Ok, let's try this blogging thing again...

October 15, 2010 from Busan, South Korea

I decided to try and start updating my blog again, hopefully this time it will last. Currently I am in Busan, South Korea visiting an old friend, Jenna Slesinski. Like me, she is an English teacher, so I decided it would be great to come here and see how the English classes are taught and how they differ from those in Taiwan. So far I LOVE it here, kinda makes me want to switch countries... but for now I think I should stay in Taiwan and see how the whole grad school thing goes. Right now I am on the last couple days of my 3 week long vacation, two weeks spent in the USA and about 5 days here in South Korea (I'll probably write more about South Korea once I get back to Taiwan).

I was VERY excited to get out of Asialand for a while and visit all my friend at home. It was nice to see my friends and hang out, but unfortunately a lot of my plans fell through. I just spent a lot of time at home and seeing my friends at home after they were done with work. I did have a nice fun weekend staying at my sister's place in Chicago though. Laura and James came up too and we went out and had a good time shopping and drinking. It was nice to visit but I don't think I will be moving back anytime soon, I'm actually quite excited to get back to Taiwan. I will leave South Korea Sunday afternoon to head back where I will start Chinese class and work again on Monday... back to the real world I guess.

WOWWWWW its been a while

April 9, 2009~~
HELLOOO! I doubt anyone will actually read this, but it has been QUITE a while since my last post... mostly because I am just finishing out my last year at Indiana University. Just 4 weeks left and I will be a college graduate. What will I do with my degrees in French, Chinese, Arabic, and Linguistics?? Well I am going to move to Taipei, Taiwan to teach English. The goal is to stay here for several years both to gain teaching experience and to get a lot better at Mandarin... I don't know when I am moving there yet, hopefully within 2 months or so. I don't have an actual job yet but I have been accepted by Reach to Teach which is basically an agency that will find me a job in Taipei. My friend Cala who was there with me last Spring will also go there so we will probably be roomies.

More later :o)

Last days in Taiwan...

June 5, 2008 (its really June 14 but i forgot to write in this before i left taiwan)
Our last trip we took together in Taiwan was fun. I was gonna write about it right after it was over but I kept putting it off and now its like 3 weeks after... oops. But it was a really great 2 night trip. The first day we went to Ling Jiu Mountain which is a Buddhist monastery and we had a tour and met the founding monk who lived in a cave on that mountain by himself for 2 years fasting and meditating. After that 2 years was over he founded the monastery there. It was really nice and they had their free vegetarian lunch for all of us which was also very good. After that we went to the beach... but since it kept pouring rain and thundering and lightning I didn't go in the water. After spending some time there we headed to our hostel that was pretty far away which I was excited for since it had its own hot springs. But since we spent too much time at the beach we arrived at 1030 and they closed them at 11 :( so we only got to spend a few minutes in it. So instead of just going to sleep me, Phil, Zoe, and her boyfriend played mah johng all night (for money of course) and I won the most, 70 Taiwan dollars! (thats only about $2.10 US dollars haha) but it was fun.

The next day we had to get up early and head to the water rafting place. I was really excited for it cuz I have never done anything like that before. But I was also just a little worried to. So we got there and had a little training and got some life jackets and helmets and went out to the boats. In my boat it was Phil, Alyssa, Cala, Olivia, Mr. Zhang and Dan. It was pretty slow going at first... the water was slow and we were just paddling, and the life guards in their boats kept splashing us and then pushing us back in line with the others. There were a lot of boats, maybe 50 or so. Every once in a while we would get to some rapids and it would go a lot quicker and we had to dodge rocks and things but then it would go back to slower water. And then there was one part of the river where the rapids were a bit bigger and faster... few more rocks... ect and we saw a boat stuck on a rock ahead and then another one run into them and get stuck and then we were heading towards them. And we had been doing this for a couple hours now and had hit a lot of other boats so I wasn't worried or anything... and then we hit the boat and ours decided to flip over and throw us all into the water and come on top of us. And so I was in the water and could come up because the boat was on top of us. So then I tried to go down into the water a little deep so I could get out from underneath the boats, but the water was really fast and deep and there were lots of rocks everywhere and I was flying down the river coming up barely enough to just get a breath of air and then going back under. And then finally one of the life guard boats pulled me into their boat. And then we got everyone else and flipped our boat over and got into it and then I realized I lost the helmet that was wearing and my glasses :(
So we finished up the boat trip with no more problems and then left to go to our hostel for that night. But before we got there we stopped at a glasses store and I got some contacts to last me until I could get some new glasses. So basically we were all really tired so when we got to the hostel we just crashed. The next morning we got up early and left to go see Taroko gorge which is basically a giant grand-canyon-esque kinda thing that was nice, and then headed back to Taipei stopping at some sight seeing points on the way back. And then when we got back we basically had a week left to finish our projects... which I hadn't really started. But it went surprisingly well. I wrote mine about the declining use of Taiwanese language among the people of Taiwan... if you wanna read my paper just ask and I'll send it to you :p and basically I packed up and left Taiwan on June 5. I am really happy I had a chance to go to Taiwan and improve my Chinese a lot more, I guess it didn't turn out so bad after all not getting into Egypt last semester. It will be nice to leave Taiwan I think but I'll probably start missing it after a week or two... especially the food haha.

Thailand and Egypt and Midterms

April 12, 2008

I seem to not remember to write on this very often in Taiwan... But a lot has happened in the month since my birthday. Up until March 28, there wasn't anything out of the ordinary that happened, just normal going to class and tutoring English on Fridays at the high school. However on March 28 I went on my trip to Thailand. I had to do a lot of stuff for my classes in advance the week before I left so it was kinda stressful but one I was in the air to Thailand it all melted away. I arrived to Bangkok at about 1030 at night and my friend picked me up at the airport. After that we went out and had dinner and he introduced me to all his Thailand friends and we all went out. Then next day all of us took a 3 hour drive to the south of Thailand and then hopped on a speedboat to an island where we stayed in a bungalow for about 6 days. Most of the time there we just hung out on the beach and drank from coconuts and had massages, and then at night we would eat dinner on the beach next to the water. It was really nice but there were a lot of European tourists there. After we were done at the beach we headed back to Bangkok where we spent the rest of the time around town. I came back to Taiwan on April 7 at night and had to go to class the next day. The next day I felt kinda sick in class and it got pretty bad by the time night came around so I thought it might be malaria or something so I planned on missing more class the next day, even though I had a midterm the day after, to go to the doctor. I felt better in the morning when I got up to go to the doctor but I went anyways just in case. He asked my symptoms and I told him and then he gave me 4 different types of pills haha. I heard they like to over prescribe pills here... So then the next day I took my midterm and I don't think I did very well because I didn't get to study much because I missed class and was sick. At least the grades don't transfer back to IU haha. And the next day they didn't have class to go on a field trip somewhere but I couldn't go because I had to go teach English.

Also the day I got back from Thailand I got an e-mail from Egypt saying that I got on the waiting list again and I was really upset about it and sent a lot of e-mails and had my dad call too because I couldn't call from here. I was also spending a lot of time trying to find something to do with my time over the summer because they wait so long to let us know if we are in the program or not in Egypt but then they sent me an e-mail that said I was moved from the waiting list and I am now accepted. So it is official now that I am going to be in Cairo, Egypt to study Arabic at the Arabic Language Institute at the American University of Cairo from June 7 until July 27. And then after that who knows what? Just as long as I'm back at school in time to start class in September. I am getting really excited to start again at IU, I just picked out my classes last week but I am still a little iffy on some of them because I don't know if some classes will transfer and what classes I will test into when I get back, but we will just have to see.

Also I am starting a private tutoring job once a week at a Taiwanese family's home which should be fun. And I may start a thesis correcting/editing job for all the Taiwanese students here that have to write a thesis in English because most of them cant write it very well and they need a lot of correcting. So we will see how that works out.

Wow I haven't written on here for a while... hopeuflly I'll get back into the habit soon

February 25, 2008 in Taipei, Taiwan

So I have neglected to write in this for a month... both because I have been really busy and because I forgot about it haha. So I'll run through the last month really quickly.
After Dublin I went back to Spain for a week to get my Taiwan visa, besides a couple bumps there was no problem getting it and I just feel more in love with Madrid and Spain. Then on January 31st me and Aliyah jetted off to Berlin for two nights. Lucky for us (sarcasm) they had a PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION STRIKE for only the 2 days we were there, which means we had to take taxis which cost a lot. After having fun trapsing around Berlin for a bit we headed off on to Athens, Greece. Our hostel was basically empty so that was kinda boring but we got to see all the fun things like Zeus's Temple and the Acropolis, and also eat some good gyros haha. Then we took a 20+ hour train to Istanbul where we stayed the longest of our trip. The hostel was fun and we met a lot of nice people there. We went all over Istanbul, including the asian side (its on two continents). We went to a lot of bazaaars and saw mosques. We were even allowed into one of them so I could finally see what it is like. After that we took a plane to really really really expensive London. We took the tour bus cuz we had only one day there and wanted to see as much as possible and had fish and chips for dinner. Then we headed back to Madrid and I spent my last night there and headed home via Dublin the next day. My mom and dad picked me up at the airport and we went to dinner. I spent the next couple days in my parents in Crown Point and then headed to Depauw for a night with Carly and then to IU to see all my friends there for a few days. I then came home and packed and headed to Chicago for my flight to LA where I had to change planes in Taiwan. I had to wait about 5 hours in the LA airport, it wasn't that bad. I then got on the extremely long flight to Taiwan at 1130 at night and LUCKILY I got 4 seats to my self so I was able to actually lay down across them all and sleep. Also the service was very nice and I get Malaysia Airlines an A+ and I think they are my favorite now. I was picked up at the airport by a couple of students and then we came back and I was showed my room and everything.


TAIWAN
So my room is a normal size room with 4 beds up in the air and a desk space underneath each of them... so far my roommates are pretty nice so no problem there. The one problem is that my school here is on a mountain... and they decided the male dorms should be at the top. So there is actually a bus that runs from the top to the bottom but it only goes until 11 and and sometimes it doesn't go all the way to the top so I still have to walk a lot which is going to be A LOT OF FUN when it starts getting really really really really hot and humid outside. So far I haven't started classes yet but I did take the placement test today so we will see in a few days how I did on that. So far though I am LOVING Taiwan so much better than China. Its a bit more expensive but a much better experience. Also So far this program is much much much better than my program in China, and the students here are a lot better too and I have already made at least 10 new taiwanese friends that will help me out with my Chinese a lot...
So thats all I have for now, once I get all my pictures posted (Krakow, Prague, Dublin, Madrid, Berlin, Greece, Istanbul, London, IU, Taiwan...) I'll put the links up here that you can see them at. Bye for now

Only 3 weeks left...

Starting from the top...
My hostel in Taiwan... called Taiwanmex (owned by a mexican)
Chang Kai Shek memorial
random sign that says I love Taipei
more of the memorial
the hostel cat that liked to sleep in our room
(left to right) Manila, Me and Lisa eating lunch in the Philippines (we were sitting with our legs in the water), and then me trying to do my best at making tea at a tea house
and the last one is LOVE in front of Taipei 101


November 28, 2007

Nothing much has happened since I got back from my trip, just a lot of school, homework, tests, and studying Chinese. The Taiwan program finally got all my stuff in the mail so I should find out within a week or so if I am accepted to that, then I can finally start finalizing my plans for winter break. I found two more cheap airlines that offer a lot of flights, basically ANYWHERE in Europe and then Morocco and Turkey on top of that. The only problem is that I'll have to be doing a lot of this traveling alone and I don't speak any of the languages of a lot of the places I am looking into going. My list so far of confirmed trips is Spain, Morocco, Spain again, France, and Norway... from there I'll head off to London or Dublin. They have flights to anywhere in Europe from those two places so I was looking into traveling to Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Hungary, the Czech Republic and some others, depending on the dates of Taiwan. So that is going to be fun to plan.
www.easyjet.com
www.ryanair.com
www.wizzair.com
all cheap tickets to wherever you want

Also I got in touch with some people from Egypt and it should be pretty easy to transfer my application over to the summer, so hopefully that will all work out in the end and I can still graduate on time.

I still haven't gotten my pictures up from Taipei and the Philippines because facebook isn't working, but I'll post them here as soon as it works. And I'm getting sick... yay...

General things about the trip

I really liked Taiwan... I'll probably get in trouble for saying this since I'm in China now and they might block my site or something... but we shall see

Here is why Taiwan is better than China:
People wait in line and are considerate of one another.
People follow traffic signals.
There is not garbage and pollution everywhere.
Nothing is censored (like news and wikipedia)
People wait in line for the subway and wait for the people to get off before getting on in an ORDERLY manner.
The government doesn't tell the people what to think.

Also since their news isn't censored, I got to read about China's attempts to block Taiwan from joining the United Nations in Taiwan because nothing about this can be read in China because its all blocked. And I also read about China refusing to send any mail from Taiwan to people in China that had a postmark saying "UN for Taiwan" and made the people receiving these letters sign something saying they renounce all attempts by Taiwan to join the UN which just kinda seems childish to me and counterproductive.

I really hope the Taiwan program comes through because I would like to study there and get more of the other side of the China - Taiwan problem.

About the Philippines...
It was kinda scary at first, but I think thats just because everyone was making me scared with their stores but I really liked it though. I kinda wish we spent more time there and less in Taiwan... but that just gives me another excuse to go back to the Philippines in the future haha. And now I can say that I have eaten pigs blood and brain YUM!


Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow!

Taipei, Manila, coconut plantation and back to Shanghai

Sunday, November 11 2007

On Sunday Me and Lisa met our friend Adam from IU and went out to an all you can eat hot pot place for lunch. It was pretty good but more expensive that I would pay for lunch in Shanghai, but everything is more expensive in Taipei. BUT, Taipei is much cleaner, much more organized, and much more polite than Shanghai so I am ok with paying a bit extra. After that he took us to the largest bookstore in Taipei thats open 24 hours and it's rumored that all the starts go there at midnight to check out the books haha. I picked out a couple of small comic books in traditional characters (they still use them in Taiwan if you didn't know) to see if I could get through it and understand anything. After browsing around there for a while we headed off to see his university, Taipei University, to see where he has his classes and everything. After that we headed off to visit another night market but it wasn't as good as the one we saw the first night. After that we headed back to the hostel to play with the cat and then go to sleep for the next day.

Monday, November 12 - Taipei 101

Today we went to Taipei 101 which is the tallest building in the world in 3 out of 4 categories (haha) so I guess that means it's the tallest... and we rode the fastest elevator in the world to the top haha. They gave us a free audio tour thing so we walked around the observation deck on the 89th floor and saw the whole city from there. I also got a postcard and mailed it home to mom and dad haha, I wanted to send some more to other people but I couldn't remember their addresses. After we saw the whole city we went to the ice cream shop they had up there to use our $15 off coupon (33 Taiwan Dollars = 1 U.S. dollar, so less than 50 cents) they gave us when we bought our tickets, and it was gooooood. Then after that we went up to the 91st floor where you can actually go outside, but it was waaaaaay too windy and cold so we went back inside for a bit then went and found lunch at a small place. After that we made our way to Peace Park and walked around there for a while and were pooped so we headed back to the hostel. So Lisa took a nap and I got busy with doing all the necessary things for applying to the Taiwan program I found like getting more recommendations, transcripts, essays, application things. I figured I might as well apply for it while I still have time and I can decide later if I want to do it or not. And then for some reason the Australian guy brought home 2 lab puppies, one brown and one black. He said someone got them as a present but didn't want them so left them outside and he couldn't handle it anymore so he took them and brought them back to the hostel so we played with them all night but then by the end of the night he found someone to take them so that was that.

Tuesday, November 13 Taipei Zoo
Today me and Lisa got up and headed to the Taipei zoo. I think it was pre-school day though because there were only pre-schoolers there haha. Animals we saw included lions, gorillas, penguins, red pandas, turtles, zebras, camels, monkeys, birds, ferrets, meerkats,koalas, fish, and a lot of bugs and butterflies. After spending a while there we headed over to the gondola that took us up to the top of the mountain where they have all the small tea growers and tea houses. So we walked around for a while then stopped at a tea house and drank some tea and ate some noodles then headed back to the hostel cuz we were really tired from walking around at the zoo all day.

Wednesday, November 14 Taiwan Hot Springs and Dinner with the Malaysian friends
Today was a pretty relaxed day. Me and Lisa slept in and then headed to the hot springs for a few hours. There was a crazy old man doing yoga things on the rocks... but he did thinks like stand on his head for 20 minutes at a time on ROCK and then hit himself in the head with a metal pole and hit his legs with a sledgehammer... I don't know... Then we headed back to the hostel and napped because the hot springs made us really tired and then we went out to dinner with the australian guy and 3 malaysian girls from our hostel. After that me and Lisa hung out at the hostel and then went out for the night.

Thursday, November 15
Today we went to a history museum of Taiwan that had a lot of things about the native tribes and also a strange collection of Czech puppets for some reason. It wasn't that great of a museum though and we left and there was an old man outside painting and had lots of other one sitting around him. I walked up and he immediately stood up and said "Where you from, America?" And I said yes and he got really excited then asked if I was from California or Chicago and then he said America is a great country and he loves it haha. Then he talked to us about all of his paintings and everything and emphasized that his paints were "Taiwan" watercolor paintings NOT "Chinese" ones haha. He told us he was 72 and that he really wanted us to take some of his pictures back to the US so I bought one for $100 (about 3$ US). We talked for about 15 or 20 minutes with this guy who spoke English surprisingly well because he never went to school or anything. By this point the general consensus was that Taiwanese people are a lot more friendly in general than Chinese people haha. After that we headed to Longshan Temple, a budhist temple, to visit and then hung out with our friend Adam one more time before leaving.

Friday, November 16 - Bye bye Taiwan! Ni hao Republika ng Pilipinas!
We got up early today and went and got breakfast at McDonalds for $75 (about $2.10 US) and then got some coffee to use up the last of our Taiwan money then headed back to the hostel to pack up and say goodbye to everyone and the cat. We paid the owner $800 (about $25 US) to take us to the airport where we hung out for a while before getting on our flight to Manila, Philippines. The flight was pretty short and smooth and we got there with no problems and were picked up by Evelyn and Boy who are friends of Lisa's step mom. They quickly whisked us away to a fresh seafood market to buy dinner. On the way there we just started out the window at the Philippines and I can safely say that it is a lot poorer than Shanghai and a lot more dangerous too. On the way there I saw a lot of police standing on corners or in front of buildings with machine guns and a lot more homeless people. We got to the fresh seafood market and looked around while Evelyn got dinner for us then we went to a restaurant out back and gave them the food and they cooked it. Now I usually try to stay away from seafood because I don't like fishy tasting things, I don't like pulling heads off of shrimp and then peeling the shell off, I don't like sucking meat out of crab shells, and I don't like rubbery things like squid and octopus. But this ended up being our dinner for the night: huge shrimp complete with heads and shells, crabs cut in half to pick out the meat, squid, and something made mostly of pig blood... and fresh mangoes and lycones yummmm. And after that they took us to our hotel which was pretty nice to drop our stuff off. Then they took us to a bar/restaurant area of town to walk around and we found a bar with live music and sat down for a bit but there was no one there yet and no music we left at the suggestion of Evelyn and Boy to find a new place. So we walked around for a bit then they decided that we should go back to that bar because there is was nothing else haha. Then we sat for a bit more then they decided to take us to a place they like to go... but halfway through the drive there they decided it was too far and took us BACK to that place, but they wouldn't let us stay out alone so they waited in the car for us while we stayed there for a bit. Then afterwords they took us back to our hotel and told us we shouldn't leave because its too dangerous but if we did leave to not go far. But me and Lisa were waaay to tired to try and go find somewhere to go and we just made a quick seven eleven run and went to sleep because we had to get up at 545 the next morning to go to the Villa Escudera.

Saturday, November 17 coconuts and waterfall lunch

So we got picked up at 7 am after having our first american breakfast since leaving the USA at the hotel. It was a 3 hour drive so me and Lisa basically slept on the way there with breaks to eat filipino snacks. When we got there we had a tour of the museum of all the worldly collections of things and a lot of floats of various bible scenes and of Christ that they use in a parade on Palm Sunday. After that we headed over to lunch which was fun. They have a waterfall that falls into a shallow pool
thats maybe a foot deep that has a lot of tables and a really good buffet with fried bananas, soups, beef, chicken, crab, noodles, rice and a lot of other things. So you sit with your feet in the water while eating the buffet, and they also bring you out a fresh coconut with a straw in it for your drink. After that we headed over to the pool to swim for a bit then headed into the coconut pavilion to watch all the dances from different native tribes of the Philippines. Then we headed back to the city for dinner at the oldest restaurant chain in the Philippines, but it kinda seemed like a Steak-n-Shake or something, not too fancy. But they ordered us their famous grilled chicken, fresh mangoes again, and something called "sisig" that me and Lisa ate. It tasted really good because they loaded it up with hot sauce and calamanca juice and spicy peppers. And after we ate it we found it it is a mixture of pork face slices and brain... but it still tasted good haha. Then they took us home and told us they were really tired so we could go out alone but to stay near the hotel. So me and Lisa got ready and went out and were walking around for something to do when a dirty little girl ran up to me and started begging for money and I told her I didn't have any which was true because I couldn't find an ATM that would work or I totally would have given her a bit of money. But I guess she didn't believe me because she then wrapped her arms around me and locked her hands and wouldn't get off. Lisa was trying to give her some coins she had to get her off, then she finally let go of me and grabbed the coins from Lisa but then yanked her hair then rain way. I don't know why really, maybe she didn't think it was enough money or something. Then me and Lisa kept walking but we were getting kinda nervous because of all the guards we were seeing everywhere and then we met someone who told us about a place that we went to that was nice and had live music again. So we hung out there for a while then headed back to the hotel.

Sunday, November 18 Last day of the trip and back home to Shanghai
Today they picked us up and took us to an old Spanish fort that had been controlled by the Japanese, and the Americans, and the British at various points and we hung around that area for a while. Then after that we took a carriage ride through a historical part of Manila and saw a lot of old buildings and prisons where the Japanese kept all the Filipinos during WWII. After that they took us to a big mall. It was kinda scary since they had bombings in October at malls in Manila so at each entrance they had a security guard with metal detectors and they looked through your bags to get in. And inside they had bomb sniffing dogs and guards with guns walking around. The mall was crazy though, they had more knock off than China and it was a lot cheaper too. And what was really funny was that I heard people saying that all their stuff comes from Korea and NOT China so the quality is much much better haha. After that they took us to the airport and dropped us off and me and Lisa waited there for our delayed plane and got back to Shanghai at about 130 am, got a taxi and headed home for class at 8 am the next morning.

Trip to Taiwan and Philippines is official!

October 23, 2007
Lisa picked up our passports today with no problem so thats all set. Then I had a nap and made some more bok choy ( its getting better every time!!) and then we discussed our trip. This is now the official trip

November 9 1230 AM Shanghai - Manila (arrive 430 AM :()
November 9 1110 AM Manila - Taipei (Arrive at 110 pm)
November 9 to 16 in Taipei and surrounding areas
November 16 at 155 PM Taipei - Manila (arrive 355pm)
November 16 to 18 in Manila
November 18 8 PM Manila - Shanghai (Arrive after 11pm)

And now that thats all worked out I can start to work more on my European/North Africa plans. After discussing with Phil and Aliyah this seems to be a good plan to start working on:
Phil and I arrive in Madrid on December 22 and most of our friends will be there already.
Then we will stay there and on the 25th or 26th we will take a bus down to the south of Spain and then catch a ferry over to Tangier, Morocco. From there we will either go to Fez, Marrakesh, or Casablanca and spend some time there. Then on the 29th or 30th of December we will head to Barcelona and stay there for 3 or 4 nights. Then we will hop on a bus from Barcelona to Madrid. Then I will leave Madrid on the 4th and fly to Marseilles with Phil and stay with him for a while there. (We are thinking about going to maybe Oslo, Norway, or Stockholm Sweden sometime in the beginning of January... but thats another story) Then sometime towards the 18th or so of January I will fly back to Madrid and stay there for a few nights before heading to Cairo. :o) It is really confusing and it involves lots and lots of planning and I have to hear back from all of my friends if they like this idea or not... but it seems to work out pretty well as of now.
I still haven't heard from Cairo though if I got accepted to not into the program. They told me middle of November though so I am not really worried, I am just getting too antsy haha... Also I have a spoken midterm tomorrow for Chinese and a written one Thursday so I think I need to study now!!!!!
Leave a comment!! I like to see if people are actually reading this or not haha