Whoa, how time flies!

Okay, so I just typed up this ridiculously long post then for some reason that I cannot fathom, I think I can preview my post then be able to go back and edit and it will still be there. No such luck. So I'm going to start all over again.

So, it's been about a month since my ode to sushi a few weeks ago. Actually, Sushi Express is apparently having a NT$10/plate day on Wednesday, which is like a third of what we usually pay, so we're going to have to check that out!

Two weeks ago was the second Inbound Culture Tour. We went to Eastern Taiwan which included Hualien and Yilan. We had to be, not awake, not getting ready to leave our homes, but at Taipei Main Station at 6:30 am. In the morning!! We were all dead when we met up and everyone fell asleep as soon as we got on the buses. Of course, travelling with the Taiwanese, we had to stop every hour to buy more food and use the washrooms. So it took us a lot longer than it should have to arrive in Hualien on the first day. We visited Taroko National Park, which is actually huge and so pretty! But specifically, we went to a gorge. That's the first picture up there. I've been blogging here for 7 months, no, more then 7 months! and I'm only just figuring out how to upload pictures here! Isn't that sad? Hopefully I can make up for lost time in the next 3 months.

The second day, we were supposed to go to a cliff, but, due to the small bladders of some of the natives on this trip, we didn't have enough time to make it. So we went paddle-boating instead. That's the second picture up there. It was pretty fun, but Mariah (Canada) and Rebekka (Florida) took it a little too seriously and I was surprised no one ended up in the water. This picture is amazing, they actually look insane!

The last day we went to a beach where Rotary make a mistake: they forgot to mention before everyone got off the buses that we aren't allowed to swim because it's nor swimming season yet. Can you believe that? It's actually illegal to swim before May here. Well, in the ocean that is. But as soon as the doors opened, almost everyone was in the water. We were supposed to be learning how to fish, and we did get to that eventually.

Fishing, in this case, meant pulling on a net for half an hour. there were 2 sides, so we had 2 teams pulling this huge net out of the ocean, it was pretty hard work! We thought we had a whale or something. So you can imagine out disappointment when we finally saw our catch and it couldn't have been more than 30 small fish. Oh well, it was kind of fun. I had fun at least. The picture for this actually isn't mine, I took it from Lisa (Texas). Hopefully she won't mind. She takes so many pictures, maybe she won't even recognize it. I'm in the top right hand corner in the orange shirt. I actually bought that shirt the night before at a night market for NT$100! Which is like $3 Canadian! I could take Dad on, I'd end up spending less money on clothing, probably much to his delight. Which reminds me, if you're reading this Dad, check out the latest Vinyl Cafe Podcast! I was listening to it at the gym and I could not stop laughing!

In other news, for the first time in 7 months, I'm allowed to stay home from school while my classmates write tests all day! They write exams every month and it lasts 3 days. All the other exchange students get to stay home, but not me, Imme and Julie. They started on Friday, so tomorrow's the last day. We were supposed to go to the cooking classroom and make food from our countries. We had permission from the library director and the principal, we just had to ask the cooking teacher for the key. But she wouldn't give it to us because it's too dangerous for us in there with all those ovens and frying pans. Um, okay. We are 17 (and 18) years old, we're not taiwanese so we don't spend out time studying and buying all our food from street vendors, so we do know how these machines work. Imme said that it wasn't as if we were going to stuff Julie in the oven to see what happened, one of the librarians was going t accompany us, but no! She didn't have any experience. No worries. I can sleep in tomorrow! But I am very disappointed with this. I miss being able to come home and say, I feel like making cookies, and actually being able to do it.

My host dad and I enjoy watching the Discovery Channel together. I like it because it's pretty much the only channel in English (with Chinese subtitles) and my host dad and I can bond with this. Sometimes more people join if it's interesting. Tonight was warriors around the world. It was a little weird, a little blood, but it was pretty interesting. Better then the Japanese cartoons and Taiwanese soap operas that my host siblings normally watch!

At the gym, there are 2 people that are usually there around the same time as us. 1) Tiny-Shorts-Guy (yes, I stole that from Made of Honour, but it fits) Pretty self-explanatory. He always uses the treadmill, he gets on and off during his hour there, always the same one. And he goes on an incline! He's hardcore. 2) Sweater-Girl: She's always wearing the same long-sleeved, green wool sweater whenever we see her. And she carried her huge white bag around with her. I wonder if she sweats, she must be dying inside that sweater. But she's always walking on the treadmill, never running. She's what I'd call a typical Taiwanese girl.

Well, that's pretty much it for now. I want to get a head start on sleeping in tomorrow!!

Sushi!!

Hey, so I think I'm falling in love with sushi! Well, maybe not faling in love, but I'm definitely addicted! Which in a way is good because it's healthy, but it's also really expensive. Well, 30 cents Canadian each, but it adds up because t's so good! I hope I can find some good sushi in Canada, I have to limit myself here, but when the home parents are buying, that's a dofferent story! Sushi Express is the best, and probably only, sushi place in Taiwan, there's so many of them, so I can get my fix whenever I have money.

How it works: (restaurant) The sushi comes in pairs and it revolves around the restaurant on a conveyor belt so when you see something you like, you'd better grab it or you'll be waiting about 10 minutes for it to come back unless someone else takes it. You can sit at a counter if you're alone or you can sit in a booth if you're in a group. I'm usually in a group. Each table (and a regular intervals on the counter) has a tap where hot water comes out and tea bags next to it plus a box of chopsticks, soy sauce and little bowls to pour soy sauce into. Plus wasabi. I can't eat rice now without soy sauce and wasabi! I hope I'll be able to find wasabi in Canada! At the end, someone comesto count how many plates you have (which means how much sushi you ate) and multiply it by NT$30 then you pay.

MRT station: At a lot of MRT stations, there are sushi take-out places where you can pick individual sushi which is either NT$10 or NT$15 depending on what you want. Then you put it in a box you get packs of soy sauce and wasabi and chopsticks. It's okay, but I like sitting down and scrambling to grab sushi off the conveyor belt before someone else does or it passes.

My favorite sushis: Well, at first, I was kind of hesitant to try sushi. But now, as you can tel l, I love it! My favorites are fish eggs (big fish eggs, rice and seaweed), corn (corn, rice and seaweed), cucumber (small sushis, you get 6, with cucumber rice and seaweed) and the salmon sashimi. It's weird. I can't stand cooked salmon, but I love salmon sashimi and sushi!

On another note, today there were 2 pretty serious earthquakes in Tainan, which is pretty far from Taipei, but we could still feel them here. One was at about 8:00am so I was at school and everyone started screaming. Weird, I would have thought they would be used to it. The second was at about 3:30ish, so I was at Chinese class. It's strange to have 2 in one day! Apparently people died in Tainan. I hope Taiwan isn't the next Haiti or Chile. But I'm okay. I'm just not allowed to go hiking for a few days because some rocks could have come loose during the earthquakes and we don't want any rockslides.

Well, 118 days until I'm back in beautiful Canada! Miss you all!