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! :)

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!! :)

Well, we are here...

My luggage was only 40 pounds, THANK GOODNESS; however, that means that I could have brought 10 more pounds of stuff. But thats ok. The flights over were uneventful, it was easy to get from one gate to the next, and everyone ended up in the same place in the end. Tiffany, Lily, Daniel Spencer, and Rob and I flew out of Detroit. The 12 and a half hour flight was less than exciting. I sat about 6 seats over from Rob who was the closest person I knew. The guy sitting next to me did not speak to me one time for 12 1/2 hours. He slept for the majority of the flight. I don't know if you all know this about me but I can't not talk for 12 hours. So I made my way over to Rob and stood in the aisle for about 30 minutes. Needless to say, that flight was insanely boring and I am not looking forward to flying that again in 6 weeks.

Anyways, last night was crazy. As soon as we got through customs, we exchanged American money for Taiwanese money. 1 USD = 32 NTD which basically means that everything here looks way more expensive than in America because they only use 100 and 1000 bills instead of just 1, 5, 10 dollar bills but they use 1, 5, 10 dollar coins. 1000 NTD looks like a lot of money but in reality its only about $20 USD. There is also no tax here. Then we met up with Jeremy and Daniel Cook. A girl named Lydia and another girl named Queenie came to pick us up. Lydia is about 24 and works for NTPU and Queenie is 21 and is a student here. They took us to the 7/11 store here so that we could get a mattress pad for our beds and some toilet paper and things like that. Then we went to our dorms. The 3 girls share a room with 4 bunkbeds and the guys are right next door with the same room. The view from our balcony is amazing.

It looks off on to NTPU's campus. After a quick run down of things here and a trip to get some late night snacks, I fell asleep around 1am.

This morning I woke up around 7:30 am. The guys were up by 5am and had already walked through the campus and the streets before the girls were even awake. We got ready for the day and headed over to the Administration building that we had no idea where to find. Lucky for us, we look like complete aliens here so we stood out when we were wandering around looking like lost puppies. Conveneintly, the lady who is in charge of us walked right by and took us to the cafeteria where we ate an... interesting breakfast.

Later in the morning Queenie took us to buy cell phones and we walked around one of the streets with tons of small shops. We saw lots of temples and food vendors and clothing stores. Everything smells wierd here and the food is very different. After a few hours of walking around we were all ready to come back to the dorm with airconditioning. So happy to have AC. It feels like its about 140 degrees here. It is now 4:35pm here and 3:35am back in Huntsville. For the rest of the afternoon we are planning on being lazy and taking naps. We all are going to study our Chinese for the placement test that we have tomorrow. I'm planning on taking a nap, watching The Bachelorette, and studying for the remainder of the afternoon.

Right now im laying in my bunk and I just want everyone to see the view from where I am. Well, thats all for now. Pray that I can adjust to new smells, new and odd food and drinks, and to the ridiculously hot weather. Tomorrow we are going to Taipei City... more to come in a few days!