Stream of life: Study abroad

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.

Taiwan can be summed up in many ways. This culture is very diverse and the influence of Asia can be seen all around the country.

A little blurry but I was on a plane about 18 hours
(zero sleep in 24), give me a break!

Officially I have been in Taipei, Taiwan for a little less than three weeks and couldn't be happier with the decision I made. I decided to go to a country that I knew little-to-nothing about. My motive for coming here alone was to see if I could survive somewhere that I knew nothing about and still have fun. I have always loved traveling but was not sure if I could handle this step, but I think anyone can.

When people ask me 'was there a culture shock?' or 'are you homesick?', the answer to both is yes but not very much on either question. The culture shock really has been the language, luckily I am staying at a great hostel (Homey Hostel) with some great owners who make my life so much more smooth and introduce me to many different people from Taiwan and all around the world.

For anyone who is thinking about studying in a foreign country, they have to arrive at least a week before you can move near the school to get acquainted with the food, culture, and maybe pick up some language too.

Calligraphy

Either way my last few weeks have been jam packed. We have just finished Chinese New Year last Monday, which was fun and a bit boring at times. One thing to know about Chinese New Year in Taiwan: everything is closed! Night markets are open but restaurants (minus Western fast food) are all closed most of the nine days. The good thing is that at the hostel we were able to have a hot pot on Chinese New Years Eve and celebrate our own international hot pot feast and learn how to do traditional Chinese Calligraphy. After our hot pot we got ready for the night, it is tradition that during Chinese New Years Eve you have to stay up all night to celebrate the defeat of the evil. We all went out to Spark 101, a very famous night club and just had a great time celebrating. Another night we were invited to one of the hostel owner's friends house to have another hot pot with a German family and some hostel go-ers. Here I had another Asian experience, dessert in Asia can be much different than in the West. We had some plum wine that the host had been making for almost a whole year.

Happy New Year!

So windy at the top!

I was able to travel a little outside the city to a place called Yehliu (野柳) with a very nice Korean girl which in the north coast of Taiwan and is a geo-park. Sandstone here has been eroding into amazing rock structures. Some of the rocks have been eroded into some really cool shapes, and the most famous looking like a queen (appropriately named 'The Queen's Head.' The one downside was the amount of rain that we were in during our trip there. Taiwan rains, rains a lot (maybe 3 days straight a weeks); normally just a light rain but sometimes it comes down pretty good.

Mahjong after dinner
(not with money this time)

I also got the opportunity to hang out a few times with my 'pen-pal' Jack. I met Jack through my dad who works with Jack's uncle. He is about my age so it is perfect. We first took a trip with his friend Michael to the most famous dumpling restaurants in Taipei. The next time I met his family for a traditional Chinese New Year dinner, normally consists of about five dishes. This meal was so good and I learned a ton from his father (who even gave me a red envelope!) and really made me feel at home. We finished our night by playing Mahjong, which is difficult to begin learning but when I got the hang of it I had a lot of fun. Then this evening we went out again with Michael to the National Palace Museum. This holds a ton of different art from China, particularly during the Qing dynasty but some that date extremely far back, some of the oldest artifacts I have ever seen in person.

Our lantern inflating!

My other major trip was to Pingxi (平溪區) for the infamous Lantern Festival. Here we took a taxi up into one of the one hundred mountains in Taiwan to send off lanterns to the Gods for our new year's wishes. Unfortunately my wish was written in English and everyone was joking with those of us who wrote in English that the Gods cannot read English. Either way this trip was a lot of fun, a full day long and really shows the countryside of Taiwan. The town is built near an old mining town that you take bamboo and write a wish on it the stick and hang it somewhere around the town. There are hundreds of bamboo sticks all around this town, really makes the ambiance very cool.

A Canadian friend and I did travel to Longshan Temple, which is near the hostel to see all those praying during the New Years. This was a great taste of the culture because the temple is very beautifully decorated and there were many people praying and leaving offerings for the Gods. This is not the first temple I have been into but by far the largest. I don't know much about the Buddhist religion/philosophy but Jack's family is Buddhist and said they would teach me about it.

Near the wild dog area, very cool grave yard
though. The graves are build all over this
mountain. Christain, Tao, Buddhist, and
Muslim were the ones I saw.

The other day I did have my first frightening experience and it had to do with a four legged friend. There are many wild dogs outside of Taipei and in the countryside. While hiking one day I was on a path and came to a grave yard. The path led me through the grave yard, which was pretty cool to see except for one thing I saw a wild dog. The dog was asleep luckily, but as I was walking by the dog awoke, and under the one dog was another two dogs. I saw them smelling the trail I walked through. This scared me a lot because these dogs are known to be very vicious. Luckily I did the wrong thing and hopped up a hill and got away. Later on I was walking up another hill and came to a small town, maybe two or three homes on this hill. I saw a small dog on a roof that began barking at me, I didn't think anything of it until a huge dog came out from the side of the home and started to walk towards me. I did the stupid move again of attempting to turn around and walk away (this makes dogs think you are going to attack just have your guard down), so the dog began to run at me. Another stupid idea came into my head: run away. That is a problem when you are on a mountain, there are very few places to run to. Luckily I made it a couple hundred feet and jumped off a ledge that led into another grave yard. The dog was feet above me barking and going crazy. After a couple scooters driving by I waited and heard a man walking down the hill, that was my chance to get away, which I did and am alive to tell people: 1. Don't turn your back to a wild dog, stay still and even if it comes up to you it will only smell you and walk away, and 2. Don't run from a wild dog, you will lose, I almost did. But besides that, there was a 'squater's' home up there. Someone was living in the grave yard. I was told that some people decide to pack up and move away from the city because they don't want to be surrounded by people, others are just impoverished (but there are few of both). Either way I was scared a few times on the hike but it is all an adventure and a learning experience, nothing you could read in a book.

As far as the food goes: well coming here I thought I would lose a lot of weight, this food is too good. I have to watch what I eat here more than I do at home. The food is so cheap and it is way to easy to eat a lot. Everything is new when it comes to the food though. It never hurts to try something new, so I make an effort to do that every day; whether it be baby squid or all the variations of tofu that Taiwan has to offer (minus chòu dòufu [stinky tofu], I have not had the courage to try that yet). My favorite food so far is a type of cake that is molded into animal shapes. The cake batter is like a waffle or pancake batter, but they are too good and my guilty pleasure. So to end this long blog, I will leave you with some of the food I have been eating!