I had an abrupt, but beautiful start this morning. I woke up at 7, rather confused as to where I was, but this was not the abrupt start. I got a cup of tea this morning, and finished off the last of the cereal I have (I have absolutely no idea what I am going to have for breakfast tomorrow morning) but this is not the beautiful start. No, the abrupt and beautiful start to my morning was at 8 AM, when I had a conference call with most of the people who did the Hoffman Process with. Hearing all of their voices took me right back to that magical week, and all of the feelings and emotions came flooding back, and hit my like a wrecking ball. I am not ashamed to say that I started crying. Not huge heaving sobs, but more like tears of joy. It made me feel connected and happy again, and when you feel like that, it is hard not to cry. I was completely overwhelmed, and so happy to be.
Unfortunately, I had to cut it short. I had to go to class. That might be the hardest it has ever been for me to focus. I felt so distracted, and so filled with love for all of my Process people, that I had a hard time focusing back on speaking Chinese. I told my teacher I was very 感动了 (moved) because I had had a very intense conversation with some friends this morning, and she didn't touch that statement with a 10' pole. Wise woman. I probably would have really started bawling if I had had to describe it, and then realized that my Chinese wasn't actually good enough to describe it. Talk about double whammy.
My first class went by without a hitch, as it always does. My teacher is super relaxed, and likes to have fun just as much as we do. She is a fantastic teacher. My second class didn't go quite as well, but no surprises there. My teachers is much more of a hardass in that class, and I struggled a bit more than I should have. But I felt so happy riding on the wave of emotion I got from the Hoffman call that I didn't even care that I was making stupid mistakes. It was just me and one other guy in class today, as the last guy never showed up. Good riddance, he is a little arrogant anyway. We had a great class without him. I made some stupid mistakes, but what are you going to do?
My last class did not go quite as well. I had previously decided not to prepare for it, because if I did prepare for it, then I got the new words way too fast, and we had the awkward "Now what do we talk about" moment for the last 20 minutes of class. However, I have since seen the error of my ways, and decided that this might not have been the best of my ideas, and that I probably should prepare for class. My teacher did not seem pleased that she had to tell me the meaning of so many of my new words.
At lunch time I raced home to talk to my sister, only to find out that plans had slightly changed. So I had a fantastic, open conversation with my mom, the first one we have had since I got back from Hoffman. And it felt so good to be open, and to be trying to have a deeper relationship. Thank God for Hoffman.
I also decided it was high time that I take control of my Chinese. So I spent the next couple of hours making flash cards and reading over my textbook, trying desperately so that I won't make a fool of myself in class tomorrow. I feel the strong desire to prove myself, and prove that I am not as much of a moron as I am sure that they think I am. My teacher has this way of staring at me that is rather unsettling. I'm not sure how to describe it. I'll get back to you.
Well, I gave up around 2:30. I was exhausted, what can I say. I figured taking a nap was most definitely the right thing to do, as it would build my energy levels back up. So I set my alarm for 4, and went to sleep. 4 rolled around, and that was way too early. So I set the alarm for 4:30. I still couldn't get out of bed at 4:30, but I couldn't let myself go back to sleep either, for pride reasons. So I just dozed for another hour, until a text woke me from my dozing. Dinner time! Unfortunately, I only had 200 kuai in my wallet, which might be enough to buy me a cheap, crappy dinner. Bugger.
After a quick stop at the bank around the corner (which, thankfully, did not eat my debit card. That would have been hellish) a friend and I went to a Thai place around the corner (after gorging myself on hot pot last night - I probably ate half a cow, and at least 10 scoops of ice cream - I couldn't handle the thought of a lot of food). Unfortunately, it turned out that this was one of those bad restaurants disguised as a good restaurant. We got more and more disappointed with the food as it came out. It has zero flavor, and some very suspicious smells. The icing on the cake was the dessert, which turned out to be varying flavors of jelly. We cut our losses, paid the bill, and left as quickly as possible.
I spent most of the rest of the night in Starbucks, drilling through my 200 flash cards, trying to cram all of them into my memory. There are four that I still can't remember, and I would bet money that those 4 are going to be the most important ones tomorrow. Of course. I guess only time will tell.
After a lovely talk with my sister, I feel it is high time that I should hit the hay, as they say. I'm going to stop now before I make any more terrible rhymes. Good night
Thursday, June 23, 2011
My Bad
Hi guys,
I know I haven't updated my blog in a couple of days. I got lazy, and then got too far behind to make it funny. But I am starting up again, never fear.
xo Sophie
I know I haven't updated my blog in a couple of days. I got lazy, and then got too far behind to make it funny. But I am starting up again, never fear.
xo Sophie
Monday, June 20, 2011
Speaking Wine, Drinking Words
I have some bad news. My mosquito netting fell off last night, so I decided to be brave, and not sleep with it at all. Bad mistake. I woke up with 9 new mosquito bites on my legs. And these bites seemed to swell up more than the other ones. I think I am getting slightly allergic to them at this point. Yikes!
I woke up early this morning, for the first day of class. I meant to wake up at 8, but rolled out of bed at 7:30 anyway. It seemed to only make logical sense that I would go buy breakfast, so I put a proper shirt on, and went out to buy some bao for lunch. I ran into some of my classmates, desperately running to class on the other side of campus. I was not nearly awake enough to think about what was going on though. I have decided that I can't really stomach bao in the morning. Far too much grease, and too many carbs. My stomach can't handle it.
And then it was time for class. I am not going to lie, I was pretty nervous, not knowing what I was in for. What were these classes going to be like? Was it going to be as intense as last year? Who knows! The possibilities were endless. But I wasn't going to know until I tried, right? Thankfully, I have class from 9 - 12, which seems to me to be the best time. Not too early, and I still get out early from class. I am going to hold onto this schedule if at all possible.
First up was the class that I was most nervous for: the one whose textbook was only in traditional characters. This was going to be fun, let me tell you. I got to class, and my teacher, 江老师 is this sweet young woman, who smiles easily. There were only three students including me in this class, which is a fantastic student to teacher ratio. She told us what our class was going to be like, and then we all introduced ourselves, and chatted away the remaining twenty minutes easily. Thankfully, we only have to do one chapter a week. That means only one night of headaches from traditional characters a week.
Next up was my main class, and it was only right across the hall. I wasted the time away on my iPad, because guess what? FREE WIFI. That doesn't happen anywhere in Taiwan. I finally have the chance to actually play around with my iPad. When class started, I discovered that we had four people in my class this time, one from the previous class, and two new ones. This teacher was very peppy, and talked in a loud voice, very quickly. We discovered this is because she used to be in broadcasting, and so is used to talking very loudly very quickly. We did the same thing, introducing ourselves, and hearing what the class is going to be like. Again, one chapter a week, and only 30 new characters a night. And simplified ones at that. Piece of cake. She kept saying how she was going to ask us to speak wine (speak well) and that she expected us to give her wine when she gave it to us. She did not mean literally. I can see a funny joke being made out of this at the end of the semester though. Do I dare? I think I might.
My last class was my one on one class. This teacher was not nearly as much fun. She blinks a lot, and doesn't seem to be quite present. But it is definitely going to be helpful to have a teacher just to talk to for an hour, about new words, or anything that I don't understand. One on one's are always good, I just wish my teacher was a little more fun.
I'm afraid I didn't have a very productive afternoon. I wish I could say I did, but I didn't. I wrote my previous blog, talked to a friend, and then promptly decided to take a nap. When I woke up at 6, I had no idea what I was doing, and was all of a sudden struck with the notion that it was already dinner time, and I still hadn't done my homework. And there was absolutely no way I was going to make it to the gym. i made plans with friends to meet them for dinner at 7, and then desperately tried to make some sense of the traditional characters I was supposed to be reading.
It gave me a headache, let me tell you. It took me an hour to just read one page, and I was ready to pull my hair out by the end of it. There were a lot of new words on my new words page, and even more that I had to look up for myself. And a lot of words that I should have known, but didn't, because I didn't recognize the traditional version of it. What am I supposed to do with that? But I'll let you in on a little secret: I actually kind of liked it. I liked feeling like I could read traditional characters, like I was actually learning something. And it felt good to mark up a page with notations again. I really do love learning Chinese.
For dinner, me and some friends went back to the Sichuan restaurant, but went easy on the Jin Pai this time. The food was not nearly as good the second time, unfortunately. I don't know why. We ordered one food that we have now termed "Windex Beef." It had a distinctly odd taste. I did not eat much of it, I would rather not be stuck to the toilet for the whole night. We had street vendor ice cream as it was, I didn't want to test my stomach too much. Once again, the ice cream was more ice than cream, but for $1.5 US, I will take it. It's always more fun to go on an adventure than to just do normal Haagen Daaz or something. I do not think I spelled that right.
After dinner, it was most certainly time to study, which me and Dante did, at D Cafe. It was superb. At first we were just going to try to use the foreigners discount (meaning we would just walk in and not order anything) but the exhaustion got to us too soon. Ordering an espresso did not seem like too much. And I think that the coffee people behind the counter were glad to see us order something.
I stayed there until 10, and called it a night. I had to write my surfing blog, after all! I stayed up late writing the blog, and then promptly crashed. That is, after all, what summer is for!
I woke up early this morning, for the first day of class. I meant to wake up at 8, but rolled out of bed at 7:30 anyway. It seemed to only make logical sense that I would go buy breakfast, so I put a proper shirt on, and went out to buy some bao for lunch. I ran into some of my classmates, desperately running to class on the other side of campus. I was not nearly awake enough to think about what was going on though. I have decided that I can't really stomach bao in the morning. Far too much grease, and too many carbs. My stomach can't handle it.
And then it was time for class. I am not going to lie, I was pretty nervous, not knowing what I was in for. What were these classes going to be like? Was it going to be as intense as last year? Who knows! The possibilities were endless. But I wasn't going to know until I tried, right? Thankfully, I have class from 9 - 12, which seems to me to be the best time. Not too early, and I still get out early from class. I am going to hold onto this schedule if at all possible.
First up was the class that I was most nervous for: the one whose textbook was only in traditional characters. This was going to be fun, let me tell you. I got to class, and my teacher, 江老师 is this sweet young woman, who smiles easily. There were only three students including me in this class, which is a fantastic student to teacher ratio. She told us what our class was going to be like, and then we all introduced ourselves, and chatted away the remaining twenty minutes easily. Thankfully, we only have to do one chapter a week. That means only one night of headaches from traditional characters a week.
Next up was my main class, and it was only right across the hall. I wasted the time away on my iPad, because guess what? FREE WIFI. That doesn't happen anywhere in Taiwan. I finally have the chance to actually play around with my iPad. When class started, I discovered that we had four people in my class this time, one from the previous class, and two new ones. This teacher was very peppy, and talked in a loud voice, very quickly. We discovered this is because she used to be in broadcasting, and so is used to talking very loudly very quickly. We did the same thing, introducing ourselves, and hearing what the class is going to be like. Again, one chapter a week, and only 30 new characters a night. And simplified ones at that. Piece of cake. She kept saying how she was going to ask us to speak wine (speak well) and that she expected us to give her wine when she gave it to us. She did not mean literally. I can see a funny joke being made out of this at the end of the semester though. Do I dare? I think I might.
My last class was my one on one class. This teacher was not nearly as much fun. She blinks a lot, and doesn't seem to be quite present. But it is definitely going to be helpful to have a teacher just to talk to for an hour, about new words, or anything that I don't understand. One on one's are always good, I just wish my teacher was a little more fun.
I'm afraid I didn't have a very productive afternoon. I wish I could say I did, but I didn't. I wrote my previous blog, talked to a friend, and then promptly decided to take a nap. When I woke up at 6, I had no idea what I was doing, and was all of a sudden struck with the notion that it was already dinner time, and I still hadn't done my homework. And there was absolutely no way I was going to make it to the gym. i made plans with friends to meet them for dinner at 7, and then desperately tried to make some sense of the traditional characters I was supposed to be reading.
It gave me a headache, let me tell you. It took me an hour to just read one page, and I was ready to pull my hair out by the end of it. There were a lot of new words on my new words page, and even more that I had to look up for myself. And a lot of words that I should have known, but didn't, because I didn't recognize the traditional version of it. What am I supposed to do with that? But I'll let you in on a little secret: I actually kind of liked it. I liked feeling like I could read traditional characters, like I was actually learning something. And it felt good to mark up a page with notations again. I really do love learning Chinese.
For dinner, me and some friends went back to the Sichuan restaurant, but went easy on the Jin Pai this time. The food was not nearly as good the second time, unfortunately. I don't know why. We ordered one food that we have now termed "Windex Beef." It had a distinctly odd taste. I did not eat much of it, I would rather not be stuck to the toilet for the whole night. We had street vendor ice cream as it was, I didn't want to test my stomach too much. Once again, the ice cream was more ice than cream, but for $1.5 US, I will take it. It's always more fun to go on an adventure than to just do normal Haagen Daaz or something. I do not think I spelled that right.
After dinner, it was most certainly time to study, which me and Dante did, at D Cafe. It was superb. At first we were just going to try to use the foreigners discount (meaning we would just walk in and not order anything) but the exhaustion got to us too soon. Ordering an espresso did not seem like too much. And I think that the coffee people behind the counter were glad to see us order something.
I stayed there until 10, and called it a night. I had to write my surfing blog, after all! I stayed up late writing the blog, and then promptly crashed. That is, after all, what summer is for!
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Surf's Up
I woke up at almost 8 this morning. It was beautiful. I didn't go to to bed until 1 AM, so I guess it makes sense, but still, that glorious feeling of sleeping in, especially on my last day of freedom, is not a feeling to be laughed at. It was so hot this morning when I woke up, because I leave my window open when I sleep (even though I have a screen over my window, that might account for all of the mosquitos) and the Taipei humidity was already in full swing. But it was nothing that a lot of air conditioning couldn't fix.
I had a slow morning, I am not going to lie. I bought some milk from the 7 Eleven, and had cereal AND tea for breakfast. Living the dream, right here. I can't afford to leave my fridge running all the time, so I just buy milk when I have the craving for tea. And I"m trying to finish this box of cereal that I bought, as an impulse buy. Terrible decision.
After a very quick Skype call with someone from back home, it was time to clean my room. Guess what? I found 183 NTU (taiwanese dollars) on my floor, in coins. It definitely helps to clean your room every once in a while. Although, now I have about 300 dollars worth of coins in my coins pocket of my wallet, and my wallet can barely close. That is not so good. I was bored and exhausted by 10:30, so I did what any college student would do in that situation: I took an hour nap to pass the time.
When I woke up at 11:30, I realized that I should probably eat some lunch before I went surfing. Yep, you read that right, surfing was on the agenda for today. There is always a first time for everything, and this, today, was going to be my first time surfing, and I was pumped. Also a little nervous, because I had no idea what to expect. I didn't know what I was supposed to wear, or just how stereotypical it was going to be. But this was just my darkside talking. I told it to bugger off, and then shot it in the head with my imaginary shotgun.
I went to the 7 Eleven to get lunch (which was just a warmed up beef and rice dish) because I didn't know where else to go, and I was going to be meeting Jan there so that we could go meet the guy who was going to be driving us to the coast. It was hot as all hell, but we walked from the 7 Eleven over to the entrance to the school, ready to surf. Naturally, as soon as we got to the school, we get a text from Evan, saying that he is going to be half an hour late, and that we should just stay home until he texts us. Too late now. So, in desperate need of some air conditioning, we walked to a cafe, and set about ordering some ice tropical fruit smoothies. Until Jan realized that he had forgotten the bulk of his cash in his room. Cash is sometimes handy, you know. It can sometimes speed the process up.
So we left, in search of his cash, which was back in his room. He went to his apartment to look for it, and I went to my dorm room to grab my umbrella. When at the beach, it is imperative to have some form of shade, and since I had never been to this particular beach before (nor did I even know where we were going) it seemed prudent to at least bring a small one myself.
And then it was time to run downstairs, and jump in Evan's car as he paused a red light just outside out of our house. Evan is a 20 year old in a 34 year old's body. As soon as he started driving, he told us that we had about an hour drive until we got to the coast, and that there was going to be 13 km long tunnel. Yep, 13 km. I thought I was going mad. How is a tunnel that long even possible? As Jan so eloquently put it, it is the watermelon juice big gulp of tunnels. Evan's English was pretty good, so we flip flopped between using Chinese and English. I felt bad for using English with him, but my accent is probably so bad that it is easier to understand me with English. Who knows. Maybe he wanted to practice his English.
As it turns out, there were many tunnels we had to go through, and they got progressively longer the farther we got from Taipei. First they were short tunnels, and then we hit one that was 5 km. I thought that one was the long one, but Evan just laughed and said nope, not yet! And then we finally hit the long tunnel. This tunnel was actually pretty wide and spacious, so I wasn't too claustrophobic, but damn, by the end of it, it sure is nice to see the light at the end of the tunnel. It just went on and on and on, right through a mountain. Apparently there used to be a road that wound up the side of the mountain (it would take 3 hours to drive along that, and this was only going to take us 1 hour) but it was so dangerous and so many people died that the government spent 15 years building this tunnel under the mountains.
And then we were on the other side, and it was like walking out into Hawaii, or Jurassic Park. I know I make the reference to Jurassic Park a lot, but it's true. It really does look like that. But this time, with the obvious little surfing town near the water, and the mountains in the background, it really did look like Hawaii. And then we saw the Quiksilver add, and knew we had made it.
We parked the car, and then had to walk about ten minutes to get to the ocean. I'm not going to lie, all of the skinny Chinese girls with legs the size of my forearms were really creeping me out. Bodies are not supposed to be that skinny. As soon as we got to the beach, there were so many people that it was impossible to see just one person, and the surfing frenzy began. Evan took us over to a place where we could all rent boards, and we dropped our stuff on some chairs and took off. The boss grabbed a foreigner who gave us a quick lesson on the beach (he was high as a kite, so the lesson was rather useless) and we grabbed our boards like the cool experienced surfers that we were, and took off towards the water.
In classic Chinese form, there were about a million and half people in the water, so we just kept paddling out until there were only half a million people around us (I am, of course, exaggerating just a little bit). And then we waited. Well, I waited. Jan immediately started trying to catch some waves, and Evan caught one on his first go. And I just sat there. I missed a couple of good waves, for sure, but I was so paralyzed by the thought of ACTUALLY surfing that I just sat on my board and pretended to look cool. It took me about half an hour to actually gather the courage to try to catch a wave (with Evan egging me on, of course. Jan was off doing his own thing, going after every wave that came up).
A good wave came up behind me, and I paddled really hard, caught it, and then stood up. I was so surprised and excited by the fact that I had stood up that I promptly panicked, screamed, and fell off my board. Then jumped back on it, and paddled furiously back out, eager to try again. And try again I did. This time, Jan had come out to join us, realizing that all the good waves were further out, and we were all talking when another good one came up. So without even looking, I caught it, stood up, and then looked down. And there was Jan about ten meters directly infront of me, looking up at me with terror in his eyes that I was about to run over him, and then he promptly abandoned ship and disappeared under the water. I didn't have to move (nor the skill, if truth be told) so I just ran the board over, and hoped I didn't hit him. When I heard the boards smash together, I just jumped off. And started laughing my ass off. As soon as I made sure he wasn't hurt, of course.
There were a couple more of these stories. I caught another good wave, and almost took out some old man who was fast asleep on his board. And I also almost took out some young kid who saw me coming and immediately rolled over underneath his board. I'll have you know I didn't run over either of them, thank you very much. By the end of the day, I was standing up, and even steering a little bit. Take that! I am a fast learner.
I also met this really sweet girl, who was surfing in my vicinity, who also goes to the same university. Her and I kept talking, and I found out that she is going to Princeton in the fall for grad school. Potential road trip, anyone? It could be fun. We exchanged numbers at the end of the day, and she told us about a four day beach party that is going to be happening in a couple weeks. I am so down. Surfing all day and partying all night? Yes please! What else is summer for?
We called it a day around 5:30, and after taking the obligatory Californian surfer pictures, we went off in search of showers.
The showers were right next to the really smelly bathrooms, and they were cold. There was also a very sketchy pool of water at one end, and it was a free for all for who got the shower. There was a huge fat Chinese man next to me for a while (clothed, thank GOD). Evan brought shampoo that smelled amazing, and my hair has never been so smooth. It was Pert shampoo, and I do believe that may be my new favorite shampoo.
I, like the genius that I am, did not think to bring either a change of clothes, or even underwear with me to the beach, so I had to just try to dry my suit off as much as possible before getting in the car. It was right around this point that Even dropped the bombshell that we were going to be going to a really nice hotel/bar/lounge for dinner and drinks. Jan and I managed to convince him that we needed to change clothes. After showering, you couldn't even tell he had been surfing for the past five hours. Some people have all the luck.
Before we headed back to Taipei, we stopped in at a famous ice cream bar for some taro, red bean and pineapple ice cream. That may not sound very appetizing to you, but let me tell you, it was the most amazing ice cream I have ever had. It was sweet, but it didn't weigh you down. And it had such a good after taste. Definitely worth the stop. We also went to a shop where they sell this type of super thin cookie that you can only buy in Yilan (where we were. Technically, the place we were in is called WuShi Harbor), and those too were amazing. I am definitely going to have to go back there for the food. I have decided that I am going to spend most of my money on food, and not on shopping. I think that is a wise decision.
It took us two and a half hours to get back to Taipei, the traffic was so bad. Thankfully, it was only bad traffic to get into the tunnel, but still. I had the whole backseat to myself, and it gave me a lot of time to think about things that had been weighing on me, and do some check ins with myself. We were all so tired and loopy, it was good that it was dark and quiet.
Because we were in traffic so long, we missed the nice dinner at the fancy restaurant, so we decided to go a famous tofu night market instead, called Shenkeng Old Street. We bought the first thing we saw, which was barbequed tofu with peanut powder and Korean veggies. It was actually pretty good, and that is saying something, because I really don't trust Chinese tofu. Way too many bad experiences for my taste.
After buying the street food, we ended up in a famous restaurant that had been there for 60 years. Looking at it, you wouldn't have known it was famous, it looked like every other hole in the wall restaurant in the city, but Evan insisted it was good food. We got there right before the place was closing, so we were the last ones there. I almost regret to say that I have finally tried stinky tofu. I ate it, and then Evan told us what it was. It tastes exactly how it smells, which, in a word, is not good. I was a little underwhelmed, to be honest. I think Evan and Jan were too, although we may have all just been so tired that actual proclamations of good or bad might have been too much for us to handle at the moment.
Just as we were leaving, all of the waiters started bringing in hundreds of bags of what looked like turkey giblets. Expecting the mother of all water balloon fights, we got out of there as quickly as possible. The stinky tofu places were still alive, so it was quite the game of who can hold their breath for the longest.
As soon as we got our car out of the parking garage (you leave it on the bottom floor in an elevator, and then this machine parks it for you, in the garage. It's like that arcade game where you put money in and the claw grabs something for you, but more sophisticated. Apparently it gets damaged a lot in earthquakes) we headed home, and I got back to my dorm room at about 9:30, and crashed at 10. And that, my friends, is my story of how I went surfing for the first time.
I had a slow morning, I am not going to lie. I bought some milk from the 7 Eleven, and had cereal AND tea for breakfast. Living the dream, right here. I can't afford to leave my fridge running all the time, so I just buy milk when I have the craving for tea. And I"m trying to finish this box of cereal that I bought, as an impulse buy. Terrible decision.
After a very quick Skype call with someone from back home, it was time to clean my room. Guess what? I found 183 NTU (taiwanese dollars) on my floor, in coins. It definitely helps to clean your room every once in a while. Although, now I have about 300 dollars worth of coins in my coins pocket of my wallet, and my wallet can barely close. That is not so good. I was bored and exhausted by 10:30, so I did what any college student would do in that situation: I took an hour nap to pass the time.
When I woke up at 11:30, I realized that I should probably eat some lunch before I went surfing. Yep, you read that right, surfing was on the agenda for today. There is always a first time for everything, and this, today, was going to be my first time surfing, and I was pumped. Also a little nervous, because I had no idea what to expect. I didn't know what I was supposed to wear, or just how stereotypical it was going to be. But this was just my darkside talking. I told it to bugger off, and then shot it in the head with my imaginary shotgun.
I went to the 7 Eleven to get lunch (which was just a warmed up beef and rice dish) because I didn't know where else to go, and I was going to be meeting Jan there so that we could go meet the guy who was going to be driving us to the coast. It was hot as all hell, but we walked from the 7 Eleven over to the entrance to the school, ready to surf. Naturally, as soon as we got to the school, we get a text from Evan, saying that he is going to be half an hour late, and that we should just stay home until he texts us. Too late now. So, in desperate need of some air conditioning, we walked to a cafe, and set about ordering some ice tropical fruit smoothies. Until Jan realized that he had forgotten the bulk of his cash in his room. Cash is sometimes handy, you know. It can sometimes speed the process up.
So we left, in search of his cash, which was back in his room. He went to his apartment to look for it, and I went to my dorm room to grab my umbrella. When at the beach, it is imperative to have some form of shade, and since I had never been to this particular beach before (nor did I even know where we were going) it seemed prudent to at least bring a small one myself.
And then it was time to run downstairs, and jump in Evan's car as he paused a red light just outside out of our house. Evan is a 20 year old in a 34 year old's body. As soon as he started driving, he told us that we had about an hour drive until we got to the coast, and that there was going to be 13 km long tunnel. Yep, 13 km. I thought I was going mad. How is a tunnel that long even possible? As Jan so eloquently put it, it is the watermelon juice big gulp of tunnels. Evan's English was pretty good, so we flip flopped between using Chinese and English. I felt bad for using English with him, but my accent is probably so bad that it is easier to understand me with English. Who knows. Maybe he wanted to practice his English.
As it turns out, there were many tunnels we had to go through, and they got progressively longer the farther we got from Taipei. First they were short tunnels, and then we hit one that was 5 km. I thought that one was the long one, but Evan just laughed and said nope, not yet! And then we finally hit the long tunnel. This tunnel was actually pretty wide and spacious, so I wasn't too claustrophobic, but damn, by the end of it, it sure is nice to see the light at the end of the tunnel. It just went on and on and on, right through a mountain. Apparently there used to be a road that wound up the side of the mountain (it would take 3 hours to drive along that, and this was only going to take us 1 hour) but it was so dangerous and so many people died that the government spent 15 years building this tunnel under the mountains.
And then we were on the other side, and it was like walking out into Hawaii, or Jurassic Park. I know I make the reference to Jurassic Park a lot, but it's true. It really does look like that. But this time, with the obvious little surfing town near the water, and the mountains in the background, it really did look like Hawaii. And then we saw the Quiksilver add, and knew we had made it.
We parked the car, and then had to walk about ten minutes to get to the ocean. I'm not going to lie, all of the skinny Chinese girls with legs the size of my forearms were really creeping me out. Bodies are not supposed to be that skinny. As soon as we got to the beach, there were so many people that it was impossible to see just one person, and the surfing frenzy began. Evan took us over to a place where we could all rent boards, and we dropped our stuff on some chairs and took off. The boss grabbed a foreigner who gave us a quick lesson on the beach (he was high as a kite, so the lesson was rather useless) and we grabbed our boards like the cool experienced surfers that we were, and took off towards the water.
In classic Chinese form, there were about a million and half people in the water, so we just kept paddling out until there were only half a million people around us (I am, of course, exaggerating just a little bit). And then we waited. Well, I waited. Jan immediately started trying to catch some waves, and Evan caught one on his first go. And I just sat there. I missed a couple of good waves, for sure, but I was so paralyzed by the thought of ACTUALLY surfing that I just sat on my board and pretended to look cool. It took me about half an hour to actually gather the courage to try to catch a wave (with Evan egging me on, of course. Jan was off doing his own thing, going after every wave that came up).
A good wave came up behind me, and I paddled really hard, caught it, and then stood up. I was so surprised and excited by the fact that I had stood up that I promptly panicked, screamed, and fell off my board. Then jumped back on it, and paddled furiously back out, eager to try again. And try again I did. This time, Jan had come out to join us, realizing that all the good waves were further out, and we were all talking when another good one came up. So without even looking, I caught it, stood up, and then looked down. And there was Jan about ten meters directly infront of me, looking up at me with terror in his eyes that I was about to run over him, and then he promptly abandoned ship and disappeared under the water. I didn't have to move (nor the skill, if truth be told) so I just ran the board over, and hoped I didn't hit him. When I heard the boards smash together, I just jumped off. And started laughing my ass off. As soon as I made sure he wasn't hurt, of course.
There were a couple more of these stories. I caught another good wave, and almost took out some old man who was fast asleep on his board. And I also almost took out some young kid who saw me coming and immediately rolled over underneath his board. I'll have you know I didn't run over either of them, thank you very much. By the end of the day, I was standing up, and even steering a little bit. Take that! I am a fast learner.
I also met this really sweet girl, who was surfing in my vicinity, who also goes to the same university. Her and I kept talking, and I found out that she is going to Princeton in the fall for grad school. Potential road trip, anyone? It could be fun. We exchanged numbers at the end of the day, and she told us about a four day beach party that is going to be happening in a couple weeks. I am so down. Surfing all day and partying all night? Yes please! What else is summer for?
We called it a day around 5:30, and after taking the obligatory Californian surfer pictures, we went off in search of showers.
The showers were right next to the really smelly bathrooms, and they were cold. There was also a very sketchy pool of water at one end, and it was a free for all for who got the shower. There was a huge fat Chinese man next to me for a while (clothed, thank GOD). Evan brought shampoo that smelled amazing, and my hair has never been so smooth. It was Pert shampoo, and I do believe that may be my new favorite shampoo.
I, like the genius that I am, did not think to bring either a change of clothes, or even underwear with me to the beach, so I had to just try to dry my suit off as much as possible before getting in the car. It was right around this point that Even dropped the bombshell that we were going to be going to a really nice hotel/bar/lounge for dinner and drinks. Jan and I managed to convince him that we needed to change clothes. After showering, you couldn't even tell he had been surfing for the past five hours. Some people have all the luck.
Before we headed back to Taipei, we stopped in at a famous ice cream bar for some taro, red bean and pineapple ice cream. That may not sound very appetizing to you, but let me tell you, it was the most amazing ice cream I have ever had. It was sweet, but it didn't weigh you down. And it had such a good after taste. Definitely worth the stop. We also went to a shop where they sell this type of super thin cookie that you can only buy in Yilan (where we were. Technically, the place we were in is called WuShi Harbor), and those too were amazing. I am definitely going to have to go back there for the food. I have decided that I am going to spend most of my money on food, and not on shopping. I think that is a wise decision.
It took us two and a half hours to get back to Taipei, the traffic was so bad. Thankfully, it was only bad traffic to get into the tunnel, but still. I had the whole backseat to myself, and it gave me a lot of time to think about things that had been weighing on me, and do some check ins with myself. We were all so tired and loopy, it was good that it was dark and quiet.
Because we were in traffic so long, we missed the nice dinner at the fancy restaurant, so we decided to go a famous tofu night market instead, called Shenkeng Old Street. We bought the first thing we saw, which was barbequed tofu with peanut powder and Korean veggies. It was actually pretty good, and that is saying something, because I really don't trust Chinese tofu. Way too many bad experiences for my taste.
After buying the street food, we ended up in a famous restaurant that had been there for 60 years. Looking at it, you wouldn't have known it was famous, it looked like every other hole in the wall restaurant in the city, but Evan insisted it was good food. We got there right before the place was closing, so we were the last ones there. I almost regret to say that I have finally tried stinky tofu. I ate it, and then Evan told us what it was. It tastes exactly how it smells, which, in a word, is not good. I was a little underwhelmed, to be honest. I think Evan and Jan were too, although we may have all just been so tired that actual proclamations of good or bad might have been too much for us to handle at the moment.
Just as we were leaving, all of the waiters started bringing in hundreds of bags of what looked like turkey giblets. Expecting the mother of all water balloon fights, we got out of there as quickly as possible. The stinky tofu places were still alive, so it was quite the game of who can hold their breath for the longest.
As soon as we got our car out of the parking garage (you leave it on the bottom floor in an elevator, and then this machine parks it for you, in the garage. It's like that arcade game where you put money in and the claw grabs something for you, but more sophisticated. Apparently it gets damaged a lot in earthquakes) we headed home, and I got back to my dorm room at about 9:30, and crashed at 10. And that, my friends, is my story of how I went surfing for the first time.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
I Think Not
I tried to wake up early this morning. Really, I did. I meant to go to the gym at 8:30, and I had plans to meet people so that we could go. But when 7:30 rolled around, I honest to God could not motivate myself to get out of bed. I kept setting my alarm later and later, hoping I would be able to go back to sleep. So I was over and above the moon when Jan texted me suggesting we meet up an hour later. Get to sleep in more? Yes please.
I went down to the 7 Eleven to buy some milk for cereal and tea, and then came back to my room to hibernate until it was time to go to the gym. I was feeling very scatter brained this morning, like all I wanted to do was hang around and not do anything. Haven't had one of these days in a long time. But alas, it was not meant to be. I had to go to the gym.
We walked over there at about 9:30, and it was already getting hot. The walk over was enough of a warm up, we were already sweating by the time that we got there. After a couple of small mishaps while signing up for the gym card (ie, my brain was so foggy that I could barely even answer simple questions), we finally got to the weight room. It is actually a decent size, although the air conditioning could use some work. Although I think it is possible that Taiwan is simply so humid that no amount of air conditioning could ever remedy that.
I regret to say that my first day back in the gym did not go nearly as well as it should have. I kept getting super light headed, and I was sweating like a pig. I haven't sweat that much in a long time. I stayed for about an hour, dragging myself through the motions, but honestly, I was just not feeling it. Baby steps, right? I'll go back tomorrow. I think it is mostly the heat that is just getting to my head. I have never dealt with the heat well, to say the least. It made me feel better than Jan had the same "how am I functioning right now" look on his face that I am pretty sure I had on mine. It was quite the out of body experience.
Walking back to the dorms, about 15 minutes away, in the heat and all sweaty, was not the most pleasant experience I have ever had in my life. I'm afraid to say I had a rather one track mind at that point. I wanted food, and a shower, and a quiet afternoon. I grabbed some bao, and then headed back to my dorm. I was technically supposed to be going on a trip to Maokong this afternoon (which is the tea section of Taipei) but I needed to get a little bit of energy back before I was going to make that trip.
I'm not going to lie, all I wanted to do was fall asleep. I almost did. But eventually, I dragged my ass out of bed at 12:30, to get some lunch, and meet some friends at 7 Eleven so that we could all go to the subway together. As it turned out, only Bo and I had bikes, and Josh didn't, and it was along way to go. So we did what any real Chinese people would do: we shared the bike.
At first, I rode the bike, and then Josh sat on the bike on a small rack over the back tire, but that was super wobbly. I was white knuckling the handle bars, and was very very convinced that I was going to die. Well, actually, that both of us were going to die, because our fates were temporarily intertwined as we wobbled down a rather busy road. After narrowly missing a collision with 4 other people, we realized this wasn't working. So we tried the other way, with Josh riding the bike, and me sitting on the back. And that actually worked splendidly. There were a couple close calls, and I was more than happy that I couldn't actually see where we were going, but we got the job done. And all three of us (me, Bo and Josh) all got to the subway without any problems.
It was at the subway that I had an epiphany. I didn't want to be there, all I wanted to do was go back to my dorm room, and go back to sleep. So why on earth was I there? All I could think of was that if I left, it would be a hell of a trip to try to get back. So, I did what I never would have done pre-hoffman: I left. I told the teacher that I had changed my mind, and I left. Just turned around, said good bye, got right back on my bike, and biked home. And I felt awesome about it.
My story is not so interesting from there. I came back, and had to charge my phone, and had a lazy afternoon, just how I liked it. Actually, as a small confession, I watched Hook (the 1991 movie with Robin Williams) and there were some parts that I cried in. Being in touch with my emotions is a double edged sword.
I can tell you parts of what I did for dinner, but according a certain pact made, it never happened. But lets start off, shall we? I was waiting outside of the 7 Eleven (it is turning into quite the meeting spot, isn't it? You probably all think I am turning into the sketchy person that hangs out outside of the 7 Eleven now) when some Chinese girls approached me. One started talking (in rather good English) and telling me that she was working on a project that involved interviewing foreigners, and she wanted to quickly interview me while her friend taped it. I was happy to oblige.
We stood outside of the 7 Eleven, and she asked me questions about why I was in Taiwan, and why I was studying Chinese, and how long I was going to be in Taiwan for. Those sort of questions. There were a few that were rather poorly worded (with the result that I had no idea what she had actually asked me) so I just made something up. Hopefully it sounded philosophical and wise. Of course.
Three minutes later, we were done, and I gave her my name so she could friend me on Facebook. Then I met up with Jan, and we were off on the adventure to find dinner. Except that we walked about 100 meters before we realized that neither of us was actually hungry, and that we would rather go somewhere. So then we had to decide where to go. We settled on the Taipei 101 building, which is the tallest building in Taipei. It's supposed to have a really good night life scene around it, and that is supposedly where all of the good clubs are (not that either of us were dressed for clubbing. Flip flops are not normally looked upon fondly at those kind of places.)
We got off at what we thought was the right stop (the Taipei Main Station) and after a couple of wrong turns in the massive subway station, we got outside, and looked around to see where the building was. We spotted it pretty quickly, and then began walking. And then stopped, and looked at the building a little more closely. For a 101 story building, it looked rather small. Jan simply said that it was a 15 minute walk. Until we realized that we had gotten off at the wrong subway stop. That was easily fixed.
As it turns out, we were 6 subway stops away from the 101 building, which is decidedly more than a 15 minute walk. But who's counting? Once we got to the right subway stop, it was smooth sailing from there. We got out, and started walking, with Jan pointing out all of the good places to go, both bars, lounges, and food courts. Hunger hit us like a wrecking ball around 9, and we were both on the lookout for some food.
After walking around for a while, and still not being able to find anything, we decided to head back to the food court at the subway station, and either get some food or head back to campus. Unfortunately, we didn't get to the food court until 9:55, and all of the shops closed at 10. So we had to make a hard decision: Coldstone ice cream, or dinner. Which would you have picked? For me, it was a no brainer: ice cream all the way. I basically got German Chocolate Cake in ice cream form, and it was so worth it. In hindsight, Jan and I should have done some better team work, with one of us going to get dinner, one of us getting dessert. But what are you going to do.
We got ice cream, and headed back to campus. I can neither confirm nor deny the rumors that there was a McDonalds stop. And that was my night. It was interesting, to say the least. But the ice cream was worth all of it.
I went down to the 7 Eleven to buy some milk for cereal and tea, and then came back to my room to hibernate until it was time to go to the gym. I was feeling very scatter brained this morning, like all I wanted to do was hang around and not do anything. Haven't had one of these days in a long time. But alas, it was not meant to be. I had to go to the gym.
We walked over there at about 9:30, and it was already getting hot. The walk over was enough of a warm up, we were already sweating by the time that we got there. After a couple of small mishaps while signing up for the gym card (ie, my brain was so foggy that I could barely even answer simple questions), we finally got to the weight room. It is actually a decent size, although the air conditioning could use some work. Although I think it is possible that Taiwan is simply so humid that no amount of air conditioning could ever remedy that.
I regret to say that my first day back in the gym did not go nearly as well as it should have. I kept getting super light headed, and I was sweating like a pig. I haven't sweat that much in a long time. I stayed for about an hour, dragging myself through the motions, but honestly, I was just not feeling it. Baby steps, right? I'll go back tomorrow. I think it is mostly the heat that is just getting to my head. I have never dealt with the heat well, to say the least. It made me feel better than Jan had the same "how am I functioning right now" look on his face that I am pretty sure I had on mine. It was quite the out of body experience.
Walking back to the dorms, about 15 minutes away, in the heat and all sweaty, was not the most pleasant experience I have ever had in my life. I'm afraid to say I had a rather one track mind at that point. I wanted food, and a shower, and a quiet afternoon. I grabbed some bao, and then headed back to my dorm. I was technically supposed to be going on a trip to Maokong this afternoon (which is the tea section of Taipei) but I needed to get a little bit of energy back before I was going to make that trip.
I'm not going to lie, all I wanted to do was fall asleep. I almost did. But eventually, I dragged my ass out of bed at 12:30, to get some lunch, and meet some friends at 7 Eleven so that we could all go to the subway together. As it turned out, only Bo and I had bikes, and Josh didn't, and it was along way to go. So we did what any real Chinese people would do: we shared the bike.
At first, I rode the bike, and then Josh sat on the bike on a small rack over the back tire, but that was super wobbly. I was white knuckling the handle bars, and was very very convinced that I was going to die. Well, actually, that both of us were going to die, because our fates were temporarily intertwined as we wobbled down a rather busy road. After narrowly missing a collision with 4 other people, we realized this wasn't working. So we tried the other way, with Josh riding the bike, and me sitting on the back. And that actually worked splendidly. There were a couple close calls, and I was more than happy that I couldn't actually see where we were going, but we got the job done. And all three of us (me, Bo and Josh) all got to the subway without any problems.
It was at the subway that I had an epiphany. I didn't want to be there, all I wanted to do was go back to my dorm room, and go back to sleep. So why on earth was I there? All I could think of was that if I left, it would be a hell of a trip to try to get back. So, I did what I never would have done pre-hoffman: I left. I told the teacher that I had changed my mind, and I left. Just turned around, said good bye, got right back on my bike, and biked home. And I felt awesome about it.
My story is not so interesting from there. I came back, and had to charge my phone, and had a lazy afternoon, just how I liked it. Actually, as a small confession, I watched Hook (the 1991 movie with Robin Williams) and there were some parts that I cried in. Being in touch with my emotions is a double edged sword.
I can tell you parts of what I did for dinner, but according a certain pact made, it never happened. But lets start off, shall we? I was waiting outside of the 7 Eleven (it is turning into quite the meeting spot, isn't it? You probably all think I am turning into the sketchy person that hangs out outside of the 7 Eleven now) when some Chinese girls approached me. One started talking (in rather good English) and telling me that she was working on a project that involved interviewing foreigners, and she wanted to quickly interview me while her friend taped it. I was happy to oblige.
We stood outside of the 7 Eleven, and she asked me questions about why I was in Taiwan, and why I was studying Chinese, and how long I was going to be in Taiwan for. Those sort of questions. There were a few that were rather poorly worded (with the result that I had no idea what she had actually asked me) so I just made something up. Hopefully it sounded philosophical and wise. Of course.
Three minutes later, we were done, and I gave her my name so she could friend me on Facebook. Then I met up with Jan, and we were off on the adventure to find dinner. Except that we walked about 100 meters before we realized that neither of us was actually hungry, and that we would rather go somewhere. So then we had to decide where to go. We settled on the Taipei 101 building, which is the tallest building in Taipei. It's supposed to have a really good night life scene around it, and that is supposedly where all of the good clubs are (not that either of us were dressed for clubbing. Flip flops are not normally looked upon fondly at those kind of places.)
We got off at what we thought was the right stop (the Taipei Main Station) and after a couple of wrong turns in the massive subway station, we got outside, and looked around to see where the building was. We spotted it pretty quickly, and then began walking. And then stopped, and looked at the building a little more closely. For a 101 story building, it looked rather small. Jan simply said that it was a 15 minute walk. Until we realized that we had gotten off at the wrong subway stop. That was easily fixed.
As it turns out, we were 6 subway stops away from the 101 building, which is decidedly more than a 15 minute walk. But who's counting? Once we got to the right subway stop, it was smooth sailing from there. We got out, and started walking, with Jan pointing out all of the good places to go, both bars, lounges, and food courts. Hunger hit us like a wrecking ball around 9, and we were both on the lookout for some food.
After walking around for a while, and still not being able to find anything, we decided to head back to the food court at the subway station, and either get some food or head back to campus. Unfortunately, we didn't get to the food court until 9:55, and all of the shops closed at 10. So we had to make a hard decision: Coldstone ice cream, or dinner. Which would you have picked? For me, it was a no brainer: ice cream all the way. I basically got German Chocolate Cake in ice cream form, and it was so worth it. In hindsight, Jan and I should have done some better team work, with one of us going to get dinner, one of us getting dessert. But what are you going to do.
We got ice cream, and headed back to campus. I can neither confirm nor deny the rumors that there was a McDonalds stop. And that was my night. It was interesting, to say the least. But the ice cream was worth all of it.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Butterflies and Primary School Children
7 AM wake up call. Well, actually, I rolled out of bed at 6:30, but my alarm went off at 7 AM. I was planning on going on a hiking trip with some friends, and we were supposed to be leaving from the subway at 8. I was rather proud of myself this morning, for going against one of my patterns. I got a text from one of my friends, Jan, that he was not going to be able to make the hike today, and that it was just going to be me and Bo. So when Bo texted me to ask if I was still up for the hike, I balked. Pre-Hoffman, I definitely would have faked a stomach bug, and stayed in bed all day, because I would have been too nervous to hang out with just one person for all day. But I recognized that that was a pattern of mine, so I went anyway.
I left my bike at the subway station, even though it is only a five minute walk from my dorm, because I had to go pick up my books from school after the hike, and I knew that if I had to walk back to my dorm to get my bike after the hike, there was no way I was going to leave again to actually go get my bikes. It's all about tricking yourself.
Once Bo and I got to the subway, it was time to take off. Once again, taking the subway to the right stop was the easy part. Quick 20 minute subway ride, and then we arrived at our destination. We had to catch a bus to get to the next part of our trip, and as soon as we walked out of the subway station, we realized that we had just missed the bus we were supposed to be taking. But they come every 10 minutes, so the next hardest part was finding the place where the bus stopped. That was slightly difficult, but manageable. Once on the bus, we had to go up the hills, all the way to the end of the road. Again. I am sensing a pattern.
Once we finally got off that bus, we had to go find the next bus that we had to take. Fortunately, there was only one bus stop. But when we got in line, and asked the people in front of us if this was the right bus, they said it wasn't. So we kept asking. And then the people in front of us realized that THEY were in the wrong line. Woops. But we were in the right place. Or so we thought.
Finally, after about 15 minutes of standing in line, a tiny little shuttle bus showed up. We were at the back of a rather long line, so my heart dropped a little bit. But as people started piling into the van I thought, maybe we will make it. But alas, it was not meant to be. The man managing traffic stopped the line at the man right before e, and then said, "the next bus will be here in 30 minutes!" before walking away. Let me tell you, Bo and I were thrilled.
Thankfully, the next bus came 10 minutes later, and we got crammed into the back. I sat down, and quite quickly realized that it was a bad idea, because all of a sudden, I had a faceful of Chinese ass. Awesome. According to Bo, it wasn't a long bus ride, maybe 20 minutes.
Until we got to a bus stop before ours, and everyone got off. We thought, yes, we have hit the jackpot. Then the bus driver yelled at us to get off, and we realized that we had taken the wrong bus. So we were stuck there for another 10 minutes, until the right bus came along and picked us up. This time, we got seats, and the trip only took a couple of minutes. And then we were there, two and a half hours later. This is what the view looked like when we finally got to the trail head:
The trail was off to the left of the huge sulphur pit right in the middle. It was pretty to look at, until I got to the middle of the sulphur cloud. Almost took me right back to Hoffman. The path was beautiful, with so much vegetation everywhere. But I am embarrassed to say, I am terribly out of shape. It was rather embarrassing. Bo is in great shape, and was leaping up the mountain like a mountain goat. And I was huffing and puffing in the back, trying desperately to get up the rather steep mountain. I'm afraid all you could hear was my breathing. Oops.
After taking a couple of stops to rest and catch my breath (the sulphur was making my stomach super upset) we reached the top of the mountain, 1200m. And found that it was over populated with screaming elementary school children, all of whom stared at us and whispered "Americans". Which was only half right, because Bo is from Sweden. I think we were both a little overwhelmed by the amount of people on the mountain, because we both ran to the back, where there weren't nearly as many. That was when we realized how many bugs and butterflies there were. They were everywhere. EVERYWHERE. I have never seen so many. It was incredible. Unfortunately, there wasn't much of a view, because it was super overcast, but it was still awesome to have climbed up to the top.
Because of the massive amount of people on top of that peak, we decided to climb over to one that wasn't too far away, but was also not as high. When I looked up and saw how steep the climb was, my heart sank a little bit, but we trudged along. There was no one on that peak, and we could see more because it wasn't quite as high up. We could see parts of Taipei, and the river, and all of the surrounding mountains. It was pretty spectacular. I didn't take pictures because the clouds would have distorted the pictures.
We ran into either an Irishman or a Scotsman, who clearly thought we were insane for only being in Tiapei in the summer. It is pretty hot, I can definitely understand why he thought so. He seemed a little superior for the fact that he had been there for 15 years, but what are you going to do?
Then it was time to walk back down the hill. For some reason, who knows why, walking downhill is always a lot harder than walking up hill. And my knee was hurting walking downhill, but there is no amount of money in the world that could have made me admit it just then. On the way back down, I practiced opening up a little more, and told Bo about Hoffman, and told him that I wouldn't have come on the walk before I had gone to Hoffman. I was using my skills!
The ride back was a lot less painful, and a whole lot faster. This time, we took one bus all the way back down to the subway. At this point, both of were sweaty, exhausted, and hungry after hiking up sulphur soaked hills. It was time for lunch. We made a beeline for our favorite hole in the wall restaurant around the corner from our dorm room. And ordered a rather large amount of food. And then practically inhaled it. It was fantastic.
By the time that we finished, we had to run over to the school to pick up our books. I was so sweaty and gross and tired that I didn't want to do anything anymore, or even talk to anyone. I'm afraid I got rather short with anyone that was keeping me from going back to my dorm room and showering. My book hadn't arrived yet, so I took off, and biked as fast as possible to get home.
Around 5, I biked back over to school to pick up my books. I know over half of the words in the book, so I am going to try get moved up. Ambitious? Quite possibly, but I am going to do it anyway.
Later that night, I had told a friend I would go with him to this place called Snake Alley, but as soon as I actually did some research on the place, I decided against it. There are no pictures allowed in Snake Alley, and it is a place where they skin snakes alive in front of you, and then drain the fluids out for you so you can drink it. Really not sure that is my kind of place. So I decided to just go out to dinner with some of my friends.
We went to a Sichuan place, that was actually pretty good. There was a kid next to us that was probably 5 years old, and he already had a comb over. Like he was going bald. He was the oldest looking child that I have ever seen in my life. But it was a fantastic night. We ate dinner, had a shit ton of awesome food, and then went out exploring. A friend of a friend showed us where I could get some pictures for my gym ID, and where the good fruit places were. We also stopped in for some shaved ice, canned milk and fruit. It sounds weird, but oh my god, it was heavenly. Just the thing to have on a hot night.
At that point, I was so exhausted that I had to call it a night. I swear, I am never this social. It is amazing. Hoffman changed something.
I left my bike at the subway station, even though it is only a five minute walk from my dorm, because I had to go pick up my books from school after the hike, and I knew that if I had to walk back to my dorm to get my bike after the hike, there was no way I was going to leave again to actually go get my bikes. It's all about tricking yourself.
Once Bo and I got to the subway, it was time to take off. Once again, taking the subway to the right stop was the easy part. Quick 20 minute subway ride, and then we arrived at our destination. We had to catch a bus to get to the next part of our trip, and as soon as we walked out of the subway station, we realized that we had just missed the bus we were supposed to be taking. But they come every 10 minutes, so the next hardest part was finding the place where the bus stopped. That was slightly difficult, but manageable. Once on the bus, we had to go up the hills, all the way to the end of the road. Again. I am sensing a pattern.
Once we finally got off that bus, we had to go find the next bus that we had to take. Fortunately, there was only one bus stop. But when we got in line, and asked the people in front of us if this was the right bus, they said it wasn't. So we kept asking. And then the people in front of us realized that THEY were in the wrong line. Woops. But we were in the right place. Or so we thought.
Finally, after about 15 minutes of standing in line, a tiny little shuttle bus showed up. We were at the back of a rather long line, so my heart dropped a little bit. But as people started piling into the van I thought, maybe we will make it. But alas, it was not meant to be. The man managing traffic stopped the line at the man right before e, and then said, "the next bus will be here in 30 minutes!" before walking away. Let me tell you, Bo and I were thrilled.
Thankfully, the next bus came 10 minutes later, and we got crammed into the back. I sat down, and quite quickly realized that it was a bad idea, because all of a sudden, I had a faceful of Chinese ass. Awesome. According to Bo, it wasn't a long bus ride, maybe 20 minutes.
Until we got to a bus stop before ours, and everyone got off. We thought, yes, we have hit the jackpot. Then the bus driver yelled at us to get off, and we realized that we had taken the wrong bus. So we were stuck there for another 10 minutes, until the right bus came along and picked us up. This time, we got seats, and the trip only took a couple of minutes. And then we were there, two and a half hours later. This is what the view looked like when we finally got to the trail head:
The trail was off to the left of the huge sulphur pit right in the middle. It was pretty to look at, until I got to the middle of the sulphur cloud. Almost took me right back to Hoffman. The path was beautiful, with so much vegetation everywhere. But I am embarrassed to say, I am terribly out of shape. It was rather embarrassing. Bo is in great shape, and was leaping up the mountain like a mountain goat. And I was huffing and puffing in the back, trying desperately to get up the rather steep mountain. I'm afraid all you could hear was my breathing. Oops.
After taking a couple of stops to rest and catch my breath (the sulphur was making my stomach super upset) we reached the top of the mountain, 1200m. And found that it was over populated with screaming elementary school children, all of whom stared at us and whispered "Americans". Which was only half right, because Bo is from Sweden. I think we were both a little overwhelmed by the amount of people on the mountain, because we both ran to the back, where there weren't nearly as many. That was when we realized how many bugs and butterflies there were. They were everywhere. EVERYWHERE. I have never seen so many. It was incredible. Unfortunately, there wasn't much of a view, because it was super overcast, but it was still awesome to have climbed up to the top.
Because of the massive amount of people on top of that peak, we decided to climb over to one that wasn't too far away, but was also not as high. When I looked up and saw how steep the climb was, my heart sank a little bit, but we trudged along. There was no one on that peak, and we could see more because it wasn't quite as high up. We could see parts of Taipei, and the river, and all of the surrounding mountains. It was pretty spectacular. I didn't take pictures because the clouds would have distorted the pictures.
We ran into either an Irishman or a Scotsman, who clearly thought we were insane for only being in Tiapei in the summer. It is pretty hot, I can definitely understand why he thought so. He seemed a little superior for the fact that he had been there for 15 years, but what are you going to do?
Then it was time to walk back down the hill. For some reason, who knows why, walking downhill is always a lot harder than walking up hill. And my knee was hurting walking downhill, but there is no amount of money in the world that could have made me admit it just then. On the way back down, I practiced opening up a little more, and told Bo about Hoffman, and told him that I wouldn't have come on the walk before I had gone to Hoffman. I was using my skills!
The ride back was a lot less painful, and a whole lot faster. This time, we took one bus all the way back down to the subway. At this point, both of were sweaty, exhausted, and hungry after hiking up sulphur soaked hills. It was time for lunch. We made a beeline for our favorite hole in the wall restaurant around the corner from our dorm room. And ordered a rather large amount of food. And then practically inhaled it. It was fantastic.
By the time that we finished, we had to run over to the school to pick up our books. I was so sweaty and gross and tired that I didn't want to do anything anymore, or even talk to anyone. I'm afraid I got rather short with anyone that was keeping me from going back to my dorm room and showering. My book hadn't arrived yet, so I took off, and biked as fast as possible to get home.
Around 5, I biked back over to school to pick up my books. I know over half of the words in the book, so I am going to try get moved up. Ambitious? Quite possibly, but I am going to do it anyway.
Later that night, I had told a friend I would go with him to this place called Snake Alley, but as soon as I actually did some research on the place, I decided against it. There are no pictures allowed in Snake Alley, and it is a place where they skin snakes alive in front of you, and then drain the fluids out for you so you can drink it. Really not sure that is my kind of place. So I decided to just go out to dinner with some of my friends.
We went to a Sichuan place, that was actually pretty good. There was a kid next to us that was probably 5 years old, and he already had a comb over. Like he was going bald. He was the oldest looking child that I have ever seen in my life. But it was a fantastic night. We ate dinner, had a shit ton of awesome food, and then went out exploring. A friend of a friend showed us where I could get some pictures for my gym ID, and where the good fruit places were. We also stopped in for some shaved ice, canned milk and fruit. It sounds weird, but oh my god, it was heavenly. Just the thing to have on a hot night.
At that point, I was so exhausted that I had to call it a night. I swear, I am never this social. It is amazing. Hoffman changed something.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
If You Have Heatstroke, Start Laughing
I had a hard time sleeping in this morning, because I slept so much yesterday. How sad is that? I woke up at 6:30, because I had been sleeping for so long that I was no longer tired. But this did give me more than enough time to go downstairs and buy some breakfast. The lady at the baozi place asked me where I was from this morning. We are slowly becoming friends, I can feel it. Just in time, because I am actually starting to get sick of those baozi for breakfast. It's kind of hard to eat the same thing every morning, and that much fried stuff that early in the morning is just not too good for my stomach.
I got to go pick up my textbooks and my class schedule this morning. I was actually super excited. As soon as I realized that both of my textbooks were in traditional characters, I realized that I was in deep shit. To be perfectly honest. My placement test was in simplified characters, so I was pretty sure I tested into a high class, but I am a baby when it comes to traditional characters. When I asked them if I could have the textbooks in simplified characters, they informed me that one of the textbooks only came in traditional characters, but the other one was in simplified. So I am going to have in traditional, one in simplified. That way, I can learn traditional characters, and still pass my class at the same time. Ingenius, I think. The one in traditional characters is actually a collection of newspaper articles, so that should be fun. NOT.
Then it was a quick trip back to my room to drop my books off, and call one of my friends. So worth it. :)
Around lunch time, I met up with one of my friends Jan to have lunch at our favorite bao place. It is actually pretty good food. We ate pretty quickly, because we were supposed to be meeting people at the subway stop so we could go on a trip, but we didn't know if the meeting time was 1:10 or 1:30. We were fairly sure where we were supposed to be meeting though. That at least was a bonus.
It turns out we were supposed to be there at 1:10, so it's good that we got there early. We met the teacher, and then the other students started arriving. Of course, we all started doing the awkward "What's your name? Where are you from? What is your Chinese like?" The painful first meeting of college students. Something I wish I could skip, but what are you going to do. There were about 35 of us once we had all congregated. And as soon as we all got there, the army of foreigners moved into the subway. We all got on the same train, and our stop was about half an hour away. I felt so conspicuous moving around with so many foreigners.
We were on our way to Danshui, which is a small seaside town outside of Taipei. It used to be the hub for colonization in Taipei. The castle where they had their base was where we were headed. It was about a 20 minute walk from the subway station, and it was hot as hell. We walked along the seaside for a little while, passing all sorts of little cafe's that looked so very tempting. I really wanted to stop, but the teacher was moving very forcefully forward, so there was no stopping. The water looked super sketchy. Little things were moving around in it, and the beach looked like if you walked on it, you would get something infectious. And deadly. Not all that appetizing.
Once we got to the castle thing, we found a tour guide that spoke English almost like he was a native speaker. It was amazing. It was definitely fun to walk around in. We saw all of the cells where prisoners used to be kept. And then we were taken into the back, where all of the customs agents used to live. And that was where the world changed. There were brides EVERYWHERE. Yep, you read right. Brides. As in, people who were about to get married. They were dressed in all different colors, and posed in all sorts of cheesy poses. And even though it was about a zillion and half degrees, none of them looked hot. And they had an army of photographers (plus a van) with all of their hair and dress products. It was actually kind of amazing.
It wasn't long after this that I decided I had had enough. So I staged a coup. Me and some other people told the teacher we were going to leave (they were headed off to a temple, so she wasn't all that happy) and we left. She told us to be careful. And then we took off back down the river, trying desperately to get some of the fictional cool breeze coming off the stagnant river.
Jan and I made one impulse buy. I bought a rice pickers hat. As Jan said, I look like Saigon Betty when I wear it.
Of course, I can't wear it anywhere without looking like a complete toolbag, but I had to have one. This was also the moment that we managed to alienate two girls from New York City, who had been coming with us to ditch the tour. I think they thought we were insane for buying them.
After a quick stop at the Starbucks to get some food (all of the street food looked little too sketchy to eat at) we decided to take the subway back to Taida. Originally, we were going to go to the gym, but all of us were starting to feel slightly loopy, and more than slightly hungry, so food it was. We settled on a fairly respectable looking hot pot place right around the corner from our dorm, and settled in for some serious eating.
The fact that no one was there on a Thursday night should have been our first clue that this was not a respectable joint. The second clue was definitely the fact that it took half and hour and three waiters to get our water to boil. We were all so hungry and tired at this point that we were literally staring at the pot with blank stares on our faces, not saying a word, just willing the pot to boil. As soon as we saw a bubble, we got so excited that we dumped three plates full of meat into the water. And then watched that as it took 20 minutes to boil. It was absolutely hysterical how hysterical we were getting by the fact that we were surrounded by food we couldn't eat.
Once the water did FINALLY start boiling, our dining experience did not improve. The meat was freezer burned and bland, and the spicy part of the soup was not particularly spicy. All of us were thinking it, but none of us were saying it: this food was terrible. That is about the time that the laughing fits started. And lasted for the next hour. We would all pick food up, look at each other, and just dissolve into fits of laughter. I myself was crying. It was so funny.
Eventually, Bo and I had enough of the terrible food, and decided to try our hand at the all you can eat ice cream. Jan was still plugging away at all of the meat and veggies. He's a trooper. Unfortunately, the ice cream was more ice than cream. How can you screw up packaged ice cream? This place could. This too was just over the top hysterical, and set us off once again. Really, we were acting like a bunch of teenage girls. And it was awesome. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. So much better than therapy.
As soon as we decided that our stomachs just couldn't take anymore bad food, we cut our loses and left. Except that the waiter tried to overcharge us by 300 kuai. Foreigner tax, right? Not this time, bud.
It was pretty clear to all of us that we had some sort of heat stroke, that had gone straight to our heads. I'm not surprised, actually, it was so hot, and I didn't drink nearly enough water. No wonder we were laughing so hard. And so, at the end of the night, we were heat stroke-d, filled with bad food, and exhausted from the long trip in the heat. What more could you want from Taipei?
I got to go pick up my textbooks and my class schedule this morning. I was actually super excited. As soon as I realized that both of my textbooks were in traditional characters, I realized that I was in deep shit. To be perfectly honest. My placement test was in simplified characters, so I was pretty sure I tested into a high class, but I am a baby when it comes to traditional characters. When I asked them if I could have the textbooks in simplified characters, they informed me that one of the textbooks only came in traditional characters, but the other one was in simplified. So I am going to have in traditional, one in simplified. That way, I can learn traditional characters, and still pass my class at the same time. Ingenius, I think. The one in traditional characters is actually a collection of newspaper articles, so that should be fun. NOT.
Then it was a quick trip back to my room to drop my books off, and call one of my friends. So worth it. :)
Around lunch time, I met up with one of my friends Jan to have lunch at our favorite bao place. It is actually pretty good food. We ate pretty quickly, because we were supposed to be meeting people at the subway stop so we could go on a trip, but we didn't know if the meeting time was 1:10 or 1:30. We were fairly sure where we were supposed to be meeting though. That at least was a bonus.
It turns out we were supposed to be there at 1:10, so it's good that we got there early. We met the teacher, and then the other students started arriving. Of course, we all started doing the awkward "What's your name? Where are you from? What is your Chinese like?" The painful first meeting of college students. Something I wish I could skip, but what are you going to do. There were about 35 of us once we had all congregated. And as soon as we all got there, the army of foreigners moved into the subway. We all got on the same train, and our stop was about half an hour away. I felt so conspicuous moving around with so many foreigners.
We were on our way to Danshui, which is a small seaside town outside of Taipei. It used to be the hub for colonization in Taipei. The castle where they had their base was where we were headed. It was about a 20 minute walk from the subway station, and it was hot as hell. We walked along the seaside for a little while, passing all sorts of little cafe's that looked so very tempting. I really wanted to stop, but the teacher was moving very forcefully forward, so there was no stopping. The water looked super sketchy. Little things were moving around in it, and the beach looked like if you walked on it, you would get something infectious. And deadly. Not all that appetizing.
Once we got to the castle thing, we found a tour guide that spoke English almost like he was a native speaker. It was amazing. It was definitely fun to walk around in. We saw all of the cells where prisoners used to be kept. And then we were taken into the back, where all of the customs agents used to live. And that was where the world changed. There were brides EVERYWHERE. Yep, you read right. Brides. As in, people who were about to get married. They were dressed in all different colors, and posed in all sorts of cheesy poses. And even though it was about a zillion and half degrees, none of them looked hot. And they had an army of photographers (plus a van) with all of their hair and dress products. It was actually kind of amazing.
It wasn't long after this that I decided I had had enough. So I staged a coup. Me and some other people told the teacher we were going to leave (they were headed off to a temple, so she wasn't all that happy) and we left. She told us to be careful. And then we took off back down the river, trying desperately to get some of the fictional cool breeze coming off the stagnant river.
Jan and I made one impulse buy. I bought a rice pickers hat. As Jan said, I look like Saigon Betty when I wear it.
Of course, I can't wear it anywhere without looking like a complete toolbag, but I had to have one. This was also the moment that we managed to alienate two girls from New York City, who had been coming with us to ditch the tour. I think they thought we were insane for buying them.
After a quick stop at the Starbucks to get some food (all of the street food looked little too sketchy to eat at) we decided to take the subway back to Taida. Originally, we were going to go to the gym, but all of us were starting to feel slightly loopy, and more than slightly hungry, so food it was. We settled on a fairly respectable looking hot pot place right around the corner from our dorm, and settled in for some serious eating.
The fact that no one was there on a Thursday night should have been our first clue that this was not a respectable joint. The second clue was definitely the fact that it took half and hour and three waiters to get our water to boil. We were all so hungry and tired at this point that we were literally staring at the pot with blank stares on our faces, not saying a word, just willing the pot to boil. As soon as we saw a bubble, we got so excited that we dumped three plates full of meat into the water. And then watched that as it took 20 minutes to boil. It was absolutely hysterical how hysterical we were getting by the fact that we were surrounded by food we couldn't eat.
Once the water did FINALLY start boiling, our dining experience did not improve. The meat was freezer burned and bland, and the spicy part of the soup was not particularly spicy. All of us were thinking it, but none of us were saying it: this food was terrible. That is about the time that the laughing fits started. And lasted for the next hour. We would all pick food up, look at each other, and just dissolve into fits of laughter. I myself was crying. It was so funny.
Eventually, Bo and I had enough of the terrible food, and decided to try our hand at the all you can eat ice cream. Jan was still plugging away at all of the meat and veggies. He's a trooper. Unfortunately, the ice cream was more ice than cream. How can you screw up packaged ice cream? This place could. This too was just over the top hysterical, and set us off once again. Really, we were acting like a bunch of teenage girls. And it was awesome. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. So much better than therapy.
As soon as we decided that our stomachs just couldn't take anymore bad food, we cut our loses and left. Except that the waiter tried to overcharge us by 300 kuai. Foreigner tax, right? Not this time, bud.
It was pretty clear to all of us that we had some sort of heat stroke, that had gone straight to our heads. I'm not surprised, actually, it was so hot, and I didn't drink nearly enough water. No wonder we were laughing so hard. And so, at the end of the night, we were heat stroke-d, filled with bad food, and exhausted from the long trip in the heat. What more could you want from Taipei?
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Welcome to ICLP
Today was the day. The day we were supposed to meet our fellow classmates, the day we were supposed to be welcomed to ICLP. And I slept in, until the beautiful, glorious time of 8 AM. What more could you want out of a day?
I had a nice lazy morning for a while, having breakfast, and attempting a failed phone call with my mother (Mexico's internet is even worse than China's. Who knew?) The static on phone calls is so distracting. We ended up IMing instead, but I had to get ready to go meet everyone that is also on my program. Orientation started at 9:10.
In typical fashion, I didn't get there without a glitch. I was riding my bike past the 7 Eleven, went over a bump, and the chain promptly fell off my bike. My rusted old bike was finally falling to bits. I didn't have enough time to walk to Orientation, so I had to try to fix the bike. An of course, the bike chain was rusted over. COMPLETELY rusted. That made trying to pull the chain back on course extremely difficult. By the time I got it back on, my hands were covered in rust, and I was wearing a white shirt. Fantastic.
I almost fell over when I walked into the room where Orientation was, because there were probably about a 100 students already sitting there. I was one of the last people to arrive. Front row seats for me! The awkward game of "Kind of look people in the eye, kind of avoid other people" had begun. All of us wanted to look at each other, but no one wanted to be caught doing it.
The actual orientation was so very Chinese. It started out with introductions by the main person in charge, and she kept going on and on. And then she invited each person from the office to get up and say a few words about what they did. And it was pretty useless, because lets be honest, most people here (who don't live in the dorms) don't give a shit about all of the dorm policies that one woman stood up and talked about. And then there was another woman that basically wasted 20 minutes reading off of a pamphlet that all of us had been given. We can indeed read by ourselves, no need to do it for us. And all of this was of course interrupted again and again by the head woman, who was clearly ego tripping, to talk about how fabulous the course is, and how it is the only one of its kind (incidentally, it is not, but that is the Chinese for you. Modesty is not in their vocabulary.)
This lasted for 2 hours. I could have said all of it in 20 minutes. But what are you going to do? There was also a guy who did the program last year who was translating for us. This is going to sound really egotistical, but just go with it. Maybe it was because I could understand what they were saying in Chinese, and didn't need a translator, but his translating skills were really bugging me. He would emphasize somethings, and completely leave out other points that the teachers had made. And he talked really slowly, in a gravelly voice. I had to resist the urge to jump up and grab the microphone from him, and do it myself. I can't believe I just said that.
Sitting through this did make me really something kind of important. I think I am done doing language programs. At least for Chinese. I think I have finally hit the point where I am not sure if it is going to do me any good anymore. I think it is time for me to find a job working in China. That might be better for me.
After the orientation, I left as quickly as possible. I didn't want to sit through another half an hour of "etiquette class". That just doesn't sound like a good time. I had to grab a bike sticker (so my bike won't be towed. Because I am pretty sure if it is, I will never get it back again.) But lunch got a little screwy, because I ended up going to the supermarket, and losing the people that I was with for lunch. I bought Yoshinoya, but it looked so unappetizing that I couldn't get myself to eat it. So I ended up going to a small bao place with some other people for lunch.
I regret to say that the rest of my afternoon was rather uneventful. I had a long conversation with one of my friends from back home, and then I fell asleep. I meant to just take a nap from 4- 6, but I forgot to set my alarm. So I slept for a little bit later. Basically, I woke up at 8:30, with no idea where I was, or what day it was. I thought it was the next morning, but then I realized that the sky was too dark for it to be morning. So I didn't know what time it was, until I looked at my clock. It was a very confusing time.
I realized I have 3 unread texts from my friends, telling me to come out to dinner. So I literally rolled out of bed, put my hair up in a ponytail, and tripped out of my room. I was still very groggy, and not too sure what was going on. I was suprised to realize that the rest of the world was still moving. I had slept that heavily.
I met up with some of my friends at the bar across the road from the dorms, with the terrible kabobs that we swore we would never go back to. We ordered some drinks, and then decided to send a scout back over to 7 Eleven to bring some stuff over for us. I tried so hard to get into the conversation, but my head felt like it was stuffed with cotton. Which is hard to get around when you are trying to have dinner with people.
So what did I do? I went back to sleep. I came back to my room at about 10, finished writing my blog, and went to sleep. It seemed the thing to do. So I regret to say that I slept through most of the afternoon. Either all of the mosquito bites have finally given me something terrible, or the humidity is getting to me. Let's hope it is the humidity.
I had a nice lazy morning for a while, having breakfast, and attempting a failed phone call with my mother (Mexico's internet is even worse than China's. Who knew?) The static on phone calls is so distracting. We ended up IMing instead, but I had to get ready to go meet everyone that is also on my program. Orientation started at 9:10.
In typical fashion, I didn't get there without a glitch. I was riding my bike past the 7 Eleven, went over a bump, and the chain promptly fell off my bike. My rusted old bike was finally falling to bits. I didn't have enough time to walk to Orientation, so I had to try to fix the bike. An of course, the bike chain was rusted over. COMPLETELY rusted. That made trying to pull the chain back on course extremely difficult. By the time I got it back on, my hands were covered in rust, and I was wearing a white shirt. Fantastic.
I almost fell over when I walked into the room where Orientation was, because there were probably about a 100 students already sitting there. I was one of the last people to arrive. Front row seats for me! The awkward game of "Kind of look people in the eye, kind of avoid other people" had begun. All of us wanted to look at each other, but no one wanted to be caught doing it.
The actual orientation was so very Chinese. It started out with introductions by the main person in charge, and she kept going on and on. And then she invited each person from the office to get up and say a few words about what they did. And it was pretty useless, because lets be honest, most people here (who don't live in the dorms) don't give a shit about all of the dorm policies that one woman stood up and talked about. And then there was another woman that basically wasted 20 minutes reading off of a pamphlet that all of us had been given. We can indeed read by ourselves, no need to do it for us. And all of this was of course interrupted again and again by the head woman, who was clearly ego tripping, to talk about how fabulous the course is, and how it is the only one of its kind (incidentally, it is not, but that is the Chinese for you. Modesty is not in their vocabulary.)
This lasted for 2 hours. I could have said all of it in 20 minutes. But what are you going to do? There was also a guy who did the program last year who was translating for us. This is going to sound really egotistical, but just go with it. Maybe it was because I could understand what they were saying in Chinese, and didn't need a translator, but his translating skills were really bugging me. He would emphasize somethings, and completely leave out other points that the teachers had made. And he talked really slowly, in a gravelly voice. I had to resist the urge to jump up and grab the microphone from him, and do it myself. I can't believe I just said that.
Sitting through this did make me really something kind of important. I think I am done doing language programs. At least for Chinese. I think I have finally hit the point where I am not sure if it is going to do me any good anymore. I think it is time for me to find a job working in China. That might be better for me.
After the orientation, I left as quickly as possible. I didn't want to sit through another half an hour of "etiquette class". That just doesn't sound like a good time. I had to grab a bike sticker (so my bike won't be towed. Because I am pretty sure if it is, I will never get it back again.) But lunch got a little screwy, because I ended up going to the supermarket, and losing the people that I was with for lunch. I bought Yoshinoya, but it looked so unappetizing that I couldn't get myself to eat it. So I ended up going to a small bao place with some other people for lunch.
I regret to say that the rest of my afternoon was rather uneventful. I had a long conversation with one of my friends from back home, and then I fell asleep. I meant to just take a nap from 4- 6, but I forgot to set my alarm. So I slept for a little bit later. Basically, I woke up at 8:30, with no idea where I was, or what day it was. I thought it was the next morning, but then I realized that the sky was too dark for it to be morning. So I didn't know what time it was, until I looked at my clock. It was a very confusing time.
I realized I have 3 unread texts from my friends, telling me to come out to dinner. So I literally rolled out of bed, put my hair up in a ponytail, and tripped out of my room. I was still very groggy, and not too sure what was going on. I was suprised to realize that the rest of the world was still moving. I had slept that heavily.
I met up with some of my friends at the bar across the road from the dorms, with the terrible kabobs that we swore we would never go back to. We ordered some drinks, and then decided to send a scout back over to 7 Eleven to bring some stuff over for us. I tried so hard to get into the conversation, but my head felt like it was stuffed with cotton. Which is hard to get around when you are trying to have dinner with people.
So what did I do? I went back to sleep. I came back to my room at about 10, finished writing my blog, and went to sleep. It seemed the thing to do. So I regret to say that I slept through most of the afternoon. Either all of the mosquito bites have finally given me something terrible, or the humidity is getting to me. Let's hope it is the humidity.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
The American Monkies
Today was different. Today was the first time I have set an alarm since I have been in Taiwan. Because I no longer trust myself to wake up early enough to do the things that I want to. How exciting is that?
I had to wake up early because I was going on a small day trip with some of my friends. So I woke up at 6:30, and as I hadn't completely gorged myself the night before with absurd amounts of food, I was pretty hungry for breakfast. So I went to my normal little Bao place. And guess what? I am officially a regular. I was walking up to the Bao place, and as I was walking up to the lady (the street was pretty clear of people, because it was so early in the morning) and she saw me, and immediately starting putting food into the bags for me. She even grabbed me a soy milk without me ever asking. I felt so honored. I have finally made it.
At 8 AM, it was time to meet up at Club 7, so that me, Bo and Josh could take the subway to get to Wulai. From what I had heard and read, it is a beautiful place in the mountains, with a river, and hot springs and natural bathing pools. But somehow, I still didn't think it was a good idea to wear my swimsuit on the hike. I figured I could just change once I got there. Silly me. When have I ever been able to find a public bathroom in China? That was a bad idea. After we realized that it was just going to be the three of us, we headed for the subway. We could have taken a taxi, but what the hell, we wanted to pretend we were natives.
The subway was the easy bit. All we had to do was get on the right subway, going the right direction. An idiot could do it. But when we got off the subway, and started heading over to the bus stop to get on a bus to go to Wulai, we realized that we didn't know which bus we were supposed to be taking. We asked one woman, who pointed us over to the other side of the bus stop, but we still didn't know which bus to get on. We asked another woman, but she just pointed us over to the information center at the subway. She quite obviously understood us, and she definitely knew, but she wasn't going to tell us. Well, fine then. I'll show you just how resourceful foreigners can be.
Finally, we figured out which bus we were supposed to be taking, and we dodged and ignored the taxi drivers who were both trying to get us to take a taxi, and laughing and pointing openly at us for wanting to take the bus. They didn't care at all that we could speak Chinese.
We got on the bus, sat in the back, and got comfortable. And then we hit the second glitch: after a couple of stops, we realized that none of us actually knew which stop we were supposed to get off at. We looked around on the bus, and noticed a group of school children, who were being escorted by a couple of kind looking Chinese ladies. We figured they looked like they were on a school field trip, and since Wulai was the only place a bunch of school children could be going, we decided that we would just follow them. It seemed like a good idea. And we decided that we should just ask the teachers, just incase. She confirmed that they were on their way to the Wulai waterfalls as well, and that it was the last stop on this bus. Mission accomplished. We made our way up this winding, beautiful road. The forest around the road was absolutely stunning.
It took about 20 minutes to make our way up the mountain to Wulai, and as soon as we got off the bus, we once again got accosted by the taxi drivers, who laughed at us for wanting to walk up the hill to get to the waterfall. Silly foreigners. We then realized, as soon as we stopped taking pictures, and started walking, that we didn't really know where waterfall was. But that was quickly fixed as soon as we A) found a map and B) decided to just follow the river up. Pretty ingenius, no?
We had heard that although taxi drivers will tell us differently, it is indeed possible to walk to the waterfall, so walk we did. It was only about 9 AM when we started walking up the hill, and it was already so hot and humid. But the walk was absolutely stunning. It was like walking through Jurassic Park. We even passed a huge gate that looked very much like the gates around the T-Rex enclosure in Jurassic Park. And the forest was astonishing. The trees were literally growing out of a vertical rocky slope. I have no idea how they did it, but they did. And it was beautiful.
When we finally got to the waterfall, all of us were covered in sweat, and grateful for the slight spray that the waterfall gave off. We had passed some shops earlier before getting to the waterfall, and one of the shop keepers was a man who was dressed up as a woman. A very convincing woman. It was very distracting. I can't see what the point was.
We decided that the waterfall was a little bit disappointing, as we had all been anticipating an area to go swimming in, and damnit, we were going to get it. So what was the verdict? We kept walking. It was almost overwhelmingly hot and humid, and I was pretty convinced that I was getting sunburned. But being the genius that I am, I only put sunscreen on my shoulders, and my nose. It seemed to make sense at the time, but now that I look back on it, it didn't seem so smart.
Because I didn't bring a hat, and it was so hot, my friend Bo gave me an Asic bag to put over my head. It was rather smart, if I do say so myself.
See how genius that is? It made a huge difference. I was no longer quite so hot. And my shoulders weren't getting burned. We had to walk for about another twenty minutes along the road to get to the swimming place. Again, we weren't even quite sure where it was, we just had some sketchy directions from one of the store keeps. That seemed to be a pattern for us. Eventually we found a small overpass over the river, and after crossing it, we came across a small waterfall and a pond. We had reached Utopia. The speed with which we had jumped into the pond was rather impressive. We were so hot and overwhelmed, and the water just looked so perfect. Who could resist?
We took turns playing kings in the waterfall, and taking fun pictures. It was general foolishness in the waterfall. I didn't feel like changing into my swimsuit (there was, of course, no outside bathroom) so I just jumped in in my clothes. I figured that my clothes were either going to be soaked in sweat or water, so it might as well be water. There was a woman sleeping under a tree a little bit away, and she never woke up.
Thankfully, other Chinese tourists didn't start arriving until after we had gotten out of the waterfall, and had started drying off. Then they started coming, and were taking pictures of the waterfall. And looking like us that we were insane for playing around in the waterfall as we were. I definitely felt like the a monkey in a zoo, being oogled at. But it was so worth it. After that long hot walk, being able to jump into a waterfall was all that I could possibly ask for.
And then we had to walk back. But this time, it wasn't nearly as bad. It was downhill, and we were all cooled off from our swim in the waterfall. Look at the scenery as we walked back to the bus stop!
We stopped in at a cafe (Helen's Cafe) for an ice tea and a cup of coffee before heading all the way back to the bus stop. It was very colonial, and definitely a copy of Starbucks. We sat there listening to Frank Sinatra, drinking tea. It was almost surreal. We had all bought some watermelon (which was absolutely fantastic) and sat around talking about our walk. How ex-pat can you get?
On our way back down the hill, we stopped at a skewer stand on the road to get some food. It was FANTASTIC. The best skewers I have ever had. We had mountain pork, which is supposed to be pretty famous. It's one of the first things people ask if you have eaten when you say you have been to Wulai. And it was so good. I kind of want to go back just to be able to eat those again.
On the bus ride back, we got some shitty looks from some of the old people that were sitting around at the bus stop. Foreigners always get the short end of the straw. We didn't get back to the dorm until around 1:45 PM. So much longer than I thought it was going to be. But it was totally worth it. Definitely a good morning.
I spent most of the rest of the day just resting, and trying to sleep. I was pretty exhausted. But sleep was not forth coming. So I wasted the afternoon away, because lets be honest, it is not fun to walk around feeling like you are in an oven. There is nothing to do in the afternoon but make sure you are in air conditioning. And then night came. And it was time to go out again.
This time, Paul, Jan and I went to the Shi lin night market, and I was completely overwhelmed. It spawns about 10 blocks, and has food and clothes and electronics. We went into the food place first, looking for some dinner. We only stopped to get dinner when one of the restaurant ladies literally stopped us in our tracks, forced a menu into our hands, and pointed to chairs. How were we supposed to say no to that? It was a Japanese steak place, and that food was amazing. Really amazing. And super cheap.
We decided to just bounce from place to place eating small bits of food, so we could keep moving. We ate, and then moved into the rest of the night market. It was so overwhelming, there were so many lights and people and noises and smells. All of us were kind of in a trance walking through it. I was so shocked that I bought the first thing I saw, which turned out to be a shirt that said "No More Fashion Victims." I am pretty sure I am a fashion victim just by wearing it, but I'll go with it. I had to buy some bad Chinese shirts.
After wandering around for about half an hour, we were thoroughly exhausted from all of the lights and sounds, and more than happy to go find a restaurant. We found a slightly better than seedy restaurant on one of the side roads, and sat down. No sooner had we sat down than a Chinese guy comes out, very clearly drunk, and supported by two of his friends. They had barely gotten him to the road when he started vomiting. It was 9 PM on a Tuesday night. This was a classy guy.
The waitress informed us that there were only warms beers left, so we ordered some food that was actually amazing. Paul and I don't eat seafood (he is allergic, I just dont' like it. His excuse is better than mine.) The waitress and I bonded over the fact that even though this restaurants speciality is seafood, neither of us liked it. We were almost friends by the end of it. It was a good night, we spent about an hour and a half there, just looking at all the people. I almost forgot my very special purchase when we left to head back home.
We made a quick pit stop at the carnival dart games so the Jan could win a fake plastic gun that shot foam balls at us. It gave us hours of entertainment. Well, actually, only about the half an hour that we had left of the trip home. The subway back was pretty uneventful, I was exhausted. I haven't been that happy to go to sleep in a long time.
It was a crazy day. But oh so much fun. I am discovering that I love going to sketchy restaurants in alley's. They always have the best food.
I had to wake up early because I was going on a small day trip with some of my friends. So I woke up at 6:30, and as I hadn't completely gorged myself the night before with absurd amounts of food, I was pretty hungry for breakfast. So I went to my normal little Bao place. And guess what? I am officially a regular. I was walking up to the Bao place, and as I was walking up to the lady (the street was pretty clear of people, because it was so early in the morning) and she saw me, and immediately starting putting food into the bags for me. She even grabbed me a soy milk without me ever asking. I felt so honored. I have finally made it.
At 8 AM, it was time to meet up at Club 7, so that me, Bo and Josh could take the subway to get to Wulai. From what I had heard and read, it is a beautiful place in the mountains, with a river, and hot springs and natural bathing pools. But somehow, I still didn't think it was a good idea to wear my swimsuit on the hike. I figured I could just change once I got there. Silly me. When have I ever been able to find a public bathroom in China? That was a bad idea. After we realized that it was just going to be the three of us, we headed for the subway. We could have taken a taxi, but what the hell, we wanted to pretend we were natives.
The subway was the easy bit. All we had to do was get on the right subway, going the right direction. An idiot could do it. But when we got off the subway, and started heading over to the bus stop to get on a bus to go to Wulai, we realized that we didn't know which bus we were supposed to be taking. We asked one woman, who pointed us over to the other side of the bus stop, but we still didn't know which bus to get on. We asked another woman, but she just pointed us over to the information center at the subway. She quite obviously understood us, and she definitely knew, but she wasn't going to tell us. Well, fine then. I'll show you just how resourceful foreigners can be.
Finally, we figured out which bus we were supposed to be taking, and we dodged and ignored the taxi drivers who were both trying to get us to take a taxi, and laughing and pointing openly at us for wanting to take the bus. They didn't care at all that we could speak Chinese.
We got on the bus, sat in the back, and got comfortable. And then we hit the second glitch: after a couple of stops, we realized that none of us actually knew which stop we were supposed to get off at. We looked around on the bus, and noticed a group of school children, who were being escorted by a couple of kind looking Chinese ladies. We figured they looked like they were on a school field trip, and since Wulai was the only place a bunch of school children could be going, we decided that we would just follow them. It seemed like a good idea. And we decided that we should just ask the teachers, just incase. She confirmed that they were on their way to the Wulai waterfalls as well, and that it was the last stop on this bus. Mission accomplished. We made our way up this winding, beautiful road. The forest around the road was absolutely stunning.
It took about 20 minutes to make our way up the mountain to Wulai, and as soon as we got off the bus, we once again got accosted by the taxi drivers, who laughed at us for wanting to walk up the hill to get to the waterfall. Silly foreigners. We then realized, as soon as we stopped taking pictures, and started walking, that we didn't really know where waterfall was. But that was quickly fixed as soon as we A) found a map and B) decided to just follow the river up. Pretty ingenius, no?
We had heard that although taxi drivers will tell us differently, it is indeed possible to walk to the waterfall, so walk we did. It was only about 9 AM when we started walking up the hill, and it was already so hot and humid. But the walk was absolutely stunning. It was like walking through Jurassic Park. We even passed a huge gate that looked very much like the gates around the T-Rex enclosure in Jurassic Park. And the forest was astonishing. The trees were literally growing out of a vertical rocky slope. I have no idea how they did it, but they did. And it was beautiful.
When we finally got to the waterfall, all of us were covered in sweat, and grateful for the slight spray that the waterfall gave off. We had passed some shops earlier before getting to the waterfall, and one of the shop keepers was a man who was dressed up as a woman. A very convincing woman. It was very distracting. I can't see what the point was.
We decided that the waterfall was a little bit disappointing, as we had all been anticipating an area to go swimming in, and damnit, we were going to get it. So what was the verdict? We kept walking. It was almost overwhelmingly hot and humid, and I was pretty convinced that I was getting sunburned. But being the genius that I am, I only put sunscreen on my shoulders, and my nose. It seemed to make sense at the time, but now that I look back on it, it didn't seem so smart.
Because I didn't bring a hat, and it was so hot, my friend Bo gave me an Asic bag to put over my head. It was rather smart, if I do say so myself.
See how genius that is? It made a huge difference. I was no longer quite so hot. And my shoulders weren't getting burned. We had to walk for about another twenty minutes along the road to get to the swimming place. Again, we weren't even quite sure where it was, we just had some sketchy directions from one of the store keeps. That seemed to be a pattern for us. Eventually we found a small overpass over the river, and after crossing it, we came across a small waterfall and a pond. We had reached Utopia. The speed with which we had jumped into the pond was rather impressive. We were so hot and overwhelmed, and the water just looked so perfect. Who could resist?
We took turns playing kings in the waterfall, and taking fun pictures. It was general foolishness in the waterfall. I didn't feel like changing into my swimsuit (there was, of course, no outside bathroom) so I just jumped in in my clothes. I figured that my clothes were either going to be soaked in sweat or water, so it might as well be water. There was a woman sleeping under a tree a little bit away, and she never woke up.
Thankfully, other Chinese tourists didn't start arriving until after we had gotten out of the waterfall, and had started drying off. Then they started coming, and were taking pictures of the waterfall. And looking like us that we were insane for playing around in the waterfall as we were. I definitely felt like the a monkey in a zoo, being oogled at. But it was so worth it. After that long hot walk, being able to jump into a waterfall was all that I could possibly ask for.
And then we had to walk back. But this time, it wasn't nearly as bad. It was downhill, and we were all cooled off from our swim in the waterfall. Look at the scenery as we walked back to the bus stop!
We stopped in at a cafe (Helen's Cafe) for an ice tea and a cup of coffee before heading all the way back to the bus stop. It was very colonial, and definitely a copy of Starbucks. We sat there listening to Frank Sinatra, drinking tea. It was almost surreal. We had all bought some watermelon (which was absolutely fantastic) and sat around talking about our walk. How ex-pat can you get?
On our way back down the hill, we stopped at a skewer stand on the road to get some food. It was FANTASTIC. The best skewers I have ever had. We had mountain pork, which is supposed to be pretty famous. It's one of the first things people ask if you have eaten when you say you have been to Wulai. And it was so good. I kind of want to go back just to be able to eat those again.
On the bus ride back, we got some shitty looks from some of the old people that were sitting around at the bus stop. Foreigners always get the short end of the straw. We didn't get back to the dorm until around 1:45 PM. So much longer than I thought it was going to be. But it was totally worth it. Definitely a good morning.
I spent most of the rest of the day just resting, and trying to sleep. I was pretty exhausted. But sleep was not forth coming. So I wasted the afternoon away, because lets be honest, it is not fun to walk around feeling like you are in an oven. There is nothing to do in the afternoon but make sure you are in air conditioning. And then night came. And it was time to go out again.
This time, Paul, Jan and I went to the Shi lin night market, and I was completely overwhelmed. It spawns about 10 blocks, and has food and clothes and electronics. We went into the food place first, looking for some dinner. We only stopped to get dinner when one of the restaurant ladies literally stopped us in our tracks, forced a menu into our hands, and pointed to chairs. How were we supposed to say no to that? It was a Japanese steak place, and that food was amazing. Really amazing. And super cheap.
We decided to just bounce from place to place eating small bits of food, so we could keep moving. We ate, and then moved into the rest of the night market. It was so overwhelming, there were so many lights and people and noises and smells. All of us were kind of in a trance walking through it. I was so shocked that I bought the first thing I saw, which turned out to be a shirt that said "No More Fashion Victims." I am pretty sure I am a fashion victim just by wearing it, but I'll go with it. I had to buy some bad Chinese shirts.
After wandering around for about half an hour, we were thoroughly exhausted from all of the lights and sounds, and more than happy to go find a restaurant. We found a slightly better than seedy restaurant on one of the side roads, and sat down. No sooner had we sat down than a Chinese guy comes out, very clearly drunk, and supported by two of his friends. They had barely gotten him to the road when he started vomiting. It was 9 PM on a Tuesday night. This was a classy guy.
The waitress informed us that there were only warms beers left, so we ordered some food that was actually amazing. Paul and I don't eat seafood (he is allergic, I just dont' like it. His excuse is better than mine.) The waitress and I bonded over the fact that even though this restaurants speciality is seafood, neither of us liked it. We were almost friends by the end of it. It was a good night, we spent about an hour and a half there, just looking at all the people. I almost forgot my very special purchase when we left to head back home.
We made a quick pit stop at the carnival dart games so the Jan could win a fake plastic gun that shot foam balls at us. It gave us hours of entertainment. Well, actually, only about the half an hour that we had left of the trip home. The subway back was pretty uneventful, I was exhausted. I haven't been that happy to go to sleep in a long time.
It was a crazy day. But oh so much fun. I am discovering that I love going to sketchy restaurants in alley's. They always have the best food.
Monday, June 13, 2011
Elevators
I have been having a hard time recently. It's not right to say that I have felt disconnected, but I haven't been feeling quite right. Definitely more right than before I went to Hoffman, but now I am having a hard time reconciling that. I know I have said that before, but I wanted to say it again, because it is important you remember that for understanding my day.
Good news! I woke up at 7 AM today. SEVEN AM! I almost find it sad that that is exciting to me. But it was just so civilized. And I felt so rested. I haven't slept that well in a very long time. I was almost still full from the night before, eating that much hot pot. It took me about an hour and a half to convince myself that I should go out and get breakfast. There was no cold soy milk at that point. Really. This is getting ridiculous.
I regret to say that when I called my mother today, I slipped back into all of my old patterns. Instantly. My excuse is that I was still half asleep, and still hadn't eaten breakfast. I get a little cranky in the morning, and a lot cranky when I am hungry. You have been warned. I felt so bad for snapping at her, and getting back into all of my old habits, that after I had showered and eaten, we did a redo. I called her again, and it was so much better. Awareness is the first step, right? I felt a lot better after the second time I called her. She is in La Paz right now. Tough life right? I wouldn't mind spending a week on the beach. I"m going to sound like a girl, but I really do have the most horrendous tan lines right now. From mid thigh to mid chest is completely white, while the rest is brown. What am I supposed to do about that?
One of the friends that I had met here, Jan, texted me to see if I wanted to get breakfast, so I met up with him and one other person, Bo, to get some food. We wandered around looking for a specific kind of food (unsuccessfully) before finally ending up at a Starbucks. We figured, the program hasn't started yet, we can still eat Western food. Who is going to know. Then all I wanted to do was go back to my room, so I did. I had phone calls to make.
I hung around my room for a while, trying to decide what to do, because I was not feeling so steady, when I finally got to talk to one of my Hoffman friends that I have been trying to connect with for a while. It helped get me much more centered. And it felt so good to talk to someone who went through the same thing as I did. If anybody from Hoffman is reading this, I miss you a lot. I wish that I could see you all again.
After getting off the phone, I realized (with a little bit of help, obviously) that I needed to get my shit together. So I did an elevator. And wrote down five more that I wanted to do. It really is a tough business. I did the elevator, went down three times, and wrote each one down. (For those of you who don't know what elevators are, they are ways of finding out what negative patterns are getting in the way of you doing something. That probably sounds like complete gobbly gook, but trust me when I say that it works.) I felt a lot more stable, and relaxed after I did the elevator. A LOT more stable. It was amazing.
I then made the terrible decision to go to Starbucks to get a cup of tea, and analyze the patterns that had come up in my elevator. Bad mistake. Why? Because I was so elated by the success of my elevator, and feeling so stable and centered and happy, that the overwhelming noise and bustle of Starbucks scared me out of my wits. It was loud and abrasive. I drank my tea as fast as possible, and after writing down all of the patterns I had seen, I left, and fled back to my room. I just wanted to be away from people, and just bask in the feeling that I had gotten back, that I really haven't had since I left Hoffman. I realized again that all the things I have been doing are just patterns, and I have control of them. So I recycled those buggers.
I wasn't hungry for dinner (the humidity seems to have robbed me of my appetite) so I skipped dinner, even though someone was kind enough to invite me out so I could meet more people. But I wanted to lay low, and for once, I didn't feel guilty for doing it. I was in bed before 10. So very very civilized.
Good news! I woke up at 7 AM today. SEVEN AM! I almost find it sad that that is exciting to me. But it was just so civilized. And I felt so rested. I haven't slept that well in a very long time. I was almost still full from the night before, eating that much hot pot. It took me about an hour and a half to convince myself that I should go out and get breakfast. There was no cold soy milk at that point. Really. This is getting ridiculous.
I regret to say that when I called my mother today, I slipped back into all of my old patterns. Instantly. My excuse is that I was still half asleep, and still hadn't eaten breakfast. I get a little cranky in the morning, and a lot cranky when I am hungry. You have been warned. I felt so bad for snapping at her, and getting back into all of my old habits, that after I had showered and eaten, we did a redo. I called her again, and it was so much better. Awareness is the first step, right? I felt a lot better after the second time I called her. She is in La Paz right now. Tough life right? I wouldn't mind spending a week on the beach. I"m going to sound like a girl, but I really do have the most horrendous tan lines right now. From mid thigh to mid chest is completely white, while the rest is brown. What am I supposed to do about that?
One of the friends that I had met here, Jan, texted me to see if I wanted to get breakfast, so I met up with him and one other person, Bo, to get some food. We wandered around looking for a specific kind of food (unsuccessfully) before finally ending up at a Starbucks. We figured, the program hasn't started yet, we can still eat Western food. Who is going to know. Then all I wanted to do was go back to my room, so I did. I had phone calls to make.
I hung around my room for a while, trying to decide what to do, because I was not feeling so steady, when I finally got to talk to one of my Hoffman friends that I have been trying to connect with for a while. It helped get me much more centered. And it felt so good to talk to someone who went through the same thing as I did. If anybody from Hoffman is reading this, I miss you a lot. I wish that I could see you all again.
After getting off the phone, I realized (with a little bit of help, obviously) that I needed to get my shit together. So I did an elevator. And wrote down five more that I wanted to do. It really is a tough business. I did the elevator, went down three times, and wrote each one down. (For those of you who don't know what elevators are, they are ways of finding out what negative patterns are getting in the way of you doing something. That probably sounds like complete gobbly gook, but trust me when I say that it works.) I felt a lot more stable, and relaxed after I did the elevator. A LOT more stable. It was amazing.
I then made the terrible decision to go to Starbucks to get a cup of tea, and analyze the patterns that had come up in my elevator. Bad mistake. Why? Because I was so elated by the success of my elevator, and feeling so stable and centered and happy, that the overwhelming noise and bustle of Starbucks scared me out of my wits. It was loud and abrasive. I drank my tea as fast as possible, and after writing down all of the patterns I had seen, I left, and fled back to my room. I just wanted to be away from people, and just bask in the feeling that I had gotten back, that I really haven't had since I left Hoffman. I realized again that all the things I have been doing are just patterns, and I have control of them. So I recycled those buggers.
I wasn't hungry for dinner (the humidity seems to have robbed me of my appetite) so I skipped dinner, even though someone was kind enough to invite me out so I could meet more people. But I wanted to lay low, and for once, I didn't feel guilty for doing it. I was in bed before 10. So very very civilized.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
I Laugh in the Face of Humidity
I woke up at 6:15 AM this morning. I swear, I think that there might actually be hope for me at this point. Maybe I really will get over my jet lag. When I went to get breakfast at 6:30, there wasn't a soul in sight on the street, except for the couple of people around the bao stand. Which, of course, is where I was headed. This is the best place for breakfast ever. And because I was there so early, they had cold soy milk. WIN. As much as I love soy milk, it is not as good when it is piping hot. People in Taiwan don't seem to agree though. One day, they will see the truth.
I wish I could say that I had an exciting day today. You probably won't think that it was very exciting, but it was exactly what I wanted to do. I got breakfast, and then hung around in my room for most of the morning, talking to people, and just thinking about my life. I took a quick nap, and talked to some people on Skype, before deciding it was finally time to go out and join society in some capacity. That is what normal people do, isn't it? So I went to a cafe. What else is there to do?
Once there, I discovered that I had an overwhelming desire for a cup of black tea with milk and sugar. Which I haven't had in DAYS, in case anybody was wondering. But there was only small problem: I have absolutely no clue how to say Earl Grey tea in Chinese, and I am discovering that it is not as easy as I thought it was going to be to read traditional characters. I tried to point at the tea that I wanted, but guess what I got instead? Green tea with rose infusion. Oh well. Can't win everything. Not nearly as good as my caffeinated earl grey, but what are you gonna do.
I had originally planned on doing some of my Hoffman stuff while at the coffee shop, but as soon as I got there, and saw how packed it was, there was no way that I was going to pull that stuff out. So I just played games on my iPad. Quite worth the time, if I do say so myself. I am far too embarassed to tell you what the game is.
Most of the past couple of days, I have felt kind of...not closed off, but maybe more cautious than I felt like I was at Hoffman. I felt like all of my walls fell down when I was there and now I am trying so hard not to let them come up. But it's so hard, because obviously, the real world is not like our world at Hoffman was. And it is hard to stay as open and trusting when the rest of the world is not like that. Am I supposed to just keep myself out there? I will, but I just don't want to shut down again. How are you supposed to reconcile something like that? It's scary to have your world completely shaken up, and feel completely different from what you are used to. Fantastic, and so exciting and empowering, but scary at the same time.
But back to my day in Taiwan. I did dinner with friends again at 7. This is a pattern now, I do believe. We decided to go to a hot pot place. This is what hot pot looks like:
It was amazing. We had to wait for 50 minutes before we could eat in the restaurant, so we hit up Club 7 (where else) had a couple of beers, and then went to the restaurant. It was a BYOB restaurant, so we sent out a scout to go back to Club 7 to bring back provisions. But this place was some of the best food ever. Once we did sit down, we discovered that for $20, it was all you can eat meat and veggies and ice cream. And boy did we make the most of it. We had a completely absurd amount of food. We just kept telling the waitress to bring us more beef and pork and chicken. It was actually embarrassing how much we ate. A couple of times there were some small kids that walked by and stared at us, or waved, and of course we waved back. It was just an hour and a half of solid fun and discussion. By the end of it, I think it is safe to say that we were all in a food coma. It took us a couple of minutes to get up the courage to walk out the door.
We sneaked past a book shop quickly right after dinner, just to walk off the dinner, and then called it a night. Most of us are still jet lagged, 10 PM is late for us. I haven't eaten that much since I have been in Taiwan. I thought that the humidity had robbed me of my appetite, but apparently if I want it badly enough, I can get it back. How's that for free will?
I wish I could say that I had an exciting day today. You probably won't think that it was very exciting, but it was exactly what I wanted to do. I got breakfast, and then hung around in my room for most of the morning, talking to people, and just thinking about my life. I took a quick nap, and talked to some people on Skype, before deciding it was finally time to go out and join society in some capacity. That is what normal people do, isn't it? So I went to a cafe. What else is there to do?
Once there, I discovered that I had an overwhelming desire for a cup of black tea with milk and sugar. Which I haven't had in DAYS, in case anybody was wondering. But there was only small problem: I have absolutely no clue how to say Earl Grey tea in Chinese, and I am discovering that it is not as easy as I thought it was going to be to read traditional characters. I tried to point at the tea that I wanted, but guess what I got instead? Green tea with rose infusion. Oh well. Can't win everything. Not nearly as good as my caffeinated earl grey, but what are you gonna do.
I had originally planned on doing some of my Hoffman stuff while at the coffee shop, but as soon as I got there, and saw how packed it was, there was no way that I was going to pull that stuff out. So I just played games on my iPad. Quite worth the time, if I do say so myself. I am far too embarassed to tell you what the game is.
Most of the past couple of days, I have felt kind of...not closed off, but maybe more cautious than I felt like I was at Hoffman. I felt like all of my walls fell down when I was there and now I am trying so hard not to let them come up. But it's so hard, because obviously, the real world is not like our world at Hoffman was. And it is hard to stay as open and trusting when the rest of the world is not like that. Am I supposed to just keep myself out there? I will, but I just don't want to shut down again. How are you supposed to reconcile something like that? It's scary to have your world completely shaken up, and feel completely different from what you are used to. Fantastic, and so exciting and empowering, but scary at the same time.
But back to my day in Taiwan. I did dinner with friends again at 7. This is a pattern now, I do believe. We decided to go to a hot pot place. This is what hot pot looks like:
It was amazing. We had to wait for 50 minutes before we could eat in the restaurant, so we hit up Club 7 (where else) had a couple of beers, and then went to the restaurant. It was a BYOB restaurant, so we sent out a scout to go back to Club 7 to bring back provisions. But this place was some of the best food ever. Once we did sit down, we discovered that for $20, it was all you can eat meat and veggies and ice cream. And boy did we make the most of it. We had a completely absurd amount of food. We just kept telling the waitress to bring us more beef and pork and chicken. It was actually embarrassing how much we ate. A couple of times there were some small kids that walked by and stared at us, or waved, and of course we waved back. It was just an hour and a half of solid fun and discussion. By the end of it, I think it is safe to say that we were all in a food coma. It took us a couple of minutes to get up the courage to walk out the door.
We sneaked past a book shop quickly right after dinner, just to walk off the dinner, and then called it a night. Most of us are still jet lagged, 10 PM is late for us. I haven't eaten that much since I have been in Taiwan. I thought that the humidity had robbed me of my appetite, but apparently if I want it badly enough, I can get it back. How's that for free will?
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Soy Sauce? Why Not.
I woke up this morning, at 5:40, extremely confused as to what was going on. There seemed to be a lot more of my bedding than I remembered there being when I went to sleep. My brain was trying to process this when I realized that some of my bedding had somehow taped itself to the wall. I was prepared to be very impressed by the skill of my bedding, until I realized that the mosquito netting that I had taped up the night before had all fallen over on top of me, and that is what I was staring at. It took me another couple of minutes to pull all of it off the wall and throw it on the floor, mostly because my brain was not functioning at all. I tried staring at it for a while before deciding to use my hands. It was not a proud moment.
When I did finally decide that it was finally time to get up, I realized that I didn't have anything for breakfast. But I didn't feel like going downstairs and outside to go find food. It was time to play the waiting game. And talk to people from back home. I am not ashamed to say that I spent a lot of time on Skype talking to people today. First up was one of my friends from Hoffman. You wish I would tell you what we talked about. Go live your own life.
I will also admit that I had a little bit of a meltdown, after going to get breakfast. I almost knocked some Chinese guy off his bike (it was a total accident, I didn't see him until the last minute) and he gave the mother of all please-go-die-a-terrible-death glare. I was already in a very tender mood, and that sent me over the edge. I turned around, and headed straight back home as fast as possible. Once home, I did what any upset girl would do: I called my sister for advice. I was feeling nervous, scared, and yet ever so calm. It was one of the most bizarre feelings I have ever had in my life. But it felt so good to talk to her, and once we were done, I felt like I was back in a good place.
After my sister, it was time to talk to another friend, who I also went to Hoffman with. It was so nice to talk to all these people, I felt so connected, and safe. First time since I left Hoffman. By this point, I was far ready to get out of my room, and go see the real world. It also helped that I was starving beyond belief. That was a very good motivator to get me out of the door. My poor friend Jenn unfortunately came between me and my food. I will have to make it up to her tomorrow.
A friend told me last night that the only way to deal with the heat is to move slowly; as soon as you break a sweat, it is all over. You will never be dry again. And that is so true. I went for a long bike ride, about an hour and a half, going all over the area looking for some food. Apparently every place in Taipei is closed on Saturday morning. How inconvenient is that? Extremely so, when my stomach was leading the way.
I ended up at my favorite baozi place for lunch. Street food is really the best. The lady gave me the food that I asked for, and then asked me if I was here to study, and what 酸辣汤 is. This is not a proud moment for me, but one that I feel should go down in history. I panicked, and I had no idea. If you had asked me how to say hello in Chinese, I couldn't have answered. There was a time where I would have rattled off the answer (vinegar pepper soup/sour spicy soup) in a heart beat, but I panicked, and every single Chinese character flew out of my brain. So there I was, standing, looking like a deer in the headlights, while this nice Chinese woman tried to make innocent conversation with me. So what did I do? I lied my ass off, that's what. I told her it was soy sauce. And then I said it again, once more with feeling. She repeated it after me, as if trying to memorize the answer, and then I left as fast as possible, feeling so ashamed. Soup and soy sauce, they are basically the same thing right? Why not.
I am sensing a pattern coming up in my life. I really didn't do anything all afternoon. Hung around, tried to relax. I really need to make a list of the places that I want to see in Taiwan, and then start moving down the list. I hung around, waiting and waiting and waiting until dinner time, when I went downstairs to theoretically meet up with two other people for dinner. However, after waiting an hour, only one of them had showed, and we had been sitting outside of the 7 Eleven having a couple of beers waiting for the other one to show. After deciding he was not coming, we abandoned the idea of dinner, and instead went to buy hooks that you can stick on your wall so that I could hang my mosquito net properly. And then it was bed time.
I know, you are jealous of my crazy busy and dramatic life. Well, not all of us can have all of the glory. I expect you all to keep your laughing to a minimum when I get back home.
When I did finally decide that it was finally time to get up, I realized that I didn't have anything for breakfast. But I didn't feel like going downstairs and outside to go find food. It was time to play the waiting game. And talk to people from back home. I am not ashamed to say that I spent a lot of time on Skype talking to people today. First up was one of my friends from Hoffman. You wish I would tell you what we talked about. Go live your own life.
I will also admit that I had a little bit of a meltdown, after going to get breakfast. I almost knocked some Chinese guy off his bike (it was a total accident, I didn't see him until the last minute) and he gave the mother of all please-go-die-a-terrible-death glare. I was already in a very tender mood, and that sent me over the edge. I turned around, and headed straight back home as fast as possible. Once home, I did what any upset girl would do: I called my sister for advice. I was feeling nervous, scared, and yet ever so calm. It was one of the most bizarre feelings I have ever had in my life. But it felt so good to talk to her, and once we were done, I felt like I was back in a good place.
After my sister, it was time to talk to another friend, who I also went to Hoffman with. It was so nice to talk to all these people, I felt so connected, and safe. First time since I left Hoffman. By this point, I was far ready to get out of my room, and go see the real world. It also helped that I was starving beyond belief. That was a very good motivator to get me out of the door. My poor friend Jenn unfortunately came between me and my food. I will have to make it up to her tomorrow.
A friend told me last night that the only way to deal with the heat is to move slowly; as soon as you break a sweat, it is all over. You will never be dry again. And that is so true. I went for a long bike ride, about an hour and a half, going all over the area looking for some food. Apparently every place in Taipei is closed on Saturday morning. How inconvenient is that? Extremely so, when my stomach was leading the way.
I ended up at my favorite baozi place for lunch. Street food is really the best. The lady gave me the food that I asked for, and then asked me if I was here to study, and what 酸辣汤 is. This is not a proud moment for me, but one that I feel should go down in history. I panicked, and I had no idea. If you had asked me how to say hello in Chinese, I couldn't have answered. There was a time where I would have rattled off the answer (vinegar pepper soup/sour spicy soup) in a heart beat, but I panicked, and every single Chinese character flew out of my brain. So there I was, standing, looking like a deer in the headlights, while this nice Chinese woman tried to make innocent conversation with me. So what did I do? I lied my ass off, that's what. I told her it was soy sauce. And then I said it again, once more with feeling. She repeated it after me, as if trying to memorize the answer, and then I left as fast as possible, feeling so ashamed. Soup and soy sauce, they are basically the same thing right? Why not.
I am sensing a pattern coming up in my life. I really didn't do anything all afternoon. Hung around, tried to relax. I really need to make a list of the places that I want to see in Taiwan, and then start moving down the list. I hung around, waiting and waiting and waiting until dinner time, when I went downstairs to theoretically meet up with two other people for dinner. However, after waiting an hour, only one of them had showed, and we had been sitting outside of the 7 Eleven having a couple of beers waiting for the other one to show. After deciding he was not coming, we abandoned the idea of dinner, and instead went to buy hooks that you can stick on your wall so that I could hang my mosquito net properly. And then it was bed time.
I know, you are jealous of my crazy busy and dramatic life. Well, not all of us can have all of the glory. I expect you all to keep your laughing to a minimum when I get back home.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Let's Put it to the Test
I have good news, and lukewarm good news. The good news is that I didn't wake up until 5:30 today. A whole half an hour later than yesterday. I am moving up in the world. The lukewarm good news is that my shower was not as tempermental this morning as it was yesterday morning. I think that I might finally be getting the hang of this shower. It will not best me.
I am not going to lie, I had a really good morning this morning. After waking up, I called one of my friends from Hoffman, and it was amazing. I have been having a hard time holding onto what I learned there, and I am terrified that I am going to lose it all, or crash spectacularly. But I got some good ideas. So hopefully, I won't crash. I have some ideas. But it still makes me nervous. I think it might just be a pattern that I am expecting this to fail. Why do I expect failure? What is wrong with me?
I also got to go for a bike ride along the river this morning, before it got way too muggy for me to do anything near something green. 15 minutes out, 15 minutes back. I got a lot of weird looks, being the white girl on the broken down bike wearing aviator sunglasses. Not a typical scene, I don't think. But it was so beautiful. And there were a lot of people out and about, doing their thing. Some where walking their dogs, and of course there were the hard core bikers with their gear, pedaling away. I know that the skies are blue here, but I would not trust myself if I was sucking in that much pollution. There were also groups of people playing tennis, and of course, dancing. Yes, you read right. There was a nice little ballroom/salsa/whatever the fuck you want kinds of dancing going on. It was so cute. They were sweating their asses off, and having a ball. I wanted to stop and dance with them.
And then it was time for my test, both speaking and writing. I went in and talked to the teachers for 10 minutes, talking about my favorite movies and why I decided to learn Chinese. I think I did pretty well. The writing and listening test was a joke. Most of it was pretty straight forward and easy, and some of the questions seemed like they were straight out of my text book from last summer. It made me laugh outloud. Literally. I got the right answers simply because I had seen the questions so many times that I knew what characters belonged where, even if I had no idea what the sentence actually meant. How is that for intuition. I gave up trying to go over it and check my work in the end though. I was tired and hungry. I'll be placed in the Chinese class that I will be placed in. No pressure.
And then it was time to set off into the world to find lunch, that glorious glorious meal that one had in the middle of the afternoon. How lovely. I went with three other people to find a place for lunch, and we ended up wandering around back alleys until we found a sketchy Korean place. We had a little trouble ordering, as there wasn't really a menu, just really a sheet that you tick off. Pictures really help sometimes. It was a team effort though, and we got enough food to have quite the meal.
I also have some bad news that I forgot to share, but which is crucial to the next part of the story. I got absolutely eaten alive by mosquitos last night. I have no idea how they got into my room, because both the door and the windows were close last night, but there you have it. My legs are covered in bites, and they were so itchy that it actually woke me up in the middle of the night. I look like I went to battle and lost. So, I did the only thing any sane person would do: I bought a pink mosquito net, and taped it above my bed. I had to use a mop for one of the corners, because in all my genius, I forgot that I don't actually have a four poster bed. Duh. As a point of interest, I also bought a towel. It's not perfect, but it is infinitely better than the dish towels I have been drying off with most recently.
My afternoon was uneventful, to say the least. I was exhausted from being social all afternoon (seriously, it is hard work. These socialites make it look so easy) so I tried to take it easy. And then of course it started raining, so it was no longer so difficult to convince myself to stay inside for the rest of the day. I ventured out briefly to buy some lotion, but the feeling of it raining while being super muggy was not one that I wanted to prolong for a long period of time. But lotion was a must. There is nothing worse than skin that is just sticking to you. Which now that I write it, seems to be a really strange sentence. But you know what I mean.
I met up with some people from my program that I went to lunch with to go out to dinner with. Although dinner was kind of a failure, it was fun to walk around with them. We started off at Club 7 (also known as 7 Eleven, in some places) to buy a cheap drinkable liquid, and then start hopping from small sketchy restaurants, eating small appetizers along the way. It was definitely a fantastic night. And I stayed up until 11. Take that jet lag. You can't beat me.
And that was my night. Thankfully, my friends convinced me to buy an umbrella before we started walking around, because I did not have one. Taiwan is tropical, I have no idea why it didn't occur to me earlier that I would need a rain coat, or even an umbrella. Both of which I forgot to bring. Duh. However, I don't know what I expected of the quality of the umbrella I would buy at 7 Eleven. I was swinging it around by the handle, and the entire umbrella part of it broke off. I carried it around in two parts until I went back to exchange it.
And that was my day. Long, eventful, and good. What more could you want from a day abroad?
I am not going to lie, I had a really good morning this morning. After waking up, I called one of my friends from Hoffman, and it was amazing. I have been having a hard time holding onto what I learned there, and I am terrified that I am going to lose it all, or crash spectacularly. But I got some good ideas. So hopefully, I won't crash. I have some ideas. But it still makes me nervous. I think it might just be a pattern that I am expecting this to fail. Why do I expect failure? What is wrong with me?
I also got to go for a bike ride along the river this morning, before it got way too muggy for me to do anything near something green. 15 minutes out, 15 minutes back. I got a lot of weird looks, being the white girl on the broken down bike wearing aviator sunglasses. Not a typical scene, I don't think. But it was so beautiful. And there were a lot of people out and about, doing their thing. Some where walking their dogs, and of course there were the hard core bikers with their gear, pedaling away. I know that the skies are blue here, but I would not trust myself if I was sucking in that much pollution. There were also groups of people playing tennis, and of course, dancing. Yes, you read right. There was a nice little ballroom/salsa/whatever the fuck you want kinds of dancing going on. It was so cute. They were sweating their asses off, and having a ball. I wanted to stop and dance with them.
And then it was time for my test, both speaking and writing. I went in and talked to the teachers for 10 minutes, talking about my favorite movies and why I decided to learn Chinese. I think I did pretty well. The writing and listening test was a joke. Most of it was pretty straight forward and easy, and some of the questions seemed like they were straight out of my text book from last summer. It made me laugh outloud. Literally. I got the right answers simply because I had seen the questions so many times that I knew what characters belonged where, even if I had no idea what the sentence actually meant. How is that for intuition. I gave up trying to go over it and check my work in the end though. I was tired and hungry. I'll be placed in the Chinese class that I will be placed in. No pressure.
And then it was time to set off into the world to find lunch, that glorious glorious meal that one had in the middle of the afternoon. How lovely. I went with three other people to find a place for lunch, and we ended up wandering around back alleys until we found a sketchy Korean place. We had a little trouble ordering, as there wasn't really a menu, just really a sheet that you tick off. Pictures really help sometimes. It was a team effort though, and we got enough food to have quite the meal.
I also have some bad news that I forgot to share, but which is crucial to the next part of the story. I got absolutely eaten alive by mosquitos last night. I have no idea how they got into my room, because both the door and the windows were close last night, but there you have it. My legs are covered in bites, and they were so itchy that it actually woke me up in the middle of the night. I look like I went to battle and lost. So, I did the only thing any sane person would do: I bought a pink mosquito net, and taped it above my bed. I had to use a mop for one of the corners, because in all my genius, I forgot that I don't actually have a four poster bed. Duh. As a point of interest, I also bought a towel. It's not perfect, but it is infinitely better than the dish towels I have been drying off with most recently.
My afternoon was uneventful, to say the least. I was exhausted from being social all afternoon (seriously, it is hard work. These socialites make it look so easy) so I tried to take it easy. And then of course it started raining, so it was no longer so difficult to convince myself to stay inside for the rest of the day. I ventured out briefly to buy some lotion, but the feeling of it raining while being super muggy was not one that I wanted to prolong for a long period of time. But lotion was a must. There is nothing worse than skin that is just sticking to you. Which now that I write it, seems to be a really strange sentence. But you know what I mean.
I met up with some people from my program that I went to lunch with to go out to dinner with. Although dinner was kind of a failure, it was fun to walk around with them. We started off at Club 7 (also known as 7 Eleven, in some places) to buy a cheap drinkable liquid, and then start hopping from small sketchy restaurants, eating small appetizers along the way. It was definitely a fantastic night. And I stayed up until 11. Take that jet lag. You can't beat me.
And that was my night. Thankfully, my friends convinced me to buy an umbrella before we started walking around, because I did not have one. Taiwan is tropical, I have no idea why it didn't occur to me earlier that I would need a rain coat, or even an umbrella. Both of which I forgot to bring. Duh. However, I don't know what I expected of the quality of the umbrella I would buy at 7 Eleven. I was swinging it around by the handle, and the entire umbrella part of it broke off. I carried it around in two parts until I went back to exchange it.
And that was my day. Long, eventful, and good. What more could you want from a day abroad?
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
In Which I Fight With My Shower
I regret to inform you that I am currently involved in a fight to the death with my shower. And the shower is winning. You know that first moment when you get a new place, and you are sizing up the shower, and it is sizing up you? You are trying to figure out what the best temperature is, and how to use it, and it is trying to decide just how tough you really are. I am still in that phase. And I think that it is safe to say that me and my shower are still in that phase, and I am losing. My shower has more power over me than I do of it. It is always either too hot, or too cold. I won't turn the handle at all, and it will fluctuate from being boiling hot, to freezing cold. It has a personality. I just haven't figured it out yet. But never fear. I will dominate the shower. In time. You might think it is weird that I am in a fight with my shower, but I bet that deep down, each and every one of you know exactly what I am talking about. Don't deny it.
Waking up at 4:30 this morning with the realization that I was not going to be going back to sleep was not a happy moment for me. When I opened the blinds and watched the sun come up, I was filled with both exultation, and disgust. Exultation, because watching the sun come up is so beautiful, but the reality is that you need to be up extremely early in order to do so, and that is not happy. It's a work in progress. I wish that I enjoyed being up early in the morning. I have decided that I am going to try to start doing early morning bike rides, to acclimate myself. Good idea? Bad idea? Still to be determined.
Amy told me to call her when I woke up, but I didn't think she realized I would be waking up that early. So, like the dutiful person that I am, I waited until 9 AM (what I judged to be civilized people-are-now-at-work time) until calling her, to let her know the glorious news that we are all conscious and ready to face the day. Actually, I just said hello, and she said she would come get me. I think if I actually said we are all conscious now, lets have breakfast, she would never talk to me again.
My one goal today was to get my bike and my cellphone, and I am happy to report I was successful. Amy gave me one of their bikes, and then rode with me over to the bike mechanic's place so that I could get the seat raised (because lets face it, I am a good deal taller than most people in this country). The bike mechanic looked at me, looked at the bike, and then said "Well, we can raise it as much as is safe." Gee thanks. I'm not that tall. Yeesh.
Amy helped with with my bike, gave me the phone and a new battery, and then gave me some maps, and sent me on my way. I didn't have anything special I wanted to do, and I feel bad for imposing on them as much as I have. I am sure I will be seeing them again soon. I hope. JUST KIDDING. I will definitely be seeing them again.
With the new found freedom that comes with having a bike (a mode of transportation other than walking) I set off into the world. Or rather, set off to find the bank. Which I did, thank you very much. I am fairly confident that I know the campus pretty well now. I barely had any mishaps. After going to the bank, I went back over to our school building for ICLP, in order to ask one of the secretaries to help me find a Taiji class on campus. Any age is fine. She looked a little apprehensive, but said it wouldn't be a problem. We'll see what happens. I wanted to start out small, but I intend to ask her to help me find a pottery class next week. I hope she doesn't start crying.
I met another kid from my program: Spencer. He said he has spent a lot of time in Taipei, so I trusted his judgement on all the places around the university. I'm still so excited to go out and look at them on my own though. We walked over to the gym because he was looking for some sort of club, and I, being the desperate and shut off gym rat that I am, just wanted to see the gym. We walked in, and the first thing we saw were a hundred Chinese high school kids, all dressed in pink and blue (colors respective to gender). And everyone of them turned around to stare at us, and wave at me. It was a little creepy. At the risk of sounding vain, I kind of understand what it feels like to be a celebrity. Needless to say, I couldn't get out of there fast enough. I ran up the stairs, meniscus be damned.
I showed Spencer my new favorite Baozi place for lunch. Yum. I love Chinese street food. The sketchier the better. Neither one of us particularly wanted to sit down for lunch, and both of us had things to do. I had to call people back home, and he had to go to work or something.
I'm afraid the story gets a little boring after this. I spent the next couple of hours plugging into the rest of the world, sending emails, sending texts, calling people, before finally deciding to do some Hoffman work, and then take a nap. My nap was cut abruptly short, however, by the massive amounts of explosive thunder and rain that rocked Taipei for about an hour. It sounded like the sky was falling in on us. I normally like rain storms, but let me tell you, I really didn't like this one. And of course, by the time it was over, I was too awake to go back to sleep. So I just watched the rain fall. And jumped every time it thundered (or, as I imagined it, the buildings started playing dominoes with each other again.)
But then the sky cleared, the rain stopped, and it was once again safe to venture out into the moped army that dominates the Taipei traffic system. I wanted to bike around campus and the surrounding areas on my fancy new bike (actually, not so fancy. About half of it is covered in rust. No joke) and get a feel for the campus, and the food places surrounding. It was so beautiful, but also so hot. That is not something I have commented on recently. The weather. It's only about 90 degrees, but the humidity makes me feel like I am swimming to class. I have given up on the concept of ever being dry again.
I failed in finding the supermarket that Amy showed me last night, and I also failed in finding a proper towel, because I didn't want to pay an arm and a leg for one. It is starting to look like I may be drying off with dish towels every morning. Hitch hikers Guide to the Galaxy got it right: always know where your towel is. Best advice I ever got.
And that is about my entire evening. Jet lag is a bitch. It is only 8 PM here, but it is 5 AM in California, and I am having a hard time keeping my eyes open. So I am just not going to fight it anymore. I biked down to the water front this afternoon, just to see if I could find it, and I found it! Although it is not nearly as pretty as it looks from the distance. The buildings are in need of repair, and the water itself looks as if it might be brewing the next plague. But biking along next to it, I can pretend that I am somewhere beautiful and relatively clean. I am planning on going back there tomorrow morning. The morning air should be nice.
Before I go, I want to leave you with some of the realizations I had today as I was wandering around the city:
1) The only way to really get around Taiwan/China is to act like you are confident. Even if you don't feel it, act like it, and you will be ok.
2) I am never going to be dry ever again. There is no fighting against the sweat. It is inevitable, and I will just tire myself out from always trying to stay cool.
3) If my program makes me take classes in the afternoon, I am going to skip. I am here to have fun and enjoy myself.
4) I honestly don't care what Chinese class I am in, nor do I care how well I do on the assessment tests tomorrow. I am going to enjoy studying Chinese again, for once.
5) I want to ride every where on my old rusted bike, because I feel like a total badass.
My shower was still not cooperating when I took a shower tonight. But it was not as moody as it has been. I think I might be getting the hang of it. It still likes to fluctuate from super cold to super hot without me even touching the handles, but I am getting better at knowing when it is about to change. I might be about to avoid first degree burns now. Fingers crossed. I will be the boss of my shower. Inanimate objects can't control me.
I'm fading fast, so stay tuned. More fun to come tomorrow.
Waking up at 4:30 this morning with the realization that I was not going to be going back to sleep was not a happy moment for me. When I opened the blinds and watched the sun come up, I was filled with both exultation, and disgust. Exultation, because watching the sun come up is so beautiful, but the reality is that you need to be up extremely early in order to do so, and that is not happy. It's a work in progress. I wish that I enjoyed being up early in the morning. I have decided that I am going to try to start doing early morning bike rides, to acclimate myself. Good idea? Bad idea? Still to be determined.
Amy told me to call her when I woke up, but I didn't think she realized I would be waking up that early. So, like the dutiful person that I am, I waited until 9 AM (what I judged to be civilized people-are-now-at-work time) until calling her, to let her know the glorious news that we are all conscious and ready to face the day. Actually, I just said hello, and she said she would come get me. I think if I actually said we are all conscious now, lets have breakfast, she would never talk to me again.
My one goal today was to get my bike and my cellphone, and I am happy to report I was successful. Amy gave me one of their bikes, and then rode with me over to the bike mechanic's place so that I could get the seat raised (because lets face it, I am a good deal taller than most people in this country). The bike mechanic looked at me, looked at the bike, and then said "Well, we can raise it as much as is safe." Gee thanks. I'm not that tall. Yeesh.
Amy helped with with my bike, gave me the phone and a new battery, and then gave me some maps, and sent me on my way. I didn't have anything special I wanted to do, and I feel bad for imposing on them as much as I have. I am sure I will be seeing them again soon. I hope. JUST KIDDING. I will definitely be seeing them again.
With the new found freedom that comes with having a bike (a mode of transportation other than walking) I set off into the world. Or rather, set off to find the bank. Which I did, thank you very much. I am fairly confident that I know the campus pretty well now. I barely had any mishaps. After going to the bank, I went back over to our school building for ICLP, in order to ask one of the secretaries to help me find a Taiji class on campus. Any age is fine. She looked a little apprehensive, but said it wouldn't be a problem. We'll see what happens. I wanted to start out small, but I intend to ask her to help me find a pottery class next week. I hope she doesn't start crying.
I met another kid from my program: Spencer. He said he has spent a lot of time in Taipei, so I trusted his judgement on all the places around the university. I'm still so excited to go out and look at them on my own though. We walked over to the gym because he was looking for some sort of club, and I, being the desperate and shut off gym rat that I am, just wanted to see the gym. We walked in, and the first thing we saw were a hundred Chinese high school kids, all dressed in pink and blue (colors respective to gender). And everyone of them turned around to stare at us, and wave at me. It was a little creepy. At the risk of sounding vain, I kind of understand what it feels like to be a celebrity. Needless to say, I couldn't get out of there fast enough. I ran up the stairs, meniscus be damned.
I showed Spencer my new favorite Baozi place for lunch. Yum. I love Chinese street food. The sketchier the better. Neither one of us particularly wanted to sit down for lunch, and both of us had things to do. I had to call people back home, and he had to go to work or something.
I'm afraid the story gets a little boring after this. I spent the next couple of hours plugging into the rest of the world, sending emails, sending texts, calling people, before finally deciding to do some Hoffman work, and then take a nap. My nap was cut abruptly short, however, by the massive amounts of explosive thunder and rain that rocked Taipei for about an hour. It sounded like the sky was falling in on us. I normally like rain storms, but let me tell you, I really didn't like this one. And of course, by the time it was over, I was too awake to go back to sleep. So I just watched the rain fall. And jumped every time it thundered (or, as I imagined it, the buildings started playing dominoes with each other again.)
But then the sky cleared, the rain stopped, and it was once again safe to venture out into the moped army that dominates the Taipei traffic system. I wanted to bike around campus and the surrounding areas on my fancy new bike (actually, not so fancy. About half of it is covered in rust. No joke) and get a feel for the campus, and the food places surrounding. It was so beautiful, but also so hot. That is not something I have commented on recently. The weather. It's only about 90 degrees, but the humidity makes me feel like I am swimming to class. I have given up on the concept of ever being dry again.
I failed in finding the supermarket that Amy showed me last night, and I also failed in finding a proper towel, because I didn't want to pay an arm and a leg for one. It is starting to look like I may be drying off with dish towels every morning. Hitch hikers Guide to the Galaxy got it right: always know where your towel is. Best advice I ever got.
And that is about my entire evening. Jet lag is a bitch. It is only 8 PM here, but it is 5 AM in California, and I am having a hard time keeping my eyes open. So I am just not going to fight it anymore. I biked down to the water front this afternoon, just to see if I could find it, and I found it! Although it is not nearly as pretty as it looks from the distance. The buildings are in need of repair, and the water itself looks as if it might be brewing the next plague. But biking along next to it, I can pretend that I am somewhere beautiful and relatively clean. I am planning on going back there tomorrow morning. The morning air should be nice.
Before I go, I want to leave you with some of the realizations I had today as I was wandering around the city:
1) The only way to really get around Taiwan/China is to act like you are confident. Even if you don't feel it, act like it, and you will be ok.
2) I am never going to be dry ever again. There is no fighting against the sweat. It is inevitable, and I will just tire myself out from always trying to stay cool.
3) If my program makes me take classes in the afternoon, I am going to skip. I am here to have fun and enjoy myself.
4) I honestly don't care what Chinese class I am in, nor do I care how well I do on the assessment tests tomorrow. I am going to enjoy studying Chinese again, for once.
5) I want to ride every where on my old rusted bike, because I feel like a total badass.
My shower was still not cooperating when I took a shower tonight. But it was not as moody as it has been. I think I might be getting the hang of it. It still likes to fluctuate from super cold to super hot without me even touching the handles, but I am getting better at knowing when it is about to change. I might be about to avoid first degree burns now. Fingers crossed. I will be the boss of my shower. Inanimate objects can't control me.
I'm fading fast, so stay tuned. More fun to come tomorrow.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
