Putting my fingers to the keys and typing

Just a free flow of thoughts:

• Thoughts on Taiwan: I love it. I have extended my stay for one year now, which means I will most likely be back in January. This is a country that has the nicest people and that know what it means to be free. The people are always so helpful and have a smile on their face whenever they help. Compensation is never in order after receiving help. In the West people will refuse compensation until they are asked a couple times. In Taiwan, people do things for you and will refuse compensation or might get a little upset if you don't respect them. The same is with gifts, I am not one to accept gifts but in Taiwan they come often. Friends insist on getting things for one another and have no payback. When I am given something, normally food, I always ask how much I owe them. They refuse to take anything. It is not like me to just not payback. Money is not on their minds, it is the thought that counts. So what I do is reciprocate their actions by buying them something.
   
• Thoughts on my mind: Everyone thinks their mind is different than others, but in reality I find many people who are similar to me. My mind might be very free-flowing and might change often, this might be because I am still young and don't know what direction to take. I like people to think I have stability in my life, but I don't. I love everything which helps and hinders me. I love to try new things and open my mind to everything. Normally when I try something new I have two reactions: either I love it, or I don't like it at all (which doesn't happen often). I run into this all the time. The most recent example is here in Taiwan: I have fallen in love with this county and the people and don't want to leave. I try not to find negatives in life where-ever I am. When I try to think of something negative in Taiwan, I really can't think of one.
  
• Classes: So far classes a going great and I love them all (minus my culture class, which is not unexpected that it has not gotten better). Mandarin is by far my favorite course, maybe it is because of my motivation to learn. But even though I am a very political person, while I am here politics isn't my number one class any longer, it has become Mandarin. The reason for this is because I feel that a second language is extremely necessary in today's world, and Mandarin is a great language to have to get around in the world (also it is fun and challenging). My law class is another challenge because it is a subject I have not previously learned too much about. Law turns into a course that compares many countries views on lawyers and international law. This is always a great thing to hear because I know my opinions on law and lawyers in the U.S. but not in Taiwan, Mexico, or Ecuador. 

The busiest week ever

There are a couple reasons I have not been able to do a blog post recently. The first reason is that I am not doing much lately, traveling has stopped and I have began studying a lot. As stated previously, I have been taking my Mandarin course five days a week for three hours per day. This has kept me very busy. I have never been so busy in my whole life.

Full-time Mandarin is just that, full-time. I rarely have the ability to go out and hang out with friends which is a downer. But there is a very large upside to learning the language; after three weeks of being in the course I am not able to carry on some conversations. This is obviously no where close to fluency but I am on my way. Normally Mandarin takes up about seven hours per day, at least (not including talking to Taiwanese and extra studying some days). For me, I am not learning the language as fast as most so I need extra time to study. Recently, I picked up a language exchange with two Taiwanese twice a week for two hours; I talk to them for one hour in English, then we talk or work on my assignments for another hour. Then I also talked to a Japanese student in my class and we are going to work together outside of class. He barely speaks English so it will have to be mainly Mandarin spoke, which will help us both.

I have tried to break away from the international students more and more. By doing this I am meeting more Taiwanese and am using what I have been learning in class outside. This is essential in learning the language, and most likely the reason why Spanish did not stay in my mind. Also the Taiwanese don't drink and party all the time, which is a good thing because I am not here on holiday, I am here to study. I do like to go out some nights or have a couple drinks every once in a while, but not as much as the other international students do.

Much of my time lately has been spent in the last week is in the upper campus. The upper campus houses the dorms and has most of the Taiwanese that are not from Taipei, along with the international students who don't want to be partying and around only international students. Eventually I am hoping to move up there, maybe within the next month.

Just today I woke up early and went with my language exchange and her friend to MaoKong (猫空) and took a gondola ride to the tea houses up on the mountain. On our way up we took the see-through car called the Eye of MaoKong and it was really cool to be able to see how high we were just by looking down. When we got to the top we went to a temple that was recently built and then made our way back to a tea house. At the tea house everything is made with tea or using tea. We had a meal of rice that was cooked with tea, meat that had a tea based broth and some vegetables that were steamed in tea. Everything was extremely good, I could eat up there everyday. After our meal we then had our tea. This was another very interesting part and very cultural. I have never actually made tea like a Taiwanese before, I normally take a tea bag and throw it in water, sometimes adding honey. When you prepare 茶(tea) in Taiwan you get two tea pots, 二杯子 (two cups), the 茶 (tea), and a bowl. What you first do is heat the water then add the hot water to the bowl. Then a smaller tea pot goes into the water with the tea in it. You add water to the smaller pot and wait thirty seconds. You then take the tea pot and pour it into a tall cup, this is a cup that you smell (like wine, the smell enhances the taste). Once you smell it you take the smaller cup and put it on top of the tall cup upside-down and flip. After you flip it you carefully remove the tall cup and your tea is ready. It was very new to me and I thought it was a new fun way to drink tea. 

From rain to earthquakes - Alishan and Tainan

The past few weeks have been quiet exciting. School has finally begun and I am all settled into the course that I am taking. My favorite course has to be International Law Practice because it is a course that has many Taiwanese students that are studying for law school in America. Alongside them are one girl from Mexico, one girl from Ecuador, and me. We all bring different experiences we have with international law and the UN. Originally the course didn't have enough students in it to continue the class but we came and filled in the openings. This made the professor tell us that the course would be taught in half Mandarin and half in English and we could stay and make it so there is a class, or we could leave; we all thought it would be fun to take it and meet some Taiwanese students. The professor greatly appreciated us staying.

Our first nights rest

After our first week of class was over we had a long weekend, as if my vacation has not been long enough yet. There was much deliberation but we finally decided to go to Alishan for the weekend. Alishan is a mountain in the center of Taiwan and is known for hiking and it's beautiful sunrise each morning. We departed from the bus station at 23:00 and assumed that it would take around five hours to get there, well we were wrong. It took us about two and a half hours to get to the train station was to take us to Alishan. Then we found that the train to Alishan was broken and we had to take a bus which was not too big of a problem, if the bus didn't come at 06:00.

Alishan - Beautiful

So we were stuck in a bus station in Chiayi for about four or five hours. So we found a small spot to sleep for the 'night'. Finally we got on our bus to Alishan. I had about two hours of sleep that night so I slept on the bus for three hours. After arriving we went to our hostel and set down all of our things we went for our hike. There are not too many words that can describe how this hike was. To be honest I felt sick from the lack of sleep and did not have the best time at all, oh - and did I mention we were there during a downpour of rain... After about three hours of hiking we decided to head back all soaked from the rain. I was tired, and cranky, so decided to take a nap. I woke up around 18:00 and got some food and drinks. We all drank and ate some food in the rooms with some other travels we met, one from Madison, WI.

Forest Railway Station at Alishan, 05:00 sunrise

The next day we had to move out, because it was a hostel for only the night. Our train left at 04:00 to see the sunrise at Chushan. We got up there and waited for a bit, and it was almost as good of a sunrise as our hike was the day before. The time came for the sun to rise and we saw nothing the horrendous fog made us not be able to see anything, almost like seeing a sunrise in England.

Emmaida showing the beautiful sunrise

So far, the trip isn't going so well. We regrouped and had a laugh about it but had to find something to do or somewhere to go because we had no accommodation and there were no hotels to stay in. After a bit of discussion we decided to head south and hopefully find something or sleep in another bus station. Next destination: Tainan.

Tainan is located in the south west tip of Taiwan and is very historical. This is the area that the Dutch first came to and 'settled'. Once again, we had no accommodation there and being that this was a holiday weekend and a historical city we were traveling to, all the hotels were books three months in advance. Many Taiwanese go to Tainan to visit family and to their families temples. So we were asking on the train, practicing our broken Mandarin to get a place to stay or to see if anyone knew of something. Out of no where a man told us he would help us find a place to stay. He took us around the city for a short while asking in hotels and then took us to one near the train station. They said they had one room and it was 'Japanese Style.' This is an interesting concept which simply translates to some mattresses on the floor. The price was high but we had no where else to stay, so we took it.

Fort Zeelandia

After dropping our bags and seeing what a room for eleven looks like, we met up with one of the travelers, Nicholas, buddy from NCCU and her friend. They carted us all around the city while we ate everything we could find in the city. Our first dish was at a day market and we had octopus balls and a ham bao with chicken. Then our amazing guides took us to Fort Zeelandia, a Dutch built fort in the 1400's. This is very historical for Taiwanese and a big part of Taiwan history. Afterwards we traveled to a couple temples, which are everywhere in Tainan. During the evening the girls took us to the largest night market in Tainan, and maybe in Taiwan. The night market was huge and had wall to wall people. Lines for food were practically non-existent. After much squeezing around people and being in peoples way we just took a break and waited for the others. This night market is a must see, but patience is required, luckily I had patience this day. After this our guides left us for the night and went back to their homes and said they were coming for us again at 11:30 the next morning for more touring of Tainan.

Ham bao

Octopus balls, not bad 

Just a side note, Taiwanese are the nicest people in the world. I see it like a job interview. When one is a job interview they are asked 'What is a flaw you have?' This questions then has to be answered in a way that it is not actually a flaw. Taiwanese would say 'Well I give a lot to people and never want anything in return at all.' 

Ah night markets in Tainan.

So we returned to the hotel and got ready to head to a bar for the evening. This was a nice place to relax. We had a couple drinks and played some pool for the evening. It was a 'Western' bar or more like an American bar. The atmosphere was very home-like and it felt good to have that feeling for once.

Just making fools of ourselves during an earthquake

We left the bar and returned to the hotel around 02:00 and slept until our wake up call at 11:00. Our wake up call was quite an interesting one: an earthquake. Being on the lucky 13th floor of a hotel during a 6.2 magnitude earthquake is not what I thought I would wake up to. But I wanted to experience an earthquake so that was my first. We all left the room and ran down 13 floors to the ground, in very little clothing. When we got to the first floor everyone was staring at us like we were crazy, which we were and we decided to do a walk of shame back upstairs because we were safe.

The girls arrived and laughed at us for our stupidity and we learned it was the biggest earthquake in Taiwan in two years, pretty exciting. They took us first for more food, this day was for a Tainan specialty, eel noodles. I was very afraid to try this at first but I learned that I am making the right decision to try everything that is put in front of me, eel noodles taste amazing.

Eel noodles, with chili powder.

Fort Provintia

After lunch we ran over to another Dutch fort, Fort Provintia. This is another famous fort that is in Tainan, adding to it's colorful history. We ran around to another temple and then to a Confucius garden to rest for a bit. Then the Museum of Books, very briefly because we wanted to see more of the city. Our dinner was in another night market, but this one was much smaller and we got another famous meal: instant noodles. This is like Ramen, but they make it so much better by adding meat and egg to it; you would never know it was instant noodles. We had to make our way to the train next because we had to come back to Taipei. First we took another stop to get more food of course. I got a shaved ice and fruit, which was heavenly and a lime juice with gelatin. The girls then gave us a present, living up to the Taiwan way of always giving and never wanting anything in return. The present was pudding from Tainan, another delicacy in the city.




Which concludes our adventure to the south! We all had fun and in all I approve of both place, just plan on Alishan in the summer rather than winter or spring. Tainan is a must for all travelers.

Goodbye Tainan

Not your average home in Taipei

The day after this we were invited to a house, which is rare in Taiwan, to watch the Oscars. When you hear a house in Taipei, it is normally a mansion. This was, a mansion. I have never, and don't think I have been in a bigger 'house' (the White House is big but is also a place of work). The owners father just passed away so the whole first floor was filled with flowers, probably around 400+ flowers in the bottom floor alone. Then we took the elevator to the third floor to the KTV (karaoke) / theater room. We attempted to get the TV to work, but failed, so we drank a bit then took a cab to the mother's home of the girl that invited us. This was more of a normal sized home and we all just ate a lot of food and had some drinks.

Our Thai meal to thank the girls for all they did to help
us around Tainan 

This past week was not so interesting, we all were tired and broke from traveling so we just relaxed around the university. I had only one class this past week but this next week starts Mandarin which will be five days a week three hours a day, which I can't wait for. To thank the girls we took them to a great Thai restaurant and then just went to the river to relax for a bit in the evening.