Arranged boyfriend and locked door

Day 3 of traveling: pictures above are the president's building and the Chiang Kai-Shek memorial hall

I went to the President's building in the morning only to find out that I couldn't go in because I was wearing inappropriate shoes aka flip flops. I was scared though because the guards were holding guns!!

I got lost trying to go to the Chiang Kai-Shek memorial hall and I found this buffet restaurant type thingy. I got hassled because I was American and this old guy was trying to set me up with his coworker who is 26. He kept saying he was cute and asked if I needed a friend. Then he said he could be my boyfriend. I kept laughing and trying to eat as fast I could but they kept bothering me. I asked for directions and then when I was leaving, I was walking to the place and the guy who they were trying to set me up with was on a scooter delivering food and the guy yelled out the directions to make sure I didn't get lost. That was so nice! lol

I then went to Chiang Kai-Shek memorial hall where I met a Japanese guy. He wanted me to help him take a picture and I did too and we just ended up talking..well sorta. He barely knows any English and knows only Japanese. It was interesting trying to communicate with him when we don't know have a common language to speak with but it was fun. Then a Taiwanese-American guy came up to me and wanted to help translate but obviously it was pointless since he was Japanese lol He was with two girls and they were from Virginia <-Thanks Hien so it was nice to talk to someone in English lol The Japanese guy wanted me to go with him to Taipei 101 and he motioned that he would cry if I didn't go. I tried saying goodbye to him earlier and we met up again at the corner going to the MRT..or more like he found me again lol But we parted ways when we were on the subway

My other aunt (I have many aunts) and cousin came to visit me and checked out my apartment. My aunt was fiddling with the door and later on Cala got locked out because the deadbolt was locked and we had no key. The landlord said no one ever would use it. Cala and her friends had to wait for over a hour and after the locksmith came, we got into the apartment. Ugh I had to pay for the locksmith but it was only $12USD so it's no biggie..I'm just glad we got in!

-Chihchat

Bring on the rain!!

As it's my second day of vacation before I start teaching, I wanted to spend the whole day at the Chiang Kai-Shek memorial hall and to see the library and museums. I went to the library and the Chiang Kai-Shek memorial hall for a little bit but the sun was getting too hot and I got too tired and went home and took a nap lol Then tonight I went to Danshui (pictures above). It's a pretty city near the river where people go fishing. Last night I found out from Cala that the survey lady from yesterday thought I was getting allergies on my face. I thought I had really bad acne on my face although I usually never get it on my face. I guess I got a bad sunburn yesterday and my face reacted to it.

Taiwan is near the equator line so it usually gets humid hot and it rains a lot. It's basically tropical weather but I can't believe I would say this but I love the rain. Living in California for a year made me hate the rain because it always rained and it was gloomy and I could never go outside. I've always disliked the rain but I LOVE the rain here! I like the sun here too but it's so hot and it's so sticky and humid that you can't breathe. I get hot easily and I feel that even wearing a swimsuit outside wouldn't even help. When the rain comes, it's so cool outside. Sometimes we get really bad rain where it's just pounding down and you can hear it when you're inside but that's the best! Sometimes I don't even want to use an umbrella. I just want to walk outside and get sopping wet. The humidity is insane though. If you buy a bag of chips, you have to eat it before it gets flat since the air in the bag will dry out. It's hard to dry your hair and drying clothes since we don't have a drying machine and we have to hang our clothes outside or go downstairs and use a drying machine across from the street. I've been trying to save money and not be a pansy and not use the A/C at night when I sleep but I broke in the 3rd day I got here. It's way too unbearable to not have the A/C but my roommates and I don't put it on during the day. Luckily we all have our own A/Cs in our rooms. It's weird to say this but I can never be "clean" since I sweat all the time, especially after I take a shower (haha) and walking outside is all muggy and hot. I don't know what I'm going to do when mid-late July hits :/

-Chihchat

Cleaning of the guards and an adventure to throw out the trash

Today is the first day of my break before I start teaching. I think I start teaching either this Thurs. or Fri. which means I have a couple of days off to explore Taiwan. Although I woke up late close to noon, my plan was to see Taipei 101 building, the tallest building in Taiwan and some other memorials places like Chiang Kai-Shek and Sun Yat-sen memorial hall. I first went to Taipei 101 building and I was proud of myself because I didn't get lost too badly although when I first took the subway, I went to the wrong direction. I got to the building and there are a lot of nice, expensive shopping places. You have to go to the 5th floor where you buy your ticket to see the observatory which is the 89th floor. Although Taipei 101 has 101 floors, you can't go all the way to the top. It cost $400NT which was sorta a lot although that's about $14USD. I was following tour guides since I was by myself and I didn't want to get lost lol The elevator of course was cramped and I accidentally touched a random guy's butt haha I said sorry and his friends were making fun of him haha

I then went to the Sun Yat-sen memorial and that was my last stop because I didn't have time to go to the Chiang Kai-Shek memorial hall. I got out of the subway and I couldn't find the building. I was going to ask someone and this lady with a smile comes up and starts talking to me. There are people who want you to fill out surveys but you should just ignore them, that's what Cala and Drew told me. Well she helped me find the building but then she started to ask me questions. I felt like I had to talk to her because she helped me lol She asked me if I wanted to lose weight and what I thought about losing weight. So I told her my opinion and she wanted all my information to join this mailing list for a program to lose weight. I lied and said I don't have a cell phone or email lol Then she said something about my face and I didn't get it but now I do. I got sunburned really bad so I think she was asking me if my face hurt lol

I got to the memorial and inside there is a huge monument of Sun Yat-sen made out of bronze I think. Sun Yat-sen is a historical leader around the 1920s who developed the three principles of democracy. There were two guards and it's cool because every hour they do the changing of the guards and they do this little ceremony thing. The funny thing was after the guards were changed, one of the workers at the museum helped wipe the guard's face and shook his clothes and sorta gave him a massage lol I guess since they can't move, the museum worker helps them haha And as I was leaving, they had people meditating which I thought was neat.

As I mentioned before about the recycling, throwing trash is also confusing. It comes at night which stinks (haha pun) because no one is home to throw it away since we all mostly work. The trash has been building up at my place and since I'm on a break, I needed to throw out the trash tonight. The food and regular trash can be thrown out everyday but the cardboard and the other recyclables that have touched food are only thrown out on certain days. Well we had 3 big containers of trash and I can't carry that much so I brought 2 of them down. The food trash was nasty since it was leaking! I met a lady and she was nice and was watching my buckets of trash while I had to go back to my place to get the third bucket. When the garbage trucks came, the garbage man was telling me to condense my trash but I didn't understand and the lady who watched my trash yelled at him, saying I was an American and helped me. The garbage man was really mad at me lol He kept repeating do you understand? I understood that part but I didn't understand what he said before. I don't know why throwing trash is so confusing!

-Chihchat

Plan of Attack

I knew living in Taipei I would have to deal with cockroaches but I never knew how scared I would be killing them. Living with people who are scared too doesn't help lol Last night I couldn't sleep well because even though I killed the cockroach, I didn't flush it down the toilet. I left it in the living room and placed a black carton over it so Cala and I wouldn't have to see it. I finally woke up today around 2pm. Cala got back from her LSAT and so we decided to muster up the courage and flush the cockroach down the toilet.

We brought the dustpan near the cockroach and knew we had to sweep the black carton aka dead cockroach into the dustpan. Cala did it and we already were jumpy, screamed and she ran to the kitchen. We just didn't want to see the dead cockroach. I actually thought it was still alive but if that were the case, the black carton would have been moving and it wasn't. We were trying to think of a way to put the cockroach in the toilet without seeing it. Cala got a chopstick and stuck it in the black carton. We wanted to make sure the cockroach was there and so she lifted up the black carton and we screamed and freaked out since we saw it. We knew it was there but just the fact of seeing it was disgusting. Then we were trying to strategize and plan a way to slide the cockroach into the toilet without seeing it and I was trying to explain to Cala what we could do. Basically I thought we could slide the black carton out of the dustpan but then the black carton would be dumped in the toilet. I was using an example by using my journal (dustpan), cell phone (black carton), and bobby pin (dead cockroach) to explain what I thought could work but we need to make sure the black carton won't go into the toilet. The cockroach was in the living room and Cala and I were contemplating our "plan of attack" near the kitchen and my room. Cala says I sounded like a military person, implemented our attack but when the time came to do it, I totally chickened out LOL

I brought the dustpan to the bathroom and all we had to do was dump the cockroach in the toilet. We even put the toilet seat up, turned on the light, and got everything ready but we were not mentally ready. I didn't want to make Cala put the cockroach in the toilet because she really is terrified of them. I knew I had to do it so I was trying to get the courage to just flush the stupid cockroach down the toilet. It was pretty sad; we were laughing and freaking out so much that the ground seemed like hot lava since we were jumpy. The above picture is what Cala and I chose to demonstrate the jumping positions that we did this afternoon LOL After about 15 mins of trying to calm myself down but still shaking uncontrollably, I took off the black carton but I didn't see the cockroach (granted I shut the light off since I didn't want to see it). I told Cala I didn't see it but then I finally peered over and saw that it was there. It was just that I was too chicken to actually hover over the dustpan to see it. Then I quickly dumped it in the toilet and voila, I flushed it. Whew..after about 20 mins of deliberation, we finally accomplished our task of getting rid of the cockroach in our place!! I'm just definitely not looking forward or mentally ready to kill another cockroach :(

-Chihchat

A cockroach hanging out in my room

Tonight my coworkers and I ate at an all you can eat bar and drinks to say goodbye to the foreign teacher Daniel and the Chinese teacher Dorothy. I'm actually replacing Daniel since he is leaving in a couple of weeks to go to law school in the States. We ate near the Taipei 101 building which is the largest building in Taipei that has 101 floors. The restaurant we ate at is a Japanese restaurant and the food was amazing! I consistently ate for 2 hrs and 45 mins lol Yeah..BUT I had a small lunch since I knew that I would be eating a lot. They had everything from sushi to Western food. Above is a picture of some of the food I got. They even had a Chocolate fountain and the free drinks included cocktails, beer, and wine. It cost roughly $800NT which is $24USD but it was worth it. It was nice to hang out with my coworkers outside of work and then later we were going to watch the soccer game but the bars was packed so we went to Daniel's friends place where we played card games until the next game which is 2:30am. USA is playing tonight at 2:30am-Taipei time.

I got home fairly late, around 1:30am and I turned on my light to see a "dead" cockroach near my door. I wanted to scream but I couldn't lol It was late and Drew left this morning to Thailand for vacation and Cala has her LSAT test tomorrow morning. So I got a broom and I swept it outside to find out it was still alive. Yuck..but it didn't really move so I hurried up and got some killer bug spray and I swept it to the living room and I sprayed it then got a small black carton thing and covered it. So yeah..it's near Cala's door but I did leave a note. I just hope she doesn't open the black carton because Cala absolutely hates cockroaches. I just feel awful since she will get up early to get ready for her LSAT and she will see it. I want to pick it up and throw it away but I can't. I just can't..ugh I wish cockroaches could just stay outside out of our apartment, especially my room!!

-Chihchat

Green Door Bar

For lunch Drew and I were eating at this beef noodle place and the small restaurant type store was really busy. Well we came in and they cleaned off a table for us and I was sitting across from Drew when the waitress wanted me to sit next to Drew. Then they were sitting people across from us at the same table. Drew told me that they usually do that here to save space. He said he was surprised when he first came here because he was alone and had to sit with random people. So it was a little awkward to share a table with complete strangers but oh well..he was a small man and he finished his noodles fast!

After work I went with Cala and her coworkers to a bar called the Green Door. We were going to go to this one bar called "My Place." The bar's name is actually in English and it was packed because of the soccer game. The World Cup is huge here and everyone was watching the game. We then decided to go to this bar called Green Door and when we entered the bar, Michael Jackson songs were playing. Today is exactly one year of Michael Jackson's death. I was hoping to see more people outside today commemorating him but I didn't see anything. Cala said it was on the news but I was glad to hear his music playing in the bar. They were playing most of his songs for awhile. This bar was low-key. It was like an American bar where people were playing darts and they served fried food and pizza. Cala's worker actually ordered us some french fries lol Then when we were about to leave, they were playing My Heart will go on by Celine Dion. So weird..another Michael Jackson/Leonardo DiCaprio combination :)

-Chihchat

"Where are you from? Ahh you ABC!"

This morning I had to do errands to finish my ARC application and 2 out of the 3 taxi drivers were talking about me, wanting to know about me, and talking about ABCs, American Born Chinese. I never heard negative things about being an ABC but maybe that's also because I'm living in Taipei. Most of the people I have talked with said that it is good that I would come back to my home country and experience my culture. I remember having a conversation with Will at the airport about being an ABC and he said it wasn't bad since he had many ABC friends. Then you get the term FOB, fresh off the boat so everyone is labeled.

I knew that one of the things I had to get accustomed to was people understanding that I am Chinese, born in America. During my interview, my hiring manager even told me right away that this was something that I was going to experience and I might get frustrated. It's sort of complicated just because my father was born in Guangdong, China, a southern province of China where Cantonese is the main dialect. My father knew how to speak Cantonese and Mandarin. My mother was born in China but she moved and immigrated to Taipei when she was 2 years old. She only knows Mandarin. Then my parents married in Taipei and immigrated to the U.S. where my older sister and I were born. People would speak to me in Chinese and of course when I respond, the immediate question is, where are you from? They sometimes guess and I usually got mistakened for being from Hong Kong. I say I am an American but they want to know my ethnicity too. So it goes into this whole long story and I don't want to say I'm Chinese because even though I'm technically Chinese, I'm not from China and there is tension between China and Taiwan. Most of my relatives live in Taipei but I can't say I'm Taiwanese because I'm not that either lol It should be an easy thing but I find myself always rambling about who I really am. Then the usual response after answering in broken Chinese is "Ahh you ABC!" Especially in the U.S., I would sometimes get offended being called that but after living in Taipei for about 2 weeks and hearing it everytime I communicate with someone, I just learned that it's the way of life and that being an ABC isn't SO bad. I heard from some people that Asian Americans have a higher prestige and the funny thing is that in Taipei, apparently many of the "ABCs" go to the bars lol It was even mentioned in the Taiwan Lonely Planet guidebook that many "ABCs" go to this one specific bar..which I might check out later lol

-Chihchat

Food, food, and more food

So after a post about food, I have another food story. Well there is a market next to my apartment and I got up early(ier-10:45am) to buy some fresh kiwis and lunch. I got youtiao for breakast, literal translation means oil stick which is basically fried dough. Since it was close to lunch, I went to a street vendor that I went last week when I went to buy my shorts. The lady remembered me and I told her to surprise me with a dish since I can't read any of the dishes. The last time she gave me noodle soup but the soup was too much for the bowl that comes with the meal and I spilled everywhere. They put the noodles, veggies, meat, and soup in a plastic bag and then the bowl separately so when you eat it, you have to open the bag and pour it in the bowl. This time she gave me dumpling soup. I thought it would be smart by putting the bowl in the sink and then pour the food in the bowl. Big mistake..I missed and most of the food got in the sink :( Oh well..Cala told me an easier way which is to cut the corner of the bag so then I can pour the soup out first then open the bag to dump the remaining food out. Who knew eating food can be so confusing? Or maybe I make it confusing lol

Then later tonight I went to this small food place near my work where you pick the veggies, meat, and noodles and they cook it for you. I thought they would cook it like noodle soup but it was actually just noodles which was fine. I went home to find out that I got someone else's food. Oh well..I wasn't too upset since the guy that was working looked like the guy from the Chinese movie "Waiting Alone" that I used for my powerpoint presentation in Chinese class. Above is the picture of the main character in the movie. The guy working looked like him and he was so nice!! Most people are always busy or in a hurry but this guy was smiling and saying thank you. I will definitely go back to order more food :)

-Chihchat

"Your eyes are bigger than your stomach"

I'm in my second week of observing classes and most of the teachers let me just observe and watch the students. The times I was forced to participate in the activities was when there was an odd number in Drew's class and when my trainer Vera just wanted me to be involved. Drew was teaching a slower class and they were playing a game to practice spelling and writing. I had to write "take a bath" and I have horrible handwriting and I got critique since my "a" was not written correctly lol Then today in Vera's class, she wanted me to partake in all the games. In one of the games each person had to write one word to make a sentence. We had to write a question and answer in a certain way like "How do or How does." The flashcard was a picture of sheep and we had to write "How do the sheep look?" Well there were multiple sheep and I didn't think about it, and we were on teams and my teammate said it's sheeps. I didn't think about it and said yeah that's right but yeah that was wrong lol Wow...so apparently I'm not smart enough to be in these classes haha I guess I will get to practice English grammar and my penmanship by teaching. The awesome thing, well okay to me, is that the student's vocabulary lists are in English and Chinese so I can learn more Chinese words :)

Ever since I arrived to Taipei, I have been eating A LOT! Everything smells and look good and it's all so cheap! It's unbelievable! A box of meat, vegetables, and rice is only about $3-4USD. The first picture from above is bamboo with mayo. Yeah at first I was surprised when Cala told me but it's actually really good. We ate this at a night market near our apartment. The second picture is heaven. It is mango shaved ice with fresh strawberry and mango and drizzled with condensed milk. The last picture is me drinking my first bubble tea at the Shinlin night market. I look tired but it was the 2nd or 3rd day I was in town. I've been here for 8 days and I've had bubble tea about 4 times lol I actually had it this afternoon :p Cala and Drew always tell me "Your eyes are bigger than your stomach" because I would order all this food and I can never finish eating all of it. I can't help it..I just look at the food and it's so wonderful and I can't resist haha But it finally caught up to me because tonight I ordered some food and my stomach had a fit! It might have been a combination of things since I'm still getting used to the time difference (I keep waking up early), eating too much food, eating a lot of greasy food, ate after I ran, or the food was just bad. Cala and I did run 3 miles and then I took a 20 min break and then ate but still, my stomach should be fine. Everyone tells me to take it easy and I need to do that with food. I just have to keep remembering that I will be here for about a year and I have time to eat all these dishes haha

-Chihchat

Waist shorts and Shilin night market

I was putting on the shorts I bought a couple of days ago to wear to work. At first the shorts were really tight around my waist and they were really long on me. I pulled them up to my stomach and it felt weird since it covered my belly button. I asked Drew if this was the right way of wearing them and he said it is. He said Taiwan fashion is a little strange and you will see how people wear clothes differently lol The picture above is an example of what I bought. (The girl is not me!! lol) It doesn't look too weird but wearing them is a little awkward. I got excited though because I felt more "Taiwanese" lol Actually now that I think about it, I think those shorts are trendy in Europe etc.

When I go to work I walk 5-10 mins to the subway station (MRT), then take the MRT for 5-10 mins and then walk another 5-10 mins to work. I was about to get off the subway and this man was standing next to me. The announcer on the subway said we were getting off at the Shilin exit which is my stop and the biggest night market is also called Shilin. When I was about to get off, this man who is in his mid 40s started talking to me in Chinese if this stop was the night market. In Chinese I replied back I don't know. Then he started talking to me. He asked me where I was from since obviously I have an accent and so I told him I was American and I was getting off the subway. I was going to leave but he asked me where I worked. I told him I'm a teacher, teaching English. He's from Korea and he tried speaking broken English to me. I told him to stop speaking English and just continue with Chinese lol His Chinese was good for being Korean. I can understand him better with Chinese than English. He told me he was living with his little sister's house and that he was trying to find work. He wanted to know how much I got paid but I didn't answer. By this point I was out of the subway station but he kept asking me questions. He said he wanted to live in America and fell in love with a girl from there that lived in California but it didn't work out lol I was running late and I was trying to get away from this man and I finally kept walking saying I got to go! He said good bye and good luck to me which was nice.

Overall he was friendly but he was nosy which scared me a little bit. I don't know why he was trying to find work if he lives in Korea. I asked Drew about it later and he said sometimes people are friendly. It doesn't mean anything bad unless he keeps following you or something. But I agree, Taiwanese people are friendly. I think living in Taipei is definitely "English friendly" because most of the signs are in English and people are willing to help out foreigners. Also in Taipei there is a low crime rate and there is a 7 Eleven around every corner. I feel safe going on the subway at night and walking home by myself although I don't plan to do that often. I mean, sometimes people have good intentions and just want to have conversations but this random stranger I don't even know was talking about finding a job and wanting to marry a girl from the U.S.! With all the stuff we talked about, our conversation was only 5-10 mins long!!I think the funniest thing was when he was describing how much he loved this girl and he said it in Chinese but he made a kissy face to show me how much he loved her lol If saying it wasn't enough and making the smoochy noise and kissy face would prove his endless love for this woman haha

-Chihchat

Closed! Complex recycling

When I moved to Taipei to live with Drew and Cala, I was replacing their third roommate Lisa. Lisa studied in Taipei and went home June 11 and I arrived June 14 which was really good timing. She left her bed mattress which was a nice queen size bed but the only problem is that there is no bed frame. So Cala and I went to IKEA today to check out the bed frames. The picture above is a kitchen set up at IKEA and I thought it was cute because there was a wok :) Anyway I didn't find a cheap bed frame so I will either ask my relatives or just try to live without one. I want to buy a bed frame but there's no point to buy an expensive one when I'm only going to be there for a year.

Cala knew a really good Thai restaurant near IKEA but it was closed. Then after IKEA she showed me a underground shopping mall near the MRT (subway train station) and we were going to eat at this restaurant called 21 after we went shopping but it was closed. We got there around 3pm and it didn't open until 4pm. Then later we were going to go running on this track at this school and it was also closed due to cutting and cleaning the plants and trees. It really wasn't our day but oh well.

Something that is really interesting and yet really confusing is the trash system here. It's great because Taipei is trying to be Go Green but it can be such a headache to recycle. Usually you just separate the bottles from the paper etc. Here you have to separate EVERYTHING! So let's say for example you bought some noodle soup with bubble tea. The noodle soup is going to come with a lid. That lid, the chopsticks, plastic spoon, straw, and bag can be thrown out in the regular trash. If there is food in the soup container, that needs to be thrown in a container that is just plain food. The soup container itself then needs to be washed so we won't get cockroaches and then put in a bag that is for paper and cardboard that has touched food. Styrofoam and paper/cardboard that hasn't touched food is put in other separate containers. Then the bubble tea container is also thrown in the bag with the plastic/cardboard that has touched food. The little plastic bag that comes with the tea (all the drinks come with bags because of the condensation from the humidity) is put in an another container. The trash comes at different days at odd hours and the truck plays Fur Elise to warn everyone that they are coming. Why that song? Cala doesn't know lol If you don't separate the garbage correctly, you get paid a fine. Sometimes you can just eat at the restaurant and not have to deal with it but it's a pain. There are barely any garbage cans in Taipei except near the train stations. And you need special bags to recycle and plastic bags cost an extra 2 元. I just remember the first day I arrived they were explaining all these rules to me in the kitchen. I'm getting the hang of it now :)

-Chihchat

Mr. Onion and winner's luck..well maybe..

This morning my mission was to find a stand or restaurant that sold hot and sour soup. Drew told me it was near the train station where I go to work but I still have yet to find it. A lot has to do with the fact that I can't read any of the traditional characters since I learned simplified and I don't know that many characters in general. There was a morning market going on since it was Sat. morning so I ended up buying some clothes. Yes, I gave in sadly. I wanted to find some good work clothes and I looked at these jean shorts and since I was shopping in a stand, there was no fitting room. I always try on the clothes before I buy it but I had no choice this time. Well I asked the guy what size it was since the sizes are all different here and it didn't say. Yeah it was an XL..good thing I didn't buy it. Then I bought some shorts that were a little tight on me :( Oh well lol I bought two pairs and it only cost me $4USD. Yay!! Then I tried to find the soup and I ended up gawking at a sign at one of the vendor stands and the seller was trying to help me. She actually made me really good noodle soup so I will try to go there again. Then I got lost since I was walking around and trying to be brave and adventurous. I asked a policeman if he knew where Mr. Onion is at because it's the name of a restaurant which is what my roommates and I call the "landmark" near our apartment, well that or the cement building lol The policeman looked at me all confused and said no..then I was like oh ok. He says in English, sorry! I said it's okay. So I walk two blocks to find Mr. Onion lol I guess the English translation of the restaurant is not the same so no wonder he was confused. I asked so many people about Mr. Onion. I need to figure out how to say the Chinese name of the restaurant.

Tonight Cala, Drew, his friend Claire from work and my coworker, and I played mahjong. For all who don't know, mahjong is a card game used with tiles which have circles, numbers, etc. It's like the card game gin where you need 5 sets of 3 which can be straights or one of a kind and 1 two pair. I learned mahjong when I was 4 and I would play when my family and I would go to Chinese gatherings. Not to be conceited but I would usually win but my family and I use different rules. Well we are all poor so we only bet 1元 which is roughly 32 cents in U.S. money. Taiwan uses coins for the lower amounts like 1,5,10,25,50 but 100元 and higher comes in dollar form. There are no cents in the Taiwan currency. Then we played this game where it's called liar's cup where you have cups with dice and you figure out how many numbers are in each cups. So we played mostly mahjong and then the other game twice and I won a total of over 40元. Maybe I should have betted with higher money.. just kidding..ok maybe not..

-Chihchat

Dress code-20 Questions

When I first met my boss, she asked me how old I was. I'm sure she knew but then she told me that I looked really young. Then today she told me that I looked like one of the students. I will admit, it's hard to figure out what I should wear to work because I don't want to be too dressy, yet, I don't want to be too casual. Sometimes I think I can handle wearing jeans or black pants but I can't. I sweat very easily and to live in a tropical climate like Taipei doesn't help at all. I found out yesterday that I'm the youngest employee at Kojen which makes me happy but also, I need to realize I need to dress older. I was wearing a silver head band, a shirt, capris, and shoes which maybe doesn't make me look older. Then my trainer and boss talked about my cheeks lol So I guess I need a wardrobe change maybe or a face transplant? jk jk lol

It was my second day of observation and I was observing a class that was pretty advanced. They were roughly 13 years old and they can understand fairly well and make good sentences. The teacher who is around 24 decides to play 20 questions which I don't know why he chose that game. That's hard even if you aren't a native English speaker. So the teacher let me play and I was stumped just like the students. We asked questions like is it hard? it is inside? can you touch it? what color is it? is it natural? So we were narrowing down to things like rain, mud, and sunshine. The teacher kept saying that we talk about it everyday and that we should get it since it's really easy. Oh and it wasn't even in the vocabulary list. Yeah the word was....WEATHER! Umm...that's really hard! And he didn't answer the questions correctly either because he said it is not hard but hail and ice, parts of weather are hard. Yeah I called him out actually and the students were giggling. I mean, I did it for fun too but honestly, if I did that in Chinese I would hate it lol So here's some advice, never play 20 questions with your students when teaching any foreign languages!

-Chihchat

Michael Jackson, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Ma La soup

It was my first day training and observing classes at Kojen. In my first class the teacher asks the students what is their favorite band. This boy stands up and says Michael Jackson with a serious face. The whole class starts laughing. I loved it! I was observing with a Chinese teacher and we were talking about our appreciation of him. Michael Jackson performed in Taipei and so far a lot of people have told me about it. The lesson was over bands and movies and I looked at the student's book beside me and there was a picture of Leonardo DiCaprio!! And yes sadly I knew when the picture was taken of him -1997 movie premiere of Romeo and Juliet hahaha! The Chinese teacher wrote his Chinese name out for me on paper :) I talked to Drew later and he thinks that in one of the vocabulary lessons the students learn how to say Leonardo DiCaprio in Chinese!! Also there was Tom Cruise and Mel Gibson in the vocabulary but no one knew who Mel Gibson was lol The teacher says is he young or old? Everyone said he was old because they don't know who he is. Unfortunately the teacher didn't ask about Leonardo DiCaprio hehe

After work Drew and I went to Lulalas, a vendor stand where you pick meats, noodles, and vegetables and they cook it for you like soup. I was excited since they had such good variety for a little stand. It was close to my apartment and it was noodle soup which I eat constantly. I put so much good food and Taiwan delicacies like pig blood and intestines in my soup. My soup cost 350元 which in USD is roughly about $15. So I take it home and started eating it and it had a really bad aftertaste but I kept trying to eat it since I thought it was just me since I'm still experiencing jetlag or the food that I put in. Cala was with me in the living room while I was trying to eat the noodle soup and she tells me that they add the spice ma la which is a sichuan pepper. They don't usually serve it in the U.S...and I know why! The aftertaste numbs your mouth since it's so spicy and it tasted to me like a mix of rubbing alcohol and vinegar :/ So yeah I was so sad since I couldn't eat it and I really wanted noodle soup. I hate wasting food, especially Taiwanese food so I was trying so hard to eat it but my tongue and stomach couldn't handle it. Oh well, it cost me $15 to realize I don't like ma la...

-Chihchat

Family and pest moments

This morning I saw my grandmother and my uncle and aunt were telling me interesting and funny stories about my mother which were great to hear. Then my older cousin tells me that he was sad about Michael Jackson's death. I was so surprised since that was really random but I too was upset about his death so I'm glad I could talk to someone about it. I had lunch with my uncle, aunt, and cousin and we were eating Dim Sum, a Cantonese style meal which included chicken's feet and stinky tofu (chou dofu). That was the first time I had both dishes that are popular in Taipei and they were delicious! I was talking about Chinese holidays since today is the Dragon boat festival. For all Chinese national holidays, people don't work or have to go school. I was telling them I was born the year of the rabbit and that I'm excited for 2011 since that is the year of the rabbit and it will be lucky. However they told me how it's the opposite meaning and that it will be an unlucky year which surprises me but oh well. It's all superstitions anyway! Then my cousin was explaining to me how to say the year of the rabbit in Chinese. So later on that night I was trying to practice my sentence to my coworker and I accidentaly said "我屬頭" which means that I belonged to a head 頭-tou, instead of 兔-tu which is rabbit. So yes, I belong to a head! Oh and tonight I saw a rat run across a counter and up a ceiling in a coffee shop, ran away from cockroaches on the street, have a golf-size mosquito bite on my arm, and saw stray cats running around the side streets.

-Chihchat

"Stop Laughing"

My roommate Cala discusses about the hilarious events that happened at the clinic, "If this were to happen in a movie, you would think it would never happen in real life because this is too stupid to happen."

To apply for my work visa (ARC), I need to get a medical examiniation done. So this morning Cala went with me to a clinic to get my checkup. To justify my upcoming actions, I woke up early around 8am only having about 4 hours of sleep, recovering from my long flight the previous night.

We first went to get my photos taken. I was ready to take my photo and you have to press the button when you're ready to take it. I pushed the button thinking that I took the photo, only realizing that after a couple of mins a flash sound is played and then it takes my picture. The first picture was awful as I really looked funny since my eyes were closed and my lip was halfway shut. When Cala and I were later talking about what happened at the clinic we felt that the picture really justified how I felt that morning.

I then waited to see the doctor. He went over my medical history and he told me to go outside to the next person. So Cala is standing outside the door and I go out and go to the next door. Cala asks me where I was going. I told her the doctor wanted me to go to the next room. Cala goes are you sure? I said yeah why? She says, "Well because this room is only for the elderly." Then I realized that the doctor wanted me to go to this desk outside the room. I was like wow..okay lol

There was a man and a woman sitting at the desk. The man was calling me over. I got my height checked and then he told me to sit down. I saw a machine to check eye vision and a blood pressure machine. Well I see the blood pressure machine and I'm looking through it because I thought it was the eye machine. I literally placed my head face to face with the blood pressure machine and peering through it. I then said in Chinese, "Should I wear my glasses? My vision is bad." The guy looked at me like what in the world is this girl talking about? Cala was laughing so hard and the lady next to me goes no no! This is the vision machine..oh my goodness..I started cracking up! I could not believe I would mistake a blood pressure machine as the vision machine. This black guy sitting next to me goes no..this is the blood pressure machine. Wow...then I'm checking my blood pressure but Cala and I can't stop laughing. I'm laughing so hard that my blood pressure was too high LOL The man yells at me "Stop laughing! I have to retake it again." Oh my..I was trying so hard not to laugh and the lady next to me says, "Take it easy!" LOL I go yeah my mom tells me that all the time and she goes oh now you're comparing me to your mother lol But she was joking and she was really nice but the man did not find this funny at all.

Then I go to the vision machine. I had to say up, down, left, or right but I couldn't remember the symbols for the directions. For example, 山 was up. So I kept looking out of the machine to the direction sheet and the lady told me not to look away. Cala later tells me that I was moving my fingers and not really saying a direction lol

So yeah..who knew that a trip to the clinic can be so entertaining? Everytime Cala and I talk about the clinic trip, we laugh so hard that we can't stop and my stomach seriously hurts from laughing so hard. Oh my..obviously I'm not adjusting to the time zone yet.

-Chihchat

"You are too pretty for Economy"

I understand travelling can be stressful, tiring, and exhausting but as a frequent traveler inside and outside of the U.S., I never experienced such a crazy, hard time just to get Taiwan. So a recap of what happened to me during the last 24 hours:

-went to the wrong airline at the Omaha Airport
-paid an extra $100 since my luggage was overweight by 15 lbs
-waited 2 hours for my luggage since it didn't arrive with my plane and it was arriving in another plane
-carried about 100lbs of my own luggage to travel to different terminals and realized that I could have used a cart to carry my luggage
-tried to make a conversation with a guy who had to wait for his luggage..yeah awkward since he told me he went to his mother's funeral in Canada
-one of the security guys tried saying goodbye to me in Chinese which I didn't understand because of his accent. He later told me he lived in Taiwan.
-asked the security guy what line I can check in for China airlines and I asked him if I was the Economy class and he tells me, "You are too pretty for Economy." Mind you I had a half ponytail up, I'm sweating with no eyeliner and makeup.
-asked for a ranch at McDonalds..yes I'm not fond of McDonalds but it was the cheapest place to eat and the last time I will eat American food. My meal cost $6 though..urgh. Anyways so I asked for a ranch and it cost an extra 27 cents but another guy who was working slipped me a packet of ranch for free! I mouthed to him thank you and hurriedly ran away
-my plane was delayed for 1 hour from Los Angeles to Taipei
-went through security and the guy was explaining to me what he was looking at my passport even though I didn't care and then he was saying oo Miss Lilly going to Taiwan and was giggling..no joke..I told him he was such a happy fellow!
-tried to find a spot at the airport and this lady let me sit next to her which she was a worker at the airport. Then she left for work and this guy needed a spot to sit so he sat nexted to me. We were both on the same flight and we played cards and talked about Asian culture...he is an international student at UCLA and told me that UCLA stands for University of Cute Little Asians
-went through security again and this guy said I was loved since someone circled a heart around my flight number..the person who circled it was the airline lady when I checked in and I didn't even notice it
-sat next to a Filipino man on the airplane who hates his wife and he kissed me goodbye on my cheek when we landed in Taipei
-got questioned when I was in Immigration because they wondering why I was in Taiwan and he made me fill out more information
-couldn't find the person who was supposed to pick me up from the airport but luckily found him after scrambling around the airport for 30 mins trying to find him. He waited for me for 1 hour and I tipped him even though you aren't supposed to tip here
-sat up front in the passenger seat in his car and he told me that I should sit in the back since it is more comfortable.. ok well I didn't want to be rude but then I realized that he is a driver lol

*But the thing that I found most amusing was my driver, driving me to my apartment. He was tapping the gas pedal!! I know I'm making my case worse but I get called out for tapping the gas..well people do it here in Taipei too LOL Okay..yeah that probably didn't help but I kept giggling in the backseat. It's really not that funny but after only having 3 hours of sleep and travelling almost a full day..everything is funny!

-Chihchat