Yestahday

Yesterday which was Tuesday I did all the regular stuff like go to class and stuff and then after that guess who went shopping in the night market again :P :P We said we were going there to buy shoes but by the end of the night we had all bought shirts :S so that is awkward. In Taiwan there are a lot of shirts that have English on them and it is fun to try and decipher them because they make no sense. So I took pictures of those because they were funnnnnnn. Oh and also before this we ate dinner and I ordered a bunch of weird chicken parts and it was very weird hee hee but yes. This weekend I think we are going hiking and then on Sunday it is LADY GAGA DAY! So it will be yet another exciting weekend! :D I just wanted to updatteee.

Aboriginal Village and Kaohsiung :D

Sexy

Yummy Food

Aboriginal Village

Gondola

Sun Moon Lake

Friends from all around the wooooorrrlllllddd

ART

Moustache

Buddhist Temple

Department Store

Desserts

Love River

Lady GaGa Line

Friends

Kaohsiung

Field Trip

Sorry I haven't updated my blog in so long... I have been a busy beeeeeeeeee. So Friday was the Chinese Language Center's field trip to an Aboriginal Village/Amusement Park. This place was really really awesome and beautiful! We were up in the mountains and it was so lush and green! When we first got there we just walked around and took some pictures in the front area which was awesome.

Next, we went to go ride some rides and they were some pretty intersting ones if I may say so myself. The funnest one was like the Rocket at Lagoon except way taller and it came down a lot faster... it was really fun! There was also a roller coaster which we didn't know was extremely wild and we convinced one of our Indonesian friends who had never been on a rollercoaster before to go on it. I don't think she liked it haha and at the end of the ride the front cars seats (which was 4 people including me and her) wouldn't open hee hee so we were stuck for like 5 min which she didn't like :P :P Next we just walked around and did some awesome stuff like ride more rides and look around at the villages and the scenery (pictures at the top). After like 5 or 6 hours everyone took gondolas to Sun Moon Lake. The view was amazing and everyone needs to go there because it was beautiful and you need to see it for yourself! We all just walked around the shore area and also walked around the market area which was fun as usual. After that we took a bus back to Taichung and then a group of us met up with our friend that is leaving Taiwan for America :( We ate at an American restaurant and it was fun stuff. After that we went back to our hotel and after a week of planning finally pulled off a surprise party for one of our classmates from Utah. Someone pretended they had a seizure and lid on the ground and we woke him up and freaked him out for like 5 minutes and then sang Happy Birthday (my teachers idea haha) So that was an amazing day and I wish that all of you could have seen it with your own eyes. The next morning we caught a High Speed Train to Kaohsiung (South Taiwan) and we looked around the area. First, we went on a Duck Boat to the Love River and then we went to an Art Museum where they were having a Chinese Character Exhibition and it was really awesome! After that we got some famous Sticky Rice which was really good and sticky >_< After we went to a temple and all prayed what our future wives and husbands wanted to be.... seeing as I don't want to get married I did not join in on that part :P Brooke Parrish is my homegirl! After that we got some famous shaved ice which was pretty fanastic (the fruit here is amazing!) We also went around to different department stores which were expensive haha but cool to see because they are popular. We then went to go eat at a buffet where I got some steak and all you can eat salad bar and then desserts. It was yummy. After we went to the Love River which was even more beautiful at night and walked around. We then went back to the hotel and me and this other kid slept for like 6 hours and then woke up at 5:30 to go wait in line for Lady GaGa tickets. The weather was great and not too hot and after a while of not understanding what was happening since everything was in Chinese :P we started talking to the people that were in line behind us. They were really awesome and nice to us! They treated us to Starbucks and stuff and also helped us understand what was happening. It was awesome that we did this is Kaohsiung because first of all, we met them and they helped us, and secondly because in Taipei it was really hot for everyone staying in line and in Taichung people were getting trampled haha. In Kaohsiung on the other hand people we all happy and sitting down and there were 250 extra tickets like the whole time haha which was very weird! :D :D but gooooooood. So after we had our Iced Coffee and lunch and finally got our Lady GaGa tickets we headed off (with the help of our new friends) to DaLi Department Store to wait for the others. We then went to the Night Market Area and looked around and then headed back to Taichung. soooooooooo I don't know if you are going to be able to understand that because my English is going downhill but all you need to know is that I had an amazing weekend! :D :D I shall update more later!!! Love and miss you all!..... P.S. I don't think my skin has ever been this soft! For those who know me best, you know that this is amazing! :P Goodbye!

Bargaining

So last night me and my friend got some dinner at like 7 at some random spicy wrap place thing and then after we just went in random directions to go shopping yayayayay! We met up with our other Amurrican friend and all just walked around. Long story short we all bought stuff and we all bargained for them :D At first the shorts that I wanted were 490 kuai (17$ish) and I told her that I liked them but they were to expensive :P :P ... so she lowered them to 400 kuai (14$ish) and I asked for cheaper and it ended up being 380 kuai (13$ish) so all in all I think that I did good with my Chinese and I could understand everything she said and she could understand everything I said soooooo yayayayaya.  13 bucks is pretty good I think. We also went to other stores and when we walked in this one the lady always thinks my friends are Taiwanese so they speak Chinese to them and then we are like.. ummmmmmm we are american haha but we did understand like 80% of it. yayyayaya What else is going on??? Well today I have a presentation about my family and also we figure out where the Lady GaGa tickets are going to be so jes haha. I shall type more later and I will also remember to take many pictures of the night market!!! I always forget!!!!! buh bye buh bye !!!

Language Partners

Changhua Trip

Lunch Time

Thinking Pond by our dorms

Chou Dou Fu (Stinky Tofu) yuck.. although not as bad as I thought it would be

Museum

Taipei

Taipei (top of Gondola)

Me, Peggy, and Alvin... She was my awesome driver

Language Parnters!

So today is Wednesday morning and last night we went to go eat dinner with our new language partners. It was pretty cool because they don't know much Englsih and we don't know much Chinese so we were all helping each other out. It is fun to finally be able to speak like a conversation in Chinese and have people actaully know what you are talking about :D :D :D Yesterday morning I was also talking to these breakfast vendors for like 5 minutes and I could understand most everything they said! It is so awesome! If you don't understand you just say 聽不懂.. 你可以說慢一點 (Ting bu dong, ni ke yi shuo man yi dian/ I hear but don't understand, can you speak a little slower) This is a very useful sentence haha. Today I have a test on lesson 4 in my textbook and I think I am going to do fine, hence I am not studying right now and hurrying to write this blog. Oh! yesterday my friend also helped me buy a Lady GaGa CD so I can hopefully get a ticket to her concert that is going to be in like 2 weeks.....like a 10 minute drive from here :) ....... EEEE I hope I do get tickets. I don't think there is really anything new to update you guys on. School and play haha I guess I will just put up some random pictures for everyone to look at haha I shall update latah!!! Goodbye!

Changhua Adventures

Yo sup my peeps! So Yesterday (Sunday) I went on a trip with some Taiwanese friends and some of my classmates to Changhua :D ..... This city is like an hour and a half away and guess how we got there :) :) :) SCOOTERS! ... So basically it was pretty awesome just to get there in the first place because it was cool to see Taiwan this way and we got to say a lot of places. Also, scooters are really fun and it feels like you are competing in a go kart race. It was funny to see everybody looking at me since I was a girl was driving and I was the white passenger with the pink helmet on :P :P Once we got to Changhua we went to a Buddhist Temple which was really awesome and vurry beautiful!

After this we went outside to a famous old street market and got some yummy shaved ice with some jello herb-y stuff which was really good! At the end they even took our picture (because I was there) and they said that they were going to put it on their facebook page :P 

After that we went to a famous place that sells steamed buns which were amazing! The meat inside was probably the best I have had yet! We then drove like 20 minutes to another amazing Buddhist Temple with a big statue in the front. This place also had the best view I have seen yet. You could see all of the buildings and we watched the sunset. It was extremely beautiful! The problem is that my camera died and I took pictures on my phone :S so once I get enough energy to transfer all of them to facebook you all can see :D :D hee hee ha ! aack! Trust me though it was amazing!!!.... Now it was night and we drove through the busy streets on our 3 scooters to the Taichung Costco haha. It looked the same as in America except busier and 2 stories. We all shared a Costco pizza which was a Peking Duck pizza :) vurry good and cheap (pictures also on my phone whoopsie) So that was my Sunday! I would say that it was much better than sitting in a boring church for 3 hours, ya ya? I shall update more later! Maybe I will find out if I will be able to get a ticket to Lady GaGa! It is going to be hard to get one haha.. if not I will just go sit outside and listen because I am a freak. 明天見!!! >_<

Taipei Adventures

Hello All! So this weekend we went to Taipei again because we were going to go to a Mummy Exhibition with some friends! The thing was they were going to Taipei Saturday morning and leaving Saturday night and we wanted to stay longer. So we decided to go on Friday after classes. We asked people what buses and stuff to get on and just took off. Well apparently something didn't translate because we started heading towards the High Speed Rail Station instead of the bus station. So my friend got her friend to translate stuff over phone to the driver and he told us to get off and get on another bus the other way. The next bus took us close to the station but we couldn't find it so my friend called her friends again and they just said that they would pick us up and help us buy a bus ticket haha. So we finally got a bus ticket with their help :D and it was a pretty nice bus. Everyone had their own t.v. and it was air conditioned and fancy. So we made it to Taipei 2 1/2 hours later and tried to find our hostel that we were staying at for the night. We kinda got lost again in the darkness and went inside the 7-11 to ask the hostel guy for directions. He said he would walk over and meet us there and good thing he did because the hostel was pretty hidden and we would have never found it haha This hostel was actually really clean and nice and full of interesting people and it was a really cool experience. After we explored the night market kinda by where we were we went back and some of us talked to this girl from Holland for about 2 hours so that was funnnnn.

In the morning we woke up and went to get some breakfast and meet up with our friends at 10. We met someone else at breakfast because he helped us decipher the menu and what there was to eat :P I had "Egg Pancake" yum yum yum. After that we walked around a little bit where we were and then met our friends. There were some cool spots around hurr.

So then we met up with our friends and went to the Mummy Exhibition at the CSK Memorial Hall. It was pretty cool except that it was hot and there were literally like a bajillion people. I saw 2 mummies though so that was kinda cooool :D :D If you can't tell by the pictures,  it is really hotttt.

After that we went out to eat. Well at this time I started getting a headache/migraine so I wasn't feeling too hot. So I just baically died during lunch and up until the point where we went to the Maokong Gondola's a few hours later where I threw up in the bathroom at the top of the lift haha and then ate 2 corndogs.

Then we looked around this cool place at the top of the lift and took some awesome pictures of the sunset and whatnot which was beautiful with the pollution.

Then we went to Shilian Night Market in Taipei and got some food and then took a bus back to Taichung where we had to call them to let us in because it was 1 a.m. :P It was a good trip and now to study!!! haha

oh and I bought some new shorts finally! :D

This is mah school.

So people (my domestic partner) has asked me to take more pictures of the buildings and stuff where I am. So today I tried to take some pictures of the school area ... but I still need to take some more.    M-R I wake up and go exercise, eat a cheap breakfast and go to class from 10-12. We have lunch for an hour and then go to class from 1-3. Getting back in the classroom after the hot lunch in the sun is a major relief haha .. AIR CONDITIONING!!! After classes we usually study for a lil' bit and then eat dinner and then just do whatevs, either study or go explore! :D Tonight we are eating with some of our old language partners and so maybe I will finally buy some new clothes that I have been talking about >_< This weekend I think we are planning to go back up to Taipei with some friends to see a Mummy Exhibit in the National Palace Museum and then also possibly the Taipei Zoo so this will be vurry nice. As for now, I am going to study a lil bit before we go out tonight so here are some pictures of my school and the surrounding area :D :D I shall try and write in hurr tomorrow if I am not too lazy!!! 明天見!!

We have a lot of breakfasts at the place on the corner

This is an entrance by our apts 

All of my classes are on the top floor

One of my classrooms

Schoolgrounds

Green Trees

Some building

Some otha building

Some moh trees

One of the 90 cent breakfasts I am talking about.. this is "Egg Pancake" and it is a famous/popular breakfast here. They fill it with different meats or whatever and it is really good. Then I usually get Milk Tea which is yummy.