Friday, August 15, 2008
Last posts?!?!?!?!?
Hmm.... today is August 14 and I haven't written in this for a while.... lots to cover... my last trip in Egypt to Aswan, Luxor, and Abu Simbel, my last weeks in Egypt, my desert adventure to LEBANON, SYRIA, JORDAN, and ISRAEL (and a little more in Egypt)... all up until now in Madrid, Spain awaiting for August 20 to arrive so I am finally come back home after my year abroad... Instead of making one big long post, I'm gonna break it up into smaller ones... So enjoy because now that I am coming home, this blog may be finished (at least for a while) because I have to finish my studies! Maybe I'll talk more about that later...
Saturday, July 26, 2008
NEW plans
I havent updated from my last time in Egypt... ill get around to that some other time
but for now I am in BEIRUT, Lebanon... so far there are no problems here... we were going to only stay here for 2 nights and then head to Aleppo, Syria and then to Damascus. But since there is a concert on Sunday for MIKA which we all love, we decided to stay in Lebanon and travel outside of Beirut to other cities. We met a really nice taxi driver and he is actually going to be our personal driver for the next few days and take us to some other places in Lebanon and ill put those here later.
So we are here in BEIRUT until July 28 and then we will take a taxi to Damascus, Syria. As of now we will stay there for 2 or 3 nights. After that we will head by bus to Amman, Jordan and then to Petra and Aqaba for a few nights. On August 2 (in shaa allah) we will take a Taxi to Jerusalem and start our Israeli adventures... and then on August 8 we will travel back to Cairo on a realllly long bus ride. and then on August 10 ill fly to Spain for 10 days then home!
ok gotta go!
bye
but for now I am in BEIRUT, Lebanon... so far there are no problems here... we were going to only stay here for 2 nights and then head to Aleppo, Syria and then to Damascus. But since there is a concert on Sunday for MIKA which we all love, we decided to stay in Lebanon and travel outside of Beirut to other cities. We met a really nice taxi driver and he is actually going to be our personal driver for the next few days and take us to some other places in Lebanon and ill put those here later.
So we are here in BEIRUT until July 28 and then we will take a taxi to Damascus, Syria. As of now we will stay there for 2 or 3 nights. After that we will head by bus to Amman, Jordan and then to Petra and Aqaba for a few nights. On August 2 (in shaa allah) we will take a Taxi to Jerusalem and start our Israeli adventures... and then on August 8 we will travel back to Cairo on a realllly long bus ride. and then on August 10 ill fly to Spain for 10 days then home!
ok gotta go!
bye
Sunday, June 15, 2008
First week of EGYPT!
June 20, 2008
So I have been in Egypt a little over a two weeks now and I LOVE IT here. Its a breath of fresh air getting away from Asia for a while haha. The airplane rides here went smoothly. Taipei to Hong Kong was good, the only problem is they didn't transfer my bags automatically at Hong Kong. I hung out in Hong Kong for about 4 or 5 hours... but I forgot that HK (and Dubai) us the UK style plug, and I packed my adapter so I couldn't watch any of my movies I had downloaded for the trip. So I tried to nap/read until my plane came. My flight to Dubai went well, the food on Emirates air was amaaaaazzzzing and the service was really good too. And I arrived to Dubai about 430 AM and hung out in the airport and waited in line for a long time to use one of the free computers because some people wouldnt get off them. My flight to Cairo went smoothly too and I arrived about noon.
Egypt and Cairo info:
http://wikitravel.org/en/Egypt
http://wikitravel.org/en/Cairo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egypt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo
I got my luggage, luckily it all came no problem, and headed out to go through customs. It took me a while to figure out where to get the visa... but once I got that I went out and found my driver and he took me to my dorm. My roommate wasn't here... and there weren't very many people here actually so I just kinda unpacked my stuff and went outside to walk around the area for a bit and find food. I tried to stay up as late as I could because I heard that is good for the first night when dealing with jet lag... and then I made it to about 10 pm and went to bed. The next day I slept in pretty late then unpacked and went out some more to walk around and find food. And then later on my roommate showed up and I went out with him and another guy to have dinner and "drink" shisha and have tea at a market.
The dorms are ok, I am in a 3 person room with only 2 people, so we have a bit more space. Everything in it is really old, and we have some REALLY loud arabs in the room next door who like to blast their music LOUDLY between 11 pm and 4 am. I don't know whats gonna happen with that. The dorms and the school have a lot of security. At all the entrances there are metal detectors and guards who usually check through all of your bags before you can get in.
Class started Sunday, but they didn't feel the need to let us know they changed the times of our classes until EVERYONE was there, so we basically had a couple of hours to hang around and then our classes started. Here is my schedule
Sunday:
Egyptian Arabic 1130-100
Spoken Egyptian Arabic 215-330
Monday:
Standard Arabic 900-1100
Egyptian Arabic 1130-100
Media Arabic 105-205
Quran Class 215-330
Tuesday:
Standard Arabic 900-1100
Egyptian Arabic 1130-100
Spoken Egyptian Arabic 215-330
Wednesday:
Standard Arabic 900-1100
Egyptian Arabic 1130-100
Quran Class 215-330
Thursday:
Standard Arabic 900-1100
Media Arabic 1130-100
Basicaly Monday's suck and the rest of the week isn't too bad. All my teachers are amazing (some a little heavy on the homework though) except my Media Arabic teacher that kinda sucks. The first week of class went well, there was a little shuffling of classes, but for the most part it went smoothly. The school here is really unorganized (thats Egypt as a whole I guess), the classrooms are a problem, and no one ever knows anything, but I'm used to that after China I guess.
The first full weekend in Egypt we took a trip to Alexandria. Here is some info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandria
http://wikitravel.org/en/Alexandria
We took a bus to Alexandria from Cairo... took about 3 or 4 hours, luckily it had A/C. I didn't notice this until later but they had security guards on our buses, and from what other people said they usually put security guards or even police with AK-47s on buses if there are foreigners. We spent 2 nights there in a REALLY nice hotel. The school must have some kind of deal with the hotel because the posted rates are $280 a night and our whole trip total was $150. We visited some things you can see on the link to wikitravel. We went to the Citadel, the Library, the Roman Catacombs, Pompey's Pillar, and Montazza palace. Alexandra was a bit more conservative that Cairo I think. I saw a lot more mostly or completely covered women (not even slits or holes for their eyes). It also seemed to me a bit more poor and run down that Cairo, but with a lot of beaches. We went back on Saturday and then I had class on Sunday.
This week of class went by well, I had my first test and lots and lots of homework. This weekend we are going to Sharm el Sheikh for 3 nights. Here is info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharm_el-Sheikh
http://wikitravel.org/en/Sharm_el-Sheikh
I'll put later what I am going to do there.
So thats my stay so far in Egypt! Leave a comment!
So I have been in Egypt a little over a two weeks now and I LOVE IT here. Its a breath of fresh air getting away from Asia for a while haha. The airplane rides here went smoothly. Taipei to Hong Kong was good, the only problem is they didn't transfer my bags automatically at Hong Kong. I hung out in Hong Kong for about 4 or 5 hours... but I forgot that HK (and Dubai) us the UK style plug, and I packed my adapter so I couldn't watch any of my movies I had downloaded for the trip. So I tried to nap/read until my plane came. My flight to Dubai went well, the food on Emirates air was amaaaaazzzzing and the service was really good too. And I arrived to Dubai about 430 AM and hung out in the airport and waited in line for a long time to use one of the free computers because some people wouldnt get off them. My flight to Cairo went smoothly too and I arrived about noon.
Egypt and Cairo info:
http://wikitravel.org/en/Egypt
http://wikitravel.org/en/Cairo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egypt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo
I got my luggage, luckily it all came no problem, and headed out to go through customs. It took me a while to figure out where to get the visa... but once I got that I went out and found my driver and he took me to my dorm. My roommate wasn't here... and there weren't very many people here actually so I just kinda unpacked my stuff and went outside to walk around the area for a bit and find food. I tried to stay up as late as I could because I heard that is good for the first night when dealing with jet lag... and then I made it to about 10 pm and went to bed. The next day I slept in pretty late then unpacked and went out some more to walk around and find food. And then later on my roommate showed up and I went out with him and another guy to have dinner and "drink" shisha and have tea at a market.
The dorms are ok, I am in a 3 person room with only 2 people, so we have a bit more space. Everything in it is really old, and we have some REALLY loud arabs in the room next door who like to blast their music LOUDLY between 11 pm and 4 am. I don't know whats gonna happen with that. The dorms and the school have a lot of security. At all the entrances there are metal detectors and guards who usually check through all of your bags before you can get in.
Class started Sunday, but they didn't feel the need to let us know they changed the times of our classes until EVERYONE was there, so we basically had a couple of hours to hang around and then our classes started. Here is my schedule
Sunday:
Egyptian Arabic 1130-100
Spoken Egyptian Arabic 215-330
Monday:
Standard Arabic 900-1100
Egyptian Arabic 1130-100
Media Arabic 105-205
Quran Class 215-330
Tuesday:
Standard Arabic 900-1100
Egyptian Arabic 1130-100
Spoken Egyptian Arabic 215-330
Wednesday:
Standard Arabic 900-1100
Egyptian Arabic 1130-100
Quran Class 215-330
Thursday:
Standard Arabic 900-1100
Media Arabic 1130-100
Basicaly Monday's suck and the rest of the week isn't too bad. All my teachers are amazing (some a little heavy on the homework though) except my Media Arabic teacher that kinda sucks. The first week of class went well, there was a little shuffling of classes, but for the most part it went smoothly. The school here is really unorganized (thats Egypt as a whole I guess), the classrooms are a problem, and no one ever knows anything, but I'm used to that after China I guess.
The first full weekend in Egypt we took a trip to Alexandria. Here is some info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandria
http://wikitravel.org/en/Alexandria
We took a bus to Alexandria from Cairo... took about 3 or 4 hours, luckily it had A/C. I didn't notice this until later but they had security guards on our buses, and from what other people said they usually put security guards or even police with AK-47s on buses if there are foreigners. We spent 2 nights there in a REALLY nice hotel. The school must have some kind of deal with the hotel because the posted rates are $280 a night and our whole trip total was $150. We visited some things you can see on the link to wikitravel. We went to the Citadel, the Library, the Roman Catacombs, Pompey's Pillar, and Montazza palace. Alexandra was a bit more conservative that Cairo I think. I saw a lot more mostly or completely covered women (not even slits or holes for their eyes). It also seemed to me a bit more poor and run down that Cairo, but with a lot of beaches. We went back on Saturday and then I had class on Sunday.
This week of class went by well, I had my first test and lots and lots of homework. This weekend we are going to Sharm el Sheikh for 3 nights. Here is info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharm_el-Sheikh
http://wikitravel.org/en/Sharm_el-Sheikh
I'll put later what I am going to do there.
So thats my stay so far in Egypt! Leave a comment!
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.
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.
Friday, May 23, 2008
End of classes and Two weeks left in Taiwan
May 23, 2008
Here are my final flight plans:
Taiwan to Egypt June 5 and 6
Egypt to Madrid July 29
Madrid to Chicago August 20... and then thats it!
So nothing much has happened since my miderms which is true haha so there was nothing much to write about. But I just took my finals yesterday soooo I am DONE with Chinese for a little while, I just hope I don't forget too much before I make it back to IU. One day I went to the mountains to pick some lilies because thats what it is famous for. Those pictures will go up eventually but I am having computer problems so I don't know when. One weekend we had a show put on by all the Chinese classes and I had to act in a little skit for it. The night before though I got offered a chance to be on a TV show, so as soon as the show was over I had to hop in a taxi over the TV station. That was about all the excitement I had in the past few weeks except for learning Chinese. Yesterday and Today I had my Chinese and Taiwanese finals and they weren't that bad. The last thing I have to do here is finish my research project then I am done. Tomorrow we are going on a weekend trip and I'll write about that before I leave Taiwan.
As for Egypt I am planning on arriving on June 6 and I will be there until July 29. Right now i dont know much about what I am doing there except I am doing intensive Arabic and will have about 20 hours a week of class and hopefully a few trips around Egypt. I don't know if I'll have any time to travel on my own though because the class is so intensive. On July 29 I'm flying to Madrid to stay will a friend for three weeks. I also dont really know what im gonna be doing there as of yet but I have been using my money saved from translating and tutoring to spend while I'm there. Maybe I'll get a chance to visit a couple other countries even. After that I am coming home to the US on August 20. I am going to try and get a quick 2 or 3 day roadtrip with my friends to Cedar Point and then be back to IU in time to start in the fall.... so any comments??
Here are my final flight plans:
Taiwan to Egypt June 5 and 6
Egypt to Madrid July 29
Madrid to Chicago August 20... and then thats it!
So nothing much has happened since my miderms which is true haha so there was nothing much to write about. But I just took my finals yesterday soooo I am DONE with Chinese for a little while, I just hope I don't forget too much before I make it back to IU. One day I went to the mountains to pick some lilies because thats what it is famous for. Those pictures will go up eventually but I am having computer problems so I don't know when. One weekend we had a show put on by all the Chinese classes and I had to act in a little skit for it. The night before though I got offered a chance to be on a TV show, so as soon as the show was over I had to hop in a taxi over the TV station. That was about all the excitement I had in the past few weeks except for learning Chinese. Yesterday and Today I had my Chinese and Taiwanese finals and they weren't that bad. The last thing I have to do here is finish my research project then I am done. Tomorrow we are going on a weekend trip and I'll write about that before I leave Taiwan.
As for Egypt I am planning on arriving on June 6 and I will be there until July 29. Right now i dont know much about what I am doing there except I am doing intensive Arabic and will have about 20 hours a week of class and hopefully a few trips around Egypt. I don't know if I'll have any time to travel on my own though because the class is so intensive. On July 29 I'm flying to Madrid to stay will a friend for three weeks. I also dont really know what im gonna be doing there as of yet but I have been using my money saved from translating and tutoring to spend while I'm there. Maybe I'll get a chance to visit a couple other countries even. After that I am coming home to the US on August 20. I am going to try and get a quick 2 or 3 day roadtrip with my friends to Cedar Point and then be back to IU in time to start in the fall.... so any comments??
Saturday, April 12, 2008
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.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
First week of class (and my birthday)
March 11, 2007
So the first week of class went by and it wasn't that bad. We kinda had a lot of homework but I think once I get used to it then it will be fine. I am the only American in my class though... There are 2 koreans, 2 japanese, a French, a Belgian, a Lithuanian, and an Argentinian haha. Last week and this week are probably going to be the easiest two weeks because starting next Monday I start a class on Taiwanese which should be fun and an Advanced Chinese Composition class which should also be fun. I also have to meet with 2 tutors every week... so basically lots of work ahead. I didn't do much last week though except work on my homework and lose my digital camera (oops...) and visit the National Palace museum and saw the famous cabbage made out of jade. So yesterday was my birthday and I had a few nice surprises. First my 3 roommates gave me something I really liked... one of them, Perry, Drew me and put it on a card and then the back they each wrote me a message saying happy birthday and stuff. And then there was a CD inside, and on the CD all three of them sang happy birthday in English and Chinese and sang "Hey Drew" to the tune of Hey Jude and made up new lyrics on it haha. I put it on my iPod and made all my friends listen to it the next day. So I got up and went to class and it was normal and they sang happy birthday, but then a Japanese girl brought these two reallllllly good cakes to class so that was nice and they got me a card. And then I went to the CIEE office here to buy my ticket to Thailand (I'm going to Thailand!!!!) and all the people on my program were in there and all of my new Taiwanese friends too. I kinda knew about it though because they forgot to take my name out of the e-mail haha but it was still nice. They sang happy birthday to me twice and it was embarrassing and then we ate a lot of pie mmmmm. I also got some gifts from people that I really liked especially a beer from Jimmy, a papaya milk from Philip, some candy and a spicy snack from Arial, a Buddha from Elise, and a book that I lOOOOOOVE from xiao Joyce about Chinese Idioms. After that I took a quick nap and got a haircut (A LOT more expensive than china and it looks terrible :( ) and then I went to an all you can eat hot pot restaurant with the japanese girl who brought the cakes, the 2 koreans and my Chinese teacher and it was reallllly really really good. By far the best meal I have had here. It might have something to do with the all you can eat hagen daas ice cream mmmmmm. And then after that me and some friends hung out for a few hours and just talked. And then today I had a test haha, we will see how that goes later I guess... So now what I have to think about is finding a new digital camera and planning my trip to Thailand from March 28 to April 7. Also most of my pictures are up so probably in the next post I will put all the links so you can go to them and see.
So the first week of class went by and it wasn't that bad. We kinda had a lot of homework but I think once I get used to it then it will be fine. I am the only American in my class though... There are 2 koreans, 2 japanese, a French, a Belgian, a Lithuanian, and an Argentinian haha. Last week and this week are probably going to be the easiest two weeks because starting next Monday I start a class on Taiwanese which should be fun and an Advanced Chinese Composition class which should also be fun. I also have to meet with 2 tutors every week... so basically lots of work ahead. I didn't do much last week though except work on my homework and lose my digital camera (oops...) and visit the National Palace museum and saw the famous cabbage made out of jade. So yesterday was my birthday and I had a few nice surprises. First my 3 roommates gave me something I really liked... one of them, Perry, Drew me and put it on a card and then the back they each wrote me a message saying happy birthday and stuff. And then there was a CD inside, and on the CD all three of them sang happy birthday in English and Chinese and sang "Hey Drew" to the tune of Hey Jude and made up new lyrics on it haha. I put it on my iPod and made all my friends listen to it the next day. So I got up and went to class and it was normal and they sang happy birthday, but then a Japanese girl brought these two reallllllly good cakes to class so that was nice and they got me a card. And then I went to the CIEE office here to buy my ticket to Thailand (I'm going to Thailand!!!!) and all the people on my program were in there and all of my new Taiwanese friends too. I kinda knew about it though because they forgot to take my name out of the e-mail haha but it was still nice. They sang happy birthday to me twice and it was embarrassing and then we ate a lot of pie mmmmm. I also got some gifts from people that I really liked especially a beer from Jimmy, a papaya milk from Philip, some candy and a spicy snack from Arial, a Buddha from Elise, and a book that I lOOOOOOVE from xiao Joyce about Chinese Idioms. After that I took a quick nap and got a haircut (A LOT more expensive than china and it looks terrible :( ) and then I went to an all you can eat hot pot restaurant with the japanese girl who brought the cakes, the 2 koreans and my Chinese teacher and it was reallllly really really good. By far the best meal I have had here. It might have something to do with the all you can eat hagen daas ice cream mmmmmm. And then after that me and some friends hung out for a few hours and just talked. And then today I had a test haha, we will see how that goes later I guess... So now what I have to think about is finding a new digital camera and planning my trip to Thailand from March 28 to April 7. Also most of my pictures are up so probably in the next post I will put all the links so you can go to them and see.
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