Photos from the Pottery Making Class

很惡心

Hot Pot!  A delicious restaurant where you're given a pot of
soup and you boil your food in it yourself!

Hiking some trails with Hsiu-Li

My classmate/roommate, Lauren, and me practicing our
calligraphy!

Calligraphy class

The most amazing dinner I've had here so far.

A very small portion of an extremely long and gorgeous painting
Hsiu-Li took me to see.

The title of this post is a phrase that Hsiu-Li taught me.  Taiwan has this food called "stinky tofu."  It's basically aged tofu and it smells like baby poop.  I was trying to explain my absolute disgust for it and Hsiu-Li taught me 很惡心 (Hěn ěxīn) which literally translates to "I'm going to vomit my heart out."  I thought it was really interesting...

On Sunday, Hsiu-Li and I hiked some trails.  It was very hot and we had to take a lot of rests.  We actually decided to hike a mountain and got about halfway up and decided to turn around.  There was a river along part of the path so we took our shoes off and cooled down.  It was very sandy but there were large rocks covered in moss so it was very slippery getting in!

Monday we had a calligraphy class!  Chinese calligraphy is very different from American calligraphy.  A special paint brush is used and you have to hold it a specific way.  It was very difficult, but we all learned how to write the blessing "may your dreams soar."  Our teacher was a man who is among the most famous calligraphers in Taiwan!

We celebrated the 4th of July by going out for burgers and only drinking American beer!  We also made our best attempts at speaking Chinese in American Southern accents...

Today we went to Yingee which is famous for it's pottery.  While we were there we got to make pottery ourselves!  It was very very difficult to get your clay into a workable shape, but once you created the basic shape it was easy to work from there.  I made a saucer type thing...  I don't have any pictures to share because I wasn't able to take any, but my professor did.  So when he uploads them I will put the on here, but we won't get our finished pottery until the final ceremony at the end of the trip.

I love you guys!

Kar

Two weeks already??

Making noodles!

The soup that we made.

Picking tea leaves.

Our lunch

My classmate, Laura, and me at the beach.

View from the top of Taipei 101.

On Wednesday we had a cooking class where we learned to make noodles!  We made them from scratch with water and flower and had to twist the dough and smack it against the table!  Apparently smacking it against the table loosens up the molecules so that the dough will easily stretch into noodles.  We also cut up a ton of vegetables and meats and combined them with our noodles to make soup.

Thursday, we had a long day starting at 7:50 AM and ending at 8 PM.  We took a bus to the country so that we could pick and make our own tea.  The city and the country are divided by large mountains and would take many hours to drive through, but tunnels were built through the mountains to make the trip quicker.  One tunnel was 13 km long which is about 8 miles!  It's not the longest tunnel but it's considered to be the most dangerous one ever constructed.

Once we got to the tea farm, they put us straight to work!  We picked our tea leaves, but weren't able to use them because they have to sit for twenty-four hours.  So, we used the harvest from the previous day.  First, we had to mix the leaves with our hands to open them up.  Then, we put the tea into a very hot mixer (you can see it above, sort of looks like a cement mixer).  After that, they had to be rolled, which is the next picture, and lastly they had to be cooked in the final machine seen above.

After all that hard work, we finally got to drink our tea.  Since they kept handing us cups of tea (we probably had about 15 cups), everyone got a bit "tea drunk."  Being tea drunk is the equivalent to being slap happy so I'm sure you can imagine what happens when 10 tired kids get slap happy.

Once we left the tea farm we headed to lunch, then a museum, and a beach.  The beach was beautiful, but we only got to dip our feet in because we forgot our bathing suits.  The water felt amazing as well as the breeze.  It was a nice change from 90 degree, humid weather.

Yesterday, Friday, we went to Taipei 101, which is the second tallest building in the world.  It is 101 stories and 1,667 feet tall.  It also contains the world's highest bathroom, which I totally used, and the world's two fastest elevators.  They travel from the 5th floor to the 80th floor in about 37 seconds!!  The view from the observatory was insanely gorgeous.  We were able to see almost all of Taipei.

Today I'm headed to a coffee shop with my classmate, Lauren, to study for our exams on Monday.  Yup, we just got placed into our individual classes yesterday and everyone either walked into an exam or has one Monday.  I love my class though, because it is way easier than the difficult group class we were in.  I can actually keep up!

I love you guys,

Kar

A Day with the Gods

Hsiu-Li took me to a temple!

Praying to the gods.

A necklace with the good luck god for those
born during the year of the ram/goat on it.

Blessing my necklace.

Hsiu-Li and me!

The botanical gardens

Lotus flower

That's my name!  Kǎi lì Hotel!

Today my Taiwan buddy, Hsiu-Li, and her friend took me to a temple and the botanical garden.  Both were extremely gorgeous.

At the temple there were people burning incense everywhere so you had to watch out!  When you walk in you're given several incense sticks, you light them, and then go off to pray to whichever gods you wish.  I pretty much prayed to every god asking that he would help me improve my Chinese.  You bow and then tell the god your name, your age, where you live, and whatever you want.  After you pray, you stick your incense stick into a pot filled other incense sticks burning and bow again.  There are different gods for different things, like the god of education, the god of childbirth, and the god of the house.  Besides these three, there were about ten other gods.

I purchased a necklace with the god of good luck on it.  It was also the specific god of good luck for the year of the ram/goat which is my Chinese zodiac sign.  I had to take the necklace and do the same prayer ritual to the main god.  Then, I had to hold it inside the incense burning pot and twirl it in a circle three times to bless it.

After the temple, we went to the botanical garden which was filled with green.  There was a huge pond full of lotus flowers.  Also, there was an ancient police station which had been renovated.

I hope you're all doing well,

Kar

Busy Week

At a traditional tea house.

National Palace Museum

Shaved ice

The gorgeous view from my classroom.

On Tuesday evening, my classmate and I went out to look for a place to practice our Chinese and we stumbled upon a tea house!  It cost us about $20 US dollars for both of us!  We got about two pots of tea, but that is still very expensive for Taiwan.  There was this entire fancy procedure just to make and drink the tea.  You had to pour the water into the teapot, touch the pot to a cloth, pour the tea into a large cup, pour that into smaller cups, smell it, pour it into another small cup, smell the empty cup, then you could drink it!

On Wednesday, we met our "Taiwan buddies" which are people that live in Taiwan and are going to show us around while we're here.  My buddy, Hsiu-Li (pronounced Sh-ow-Lee), is awesome!  She is a forty-five-year-old tomboy that doesn't want to get married.  She took me to Taiwan's most famous bookstore and had me try fried dumplings.

Thursday night, Hsiu-Li took me to get shaved ice.  I figured it'd be similar to a snow cone, but it definitely isn't.  I got different fruits put on mine but Hsiu-Li got beans on hers!!  Mine was delicious and I don't think I could get beans on ice and enjoy it...  Then, she took me to a HUGE night market.  It was kind of overwhelming and hard to see everything.  Apparently it takes two full days to see it all.  She made me try pigs ear and pig blood cake that night.  Both weren't bad but I don't think I'll be ordering them again anytime soon.

We also went to the National Palace Museum on Thursday morning.  It was gigantic and home to the biggest collection of Chinese art.  My professor told us that five pieces were stolen last week and that when the man tried to sell them nobody believed him and thought they were fake.  So, he threw them away!  Four out of the five were retrieved.

Friday was a pretty easy day.  We, as a class, went to a vegetarian buffet.  The food was okay but the ice cream was delicious!  I tried green tea, peach mango, kiwi, and a ton of other flavors.  Then we had class and after, I went with the girls to Ximending.  Ximending is a more upscale night market where most of the stuff from smaller night markets comes from.  We had Sushi Express which is where you sit down and the sushi goes around you on a conveyor belt and you just grab whatever you want.

A typhoon hit eastern Taiwan so it has rained here all day.  I will probably just relax inside and study for my placement test on Monday!!!

I love you guys,

Kar

Beginning to Feel Comfortable

Our homework assignment was to bargain for
something while speaking only in Chinese.
 For this necklace, I got the price down from
 $NT 190 to 180...  which is really only about
thirty (US) cents less...

Peaceful shortcut to the University.

Chinese medicine culture class!

You can't really see but I have a burning herb on my right
hand and  acupuncture on my left  arm near my elbow. 

Probably the greatest thing I've had here thus far.
  Cold coffee in a can.  $NT 15 = $.50

So, we ended up not having to take the placement exam yesterday, but instead we're taking it Monday.  Until then we'll be in a group language class where we'll be taught basic things to help us get by.  So far we've learned how to buy/bargain things and how to discuss the weather.  Our assignment for today was to go to the night market last night and bargain.  In Asia it is totally okay to say "tai gui le" aka "too expensive" whereas  in the US that'd be totally rude.  Shop owners either try to bargain, walk away, or laugh and walk away.  I bargained for the necklace above and bought a dress but couldn't get it priced down, but it was gorgeous so I needed it...

Yesterday I finally ventured out alone which wasn't as scary as I thought it'd be!  By the end of the day I was able to walk to and around the night market by myself!  It's actually pretty nice to walk around alone because you can take your time or walk fast; you can check out whatever stores you want and eat wherever you want.  

Today we had our first culture class.  A doctor came in and showed us different types of Chinese medicine such as food therapy, kung fu, and acupuncture.  He explained how different foods can heal certain things.  He told us how a woman had lost her sense of hearing and had gone to every doctor but no one could help.  Then, she found him and he told her to drink a certain type of soup every day for three weeks and it opened her ears up again!  The doctor also told us which foods would help cool us down or warm us up.  After that, we got to practice some kung fu in the classroom.  Then, we got to try acupuncture!  I have a close up photo but I figured it'd make you guys sick...  It didn't hurt til he decided to wiggle the needle around...

We then had a small break and language class at 2.  The class is very difficult and yesterday I got really nervous because I couldn't keep up, but today was way better.  Our professor, Song Laoshi, is amazing.

ZaiJian!

Love you all, Kar

Day 2!

Breakfast!

Where I live!

To cover up construction, walls of shrubbery like this are put up.

Flower Market, orchids for you mom!

Trying different teas in the market.

Today us girls ventured out to find breakfast and we stumbled upon a bakery.  It had all sorts of breads, sandwiches, sweets.  I bought something that looked like an egg sandwich but it tasted sweet!  Laura, the girl on the left in the photo of us eating breakfast, bought something with bacon on it and said it tasted like a cinnamon roll!  Nothing is what you expect it to taste like here.

After breakfast we met up with the rest of the group and our professor took us to a park.  There are stone paths throughout the park and you're supposed to take your shoes off and walk on the stones.  The Chinese believe that the feet are very important in healing and if you walk along these stones you'll feel more energized.  It was true!  Also, the more healthy you are the lesser it hurts.

Then we went to the markets that are only open on weekends.  These markets are located in the parking garages underneath the freeway.  They're air conditioned (yes!!!) and packed with tons of things to see/purchase.  One of the markets we went to was all flowers and plants.  There were so many unique types of flowers, none that I have ever seen before besides the orchids.

Just resting now 'til dinner.  Tomorrow I take my placement exam and I'm very nervous!