taiWANDERs

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Mid-Autumn Festival...

Click on the photo album below to see pictures of my trip to "Sun Moon Lake" and celebrating Mid-Autumn Festival in Taichung with Eddie's family. (Even though there was a typhoon, we still BBQ-ed!)

Mid-Autumn Festival & Sun Moon Lake

A morning market is an experiment in barely controlled chaos. Grandmothers carrying their little granchildren and pulling shopping carts haggle with shop vendors and pick through fresh produce. The smell of fish, herbs, ripening fruit and freshly slaughtered meat mixes with the exhaust from the scooters and the aroma of breakfast shops. The melody of hawkers luring in customers, vendors and patrons bargaining and the intermittent honking of horns produces a cacophony that overwhelms and envelops you.

As I meander through the market, I'm greeted with one of two reactions: curious stares or a quick glance and dismissal- "Just another tourist, not a serious shopper. Obviously not worth my time!'

The few stalls I do stop at compliment me on my Chinese (which I know is just politeness) and ask about where I come from and what I'm doing here in Taiwan.

I make my way to the fruit vendor where I do my weekly shopping. This week fresh passion fruit is in season, so I buy a half-dozen for later. The vendor assures me they're sweet, even if they aren't I will still enjoy eating them - it's something that's rather hard to find in Michigan!

Sunday Morning Market

Field Trip to 小人國!

I really didn't get a break from school all summer as I got (had) to go to Mandarin classes! Having class all summer can be rough-- especially when all of your friends are on vacation. So we my class decided to spice things up and we did a variety of activities and took some field trips.

One of our field trips was to "Window On China" (小人國） a very eclectic park in Taoyuan County. I'd never been anyplace like it before! It was fun taking lots of silly pictures with all the mini-statues. Even better were the water rides and small amusement park in the "second" half of the park.

We made lots of good memories that day, including:

1) Small children staring at me (some of them cried when I tried to say "hello"!), but the Junior High School students were so curious! They tried to guess where we were all from (few of them guessed successfully!) But everyone said our Mandarin Teacher, Annie, was definitely from Thailand. She is Taiwanese!

2) My Korean classmate, Nancy, teaching me how to correctly imitate Buddha with the "Give me money" hand gesture!

3) Getting soaked on the log ride--- drying out in the HOT HOT HOT sun, and then going back and getting soaked again!

It was such a fun day! And definitely made having to go to school all summer bearable!

小人國

Sunday, June 1, 2008

"Sin! Sing! Swing!"

Back to Shih Hsin for the Senior Graduation English Play.
It was great to see old friends! (Even "G.I. Jeff" who got a weekend off from the army!)

Classmates (Natalie, Fanny... Lorenzo)

Handsome Guys!! Go David!! He can DANCE!!

Messing with David! I LOVE the bow tie!

Arts & Crafts

"Arts & Crafts Day"

Thursday was the last day of the semester! Prof. Huang decided to give us an "easy" day- so she taught us how to make these beautiful Chinese-style books. (Perfect for journals... in Chinese of course! :-) Making the books essentially consists of folding lots of paper and cardboard and then sewing it all together (punching holes and cutting precisely helps too!) The hardest part is making the Chinese knot-- but even that is simple! (See here!)

The book I made in class...
(I'm keeping it for myself, sorry!)

When I showed Eddie the finished product, he seemed unusually interested. It turns out that we were invited to Ginny and Andrea's birthday party on Saturday night, so if I could just make them the same thing, it would be the perfect gift! I agreed, with one small catch-- he would have to help me make the books! Below are the finished projects. Ginny's is on the right and Andrea's is on the left. Can you guess who made which one?

Eddie made Ginny's and I made Andrea's

Saturday morning Eddie and Lisa had a class research project to do. (Very interesting, more about that later...) in the evening we all headed to TGIF's for the birthday party. It was great to see so many friends I hadn't seen in a long time! (好久不見！）and to sample some "American" food. We had a great time!

My Roommate, the "bi hu"

My surprise roommate...

I came home the other day and found out that I have
a sneaky, little new roommate, a gecko lizard!

This tiny little dragon has been living in our apartment since I got here. The first time I saw it, I was getting ready to take a nice long shower when something went scurrying across the floor in the bathroom and climbed up the wall. It froze, lurking in the corner, deciding whether to fight or flee, it's beady little eyes staring at me. Assessing the situation, I decided that while he had me on speed, I outweighed the little bugger; so I chased him out of the bathroom. I won the battle, but he won the war: it was a quick shower and I kept seeing imaginary lizards popping out of every corner.

About once a week or so, I'd see the lil' guy and we'll both run the other way. I've been assured that he's not harmful... he's actually considered a helpful house guest because he eats our mosquitoes!! I've gotten used to seeing him around, and even remained calm in the face of my baby dragon.

BUT yesterday I came home and walked into my room, and there he was, clinging to the wall over my bed. I took one look at him and told him in Chinese, "我給你一分鐘走開，好不好？或是我會打你！” Roughly translated, "I'll give you 1 minute to get out, or I'm coming after you." (I had to use Chinese as he doesn't understand English.) I came back a minute later and sure enough he was gone! Although I checked my under my covers really well before I went to sleep!