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!

Chinese New Year

As some of you might know, Chinese New Year, or Lunar New Year as it's referred to here in Taiwan, was last week. My host family went to ChiaYi, which is in south Taiwan, it's strange, we basically drove across the entire country and it only took an hour. Taiwan is so convenient. You can go anywhere in the country no problem, by bus or train or high-speed rail and it's so cheap and fast. anyway. We drove down last Friday after we had dinner with my host dad's family. My host family has a house in this tiny village where people only stay during Lunar New Year and they all have he same ancestors, but they have no idea who anyone is. On New Year's Eve morning, we had to get up early to burn paper, which apparently represented money, and incense and get our food blessed. We hung out with my host mom's family later on. All day and night people were setting fireworks and firecrackers off. Yes, during the day when no one can even see them. It was kind of annoying. At midnight, this bell was ringing and people set off even more explosives.

New Year's Day we went to the temple to burn more stuff and pray for luck and fortune. Then we went back to Ama's (Taiwanese grandmother) for the day. My host little brother (Didi) and one of my host cousins took me out to buy fireworks and frecrackers then me and Didi had fun setting them off. They had these stick like things that you put into a tube and you can hold it when you set it off. I told Didi he looked like Harry Potter and he laughed. Now, I'm learning some stuff about guys. One of them is that they have 2 different laughs. One they use when another man, possibly a superior, says something and they think 'oh, he thinks he's funny, I'd better laugh or I'll get pounded.' This laugh is usually lower pitched. The second laugh they use when they can't control it, in other words, when something actually is funny. This one is usually much higher pitched. Didi has this. The difference between the two is ridiculous. When I told him he looked like Harry Potter (in Chinese, of course!) I thought a cat just got run over. It was that high pitched. Other examples of this laugh include M. Breton and my own father. (the real one, that is)

We spent the rest of the week hanging out at Ama's. Activities included Karaoke, motorcycle riding, Bingo and playing the Sims 3. I think I'm addicted!

I also learned, in the words of the Arrogant Worms, everyone has an Uncle Lou. He's kind of crazy, a little annoying and always around! I met one of these guys in my host family. He kept singing the Mo-Li Hua song (the same Mo-Li as my name. If I knew my name came with a song, I would have picked something else) and he was saying he wants to come to Canada with me to sell stinky tofu. I told him good luck with that. People would smell it and run away. It's not called stinky tofu for nothing. But he was hooked on the idea, which is why I didn't tell him where in Canada I come from.

We were supposed to come back to Taipei last night, but there was too much traffic, so we ended up spending another night and leaving this morning.

I miss indoor heating. I never though I'd say this, but Taiwan is cold in the winter! I guess the no indoor heating thing is a huge contribting factor. It's actually colder in the apartment then it is outside. Maybe some of it is because I'm now on the 27th floor of an apartment building. Speaking of which, I'll give you my new address:

Jasmine Haemel (or 茉莉 if you're feeling brave)
27F-1 No. 251 ZhongQing Rd.
Banciao City, Taipei County
Taiwan R.O.C. 220

Well, I think that all I wanted to say, until next time!

Ah!!! Tomorrow is my 6-monthiversary!!!!

The Big Switch

Hey, so as some of you might know, I finally swithed host families today. I was away last week and got home yesterday afternoon, so I had to do laundry really quickly and try to fit all my stuff into 2 suitcases. I ended up filling both of them to their expanded size, my IKEA bag, my backpack and my carry-on. As I was packing, I was fiding all this stuff that I brought and have no idea why. I'll be sending stuff home for sure! I still have 5 onths left and there's no way I'll be able to bring everything home otherwise.

Anyway, y new host dad came to pick my up this morning with my new host BROTHER!! Finally, I have an older brother! I also have a younger brother and a sister who's the same age as me. On the ride over here, my host brother said more to me than my old host sister ever said in the 5 months I lived wth her. So I'm really happy! My new host sister kept offering to help me unpack, but after a while she realized that I was okay by myself and brought me water instead. The younger brother is a little shy, but he's so cute! I hope he'll open up a bit after a while. The older brother went to USA a few years ago, sorry, I don't know any names yet, they haven't told me. I guess I never knew my old sister's Chinese name. anyway, he went to Indiana and they showed me pictures of when they went to visit him.

At lunch, we were watching this documentary about this french guy who went to Japan and ate lots of food, it was kind of funny, but I don't think it was supposed to be. It was in French with Chinese subtitles, so we could all understand, or not understand. he spent a lot of time laughing and we had no idea why most of the time. Anyway, my host dad told me that everything's very relaxed in this house and everyone has lots of freedom, which is great! I think i'm going to like it here, it's just too bad I won't have a whole lot of time.

I don't know my new address yet, all I know is that I'm in Banqiao (used to be Yonghe) and on the 27th floor of an apartment building. But I'll let you know as soon as I do! And I'll try to get it right the first time.

Well, I have a Rotary thing in 3 hours, so I'd better get started on my speech. maybe they'll increase my allowance if it's any good! Then again, the probably shouldn't because then I'll buy more stuff.

This Weekend

Hey, so this weekend was pretty... exciting. I thought you might like to hear about it.

So yesterday, I had planned to go shopping with Aurelia from France, but then Josette, from USA, called an asked if i could hang out with her and the Korean exchange students staying at her house. I've wanted to meet these boys, so I arranged with Aurelia to have lunch with Josette, some other exchange students and the Korean boys at IKEA then we'd go to Xi-Men.

That went okay until during lunch, I got a phone call, from my teacher's number, from someone who wasn't my teacher telling me that I left my wallet at a hotel that I had never heard of before in my life. While the guy was trying to explain the situation to me, the phone went dead, so I hung up and forgot about it, probably a prank, but why from my teacher's phone?

I went into my bag to look for my wallet and realized I didn't have it! So that guy was telling the truth! He called back twice and Cory, from USA, helped me find the hotel, where, sure enough, they had my wallet.

Okay, weird, so we all headed off to Xi-Men. When we got outside of the subway station, we realized we were short a Korean. Josette went back inside to look for him and Aurelia and I went shopping. About 20 minutes later, we got a phone call from Josette. She still hadn't found Kimdayhuan and she wanted us to come back and help her look. When we got there, we found out our only clue was that the other Korean thought he sa him get off the train. Josette had been to the stations before and after Xi-Men and all over the station and all the exits. We had 6 people looking for him and she called her host mom and got in really big trouble for losing him. About an hour later, her host mom called back and told her he had come home and she wanted Josette and the other Korean boy to come home. I still don't know what happened, Josette was worried she'd get sent home, but I don't think that'll happen.

Today, I got on a bus that cost me just over $4 Canadian that took me to Taoyuan Airport where I met one of my mom's old coworker's husband who was in Taiwan on business. I gave him stuff to bring home to my family then proceeded to meet some more Canadians who had an 11 hour layover until their flight to Malaysia. I was proud to suggest some places to go in Taipei and help them order bus tickets in Chinese. I don't know who was more surprised that I could speak Chinese, the Asian Canadians, or the Taiwanese lady behind the counter. Getting home was under $3 Canadian, so that wasn't bad.

I'm pretty tired now, back to school tomorrow. But at least our 1 MONTH VACATION starts on Wednesday!

Haircut

haha, got a sort of funny story for you. So these past few weeks, I've been having trouble keeping my hair under control, which is pretty bad because it's winter and my hair is still frizzing out at me. Last night, I was looking at the mirror and wondering if anyone would understand 'thinning out' so I asked my host mom if anyone could make my hair 不太胖, which means not so fat. Then she asked if I wanted it cut and I said sure, then she got her coat and said let's go. Um, okay, sure, we cxan get my hair cut this very minute. In Canada you sort of have to make an appointment, but I guess this is Taiwan.

Now, it was a about 6:30 at night, but a lot of places here are open until at least 9:00, except the post office, which closes at 5:00 which is when i get out of school and this really bugs me! Anyway, the place we ended up at was playing Poker Face, which was my first sign that this couldn't end well. When we walked in, people were freaking out because there was a 白人 or a foreigner, that wanted to ge her hair cut. Everyone was asking everyone else if they spoke English, but in Chinese and the girl who ended up washing my hair kept asking what the word for hair was in English, but in Chinese, to the girl cutting hair next to her. It was pretty funny, I like playing dumb, I could understand them and they had no idea that I could!

A different lady cut my hair, she kept saying to my host mom that it was 很漂亮 which means very pretty. She actually did sort of thin it out, at least I can deal with it now, then she cut it. Then she pulled out a hairdryer and I wanted to say 'you really don't want to do that' but I didn't know how to in Chinese, so I let her find out that hard way that my hair isn't so 漂亮 when it's blowdried. She ended up wetting it again, then someone else found a diffuser (I was so surprised to find that they even have diffusers in Taiwan) and they managed to make it look a little better.

On th way home, my host mom was freaking out because my hair still looked fat. When I got home, I fixed it up a bit and assured her that it was a lot better now. I certainly gave those hairdressers an experience they won't forget. I'll probably end up getting it cut again before summer, then I'll run back to Janice as soon as I get home.

New Year's Eve

My New Year's was a bit different from what I'm used to this year... of course. For one, again, I had to go to school, but that wasn't so bad because I only had 4 classes, one of which was spent in the library, one in actual class and two in a yoga class. That was pretty interesting apart from the teacher yelling at me, Julie and Imme in Chinese. My legs hurt from that. One of the last moves she made us do was laying on our backs and placing our feet above our heads. She said if we couldn't do all the way to our heads, it was okay, but we were doing it and we weren't hurting, so we ended up surprising everyone with doing it the whole way! I had no idea I was so good at yoga.

After school I had Chinese class, which ws weird because we had already taken our exam and we were back in our old classes yesterday. Turns out Rotary thinks we cheated so we had to retake the exam. Well, I can say honestly that I didn't cheat, but there were some languages going around the classroom that could have been sharing answers. Unfortunately, we didn't get to redo the speaking part. But this exam was a lot better than the first one, I actually knew most of the answers.

After that, I went to Taipei 101 to get a good seat to watch the fireworks with my friends Alyssa (USA), Josette (USA), Boyce (USA), Miguel (Mexico), Corinna (Germany), Rebekka (USA) and Aurelia (France). the MRTs were already packed and it was only about 5:30! We managed to find a good space and kill 6 1/2 hours of time until the fireworks started at midnight. I think someone told me it was the biggest fireworks display in the world, they used 22 000 fireworks, it was pretty impressive! I have a video that isn't on my computer yet, but hopefully I'll get my facebook videos and pictures updated this weekend. We have today off school which is great because I didn't get home until 3:00 this morning. Miguel took us to the bus stop, but the streets were so packed that no busses were coming so me and Rebekka took a map and tried to walk to an MRT station closer to our homes. Ugh! It was like arguing with Chelsea! We found one on the brown line which is like an hour ride from where we live and we didn't want to experience Zhongxiao Fuxing and Taipei Main Station, which are the busiest stations anyway, on the most crowded night of the year! So we found a bus stop where our bus stops, but the bus never came and after some arguging, I told her we ahd 3 options: 1) We wait for the bus 2) We go back to the MRT station and brave the transfer stops or 3) We find a taxi to take us home. After about 5 minutes, she finally decided to try to find a taxi, but most of them were full and even when we found empty ones, greedy Asians jumped into them before we could reach for the door.

In the end, we decided to go to the MRT, by then it was almost 2:00. In the end, it was a bit later after the fireworks so it wasn't as busy, but Zhongxiao Fuxing was pretty bad. We ended up meeting Dan (USA) at Taipei Main, he lives at the same stop that I live at, so he made sur we got on the train and off at our stop. Like I said, It was about 3:00 by the time I came home. My host mom left a little nightlight plugged in at the door because all the lights were turned off so I could see my way to my room. My host dad came out of his room to make sure it was me and that I had a good time. I have to say, I only have 1 year in Taiwan, I don't regret going to 101 at all. I think I would have regretted it if I didn't! My first New Year's in a big city! Haha, when it's midnight back home they might show the other New Year's celebrations in different countries, look out for Taiwan!