Time Flies

Well. Its been about 3 or 4 weeks since I've updated my blog. I'll try to make it short!! Since the day I got back from Taiwan, I haven't stopped going. Literally. With all of my classes and homework, ROTC classes, lab and morning PT, RUF and International Business stuff, my life is crazy. I finally have my room semi cleaned and mostly put away. This weekend has been very relaxing and lazy for me. My apartment and roommates are great and I have learned that I enjoy coming back to a quiet apartment so that I can just sit on the couch and watch tv. My friend William and I started leading an RUF bible study this semester and it is going great so far! ROTC and all of its events is starting off to a quick start. But everything is good! This week is the Auburn game and I will be on the field following EPSN around the whole game. I have a few friends coming to stay for the weekend so I am pretty excited about this week!! more to come later!!

Back stateside

After a long time of traveling, we FINALLY made it back to Birmingham around 9:30pm on Saturday night. Our only set back was that one of RObs suitcases didn't make it to the airport but hopefully they are working on it. We arrived at our hotel in Starkville around 12:30am and I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. But since then, I have hardley slept and been going non stop. Which is OK. Just exhausting.

Well I have everything moved into my apartment, just not put away. Hhahaha If you have ever seen my room in Huntsville, you can probably imagine the state that it is in. I have entirely too many clothes to fit into this small room. But I consider that a good problem to have. Sunday was a really long day. After my parents helped me get everything up the stairs and into my room, they headed over to Tuscaloser to see my sister, who is officially a college student. I sat around on the computer for about 30 minutes before I went to buy some new running shoes (that are awesome by the way) and I ran to Wal-Mart to get a few groceries. Then I met up with Tina (one of the exchange students from Taiwan that is going to State this year) and her mom, and 2 aunts. I helped them move in and got everything situated. Then I went and picked up about 10 freshman to bring them to our first RUF get together of the year! It was a "freshman come meet people" type of deal and there was a GREAT showing of new faces! So excited about what God has in store on this campus! After running them back to the dorms, I went with my friend Drew (from HSV) to get food and brought it back to my apartment. Then we went upstairs to hang out with a bunch of my friends who conveniently live right above me! I will be spending the majority of my time there, I am sure. After running back upstairs and borrowing an alarm clock from the guys (since i have misplaced mine...) I went to bed around 2:30am.

Monday I woke up around 8:30 because I was supposed to drive to GTR (airport about 15 mins away from campus) to pick up the other exchange student from Taiwan BUT he called and said he missed his flight so I just sat around for a while with one of my roommates and was lazy for most of the morning. Then I headed to the Veranda for Tricia's birthday. After, I went and picked up Tina who was lost on campus and then we drove to pick up Kyle at GTR and then got him all moved in. Then we took a grand tour around campus. Then I skyped with my parents for a few minutes. Then I had to run to the RUF ministry team meeting. After, I came home and ran up to the guys apartment to return the alarm clock and introduce one of my roommates to them. I finally got to bed around 10:45pm. Oh, did I mention that I had a PT test Tuesday morning?

Well, its 7:00am on Tuesday right now. I woke up at 4:30ish this morning and relaxed for a bit then made my way over to the course. I did as good as I can expect after not being able to work out for 6 weeks. Running is still my worst part. But what else is new... Now I am exhausted but can't stop. Today is the day before classes. I have to sign some papers at ROTC, sign up for International Business Boot Camp, bake a cake or 2 and make a few signs for Tina's surprise birthday party we are having for her tonight. She turns 22 today. And she has no friends or anything here so we are going to make her feel right at home and introdce her to a bunch of RUF people. We are also going to celebrate Camerons late birthday. After I run all these errnads today, hopefully I will have time to clean my room and get it functioning as a room instead of a junk hole where I can walk without stepping on everything. Tonight we will take Tina and the other exchange student to dinner and then bring them to her surprise party. Hopefully it will be a sucess!

This week will continue to stay crazy. Tomorrow is the first day of classes, Thursday is my first day of ROTC lab and RUF starts for the first time for the semester. Friday after classes, everyone on Ministry team will leave to go to Philadelphia, MS until Saturday around noon for the Ministry team retreat. Then maybe I will have time to relax and rest. I want to do everything and "go, go, go" as my mom constantly tells me and I just can't do that right now. Just pray for endurance and for me to be able to function with a good attitude through my lack of sleep.

Travel Update.

Sooooo.... Rob and I did not sleep last night since our cab was picking us up at 4am. Everything was going smoothly. Drive to the airport was shorter than we thought, check in was easy. My baggage weighed .1 kg less than the max so PTL for that. We slept at the gate for a bit and then boarded the plane. And sat there for an extra 45 minutes due to delays in the computer system which caused us to miss our flight back to America by about 15 minutes. After practically running to the transfer counter to see if there was any way we could make it on the plane and almost breaking down and crying in the middle of the Hong Kong airport, they were able to find another route for us to get home, a few hours later than we were supposed to and an extra connection flight but it is ok. We are just tired and frusterated at this point and definitely ready to get back in America. Right now the sleep count is NO SLEEP FOR 28 hours going on 29. Since we missed our flight, they gave us vouchers to use in one of the 1000 resturants here. We just finished eating a delish hamburger and fries. In some ways this mis hap is a good thing because it breaks up the 14 hour flight. And we are safe so I can't complain. Hong Kong is definitely the place you would want to get stuck for a few hours. On a different note, Hong Kong looked amazing when we flew in. I am definitely going to add another country to my "TO GO" list!!

God is Good.

I don't know how it happened or really any of the details, but they have found another Chinese teacher and classes will resume. What a weight that has been lifted! Needless to say, we are all very relieved to see that Chinese is saved!! In prayer and petition, the Lord will provide.

I am back in Sansia and we have completed the last of our escapades in Taiwan. Let me fill you in on the rest of the trip. Wednesday we went to Kenting Beach where we rode on rafts pulled by jet skis for about an hour. It was probably the most fun I had the whole time. I absolutely love jet skis. And it just makes it all the more fun to be riding them in the middle of the clear blue ocean. If you have never experienced fun like this, you are seriously missing out. After a few near death experiences of almost flying off the rafts and hanging on for dear life, we played in the ocean and relaxed under the warm sun. Now, let me clarify what I mean when I say "relaxing under the warm sun" and let me tell you how Asians and Americans differ. I think I was the only person on the entire beach NOT sitting under a huge umbrella. I was soaking up as much sun as I could to try to get somewhat of a tan unlike every single Asian on the beach. I don't know if I mentioned this before but they do not like to be tan because they say that it makes their skin look dirty. Being completely pale is considered the most beautiful here as opposed to America where girls pay big money to sit in tanning beds to get as dark as possible. Well after we finished at the beach, we headed to Kenting Activity Center which is a youth hostel where we stayed for a night. It was a nice little area near a night market full of delicious food and very beachy stores much like something you would see at Gulf Shores or Panama City. That was a very early night for me because I was burned and completely wiped from all the excitement.

Tuesday I woke up in pain because I was sore from riding the floats the day before. And I'm pretty sure that I had a little whiplash haha We got up and drove to the Hakka Village in Kaohsuing where we ate traditional Hakka food and painted little paper umbrellas! Then we went to the biggest mall in Southeast Asia and then we went to get "ice" which is like a big bowl of shaved ice with a bunch of fruit on it and cream and stuff. Its pretty good! Then we drove to go see "Love River" and see the old British Consulate. Then we drove to our amazing hotel. It is the tallest building in the city. It is called Hotel 85. We were on the 31st floor with a huge window view facing the bay. It was a pretty incredible view! Lily, Tiffany, and I went out of the town for a little while and then came back because we were so tired!

This morning we woke up around 7:15am. We drove to Sun Moon Lake which was BEAUTIFUL! We got on a boat and rode around for a little while to look at the scenery. Then we went to where the aboriginals have shops and things like that. We spent a little time there and then ate some traditional food. After, we headed to a paper mill where we made our own paper and a paper fan. Then we headed to Taizhong to talk around for a bit. Then we headed home.

I think that it is safe to say that we have seen every noteworthy place in this entire country. The people that we have met are amazing and so interesting. People overflow with kindness here. I will miss walking down the street and hearing someone shout "Good afternoon!" because you can tell that they are so excited to be able to try out their English, and hearing a little kid say "Mei guo ren"(American) as they pull on their mothers shirt to get her attention, and the mountains, and the breath taking views from atop roofs in the middle of the city, and the ocean, and the phrase "huan ying guan ling" when you walk into any store or restaurant, and I will miss all of my new friends dearly.

It is 12:30am here right now and in about 3 and a half hours, I will leave NTPU and head for the airport for my 6:30am flight. After about 24 hours of traveling, I will be back in Starkville! But my life will continue to fly at about a million miles a minute probably for the next month. But I could not be more excited about it. I have committed to probably way more things than I can handle all at once but I will somehow find a way to manage. Here is a rough sketch of how this next week will look for me: I will arrive Saturday to Birmingham around 4:30pm then I will drive straight to Starkville that night. The next morning I will move into my new apartment!! :) That night I have an RUF get together to go to. The next day I have meetings! The next day I take my PT test for extra scholarship at 5:30am and I will celebrate my new friend's birthday who is a Taiwanese exchange student! Then classes start the very next day. That weekend I have leadership retreat for ministry team for RUF. Then real class starts. Please continue to pray for my and my safety traveling home and for the safety of my friends who are traveling separate from Rob and I. Also please pray that I will quickly recover from jet leg since I have no time to be "out of it" at all! And I have started to get a cold. This is not good. Pray that this will be a quick sickness and that it will pass very soon!

Even though I am finished with my trip, I still plan on updating my blog to keep everyone updated on my life. Feel free to read it if you would like!

Since I am not sleeping tonight, I have found that I have had a lot of free time to catch up on a few things. Since I know that I have been slacking on adding pictures to my blog and if you don't have facebook and were unable to see the pictures on my facebook, I have put all of my photos on Photo Bucket. Click on this sentence for the link!! :)

I would update right now BUT...

I'm too mad.

We just found out that Chinese class was cancelled this semester due to low enrollment. The dean cut funding for it. This does not sit well after having just completed a very expensive study abroad revolving around the Chinese language. Don't worry though, we have just started a plan of action. Already made several phone calls to officials at MSU and contacted others taking Chinese. We are meeting with the Dean of Arts and Sciences hopefully sometime early next week. I will keep you posted on the current situation.

I used to say that I hate the beach except for Cancun...

But you can't hate this:

Well, Saturday and Sunday did not turn out like I had planned, but were relaxing and much needed, to say the least. I slept for til basically 5pm on Saturday and got up long enough to run, eat, and spend a little time on facebook. Sunday I slept in and then did laundry. We also ventured into the Carrefore(chain sort of like Wal-Mart). Daniel Spencer got a $100NT haircut which is about $3 US. What this $100NT haircut includes is 10 minutes of a hairdresser snipping at your hair hahaha Needless to say, I had to leave the room for a minute while he was getting it cut because I was afraid of how it was going to turn out. It actually ended up looking much better than we all thought!

Basically, these next 5 days we are taking a road trip around the island. We are on a tour bus that is going to take us all over the place. I love roadtrips! This is like the best kind of road trip though because we are on a spaceous bus with TVs, karaoke, and we make stops at all of the noteworthy places of Taiwan. What more could you want?!

Monday morning we got on a bus and headed to Hualien to go to Tarokos Gorge. It took about 4 hours and then some to get there. We drove through the mountains and next to the Pacific Ocean. Its absolutely breathtaking here. It is amazing to see God's creation untouched by humans. Tarokos Gorge is this HUGE gap in between these two mountains that was carved by water thousands of years ago. It is a pretty cool thing to see. After walking around there for a little while, we went to another place about 2 hours away to make bandanas or "toujin" as they are pronounced in Chinese. This time I actually made different designs on mine. They dyed them different colors. I picked olive green. It turned out so good! Pics to come later. Then we went to a small restaurant in the middle of no where to have dinner. It was Chinese buffet style where they bring out many different dished continuously. After that we went to our "homestay" which is basically like a little house with small rooms. We had a mattress on the floor(which is a step up from what we are used to, but still hard as a rock) and a bathroom in each room. It was a very quaint little place! I liked it! We were supposed to go look at lightening bugs by the river last night but as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was out so I missed that little adventure.

This morning we ate breakfast at the homestay and then drove about an hour to get to a river where we rafter for about 4 hours. Everything here is so scenic. On our rafting adventure, we were in between all of the mountains. Everywhere we looked was covered with vegetation and trees. At one point, we turned the corner and there were 3 huge water oxen just drinking water out of the river. It was like we were on a safari or something haha. After lots of fun on the river, we drove for about 2 and a half hours to get to our restaurant and then headed to our hotel by the hot springs. The hotel is pretty nice and we are excited to have our own actual beds. Tonight, Tiffany and Queenie(our guide from NTPU who is a student here) spent the evening relaxing in the hot spring pools which consist of 3 different pools that are like a sauna. One pool is freezing cold, the next one is warm, and the last one is burning up. It was so nice. I enjoyed every second of it. Then we headed to the convenient store down the street to get a few snacks. Today was pretty tiring but extremely fun. Tonight I will continue to enjoy internet and a night in my nice bed.

Oh also, SIDE NOTE: Today, after rafting and a long bus ride, Lily, Tiffany and I were delirious I think (or at least we will blame this on that reason). Well we were at the restaurant and the bathrooms were outside. Now, the bathrooms here are different to begin with. And they are not so private. Well, we walked right into the bathroom with this sign on it:

and then we all remembered that we weren't carrying any toilet paper with us. Tiffany dug through her bag and luckily found some. As she was handing it out to us, a man walked in and started using the urinal without any hesitation. Lily made the comment of "Oh, I didn't know that guys use this bathroom too." We didn't think anything of it. Well, after we got out of the bathroom I saw a woman walk right past the door we were standing in front of and into another door. With a pink sign. As we were noticing this, a woman walked past us and heard us laughing and talking about how we went into the wrong bathroom and stopped and laughed at us hahaha Oh it was funny.

Tomorrow starts a whole new adventure. Stay tuned!!! 3 more days left in Taiwan!

Just As Freeeeeeeeee, Free As We'll Ever Be

haha You have got to have a cheesy lyrics title whenever anything of great significance happens. These were the only words that popped into my head when we walked out of the restaurant after out final presentation today. This is from The Zac Brown Band song called "Free." Love it.

Anyways, I ended up getting about 4 hours of sleep last night. Woke up just in time to change clothes and make it to where we were supposed to meet for our presentation on time. We walked into the conference room and just had to laugh. Our Chinese caligraphy that we had done, random pictures taken on various trips, and some artwork with Taiwanese idioms and pictures we had drawn, as well as a diary entry about going to the zoo and tea farms were hanging on the walls all around the room. They expected us to have 3 hours total of things to present, different skits, songs, conversations, etc. We thought that we had no chance of even getting close to that. We ended up not having enough time and actually enjoyed the presentations. We all did a really great job, and I think that our teachers could tell how much time and effort we put into them. Our teachers each gave little speaches after and each gave us various gifts like a bag of Chinese candy, costume shoes that I am wearing right now that I will definitely be wearing all of the time this year, a few CDs of traditional Chinese music, a scarf, happiness charms, and my sweet new friend, Cloud, gave us a very small little bottle with red beans in them. These mean that someone is missing you. After a few surprise presentations and revisiting a few embarrassing sound recordings from the beginning of these 5 weeks, we went to a little cafe called Mr. Pumpkin where we had our ending ceremony. It was good food and good company. We all sat with the TAs and teachers and had a wonderful time. After taking about 1000 pictures, we walked back to campus. Little did we realize that we would have to say goodbye to our new Chinese friends so soon. It was very sad saying goodbye to them. We have spent everyday together for the past 5 weeks and have gotten to know them. Our time here would not have been near as fun without them. Sad :(

This is a picture of all of our TAs and all of the MSU students at lunch


Some of the girl TAs: Kelby, Helen, Stella, and Cloud and I

Our Chinese class with our teacher Lan Laoshi( laoshi means teacher)

Well, we have about 2 and a half days left here until we take our trip around the island. Which means that anything that we wanted to do and haven't will probably get crammed into the next 72 hours.

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:38-39

This is NOT an Update

This is purely an observation, unfortunately, of my own self.

NOTE TO THE FUTURE STUDY ABROAD STUDENTS: There is no possible way for anyone to eat healthy while out of the country. I don't care who you are. You just can't do it. The food is wierd, you can't read nutrition labels, and your schedule (if it is like mine is) is too crazy and hectic and tiring to even have time to work out.

Unfortunately for me, the government does not care how impossible this is. Even though I am out of shape, will be experiencing crazy jetlag, lack of sleep, and an insane case of nerves, I will be taking yet another PT test on Augst 17th. But this time its not just for kicks. I am competing against the other incoming freshman for an extra $2,000 a semester. Terrible timing. Can anyone say, "Welcome back, Stephanie"?

Fun at the beach

Lunch. Can you imagine my excitement?

The view outside my window at 6am on my sleepless night

Oh well. such is life. I think that I will go ahead and update you all on my exciting life right now. Well, I think my last post was Sunday night. It has been a long week for sure. Sunday night I did not sleep due to the fact that I had a test Monday and ended up spending most of my night talking to friends on facebook. Hey, it happens when your friends are halfway across the world with completely opposite schedules! Needless to say, I was dragging in the morning but it paid off because I made a 99 on my test. Be proud, Mom and Daddy haha. After class, the others went on a bike ride. I opted for a nap which ended up being a much needed 17 hour nap. I woke up for class the next morning fresh as a daisy. Tuesday in the evening after class we went to Formosa Fun Coast which is a water park. It was pretty fun. It had several big slides and other activities to do. The next day we got on the bus at 8:30 and road to the north coast of Taiwan. We walked around this geology park right on the ocean. Anyone ever heard of the rock called "The Queens Head"? Well, we saw it. Then we went to the beach!! It was SO hot on Wednesday. When we got there, there were 2 people there. Just 2. It was awesome to have the beach all to ourselves! We had fun playing around in the water and sand for about 2 hours. We all got burnt. It was wonderful. It made me miss the pool. Daniel Cook and I are/were both lifeguards and some of our TAs and Tiffany were getting us to teach them how to float and swim. It made me miss lifeguarding and teaching swim lessons. Lifeguard class may be in my future yet again... After the beach, we went to a place called Jiofen. It has several old streets with shops in them. We spent about an hour and a half there. By then, we were completely wiped and ended up napping on the bus ride back home. We are all exhausted at this point. I think our teachers know that. Chinese class today was very easy and laid back. It was our LAST class here. Tomorrow we have to give this huge presentation. We each have to give a 10 minute speech in Chinese. Then we each have a partner and have to have a conversation with them in front of everyone. Then We are split into 2 groups and each group has to come up with something to do. perform. hahaha Basically we have all been working on this all afternoon and probably will until late into the night. The president of NTPU is going to be there. But everything will go smoothly and then we will be done. And then we will take off on our adventure around Taiwan! So excited!! Oh I also went running tonight. I'll update later on how our presentation went!

Reality Check?

Friday night I went to dinner by myself. Then I went running. Now, usually when I go running I watch the ground for uneven concrete and what not. Well, Friday I was enjoying the weather and scenery too much to pay that close attention. It just so happens that I was running in a small area with a little bit of construction and consequently tripped over an invisible hose or pipe that seemed to blend into the sidewalk thus giving you the lovely image you will see below:

I also passed a man on campus who, with very broken English, very excitedly said "Good Afternoon!" to me. Its things like that that just make me so glad to be here. So Saturday I slept in and went to lunch, by myself, but its funny because now when we walk into restaurants around campus, they recognize us and since I order the same thing every time and they smile and walk up to me after I sit down and tell me what me usually get. On Thursday I ate beef noodle with Tiffany and added a bowl of rice to it for the first time. When I went to eat this particular day, the sweet lady who owns the beef noodle place gave me the extra bowl of rice for free. This seems to happen quite frequently here. I am still stunned by the generosity and kindness here. A few weeks ago we went to a nicer cafe style restaurant where the owner happened to know our Chinese teacher. Our teacher mentioned us to her. Well the owner brought us this delicious bread that was on the house. We went to a Japanese restaurant and the owner gave us free dessert. Our Chinese friend who owns the American food restaurant never lets me pay for the orange Fanta's that I order and even when I don't order them, he still brings them up to my table for me to have. This would NEVER happen in America. We are too stingy with our money, always wanting more, and not taking the opportunity to appreciate what we have and share it with others. I can say that I will come back to America with a better understanding of what the word "necessity" actually means. I didn't realize how much material possessions that I have that I don't actually need until I have gone 4 weeks with about 6 shirts and 5 pairs of shorts. If people in America took on the attitude of people here, things would be so different. Anyways, more on this later....

Today(Sunday), I had lunch by myself., no big deal, I kind of like it now. Then Daniel, Daniel, and I met up with Elle, a girl who is 24, has lived here for 6 months and is from Wisconsin and teaches English to children here in a school. We met her a few weeks ago and she came to karaoke with us when we met her for the first time. She is very nice. We took the MRT to meet up with her friend, Scott, who was going to take us on a hiking trail that overlooks the city. We got to see his apartment which was very nice! Its so interesting to see peoples homes here because their definition of big is very small compared to what we are used to. In addition to seeing his apartment, we got to go onto the roof where we got to see an awesome view of the city from inside of the city! It was a very cool experience! Then we ventured off into the city to climb the mountain. The view from atop the mountain was beautiful as ever. We got there around 5pm or so and decided to wait around to watch the sunset and see the lights turn on in the city which is a pretty spectacular sight. Also, I didn't know if you all knew, and I just found this out today, but Taipei 101 is like the 2nd tallest building in the world.

After, our hike, we went to a restaurant where Scott's friend Logan met us. Logan is 23 and has studied Chinese for about 5 year. If I can speak half as much Chinese in 5 years, I will be happy. The Americans that we meet here are so interesting. They have all lived in one place or another and are now in Taiwan for either work or teaching English. Hearing everything that they have done makes me want to explore more... maybe an internship in Shanghai?!? Maybe Beijing? A year in mainland China would do my language learning some good. Or maybe we'll just stick with Rosetta Stone for now... With my major, I realize that I literally could be anywhere in the world in the future. This makes me think of a passage in my devotional book that I posted on facebook a while back:

Leave outcomes up to me. Follow Me wherever I lead, without worryiing about how it will all turn out. Think of your life as an adventure, with Me as your Guide and Companion. Live in the NOW, concentration on staying in step with me. When our path leads to a cliff, be willing to climb it with My help. When we come to a resting place, take time to be refreshed in My Presence. Enjoy the rhythm of life lived close to me.

You already know the ultimate destination of your journey; your entrance into heaven. So keep your focus on the path just before you, leaving outcomes up to Me.

"In your unfailing love you will lead the people you have redeemed. In your strength you will guide them to your holy dwelling." Exodus 15:13

You are on the path of My choosing. There is no randomness about your life. Here and Now comprise the coordinates of your daily life. Most peple let their moments slip through their fingers, half- lived. They avoid the present by worrying about the future or longing for a better time and place. They forget that they are creatures who are subject to the limitations of time and space. They forget their Creator, who walks with them only in the present.

Every moment is alive with My glorious Presence, to those whose hearts are intimately connected with mine. As you give yourself more and more to a life of constant communion with Mr, you will find that you simply have no time for worry. Thus, you are freed to let My Spirit direct your steps, enabling you to walk along the path of Peace.


"Then Jesus said to his disciples: 'Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens; they do not sow or reap, they have no storehouse or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?'" Luke 12:22-26

Oh the possibilities are endless! Now that I have made my parents unhappy with the thought of my future plans, I'll end this post. Its 2:30am here and I still have an essay to write and a test in the morning! Being out of the country has definitely had no effect of my procrastination or drive to do my homework. Bike ride in the afternoon around the city tomorrow! Last week of class then our trip around the island! Sorry its so long again!!! :)

"So we fix our eyes not on what is seen...

...but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." 2 Corinthians 4:18

I think that Monday was the last day I have updated. These posts have started getting pretty lengthy so I will try to keep it shorter! So I will start with Tuesday! Tuesday was a good day. We had Chinese class all morning then lunch. Then we went to visit the Taiwan Beer factory. This was really cool because I have never been to a factory where they produce things like that. They took us behind the scenes of the factory and we went to the production rooms which is apparently illegal in America. After our tour, we went to Chang Kai Shek Memorial Hall which was amazing! The building there were huge and beautiful with all of their intricate details. This is a very famous spot in Taiwan so we saw many other tourists there and did not feel COMPLETELY out of place for once. By this point, we were all starving, or at least I was. So we went to a well known dumpling place.

The next day I slept through my alarm and a knock on my door and was about 30 minutes late to class, but it was ok because our teacher was very gracious about excusing my tardiness... She talked about the statistics of men and women and the workforce here in Taiwan. After, we went to the Puppetry Art Center of Taipei. We made hand puppets that are awesome and we all had a fun time being creative making them. Then we went through the puppetry museum. It was all very interesting. Puppetry has been a form of entertainment for hundreds of years! After the museum, we went to the large department store next door and walked around for a bit and got a little to eat. But we were all tired so we headed back to Sansia for the night. I needed a night to relax so I went running and then watched Pretty Little Liars and The Bachelorette: The Men Tell All which is always my favorite episode of the season!! I was happy to find it on the internet!

Yesterday was a very good day here. The weather was really nice! We had Chinese class in the morning then went to lunch. Then the TAs helped us with a little bit of homework and I headed out for an afternoon run. So glad to be getting back into that habbit and getting back in shape! Our teachers invited us to come to one of their houses for an evening to make dumplings. We thought that it would be just like a class and be very instructional. Little did we know that this night would turn into a wonderful party with all of our TAs, our teacher's neighbors and friends! First we learned how to make dumplings and we each made our own! We cooked them and then ate together! One of our teacher's neighbors made soup for us and brought other little snacks for us to enjoy. They also has many different kinds of fruits like bananas, mango(which I am addicted to now), dragon fruit, grapes(which are large and taste more like plums, I think), watermelon, and durian (which all of the locals think stinks and won't eat, except that all of from the States enjoyed it haha). Also, one of her neighbors made her own wine and brought it over for us to try! Everyone here is so hospitable! It reminds me of the south and how everyone is always helping each other out! We also watched the movie The Book of Eli. I had never seen it before but it was right up my alley with all the action! I thought that this movie had a beautiful story line and point to it. I won't ruin it if you haven't seen it, but I really REALLY recommend it!

Today(Friday), we all slept in and then went to lunch. I am the only girl here for the weekend since Tiffany and Lily went to Mainland China and Hong Kong to visit relatives. So its me and the guys whether they like it or not! haha After lunch I went on a run. Its VERY hot here today. After the run, we were interview by a TV show crew that is apparently very famous. From what we could make of it, we are almost positive that they are going to voice over us speaking and add Chinese. So basically this is going to be like the Chinese version of MXC, that show on Spike... We decided that we might regret this decision to be on the show in September when it comes out. But hey, its all part of the experience. Maybe we will become famous here or something haha Hopefully we will be able to see a copy of whatever they have created our of our interviews...

Also, this afternoon I went to Southwood Presbyterian Church's website. This is my church back home in Huntsville. They post all of the church sermons and High Life(our youth groups) sermons. I remember my mom telling me that Mark Sterns preached a few weeks ago. I love Mark's sermons! So I decided to listen to it today. I love listening to him; he always preaches with such passion. It was good to listen to him. He spoke about looking for hurting people and being observant to others. He mentioned Isaiah 1:17 which says "learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow." I also listened to Brock Warner's "The Beauty" talk which is always one of my favorite High Life sermons of the year. Listening to them both was very comforting and needed.

Anyways, I am getting too lazy to upload pics. See my facebook for more pictures than you will ever want to see! haha Today is the start of our 3 day weekend. Maybe we will go to the beach tomorrow! I'll keep you posted!

"Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised." Proverbs 31:30

Skype call from the BFFs in South Carolina!!

About a week ago I had the wonderful opportunity to skype with my best friends Laura and Suzanne and Cary who were at Leadership Project in South Carolina all summer. This post is for them!! Love y'all! and Miss you!!

3 weeks down, 3 to go

Never in a million years did I think I would be given the opportunity to study abroad or even travel to the other side of the world! I can say without a shadow of a doubt that this has been one of the most amazing experiences of my life thus far, and my time here only proves to get better as we are learning more and more each day and experiencing new things I never could have imagined. The people here continue to shock me with their genuine hospitality and eagerness to help at a moments notice. With that being said, the past few days have kind of been emotionally draining in the sense that I feel like I am missing out on so much back home. Suz and Laura(two of my best friends) are finally back home but I won't be able to see them until maybe Christmas, all of my friends have been making road trips to see each other this summer, everyone has their countdown of how many days til they move back to Starkville. But I still have 3 weeks left. I didn't realize how long 3 weeks actually was until I spent what seems like an insignificant amount of time out of the country, away from all of my friends, family, and familiarity. I have only been gone for 3 weeks. It seems like it has been an eternity. Today I realized that my problem was that I haven't been having my quiet time. I looked back to a note that I wrote on facebook with some bible verses and a devotion from a book. It was very encouraging. I was also reading through Psalms and found this verse: "O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. Because you are my help, I will sing in the shadow of your wings. My soul clings to you; your right hang upholds me." PSALM 63:1-8. But I am OK. I am still excited as each day holds new surprises for us and new things for us to discover. Right now it is Monday night. I will back track to Friday. On Friday, we went to Old Sansia and went to the Indigo and Haaka Culture Park which consisted of a few rooms down a sketchy alley. This was one of the favorite things that we have done. We learned how to dye cloth and the process that they go through to pick the leaves and make the dye come out. We got to pick a pattern or make our own and create a bandana that we got to dye ourselves! It was fun to do something creative and be able to see the outcome! I love mine! They all turned out so well and we were all excited to have been able to take part in this! Then we went to a very nice restaurant in Yingge where a famous ceramics museum is located. On each "cultural" trip that we take, we have different professors from different colleges within NTPU join us. One of the professors graciously treated us to lunch. The food was beautifully presented and it was delicious! After lunch we proceeded to the Yingge Ceramics Museum where we had a quick tour. Then we were led to the Ceramics Workshop where we got to make our own creation. Sadly, it takes about 1 month for the entire process to be complete so we were not able to keep our creations; however, it was fun being able to play with the clay and make whatever we wanted. SIDE NOTE: This class consisted of about 50 other people. Excluding the parents, the oldest kid in there besides us was probably 6 years old... The theme was "Castles". Needless to say we got some looks when we walked in... The next day the girls took it easy. We had a lazy Saturday. The boys went hiking all day so we were on our own. We decided to see the movie "Inception". We found a movie theater on Google Maps that looked fairly close (about 30 mins away) to where we are. I marked where it was on the map(approximately) so that we would have an idea of its location. So with map in hand, we got on the subway and went. Well the map didn't quite look like what we thought the streets would look like. So we decided to take a cab to where we needed to go instead of try to find our way ourselves. Well... this cab did not take us to the place that we wanted to go. After walking around for a little while, we took another cab and finally arrived at the correct place. During the movie (which was in all English, with Chinese subtitles), I had a hard time understanding the concept for about an hour. Despite all the praises, it was not my favorite movie. Anyways, after that we went to Banqiao Night Market then went home. Sunday was study day. We all had tests on Monday. This was not a fun day. After a very late night, we were awaken at 7:30am by a fire alarm making a terrible screaming noise with someone speaking Chinese at the same time. We were NOT very happy. I thought that I was finished with fire alarms when I moved out of Building 3?? Apparently not. Well, my test went ok. Hopefully I did well. After class, our teachers came with us to lunch. We ate at a Japanese restaurant where we actually sat on the floor at a table and ate. It was interesting. After class, we had Calligraphy class. I have found that Calligraphy is NOT my calling in life. But it was very fun and interesting to attempt such a unique art form. After that we had Chinese Traditional Music class where we had students who play in a band bring their instruments in and play them. We also learned how to play an ocarina. OK. There are no words to describe how hilarious we all sounded. Here is a video of a guy playing an ocarina. Maybe someday you all will have the pleasure of me serenading you with the magical sounds of my ocarina hahaha I thouroughly enjoyed todays classes! We only have 6 class days left!! Well, today I went to dinner by myself. I was hungry(surprise, surprise) and no one wanted to eat. With the risk of looking/feeling like a social outcast, I walked over to the only place I knew I would feel comfortable- The Garage. I walked in and was welcomed by Wayne, our friend the owner. Actually I found out the difference from American hamburgers and Japanese hamburgers. We use 100% beef. They use beef and pork because its cheaper. Well for now, I am just happy to be here. I know that there are only a handful of people who have been given the chance to do the things that I have been able to do. Thanks for reading my blog! Sorry that there are no pictures this post! All of my pictures are on my facebook page if you want to see them! I have about 4 Taiwan albumbs already... It means a lot to me that people will actually spend their time reading! :)

Just another day in paradise...

I think that I can see myself living here. Each day is full of new things for us to do and discover. I love it.

"But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect..."

1 Corinthians 15:10

de me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long"

Psalm 25:5

Yesterday we struggled painfully through our 3 hours of Chinese class barely making it to lunch because we were so tired. Our group along with a few of our TAs headed off to lunch then hopped onto the MRT to head to Danshui on the northern part of Taiwan. I slept on the MRT since it was about an hour and a half ride there and back. Once we got to Danshui we walked along the river where there were many shops and food stands. We made our way to Fort St. Domingo that overlooks the river. Taiwan apparently used to be occupied by some Spainards who built this fort. After, we went back down to the riverwalk and spent some time there. Then we got on a boat and went to the Fishermans Warf. This consists of many boats, a huge bridge, and many restaurants. We stayed one the pier for a while and just sat and relaxed. We got back pretty late but it was worth it.

That night, Tiffany and I stayed up until about 3am. That was a bad decision because today I am dead. Thank goodness we did not have Chinese class today because I would not have made it through!! Instead, we had Business class. Our teacher is one of the Sports Tourism Management teachers. Later on, we learned how to windsurf in a pond on campus. It was pretty fun! We are all looking forward to going to the beach here and being able to windsurf! It is not as easy as it looks, that's for sure! This afternoon I did more laundry and some homework.

Sorry for my lack of enthusiasm tonight. Tomorrow, hopefully will be better! Learning Kung Fu and going to Karaoke possibly...??

Real Talk- Time to get back in shape

You are all I need when I'm surrounded

You are all I need if I'm by myself

You fill me when I'm empty

There is nothing else

You're all I need

Bethany Dillon

Well, after being up until 4 in the morning preparing for my test and waking up at 7 to finish studying, I was greeted with a very excited teacher and fairly easy test. After we took our test we finished the day with about 7 hours of Chinese and practice. As you might imagine, we were all completely wiped from studying the night before and extremely uninterested in practicing so much Chinese; however, as a nice little surprise, our teachers ordered Pizza Hut! Now, one would think that they have the standard pizzas that we have; meat lovers, supreme, those kinds of pizzas. The pizza here has octopus on it. SICK, right? And on some pizza they put cabbage, shrimp, corn, chicken, pork, and a lot of random things. Some of you might think that this sounds delish. But seeing as how I do not like seafood, I stuck with the more traditional pineapple and ham pizza and Philly cheesesteak pizza which were equally delish.

Later on, Tiffany and I spent some time with Tina, a girl who is attending MSU in the fall. Then Tiffany and I decided to go to Shida Night Market which was about an hour away on the MRT. It was a lot smaller than Shihlin Night Market and WAY less crowded which was a nice little change.

Later on, Daniel Spencer came in my room and asked if I wanted to go run. We jogged down one of the newer parts of town. The weather was so nice tonight! I think that is going to start becoming a regular nightly activity. I have got to find some way to balance out all of this eating we are doing!

I think that we are all starting to get to that "I just need you to get away from me" stage in the trip. We have been with each other for about 2 weeks. Now we are all starting to do things on our own, without the whole group tagging along. It is nice to have a little more freedom to do what we want. I think that's also a sign that we are comfortable going out of campus without getting lost. Anyways, tomorrow we are going to Danshui- the beach! We are all excited!

Brief Update

Taking a study break... we are all tired and worried about our tests and assignments that are due tomorrow. I have 90 flashcards with all my words on them.... :( On a more exciting note, we find out that McDonalds delivers 24/7 here and of course we used their services in this time of great need while studying hhhhhhhhhhahahaha Also, I learned how to type like this: 宋依佳 This is my chinese name! It says "song yi jia".

Tired in Taiwan

"My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever"

Psalm 73:26

I haven't updated in a very long time and the days seem to run together after a few days have passed so I will try to recap each day if I can remember it but everything will probably be out of order! I update my pictures on Facebook in the order of each day so you should be able to figure out the correct sequence of events! Ok so the last I updated was Tuesday. So much has happened since then! Please bear with me, this could be another long post... I'll post some pictures first of everything (I talk about most of these pics in my blog): These are my new Nike shoes. I don't know if you can tell but I'm extremely excited to wear them: The boys on the MRT: This is Shihlin Night Market. Super crowded and crazy: This is our whole group waiting to go up to the top of Taipei 101: This is the view from the top of Taipei 101. So pretty: This is Taipei 101: Some of us with a few of our TAs crammed on the MRT: Wednesday was another long day. We met at 8am and traveled by MRT to the NTPU campus that is in the central part of Taipei City (we are in the "Taipei County"campus) where we had "business class" which consisted of a Chiropractor who studied in California for a while who spoke to us for about 2 hours. It was very interesting. He was very open and honest about everything that we asked. His topic was how one profession can affect(effect?) the economy. So he started off telling the amount of Chiropractors in the States which was about 52,000. He then gave the average income of a Chiropractor and other statistics. In the end, it showed how significant one profession adds to the total income of a country. It was actually very interesting. He said that there are about 200 top Chiropractors in the world and that many of them make as much as 10 million dollars a year. These are the people who attend to pro atheletes such as Tiger Woods, Lebron, and Andre Agassi and people like George Bush. He also talked about trading and neogotiations with other countries as well as bribery in the business world. After that we went to a place called Taipei Neihu Technology Park. This is an area where many businesses have their headquarters. We listened to a speech telling about the Tech Park. We also visited a sports center which was AMAZING. I wish we had one like it. Sanderson (MSU's gym) is awesome, but this place consisted of about 11 levels: workout machines, a huge rock wall, a pool, basketball court, raquetball courts, badminton, archery, golf simulator, and several other sports areas. It was very cool. After that we went to a large mall with lots of food and many stores. We decided to go to Taipei 101, which is the largest building in Taiwan and is visible from basically every place in Taiwan it seems like. It just towers over every other building. They refer to it as their landmark. We made our way to the building and rode up the 80 something floors in about 30 seconds it seemed like. It has the worlds fastest elevator. We went at night so the city was beautifully lit up. After spending a while looking around we went to the outside part. There is something magical about looking down on a city from its highest point. We met a guy from North Carolina who is a college student. We also met a couple from Canada. Rob made the comment that they were "my people" haha (I was born in Canada). It was late so we headed back home. The next day we had Chinese class. Then lunch. Then we went to National Palace Museum which had a bunch of old artifacts from China during the cultral revolution. We spent about an hour and a half walking around with our English tour guide but since I am not a fan of history I can't tell you anything about it. There were some ancient pots there and some stones like jade and stuff like that. After, we headed to Shihlin Night Market which has so many clothing stands and tshirts and jewelry and anything you could want like shoes. I have been waiting to go to Shihlin all week because I have had my eye on some Nike shoes. I searched around for the best price and BOUGHT THEM. They are so awesome. I cannot wait to wear them! We stayed there for a while and then decided to split up for dinner. The next day was Friday and we went to the zoo!! There, we met the two exchange students from NTPU who will be attending MSU in the fall! Their English names are Tina and Kyle. They are both very nice! I am excited for them to come to MSU! I spent most of my time at the zoo talking to them. We took a cable car to the top of a mountain to see the view of the city. The cable car took us to a place where we walked to tea garden. Here, we learned how Chinese Tea is made. We picked the tea leaves and then we went through the process of drying the leaves out. It is very interesting how it is done. We had a tea ceremony where we tried different hot and cold teas and had little snacks with seasame seeds and little green tea cookies. After a very long ride back home, Jovy and Ting, some of our TAs took us to a Japanese little hole in the wall place to eat. It was delish but the food was SO spicy that I wanted to cry haha On Saturday, we moved dorm rooms to the Graduate Students dorm where there is no curfew (our other dorm had a 12:30 curfew) and the rooms are 2 to a room instead of 4 to a room. Since there are 3 girls, I got the one by myself which is nice to have time by myself. We wanted a lazy day since we were all so tired. Lydia took some of us to a very nice cafe style resturant that was very good. After that, I took a nap and did some laundry and then we decided to go out. Jovy took us to a restaurant that is an all you can eat place where you can order how ever much you want of whatever you want for a flat fee. When we were done eating, Tiffany, Jeremy, Jovy, Ting, KoChia(Kyle), and myself decided to go to Shihlin Night Market for a little more shopping. It was a good way to end the night!! Today is Sunday. I slept until about 11:30 and boy did I need it! I think we all did. Jeremy, Daniel Spencer and I went to go eat beef noodle for lunch. When we came back, the others woke up. Today we spent the day sleeping, studying, doing laundry, cleaning our rooms, trying to get the wet towel smell out of our rooms, and trying to kill the ants that have decided to take over our rooms. Now that we are all settled into our new dorms, feel comfortable with Sansia(the city we are living in), and feel like we are able to go out on our own, I think we are all ready to make the most out of the rest of our 4 weeks here. I feel like we know the MRT and bus routes like the back of our hand. The boys have started "having fun" with the MRT. When we were all trying to pack into the MRT, Lily got left out and we left without her so we had to meet her at one of the next few stops. It was pretty funny. Then the next day, Daniel thought it would be funny if he got on with me and then jumped off at the last second when the doors were closing. I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later. Anyways, tomorrow we all have tests. Pray that we do well. We have about 90 characters to memorize and learn before tomorrow as well as a 2 to 3 minutes speech in Chinese to make by ourselves. Exciting, huh? As excited as I am about fall classes starting, that is one thing that I am not looking forward to. Please pray for energy for all of us. I think that we are all to the point of exhaustion. This week wehave several things planned. 3 Chinese classes, one Business class, Wind Surfing!! and water skiing, Chinese Kong Fu, a trip to the Ceramics museum, and a few other things! I'll keep you posted! Thanks for reading!! :)

Bad Habits Return...

Well, last night I did not end up studying... Instead, I seem to have fallen back into school mode which consists of snacking and facebooking until the wee hours of the morning. I decided that I would wake up early and study; however, that did not happen either.

Last night we went to a noodle place. I cannot tell you exactly what I had because I really didn't know either. The noodles aren't really all that filling by themself but they come in a soup that you drink and almost instantly you are full. Also, since I have not yet perfected my chop stick skills, Lily asked for a fork for me to use. The waitress had to go to the restaurant next door to get one.

This morning for class, we learned about fruit. Taiwan is famous for its different kinds of fruits. Our teacher brought in a bunch of different fruits, some that we had never seen before and let us try them all. Our teacher also played a song called "Hong Dou" that is very popular right now and extremely catchy. We keep hearing it all over the place. A girl sings it but I like it better with a guy singing it. If you click on the name of the song it will take you to a youtube video of it.

After a long morning of class, we went to eat beef noodle for lunch. I must say that I am getting much better at eating with chop sticks. Slowly but surely I will succeed haha. After class we went back to our classroom to meet up with our TAs who spend the afternoon helping us with our homework. Today they informed us that we are to write a 2 minute conversation with a partner about what we have learned the past two days and say it in front of the class... Let me just tell you that two minutes is A LOT longer than it sounds!! After working on that for a while, we were dismissed. We headed back to the dorm for a bit then a few of us went to find fruit (since we are now hooked thanks to our teachers) from Old Sansia (the part I was scared to eat from). Don't worry, I am now OK with eating SOME things there.

While the others were at the fruit stand, I walked into the clothing store(surprise, surprise) right next door. This is where I had my first awkward moment with a local. When I walked in I casually said "Ni hao," which is "Hello" in Chinese and started looking at the clothes. The owner of the shop came up to me and started speaking in Chinese to me. I had no idea how to respond to her because I didn't know what she was saying! I frantically tried to speak a little of Chinese that came to mind. I said "Wo bu shou Zhongwen" or "I don't speak Chinese". I think she understood but she kept talking to me and all I could do was just stare at her dumbfounded. After about 10 minutes of that... I saw the others outside of the store and called them in quickly to be my translators haha She talked to them for a few minutes and came over to me and wrapped her fingers around my hair and said something about it being curly. After that, we quickly left and then laughed about the awkwardness on the way back home.

Right when we got back, Daniel, Rob, and I decided to get some food. Well, we walked to McDonalds... and as Daniel said, "Hey, McDonalds is international" so technically we are still experiencing the culture... Surprisingly it was exactly the same but wasn't all that delish. The first thing I noticed was how greasy it was. Anyways, on the way back we passed two boys about our age on bikes. They started talking to us but we really didn't understand so we just kept saying "Hi," and walked away. As we were walking, it started sprinkling. Then about a minute later it started pouring. We were sprinting back to the dorm! We were soaked but it was so fun to run in the rain again! Apparently there is a typhoon? or tysoon? underneath the island so it is going to start raining a lot here which I am OK with because then it won't feel like it is about 150 degrees here all of the time.

Well, I have a lot of studying to do tonight unfortunately. But thats OK. In addition to studying, I also have to clean off my desk. It feels just like home with all of my junk on top of my desk with no room to do anything.

Sorry for any spelling and grammar mistakes that I have made. I know there are plenty!! I really appreciate everyone reading my blog!

In more important news, I missed The Bachelorette last night. Can someone please give me a quick recap of everything that I missed?!?!

Anyways, here are a few random pictures to make this post a bit more interesting:

Two of our awesome TAs, Hunter and Cloud:

Tiffany in the rain:

These are my awesome portable chop sticks that they gave us. You take them apart and keep them in this little case:

Rob and Daniel excited about the food:

A picture of all of us with my hair looking 5 feet wide(the humidity does nothing for my curly locks except make them frizzy to no end...):

OH How could I forget about our entertainment from last night?! I was in the boys room and we heard a knock on the door. I answered it and there were four high school girls who introduced themselves and said that they just wanted to talk to us. Well they ended up coming in and they said they wanted to teach us a game. The boys sat on the floor with them and they started singing a song and doing hand motions. The boys got pretty into it. If I remember where I put those pictures on my computer, I will post them. It was exciting to say the least. Well thats all for now! Tomorrow we are going to the science park which is like Research Park in Huntsville with a bunch of businesses there. Not really sure what to expect but we will see!!! Keep you posted!

Ice Cream Man?

Wrong. That would be the garbage man. Here is a little fun fact that we recently learned: Do you know the sound the Ice Cream truck makes? Well, here the garbage trucks drive around making the exact same noise haha Unfortunately we were not so excited to hear this since we were all craving some delicious ice cream. How's that for different?

WARNING: THIS POST MIGHT TAKE YOU ABOUT 20 MINUTES TO READ :)

Anyways, its been a few days since I have updated. These last few days (Saturday and Sunday)we have had free time to do whatever we want without a guide or anyone showing us around. I feel like we have really been able to explore and get a good sense of how people of this culture lives. Saturday morning we all slept in a bit. We made plans for the day to head to the main part of Taipei City where we just wanted to explore. Five of us left to go to the Technology Park where there are hundreds of stores selling different types of electronics. Daniel decided to buy a netbook so we spent a little while asking around to find the best prices. When he decided on a netbook to buy, the salesperson who barely spoke English asked "You want operating system in Chinese or English?" Daniel responded with "English" so he motioned for us to follow him and he led us outside of the building and to the main headquarters for his business. It was MUCH different than buying a laptop in the States. Oh, also I had the most delish ice cream cone I think I have ever had. The ice cream was vanilla and chocolate with chocolate chips in it but what made it much tastier was the cone. It was like a sugar cone except the cone was hard bread. I don't know how to explain it. But it was good.

After, we decided to meet up with the other group that were in Ximen. We had never been there so we hopped onto the MRT(subway) and headed to Ximen. As soon as we walked up from the MRT we saw TONS of people. Mainly younger people that are my age. Here, there were many stores with clothes, shoes, and accessories, and lots of food. Nike shoes are big here. Everyone wears Nike and Converse. I will have a pair of Nike's before I come back home if its the last thing I do haha Oh, also everyone here wears shirts with English writing on it. I have only seen one shirt with Chinese written on it. We have noticed that many of the fashions here mimic our styles. We walked around and made friends with several of the Nike employees that seemed excited to speak to us in English.

Then we got back on the MRT and went to a different part of the city where there is a large bookstore. Since I can't read Chinese, I sat outside with Daniel and we talked to a man who was walking his dog. They have different dogs here. This man's dog was so pretty. It was a big fluffy bear looking dog from Switzerland. After they were done at the bookstore, we all split up into two groups again for the night since we all had different things we wanted to do.

Daniel, Rob, Lily, and I found an American Restaurant that we wanted to try. We stayed for a few hours there because we were so tired from walking all day. Then around 8pm we headed back to Sansia(where we are staying) and went to The Garage, a place where we have made friends with the owner very close to our dorm. We ate there and met many of the owners friends. We seem to be learning a lot about the culture from these people because the are very friendly and answer all of our questions and correct us on our Chinese when we mispronounce things. We are so shocked by everyone's hospitality here. After a long day we headed back to the dorms to meet back up with the others.

(Sorry, this one is going to be extremely long... if you are bored its ok for you to stop reading, but I am about to tell you about one of my favorite days so far hahaha)

The next day we all slept in since we were up so late the night before. By sleeping in I mean we slept until about 10:30 (I slept the latest out of everyone haha). Daniel had his heart set on hiking. So he picked a mountain for us to explore and we went. Daniel, Daniel, and I set out on an adventure of a life time. We got onto the bus that takes us to the MRT and rode for about an hour to Northern Taiwan. Where we went is a poorer part of the town. There were a lot of farming areas. As soon as we got off the MRT we saw a sigh that pointed us in the right direction for our trail. We had about a mile and a half or maybe 2 mile hike UP the roads to get to the beginning of the trail. Just before the trail we saw a huge stair case leading up to the unknown so we had to check it out. At the top was a pretty little park with a small pond and many locals having picnics and relaxing. After our first pit stop we kept on going. The roads leading to the trail were very VERY steep. Little did we know that the first 600-700 meters were 90 degrees UPHILL. It was so steep that they put stairs on the trail. As painful as the first 20 minutes of the hike were, it was so worth it. When we FINALLY reached the top of the mountain, we were met by a magnificent view of the entire city. This picture doesn't even capture how beautiful Taipei City looked from the top of this mountain. The view was breath taking and we were just in awe of the sight. When were had taken it all in, we continued down the trail until we found our way back to the MRT.

We were soaked from sweat from head to toe. Too much information? Well this is necessary information so that I can tell you how awkward and out of place I felt being on the subway first off, being an American, and second off, being nasty. BUT then I heard someones ringtone go off playing Justin Bieber's song Baby that I absolutely LOVE and felt right at home. Also, side note: I'm on a Justin Bieber kick today. OH, I almost forgot. I saw my first cat here yesterday. Daniel made the comment that it must have escaped. Either he is right and the rumor is true about eating cats here and that is one lucky cat, or Chinese people just really hate cats. I will find out the truth and get back to you on that one.

Well after our long ride back, we took showers and headed to The Garage where we talked to our friends for a little while. But we were so exhausted that we only stayed a short while and went to sleep.

Quickly I will recap today(Monday) so far. This morning we had Chinese Language class. We are sparated into two classes. We each have TAs in our classes. We learned so much Chinese. Its hard being thrown back into Chinese class after not having it for so long but we will quickly adjust. After 3 hours of class, our TAs went to eat with us and then we went to sit at Starbucks for a few hours where they walked us through our homework and helped us. I just love our TAs. They are SO nice and patient with us. After language practice we went ot the supermarket here where i got school supplies like a binder and notecards and paper and a few snacks. It rained for the first time so far. It cooled things down pretty good. Tonight I will study so that I don't feel so behind in my Chinese and then go eat dinner. Less exciting day, but much needed.

I feel like the more we are getting to explore this island, the more I love it. Life here is SO much more different than what I am used to. Things that I consider necessity don't seem so necessary here. Or maybe I am just adapting to this more modest way of living??

Thank you for reading my excessively long blog!! :)

Best First Day of Class Ever

Yesterday was our first day of class. We all woke up around 6am (on our own without alarm clocks...), laid around the dorm for a little while, then headed out in search of some breakfast. Now that we have found the nicer part of Sansia, the area of Taipei we are staying, I can eat without feeling like I am going to get sick after; however, I am not yet ready to try some of the local cuisine just yet. So we went to a Family Mart, same as like the inside of a gas station except very very clean, which has a bakery inside. I got some caramel pudding which is supposed to be like a dessert and it was delish. It is the same as custard. I also had a piece of french toast which tasted like a combo of garlic bread and cinnamon toast.

After that we headed back to campus to the College of Business building. Since we were awake so early, we were about 30 minutes early so we just sat and relaxed in the building while we waited for our TAs to arrive. When they came to get us, we went up stairs to the computer lab where they handed us a packet with a cd, chop sticks(ones that you carry with you where ever you go that you screw together like a pool stick, and they are awesome), little stickers with my name in Chinese on them, and a planner with pictures of sights and things like that. We put the cd onto the computers and installed a bunch of programs to help us learn and pracice chinese. We can put these programs onto our own computers so that we can practice while we are at the dorms. Since our teacher speaks mostly Chinese, we each had a TA sit next to us to translate and help us use the computer that was mainly in Chinese.

After class, the TAs took us to an "Italian" place to eat lunch. I had pesto pasta with chicken. haha I think they knew that some of us (me and Daniel) weren't eating and wanted to take us to a place they knew we would like. After that Simmon took us to his apartment building to have a language practice class. His apartment building was so nice in the lobby. The cost of living here is way better than in the States. He says to rent an apartment here it would be about 4000 NTD which is about 125 US per month. THAT IS CRAZY. After was sat and talked with the other TAs for a while we headed over to Ting's apartment which is equally as nice. They have pools, a large game room and weight room, and karaoke rooms. These apartments look like resorts they are so nice. The boys played ping pong for a while and the rest of us went to sing karaoke. Karaoke is very popular here.

After all of that, we walked back to the dorm and rested for an hour then Daniel, Daniel, Rob and I headed back into the nice part of town to find some food. We ended up at this little place called The Garage that serves American food like pizza, hamburgers, and chicken wings. Like I said, I'm just not ready yet to venture out... but hey, I still have 5 more weeks of this haha. We had cheese fries, some wings, and some pizza. I also had a Fanta because I am getting tired of drinking tea. We sat and talked to the owner of the place, Wayne, for a little while. He was very hospitable and answered all of the questions that we had. We will definitely be visiting there again very soon. Then we went back to the dorms where I fell asleep around 9:15pm.

I would just like to note to my mother that I have been to bed before 9:30pm every single night and have woken up without an alarm clock before 7 everyday. Maybe going to bed earlier really is the key to being able to wake up without 4 alarm clocks and a phone call each morning hahahaha

Today and tomorrow we have free time to do whatever we want. We are all going to head into Taipei City with Jovy, one of our TAs, to spend the day. More to come later!!

OK I'm not going to starve to death after all

After a sleepless extremely hot night in the dorm, my roommates and I woke up at 5am. We didn't have to be anywhere until 8 so we just sat around and relaxed. I skipped breakfast because I already knew I wasn't going to like the food at the resturant they were going to. Around 8:15am, Lydia and Queenie came to pick us up along with the other TAs and teachers. We went to Dharma Drum Mountain where they have a huge temple/ university for people to practice Chinese Buddhism. It was actually pretty cool. We drove for about 1 hour and 45 minutes to get there. It was on the top of a mountain. We were all pretty excited when we passed the ocean on the way. Can't wait for our beach trip! Anyways, we were guided all over the temple and had a vegetarian lunch there since they do not eat foods that are animals or their products. I was happy to have that since I'm not a fan of the diverse foods here. So I ate a lot of rice and green beans and some carrots. That sufficed.

Next we went to a museum with huge artwork and sculptures all over the place. It was one persons art. Ju Ming created an entire museum that was based on two main categories of artwork. One was called The Living World and Taichi. The Living World was very interesting to me because it was all about the Taiwanese military. He was fascinated with the Army, Air Force and Navy. I have lots of pics of these things on my facebook.

On the way home, Lydia gave us a bunch of American snacks like Doritos and Oreos because we were starving and exhausted at that point. We were all very happy. After our bus ride back, Queenie and Lydia took us to eat. They uncovered a new amazing street filled with actual resturants, a SUBWAY (which is where I ate tonight haha), and nice, clean people where I feel safer. And its RIGHT off campus. I am so relieved that I will be able to eat food now. After I ate, Daniel and I scoped out the gym. I decided to go running on the treadmill for a little while. Now that I'm completely exhausted I am about to go to bed. I never thought that I would be so happy to go to bed by 9am. Tomorrow is my first day of class. Might not be too exciting. Not sure if I will update tomorrow or not.

OHHH one more thing. I don't think I told you about our toilet situation. So most places here do not supply you with toilet paper. Its like BYOTP haha also they have some regular stalls and some stalls with a squatty potty. If I can help it, I do not plan on using this:

I had a much better day today. I think I am over the culture shock and am ready to slowly become one with Taiwan haha

Tired.

Yesterday when I wrote, the plan was to take a nap, watch The Bachelorette, and get some studying done- none of which happened except the first. My "nap" turned into an 11 hour slumber that caused me to wake up promptly at 3am. And I was wide awake. I went to the laundry room (which is outdoors) where I sat and tried to study. I didn't get much studying done there... I was too busy looking at the beautiful view of the city with the night lights that quickly turned to daylight.

Eventually everyone woke up and we headed down the streets to look for some breakfast. I ate some bread from a small bakery/ conveinient store since I am not quite sure about getting food from vendors on the street yet... After breakfast we headed to the Administration building where we met the Teaching Assistants who will be with us for the majority of the trip, our professors, and took our Chinese Placement test. After the test I felt very discouraged. I felt like my Chinese skills are not where they should be and that I shouldn't even be here. But the professors and TAs are very kind and patient.

After all of that we went to eat a traditional Chinese meal. There were about 10 courses with food that I barely ate. Let's see, here's a few... sea cucumbers, pickled pork on a bun, some shrimp with green bean noodles, grass jello... At this point I am very disheartened. It's day 2 and I have basically eaten nothing except for a donut from Dunkin Donut and some Sour Cream and Onion Pringles. Maybe one could call this culture shock?

Anyways, we went to downtown Taipei which is much more what I thought that Taipei was going to be like. The part of town that we are in is what they call the "country side." So that's why they laughed when I asked if we were in downtown Taipei when we first got here. If only they could see Mississippi... haha After another day of touring and metro and bus riding, we are completely exhausted. Tomorrow we have another long and filled day. I just hope that they have some... normal food or else I am probably not going to survive.

On a side note, I completely missed the 4th of July. As upset as I was about no fireworks or bbq, I feel like I saw everything that I needed to see to make me feel as proud of my country as I could ever be. While Rob and I were waiting in the Birmingham Airport we saw a soldier sitting with his parents. We overheard him say that he was deploying to Kuwait. Watching him say his goodbyes to his parents just about brought me to tears. I have no idea how long he will be gone or what he will be doing over there, but to that soldier, I thank you. And to all the other soldiers that have sacrificed everything to protect our country I appreciate you more than you know. It really puts everything in prospective...

Its 9pm here and I am about to go to sleep for the night. Until next time... just pray that I have a better day tomorrow...