freedom, run away tonight

Feels so good to be done with midterm exams. Freeeeeedom (until mid-June)! I went out last night to celebrate with friends, and now I can't feel my toes and my voice is a bit raspy but it was all totally worth it. Speaking of freedom, I have decided to withdraw from my finance class. It's too difficult, I'm convinced that it is MBA level. The education system is clearly different here and hard to adapt to if you're used to discussion-based classes and professors who help you comprehend the info/actually teach. Professors here, instead, just hand you information...basically like "here, take it" and don't really explain the content. Of course, also, math and some business classes--particularly accounting and finance--are bound to be harder in Asia. It seems like most of the people in my class just memorize the content and don't really try to understand it. Or maybe they are all just naturally smart and get finance immediately. Oh well, I can't afford to have a grade lower than a B- in this class, hence dropping this class and retaking it back at home school, where I can definitely achieve at least a B. 

So, now I can sleep in on Thursdays, which I hardly ever do...even on the weekends since I always have plans and such. 

Anyhow, I discovered this really cool website where you can basically photoshop-edit your photos all in one step [they do it for you]. For the lazy and for those who can't afford the $800 Photoshop package. Yeah, that's me. Here are some photos from different events in Taiwan.

took this last summer from the lower angle, looking up to a tree

also took this last summer, at Longshan Temple

this was at the Tribal Harvest Festival in Hualien, during my last few days stay in Taiwan last summer

Kenting~

trois le petit cakes from a friend's birthday party dinner

bubbly for her birthday

i eat meat now?

Okay, Okay I know, I said I wouldn't post anything new til after the 29th, but I just had to share something... So those who know me well know that I don't eat meat (excluding seafood and the occasional filet mignon), and that I haven't touched meat since six years ago, aside from the little bits of pork I ate during Chinese New Year back in February. Since then, I haven't craved for any sorts of meat, even though all the food with meat here look sooo tasty and the smell - ahhh meat smells so good! Well, anyway, I caved in.

I woke up yesterday at 1:30pm--I desperately need to catch up on sleep after slaving away to finance for an entire week--hungry and craving for carbs. I walked around the neighborhood, and no restaurants were open. Uh, hello it's lunch time, why isn't anywhere open?!? I walked up and down the little alleys and only found vendors to be open. Starving and indecisive, I passed by a vendor that I always see a long line for. My cousins told me that this Taiwanese specialty is very popular and delicious. Sadly, the only meat they use is pork. But hungry me waited in the line, not even thinking about the fact that I would be devouring pork in a few minutes. The lady asked me what I wanted--you can choose from the menu what kind of pork: lean or fat pork. Of course I went with the lean. I gave her 45NT and got my warm 割包guabao in a plastic baggie and briskly walked back home. 


Was it worth the cave? Oh yes! Juicy, chewy, and slightly sweet the 割包 was totally worth it. Now you're probably wondering what the heck is a guabao. It is a Taiwanese burger. It is an open steamed bun (similar to what you eat with Peking duck) stuffed with braised pork, mustard pickled greens, cilantro, and sweet peanut powder. SO GOOD. I would definitely eat it again! And after eating it, I had decided that only in Taiwan will I cave in for meat. I still won't touch poultry because I don't like the texture of it, but since pork's texture is similar to beef I am okay with it. 

gimme a break.

It is midterms month now. I have three midterms - of which when I tell other local students, they are surprised and exclaim Whaaat only three? One of my friends has eight midterms!!! Anyway, I need good grades this semester and even prayed at a little temple on campus earlier today, therefore, posting shall resume after April 29--the day of my last exam.

daily consumption

I just saw a cool art project about daily consumption and it got me thinking...I consume more here than I do anywhere else. And, well it is mainly because I don't have a kitchen so I have to venture out on my own to buy food and snacks. But at the end of everyday, I come home with tons of receipts. Usually back in the US I say "no receipt" or just immediately throw away my receipt, but here I collect receipts because there is a lottery number on there. Taiwan does a drawing every two months, and there are many cash prizes. There is one grand prize [if you match all the seven numbers] for $2million NT, which is about $62,000US. Then there are three first place numbers if your all the digits match, then 2nd place prizes if the last six digits match, and so on...all the way til if the last three digits match any of the 1st place numbers. And last month I won that last place prize~~$200NT! So because I consume so much on a daily basis, there should be a pretty big chance that I would at least win some money.

Anyhow, I never really thought about how much I was consuming until today when I saw the art project and opened my desk drawer to see a thick pile of my receipts, just from April so far. I went out earlier for less than an hour and already spent 23NT to print out powerpoint slides, 85NT for tomato shrimp rice meal, 190NT for a pullover sweater, 25NT for one small yogurt, and 60NT for a bottle of oatmeal drink. On any given day, my wallet is filled with at least four receipts when I return home. In the beginning of this semester I actually kept a log of what I was buying and how much I was spending. Taiwan is a cash-based society, which I wasn't used to since I hate carrying around cash and just use my card whenever. But now I always carry cash and rarely use my card. So it was hard keeping track of what I was buying since by the time I got home ready to pencil in my purchases, I had already forgotten most of the stuff I bought that day. This logging merely lasted for a week!

I have to admit, however, that sometimes I feel like I am consuming an excessive amount. I always usually stick with buying things that are necessary, but it's hard to resist when there are so many clothes, shoes, breads, cakes, and vendors in my face, enticing me to buy something. At one point a couple weeks ago I felt overwhelmed with having to buy something everyday. I buy all my groceries at different places because there is no big supermarket near me, and certain fruits are different places range in prices. Like I buy grapefruits (4 in a bag) from Wellcome, a small British-chain grocery store, for 40NT, then 8 Gala apples from a fruit vendor near school for 100NT, guava already cut from 7-11 downstairs for 27NT per pag, and bananas wherever is cheapest. The prices of fruits are always fluctuating. I miss grocery stores where I can buy everything I need under one roof. There are international grocery stores in Taipei, but they are extremely expensive and not in walking distance.

obsessed

A few random pop culture observations I noticed:

TW pop culture LOVES Lady Gaga. And, I mean lovelovelove. I hear "rah-ah-ah-ah-ah-roma-gaga-ooh-la-la" every day walking along Roosevelt Rd. In the clubs, Lady Gaga will be played 4 times within one hour. And even uglier, some people even dress similar to her on a given day. I suppose they aren't sick of her... yet.

The girls really like to dress cutesy and look like dolls. I've seen girls wearing white knee-high socks, baby pink mini-skirts with a lace or tulle layer peaking out, huge pink bows in their hair, and of course fake lashes and colored contacts. It's not pretty a sight. Some even have their hair dyed barbie-blonde. C'mon, please tell me this looks ridiculous.

Speaking of fashion...some people are really stylish and some just try too hard. I rarely ever see the girls wearing sweats in public. I have seen the oddest clothes. Yesterday I saw a guy wearing baggy jeans, and on the jeans were iron patches of cartoon sneakers. I must say that the majority of clothes I find in stores here that are made in Taiwan are absolutely unflattering, too. Tops are have stitches in the most random places that I would look like I'm hiding a baby.

Oh, and the most absolutely ridiculous and puzzling trend are the glasses without lenses. Why why why!! I tried on a pair a couple days ago and cracked up...my friend told me that I, then, looked "really Taiwanese". It is the leading and universal trend among the teenagers here. Not cute.

KENTING ~ day three, 4.7

We had to check out of our hotel by 12pm, so we woke up early to eat breakfast. Our hotel is too small to have a dining room, so they partnered up with another hotel down the street, Kenting Resort. Our breakfast was almost the same as what we ate the day before...porridge, toast (they had wheat!!), cabbage, salad....and scrambled eggs!!! Yum :)

Our view from the breakfast dining room was breathtaking. I did not bring my camera to breakfast, but immediately after I cleaned my plate, I powerwalked back to our hotel to grab my camera while Lu and Kathryn relaxed on the swing at the hotel. After grabbing my camera, I strolled along the sidewalk of the beach. So pretty...

After snapping a bunch of pictures at the shore, I joined Lu and Kathryn back at the breakfast hotel. 

Sighh. I want to go back....and be there right this moment. Boo school!

KENTING ~ day two 4.6

On this day we had planned to wake up early and hang out at the beach allll day. So, we woke up at 9am to eat a delicious "Kenting" breakfast - which consisted of toast, Chinese porridge xifan, cabbage, handmade mantou, and tofu. We then checked out, hitched a cab to our next hotel, put our things in the lobby [because we couldn't check in til 2:30pm], bought a water-activities package - 450NT (~$14) that includes snorkeling, banana boating, speed boating, and headed toward the beach. At the beach, there are umbrella-chair sets you can rent. It is a big umbrella that is plotted in the sand and a bunch of little kiddie plastic chairs...for 300NT. So expensive, we even tried to bargain with the lady, but she wouldn't budge. So, we just laid our stuff on the sand. Our hotel gave us a boogie board to borrow for free. I love the hotel owners, they are SO friendly and personable. Every time we entered the hotel they would ask us if we had fun or ate good food :) 

 Our hotel for the 2nd night ~ Yoyo Resort Inn

in the lobby

 the view from our hotel window. we didn't even order an ocean view room! well, we couldn't see the ocean directly because this window was on the side, but still a great view!

I mostly hung out on the sand to tan, and then I went into the water. There were sharp rocks in the sand, and I think they cut my foot because when I got back to the hotel I noticed a deep cut on the ball of my foot. Ouchie! We were about to leave to return to our hotel because the sun was sooo hot and we didn't want to pay 300NT for shade. But as we were leaving, we made friends with a group of local TW guys + 1 girl. They were letting us borrow their 2-person tubey and Lu let them borrow the boogie board. So we went back into the water. Lu and I in the tube, Kathryn pulling the tube, and one guy struggling to boogie board :p I got dizzy from the waves and felt like puking, so I tried to swim back to the shore, but a wave pulled me backward, and my foot hit a sharp rock. That's probably when my foot got cut, but I didn't even realize it til a few hours later.

Afterward, we went back to our room and took a quick 30 minute nap so we would have enough energy for the water activities. At 3pm, a guy from the company who conducted our activities came to pick us up and dropped us off at their shop in Houbihu (see map). Right when we entered, a lady handed us wetsuits, a life jacket that has a buckle at the crotch, and snorkeling boots. We looked pretty ridiculous in our suit haha. Then we hopped into another van that had no doors and drove to the sea. It took me awhile at first to get the hang of not breathing through my nose while snorkeling. I've never snorkeled before so I was pretty nervous, especially since I'm scared to see the ocean bottom, but where we were was not too deep. I saw many pretty green/red/yellow fishes and tropical clown fishes and coral communities. Then, I got dizzy and my goggles kept fogging up because I would forget to breathe through my mouth. A little bit afterward, we all got on a speed boat that pulled the banana boat we'd ride on. 

 (I did not take this).

The banana boat actually looks like a hot dog. I literally thought it would be the exact shape of a banana with curves at the end, but it was a plain surface with side things to rest your feet on. The driver asked us if we wanted the boat to flip over, which does look FUN but I was feeling queasy so we got the easy ride, though some parts are bumpy and I felt like I was going to fly off.   

Afterward we climbed onto the speed boat and went on a thrilling ride. It was quite a breezy ride. When we got dropped off at the floating dock, I started to feel sick again. Then one of the guys on a jet ski told Kathryn to get on. We were all confused at first because we didn't pay for the 4-in-1 package, which included jet skiing. Maybe they got ours mixed up with someone else's or they are just nice people... But yeah, I rode a jet ski too. Scariest ride of my life. My driver was racing with the guy driving Lu, and he was going sooo fast. I was too scared to look at the meter to see what speed he was going, but I was holding on for life. There were many times I felt like I would fly off and possibly die. It was fun, nonetheless!

I picked up a few unique [dead] corals from the shore....

For dinner we ate at a cool restaurant down the street called Bossa Nova Cafe. It had a tropical Tahitian theme, and all the food were Taiwanese, Thai, or Western. I ate a very, very spicy squid salad. It was sooo spicy that I was sweating, crying, and downing 3 cups of water at once. The waitress even told me that it wasn't too spicy. Afterward we went to 7-11 because my taste buds were begging for a sweet dessert. As we walked toward our hotel, we heard live music coming from a distance and then turned around to head to where the sound was coming from. As we got closer, Lu and I recognized the Chinese song the band was singing. When we got to the outdoor amphitheater we all hesitated to go in and sit because it looked like an exclusive event. So we stood outside the wooden wall and tried to get a peak through the tiny 1cm slits. Then a guy came out, saw us peaking, and told us that we could go in. Turns out the concert was a post-Spring Scream event. There weren't many people in the audience. The band performing was a group of 5 guys who looked high-school age. They were pretty good though. One of the bands sitting in the first row walked up to talk to us, gave us a free CD, and their contact info - told us to call them to hang out when we get back to Taipei. We returned to our room and rocked out to our new free CD :)

KENTING - day one 4.5

Here is a map of the south tip of Taiwan. Kenting is almost at the very tip. 

 We rode the HSR (bullet train) to Kaohsiung, which took only 1.5 hours. If we rode the regular train it would take at least 5 hours! When we arrived in Kaohsiung we took a cab to our resort. For the first night, we stayed at a beautiful, yet Asian flashy/cheesy resort. The hotel is called Swan Lake Villa Resort in South Bay area (see map). Right when our cab turned into the driveway, we all giggled - the entrance has white swan sculptures, an American and Taiwan flag, and a bunch of other random flamboyant sculptures. Anyhow, our hotel room was very nice. We booked a lake villa, so we had a balcony that overlooked the algae-filled lake and swans. We had a plasma TV and a spa tub. We got a pretty good deal, too. Our hotel, however, was kinda in the middle of nowhere. Although it was near the beach, but not close enough. We had to walk about a mile down the street to get to the ocean. 

We had planned to stay two nights in Kenting, but we booked only one night at this resort. So after we checked in, we went hotel shopping on Nanwan Road. We came across a gorgeous 5-star hotel that had a Moroccan theme. It looked sooo luxurious, and of course it was $300US per night. So, we moved on and settled on a cute, cozy bed-and-breakfast type hotel further down the street. We were five minutes late to book an ocean view room, but our room essentially had an ocean view anyway. After booking our hotel room, we headed to the beach. It was pretty crowded even though the sky was very gray, and it even started to drizzle. There were a bunch of tractor ATV-type vehicles on the sand, that we wondered if they were for us to drive around :p But actually, they were there to drag jet-skii's into the sea!

After walking back to our hotel, we chilled at the pool. There are three pools: a regular swimming pool, a spring water pool with a waterfall, and a red-colored spa which is red because of some wood element they put in. For dinner, I wanted to go to Kenting Night Market, but it was 6-7 miles away. Taking a cab there was out of the question since the cabs there don't go by the meter to go to Kenting St. It would cost 300NT one way! So, Lu and I waited at the bus station for 10 minutes, and no buses came by. So, we just ate at a restaurant near our hotel called Bermuda Restaurant, which served good Taiwanese food.

the view from our balcony at night

cool lighting in our room

spring flowers ~ kenting

This was taken in Kenting, in the morning, on our last day there. We ate breakfast at another hotel down the street, and the hotel had such a beautiful view...

More pictures will be uploaded later sometime this weekend!

back from my 3-day reality pause

I'm back. Back to rainy, chilly Taipei...and reality. Now it's time to catch up on homework because I, sadly, have class tomorrow since spring break here is only three days :( I still feel kinda nauseous from riding the cab (from hotel to Zuoying/Kaohsiung train station - the driver was speeding and swerving, driving on the shoulder of the road to pass others) and then the high speed rail. I will have to upload pictures tomorrow...!

leofoo village

Can you tell that I am dying inside^ ? Yeah, that drop was pretty scary! It dropped at maybe a 65-70 degree angle. I was hanging onto the side rails so tightly that my hands were sort of purple after the ride was over.

I went to Leofoo Village六福村, a theme park in Hsinchu (windy, windy city) - one hour outside of Taipei, with cousins and my aunt on Saturday. The park is divided into four themes, similar to that of Walt Disney World in FL: Arabian Kingdom (Aladdin-themed), African Safari (zoo), South Pacific (tropical theme), and Wild West (like Knott's). It seems like rides at amusement parks worldwide are pretty universal. At Leofoo, there was the Indiana Jones type of ride, a twist-and-turn coaster with a 90-angle plunge (similar to X-celerator at Knott's, but only shoots straight then shoots backward four times at 76 m/hr), the swinging ship, log ride, rapids ride, etc. Only this place wasn't too crowded because the weather reporter predicted that it would rain today. It sprinkled a bit, but it was manageable, especially since we didn't have to wait in line at all! 

After four hours of fun (the park closes at 7pm during off-season!), we headed to Taoyuan to stuff our faces at Sushi Express, a chain conveyor belt sushi place. There is one near my school, but the first and only time I ate there I didn't like the sushi because it was waaay too sweet. But this place's sushi was pretty good.