Days 3 and 4

Day 3:

Haha, I feel like such a tourist…

We woke up at 6 this morning. SO EARLY O__O. Today, we went to many different tourist attractions, but gotta admit, it wasn’t really fun. I feel really bad for our tour guides because no one listens to them. Lol.

First Destination: Taiwan Glass Gallery. We got to see many things made out of glass, kind of cool I guess.

A path of sand that has glass over it. 

Glass Taipei 101

Second Destination: Lugang Mazu Temple. It was so hot today. Super humid. And what made it worse was that we had to walk to the temple and walk around. Luckily though, I was saved from walking….more on that later though. At the temple we watched a Neon Techno Gods Dance…it was so weird O__O. Ladies dressed up in these big costumes danced to this happy techno song. Only in Taiwan….After the performance we were supposed to walk around the temple and then walk to lunch.

However, the bug bites I got the day before swelled up to the size of a baseball. My bug bite next to my knee looked like a second knee. LOL. So I got sent to the doctors and he just gave me pills and this special cream. After the doctor’s the people didn’t send me back to the temple but instead brought me to the restaurant to wait an hour and a half, by myself. Haha. It was so awkward. But when my group came I was glad I wasn’t send back. They had to walk in the blistering sun for two hours and to the restaurant. Everyone looked like they were about to pass out and were sweating balls.

look at the size of that!

Third Destination: Shueili Snake Kiln. The bus ride was very long since we were driving up the mountain. Unfortunately, it was raining when we went. Actually, raining is an understatement,. It was POURING. We had to wear these yellow ponchos and walk in the rain to the pottery place. My shoes got soaked…whenever I walked, my shoes would squeak. Haha. The one day I decide to wear sneakers, it had to pour rain….it was definitely very uncomfortable. At the kiln, we got to make our own pottery and stuff. It’s not as easy as it looks…I was making a mug but it got too hard, so I just made a plate. LOL. Not very ambitious. *no pictures because it was raining too hard to take the camera out. Plus, I had to wear a poncho and couldn't even get the camera out of my bag.*

Today wasn’t a very eventful day. Most of the time we just sat on the bus and drove to our next destination. However, my group had a very good bonding time on the bus rides. We overtook the back of the bus and just left one seat open in between people. We would then call up our counselors and question them about their love lives. Haha. It was a very fun time.

Day 4:

Yet again, we woke up super early again. It’s good that I’m jetlagged, but I will soon be dying of sleep.
Currently, we are in Xitou, a place within the mountains of Taiwan. It’s much cooler than the rest of Taiwan, since we are on a mountain, but still very warm. I guess I can’t escape this heat!

After breakfast, we were taught how to make a bamboo basket. I have realized, I don’t have much patience for DIY crafts, especially if I’m not good at it. Haha. My basket was so messed up though that the instructor had to fix it for me, but then she couldn’t even fix it. Haha. I only have pictures of it because I just threw it away. Haha. I “accidently” left it somewhere. :D

finished product before it fell apart. haha

I gotta say, the last couple of days weren’t as eventful as the previous days. But it’s also because we’re all so tired.

After lunch, we got to tour a oolong tea factory, one of Taiwan’s famous teas, Dongpo Tea, and taste tea and learn how to make tea. Never knew it took a long time to made tea. Always just though it was just dried leaves, but there is so much to it. Props to tea makers. Then we headed to the National Fonghuanggu Bird Park, but it wasn’t that interesting because the birds we saw, were all birds I have seen at the San Diego Zoo. So many people were like “OMG a parrot!” haha but I’ve seen plenty of those to not even take a second look at them. Haha. It started raining again, but luckily, we were going back to the hotel for dinner.

look I'm a tea picker!

I'm making tea!

UGH, the dinners they provide for us all so…unpleasant…haha. We’ve eaten pig blood or pig feet at almost every meal. Only breakfast is the best meal. I should’ve gone to the vegetarian table since I only eat vegetables at my table anyway.  After dinner, and still hungry, I went to Hi-Life downstairs and bought a tea egg. SO MUCH BETTER THAN DINNER. Later though, 300 were put into a room, and we were forced to have a random rave. LOL. We played these Asian games and then randomly they pulled out glow sticks and turned off the lights. People were going crazy….it was really strange. I mean, I’m all up for fun, but this was plain weird. Haha. Thankfully, it was only an hour and then we just headed back to our rooms afterwards.

Hehe. As a group, we stole our counselor’s shirt and wrote little notes on the back and then hide it back in his room. It was good idea, but his short was wet when we stole it. Haha. We had to blowdry his shirt, but it was unsuccessful. Most of the notes we wrote bleed so it was just black blobs on his shirt. Oh well…haha

**I'm still in the process of writing the other days. I've just been so busy I haven't had time to sit down and write stuff out. Hopefully I remember stuff still! lol. Pictures will be updated soon as well!**

I have arrived!!!

Day 1 and 2!

**WARNING** This will be a SUPER long post, just because I am writing my week one as I go through orientation. I don’t post them immediately because I don’t have a long period of time (writing my blog posts on bus rides) and because I don’t always have internet. Enjoy my first week as I slowly post them! 

Day 1

I HAVE ARRIVED!!!! After a 13 hour flight, I have finally landed in Taiwan!WEEEEEE. Currently, it’s cloudy outside (since it’s 6:30 in the morning…) but it’s going to get sunnier later! Even without the sun, it’s super humid outside and REALLY bright. Also, it’s 81 degrees already -__-….

My flight was not as great as I had hoped it would be. First, the food was just disgusting. I didn’t expect much, but it was gross. The arrangements were nice and there was a variety of side dishes so I guess that sort of makes up for the disgusting entrée. However, thanks to my brother (life saver!) he bought me a carne asada burrito that saved me from hunger, except it made me really thirsty since it was a little too salty :P. Plus, I even got two meals on the plane, not counting the burrito. They served dinner first (at 1:30am, so I’m not sure that constitutes as dinner…) and breakfast a few hours before we landed! Breakfast was a lot better than dinner, but still, the scrambled eggs were kinda gross. Lol. Thanks to snacks and the huge burrito, I made it through the flight without starving. Yay!

Dinner

Breakfast

Maybe I was just cranky for not sleeping more than a couple of hours on the plane ride, but my seat was super uncomfortable. From my perspective in the aisle seat, my seat was definitely smaller and more narrow than the other seats. I was so cramped, but maybe it’s also because I’m fat…haha JK…but really, the seats were so small. I couldn’t even fit my backpack in the under seat carry-on area! It was a lot more narrow than the middle seat which made me kinda upset. Oh wells, I had to stuff it in the overhead bin. As for not sleeping, I, for some reason, CANNOT fall asleep on the plane. I can in a car, bus, train, or anything that has a rocking motion, but I just can’t fall asleep on a plane for the life of me. So, I just ended up watching countless movies. At the end of the flight my eyes were like O___O. haha, but later on in the day it was like -__-. Buahaha. 

AND I ALMOST LOST MY CHECK-IN LUGGAGE! Ugh, I am such a failure at life sometimes….The stupid immigration line took so long to get through that by the time I went downstairs to claim my luggage, my flight’s luggage was already gone! I had to ask a lady to direct me to my flight’s ramp. I looked like such a lost tourist. Lol. 

After I got my luggage, I had to wait for my internship people to pick me up at the airport. I thought it was going to be a long 3 hours wait, but luckily I met some people from my internship and we just sat together. One of them was even from my high school! What a small Taiwanese world. LOL. I skyped with my parents a bit and then hung out with the kids until the TTT people came to pick us up. 

When I got to the first location of the internship, we just ate lunch and bonded with our group. My group has a whole variety of people and we’re all so different, but we all get along. 

After lunch, we listened to the mayor of Taoyuan county speak and then we listened to this prominent writer. It was all kind of boring, but since my group was seated in the back, we just fooled around and talked.  We got these awesome goody bags with this really nice porcelin tumbler and these really nice re-usable utensils, plus other really cool stuff. They must’ve spent so much money on us since we have 300 kids participating in this program. CRAZY.

When the speeches were done, we rode in these super asian tour buses (9 buses total) and rode to Taichung for dinner. Dinner was super fancy, but unfortunately, the food wasn’t even that good. Haha. It was actually kind of bland and the meat was all super fatty. But the performance during dinner was really entertaining. We had many different Taiwanese indigenous tribes come and perform songs and dances for us. It was so cool!  After dinner, we just headed to our “dorms” for 2 nights. If these were the dorms that I had at school, I would ALWAYS live on campus. It was literally an apartment, with a kitchen, huge living room, dining room, AND laundry room. It was amazing. Plus, A/C was free, so me and my roommates just blasted A/C all night. Haha. It was too good. The only downside was, we didn’t have wifi.

Our Asian tour buses! There's even KTV and microphones lol

Since I was super jetlagged and had stayed up for a good 36 hours or more, I instantly knocked out when the lights were turned off. It was nice. Haha.

The living room of my "dorm". Super big

Day 2

I woke up earlier than the rest of the girls in my room since I was jetlagged. It’s kind of nice waking up early, but I know I won’t be able to do it after a couple of days when my jetlag wears off. T___T. Guess I have to make the most of my jetlag. Surprisingly, I am not tired at all, but that will change soon. Haha.

Today, we traveled to many places in Taichung. Right after breakfast we had this team bonding activity, but with all Asians, everything is a competition,. Unfortunately, it was a jump roping competition. -___-. It would’ve been nice if it was one v. one, but NO, it was our group vs. another group. We had all jump at the same time…and there are 12 kids in every group. BLAH. We didn’t even make one jump. LOL -__-. Ultimate fail. With no surprise we ended last, but oh wells, our group bonded over our loss by making up excuses on why we lost. LOL. The top 3 places won these HUGE watermelons, but I don’t even know when they’ll be able to eat it, haha, since our schedule is PACKED.

UGH BUT I AM SO MAD. I had only stood outside for less than 10 minutes and I had already been bitten twice. -__- right after I put on bug spray too!!!! These mosquitoes know where the fresh meat is at…Ugh, now the bug bites have swollen and are HUGE. It’s like a huge lump that is super itchy but it also stings at the same time. I hate mosquitoes -__-. 

Right after the jump rope competition, and everyone all sweaty and mosquito bitten, we had to listen to two more keynote speakers. The first speaker was so awesome and interesting. She came to talk to us about the Creativity Lab, where artisits/designers work with engineers/scientists to make these amazing works of technological arts, or media arts. It’s amazing how much we’ve come since pencils and paper. *Note to self, must attend Taipei’s Flora Expo since their main attraction is created by the Creativity Lab. The flowers in the expo interact with you! If I get a chance to go, I’ll definitely put more details up* The second keynote speaker was SO BORING. It literally was like a business/econ lecture…nothing special to note here haha. 

After the speakers, we were off to our next destination! For my bus, we went to a couple of Taichung’s top sites. First we went to the world’s largest power plant. Yes, you read right, We went to a power plant. -__- Of all the places they could pick….It was alirhgt I guess. Next, we went to a steel factory. This was actually pretty cool because we got a VIP tour and got to see how the steel was made. We got hardhats and got to walk around in the factory, except it got REALLY hot, but it was so cool! Not many people can get a tour in steel factory. *I feel so special :D*

As I said previously, our days are SUPER packed. Wake up at 7am and don’t get back until 10pm. 

Today, my group definitely bonded. We are a weird group. We’re super social with each other and our counselor is super cool, but we don’t talk to anyone outside of our group. Haha. I try to and have other friends, but I rarely get to see them! 

Our last destination was the Feng Jia Nightmarket, but we ended our tours a little too early so we chilled at this park until we got to go the night market. It’s so awesome. Our counselor each gave us a 100 NT to spend at the nightmarket for whatever we wanted, but what’s even better, he paid for all of us for our foods. FREE 100NT! He is super awesome! He even gave us little cell phone pouches that have a map of Taiwan on it. WAH I FEEL SO SPECIAL! No other group has it.

The nightmarket was sooooooo crowded. -__- sweaty people everywhere. It didn’t help that we got the weirdest looks from the locals. Haha. AMERICAN PEOPLE INVADING. Literally, there were like 300 kids roaming night market. My group stuck together and ate all kinds of food. The popcorn chicken was SO juicy and delicious. And the boba, stinky tofu, and shrimp omelets. YUMMM,. There was just too much to see and too much to eat! Can’t wait until I’m not on a schedule and spend more time eating and shopping. Hehe. However, nightmarkets are not a place to go eat dinner. I was so hungry after leaving the nightmarket. Haha. Those foods are good for late night snacks, but they’re not very filling for a meal….

I was so tired after returning from the nightmarket that the girls in my room and I just knocked out right after we showered. Orientation has been so much fun so far, but also so tiring. Can’t believe it is only the second day and we still have so much to do!

Less than 4 days until I go back to Taiwan! AHH!

I've been procrastinating a bit. Instead of packing and preparing for my stay in Taiwan, all I've been doing is watching TV with the little brother and throwing water balloons at each other at the pool. -__- Oh and the constant eating. haha.

However, today, for an hour, I decided to be productive and dug up clothes and random stuff I need for Taiwan. I don't even know if I've packed enough for two months, but I guess I can always buy more when I get there!

And look at what my mother got me! So cute!

Drool...

I still have a little bit more than a week before I go to Taiwan, but for some reason I feel like I have much longer. I guess a part of me doesn't want to leave by myself to a place that is flooding and raining a lot -__-. I'm dreading packing...there is so much I want to bring, but I can't.

However, I recently discovered that one of my sorority sisters that I met a couple of weeks ago will also be doing the SAME internship as me and we might even live together! WEEEEEE. I won't be so alone anymore!! It's going to be so much fun. >:)

Anywho, I have discovered this website, http://www.cnngo.com/explorations/eat/40-taiwanese-food-296093?page=0,0, and have decided, I WILL TRY ALL 40 FOODS (+ more that weren't on that site) when I am in Taiwan, or at least attempt to try all 40. lol. I've had many of those foods before, my mom makes a lot of them, but since Taiwan is mainly known for its delicious cuisine, what better way to spend my time than eat? I'm pretty sure that when I return back home to the states, I will have gained weight, but I will keep telling myself it's all for the better good. buahaha.

Just the beginning...

Weee! My first blog post...EVER! How exciting!

So my life back in California has just been eating, sleeping, watching Game of Thrones (SO GOOD!), other random movies, and playing around with the little brother and dog. Being back home definitely hits the spot. I'm so glad to be home and to be surrounded by my family and good food. Madison lacks both of those things. lol.

After reading a few of my friends' summer blogs about their internship, food, and travel adventures, I've decided to take up a blog of my own detailing my summer abroad in Taiwan. It probably won't be as awesome  or enticing as others, but it'll suffice in jogging my memories when I look back later in my life. :)

I still have a couple weeks left with family before I depart for Taiwan for my internship. I'll be in Taiwan for 8 hot, humid, and sticky weeks, so let's hope I come back to the states in one piece and maybe a little bit smarter! Let me know of any fun places to visit since I'll be adventuring by myself...NO PARENTS. O__O. I now wish my Mandarin was better, but I guess I will just have to practice there and be a total tourist. haha.

For the past couple of weeks, all I have been doing is preparing for my trip. Mom is deciding for me what clothes are appropriate to wear in Taiwan; for the conservative people and for the weather. Mom thinks I dress too casually or even sloppy sometimes. Ehh I guess I'll let her decide what to bring..not saying I'm going to wear everything she tells me to bring though >:).

Let's hope I keep this going when I'm in Taiwan. I foresee myself having a tendency to get lazy and stop documenting my days. lol. I'll update on the days leading up to my departure (maybe)! lol.

For 8 weeks, it will be me, myself, and Taiwan. :)