Taiwan Day 27-31

On Monday we found another really cool room to study in in the NTU library. I also discovered that going straight to the library to do work after class is the best way to go to sleep early. Weird how I haven't learned that after two years of college.

Sadly we may not be able to study there in the future because:

Sad face.

Looking guilty...

Matt also discovered the most stereotypically Asian book ever.

The English says "Good to Great" but the Chinese reads "From A to A+" HAHAHA. Of course this is the book that they display in the library of the top university in Taiwan. Maybe I should go back and read it though, hmmm :P

On the way to dinner, Audra let me ride on the back of her bike, which made me feel super Taiwanese because everyone here does it! So many people bike, and half the bikes have people riding or standing on the back, sometimes holding an umbrella over the person biking. 

It's only blurry because we're moving so fast

This is safe, right?

On Tuesday, we discovered these empty cicada shells which everyone thought were really cool. I admit they were cool, FROM A DISTANCE. But just because there's no bug inside does not make it any less gross. No one seemed to agree though, since everyone wanted to keep them as pets. On their bodies....

Only Audra can make a cicada exoskeleton look cute

Oh hey buddy.

Yum. Lots of protein?

Everything was all good and fun until Matt tried to make me hold one. But then I dropped my pen and he put the cicada right on top of it and walked away

If you don't look at it, it doesn't exist.

If only I knew what was in store for me at home..

Thursday morning, Charlotte trapped a cockroach in a cup right outside of our room. WAHHHH. The cockroaches here are huge too. We don't even cook in our apartment and we don't eat food in our rooms, but still....they find their ways in. No matter what anyone says about cockroaches not harming you, I don't trust anything that lays eggs upon being crushed, and can survive nuclear explosions. /end of argument

It's probably better that this picture is blurry.

Connor eventually threw it out of our 9th floor window, which is great, but you know it's probably going to come back for revenge eventually.... I'll be sleeping with one eye open.

This week, Charlotte and I also started tutoring English for a Taiwanese family! We were approached on the MRT about tutoring for the family last week, I guess because we were speaking English. So this week we went to meet the kids, and they are both so cute. We just help them with English and reading, and we also get to practice our Chinese, eat yummy Taiwanese fruit, and get to hang out with a super nice and fun family. Plus it's relaxing but we still get some nice pocket money ^__^ So lucky that this randomly worked out.

Now for obligatory section about food:

Family Mart (全家) has square ice cream cones. Squareeee!!

There is literally never a bad time for ice cream.

Also the convenience and proximity of 7-11 may be our downfall. Sometime around midnight is when the "I'm not hungry but I want food" feeling kind of happens, and then before you know it, you have just eaten everything in the store. Exhibit A:

How much food? Too much food.

Also I have been looking for good matcha tea since I've been here, and have only found normal green tea. But Famonn's green tea latte is actually a matcha latte, so I came back to do homework one day after school. Also, Famonn has a really nice almost pastel blue color scheme, which is cute. 

My one true love.

And then today, school got cancelled after 2PM because of Typhoon Soulik. It was originally supposed to be a "super typhoon" but has "weakened overnight and has been downgraded to a medium-force typhoon." I'm glad this typhoon which is probably twice the size of Taiwan is going to only hit us directly in the face with medium-force. What does that even mean. Good thing we're not on a tiny water-locked island. Oh wait.

My MS Paint masterpiece. I would like to point out the adroitly placed eye.

So we all stored some food and get to stay inside and do nothing all weekend :D all of our weekend plans are cancelled and we can't leave :(

 So heartbreaking.

Taiwan Day 18-26

Remember that one time when I wrote a blog post everyday? Welp. Kind of forgot about that. But don't worry, it's kind of like how I've been telling Charlotte I'm going to clean my part of the room for the last two weeks, and finally did today. By which I mean I shoved all of my stuff behind my bed. Similarly, I've been meaning to write a post for the last 9 days and am just going to shove everything into one post now. Awww yeah analogies. 

And I know what you really want to know about first is not all my fun adventures, not even my super exciting Chinese classes, but all the new stationery I got, HAHA. I promise this will be mildly interesting though.

Ok so first thing is this pen that says, "the rabbit is trying to trick the cat into sitting on her broken chair, while the monkey is pedaling along on his squeaky bicycle." WHAT. So Chinglish is super prevalent in Taiwan, but at least everyone acknowledges that it makes no sense. This is a grammatically, orthographically correct sentence, and is even correctly depicted in the picture but...just...why...hahahaha. 

This second thing is a notebook which is not only cute and a notebook, but has an accurate map of the Taiwan MRT on it, which Charlotte and Connor also thought was really cool, so it's NOT just because I like stationery.No more getting lost! Hopefully. How convenient! The station closest to us is 公馆 (Gongguan) which is 7th stop from the bottom of the green line.

Finally, these cute little flashcards on a ring (they're super small, pen is for size reference), which I wish they sold in America, because they have been super helpful for studying vocab. I'm not really tested in writing characters, because ICLP puts much more emphasis on oral skills. But I don't want to go back to Williams and not be able to write anything, so I make character flashcards for all the vocab/words I don't know. I've probably made at least 500 in the first two weeks...and the're small and cute so are super convenient for studying while walking around, in between class, or whenever.

As for what I've actually been doing...I think I ate lunch in the library every day except for once during the week. Lunch is just so conveniently placed right before my 单班课 and TOCC class... Usually the door for the library is open, but one day it was closed, and I couldn't open the door and had to ask someone for help. Turns out you have to press this button on the side that I hadn't seen to unlock the door. I feel like being physically locked in the library has some kind of hidden life metaphor...Goal for next week: study less so I don't become a social pariah.

Also this week, I went to the dumpling place Shui showed us threeee times. They're just so cheap. 5 kuai per dumpling!

omnomnomnom

It is also currently "typhoon season" in Taiwan. So now in addition to being absurdly hot, we also get random torrential rainfall throughout the day, which is awesome. And by awesome I mean HORRIBLE! It doesn't even get cooler after it's done raining?!?!? Taiwan, what the heck.

Is that a swimming pool? No it's a sidewalk. -__-

Also check out this super fashionable picture. I had to meet up with Matthew to study this week, but it was pouring outside, and I didn't want to get my books wet, so Connor lent me his giant crew jacket so I could wear my backpack under it. Went outside and still got soaked THROUGH THIS WATERPROOF JACKET. With my backpack I just looked like a turtle. A sad, sad, wet turtle. At least my books were safe.

Check out my butt flap. 

The only 好处 is that sometimes it looks nice after it rains.

This week, I also discovered another 方便 Taiwanese thing. Ubike! Basically, there are a bunch of bike racks everywhere, and you swipe your card to take out a bike. If you return the bike at another rack within 30 minutes, the ride is free. Even if it goes for over 30 minutes, the rates are apparently relatively reasonable. Wish we had this in Madison.

LOOK. THE U IS A SMILEY FACE. Asiaaaaa!

On a completely unrelated note, now here is a section called, learning Chinese! I know, this blog post has impeccable transitions and content organization.

So at ICLP, there is a TV that has a 成语 of the day. A 成语 is a Chinese idiom that has 4 characters each. One day, we were standing in front of the TV chatting after class.

Me: So where are you guys going now?

Logan: I STILL HAVE CLASS!!
Me:  Oh. That sucks, hahaha.

Logan: *looks at the TV* Wow, Cindy, you need to 推己及人!!! 

Wasn't even mad at being reprimanded cause his 成语 usage was so on point hahaha.

Thank you, conveniently placed 成语 monitor

And now for a little section lauding the beautiful Pleco/Smart phone. Pleco, which I have mentioned before, is a Chinese dictionary app for iPhone and Droid, and is used by probably everyone here who has a smart phone. I look up probably at least 20 words on it a day. And here is a picture to illustrate how amazing it is:

 

Like actually, look at what I drew. That is actually a blob. I gave up on reading the character and kind of just scribbled the middle part, and it STILL RECOGNIZED IT. There are few things in life that I'm convinced are magic, and I think the list so far consists of Pleco's character recognition and physics.

[insert transition here]

On Saturday, we went to Formosa Fun Coast, the biggest water park in Taiwan.

When it was still sunny... -__-

The water park was a lot of fun, except it started raining in the middle of the day. But we stayed for five-ish hours anyways. Greyson, the kid in the middle of the picture is actually Taiwanese, so I practiced speaking Chinese a lot with him during the day. At one point, frustrated by his Taiwanese accent, I said "I can't understand your 口音!!!" To which he replies "不是我的问题! 是你的问题!!" (That's not my problem, that's your problem!!) How rude!!! Just kidding, it's true, but still pretty 可怜. OTL

Afterwards, went to Shilin night market to get 小吃 and where I bought a pair of crocodile socks that eat your feet, bwaahha.

Then today Connor, Matt, and I did some homework at Famonn Cafe, which is right across the street, and has very reasonably priced and delicious drinks and sandwiches for a cafe. After dinner,we went to a fresh fruit stand and got lychee, watermelon, dragonfruit, and mango. FRESH FRUIT! 很好吃！Especially because lychees are in season. I also got to practice my 讲价 skills since we just did a unit that included that in class, by which I mean I asked "如果我们买很多，可以便宜一点吗？” But oh well, it's a start. And we got a mini-discount. Hehe.

And now I leave you with a picture I took on the walk to school of what look like truffula (from the Lorax!) tree flowers that someone arranged into a heart shape. Awwww.

Taiwan loves you.

At this rate, I guess I'll see you guys in like a month. 再见！

JK, 我开玩笑 hehe

Taiwan Day 16 and 17

Day 16:

My first Chinese class originally had 4 kids, now there are 2, because 2 of the kids switched into a different level. This is very good cause now I get to speak even more in class, ahahha >:D In my 单班棵 today my teacher asked me who my favorite artist was, and I said Wang Xizhi cause he is the most famous calligrapher of all time. And she just goes, "...why are your tastes so old-fashioned?! You look so young but your favorite artist is Wang Xizhi?!" I'm surprised she was so surprised because I usually bring this up at all the parties I go to and people generally agree with me. Wait what. 

I should probably get out more....

Had lunch at a fried rice place which was very good, but I've been forgetting to take pictures lately, I guess because now I feel like a student and not a tourist. 

Got bubble tea with Audra and Matt, and had to sneak it into the library cause no food is allowed in there, so we were just sketchily standing between these bookshelves trying to silently slurp our bubble teas cause there are cameras everywhere.... The things we do for bubble tea.

After studying a bit, I went to Far EasTone to replace the minutes on my phone since apparently I used all 350元 worth in less than two weeks...But I managed to do the whole thing in Chinese all by myself, MWAHAHA. +1 survival skills for me. So now I guess it's only around -500. That time I accidentally walked away from my apartment and took the MRT back probably counted for a lot of negative points :( 

Went to a Vietnamese place which was soooo good but I may be biased. Then Dylan and Logan thought it would be a good idea to eat a handful of the peppers that were on the table.

I wish this photo accurately conveyed how Logan looked like he was going to cry

Fell asleep right after dinner cause I ate too much, which would have been a good end to the day, but then I woke up and had 4+ hours of homework waiting for me TT___TT. Good thing I went to the library earlier at least :P

Day 17:

It's finally Friday!! I feel like I've been in school forever. Also, in my first class today, I realized that I, for the first time ever, COMPLETELY IGNORED a homework assignment. I looked at the homework for my two group classes and saw that each one said 第一棵演讲 (1st lesson's speech) and for some reason in my mind, I thought it was referring to the same essay, because I guess I literally could not fathom the idea of having two essay/speeches due on the same day. So I guess I just completely didn't hand in an essay for my first class. Oops. :( 

During lunch, ICLP hosted a speech about this Chinese learning software that can analyze your speech patterns and break down exactly where your pronunciation, emphasis, tones, etc. are wrong and how to fix them. It was really cool, and they gave us free downloads because we're ICLP students; I think this is the website (http://www.myet.com/MyETWeb/SubPage.aspx?fn=MyCT-Intro.htm) They told us that they based this off of internet games, which they said is perfect for 宅女, aka people who stay home and don't go out aka me (Melissa just taught me this word the other day, because she said it described me/us so well HAHA). 

Later in the day, ran into my 单班棵 teacher at Gongguan station! It's surprising how much you run into people despite Taipei being so large. She is so nice and cute, ahhhh. Met at the huge mall in 台北车站 called Q-Square since we wanted to go see Monsters University! But since it was opening day, the 6PM movie sold out :( so we had fiveeeeee hours to kill before the next showing. So obviously we decided to eat food. All the food court food was surprisingly good, especially Chirei's!!

又便宜又好吃！！

Chirei and Eric left to go do something so Matt, Daniel, Char and I just walked through the underground mall and ended up walking like two MRT stops away where we resurfaced and found a shaved ice place. 

Shaved ice with strawberry, red bean, grass jelly, and passion fruit, mmm

Very happy people

Played Egyptian Ratscrew for the last hour, during which Matt wiped the floor with all of us, despite being all like "blahhh I'm so bad at this game I never win blahblahblah" -__- So he basically just hustled us. 

And finally it was time for the movie! I love seeing English movie posters in Chinese for some reason. Look at how the first character has the monster eye inside of it instead of having it inside the "M" like in English. 

I want to go to this university :(

It's also interesting to see how the subtitles translate the English (the parts I could understand, at least). Also the movie was so good and funny! I definitely recommend it, it was like reliving childhood all over again. Also can we talk about how the original movie came out TWELVE YEARS AGO?! How am I even this old. I can see my mom rolling her eyes like she does every time I complain about how "old" I am. But actually, at this rate, the sequel for the Incredibles won't come out until I'm 22...Booooo. Whatever, I will still be watching animated films then. NO SHAME.

I would also like to point out how it's 3AM on Friday night and Connor/others are out clubbing and I just watched an animated kids' film and then blogged about it. I know I lead a pretty exciting life, don't be too jealous guys.

Taiwan Day 15

On the way to school, we passed by the front gates of NTU and I saw a wallet laying on the ground with 1000 dollar bills (around 30 USD) literally spilling out of it. Luckily, we were right next to NTU's campus police station place so I just took it there and told the policewoman "I found this on the ground" but then she started asking me all these questions in Chinese that I couldn't understand, so she took me by the arm and pulled me inside, which was at first kinda scary. Usually in America when you turn in a wallet, that's pretty much the end of it. Here, they counted all the money (twice) and recorded it, and had me fill out a form, that was all in Chinese. So obviously, there were troubles.

[in Chinese]

Policeman: Can you read this?

Me: Um...no. (Charlotte and her classmate also tried to help me read the form, but it was all very technical stuff like "what should we do with this money if no one claims it in 6 months, with very similar looking answers).

Policeman: Are you not Taiwanese?

Me: No...

Policeman: Do you speak Chinese?

Me: A little .___.

Arghhhh. It's just so frustrating when you think you're making so much progress, like being able to order your own food or ask for directions, but then you get thrown into a real-life situation and you are literally useless. I ended up just telling him to pick where I should check, and just signed where he told me to, which I would NOT suggest as a safe method for life in general, but at that point I really didn't know what he was saying, I just wanted the guy to find his wallet since the TWD + Japanese Yen totaled to at least $800 USD... What's funny is there was also one single USD in there, haha. Anyways, there were currency exchange forms in the wallet as well,  meaning he was a traveler who had just changed his money, and lost his wallet at the worst possible time. I felt horrible, but the police seemed really thorough, so I was pretty sure the guy would come back and ask them about it at some point.

Anyways, this whole adventure meant that I was late to class on the second day, but I explained to my teacher afterwards, and showed her the picture I took of the form, and she explained to me that the checkbox I marked meant that if no one claimed the wallet in 6 months, the money would go to the school. So good thing I didn't sign away my soul or something.

Class itself was pretty good, we had to recite the entire text ourselves using the vocabulary and grammar words as prompts. So memorizing isn't necessary, but you still have to know the text pretty well, and how to use all the vocab and grammar. I'm already learning a ton of new vocab just from listening to my classmates talk, which is great.

During lunch, we went to a Japanese restaurant by ICLP. I love it when I try to take candid pictures, and only one person realizes that a picture is being taken, hahahah. See examples below (Dylan and Matt):

All the food looked really good~

Udon!

Afterwards, had my second group class, where I found myself spacing out, even though the textbook is really interesting. I think I'm still adjusting to the constant deluge of Chinese, and it's hard to process it all, gahhh. And that brings me to my next point: my one-on-one class. Which is VERY STRESSFUL! Not in a bad way, because I love my teacher and she is super cute and encouraging. But because there aren't any other students, you have to be attentive and thinking and on point FOR FIFTY MINUTES STRAIGHT. And you don't really have time to process new things you learn, because you're already talking about the next thing. At this rate, I'm not surprised ICLP improves your spoken ability so much just within 7-8 weeks.

Charlotte and I tossed her frisbee around for a bit outside to relax after class, until I started getting devoured by bugs. So then we ran into Audra and got some bubble tea ^__^

Yes, that is in 3 cups of bubble tea in front of Char, since she finished what Audra and I couldn't, haha

Pictures of the bubble tea place, and cafeteria

Went to a curry place by our house for dinner, which was pretty good. Each dish cost about 5 USD, which I initially thought was expensive, until I realized that in America it probably would've cost twice as much, if not more.

Isn't Daniel charming.

When we came back, Shui's son was in the apartment, doing his homework etc. He had this pen that was clearly a pen that shocked you whenever you clicked it, even though he pretended like it wasn't. He kept laughing but saying in Chinese, "look! I'm pushing it and nothing's happening!" I knew it would shock me but I still wanted to try it. So I told him, "If this shocks me and it hurts, I'm going to cry." and he goes, "OK, cry then." SO SASSY. He's 10. Haha. So I tried it and it was horrible and fell off my chair and he just laughs at me -.- Curse you, curiosity.

Afterwards, studied more :(

OH! And the guy who lost his wallet eventually called me and thanked me for finding it. Yay!

Taiwan Day 13 and 14

I've decided that since school started, I can't do a blog post every day, since I have no time to go to fun places and take fun pictures, and I don't think anyone wants to read extensively about my Chinese classes. That being said...

Monday was the first day of classes, which is weird, because after two weeks of playing in Taiwan, I kind of forgot that we were going to go to school eventually. But I LOVE IT. Chinese allll day. Not actually though, each class is only an hour. I have my class on 今日台湾 (Taiwan Today) first, and there are two other students. My other textbook 中国文化丛谈 (Talks on Chinese Culture) has two parts, the 合班 (group class, with three other students) and my 单班 (one on one class) so I think this textbook will be much harder, since I really don't know much of the vocabulary, as opposed to the Taiwan Today textbook. I love the small class sizes, especially the 单班, because I'm less scared to speak 哈哈.

In between my first and second class, we went to go get lunch, and I realized I have given up on menus that don't have pictures. Since I can't read anything, I end up just telling them what I want, based on what I see. So in today's case, I was like "can we just get noodles and pork?" since I saw noodles, and just like pork in general. This horribly backfired when she responded "this is a pork noodle place. All we have is pork and noodles. Can you be more specific?" HAHA. Unfortunately, I'm not exactly sure how to be more specific than that in Chinese, so I did what Connor does and just said "just pick your favorite dish." Again, good thing I have no food allergies/eating restrictions.

After class, went to the cafeteria to get bubble tea for a studying snack, then straight to ICLP's library to start the homework. I'm trying to at least learn to read traditional characters here, so it's twice as hard, since I have to look up every other character on Pleco. That, plus the fact that the workload is already huge, and I'm not sure I should be in 400-level aaaaaaaargh.

Bubble tea and cute 文具 - the best study motivators

For dinner, ICLP hosted a fancy dinner for the students and teachers, in a very nice hotel. 

Cute desserts!!

They had a pasta bar where they had almost every kind of pasta, and you just put it in a bowl and told them what you wanted in your dish and they just made it for you in a pan right away. It was so cool. I pointed at a lot of things and was like "what is this?" but since all of the answers were pretty specific, like "scallops" and "Chinese watercress" and a bunch of other food vocab I don't know, I'm not too 清楚 on what was actually in my pasta, but it was good.

Mystery noodles, mmmm

This is a picture of me and my 指导教授 who also teaches my 中国文化丛谈合班 and my classmate Matthew. Of course I am eating ice cream, as always. The food was sooo good, especially the desserts.

This is a picture of my name tag which I included because 1) it made me feel official and 2) because multiple teachers have asked me my name, and they either say it is 很特别 (special) or 很好听 (sounds nice). I don't know if they just say that to make me feel special or they actually mean it, but it is nice of them regardless.

After studying for wayyy too long, I went out to the living room where Char was studying, and this conversation happens. This is pretty much verbatim.

Me: How's studying?

Char: Do you want some yogurt? There is no sweet.

Me: Wait. What?

Char: Look! *points at her mug* It's butter lion. It's but-ter-y. And lion.

Me: Charlotte...I think you need to go to sleep.

Char: I...yes. I...no. No. You BOTH need to go to sleep. I come in four minutes then you both sleep. You and I sleep.

OH MY GOD the sleep-deprivation delirium is already happening. It's the first day of school. What is life.

Photo for reference to our conversation. Courtesy of Char.

Char went to sleep. I went to bed at 4 and woke up around 9 to study some more. BLEH. This is probably not sustainable.

Tuesday, class is speaking based, so I didn't have to focus so much on characters, even though I have to know them eventually. Ate lunch by myself in the library to study some more Q___Q 

After dinner (which was at the Veggie Paradise, which has now become my most frequented restaurant despite the fact that I'm not a vegetarian?!?) I went to the ICLP dorms to study with Matthew which was very productive, especially because there was a Taiwanese student who could speak English who kept helping us when we were stuck, wahaha. 

Megamind reference, anyone?

Now more studying, because I would love to go to bed before 2 AM, seeing as it is only the second day of school -_____- Luckily my first class isn't until 11. Yeah!!