Days gone by - 5 weeks in!

First, apologies for not keeping up on the blog for the last week. I can't exactly say things have been busy, but when faced with the choice of updating a blog and laying around doing nothing... well, let's just say not a whole lot was accomplished. Since my time on the beach, my monstrous sunburn did in fact heal and is peeling nicely. It's ok though, since wearing sweaters mostly conceals the peeling one of my Chinese friends said wondrously looks like a snake. Flattering, right?

Well since the beach, not much entirely interesting has been happening. Probably my most recent highlight was the arrival of a mini-fridge and a microwave, courtesy of my parent's and one of my dad's local business contacts. It makes life so much more pleasant to have somewhere to keep extra food, so I'm not forced out into daylight in search of substance each day. So far it's mostly filled with a four pound jar of salsa, courtesy my other recent highlight. My friend Tiffany's roommate happens to have a Costco membership card, so last Thursday (incidentally, the same day I got my fridge), we packed up and scooted across town to the Costco. She so graciously reminded me earlier how exuberant I was in my appraisal of the many American food items available at Costco, but after being so long without it, it's hard not to become estactic at the sight of Goldfish crackers. As previously mentioned, I also found salsa, one of my most missed foods, and tortilla chips. Unfortunately for me, the salsa came in a 4 pound giant jar, although to be honest I've already eaten like a third of it. As for the tortilla chips? A fond memory of days past... pretty much meaning I gotta go back to Costco soon. I found some other stuff there too, delicious oatmeal cookies, Cheetos, bagels and cream cheese; pretty much all the foods I'd take to survive on a desert island with. My joy at these food items cannot be put into words, just understand that tears were almost present.

Of course, at Costco a funny moment did happen as I ran into one of my Chinese teachers in the salad dressing aisle. Although I had been speaking English with Tiffany and her roommates, I automatically switched to Chinese and had a brief conversation with my teacher before moving on. When I turned to find the cart, I found the three girls just standing there giving me a funny look, before asking me why I never spoke Chinese like that with them. Apparently I sounded fluent or something - it was a pretty awesome feeling either way.

This weekend I did go out with the family of my dad's business contact's daughter, which was pretty fun. The family was extremely kind and welcoming to me, although the fact that their 10? year old son wouldn't look me in the eye for most of the day. I understand that he's shy, but it did make things a little awkward to work through. We went to a kind of yuppie nature village area, where we looked at flowers and ate a traditional country meal and bought pottery things. At least I bought my mom's Christmas present, now let's hope I don't forget that I did. Then we went to a place called San ________ mountain area or something. I don't remember, but I do remember that apparently it's very famous for this certain kind of cyprus wood and that the shops are filled with the wood polished and carved into almost every shape imaginably. It smelled really strongly, but apparently that's a good thing. After I got back home on Saturday I was going to go out to dinner with a friend, but sitting down to check Facebook real quick at 4:30 turned into me sleeping until 12:30 in the morning. Oops. I woke for about two hours - enough time to eat something and pretty much fall back asleep. Sunday worked much the same way - sleeping, and trying to find some sort of motivation to get out of bed and actually do laundry and homework.

Today was vaguely eventful as well, as Tiffany, myself, and two of our classmates decided to go out to try this deep dish pizza place we found online, in hopes of finding wonderful Chicago-style pizza in the heart of Asia. We got on the scooters and buzzed a loooong way away from the school into this little area in the middle of nowhere until we found it tucked away. We were the only ones in the place, which might have served as a warning - not really for the food, but at least for the atmosphere. Immediately the guy behind the counter scolded Tiffany for wearing flip-flops, as he shuffled around in his house slippers. To call this guy flamboyant would be like calling Lady Gaga a little theatrical - there was just something about the guy and the place that had us all giving funny looks and giggling like children. The whole restaurant was decorated very art-noveau, what with all the funny shaped wooden and metal carvings adoring the walls and the Enya soundtrack playing. This was made all the more hilarious as the giant picture window out front had dozens of little lizards climbing up and down on the outside; much of the meal was spent in hysterics. Sadly, it wasn't even good Chicago style pizza like the review we found had claimed; it was certainly deeper than New York, but didn't have the right order or crust for Chicago style. It wasn't the worst pizza I've ever eaten, but it certainly wasn't the best either. Probably won't recommend it to the other students.

Now, really quick, I want to touch upon something hilarious at Tunghai University that I just recently noticed. After we had that typhoon a few weeks ago, I noticed what seemed like groups of students going throughout the school grounds picking everything up - at the time, I assumed that they grabbed volunteer groups to help clean up after the storm. But even after the campus was cleaned of sticks and leaves and such, I kept noticing students doing a lot of the yard work around campus. Talking to one of the Tunghai students confirmed what I speculated - that they were making the students do the cleaning of the school. Apparently this is something that only Tunghai does in Taiwan, and essentially it forces all freshmen students, as well as transfer students, to spend an entire YEAR cleaning the school grounds part time. They're broken into shifts of maybe 15 people, and each cleaning period is broken into two weeks. Within each period, students are allowed to miss only five days of cleaning, so essentially they have to clean at least 18 days a month. Cleaning can begin from 6:00 AM until late at night, and includes everything from lawn maintenance, trash pick-up, even bathroom cleaning. If a student misses too many days of their 'cleaning course', then they will actually FAIL the course and be required to redo it again the following year. If they keep failing, they're actually barred from graduation until they do their share of the dirty work. Amazing, right? Any opinions?

Also, I forgot, I went to the Taichung Science Museum and it was awesome. Lots of dinosaurs - very cool.

The sun is a cruel mistress - back from the beach!!

So here I am Tuesday afternoon, a couple of days before I usually try to post, but I'm trying to avoid homework and it's nice to get everything out while it's still fresh, so here goes. This past weekend a couple of friends and I went to the southernmost point of Taiwan to the beach/resort town of Kenting. We began our journey Saturday morning by meeting outside the main school gates at 6:00 AM. That was pretty miserable, especially I had about a 25 minute walk from my apartment to the school gates, so I got to wake up at 5:00. The good thing about the walk was that nobody was up and awake yet, so I got to walk around without having people stare at me. It was surprisingly refreshing.

We all got together and headed to the bus station, where we paid $230 NTD (about $8 USD) for a ticket to Kaohsiung, the second largest city in Taiwan and the big city closest to the southern tip of the country. It was about a three hour bus ride, where everyone in Asian fashion fell asleep immediately, and I was left awake to ponder the deeper things in life, like how people managed to use the dwarf-sized bus bathroom.

When we finally arrived in Kaohsiung, I was excited to get on with the last leg of our journey as we headed into the train station. Turns out we only went to the train station to use the bathroom, but my friends consoled me with promises of a bus that would soon arrive. We later had a vocabulary lesson on the difference between a bus and a van. It was not a big, safe, cushy bus like we had ridden from Kaohsiung, but rather a cross between a minivan and one of those long church vans - really it could only hold seven people, but we would later challenge that limitation. As long as I didn't pay attention to the heinous driving, it actually wasn't too bad - on the ride to Kaohsiung we got to watch the new Karate Kid with Will Smith's kid, and I laughed hysterically at all the language miscommunications and culture shock scenes. Thankfully we arrived safely after about an hour and a half on the road, and we unloaded and filed into the hostel we'd be staying at. For the other Americans out there, I am sure you can commiserate that a mere four hour trip to the beach is nothing to get upset over, but you would be surprised how many Taiwanese people complain about the long distance. They usually shut up after I point out the three day drive from Chicago to Florida, but still. For so little money, I would go to the beach way more often then people here do.

Because I knew we would be going to the beach that day, I had worn my bathing suit under my clothes to eliminate any time between me and the beach. It wasn't until we were standing outside the hostel with everything in hand that one of the students made the wonderful announcement that instead of going to the beach that day, we would go the NEXT day. Apparently we paid for the van service for a full day, meaning it was tour of Kenting time.

We started out by going to some dinky little house. I got out for about two seconds before learning it was where some movie was filmed; I got back in the car and sulked for a little. Next we headed to lunch, which was a pretty decent affair, with decent food and decent-er prices. Then we hit a suspended bridge where I could see tempting bits of beach in the distance, and coconut trees! Honest to god trees growing coconuts. Turns out that Kenting is at the same latitude as Hawaii, resulting in gorgeous weather, interesting animals, and actual coconuts. Awesome. Next we finally went someplace that didn't really suck - the beach!! Of course, we couldn't stop to swim, but that didn't stop me from wading out to my waist. Shorts got wet, but I was wearing my bathing suit so who really cared? Certainly not I! We splashed around for awhile and then sadly headed back to the van for our next stop. We headed to the southernmost point of Taiwan and some famous little lighthouse. The hike was more fun than the actual destination I think - it had just rained so trying to traverse the super muddy rainforest was hilariously entertaining. By the time we got to the lighthouse, the weather had cleared though, and after a few moments of marveling at the view, we headed back down towards the van where we were able to buy coconuts to snack on! It was seriously a lady standing with a pile of coconuts, a machete, and a handful of colorful straws. You paid, she did some fancy slicing and dicing, and voila, a coconut with a straw poking through. The milk wasn't very sweet or tasty, but it was the thought that counted.

Next we headed to the famous wood/mountain area, where we hiked all around the trail and saw some elusive Formosa Macaque (Taiwanese monkey) as well as some wild goats eating on the side of a mountain. The view was fantastic, and I immediately decided where my future house would be and what it would look like. From there, it was back in the van to rush off and see the sunset, which was picturesque to the point of looking absolutely fake. That was followed by a stop to buy some sparklers and we headed off to one of the coolest natural things I've ever seen in my life. As we walked towards this random destination, I marveled at the fact that there were no lights - not even for the really slippery dark staircase. This meant that we were able to see practically every star in the sky until we came upon a bunch of people around bonfires. At least, I thought they were bonfires - the closer we got I realized that it was natural flames coming out of the ground. It was a natural gas vent, and the fire looked exactly like my gas stove at home, starting out blue but rising into a yellow flame. Perhaps even more amazing was that everyone was crowded around these like it was no big deal. In the United States, something like this would have been roped off a long time ago to prevent some idiot from getting burned and suing, but here in Taiwan we could go and poke at the flames all we wanted. In fact, more that poked, people were making jiffy pop over the flames, and we used it to light our sparklers. Dangerous? Probably. Fantastic? Absolutely.

After that, we headed back to the hotel for a quick shower and clean up before heading out for a few hours to find food and entertainment. The majority of the students that went were Chinese though (everyone but me and one Taiwanese international buddy) and they take the motto "early to bed, early to rise" a little too seriously. We were in bed by 11:30 on a Saturday night in the middle of a beach town, and the next morning they woke up by 6:30. They woke up by 6:30 BY THEMSELVES. By the time they managed to drag my sorry butt out of bed the other five girls were already dressed and ready for the day, and wanted to go get breakfast. I thought that we were running late at that point, so I rushed getting ready. When finished, I asked if it was 8:00 yet (because the Chinese students decided that going to the beach at 8:00am was a fantastic idea) only to have them respond "Oh, it's 7:20, let's go eat." I tried to see if they'd let me stay in the room and sleep for another 4o minutes, but they wanted to check out. Biting back a string of complaints and bad language, I trudged after them to go find breakfast. Finally, 8:00 rolled around and we headed back to get picked up for the beach.

When we arrived, the beauty almost made up for the fact that we were there earlier than I get up for class. Because our driver knew some of the beach rental people, we got an umbrella and a whole slew of children sized plastic chairs to use for free. Apparently, the concept of big lounging beach chairs is lost on the Taiwanese, but at that point I didn't even care any more. I stripped, slapped on some SPF 50 and ran towards the water. Even so early I got plenty of stares, not only because I'm white as sin, but also because apparently most Taiwanese people don't wear bikinis. I was the most naked person on the beach, other than the guys wearing speedos. I have to wonder what kind of culture frowns upon girls wearing bikini bottoms, but feels it's totally acceptable for guys to bounce around all day. Some things can't be unseen. All the other girls in my group though simply wore one piece suits, modest necklines and attached skirts to cover up any hint of hip and thigh. There came culture shock number two - Taiwanese/Chinese girls don't shave. I can understand legs on most girls - they simply aren't as hairy as most Europeans and frankly some of them look like they do shave. But other girls really should shave their legs... and they don't. And not shaving underarms was another thing that really got to me. I didn't even know girl's could grow hair that long under there. Another image I just can't unsee.

So I was out swimming with the guys for awhile, because the girls didn't want to get their hair wet and I wanted to do some serious swimming. After awhile the guys got tired, and I stayed out alone until I felt something burning on my arms and hands. I swam to shallower water and lifted my limbs out of the water only to see that I had been stunk by a ************* jellyfish. I'm trying not to swear on these posts, but there was no other way for me to express my rage and discomfort without swearing. Frankly, I had absolutely no idea what to do. Thankfully some nice older Australian(?) guy came over and asked if I was ok, and suggested I go rinse it off with fresh water. I later found out that fresh water only makes it worse, but at least he tried to help. I got the stingers off my hands and arms to revel lovely bright red welts. At that point, I retired to the beach to sulk and lay in the sunshine. I didn't get long to sulk though, because the other students wanted to do one of the banana boats. It's those long inflatable tubes you sit on and get pulled around by jet-skis, and aside from the stupid looking safety hats they made us wear it was actually pretty fun. The most fun was watching the other people try to get back on the banana boat after the driver would flip us. Hilarious.

After that, we walked around the beach picking up shells, went for lunch, and went out swimming again. By afternoon the waves had gotten large enough to boogie board, which was really fun other than the big bruises I now sport on my ribs. After that, it was time to rinse off and get ready to go home. Because I didn't want to get sand in my main bag, I left it in the car only taking what I needed to the beach. When it came time to shower then, I had no dry clothes to put on, which really sucked. We actually had to pay to use the shower too, and didn't even have soap or hot water. I dried off as best I could, put my coverup on, and headed to the meeting point. At this point, we inexplicably ended up with more people than we came with, so I got to share a seat in the front of the van. It wouldn't have been so bad but the AC was on full blast and I was freezing. An hour into the drive, we stopped at a convenience store and I changed into some dry clothes. We got to Kaohsiung around 7:00 only to learn that the next bus wasn't until 9:00 and the cheap tickets were sold out. We had to pay an extra $2, but the bus ended up being worth it. Huge lazy boy seats with blankets and a personal blanket made the next three hours super comfortable.

We got back to Taichung around midnight, and I immediately ran to take a shower. It was then I discovered that despite reapplying my SPF 50 sunscreen every two hours, my back and legs were roughly the color of a tomato and I felt really sick. The next morning I tried to wake up for my 9:00AM class only to realized I had sun poisoning and could barely stand. I had huge blotchy red rashes all over and was super dehydrated with no sense of balance. Wisely, I went back to sleep for a couple hours. I couldn't skip my afternoon class because of a presentation, but the extra couple hours really helped me out. After class on Monday, I ran to Watson's (like a Taiwanese Walgreens) and tried (and failed) to ask for Aloe gel before some poor soul took pity and translated aloe for me. Now I have massive sunburn, lots of homework, and a long week ahead of me. No plans for this weekend thank god, let's hope it stays that way!!