Life and Luodong

Well…I’ve done a bunch of things but mostly just walking to vaguely famous places in Taipei, having a look around. Then heading home to hide from the heat of the day. Also this time, travel to Taiwan feels different.  I equate it more to moving to New York than going aboard. The language and people are familiar to me, I’m making new friends as my program gears up to start. Honestly in my mind nothing is really strange and new for myself. But that really isn’t fair to the people back home, so I will try to update with some pictures, maybe they will have little explanations for with them. I’m usually good about writing through my experiences but it doesn’t feel like a short term impermanent situation. The end date is flexible and dependent of multiple factors. So do forgive me if I am less prompt with updates.

National Palace Museum

The famous Jade Bok Choy and Sun Yat Set Memorial

Flower with Taipei 101 in the distance

Amanda and I hanging out in a mall

CKS Memorial Hall

My hard earned ticket

Yilan rice patties

    That being said I did actually head out of Taipei this weekend to go visit my friend Cassidy in Luodong, which is on the eastern side of Taiwan in Yilan county. Of course my going there took a bit of work. I went to the NTU club fair before hand to go check out a few clubs, though I will have a busy schedule I know I can probably going a single club. I’m looking for something that will allow for me to work out a bit as well as make friends with more Taiwanese people. In that time my rainboots, which I had bought and brought for Taiwan, totally broke on me. I lost the sole of my shoe. I walked back with no shoe bottom, in the rain, with a wind broken umbrella. Not my finest moment. I ate lunch quickly and began my journey to Luodong.
    Getting to the bus terminal was easy enough via public transit. Then buying my ticket was kinda amusing. I told the lady Luodong, but she decided that I had somehow made a mistake and actually wanted to go to Yilan city (a more famous city close by). It took me explaining I knew someone in Luodong, before she realized that indeed, my destination should be Luodong. The bus ride to Luodong was through the mountains and really quite fun. Yilan county is an area that grows rice, so we popped out fo the mountains into rice fields. It was really quite lovely.
    Getting to see Cassidy and hang out with her was great we spent most of the night talking about life and our experiences here. Then we went got some food at her favorite spot, followed by wandering around the immediate area and checking out her normal neighborhood routine. Tomorrow the plan is to do a touristing and end with the famous night market in Luodong.

Rain and Wandering

Well another few days passed and few things have happened. Saturday was mostly going out and exploring the city. We went to famous walking area, call Ximen Ding. It’s looks a little bit like Harujuku in Japan. So it’s a famous shopping district with a bunch of little shops. We wandered around there, just looking around and people watching bit. It’s also a famous historical area as the Japanese colonial rule, there were several buildings built during that time. I went to the most famous one call the Red house. It used to have a Shinto shrine around it, but I think that had been down after WWII. Wandering around took most of the afternoon. Which was a lovely way to pass the time.
    Then that evening we all went out as house for drinks. It was fun, most of the time I was helping everyone figure out what cocktails were what. It was a nice bonding evening for everyone. I am starting to get to know all of my roommates a bit better which makes living in the house even more fun. Our plans were almost canceled when the rains were so bad, we could barely hear anyone speaking over the sound of the water hitting the house. I guess we are entering the last little bit of the rain season. In the end though, the rains let up and we were able to go out.

Trinh, Josh, myself hanging out in our living room

    Today was little bit interesting. Most the day was spent inside due to the heavy rains sweeping through the area. I called and spoke with a few people back at home. Then there was a bit of an issue with my sim card. I had to go back to the provider in order to get it fixed, which lead me to dragging poor Nick, one of my Taiwanese roommates, along with me. While I feel like I might have done the encounter by myself, everyone was put at ease with the presence of a person playing a translator role.  On the way, I slipped on the slick sidewalks and fell really hard. Even as I write this some hours later it still hurts. I have a rather spectacular bruise on my leg. But I was able to get my sim card sorted without issue. I now have a permanent number in Taiwan that I can pay as I go.    I headed out again into the rain in order to meet yet another Taiwanese friend. I invited Josh along because he was bored out of his mind sitting inside all day. We went to a large book store that had multiple stories. We went to the little food court at the bottom and got some Taiwanese food. It was yummy, we then spent the next hour roaming around the bookstore. We popped out to go to a cute little french pastries. It was really delicious. It was wonderful seeing Amanda again and she really seemed interested in going around and traveling with me when she had time. We headed home where Nelson, another Taiwanese roommate, had left donuts for all of us with a really sweet note. So far, I think everything is going really well.

Notice the misspelling of 'Nelson'

Amanda

Josh

yuuuuum

Lazy Summer Days

09/7-8/18

    Sorry I didn’t update recently. Mostly because what I have been up to has been fairly boring. I had to back to NTU to complete the rest of my registration. Josh is in the same program, so I took him with me. He was able to get everything done relatively quickly, while I am still working on mine. Then we went out to my old stomping ground of Gongguan. We met my friend from the hotel Yuhua, there and headed out to lunch. It took a while for her to find us, and for us to eat but we made it eventually. Then we stopped off at a shaved ice place while it rained down buckets.
    The afternoons are so hot here it’s really hard to do much. I find myself tending towards staying side and waiting for the hottest part of the day to pass. That evening I made dinner for the house and we sat around assigning chores and what not so one person doesn’t have to do the cleaning. So we’ll see how well everyone follows their assignments. I suspect the first month it will be ok.
    The following day was a day of bureaucracy. I had to go to the Immigration center to register with the Taiwanese government. I will be getting my ARC or Alien Resident Certificate, which will act similarly to a Taiwan ID card. It will allow for me to move freely in and out of the country as well as receive my scholarship money. It’ll be good for one year, and then will need to either be renewed or I’ll leave Taiwan. But that whole application process took all morning to do. Mostly due to waiting in line, then I had to go print a document that I had thought wasn’t necessary but apparently it was… Gotta love the red tape of governments. But in the end it is all good, and in two weeks I will be picking up my card.
    Again, the afternoon was spent hiding from the mid-day rain and heat. That evening everyone in the house met up to eat dinner, then go see a movie. It was decided that we would go see “The Nun”, which is a horror flick. Honestly it was a terrible movie, and not that scary save for the jump scares. I had more fun watching my four companions absolutely lose their minds. They were extremely jumpy about the whole thing. So I kinda laughed my way through the movie. Nothing about it was scary. So That’s been me for the rest of the week. I suspect that not much will happen until school starts up, otherwise just going out and looking around the city. If something fun happens I will update, but otherwise it’s going to be a boring few weeks in terms of travel.

Even more Friends

09/05/18

    Today started pretty uninterestingly. I didn’t have anything planned, so I figured I might wander around the neighborhood, but life had other plans. Around 10:30, a new housemate arrived. His name is Josh, and he is Canadian. After he gets his contract all squared away I offer him some lunch that I was making. He was really sweet trying to finish it all but it was waaaay too spicy for him (oops?). But we chatted and I recommended that he try to stay awake for as long as he could, since he’d just gotten off his plane. I took him on a quick trip to the Wellcome (another supermarket), for basics like drinkable water and what not. In the end he ended up taking a nap, which is fair when you run out of things to do and it’s hot.
    There were actually three move ins today. First was Josh, then Nelson, and finally Suho. Nelson is Taiwanese (his Chinese name is Jianlong) and Suho who is Korean. I spoke a bit with Nelson, and he realized I could cook. He asked if he brought some for if I could cook it. I explained my dietary choices in life, and he agreed.  So that evening he returned with a gym bag full of random foods. It was truly comical. I made a simple noodle soup, carrots, onion, garlic, with noodles and three eggs dropped into a chicken broth. Josh was awoken for the meal, to which he seemed really happy to eat. It was deeply amusing for me to watch people eat my food and then praise it. Mostly because, this particular meal was not a hard one to make, not even slightly.
    After dinner I took the new housemates out to get some Shaved ice in the night market. This also served as a second tour of the area for Josh. I will say that through this time there was constant conversation. It’s was really nice to chat with everyone and have, what felt like a group of friends to hang out with. So after we got a cold treat we went back to the house. Nelson’s personality is really funny, he is really relaxed but also very open. So he went a knocked on a bunch of doors and suddenly we were having a house group discussion. It was really nice and very quickly everyone was laughing and joking around. we wrote our names on the board so everyone would have an easier time to remember them. There was also about four languages being thrown around the table. I had a wonderful time. Before, as I had mentioned, I wasn’t too sure about the house, but now I am really pleased I chose to move in here. I think it’ll be a really good time (hopefully I don’t eat these words a few months down the road).

New friends!

    I’ve got my morning routine down pat at this point. Wake up,  start breakfast toast, put way dishes while water is boiling, make coffee and read. Which is why I came to Taiwan a bit earlier than was totally necessary. Today I headed out to NTU in order to get the registration process going for classes. I have a list of things to do for my scholarship and they all start with getting a proof of enrollment. I was really pleased I was able to do all of this in Chinese. I am about halfway registered but my paper will be ready by Thursday. Which potentially means I can get over to the NIA for registration before the end of the week. I am trying to have everything done before my placement test next week, so I won’t have to make multiple trips.
    It took a good portion of the morning to be able to get everything done (just lots of running around and peaking to different people). I was able to return home. I then popped over to the super market to grab some food to make dinners. I then spent the next couple hours chatting with Gin who was hanging out in the living room. Sh and Yoko are really fun, it just took a little bit to get to know one another. We mostly just talked about traveling and studying in other countries. It was lovely, i found out Gin is going to be doing her Master’s degree in Biology, it’ll be in Chinese which is why she is studying now. Yoko is trying to improve her job prospects by getting a little Chinese under her belt. It’s a bit amusing as we all know a little bit of each other’s languages. I can generally understand Yoko’s Japanese, though I can not speak. Gin and Yoko both speak Korean and Gin and I speak English. Together we are just an adventure of languages.
    So The final stop for the day was after dinner, Gin and Yoko wanted to go to the shopping district, Wufenpu. If you’ll remember from the last time I was in Taiwan, I went to Wufenpu a lot. Not that I spent money but it was a good way to spend an afternoon window shopping. So I took them along a five year path to the shopping district. We spent a good couple hours looking and wandering around. I really enjoyed my self and we were probably having too much fun taking pictures in a random alley way.

Front to Back: Gin, Yoko, Myself

    We finished out the adventure with a wander around our neighborhood’s night market. I am getting old so it was ten at night and I was about to fall asleep where I was sitting. But I would say it was a really good time. I am ecstatic that I have made some friends in the house. We have three new people arriving tomorrow, so we shall see how that goes.

A Day of fun Coincidences

09/03/18

   So I woke up today determined not to waste the day. Yesterday I had gotten to late of a start to make it all the way to 象山(Xiangshan or elephant mountain). But this morning I had enough pep in my step, so decided to get up and get on with it. Though to be honest, I was having a bit of lazy morning anyway. So I get up, get dressed in my hiking clothes and head on out. I took the subway to the last stop and began walking. The stop is well within walking distance, but I was worried about over heating before I got there. Next time I might just suck it up… Anyway so I get there and I am mentally preparing myself for this hike. It’s stairs all the way to the top. I remember the struggle of it when I climbed up there in 2013.
    So I get started on the climb, and immediately the sweating started. I am instantly soaked in my own water. Not that people around me were doing much better, but I was passing a bunch of people, who were commenting on my red face and sweaty self. At the first landing I stopped for a picture, and there was an American guy there, we exchange phones for picture and I continued on (remember this person, he will become important later on). I keep on climbing, stopping at different landing. Suddenly, I am at the top, I was shocked. For all the memories I have of climbing this trail, it was over in less than twenty minutes. Then I remember it’d had been five years since I had done this trail and I took a moment to think about the difference of me in Taiwan then and me in Taiwan now. Many of my goals, lifestyle, and personal beliefs have changed. So having reached the top, I was unsure what to do, so I figured I would just walk back to home to get in the exercise I wanted. I turned around and headed back down.

Aron took this picture before we knew we'd be friends...

    As I was heading down, I ran into the American again. He was having a breather about half way up, so I stopped to chat. After a moment, I kinda invited myself along on his upward journey. His name is turned out as Aron, from Hawaii, though he was currently living in Japan. We ended up wandering around the different paths in the mountain. We managed to find on of the many Daoist temples on the mountain. Then we wandered our back down taking a path I had never been on before. We were also being followed by butterflies, which I sorta of loved. Butterflies are believed to be either ancestors or the are a sign of fate. I was followed by one all the way through the mountain (at least I liked to believe it was the same one). Aron and I chatted the whole talking about why we were in Taiwan and what we were up to. It was really fun. After about an hour of wandering we made it off the mountain.

Temples!!

    It was lunch time and he wanted a rice bowl, there is place right down the way from my house so I took him there. Again just chatting and enjoying ourselves. We then wandered around the night market during the day. I was hoping that Ice World would be open but it wasn’t. So I walked Aron back to the subway and said good bye. It was really lovely meeting someone and spending a few hours making friends. Travel is such a wonderful thing!

    I then headed home for more water and a much needed shower. Then I spent a good long while in my room just reading and relaxing for bit. When I got up to make dinner, one of the helpers for the house came by announcing that we would be getting a new fridge. And then suddenly I met all my roommates. I met Yoko, who has once more proven to me that I can still understand Japanese even if I can’t speak it. She hasn’t started studying Chinese yet, so apparently speaks Japanese, Korean, a little English, and not Chinese. My Vietnamese roommate(Gin, I have learned), I have now learned through the help of Yoko explained to me Gin speaks Korean, but just started with Chinese. Now we understand one another much better and I am really freaking happy. We spent a good hour talking to one another with our different languages, trying to figure it out. I chatted with Nick too, and he gave me a hard time about my spoken Chinese, which is fair, I super rusty when it comes to speaking. I then proceed to tease him a bunch about his English, but it was all in good fun. I end the day feeling much better about my living situation. I have already made plans to go with Gin and Yoko to Wufenpu, a shopping district. All in all, I’d say it wasn’t a wasted day.

Lazy Sunday

The 101 from the end of my street

My street!

9/02/18

    Another day gone by, and it’s certainly less exciting than the previous day. I got all the things needed for coffee which was magical. I didn’t have any coffee yesterday and it was rough, i fully admit to a caffeine addiction, I’ll kick the habit when I’m dead.  I cooked my first set of meals in the kitchen. The kitchen isn’t so bad, but in typical college student fashion a lot of the roommates do not cook at all. I saw Nick again and asked him a few questions about the kitchen to which he had no idea. The only other person I’ve seen in the kitchen is my Vietnamese roommate (I think her name is Mei, but I am honestly not sure. We barely speak when we run into one another. Language barriers for the win). So I cleaned up the kitchen after she’d hadn’t really done much to it other than stack dishes in the sink. I made a tasty rice stir fry for myself and used my new tupperware to store a day or two of the food. I talked to her about the cleaning and I think we’ve reached an understanding. Either that or I’ll start up early morning clean the kitchen routine.
    I then popped out for a couple hours to explore the area. I walked over to the Taipei 101 to do some tourist and people watching. I wasn’t disappointed, between the Falong gong protestors, traffic controllers whistling at cars pulling illegal maneuvers, and gaggles of tourists I was entertained for a while. I really enjoy watching humans interacting in public spaces. I used to go people watching in China, and I suspect it’ll be another past time here in Taiwan. I was thinking I might go hiking today but I was too late out, and it was the heat of the day so I decided that I’d go another day.
    Headed back to the apartment for the much needed A/C break. Now this entire time I was out, I had my umbrella. Did it rain? Nope. Were there clouds? Yep, but no rain. So after I relaxed for a while. I once more headed out for different direction exploration. Now, there was cloud cover, lightening and thunder, but was there rain??? Nope, not a drop. The day I bring my umbrella the earth decided no rain on Taipei?? Story of my life… I am really starting to like the area I am living in, and I’ve found much better grocery stores. Though it’ll still be a while before I am totally settled, I am feeling a little more comfortable. This week I am hopefully meeting a few friends along with starting the immigrant registration process. As for a what I’ll do tomorrow I’m not totally sure. There is a park close by so I might go there and wander around. Best to be out of the house and exploring. As promised so pictures(mostly of the Taipei 101, click on them to make the bigger!)

Travel around with Cassidy

09/01/18

    The day started off fairly uninteresting. I made breakfast, rice and egg combo for the win! I was awake long before any of my flatmates, and without a real plan I jut said in my room and relaxed for a while. I’m still a little jet laggy, I hope that this feeling of exhaustion will start to fade soon. Waking up tired is never fun. My one mission was to locate a better market than the first one I went to, and I found it at PXmart. I was able to buy food much cheaper there, and get a few household items. Specifically hangers to hang up my clothes.
    Once one o’clock rolled around, I headed out to meet my friend Cassidy at Main Station. Cassidy, you may recall, was my friend I met while studying in China, we lived together during that year and have been close friends for a long time. While I was waiting for her, I helped a Polish lady with some WiFi difficulties. It was amusing to watch her asses me. She stopped in front looked me up and down. Then walked away for a short while, only to return and finally ask me for some help. She was able to figure out where her friend was and by the time I had finished helping her, Cassidy had arrived. It was wonderful seeing her again. We hugged and then headed off for a late lunch.
    We ate at a famous beef noodle place by the Dongmen station called Yongkang Beef noodles. It was famous and therefore a little more expensive that is normal. But the meat was tasty. As we headed there it began to pour rain. And of course I forgot my umbrella, so I had was sharing with Cassidy. The rain was so hard that most people had taken shelter underneath over hangs rather than try to brave their way through. Cassidy and I attempted to get to the station but still managed to get soaking wet. we laughed our way through the whole thing. Next time I will bring my umbrella, even if it’s sunny outside.
    We took the train out to the IKEA, which was the goal of our little meet up. Once there it was a mater of locating priorities. For me that was a mattress topper, french press, and  a light blanket. IKEA is not a store you can move quickly through and in Taiwan it’s even more traffic jammed(hello, extreme population density). All in all we made it through in about two hours grabbing everything we needed. I managed to keep my costs under 100 USD and got everything I needed(moving to a new place is always so darn expensive!!). We hauled all that stuff back to my apartment, dropping it off quickly, before heading back out for dinner.
    It turned out Cassidy is actually very familiar with my neighborhood. She took to me to a rather tasty rice bowl place and then we went to the night market for a wander. Taiwan’s night markets are a culture unto themselves. Food, clothes, games and sometimes random items, and no two night markets are alike. It was my first time managing to stay awake long enough to go explore(even as I type this I am resting the urge to fall asleep). Now I feel less trapped in my room, and having explored a bit more I feel more confident about traveling around. Our last stop for the evening was shaved ice shop. We got condensed milk ice with mangos on top. Very refreshing, and delicious! After that I saw Cassidy off and went back to my home to set up what I had bought. Overall and wonderful and productive day.
    Now you may be wondering why there aren’t many pictures and to be honest I just haven’t taken yet. However tomorrow, I hope to get some shots of the neighborhood and get them up for everyone to see. I’ve just been settling in so picture taking hasn’t really been on my mind.