Yesterday we went to Yilan and there were 20 people there for lunch, all family. I took a nap and went to my grandfather’s house. That was a really personal experience and it was nice. Even though it must have been 98 degrees and humid because of the rice paddies, my grandpa kept asking my mom questions about me and my life and even though he has been weak from sickness he still sat on the ground with me and laughed and talked. He was the liveliest I’ve seen him for a while, especially since my grandmother’s death. It was crazy sitting on the concrete in front of the house that my mom helped build. Before, the house was made from mud bricks and the family rebuilt it together. You can still see the places where they smoothed out cement with a scraper or someone’s accidental footprint. The entire neighborhood was outside, some people were talking to us and some were gardening or cooking but everyone came out to see me and all the grandmas were telling my mom that she had done a good job raising me and that I was so tall and pretty. These people live in conditions that not many people could stand and they live without air conditioning and the only technology they have are TV’s and house phones. It was crazy to think of how I would go home to my AC and my cell phone, my iPod and my computer. It seems like a slap in the face to my ancestors who lived spartan for their entire lives and it made me realize how pathetic a lot of teenagers really are. I had a lot of time for reflection out on the rice farm and it was really nice.
We got home and played with the babies until we had to leave, but I feel like I left with more knowledge than I had before.
Thursday: My aunt, uncle, mom and I left for the mountains Thursday morning. The mountains that we went to are at the bottom of Taiwan so it was a 6 hour drive to the foot of the mountains and a two hour drive to our hotel near the top of Alishan. The air was nice and cool but really thin and there were stairs everywhere so I spent half my time out of breath but it was really worth it. The hotel was on one side of the mountain facing a valley that filled with clouds as the day progressed, that’s how high we were. We took a train to one of the clearings and my mom and I walked around and took some pictures. It was very very green there and there weren’t too many bugs. The food sucked, but we were only there for two meals.
Friday: Friday began at 3 AM for me, because at 4 we had to catch a train to a clearing near the top of the mountains to watch the sun rise. There are only 4 more times that the sun will rise over this mountain this summer so we were extremely lucky to catch it. The train took us to a plateau facing a chain of mountains with a valley between where we were and where the sun rose. It came up from behind the top of one of the mountains and it felt so much closer than if we were at the beach or the city. Everything felt closer, especially the clouds, because we walked through many of them. There were tons of tourists at the sunrise, mostly from mainland China, and they all had DSLRs that I could only dream about. My uncle said thats how mainlanders are, though. They have to show off. The sunrise was quite beautiful, even if people were jostling me to take my spot at the fence. There was only 10 or 15 yards of fence facing the sunrise and i ran up 60 stairs to get a good spot so every time someone shoved at me to get in my spot I turned to them and said, “I ran to get this spot and you were back there being lazy so please stop touching me.” Because I spoke English, they left me alone. We were at the plateau for an hour or so and I skipped breakfast to catch up on sleep. When I woke up we checked out and went to the train station to watch some original native Taiwanese tribal dances. The dances were really graceful but the guys were really good looking so0oo I paid more attention to them.
After the dances we drove for four hours to Sun Moon lake, which is in the center or Taiwan and is Taiwan’s largest lake. When we drove up there was a couple getting wedding pictures done and wedding pictures are a huge deal here but they are so beautiful and well done. The location was gorgeous. Mountains surrounding the lake and the lake was a natural aquamarine. Our hotel was nice (seeing as they just remodeled) but there was a pocket knife on one of the shelves that my mom didn’t see and it fell on her as she was reaching for something. She’s perfectly fine but the shock of it was huge. After that scene we searched the room for any more weapons but didn’t find any. The room was really classy. I took some pictures, but my favorite features were definitely the window over the bed and the balcony facing the lake. My mom and I did some shopping while we waited for my cousin, her brother, husband and son to meet us at the hotel. Every one took a nature walk which was nice but not because there were huge spiders everywhere. They were probably the size of my hand. After our walk we had dinner with a view of the lake and browsed the local shops.
Saturday: Everyone checked out Saturday morning and we all went to one of the mountains to take a gondola to an aboriginal-themed theme park. It had some roller coasters and water rides and shows like every theme park does. The neat thing was that you only had to pay for the gondola trip and that gave you admission to the park as well. 30$ was it. It was a fun day but all I really was interested in was the gondola ride so the rest of the day wasn’t a big deal to me. We left and got home around 6 and my mom took me out to the night marker at 8 but we spent an hour getting lost. By the time we found the night market, my mom was frustrated and since we were back in Taipei the traffic was bad so we just went home. I almost got ran over while picking up my lens cap in the middle of the road. that sucked.
Today: All my family is meeting in Yilan at my aunts house for one last family dinner before we come home. We leave Wednesday and I’m pretty excited to come home but a little sad that we are leaving because there is so much to do over here. The rest of the week will be stuffed packed with doing the things that we wanted to do bust haven’t gotten the chance.
Sunday: Got caught in some traffic but got to Yilan safely and went to tea time in the mountains, which was quite nice. After that I played with the babies for the rest of the afternoon until around 7 when we decided to go to the night market. That was really fun.
Monday: Went to the malls and got some shoes and bras, then played with my two year old cousin for most of the day. Started to get sick.
Tuesday: Woke up feeling gross but I went to the morning market with my aunt and uncle anyway. Picked up some cool stuff and things to cook for lunch. I had a fever and it was 90 degrees + outside at 10 AM so I came home feeling like crap. After lunch I napped then my aunt brought some assorted fried foods home and we snacked on those. We went for a walk and then came home for dinner. Around 9 my cousin and her husband took my mom and I back to Taipei. I got home and fell asleep while everyone else played with my other cousin’s baby.
Today my mom is making me stay home because I am sick and tomorrow we are going to the mountains and she wants me to be healthy for that.
With a week and a half left in Taiwan, my life is about to get busy. Yesterday we went to the mall for 2 for 1 at Starbucks but that’s about it. Today (if it doesn’t rain) we are going to have lunch at Taipei Main Station with my moms 2 best friends and then we are going to Taipei 101 which will be SICK. Later tonight we might go to the night market so I can continue my quest for floral shorts. The night market will wear me out and on top of everything else we are doing today, I should pass out when we get home. Tomorrow through Tuesday we are going to Yilan again and then we return to Taipei only to leave for the mountains on Wednesday and a lake on Thursday. We will get home Friday and go back to Yilan on Saturday to see my grandpa one last time before we leave. Sunday-Tuesday will be spent picking up little presents here and there and packing up because we leave Wednesday to go back home. This trip has flown by(lul). My dad told my mom and I that if we wanted, we can upgrade to business class forour flight from taipei to LA and that would be so nice and roomy. I think we might do it.
I’ve realized that after all the fuss of getting my camera over here I didn’t really plan out how I would use it and as a result I only have 150 or so pictures so from here on out I plan to take AT LEAST 50 a day. We are going to watch the sunrise out in the mountains so that will be super awesome. I just wish I had brought Emily with me or someone to take pictures of.
I reallllly want to go to Taipei 101 today. It’s the second tallest building in the world and it’s entire top four or five floors are observation areas and they even have places to go outside and I just wanna goup there and take pictures aghhh. But if it rains I can’t go on the observation deck outdoors andlast time I wasn’t able to, either. it costs 20 bucks to get to the top of the building and I want my 20 bucks worth!
After tinychatting till noon, my mom and I had lunch at the mall and went to the classier side of Taipei to claim some life insurance check or something. We took the metro but got off two stops too early so we had to take a taxi. I expierenced two firsts that day: I saw a black person in Taiwan and we had a female taxi driver. It was odd, because out of all the times we’ve been here, this is the first time I have ever seen one or the other, let alone both in the same morning. After my mom did what she needed to do, we walked to the correct metro station while it rained. On the sidewalks were tables filled with jewelry (some cheap, some not) and we browsed through those. We got off of the metro two stops early to visit the East Metro Mall. It was another underground mall, but much classier. The clothes were better quailty and things were cheaper money wise. My favorite parts were the communal shops. We went to two of them. One person rents a store space and puts shelves up and cubbyholes that are one foot high and one foot wide, and vendors rent them out to sell hand made jewlery or specialty items. The one that caught my eye was a little cubby full of Holga cameras and equipment. The cameras ranged from 50-70 dollars and there was a fisheye viewer and film galore. They had tons of AGFA film which killed me, and I don’t know anyone else who would get excited over this besides Courtney, ahaha. I wanted to get some but the lady running the place said that we better check some 7-11s first for a better price. I had to keep telling myself that I didn’t need another camera, too.
After we walked through the East Metro Mall, we went to Taipei Main Station and went to the city mall underground. There is a neat little shop that sells things like coin purses, purses, backpacks and other little things hand sewn with Chinese fabric. My mom and I spent a while in there and bought some stuff, then we headed home.
Today looks a little overcast and my mom is in a bad mood so I am not sure if we will do anything today. There is always homework to do, I guess.
fuckyeahpyts:-asuperstitiousconductor:insummerskin:(via 1000scientists)
Relevant because half the time people takeus out, they take us to dim-sum places. People come by on carts with these little steamersfullof dumplings and other foods, but mainly dumplings.
Rain follows me everywhere I go. It’s inevitable.
Yesterday my mom, aunt and I went back to the hospital to pick up my glasses and my aunt got some Chinese herbal medicine so she can be healthy enough to have a baby. I think my uncle and her will make cute babies. It rained rained rained so my mom and I went and had tea then we came home for dinner and I read the entire night.
Today we are going to some museum and then shopping underground.
The metro is my most favorite thing, ever. Yesterday it took us from one side of the city to the other in 20 minutes. Driving it would have taken an hour, easily. We (mom, aunt & I) went to what I guess I could call a day market. Pretty simillar to a night market, but during the day. Less crowded and no food, but clothes clothes clothes for cheap prices and not cheap materials. I haven’t explained what a night market is yet, but I will when I go to one. Basically we went to a part of Taipei that utilizes the spaces between apartment buildings as clothes stores. The first floor of every apartment building is designed so a store could be there and most of these stores are for women, teens particularly, and they all rock. The only bad thing is that everything here is so small. Like I’ve said before, medium is the large here and Taiwan is not booty-friendly so I could not find any floral shorts that fit. There were rompers galore, though, and I got two super cutes ones. After two or three hours wandering the maze of stores, we came back to the apartment just in time to escape a huge rain storm. The storms here are very simillar to the ones in Florida. I passed the time by making owls while my mom watched some quality Asian TV. Around 8 my uncle came hoem from work and took everyone to this shrimp restaurant that was practically empty. I didn’t realize that there had been a recession here, too, or that the US’s recession held so much international effect. Then I again I spend most my time in my room, so0o0o.
Anyways, we ordered 10 dishes, and only one of them was not a shrimp dish. Everything was so tasty and I had apple cider soda to top it all off. They gave us huge plates of full shrimp; head, shell, legs, the works. I’ve never understood spicing the outsides of the shrimp, because the actual meat wasn’t that flavorful.
After dinner we went to Costco and IT WAS HUGE like no ones business. I was dead on my feet by then, and collasped as soon as we got home.
Today we ae going to pick up my glasses and go shopping underground, again. It should be a swell time!
Yesterday my mom and I made an early start and headed to the Global Mall at 9:30 AM. It seems early but it isn’t because we both get up at 6 AM. The only issue with being an early riser is that nothing is open. We stopped at the grocery store in the mall to grab somebottles of water and took the shuttle bus to the metro. I know I’ve talked about the metro before, but I just absolutely love the metro. You find a motley assortment ofpeople on there, from business men frusterated because they are losing a game of tetris to young girls all dolled up for the day to mothers and their noisy children. Ther metro is pretty cheap too. You can ride from one side of the city to the other for a little over a dollar. Taipei is a huge city, too, separated into districts, and the metro goes to as many distracts as possible.
Taipei Main Stationis where the two main lines intersect and it is also where the bust station, train station and high speed railway station is located. I think TMS is also the only placein Taipei where there are underground malls. There are three esrablished malls under TMS: Taipei City mall, MRT Mall and the New World Mall. The Taipei City Mall is the longest one, spanning at least 2, maybe 3 miles underground one way. Each underground mall has two halls of equal length. The New World mall is the newest one and holds the least traffic. Most of the stores underground have cheap buys, but most of the things are knock offs. Shoe stores are mainly the ones with themost knock off products. The clothing stores have clothes in style but made of cheap material and likewise, sold for a cheap price. Yesterday I got a dress for three dollars; last year I got a shirt/vest/necklace combo for about the same price. You can find a ton of neat, native knick-knacks underground, too. Jewelry botiques are everywhere, filled with bright lights and dark velvet walls and selling necklaces, hairpieces, rings and earrings. We spent most of the day underground but we went to the Shinkong Mitsukoshi department store across the street from TMS for some vlassier shopping as well. Everything in this place is pricy, but it is all designer clothing. I bought one dress and stopped, because the ladies kept picking out dresses for me to try on that were all darling but would have robbed me clean. The biggest size here is medium which is a little rediculous but I managed.
After spending the day shopping we went back to the Global Mall to relax in the air conditioning. I played Sims 3 while my mom read. We had Friday’s for dinner which was nice, because it is always a comfort to have American food in a foreign country. Plus, they served us drinks with our meals. Usually you get a soup with your meal, not a real drink. That’s why we always stop and get bottled water.
Today we are going to get my eyes checked, but that’s all that is on the agenda.
Yesterday we went to the mall down the street for lunch with my great aunt, her husband and his daughter. His daughter has sme sort of personality disorder so she was very jumpy, but a sweet girl. She had a Canon 550D and we compared cameras. (Hers is also known as the t2i. I have the t1i.) Lunch was at a restaurant that was waited on by all young people and when someone entered the restaurant, everyone called out hello, welcome! (but in Mandarin.) After lunch we came home and I played Sims and nappedthe rest of the afternoon. Nothing terribly exciting.
Today we are going to Taipei Main Station and shopping underground.
Let’s hope today was better than yesterday.
Yesterday was a really relaxed day. My mom and I chilled at the apartment for a while; she did laundry and I napped. We went to the Global Mall (which is a 10 minute walk from the apartment) and browsed a little. Since we had last been here, they added a lot of stores, one being a pet store. I got some darling pictures of the puppies that I will upload once I figure out how to on this computer. We took the mall shuttlebusto the metro station, and that was really convenient. Many malls that are doing well have free busses that stop at two or three places, one always being a metro station. The metros here are so nice, because they are clean and prompt. They operate both above and below ground, but never street level. Depending on which line you are on, you could be taking an arial tour of Taipei or you could be tunnelling bekow the city. The metro station is also great because once you connect to Taipei Main Station (where the train station and bus stations are,) you are in a multilevel underground mall, basicly. There are two levels devoted to ticketing and separating the metro lines and there is one level dealing with the actual metro. There are two levels of shopping underground, and in these levels you find mostly clothes that are in style, but are made cheap and don’t cost much. They don’t last long, sometimes, but all the clothes are really cute, so it’s okay.
We took the metro to the other side of the city and from there we took a bus (free) to another mall and walked from thatmall to my godmother’s house. I love the city because transportation is never an issue if you have legs. Walking to her house was pleasant, too, becase she lived by a small river that leads to a koi pond in a meditation park. It’s really stereotypical Asian and I love it.
After my mom and my godmother caught up (they have been best friends since highschool,) we met her two daughters, husband and father-in-law and a really classy restaurant where people went by with carts of food and you picked up what you wanted. The world cup wasprojected onto every wall, so that kept me entertained.
The food here is very good, very rich and heavily spiced. A lot of the stuff I can’t stomach (squid and spinach cooked in squid ink as an example) but I try some of it. After the first week or so, my stomach usually adjusts to the different types of food, so I just wait until that transition to get brave.
We finished eating and came home because both my mom and I were really tired. My sleeping schedule has been crazy over here. Go to sleep at 10 PM, sometimes even 8 and wake up at 6 AM right after the sun rises. Mommy said that my acne has cleared up because I’ve been getting sleep but I think it’s because I am out of school.
Today my mom, uncle and great aunt are going to meet for lunch or dinner. She hold a lot of American stock and is very wealthy which means we will probably go to a fancy restaurant, which means I probably won’t eat much. It’s all a new adventure.
It’s Friday (I think) morning and today we are supposed to window shop at the mall down the street and meet my godparents at a restuarant for dinner.
We are back in the city (Taipei) as of last night. Our stay in Yilan was nice, because from my aunt’s house, one side faces the ocean and the other faces the mountains. There are rice paddies surrounding her house and it is really humid out there because of the rice paddies. Harvest time is soon, so everything is green and lush. We ended up having dinner at my uncles house and mygrandpa was there. He really hasn’t been happy since my grandmother died. She died from lung cancer, but he is the one who smokes, so he might feel guilty. After seeing him, my mom couldn’t sleep, because his health is pretty bad, so we stayed up andjust talked. The next day (Thursday) ws really relaxed. My aunt, cousin, her baby, my mom and I went to get deep conditioning treatments for our hair and that felt pretty awesome. After that we went shopping because I wanted some new bras. The malls are so lovely over here, and everything is really cute, but everything is petite sized because 98% of Aisan girls are petite. We went back to my aunt’s place and my cousin’s baby beat me up. It’s okay though, because sheis 1) cute and 2) two years old. Got back to the city around 10 and I made it to the apartment then passed out. I have to walk up 50 stairs everytime we get back to the apartment and that can suck after a long day.
Hello! There is probably no one online right now, seeing that it is 2:30 PM here (which means 2:30 AM eastern which means the majority of you guys are alseep or something) but I am quite glad to have internet access. Even though my aunt has never updated her browser and this is IE 7. Yes, seven. The important thing is that we’re here and we are safe!
Sunday afternoon we said bye to my dad and the Lake Limo guy came and picke dus up from our house. My mom got a little sad at leaving daddy and I told her I was sad, too. We drove in silence as the driver went to pick up the other passengers and before I realized it, we were at the airport. The driver started driving us toward the Hyatt in the airport, but my mom looked at her reservation papers and it said we had reservations at the Hilton, not the Hyatt. She panicked because the Hilton was not on airport grounds and it would complicate our checking in at 4 am process. The driver was a really sweet, southern gentleman and he paitently waited as my mom frantically called my dad. He advised that we cancel our reservations and just get a room but my mom was still nervous up until we got to the counter at the Hyatt. The lady at the counter spoke Mandarin and that calmed my mom down a lot. She was from Taiwan and her sons were there now and she helped clear our reservation and booked us a room facing the tarmac. My mom and the lady talked for a while and by the time we had gotten to our room, my mom was investigating the summer camp that the lady’s sons were at in Taiwan. long story short, my mom wants me to go now. Anyways, we got seltted and went out on the balcony and watched the planes take off and land for a while, we ate and window shopped and finally it was time to sleep. We both were restless the entire night and we ended up getting up at 2 AM to get everything ready to check in at 4 AM for out 6:15 flight. out of the four allowed suitcases, my mom decided to check in only one, but it was 20 lbs overweight and we ended up paying for it. The flight to Los Angelos was nice, I’m assuming, because I slept through the last 4 hours. The first hour I watched the Gulf beneath us slimy shimmer pink, due to the oil spill. It was disgusting.
We had an 8 hour layover in Los Angelos so we walked around for a while and the weather was beautiful and temperate. I fell asleep for a while before we could get our tickets and once we had our tickets it seemed like time flew. The plane to Taiwan was pretty well packed and I slept 9 out of 12 hours of that flight, sparing my time to watch Alice in Wonderland and Glee. It had just stopped raining as we landed and by the time we got to my aunt’s apartment, it bagan to cloud up again.
This morning I woke up to take a shower that was only hot while I washed my hair, but that’s living in the city, I guess. Right now I am at Yilan for the Dragonboat festival but it’s only midafternoon and I’m not sure if there are celebrations later tonight.
Time will tell!
