Arg! Cijin Island

July 18

In the afternoon one of the things we did was go to a ship-building facility. They are rated the 5th best in the world and specialize in luxury yachts. I wasn't sure whether the tour would be fun or not. It ended up being pretty bland. One of the coolest parts of the tour was the offices. They are swank. The architects designed the building like a yacht and the offices were really nice. They used some of the best furniture that I have seen. It definitely makes having a desk job there more relaxing. However, other than that, the tour itself was pretty boring.

We also went to the Cijin island. It is an island just off the coast of Kaohsiung City. We went to the beach, but were not even allowed to get on the sand. It was kind of lame. But after going to the ocean, we went to an old military fort that had some great views. They also had my favorite sign that I have ever seen there.


For dinner we went to a seafood place and it was really good. The system is simple. Each plate costs NT100 and you just order whatever you want. The portions are designed for bigger groups. Our table must have gone through at least 12 different dishes. The food was good, but still cannot compare to the meal that I had at my home stay.

After dinner we went to another night market near the island. Or on it, I'm not exactly sure. Anyways, I spent the time talking to a Chinese girl, Jiang Lai. We just walked around for awhile and went down to Love River for a few minutes before having a dessert where they use shaved ice on top of fruit with milk. It was pretty tasty.

World Games Begin!

July 16

There are aboriginal dancers in this picture, they are just hard to see

What a day! It was easily the best day that I have had since arriving here. In the afternoon, Wenzao brought in a Chinese yo-yo group. They are also known as diablos (the spell check wanted me to change that to diabetes). I saw a group a while back that came to a church. I was expecting a similar performance with these guys. Little did I know that these guys in Taiwan are the best in the world. The tricks that they performed were nothing short of spectacular. For example, one of the tricks that I liked was essentially an around the world where he only held one stick and swung around the other. With a normal yo-yo, the trick is not impressive. However, when the yo-yo is not attached to the string it becomes much better. Other tricks they did included wrapping around body parts and swinging the diablo like a mad man. After that, we were able to try it ourselves. I found out that I'm actually kind of decent with them. I am considering bringing a set back with me because it would be a fun activity to do in my free time.

While that alone would have been the highlight of pretty much any day here, it still cannot compare to the Opening Ceremony of the 2009 World Games in Kaohsiung. We were able to attend through the Wenzao program. We didn't have to pay a dime for the tickets. The show was amazing. After learning so much about the Taiwanese culture being here for this long it made the show even better. They highlighted the aboriginal groups as well as did more modern things. I liked when they did the part where a bunch of people on scooters came out because it really is part of Taiwan. Whenever I see a scooter from now on, I will instantly think of my time in Taiwan.

My favorite part was the walkout with the athletes. Since the US was one of the last countries to be called, I was very antsy to cheer for them. I was able to get an American flag through security (that's another story, I was very close to not getting it in because it was too big) and was standing up and cheering throughout the ceremony. When the US was called I screamed as loud as I could and waved the flag. I can't even count how many different people that have pictures of me doing this, because there were a lot of people that turned around and took pictures. But it was still a lot of fun. Considering how short this post is to others is kind of weird. It's just hard to describe. But it was still spectacular.

More pictures here. A slide show taken by a professional is here.

How Many Abodiginals Do You See Modeling?

July 14

Today was yet another fun day. In the afternoon we took a trip to the Taiwan Aboriginal Park. There are something like 14 tribes native to the island, and each have many different rituals and cultures. We watched a performance of some of the cultures. The show was hit or miss as far as the individual scenes. My favorite part was actually the welcoming, where they played many different percussion instruments. I am a sucker for percussion acts.

After that we were able to explore some of the different areas in the park. One of the things that they did during the performance was use a rope swing. It was different from other swings because there are two ropes that come off the sides. The job of the person on the swing is just to sit, because two other people get on the sides of the swing and pull the person back and forth. We were able to go to an area that had one of the rope swings and I was able to go. It was really relaxing, but really taxing on the people that have to help you out. My time on the swing was probably about a minute long.

The highlight of the day was still the restaurant that we ate at afterwards. It served aboriginal food, which was alright, but that wasn't the best part. The best part was the spectacular view. We were well outside of the city of Kaohsiung, but off in the distance we were able to see some of the tall buildings. It was really cool because they have the Kaohsiung 85, which is 85 stories high. In the city it looks like a tall building, but from the distance it appears dwarf the other buildings. Closer to where we were, we were still in the middle of a mountain so the view closer was also great. As Jake was telling me, it would be a great place to throw a party and have a few drinks with friends with an amazing view.

I apologize for no pictures, especially since the whole post is about things that are best seen, but my camera batteries were depleted so I couldn't take any pictures. I will try to ask around to find some. If I am successful I will edit this post to include them.

Bardom

July 13

Today was another pretty fun day. We started off by having our first Chinese class of the second week. Things are starting to get a little bit better since we started to cover numbers and food, things that are much more practical to know than just “I am from the United States.” Still, this is a very challenging language to learn but I am trying hard to learn new words. Now when I listen to conversations in Mandarin, I try to see what words I recognize. Usually I can recognize at least a couple of them.

In the afternoon, one of the activities that we did was learn how to make tea. It sounds really simple, but there are actually quite a few steps that you need to perform. I was sitting at the same table as a girl from Japan, two Chinese, and a guy from Thailand. I joked that Americans only know how to put a teabag into a cup and add water. There are many different elements to the process. One of the cups is only used to smell the tea. One of the pots is only used to filter the tea. It was actually a lot of fun because I really enjoy hanging out with people from different cultures. Now that we've been here for a while, people are starting to get more comfortable talking to people from different areas which makes for a lot of fun.

In the evening we had a free night where we were able to go out and do whatever we want (until our 10:30 curfew of course). I went with three Koreans and a Chinese guy that teaches in Korea. He is fluent in Chinese, Korean, and English. We went to a local restaurant where the cost for each of us came to about NT45. It is so nice to eat dinner here for a little more than one US dollar.

After that I tried to get the people that were around to go out and do something. A lot of them were not too enthused, so I ended up going with a Korean guy, a Taiwanese girl, and a Korean girl. We went to a local bar that we discovered is owned by a Canadian guy that looks like he's only about 30 years old. The only problem with the place was the prices. A pitcher of the cheaper beer still ran at NT360. It's weird that the food here remains pretty cheap here no matter where you go, but some of the bars charge a substantial amount. Whatever. We split the pitcher three ways and just talked for awhile. After that we played steel-tipped darts. Apparently I was the only one who had played before, so we played a 1 v. 3 game. I would guess that I still won half of the time. After that, we went back at around 10 to meet curfew, but I ended up talking with more people 'til about 1:30 in the morning. I still can't believe how many dirty words the Brits can think of.

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!

Independence Day Half a World Away

July 4

Today I made the trek from Chiayi to Kaohsiung (pronounced Gow-shung). As a side note, try breaking the habit of typing “sh” when pronouncing that sound. I have to remind myself every time I write it that the “h” comes before the “s.” Anyways, I left the familiarity of the practice hotel where I had lived the whole time I have been here (except for my time in the Philippines). After cleaning the place, which took longer than expected, I got a taxi and went down to the local train station. An hour and 15 minute train ride later I was in Kaohsiung (that took me at least 5 seconds to type that time). Somehow I got confused on where to go and took an emergency exit down to the main level. Yup, even with all of this traveling I am still an idiot when it comes to simple things. I am able to travel to different countries, but don't expect me to find the stairs.

I met two of the people from Wenzao University, Scott and Tina. As Ray and Emilie pointed out, Tina is a very common English name for the Taiwanese to adopt. As they say, the Taiwanese “are still stuck in the '60s” when it comes to American names. They took me to a street close to the station where I was able to get lunch. Since they speak English I was actually able to know what I was ordering. The pork noodles were tasty and cheap. The meal cost NT50.

After that, we went back to the station and took the MRT to the Kaohsiung Arena stop. The students told me that the KMRT was different than the MRT in Taipei, but I thought it was pretty similar. It only opened a year ago, so the facilities were really nice, just like the rest of the public transportation facilities. Luckily Scott and Tina were with me because there was one difference when getting the token. In Taipei, you just look at the map and the fare is on each stop so you just enter the token amount in the computer. On the KMRT, there is a map that you physically have to press the stop you want. It is really convenient, but the map was so new that I wasn't able to tell that I had to press it. I just kept hitting 20 and wondering why the screen wasn't changing. But once the snafu had been settled we were on our way.

From the stop we took a taxi to the school, and the school covered the fare. Awesome! They gave me a quick little tour of the campus and then took me to the dorms. The dorms are also in great condition. The main problem that I discovered is that there are no mattresses at all. Apparently when they said to bring bedding materials, they meant all bedding materials. It looks like I will be spending the next three weeks sleeping on a wooden board. Oh well, I can tough it out.

While I was in the room, they also made me fill out a few forms and explained some of the rules of the building. The best part about going through the rules was finding out that I was already breaking one. I found out that alcohol was not allowed in the dorms, which makes sense. Normally, this would not be a problem, as I am not a degenerate drunk and don't carry booze on my person. However, when we got out of the cab, we made a brief stop at a tea stand. I decided to try my first Heineken green tea. When they were going over the rules I was still holding the tea in my hand. Tina and I both just looked at each other and decided that I was just holding tea. Crisis averted.

By the way, Heineken green tea is pretty awesome. It tastes much like green tea, except it still has the kick from the beer. Since I liked that, I am going to try the recommendation to go with the Heineken green tea with passion fruit next time. I am surprised that they don't serve it in America seeing as it combines the two amazing ingredients of beer and tea. It's gotta be one of the healthiest alcoholic beverages on the market. After drinking it, my body seemed to be confused. It didn't know whether to be tired or awake. Right now I still feel kind of drowsy.

And that's basically where I'm at right now. Both Scott and Tina had to do other things, so I am just sitting in the room typing this up waiting for 6:30 to come when we will go out for dinner. This is not going to be posted immediately because there is a problem with the internet. The school configured the internet so that you need to type the IP address in before you can access the network. Unfortunately, they only have the instructions to do it for Windows operating systems. Since my computer runs on Ubuntu Linux we were not able to figure out how to configure it. Later on we will try again. If worse comes to worse I can always borrow other peoples computers long enough to send out e-mails and update the blog.

Anyways, I am really excited to be here and already had a chance to look at the itinerary and it looks amazing! There are so many trips and other events that I am really looking forward to. And I would like to thank Taiwan's Ministry of Education in advance because there is no way that this could cost $250US without their help. With all of the stuff that we are going to do, the actual cost for all of this is probably at least three times what I paid. All in all, it looks like this is going to be an awesome three weeks. I'll be sure to keep writing for the blog, even if I am not able to post the entries very often. Take care friends.

I'm Lovin' it

So today was my second full day alone in Chiayi.It would have been my sixth in a row here had the whole visa thing not been a problem. Since there is not a whole lot going on right now, I will talk about my dinner tonight. I decided to go somewhere exotic. I chose...McDonalds. Yeah, I know that I should be trying all sorts of new things while I'm over here, but I haven't had too much to eat the past couple of days so I decided that I needed an influx of calories. McDonalds was happy to oblige.

When we were in Kending, we ate at McDonalds both mornings and ordering was easy. We just pointed to what we wanted and it worked out just fine. Here in Chiayi it was not so simple. I tried the pointing technique was unsuccessful and the girl at the register was kind of scared that we weren't able to communicate. Luckily, she brought over someone else who knew enough English to take my order and the crisis was averted.

One of the things that I have wanted to try since arriving to Taiwan is the Super Big Mac. I actually don't know what it is really called since I still know a grand total of one Chinese character. But anyways, the brilliance behind this beast of a burger is that instead of two all beef patties, they double it to four. And let me tell you, four is greater than two. The only complaint that I have is that it loses some of the special sauciness because the beef to sauce ratio increases. But other than that small detail it was pretty great.

Before she left, my sister and I decided that the only reason this beast of a burger isn't sold in the US is because health advocates would rip them apart for the decision. On a side note, why do we call them health advocates anyway? How many people are against health? Anyways, I think that if this burger made its way to the states it would be a big success.