1 st week in a Dormitory...

First things first. This is a sign I saw when I went to a restroom... I could not stop laughing.

I forgot to tell you all about this delicious shaved mango ice cream. Notice that the mango is fresh, they would never serve it frozen. Loved it. We ate this in the Food Court close to the Shilin Night Market!




I have been holding off on writing this next entry for a little bit now. Mostly because I have not done anything extremely exciting- I blame the weather!
For example, this morning I had made great plans to go to Yangmingshan National Park. Only to wake up to crazy thunderstorms... I decided I would be brave and go anyway, but I would check the hourly weather. Epic-fail. It is going to rain from now 9am until 11pm. My next step was to look up activities I can do in a rainy day- no luck there either!
As of right now I am still deciding whether I should just go to Taipei in the rain, and visit the Miniature Museum and grab some lunch then head back to my dorm ...or not!

Let's go back to what has happened in this last week. I have been very fortunate to have met two wonderful friends that live in the International Student Dorm. Ruth and Maria-Liz, they are el-Salvadorian and Paraguayan respectively. Who would have thought that I would be speaking Spanish in Taiwan?? That's right..me neither! Do you know what this means? I have friends to watch the World Cup games. I am thoroughly excited about that!

Maria-Liz took me out to dinner earlier this week. We went to a Thai restaurant, boy am I a fan of Thai food. I am not sure if I had ever tried it but all I know if I love it! I will be going back there more often, maybe even tonight.This is what was left of my dinner. Sorry I forgot to take the picture before I ate it! Ops..Next time!

One more food picture! This week I have been eating "lunch boxes" at work for one reason or another, mostly they there are events I seem to be eating them. Of course I am not complaining, I really enjoy them. Yesterday I was offered a choice of what kind of lunch box I wanted, I chose the friend chicken... well I got what I asked for!!!!See if for yourself.

You cannot see from the picture, the chicken is on the left and my lunch box is awesome, admit it! Notice that my juice is the size of a child's juice box in America. This is an observation and not a complaint.

Keep reading!!!

First day of Internship.....

Today was my first of my internship. Can you believe I did not feel uncomfortable? I know this is a new place and like every time I go to a new place I feel different. But people really went above and beyond today to make me feel at home. It was a nice touch. My supervisor called me this morning to make sure I got on the bus, then she waited for me on the bus stop, so I would not get lost or feel lost at any moment. She walked me through everything I will do, took me to meet everyone I will be working for.

Today I met Polar Bear, he is a very nice person. His real name is Ernest, well at least it is his English name. I was able to participate and contribute to a graduate course today. I am so glad I paid attention in class at USC. I used a lot of what I learned today to explain the Higher Education system in the US among other things.
I have to continue to emphasize just how nice everyone is here. I got to my dorm this afternoon, and realized that I did not have a mattress. I know- why would there be a bed without a mattress? Well, I have no idea, and I didn't check. Okay, backtrack; my bed is a bunk-bed with my desk underneath. Now you have a better idea of what it looks like-- here is a picture.

I mentioned to my roommate who quickly said, I have two mattresses I will let you use one for tonight. What? Why would you have two? Well it turns out these are the ultra-thin pads some people use for sleep. Now that I think about it, it will be good for my back! The point is, she was willing to give up half of her cushion for a night for a complete stranger... I have no words to describe how compassionate and caring people have been throughout this trip.

As most of you have heard by now, Joe and I closed on a house earlier today! So, when I get back I will live in a different home. That's right, Joe will be moving us out and in without my help or input-which can be dangerous..hahah jk! I trust him.

I got to talk to my mom and dad today and I was nice! :) I miss them a lot too.

Can't wait to see what happens tomorrow!!!!

Gaby

Making my own Hakka Tea...

Short Trips around Northern Taiwan

Yesterday we went on a long day trip. We first went to Beipu, then to Yingge followed by Sansia.

Beipu




This city is known as the center of Hakka culture, especially for its special Hakkanese blends of tea and nuts called leicha. What you see in the picture is a map of the village we were we visited. I asked two new friends, Stella and little Ivan to stand with me in the picture!!! They are very nice and in fact they are what we might call in the US group/Orientation Leader for the icoming international students. According with what they told me, they are in charge to showing the new students around Taiwan. They were awesome. As always they made us feel at ease and welcome! One of them works part time in the office I will be interning for, I am looking forward to working with her!!! Although I have only been here for 2 weeks I have been able to connect with a number of people and this has enhanced the quality of this trip. I say thit because, it is important to interact with the locals when traveling and such interaction can be very difficult when you do not speak their native language. Lucky for me, they all speak English.


This is my Hakka Tea!

Back to the Hakka people, while we were there we got to make Hakka tea/Leicha. Below is a video of part of the process. Also, I have included a picture of the ingredients and if I remember correctly they were, green leaf, sesame seeds cooked and uncooked, green tea powder, sun flower seeds and I am forgetting on last ingredient- ops!
As you can see from the pictures it was a lot of fun! I enjoyed the process of making tea more than the actual tasting of it.





Yingge

It is a town located in Northern Taiwan as well. It is famous for its production of ceramics. ( If you want to know more just google it).
Since everything is so inexpensive here I feel like I can shop all day long and not feel like I broke the bank. This was one of those days...I usually dislike shopping because it means spending lots of money--but not here!

Taipei County Yingee Ceramics Museum

What a small world- this art exhibition belongs to a professor at the University of South Carolina.
Her name is Virginia Scotchie, she is the head of the ceramics department at USC. You can find more information about her and her work here: http://www.virginiascotchie.com/

Tiger Dance




Sansia




The main reason we visited this town was to see the Zushi Temple.

This is what wikipedia and our guide shared with us --Zushi Temple (袓師廟)- The most important religious site in Sanxia. Originally built in 1769 by Fukienese immigrants to Taiwan, it has been rebuilt three times, of which the last effort (beginning 1947) is the masterpiece of renown Taiwanese artist Li Meishu. It is considered by many to be the most intricately sculpted temple in Taiwan.






When I took this picture I wished for Joe's camera. I knew my camera would not do the scenery justice, but here is my best attempt. As you can see in the picture this a narrow street. It is not actually used for cars, which makes me very happy! I did not even see scooters come through either.

It was so hot yesterday I really thought I was going to melt. I think I will be bringing my umbrella out on sunny days, the Taiwanese have the right idea. They use their umbrellas as parasols... It works!!!

At night Rachel and I went to the Night Market, we are getting much better at ordering without having to struggle a little. We also had deliciously sweet mangoes. I know you all keep reading about me eating mango, but the U.S. does not have great tasting fruit in general. For example, I heard yesterday that not all grapes have seeds-- hummm... really? OK. We will leave it at that. I do not wish to start this kind of conversation on my travel blog!!!



One thing I learned today: In Taiwan, you can always find restrooms at Temples and MRT stops! This is very important to know, since restrooms are a scare commodity here along with trash cans.





GOING TO TAIPEI 101 today!

More to Taipei than just the Night Market

Lunch is served


This picture was taken at lunch yesterday. This was a celebratory lunch hosted by the MCU. If I had to pick a great meal thus far, this is it. The food was delicious and to top it off I got complemented for my chopstick skills. After a week here, I felt ready and compelled to try something I would never have otherwise---pig's stomach. Okay, so it was not delectable or something I would crave- but it was an experience. Growing up my parents always said, how do you know you don't like something you have never tried. Mae, Pai, I tried it ...mas nao gostei muito! ahahah

In the midst of great conversation and food, I did not realize there was a cooked chicken head on the table until someone pointed it out to me. Which makes me happy that I was not judging my food!!! It still did not make me uncomfortable, instead it made me think about a story a read in my Spanish Literature course called " La cabeza del cordero." It tells the story of a Spaniard who goes to Morocco for business and somehow finds himself at a distant relative's house for dinner, that is starting at him. He was served lamb with the head on the plate. Similar to the story, no one ate the chicken head although one of the students had wanted to. In class we had an in-depth discussion about the meaning of the head in the story.
Lucky for us yesterday, one of MCU staff member's told us one meaning. She shared with us that in the old days if you boss invited you for lunch and you were in a group and he ordered chicken you should be worried. Mainly because whoever was facing the head of chicken was being laid off. This was subtle way of dissmissing unwanted employees in a very symbolical way.




National Palace Museum


This is me in front of the National Palace Museum, as you probably guessed we were not allowed to take pictures inside! For the first time ever, I got a guided tour- well not with the guide- but the clicker and headphones. I apologize for the incorrect terminology. I was expecting to be wowed since most of the museums I have been to always charge a lot of money for it. I was disappointed with the gadget. I felt like I was a child and they were reading out loud to me what I read myself on the different items. Either way, now I know I do not like to use those and no longer should I wonder what they are like!

My favorite moment of this trip was when Rachel and I were sitting outside on the bench waiting for the students to meet us and this man walks up to us with a camera and motions something that allowed me to understand he wanted his picture taken. As a result, I got up and tried to take his camera from him. Only to realize what he wanted was a picture of RACHEL AND I with him! I felt like a supermodel, at least for a second! I am not sure if I have mentioned this before or not but we (the foreigners) seem to get a lot of attention here. The people are not afraid or embarrassed to just take pictures of us, I am not at all bothered. On the contrary, I find it very interesting and amusing that they want to photograph us. But when I stopped to think about it, I do not usually see a large number of foreigners or westerns here. So we are a novelty and like most people we are intrigued by the unknown. I am happy to comply and share their enthusiasm for the photo sessions!



KTV AKA Karaoke


As you can see from the screen I am rocking out to TLC "No scrubs!" Which reminds me of when I was younger, riding in my sister's car just cruising, we never had anywhere to go...we just liked to drive around! Miss you Pri!!!!!

For those of you who have never gone KTVing in Asia or at least in Japan and Taiwan this is a great cultural experience. I had wanted to do this when I visited Japan a couple of years ago, but it did not work out so I was thrilled to hear we would be doing it here! Once you arrive at this massive building, which looks more like a hotel. You get a ticket and you and all of your friends get endless food from a buffet area. Once you do that you hand your tray over to some really nice people who will deliver your food in your room! This service was helpful to me, seeing that I am very clumsy and we had to go down stairs to get to our designated room. The room has it own bathroom, a huge screen, 3 microphones, beautiful black couches and tables. The idea is for you to spend time with your friend while eating and watching them perform. I absolutely loved it. We stayed for at least 3 hour.

Here is a picture of the buffet.... oh yes, I had the sweet pork buns here too! These are the ones Joe makes sometimes.



This is it for now! Hope you are enjoying my trip as much as I am....

Fried Chicken Hearts and more....

Like I mentioned previously I wanted to try chicken hearts at the Market. As you can see there was ice around them, which is not something you see often here. While trying to communicate with the seller a girl was standing there and saw how hopeless I was and helped me-- this is typical Taiwanese behavior. I took the opportunity to ask her for any recommendations, she picked up a skewer with there round things in it. I kept thinking to myself, please do not let it be meat. I cannot eat another piece of meat ( most of you know that I am not a big meat eater, and I find that most of the foods we eat always have meat, even when you don't expect it to !)
Lucky for it, it was deep fried bread- well so I think it was! I never got to ask her exactly what it was. We had a short conversation where I learned that she was a student at MCU!
About the chicken hearts, they were good. I had never had them fried before, it was a little spicy but nonetheless it was tasty!

As I sit here in my room to write this I keep telling myself I need to keep blogging more and more because I know how important it is for me to remember everything I am feeling and experiencing. In all honesty, this is really hard.
Rachel and I decided to be a little more adventurous and go to the Food Court. It is basically what you think it is, a place full of restaurants in close proximity. Now, the main problem was we could not communicate very well with people. After looking around for a menu we found a place with an over simplified English menu. As a sat down, I looked at Rachel and said. I hope I did not order what the people next to us are eating...and of course. When I got my plate, it was just that! A sticky, crab omelet. The taste was good, the texture was interesting to say the least!!!

More to come soon!!! Headed to a Hot springs today!!

Taroko Gorge, Hualien and Pingling

Trying to keep up with everything we have been doing! I have to give it up to the students I am with, they are going around full force and resting very little from what I can tell! :)

Let me back track, for six weeks this summer I will be in Taiwan. For the first 2 weeks I will be with a undergraduate study abroad program mostly seeing how a group study abroad works. Following those two weeks I will move to another campus of University and learn about their student affairs.

Back to this trip, since their study abroad program is only two weeks our schedule is very condensed. As you can see in two days we visited three different places that are not too close together.

Taroko Gorge ( it is not pronounced like you think it is...I can assure you of that!) is a top tourist destination and after being there I can see why! It is absolutely gorgeous, I have not seen water more blue and beautiful. I really just wanted to swim, but that was not allowed.
Although the guide book said that this area is home to half of Taiwan's animal species, I only saw a wild rooster and heard a cicada. There was a trail we could follow and lead us pass some Aboriginal Houses. The trail we followed was the Shakadang Trail which follows the Shakadang River which is tinted by the limestone, which is the reason why it is so blue among other things.
-> This is a wild vegetable that grows in this part of Taiwan. I had the opportunity to eat it during lunch before going walking the trail. I really love the vegetable dishes I have tried here in Taiwan, in many cases more so then the meat ones. Of course if you know me, this is no surprise!

After this trail we went to Hualien, it is a city between the pacific and the mountains, tell me what else could you ask for! It was much calmer than Taipei. But this is where I ate my first Taiwanese breakfast. I am taking it slow making sure that my body agrees with everything and my mind is ready to try it!

In Hualien we ate in a restaurant where you cooked your own food- like the melting pot. We were given bowls that fit into the table and sat on hot plate. Then we chose seafood, beef or chicken. I started off asking for seafood then when I realized lots of things I am not used to eating would be on there I changed to chicken. I know I should have stuck with my decision, but I already feel like I eat very little as it is! Not because I don't want to eat more but because we eat little things all day long.

WOW this is a long entry! After that we spent the night at the Hotel- which was a wonderful place. As expected the staff was kind and helpful. The next day we ate lunch at "Pasta Smile" an Italian Restaurant. The food was good, I liked the soup and salad. The salad was something like mashed potatoes with corn and a sweet sauce on top of a few leaves of lettuce. I do not have picture because my camera ran out of battery! I know, this is awful!!!!

One thing I have learned: Not to expect anything when I try something new. I say that because the flavors here are not what you expect them to be, although many times they are good. It is just not what you expected which confuses your mind and may lead me to believe that I do not actually like the food. For those of you know are very confused about this, just come to Taiwan and try somethings...then I think you will understand! :)

Lastly I will talk about Pingling. We did not actually get to walk around the town, we only stopped at the Tea Museum. My favorite part was when we rode our bikes by the tea leaves plantation. It was a beautiful place, I had hoped it would rain since it is so humid here and I was sweating like crazy!!!

That's all for now!!!!

Taipei Food

Hi there,

Flip asked me to talk about the food...here is what I have seen/learned thus far...

I never ceased to be amazed at the kinds of food I see served at the Night Market!!!!

I can see why when there were some vegetarians in the group last year they lost some weight. Just yesterday I went to the open market in the morning and I saw lots of fruits, vegetables and greens I have never seen before.

I have been terrible about blogging during the past week I have been here in Taiwan and in order to make sure you all know what I have been doing I will post some pictures...

On the very top of the page, there is a picture of me with a green drink in my hand...you probably have an idea as to what I am eating...It's bamboo juice. The guy who was selling it was very nice, which is not uncommon here. As

a matter of fact, I have not met anyone who was not extremely nice and willing to help. It is amazing how friendly Taiwanese people are!

The bowl of soup you see was actually filled with lots of things I do not remember- I do however remember that is had strings of pork blood. I had a little bit of it, it was not bad. The main problem I had with it was knowing what I was eating, which is silly but hey it was pork blood okay!

The dumplings that are on the round container were delicious. But I found out today in my Mandarin Survival course they are not actually dumplings... and I forgot their proper name. Three hours of class was tough, I am not sure I remember much of anything! Kudos to anyone trying to learn Chinese... So far I can say, hello, good bye, thank you and if I concentrate where is the restroom.

Of course the other picture is of an octopus which you can find very easily at the night market. It was tasty and they actually cut it into small pieces to serve it to you since you mainly eat standing up and without utensils at the Market.

I will be back to write more about what I did this weekend! Right now I am off to TAIPEI 101!!!!!!!

ps- I found chicken hearts on a skewer at the Market I plan on trying it soon :)

What a trip....

As a sit here to write my next entry, the blow-dryer is on full blast- as I attempt to get my undergarments dry for tomorrow's trip. Well, when I got to the airport this morning at 10am, I thought this is it. I am going to make it to Taipei no problem! WRONG....
My first flight was delayed, by like 30 minutes, which was enough to cut my next flight really close. But I could still make it, if I ran. The first flight is coming on an end, the captain has already told us to "prepare for landing" all of the flight attendants are sitting strapped in. BEEP, Captain says " sorry to let you all know, but since there is a storm in Detroit we will have to circle around for another 25 minutes." At this point I knew there was nothing I could do. So I sat and read my book, "Beyond Duty." Which tells the story of a soldier and his time there and how he still struggles now that he is back. I think Katy should not pick this up!!!!!

Anyhow, back to the story it is 3:30pm when we land. My flight left at 3:35pm. Still I rushed out of the airplane, pushing and yelling excuse me. I already knew where the gate was, thanks to Joe- we had checked the night before just case. But of course it is a long ways away. I checked the departure board it read "boarding." This gave me motivation to continue to run! After 10 minutes to running around, huffing and puffing I MADE into the aircraft. I could tell that people were probably not happy, since at this point it was 3:45pm and the plane should have already taken off! LUCKY for me. I knew I was going to Tokyo.... well not so fast. We sat around, and waited, and waited, finally the captain comes on and says " we have to wait on paperwork before we can depart and we will be arriving late!" Awesome because my next connection was also a short one, less than one hour!!!!!!

The long flight was not too bad. I only got up 3 times to pee- which is pere informed that we may still be able to catch out connections, even though there is a law in Japan that requires anyone connecting in Tokyo to go through security. The plane I was on must have had a lot of people connecting because once we got off the flight there were people everywhere directing us, it organized chaos.

Did I make it? I ran through the hall and this time the departuree board read "FINAL CALL." I DID IT!!!!! But I had a feeling my bags would not make it. I was right. I arrived in Taipei an hour after my group, I went to meet up with them. We were taken to our hotel by two awesome MCU Staff Members, I will keep their names anonymous just to be safe.

The Hotel is gorgeous. It is actually part of the campus. retty amazing for me! I was in the middle isle which I am not particularly fond of, but it worked! Once we landed in Tokyo we w
Sort of like the Reitz Union at UF. Below are some pictures of it for you all to enjoy!

On the picture to the left you can see the things that we got in our bathroom. It was a comb (good one too!), toothbrushes, shampoo, a brand new RAZOR, a shower cap and dental floss, now that is what I call real good service! Since my luggage did not make it, I have used a few of those items and it made me happy to not have to go out and buy some!


Hopefully by tomorrow night I will have great things to tell you all about Taiwan. I plan on getting breakfast at the open market which is right here in front of the MCU building!

Yet another trip.... :)

For those of you that know me, know that I love to travel and will do anything to go somewhere new! Well, the opportunity has once again presented itself to me: I will spend the next 6 weeks in Taiwan. Like many things I do, this trip will be multipurpose, it is my ultimate goal to always kills two or three birds with only one stone!

So, for the next six weeks I will be traveling, working and doing research in Taiwan. Now that is what I can a great, worthy and organized trip. This is only the beginning I hope to continuously post about my daring adventures throughout the process.

Right now I am sitting at the Columbia Airport waiting for my next flight. I will spend the next 24+ hours either on a plane or airport. I must say, flying is my least favorite part of the traveling process. As Rach previously advised me, I have some Dramamine with me for the longer leg of the flight, my 14 hour non-stop flight to Taipei. WOW 14? My longest flight yet was to Japan that was 13hours and I was not a happy camper!

Well, that is it for now. Send me comments regarding what you want to hear about Taiwan!

Beijos

Gaby