednesday, we didn't have school because it was the moon festival. Traditionally, most families go to barbecues for the holiday, but my host mom didn't have any plans, so instead I just spent most of the morning with her, and then met up with Natalie and Arnaud to go to the Chiang Kai Shek memorial hall and for dinner because it was Arnaud's birthday. We got noodles and then split a shaved ice for dessert. We walked around a new night market none of us had been to before, which is always interesting because each market is different. Some have lots of desserts, while others have mostly food. Some have electronics and clothes, some have games, and some have a little of a few things or of everything. Interestingly, shops with similar things will often be grouped together, and what they carry will often be similar. For example, some have the night market have clothes that I like, while others have clothes I don’t, and if one shop in a market has a certain style of clothes, it will be hard to find a different style anywhere in the market. Some markets are huge and go down street after street, while others are smaller, or are well defined with entrances and will go straight along one street. There are a few big ones we go to most often, but the one we went to on Wednesday was smaller, and we just happened to find it because it was nearby where we already were.
Our last Chinese class with our current group was on Thursday morning, so everybody was starting to get nervous about our placement test next Thursday. I am really hoping to do well on the test so that I can end up in a class with the other students who have already taken Chinese. My current Chinese is fun because I get to spend time with the other exchange students, but we're still learning very basic Chinese, so it's often frustrating. After the class, I went to a Rotary meeting/event with Mati. It was a different club's event, so we found out at the last minute that we wouldn't have to give a presentation, as we usually do at each meeting.
We both went back to school, then met up again afterwards. I spent the evening walking around the area near Mati's apartment with her. We bought Mongolian green onion bread, and sat in a small park we found, eating and talking before we both had to head back home.
On Friday in the afternoon I took the MRT to the Dominican International school in order to complete my pre-registration for the PSAT. The school is a really nice private school, and I think most of their classes are in English, because all of the students there spoke perfect English. Many of the students who I met were from outside of Taiwan, often from English speaking countries. I only met one other person taking the test who wasn't a student at the school, a boy who I think is from the US originally, but lives here and is homeschooled.
After the registration, I took the MRT again to meet up with my classmates. After weeks of asking, a few of them were finally available to do something after school, so we agreed to go to a night market. However, earlier in the day, they came up to me very concerned about something. At first I was really confused, and thought they couldn't go to the night market, but it turned out they just didn't know how to get there. I assured them I could get us there on the MRT, and they were very relieved, but I was confused. Later I asked them, and they told me they'd only been to this specific night market (one of the biggest and most popular) once, and they had been driven there. Besides the route between home and school, they don't really know how to navigate the MRT, which was really surprising to me since it's very simple, and I've come to know it very well in the month that I've been here. Still, I definitely understand, considering they study so much and rarely do anything after school, and now that I think about it, I'm sure that the exchange students in Portland last year knew their way around better than I did by the end of the year.
At the night market, we bought some food and wandered around. It was nice to talk with my classmates and get to know them a little better outside of the classroom. I'm so happy that they speak Chinese with me, and it's an amazing feeling every time I can have a conversation with them. I also felt very savvy leading them around the market and helping them figure out how to get home on the MRT. Overall it was a really nice night, and I hope I will be able to spend time with them again soon, but as the school year gets harder, I'm sure they'll stay very busy.
On Saturday, I woke up very late, and ate breakfast before heading out to a park by the river for a huge Rotary Race Against Drugs. Many of my friends were running too, but while almost all of them were running a 5k, my club had signed me up for the 10k. There was a lot of photo taking and excitement before the race, then we were off. I've been running a bit since I've been here, but I usually don't have time for longer runs, so I wasn't sure how fast I would be. It was very hot, as usual, but it did start raining a couple of kilometers into the race, which was very nice. Ultimately I ran a decent time, that I was fairly happy with, and I was also happy because I passed a lot of the people running the 5k on the way back. After the run, I went out to dinner with Mati and her host family. We went to a nice American restaurant for the first time since I've been here, and I ate a huge hamburger with fries, which was absolutely incredible, and satisfied my American food cravings for at least a month.
I woke up early on Sunday morning, and my host mom drove me to a school, where I met up with another Rotarian in my club to play badminton. I played for about three hours with a bunch of different people who were all friends with the rotarian. After being a lot better than most of my classmates at school, I figured I would be at least ok, but I was actually terribly, probably not helped by the fact that I was so sore from the run the day before. I think they kind of assigned people to switch off coming over and playing with me or practicing my serves or hits. At the end I got to play in an actual doubles games with some of the other adults, and I was still pretty bad, but at least a bit better. Most of them would speak Chinese to me, and overall it was pretty fun, if somewhat embarrassing. I'm supposed to go every Sunday morning, so hopefully I'll get better. The rotarian even lent me a racket and some birdies to practice with, although I have no idea where I would practice.
After playing, I took the MRT to meet up with my host mom. I finally asked my host mom if she could talk to me only in Chinese, which I was nervous about. I know she is trying to help me by speaking English, but because I speak a lot of English with the other exchange students, I really want to practice my Chinese with my host mom. I was really thankful that she talked to me in mostly Chinese for the rest of the day, and I definitely noticed that I picked up a few words just listening to her. We had lunch at a Japanese restaurant at the Miramar mall, and in the afternoon, we went to the President's House to watch the rehearsal of the big parade for the National Holiday on Tuesday. There was lots of dancing, followed by dozens and dozens of huge flower floats, many representing different department of the government. Just as it was finally finishing up, it started pouring out, so we headed back to the car, but not before buying some matcha soy milk, which I admit I really did not like, but it was probably better than regular soy milk, which I enjoy even less, mostly because it tastes like liquid tofu. After that, we bought some pork buns, which were delicious as always, then my host mom dropped me off to meet up with Mati and go to a night market for dinner.
The following week, I only had half a day of school in total. The first two days were off for the Taiwan National Holiday on the 10th, which is kind of like independence day. On Monday I went with my host mom to Beitou, which is a smaller town north of Taipei most well known for its hot springs. My host mom took me there specifically to explore the library, which is known for being very pretty and big, and which was full of books upon books which could be read and enjoyed at any number of comfortable reading areas scattered throughout the building. We walked around town for a while longer and looked at the hot springs, which we couldn't actually go in because only swimsuits were allowed. Later, we headed to a traditional Taiwanese restaurant, where we ate soup with noodles, eggs, and many other interesting, unique, dishes, then finally headed back home. I was very happy to be able to spend the day with my host mom exploring a new part of the Taipei area.
Because I would be taking the PSAT on Wednesday, I spent most of Tuesday doing a practice test, and also studying for my Chinese test on Thursday. I did take a break to go have lunch with my host mom at an Italian restaurant, where I got pasta with pesto, which, while good, was still very different than any pasta dish you might find in the US.
On Wednesday morning I got up early and headed out to take the PSAT. I had some problems getting to the MRT, namely that my student card wasn't set up to use the youbikes, and I didn't have money on my older card. This led to my walking back and forth between the bus stop in one direction from my apartment, and the 7-eleven in the other. When I finally got a bike, and took off towards the MRT station, I was very stressed about being on time for the test. Luckily, I had left half an hour earlier than I needed to, so I arrived at the Dominican International School with plenty of time to spare. Many of the students were late, so we didn't start the test until 8:30. To be honest, I kind of enjoy standardized tests, so the morning went quickly, and before long I was on my way back to the MRT. I stopped for bubble tea as I was walking. As I've been focusing a lot on food during this post, I feel like such a prominent part of Taiwanese food culture as bubble tea and bubble tea shops deserve some description. There are about 3 bubble tea chains in the city, at least that I can remember: TeaTop, Coco, and 50. There are also many private, local shops. At these shops, there are usually many options including milk teas, fruit teas, green tea, black tea, etc.. Common flavors include passion fruit, grapefruit, honey, lemon, winter melon, original, brown sugar and sometimes chocolate. You can choose to add big bubbles, small bubbles, or jellies, and then you give your preference for ice and sugar levels. They put your drink together in a plastic cup, seal it off with a special topping machine, then bring it to you for the price of 30 - 60 NT (1 - 2 USD).
My personal shop preference is always 50 because it tastes the best and is slightly cheaper than other places. I usually just get the original milk tea, but sometimes I branch out and try something new. On this particular day, as I was walking back from my test, I passed 3 bubble tea shops in a row, one 50, one Coco, and a local shop. I'm not sure how all three survive selling the same thing right next to each other, but this tends to be how businesses and shopping areas function in Taipei, with many similar stores grouped together. The line for 50 was pretty long, so I decided to try a chocolate bubble tea from Coco. It was something new, and overall pretty tasty. While that's a fairly anticlimactic conclusion to what might seem like too long of a description for something as mundane as bubble tea, the sweet drink is so abundant here, and such an integral part of the modern culture, that I though it was worth the mention.
After buying my bubble tea, I still had plenty of time to spare before I would have to be back at school. I decided to stop at a public library because I recently got my very own library card when I went to the Beitou library with my host mom. I didn't check out any books however, because I like to mark new words when I'm reading in Chinese, and their foreign language section wasn't too extensive. They did have some newer, popular, English young adult books, which I found somewhat surprising.
The rest of the day wasn't too eventful; I at lunch in a park, then headed back to school, spent the afternoon there, then went home to study for my Chinese test the next day.
I was up and out the door early again on Thursday morning. I met up with other exchange students at the MRT Station, then we headed to another of the Chinese class locations for the placement test. The test lasted about 2 hours, and included reading sections, writing sections, listening sections, and an oral section. Most of my friends and I had been studying the material we had learned in class, but it turned out that most of the test was made up of other content. It was much harder than expected, and everybody left frustrated and expecting the worst. I was optimistic because, with my background of previous Chinese study, I had actually been able to complete most of the test, unlike many other students.
Because that Thursday and Friday would be filled with midterm exams for our Taiwanese classmates, most of us were excused from school. After the test, I went with a few friends to eat lunch at a super market, then we walked around the city for a while. Later we picked up some other students who had had to go to school, including my Canadian friends, Maria, and my Brazilian friend, Pedro. We went to Ximen, the big shopping area popular among young Taiwanese people and exchange students. We walked around for a while, explored some small shops, and bought dinner. While walking around, we somehow started talking to an older american guy who passed us. We was maybe in his mid-twenties, and was walking around with a big backpack, clearly a tourist. I have to say it is probably one of the most amazing feelings to walk around with a group of friends, know how to order bubble tea, be able to talk to strangers in Chinese, and not be perceived as a tourist. Sure, people give us some of the strangest looks as we parade around town in our mismatched school uniforms and jumbled mix of languages and accents, but they also have a certain amount of respect when you know which direction you're going on the bus, or how to use the printer at the 7-eleven. So when we started speaking with this American tourist, who happened to be from Seattle, it felt amazing to be able to recommend some day trips for him, tell him which night markets to check out and how to get there, and talk to him about all the different food items he absolutely has to try before leaving the island.
After dinner, we parted ways, and I headed home for a much needed good night's sleep. I didn't get out of bed until late the next morning, and sat around the house working on various things that I needed to get done. My host mom had left for Taoyuan (a town about 1.5 hours away from Taipei) early that morning, and wouldn't be back until late that night. She had gone to a Buddhist meditation ceremony, which I had asked if I could accompany her to, but she had told me that I would be very bored because part of the ceremony meditating without talking or moving around for several hours, and that she thought it would be better if I didn't go. Later in the afternoon I met up with some friends again, and we spent a great evening in the city walking around together and trying some new foods at a small night market.
The next morning I went with my host mom to a Rotary event at the Grand Hotel. It had something to do with the service Rotary is doing around Taiwan and the world. After the presentation, my host mom took me to a lunch with her at a very nice restaurant. Many other people met her there, and I think it was a business lunch, but I'm not sure if it had to do with Rotary or not because I think some of the individuals we met were Rotarians. We had a nice lunch of seafood, soups, and all sorts of different rice and pork dishes. We finished very late, and as we were leaving, my host mom found out she would have to go to a meeting, so she dropped me off at Mati's house. The two of us went to an area of town called Dongmen for the evening, where we bought pizza and spent time looking through the stores and shops nearby.
On Sunday I got up early in the morning, and my host mom dropped me off at an MRT station near our house. There I got on a bus with a bunch of Rotarians, Mati, and some other exchange students who I didn't know would be there. We drove about two hours to Yilan, a farming village near Taipei. As we entered the region, within a few minutes all the land we could see was made up of rice farms. It was raining pretty hard, and the difference in the landscape from that of the city was striking. We stopped at the very small, mostly touristy town, full of shops and a small museum. We watched some traditional dancing there, before we got back on the bus. Our next stop was lunch at a big building in the middle of nowhere. When we got inside, we were greeted by a couple hundred other Rotarians, all eating together and enjoying various presentations, including a magician. We ate mostly seafood, drank tea, and sat around talking for a couple of hours. Then we got back on the bus, and drove to a museum which had many exhibits about the native Taiwanese people and the traditional culture, which is very important to the history of the island, and much more prominent outside the confines of the city. We eventually arrived home, albeit very late, and very unexcited about the prospect of going to back to school after our multiple extended breaks.
School was back to usual on Monday. We worked on our big art project in Art class, which was fun and interesting. From what I could gather, we were making a giant, cardboard, 3D Mona Lisa painting which has been altered a bit to look like the girl students from our school, wearing our pink uniform and the same barrettes and bracelets many of the girls wear. Some students are even making her a removable face mask out of cardboard for when she gets sick.
After school my host mom brought me to watch a film being shown by her class. Mati was also there with her host mom. The film told the true story of a town in Central Taiwan that was hit by an earthquake in 1999. The movie was about a teacher at the school there, and how the students came back together after the earthquake even though their school had been destroyed, and formed a traditional Chinese symphony together and went on to win the National Competition. It was a very moving film, even through it was in Chinese and was often difficult to understand, and overall I really enjoyed watching it.
On Tuesday morning I had my first Chinese class with the new group after the placement class. I was very happy to be placed in the top class. I learned that they formed two top class, one which is the top class, and one slightly below it, and then the other three classes were formed randomly. Two of my close friends, Mati and Natalie, both made it into the second best class, so I was also very happy for them. During my first class it was very apparent that there was a significant division in the knowledge and experience of the students. Five of us had taken a considerable amount of Chinese before coming, so we were at a noticeable advantage, and were able to answer the questions and move through the content quickly, which meant the other students were often stuck. Still, it was very nice to finally be in a class with others with a similar level of experience to me, and hopefully it will ultimately allow the other students to learn more quickly. I enjoyed my class a lot and felt that it was much more productive and effective than my previous class.
When I got back to school I went to culture class with Hayden and the student teachers. We made dumplings from scratch, and cooked up some bubble tea as well. It was a lot of fun, and also interesting to understand how dumplings, such an integral part of the food of Taiwan, are made. They weren't the best dumplings, but it was a great experience and one I'd been hoping to have for a while, considering I often cook frozen dumplings at home for dinner here.
On Wednesday after school, I went to the Miramar mall to meet up with PinHuey, one of the girls from Taiwan who came to our district in Oregon last year. I got there a while before her, so I spent some time exploring the mall. My greatest discovery was probably the grocery store in the basement, where I managed to find real cheese, something I haven't seen since I've been here, along with pumpkins for Halloween. Later my friend came, and we went to watch a movie together. Afterwards, we bought some bubble tea at the food court in the basement, and talked about everything that had happened since we saw each other last in Oregon, then both headed home.
On Thursday after Chinese class, I got dumplings with Maria, then we found a cake store and each bought a slice of cake, something I hadn't had since arriving here, and which was absolutely delicious. In culture class at school, we took the mrt to the mall with our teacher, and walked around for about ten minutes with the task of taking interesting photos. In French class, a girl from France came to give a presentation about France and her home town, as well as her family and her friends. She was in her early twenties, so I'm not sure why she's living here, but I think she is just here to study Chinese and English. Later, I went with my host mom to Buddhist class after school, but spent most of the time working on my Chinese homework. Otherwise the day wasn't too eventful.
On Friday my friends and I went to Ximen in search of Halloween costume material. We found a tiny store packed with Halloween stuff. Not many people celebrate Halloween here, so I was surprised that the shop existed, but I'm sure it must get a lot of business from all the foreigners in the area. We bought some makeup, and my friend bought a crazy white wig for a reason I don't think she really understands. Everyone really wanted to go to McDonalds for dinner, so I went with them but didn't get anything to eat because I would really rather avoid McDonalds while I'm here. Not only is it American food, it's also more expensive than Chinese food, and not worth the cost.
At 1:00 on Saturday I headed to an MRT Station near my house, where I met up with Mati and we were picked up by the President of our Club, Piano. He dropped us off at the same park on the river where's we'd been a couple times for a picnic a while back and for the run the week before. Rotary had gotten tickets for all the exchange students who wanted to, to go to a traditional Taiwanese wind instrument concert. There were also dozens and dozens of international food stands, and many of the people running the stand were from foreign countries, sometimes the countries of the food they were selling, other times not, but we had some great conversations with them about how they ended up in Taiwan. Many of them had simply been visiting the country, had fallen in love, and had written home to tell their parents they had decided to stay.
We stayed at the festival/concert for a while, wandering among the stands and trying samples of all sorts of different foods including "ginger coke" from the coca cola sponsored stand, supposedly their new product they plan to launch next month, but I'm 99% sure it was regular coke, at least it tasted the exact same. A group of us eventually decided to leave and go to Linjiang night market, the first night market I ever went to, to buy shaved ice at the first shaved ice place I ever went to, my first week here, in fact the first day that I met my now close friend Natalie, and my friend Arnaud, when the three of us and Mati decided to explore the city together. The shaved ice was as incredible as I remembered it, and we had a nice evening talking over our food. We also bought a giant block of this incredible super light, fluffy, moist cake stuff, which was amazing (I wouldn't exactly call it cake because it was kind of like a really like fluffy pound cake without frosting or anything).
I woke up at 5:00 on Sunday, and left the house with my host mom by 6:00 in the morning. We took a taxi to an MRT Station where we met Mati and got on another bus for another day trip. We drove for at least three hours, through Yilan, along the coast, past miles and miles of forest, until we finally reached a tiny village. We got off the bus and walked into the village to a small shop where we met a group of women who were running the shop. We also met about a dozen kids ranging in age from 7 or 8 to 14 or 15. I never really understood what exactly they were doing, but they were working on some weaving, and they stopped to talk to with us when we got there. They had lots of questions about where we were from, what kind of music we liked, if we could add them on facebook. Later we got back on the bus, drove a few minutes, and arrived at a church where we ate snacks, including a frozen Japanese ice cream sandwich made with pancakes instead of cookies. Then we carried a bunch of boxes upstairs, where the Rotarians took photos with the men and women in charge of the church and presented them with the objects inside the boxes. After this we went back to the area near the small shop and entered a shop/house/restaurant to eat lunch. We ate fresh fruit, fresh caught fish, and the meat of an animal that was either a goat, or an endangered animal that is a mix between a goat and a deer that only native Taiwanese people are allowed to hunt. My host mom told me it was supposedly the endangered animal, but she wasn't sure that it was, and thought it might just be plain old goat.
After lunch, we piled back on the bus, and stopped a while later at a big park surrounded by mountains, with a lake and orchards of some kind. It was beautiful, and a walking around for a while was a nice change from walking around the crowded city. It also really reminded me of Oregon. While there weren't any turning leaves on the ground, it was definitely finally starting to get a bit cooler here, and I loved being in the outdoors for a while, free to walk around and explore. Our last stop of the day was at a fish market in a small fishing town. Right outside the market was the port, which was filled with hundreds upon hundreds of boats, all crammed together in the water. During the bus ride home, we ran into traffic, so it took longer than expected, and we didn't get home until late. They brought us guava juice, some kind of pastry filled with chicken, and cream puffs during the ride, so Mati and I had a fun dinner sitting on the bus and listening to music.
The next day was back to the usual routines of school. Afterwards, I walked home, and stopped at a small sports shop I found to buy a yoga mat and some other exercise equipment, which I've really been wanting so that I can exercise more on my own at home. Afterwards, I stayed home from Buddhist class to work on some things, and go for a long run on the treadmill downstairs.
On Tuesday morning I went to Chinese class, which was pretty much the usual. I really enjoy my new Chinese class because we are very productive. We have a test every day, and lots of homework, but by learning material I don't already know quite as well, I feel very motivated and study a lot especially during school, when I have the most time. We went back to the same dumpling place and cake place for lunch. When I got back to school, we didn't have culture class for some reason, so I went back to my class instead. In the evening I went to Buddhist class with my host mom. I think the best part of class is the break when I get to talk to my host mom's classmates in Chinese. They're always curious as to who I am and are excited when I can speak to them in Chinese. There is also always great food, often including fresh, delicious, and unique fruit. On Tuesday I had star fruit for the first time, which I absolutely loved and ate a lot of.
Wednesday was a pretty uneventful day, but Thursday was more interesting. After Chinese class some friends and I went to meet up with our other friends who are in a class at a different location. We went to the huge super market that we've been to a few times before which has great food and is pretty cheap. We split a cheesecake, which was incredible. I don't usually like cheesecake, but it wasn't quite a traditional cheesecake, it was very fluffy, and we got french fries from KFC. KFC is very big in Taiwan, along with some other Taiwanese fried chicken stores. Fast food here is very interesting to me because, while it’s not Chinese or Taiwanese food, it's not quite the same food as is sold in the same stores in the US, and is always prepared in a style that is somewhat unique to Taiwan. After lunch, I headed back to school with Hayden, who had eaten lunch with us. Our first class was Japanese, which I just started a couple of weeks ago, and am therefore very behind in. I decided to buy the textbook so that I could actually study and follow along with the class. My teacher brought it for my during class yesterday, so I looked through it during class and started trying to learn the alphabet. Later in the day during culture class, we took the MRT to a nearby park, called Dahu Gongyuan, or Big Lake Park. Our teachers bought us some snacks at a 7 eleven on the way, including coffee and some small crispy ball with cream inside. We walked around, for a while, sat on a bench to eat, then walked around the lake and over a very tall, steep bridge. As usual we took lots of pictures, in fact our teachers continuously told us to take photos of everything, and that we would have a contest for the best photo. I went back to school for french class, where we learned how to say a bunch of different countries in French. Our class is very easy, but I still enjoy it. However, it is the only class for many students that they don’t actually need to get a good grade in, so most of the students don’t really pay attention. I wish they would so that we could move faster in class because what we’re learning is very basic, but it’s still an interesting class and it was fun being able to help my classmates translate words from French to Chinese.
After school, I took the MRT to meet up with Maria and Mati. We went to the night market to look for clothes and specifically for halloween costume pieces. Rotary is hosting a halloween event on Saturday, and we are encouraged to go in costume, which has been very difficult to put together here with such limited clothing items to work with and with no idea of where to find the kind of random halloween items you could buy at almost any store this time of the year in the US. We shopped for a while which was really fun because the night market is full of tiny shop after tiny shop, all with nice, but cheap clothes. However, we couldn’t try anything on, so that kind of limited our purchase options. Afterwards, we bought pork buns for 12 dollars, and shaved ice for 120. This was actually very cheap for shaved ice, and it always amuses me how much more we spend on dessert here than dinner. Most Chinese food can be found on the street for 10-60 NT (.3 - 2 USD), and are often sold in individual pieces, which means it’s convenient and easy to try all kinds of different food at the night markets.
On Friday I had PE in the morning, during which I played basketball with some of the girls in my class. I've learned I can do pretty well in a game, but when it comes to shooting I'm terrible. Still when we had to do a shooting test, I somehow managed to do pretty well, and even beat Hayden, who is usually pretty good at basketball. An hour later I had swimming club, and for the first time in weeks we actually got to swim. For the past month or so every week either the coach has not shown up, or we have something else planned during club time. I was very happy, and swam on my own for about an hour before we had to get out and go back to our classrooms for lunch. First I made a quick stop because the school newspaper wanted to take photos of Hayden and me. Afterwards they gave us pizza and soda for lunch. The pizza was interesting because it had fish, shrimp, and squid on top, but it was still pretty good, as were the star shaped tater tots, which are very popular with pizza here.
After lunch I had music class, where we are playing the ukulele. I wish I could take mine home to practice because I really enjoy playing, and have taught myself a bunch of chords for different songs beyond what we're doing in class, so I'm considering buying one. After the first hour of class, we put the ukuleles away and watched the second half of Les Miserables, which we started watching last week. After school, a few exchange students were having birthday parties at various restaurants, so I thought about going, but ultimately decided I'd rather stay home with my host mom, so we got Japanese food together which was delicious. It was great to spend some time with my host mom, I always enjoy talking with her in Chinese about school, and anything else that's going on. Today she started teaching me some Taiwanese, because I may have a chance to volunteer in a nursing home in Tainan for a week during the winter, but most of the residents only speak Taiwanese, so I will need to learn a little in order to go.
On Saturday morning, my host mom dropped me off at Mati's house. On Sunday morning my host mom would be leaving at 6 for China, where she will stay until Thursday, so I brought a huge bag with all my clothes, uniforms, and school supplies for the week. Mati and I spent the morning sitting around, then I went out in the afternoon to meet up with Maria. I got my costume ready for the party which would start later in the evening. There was a huge Pride parade going on downtown, the biggest in Asia, and at least 50 exchange student were going, so we decided to go check it out and maybe meet up with them. We never found most of them because there were so many people there, but we did meet up with a few and hung out with them for a while. Then we got back on the MRT and met up with Mati and Natalie at the station, before heading to a big square to meet up with the Rotarians and all the other exchange students from our district. Most of the students were dressed up, and we had a fun time doing a scavenger hunt around the area, then heading to the main venue for the party, a room in the basement of a building where we found food and drinks. We played some games for a while, and at some point a bunch of boys who weren't wearing costumes pulled off their clothes and were wearing cheerleading outfits underneath. We had a fashion show of all of our costumes, and prizes were handed out at the end. Overall it was a fun night, and afterwards some friends and I got bubble tea and walked back to the MRT together, before heading home.
On Sunday Mati and sat around most of the morning, ate lunch with her host family, then headed out in the afternoon. We went to the botanical gardens, which were very peaceful and pretty. We walked around for a while, and it was a nice change of pace from the bustling city outside the park's gates. It's so nice that in Taipei, much like in Portland, you can leave the fast pace of the city for a moment by simply finding one of the many parks scattered between the tall buildings and tiny streets. Later we got bubble tea and dinner, which we ate at another nearby park.
Monday, today, was a fairly typical school day. We had martial arts class again during PE, and during English class I worked my way through part of a children's picture book in Chinese that one of my classmates lent me. While I do know many words, the real problem is that I often don't know all of the traditional characters, so I have to look them as I read. After school I took the MRT back to Mati's apartment, and we made dumplings for dinner and spent the evening studying and finally finishing my blog post.
I know this post is very long, and covers a particularly extensive period of time, so of course I couldn't describe every detail, but I hope it gives you an idea of what I've been up to in the last months in Taiwan. Please comment if you have any questions!
(I'm sorry the photos are in no particular order, I hope they make sense!)
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| In front of the President's house |
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| A tank driven by soldiers during the rehearsal parade |
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| Military helicopters during the parade |
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| soldiers marching during the parade |
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| Police motorcycles during the parade |
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There were many, many floats, most it seemed put
together by individual departments or committees of or
related to the government, and most concerning the environment.
I took pictures of every one, but have only included
a few here because there were so many |
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| the formosan black bear is one of the national animals of Taiwan |
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| A kit flown by a girl during one of the performances |
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Everyone in Taiwan uses umbrellas even
when it hasn't started raining yet |
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| A pink car outside the parade |
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| A man making pork buns at a shop |
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| Boxes of buns |
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| Some beautiful views of the city from the roof of my apartment building |
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| The Beitou library |
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| The Beitou Library |
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| A waterfall in Beitou |
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| In front of the Beitou Library |
Mati and I with Rotarians from our club at a recent meeting
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大湖公園，Big Lake Park, near my school
where I went with my school "culture class" |
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| Lily pads in Beitou |
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| Inside the library in Beitou |
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From Left: Me, Natalie, Lucia,
and Maria on the Maokong Gondola |
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Shaved ice and watermelon
juice in Maokong |
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| More shaved ice at a night market |
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pancake ice cream sandwiches at
Raohe night market |
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Raclette cheese melting over heat
at Raohe night market |
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Pork buns baking on the along the
walls of a giant oven |
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There are often many stores with
little toy machines like these
at night markets. My friends have tried
many times, but only a few have
ever succeeded |
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A fish with teeth found sticking out
of an icebox outside a seafood
restaurant |
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| Flowers at the Botanical Gardens |
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| A view of the city from the MRT |
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A man wearing a Blazers jersey on the way
home from school, I actually talked to him
and was really excited |
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Some incredible views from the
Maokong Gondola |
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A fake bust in the fake house where my host
mom's tv shopping show was filmed |
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| The Chiang-Kai-Shek Memorial Concert Hall |
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| A fake staircase in the fake house |
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| My host mom during set up for the tv shopping filming |
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| Some beautiful views of a lake from the MRT |
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| A statue of a rhino in downtown Taipei |
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| The entrance to Raohe night market |
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| A statue near the entrance to the Roahe nightmarket |
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| Roasted chestnuts for sale at the night market |
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a game at te night market where you can try to
catch a fish with a paper net, I've never
seen anyone succeed |
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| Add caption |
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| Some kind of meat roasting at Roahe night market |
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Various meats, tofu, and pig's blood cakes for
sale at Raohe night market |
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| Noodle Soup cooking in a shop at Raohe night market |
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| The shop owner, cooking noodles |
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| Various meat items at a stand at the night market |
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My host mom pointing to a shirt that says
listen to your father and your husband,
my host mom thought it was very funny so we
took some photos with it |
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| Thousand year eggs for sale, among other spices and things |
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| Spices for sale |
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| Ice cream at the night market |
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| Fish, snails, and some vegetable for sale at the night market |
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| Fresh juices at the night market |
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| Some kind of vegetable |
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Fresh passion fruits, you can drink them as a
juice or scoop the seeds out of the shell to eat |
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| pinball games to play at the night market |
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| Bamboo shoots and juice for sale at the night market |
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| Fried dough balls |
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| A giant watermelon and fresh watermelon juice |
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| Fried corn |
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| Some kind of dumplings at the night market |
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There are often other things such as jewelry for
sale at the night markets |
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| Giant pancakes filled with chocolate or peanut butter |
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| Little fried fish and shrimp |
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| Fried shrimp |
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| Seafood including shrimp, small lobsters, and snails |
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Some kind of meat, wrapped in more meat,
roasting at the night market |
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tiny sea snails that are delicious and can be
sucked right out of the shell |
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| an egg dish cooking |
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green onion pancake being flipped, I love these
pancakes so much |
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| Fish eggs, sold as a drink in the night markets |
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| little egg dough balls, sweet and fluffy and delicious |
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sweet dough buns that are pretty common in
night markets and bakeries throughout Taipei |
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| The many options for shaved ice at a typical shaved ice shop |
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My host moms shaved ice, it included a
strange jelly and tapioca pearls |
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| macha shaved ice with redbeans and condensed milk |
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| small jelly balls covered with peanut shavings |
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| a full stand for all kinds of fidget spinners |
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| A fresh juice stand |
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Shooting games at the night market, both
my host mom and I took a turn and I won a rubix cube |
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A girl working on a weaving at the shop we
visited on a Rotary volunteering trip |
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| A salad of tiny fish at a business lunch with my host mom |
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| A colorful town on the drive to Yilan |
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| Rice fields in Yilan |
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| Seafood lunch with Rotary in Yilan |
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| In front of the Yilan meuseam |
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| A tiny lizard at school |
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| Photos on the MRT taken during a "culture class" trip |
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| A view of the mountains from an MRT station |
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photos we were assigned to take in the Miramar
mall on our "culture class" field trip |
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| Hayden, one of our student teacher, and I in school uniform at the Miramar mall |
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A view of the mountains during another
"culture class" trip |
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A huge beetle found in my host mom's hair
during our volunteering trip |
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Some beatiful views from and of the orchards we
walked through during our volunteer trip |
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| The fishing village and fish market we visited on the way back from our volunteer trip |
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| A view from Dahu Park during a school trip |
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| Bird flying over Dahu lake (Dahu is literally big lake) |
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| Hayden and I with two of our student teachers. All three of them are super nice and fun to talk with and walk around the city with |
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| Photos in my school unifrom at Dahu lake |
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| another view of the city |
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| Some incredible Japanese food with my host mom |
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