Wenzao!

July 9

Sorry for the lack of posts. Now that we are doing more activities it is becoming more difficult to post. But just be sure that we are having a lot of fun. I will give a really short description of what we did yesterday. In the afternoon after the Chinese lessons we took a tour of Kaohsiung. The first stop that we took was of a museum. It was fun, but still nothing to write home about. After that, we went to the former British consulate, which was really awesome. The view was incredible and well worth the trip. On one side of the building you could see a great view of the ocean and a couple of docks, and on the other side was one of the best views of the Kaohsiung skyline. I imagine that if we went at nighttime it would be absolutely spectacular. We went to the Dream Mall and that is where we ate dinner. The Dream Mall is just a really big mall that is Western in its style. One of the cool features is that it has a ferris wheel on the top of the 9 story building, so I imagine that it would also offer a really good view if you were willing to fork out the NT150. The final stop of the night was the Love River. It's also really nice and relaxing at night. As you might figure, it's a good place to take a significant other.

As for the days activities, in the afternoon we listened to a lecture on Taiwan and its position in the international world. It sounds like an interesting topic, especially for me, but it ended up being really boring. For part of the time I even had trouble staying awake. He was very scattered in his thoughts and I was pretty disappointed overall. After that we played dodge ball. The rules here are a bit different. There is only one ball that is used and there are people that surround the opposing team on the outside. Nothing happens if you catch the ball. Basically, the games are really slow and go on for a long time. All in all, it wasn't very exciting.

The highlight of the day was going to the Night Market. It is on of the bigger ones in Kaohsiung. A button fell off on one of my pairs of shorts so one of the things that I got there was a belt for NT100. It is nothing special, but at least it will hold my pants up. I stayed with Craig from England and Christine from Indonesia. Christine is one of the helpers in the program who is fluent in Chinese, English, and Indonesian (?). We also played a game where they have air-soft guns and you have to shoot all of the balloons.

It was really funny because Craig had never shot a gun before because of the strict

gun laws in the UK so we had a UK vs. US challenge. He ended up winning because I tried to be a hotshot and not use the sights which ended up being a poor decision. Oh well, it was still fun. For the prize, we pooled our points together and got a Sponge Bob light. Finally, the three of us all got about a pint sized Heineken green tea, which of course was delicious. After that we went bowling for a little bit, but weren't even able to complete the game because of the 10:30 curfew that the school enforces. If you aren't in by 10:30, you can't even get into the campus. So we had to leave the game before we could get to the 10^th frame, but at least the cost was only NT60 for the shoes and the game. The taxi ride split four ways was NT25 more. All in all, it was a fun evening and I am looking forward to tomorrow for the first culture night.

There are students from 8 different countries here, and tomorrow each of the groups have to do a traditional dance or theatre. It should actually be a lot of fun because nobody really wants to dance in front of the group, so it could provide some interesting moments. The three Americans here are going to get funky funky funky and do the Cha Cha Slide as our dance. We are going to tie it to traditional line dancing. It should be enjoyable. Alright, we'll see when I get around to blogging next. Opening Ceremony for the World Games is less than a week away!