One Month

Well today marks the end of the first month ive been here. This past month has been soooo amazing .-. im really glad to be here. I've been to so many amazing places (Danshui, Xinbeitou, Gongguan, just taiwan in general) had so many amazing foods (55 cm tall soft serve, Ji Pai, Beef Noodle, and many many more!) and met incredible people (I cant list how many.) This month has been a little tough though, mostly from my language handicap. I havent really missed much (except i have an extreme craving of orange juice for some odd reason) so im not really homesick. Keeping myself busy has really helped a lot. Today i woke up at 6:30 (on a sunday, yes) to go play volleyball with Soma (the hungarian) and his classmates. I about fell asleep on the court :P. Afterwards i wandered around ximen for a while without any plans and found some more exchange students! i ran into Kat (a girl from germany in my district) and John (real name Johannes) from germany in district 5200, and Connie (real name conrad) from hungary and also in 5200. Spent the rest of the day with them until i went to have dinner with my host grandfather (which was soooo tasty. never knew pig liver could taste good!) Saw a polaroid camera today, and got super excited cuz they arent in america anymore. i want one .-. . celebrating an exchange students birthday tomorrow (Allie the Aussie :D) gonna be awesome. Lesson of the day: always eat it. even if its liver.

Been a while

well its been quite a while since ive last posted.for an update: Ive done pretty much nothing special at all. (except plan a beach day that may very well be canceled due to weather complications) What to talk about..... I've aced every english test they've handed me, im proud to say (be pretty bad if i didnt). Chinese school is in full swing, but so far not much new (thanks mom! those two weeks were pretty helpful. thanks for the letter too) I get to do a pretty fascinating dance tomorrow at school

This is about to get fantastic.

MOON FESTIVAL.

Well it's moon festival weekend here in hot sunny taiwan. Filled with games, laughter, and the sounds of drunk asian men singing karaoke! Yesterday there was a rotary exchange student tea party! (which i must point out had no tea at all ._. dissapointment.) basically we divided into teams and played a bunch of games! losers got drawn on with face paint stuff :3 I only got to play three games before i had to leave. One was like a hybrid charades/telephone game, another was blowing flour (?) and the last involded rock paper scissors and water ballons >3 kukuku. That went well. I had to leave with soma and allison to go to a BBQ. It had amazing food, and since we ate too much we walked to a lake (which looked really nice in the moonlight) I juggled Pomelos (and tried to teach soma with them. we destroyed those XD) We also had to sing karaoke. All threee of us sang "in the jungle", then me and soma sang beat it, and i had to sing "what a wonderful world" and "tears in heaven" ._. no bueno. but it was pretty amusing ot see our club president swinging a shirt over his head and dancing to beat it. Today i was going to go to taipei 101 but it was postponed again. So Soma, Alejandro, Claire and I went to gongguan and ximen. We went to a really good korean restaurant in Ximen, and i had found a spanish restaurant it gongguan near the station. We got lots fo free food there cuz of alejandro. Moral of the story. Always go to a spanish restaurant with a spaniard.

Busy @.@

To say the least, the past few days have been busy. Saturday i went to ximen with Elycia and Julie, then on Sunday I went to the zoo. Got another panda hat, this ones a visor. School is pretty boring as usual, but mostly cuz i cant understand anything. Chinese school on monday wasnt much different either, but i could actually understand some of that. Really tired ._.

School Day 2

HOTHOTHOTHOTHOTHOTHOTHOTHOTHOTHOTHOTHOT. Whoever thought sweatpants was a good idea is an idiot @.@ but i look pretty sexy in my bright orange shirt, not gonna lie. Today i didnt get lost (victory!) and school was pretty great as usual. I had to juggle for the Biology teacher though haha. Whenever my classmates want me to juggle now they say "showtime!" XD We had P.E. today, and i played basketball with Shaun (who turns out to be decent at card tricks and singing) and Argus (note: these are self proclaimed english names) Sat with Vivian and other girls today at lunch (with the other two exchange students. Shaun and everyone still got a laugh out of it .-.) Im glad it's the weekend though. Im so tired o.o.

School

First day of school today! Pretty good all around i must say. It was kind of akward at first, cuz i just kinda walked in and took my seat without a uniform and no one knew who i was haha. Then they made me stand up infront of the class and introduce myself. The only problem was the teacher kept asking me questions. In chinese. Laughter was the main sound that came from the students until they finally got a student good at english to come up ._. i was the morning entertainment. Class itself was pretty boring, since i couldnt understand any words at all. During the breaks though it was faaaaaaantastic. really. especially when they found out i could juggle (thank you Dustin) That really got things moving. At our weekly assembly too i found that the guy across the aisle form me in class could be pretty funny when hes not asleep, and Shaun (the guy that was good at english) knows some pretty lame rubber band magic tricks (i have frank to thank for seeing through those) I also got my priso- I mean school uniform! :D My uniform would fit in a rave, no joke. Can't wait for tomorrow :D

Utterly and Hopelessly....

Lost. Thats what i was today. I woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed at 5:45 and decided to take the 6:30 bus down the mountain instead of the 7:00 one like my host parents said. My older sister looked at me funny "You'll get there too early". Heh, i showed her. It started out well, i got to the station, got on the right train, got off at the right stop. But second i hit the sidewalk i was heaading the wrong way. I walked for a good half hour before i ended up coming to the next MRT stop in the line. In the wrong direction. So being the smart me i hopped back on, went back to the original station (guting, i ended up at chaing kaishek), walked the right way, got on the right bus, got off at the right stop, and then walked past my chinese school ._. luckily for me i spotted another rotary student and followed them in. I got there on time. Chinese school was interesting, took a test in a language i didnt understand. I failed. so bad. Afterwards i didnt have to go to school. So me, Julie (from Norway), and Elycia (from Florida) decided to do a bit of exploring! which pretty much is the kind way of saying getting off the MRT, getting lost, and then finding another station. But it was good fun all the same. After dropping them off at their stations i stood on the MRT from Shimpai to Xindian Distric office. Litterally stood. My legs kill. for those of you who dont understand, pull up a map of the Taiwan MRT lines. Shimpai is near the top of the red line. Xindian is near the end of the green. I never knew standing could hurt so much. Lesson of the day: Get a seat.

School

Well i did end up going to school today. But it was quite uneventful. I did not go until one but i did not enter a class, but i was shown around the school with two other exchange students. I didnt even get my uniform (which some is bright orange :3 made me think "hey, the school has a wall and a gate with a guard, who has orders not to let us out in those uniforms." me and the guy from brazil both agreed its a prison.) tomorrow i dont go to school. I do go to chinese school though, which will be interesting (im going to get lost sooo bad) Went to a subway for lunch today, memories of bike rides with john and co. (had a tuna sandwhich in johns honor). Its so hot ._. sososoosososos hot. ~its getting hot in here~ haha :P Havent hit the homesickness wall yet, but im supposed to next month. We'll see eh?

ARC

Well the past two days have been very interesting. Yesterday there was news of a typhoon here in Taiwan and a hurricane in America. A couple of the Rotary students I met at the weekend are from New York, and my friend Nika lives there now to, i hope everyone is all right. The typhoon up here in Xindian was a little disappointing, since it veered off into China before it really reached us up here. But I digress. Yesterday me and my host family did a little ceremony to honor the spirits who's door to the spirit world was closing. They laid out a table that had many different foods and sticks of incense, and burned "clothing" and "money" to give to them. Afterwards we visited my host fathers dad, who lived in the city in an apartment style thing, with four floors! The top floor was just Japanese tea rooms and a rock garden, which was really cool. Today we took care of getting my Alien Residence Certificate, and I went to my first Rotary meeting here in Taiwan. I saw quite a few exchange students today, like Soma from Turkey and Sayo from Japan. I had to introduce myself in front of the Rotary, and i tried to do it in Chinese. I should have stuck with English -.-" There was lots of singing there. It was pretty cool. Most schools start tomorrow, which is funtastic. But i haven't recieved word from my school if mine starts tomorrow too ._. so im not sure if im going, if i am, i hope i dont get lost. :P

Inbound Orientation

Well today i woke up at 5:30 and couldnt go back to sleep >.<" Which was not fun. But we had inbound orientation today for my district, which was fun. I saw my friend Hai-Wei for the first time in forever (: Met many other exchange students as well, like Brodie from Canada, Julie from Norway, and Soma from Hungary. Many presentations were made, and it was a very tiring day @.@ I'm not sure what we're doing tomorrow, but if its nothing i may try to go to the city by myself and look around, if not with some exchange student. (but probably not)

The First Day

Well after a grueling 20 hours up in the air I'm pleased to say I made it! I got here around 8 pm Taiwanese time and was about ready to pass out. I walked out of customs and was met by my host family. Again i am destined to be the youngest here with two older sisters. That night i would also meet all three of my host fathers and my councilor. (My first meal would be at a rice porridge restaurant. Deliciooousss) We got to the house, which is nice and up in the mountains, and i pretty much collapsed and fell asleep. Today i woke up at around 7:35 and wandered down to the breakfast room. I was munching on some toast when i saw my host father doing taichi outside in the back yard. I was pretty excited, i want to try it sometime. Today we ended up getting a lot done. I went and opened a bank account (which by far took the most time) and saw both my chinese school and high school. I even got this nifty cell phone ^.^. So im pretty tuckered out right about now. Been a loooong day. So glad to be back in Taiwan :D

Soon

Well I got all my travel stuff (Visas, Tickets, Exchange Card etc.) from It's Your Wolrd, Travel! Agency. and I leave tomorrow! I really should have started packing already @.@ but hey, 24 hours and a little tomorrow morning should be enough ^.^ I decided to go with one suitcase, and since I can't bring my guitar im packing my ukulele instead. About two weeks of clothing is what im bringing so this should be interesting, but not a problem since Taiwanese people tend to do laundry a lot more frequently than we do. It's kind of weird, all my friends will be getting up to go to school tomorrow, and at the same time I'll be getting up to leave the country.... funny how these things work eh? Oh well. Can't wait :D

Finally ._.

Well i finally got word from the agent that i should be getting my Visa back by next thursday! hopefully that means i get to leave soon after that ._. well the adventure hasnt started quiiiite yet but i cant wait @.@