Huge update on life

I totally have neglected my blog for the past... year. But now that I have some time I need to do an update on life. 

I finished my trip in Cambodia and then made my way towards Thailand. While in Thailand I visited Bangkok and traveled around there for a while, buying random street vendor goods and just bumming around. Thailand was my time to relax after running all over the jungles of Cambodia and visiting all the sites that I saw. I made my way towards Koh Tao an island of the coast of Thailand. I was trying to make my way towards the full moon party but I had some issues. I rented a scooter and drove around the island and went to a private beach where I was climbing on rocks. While I was on the rocks I cut my foot and hands open on the coral and was bleeding everywhere. Luckily there was a medical facility on the island and I went to them and they patched me up and gave me some medication. 

The next day I decided it would be fun to go scuba diving. This was the first time I was in open water scuba diving. During my scuba diving trip I purchased two dives and the first dive was beautiful. I saw so many different types of fish and have never been so deep down in my life. After that dive we went on another dive and this time when I went down I could not regulate my ears properly and the pressure built up in my head so badly that I almost passed out underwater. Luckily my guide was experienced enough to help me up to the surface and I was able to try to get the water out of my ears. Try as I might, this never worked. The instructor told me to give it a day and see how I was in the morning, if I was in pain I should go to the medical facility. If I was in pain, was an understatement I was in incredible pain all night and into the next day. I was rolling around all night in so much pain that I couldn't even shed a tear. I went back to the medical facility and they gave me medication and I walked around the next couple days like I was drunk, I had no motor skills from the pain and my balance was nonexistent. I wasn't instructed to stay on the island but I figured it would be in my best interest so I would not get seasick. I was stuck there until I went back to Bangkok and waited for my flight. 

Basically after Thailand, my life in Taiwan ended very abruptly in January. I rented out an apartment down the street from school where I lived next door to a Korean guy. We became good friends and we had fun trying to decipher many different characters around Taiwan (from the washing machine to the menus). My second semester included a Taiwanese wedding in the middle of Taiwan. The groom was a friend of Papas and I was his 'date.' The wedding was a ton of fun and it was a very interesting staying in a Taiwanese families home for a couple days. I stayed with Papa and his parents. Next door to them was his Aunts house, she had a fun story. She currently is reitired but makes 包子 for all the neighbors. She originally only was baking for a few friends and family, but then the whole neighborhood caught on to her amazing baking skills and she now makes hundreds per day, so much for being retired. 

During the wedding I was eating a lot of great foods. So of the classiest Taiwanese foods I had ever seen. Papa asked me one question, what I wanted to drink. I had two choices, Gaoliang and whiskey. I wanted to try to impress the locals so I chose the Gaoliang. I was given a whole bottle of Gaoliang to myself. This was a long day, to say the least. Papa had me participate in the wedding by first singing a song to the group. I was accompanied because I had some stage fright, as this was my first official time singing to a group of people that were not in a KTV. I rocked the stage and everyone enjoyed my singing skills (even though they were poor). The next part that I participated in was the toast ceremony. I was taken with the bride and groom around to every table to toast each table of people that came. They were basically trying to see how much I could drink and how much I knew about refusing an older person in Taiwanese culture. I had a plan, I saw that the tea we had looked oddly similar to the whiskey. After drinking about 5-6 cups of whiskey I told Papa to get me a bottle of tea and pretend that I was drinking whiskey. Apparently this is a very Taiwanese move to do, sneaking fake alcohol to not disappoint people. I don't know if this is true but it made me laugh and is something unforgettable. 

My second semester in Taiwan included another full-time Chinese course. This time I was with two Panamanians, a German, and a couple others. This was a fun, but very challenging class. Again I struggled to get the material into my brain but the teacher I had was the sweetest woman in the world. She required us to learn a song and sing it in a KTV. So one day after class we took a field trip to a KTV and sang out hearts out. She was accompanied by her husband who was just another typical Taiwanese man, extremely open and so nice to us. I had many low experiences in this class, just due to frustration, but I persevered and learned a lot of Chinese.

This semester also was the time that I said goodbye to foreign exchange students and hello to all Taiwanese friends. I did not want to use a lot of English so I made huge effort to become friends with Papa and his friends. This was one of the best ideas I have ever had. I learned a lot of Chinese and really learned how some Taiwanese students live in college.  

Dana and myself had a nice Christmas dinner together. This was my first Christmas away from family so she opened her heart up to me. This was another huge experience that I was not ready for. In Taiwan we did not get Christmas off so I did get a little homesick during this time. Dana and I went to the grocery store and picked up a chicken. The chicken came as a surprise to both of us. When I looked closely at the chicken I saw a head inside. After looking closer, I saw two feet. Dana had already said that she would cut the head off (which was done with a pretty dull knife). So I was in charge of cutting the feet off.

During my last night in Taiwan, which I remember far to vividly. I returned the scooter that I purchased (and had a blast driving around Taipei) and then went to Hoydea with Papa and all my other friends. We had some drinks, stayed there until about 3 or 4 am and then went to a midnight snack breakfast stand where we waited until 5 and we left for the airport. When it was time to finally leave for the flight I said my goodbyes and felt horrible leaving. But I had to do it sometime. 

So I came back from Taiwan and about a week or so later I returned to Illinois State University to finish my undergraduate degree. Speeding ahead a little bit, I took a class that taught me the most out of any class that I have taken at ISU. This class was called Political Science Professional Development. In this class I was taught basic resume writing skills and received information on graduate school. I still have hopes to maybe go back to Taiwan for graduate school but I need to take a bit of time to decide before I make my decision. This class also taught me about internships. I knew for a while that there are three things that are needed in order to get a good job: a degree, study abroad, and an internship. I have/am working towards two of the three of those. I did not yet complete an internship and this was on my list of things to do.

My professor told us about a few internship possibilities and said if we were a junior, that we should consider doing one. Like before going to Taiwan I did think about applying to some but never really thought I would follow through with it.

I ended up applying to do some political research in the middle of nowhere Montana. The organization is called Project VoteSmart. I finished the application, sent it off and a few weeks later I was being asked to do an interview for the position. I got the call and was told that the internship would be very testing on my patience and that it is located 6000 feet above sea level, 40 minuets down a dirt road to the nearest 'town.' 

After finishing my first real interview I was told to get back to them if I wanted to take it. I decided that it would be another crazy experience, like Taiwan, so I took the opportunity to spend the summer in the middle of nowhere. 

When school was finished I had one week to relax at home and then after my birthday, I was off to Philipburg, Montana. 

Huge update 1: Dragon Boat

First, I have neglected my blog long enough. I haven't written for a while for a few reasons, all July I was traveling around in Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. The other reason for the neglect is that I was just being lazy for a while.

This blog will span about 4-5 blogs. First I want to talk about the end of the semester and the beginning of the summer. Blog number two will be Vietnam, then three Cambodia and four will be Thailand.

The end of the semester wrapped up nicely, I got all great grades. Grading in Taiwan is different than in the US because no one, and I mean no one will get higher than about a 92%. But I got lucky and got all A's and B's (which was expected). Chinese, which I wasn't sure if I was going to even pass was passed with a solid B.

After the semester ended we were getting ready for a big event that takes place every year in Taiwan: The Dragon Boat Festival. This event has a history, that might be botched by me but from what I understand is this: Long ago there was a man who drowned in a river (or lake, something) and the people didn't want the fish to eat his body so they raced out and dropped 粽子(zhongzi) down into the water. 粽子 are a rice dumpling that is wrapped with either a bamboo leaf or seaweed, in Taiwan it is traditionally bamboo leaves. The dumplings then are steamed and have a mix of meat, rice and egg inside. I don't like them too much but I know many people that do, the only problem with them for me is that I don't like egg that much. But after a while these dumplings were no longer thrown into the waters they were just eaten as tradition. But nowadays the tradition has steamed into a race where teams from all over the country and all over the world come out and race in boats up a river, or lake. 

My good friend in the middle 阮柏緯.

There are a few dragon boat teams at my university but the one that I became the most friends with was the 文山 (WenShan) dragon boat team. I had a couple international friends that joined the team so I began to hang out with the team at a bar nearby and other places that they went. I was sort of adopted by the team and they were my first large group of Taiwanese to hang out with, I also kind of became their camera man as well. 

Fast forward a bit to race day. I watched them race two times and needless to say, it was extremely hot outside. I hung around with the team while they waited for their race to start and they were very kind to allow me to sit around with them, they even 'force' fed me. I didn't want to impose on the team because they were the ones racing not me, but even the elder team members told me I should eat with them. This is how Taiwanese are, they are always helpful and kind. To me, this race went very well, but they did not end up winning. It has to be said though that this race was a worldwide race, so people from all over the world participated and I got to see the Mayor of Taipei along with some representatives from other countries. 

That night they all went out to eat at a really nice place and, of course they dragged me along. It might sound like I am making excuses but they really did want me around which was so nice of them to keep inviting me places. 

The next day was race number two for them. This day was even hotter and there was little to no shade anywhere. But the day was beautiful and I got there a few hours early to hang out with the team and take some pictures of them warming up and they again, fed me and watered me. After a few hours they were up to bat and their first race went extremely well, they won but did get disqualified for dropping their baton in the water. Not only did the baton fall in but the person at the head of the boat did too because the bot actually broke. But the first races video is here:

The second race everyone knew was going to be a difficult one because they were racing against the Taipei firefighters. The firefighters had one rule while being at the race, they could not talk. They could not talk even to each other in the tent. They were dead silent from the moment the day began. This was their strategy to mentally be strong and put pressure on other teams. They were successful in looking powerful because everyone was talking about them all day. But the race began and once again the 文山 team were doing amazing and racing their hearts out. But in the end they did end up not winning that race and the firefighters did win. The second race video is here:

To talk for a moment about the sport itself and compare it to other sports I will say this. The fans, the teams, the players are all extremely respectful. These races do give people a lot of money and that is an incentive to do well. But one thing I noticed, and maybe it is because I am not close to many athletes in the US or have met the wrong ones, there is a little tension between the teams like there should be because everyone wants to win but there isn't a lot. If I can compare it to a sport it would be like major league sports in the US, the players all respect each other, sure there are some exceptions but for the most part they do. Everyone wants 'their' team to win and that is where the fans can be obnoxious at times, but here at these races, the fans just cheer on their teams and always congratulate the winning team and never have hurt feelings or be angry, even if the team is from Mainland China and the team advocates to take back control of Taiwan, which one team was. 

Gilberto and Emmaida, couple of my Mexico buddies

After the second game everyone just went to the bar that we have become accustomed to going to and had some drinks and just talked.

About a week later the team invited me to a KTV with the team, which is where I coined the phrase 'but I am not on the team', whenever they would do something nice for me. It was all in joking fun because I knew they wanted me around and I wanted to be around them. Like I said before, I was adopted by them. This KTV was funny because there were no English songs but 'Happy Birthday' and 'Hey Jude'. This didn't stop those who don't speak Chinese well from having fun though. So we still ate, drank and had a blast listening to drunk Taiwanese sing and have fun. It was a great experience and one that I won't forget.  

Overall, if I was planning a travel guide to Taiwan, which I am sure some people might use my blog for, I highly recommend seeing the Dragon Boat festival. No matter where you are in Taiwan, there will be one near.

中山女中 and 立法院

During the past few weeks I have done a couple things that really couldn't make up a whole blog post so this will have a couple updates that don't really follow the order of the blog.

All the girls

On Friday May 4th I went with my buddy to an all girls school in Taiwan (中山女中). I was invited to this school to give my perception on something dealing with American Culture. This probably was the hardest thing I have had to do in Taiwan because I have trouble describing America to other people because I have many perceptions of it, not to mention that I had to make it interesting for seventy-seventeen year old-Taiwanese girls. My buddy told me that they like Lady Gaga, a lot. So I decided to cater my speech to Lady Gaga while spinning it in an American Culture way. Lady Gaga works hard to speak out for those who do not have a voice and creating the American dream though equal rights; this is something that many do not know about her outside of America. The speech went for 45 minutes and then had a question and answer for any other questions. Taiwanese girls are very pensive, especially in a high school English class where they might not feel confident talking in front of their peers in English. The question and answer went well and I was given a great welcoming afterwards with a picture taken with all the girls. After I was done some of the girls came up to learn more about me and where I come from without their peers watching. This was nice because I knew that they were actually interested in me and I felt like I accomplished what I had come for. Eventually we had to leave and we got our overly-generous payment (1000NTD) and we went out to a great, and expensive, dumpling restaurant in Zhongxia Fuxing Station (忠孝復興站).

Giving the speech

Few of the girls who came to talk afterwards

Mario, Gilberto and Emma making
their famous burritos

The next update is something that went on this week that happens every year at NCCU (國立政治大學), the World Festival. I didn't see much of it because my Chinese class conflicts with most of the events but I did participate in two. The first was a photo competition that was held for all exchange students to tell what they feel about Taiwan through a short paragraph and a picture. Sadly I did not win but a lot of people did say they really enjoyed my pictures that I posted. The second was really fun to walk through, even though I had a short time to do so. This was the food festival where all the countries have food from their countries and share the tastes of their countries with everyone else. I had to go for the French crepes and the Mexican burritos. Everything was so interesting and fun to see, if I had more time I could have easily eaten at every place.

So many people and so much food

The last small update happened today. This morning I headed to the Legislative Yuan (立法院) with my class I have on Tuesday's: Democracy and Democratization in Taiwan. The Legislative Yuan is the law making body of Taiwan and is very interesting to me since I am a political science major. The trip began early in the morning, well 9 am (early for me). We all met up and went into the Legislative Yuan. The trip began kind of unfortunate. In the beginning we were brought into the chamber and listened to some talks by the KMT (ruling party) talk about US beef but then we were promptly kicked out because a vote was about to begin. They kick everyone out just so there is no worry of lobbyists attempting to lobby in the chamber. Then we met with our professors uncle, who has worked in the Yuan for over twenty years. He showed us a film about the Yuan and the process of law making in Taiwan. The system is very similar to the US but just unicameral. When we finished the film we were brought to the cafe inside and were given tea and then brought to a small museum where we saw some old documents regarding the Yuan and even saw a chest that held the documents when the KMT brought them from China in 1949. The next stop was our professor's uncle's office where we sat for a little bit and learned more about the Yuan and then his uncle gave each of us a little parting gift, a mug stamped with a picture of the Yuan.

Daily downpours and the daily grind

Main street soaking wet during a downpour.

Life hasn't brought too much different since my last update but I thought I would make a short update on daily life. Lately my life is still Mandarin, Mandarin and more Mandarin. When I am not working on Mandarin I am trying to stay active in other activities. I will be heading to a girls high school to present American Culture to them this week. The topic I chose (mind you it has to keep 75, 17 year old Taiwanese girls attention for an hour) is pop music and the philanthropic work they do on the side. My main focus will be Lady Gaga (who is loved here) and her work she does to help stomp out bullying. The students may know her music but I don't think they will know some of her side projects. I hope it will work just fine. Life hasn't changed too much, but the weather sure has. This week has been the wettest week I have seen since being here. Everyday you wake up and see that it is very nice outside, so why bring an umbrella. Well, after Monday and Tuesday's 3pm downpours, and getting stuck outside with no umbrella I finally learned that in Taiwan you won't look like a fool carrying an umbrella in the nicest of conditions.

Life has been very quiet otherwise, the semester is more than halfway over so everyone has more and more obligations to classes and different university activities. Next week I am planning on getting away from this wretched weather and head south to visit some friends in Kaohsiung, another little get away spot in Taiwan, warm weather, beaches and monkeys! I am also planning on participating in the Model UN that is happening on campus, it is not the official one but it is the one that is run by Taiwan. This will bring me back into my main focus, politics.

But another update will come after my trip to Kaohsiung, with many more pictures too!

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. 

Travels in The Heart of Asia

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!

Homemade dumplings, made by
everyone at a dumpling making party!

Fresh Taiwanese seafood, right
from the ocean!

           

Beef noodle in Pingxi

Best chicken soup ever!

Green onion wrapped in dough (so good!)

The waffle pancake things!

A little taste of home, a great Turkish
 man who owns a wine bar treated us
 to pizza, cheese and crackers