Tuesday, September 6, 2011

The forecast was rain, but its been the same forecast every single day on my iphone. I really didn’t want to have to ride my bike in the rain, but I can’t not ride it the very first day I have it. So I sucked it up and rode my bike to school, and although it’s the easiest route ever, I still somehow made a wrong turn and had to turn around. First Taichung bike ride nerves I guess. I decided to stop at the same little stand for that iced black tea again because it was really good and I’m sure there’s some caffeine in there. The lady recognized me (she better have, I practically caused a fiasco in front of her stand for saying two English words) This time, we had a non verbal understanding. I looked at her and signaled “big tea” and low and behold, we broke the communication barrier and I received a big iced tea. Never mind the fact that I also pointed at the piece of toast again and signaled “1”..that’s beside the point, she understood the beverage. I could do without the deep fried piece of bread anyway.  

I got to the office kind of early so I could sort through 630 papers to try and find/organize a few of the classes’ names for at least that day. Turns out, I was kind of organized the previous week and separated a few of the classes with paper clips…literally only a few classes, there were about 500 papers that have no indication of where they belong. As usual, I had more anxiety about the “not remembering their English name” situation than needed. I have this real sweet co-teacher who is very calm and we just had the no name students look through my little handful of papers to find their handwriting, and it somehow worked like a charm. Only one student we had to “re-name” and it was the co-teachers idea, she’s like “maybe we can give a new name?” and I was like, ok! So I named the cute little girl Mia, she was happy. I don’t remember what I named her last week, I’m sure it was something cute and small like that. When I got back to my desk before lunch, Mark had left a box of cookies on my desk for Moon Festival! They were strange looking cracker like cookies, kind of like the italian ones my mom knows how to make, pizzelles. There was almond, sesame seed, and sunflower seed.

Lunch was weird. Beyond strange today. I couldn’t do it. I basically just ate rice. The main meal was some sort of “fish rings” made out of fish, whatever that means??(not calamari) What kind of fish? Why is it shaped into a ring? Then the soup was a fish soup that had almost zero flavor in the broth and random fish chunks, and then Wenli gave me some vegetarian patty and the ONLY reason I accepted it is because it looked like a dark brown potato pancake. That had zero flavor and was made of mushrooms, but had the consistency of rubber.  The fruit was a persimmon, it looks identical to a tomato, but it’s not. You have to peel it and when you eat it, it tastes like the inside of a pumpkin. 

At lunch time, I talked with Sam via facebook and he mentioned that I need to find a time to go with him to the ARC office. If I sign my ARC application, I can go get a phone, and when my card comes in 2 weeks (yes another damn two weeks) I can get a bank account and get paid and health insurance. Still trying my best to not get hit by a scooter or consume some strange food that gives me food poisoning until I have my insurance. Of course, Sam had an original idea of going the next morning when I didn’t have class until 10am (which was my ideal time to go) and I asked Mark, he said it was fine, then Sam changes his mind and is like “well how about this afternoon, when’s your next class, that works better for me, ask them.” Jesus Christ, ok, so I ask Mark and Wenli, and Wenli says, “oh well, department meeting is in afternoon.” I was like “OHH wow, ok what time does it start?” And she looks up at the clock and goes, “Umm now..or 5 minutes.” I just told Sam the next morning works best, I have a meeting. I knew it was probably just because he didn’t have to wake up early or something and I said that to him and he laughed and didn’t deny it. Sorry Sammy boy, you’re waking up at the crack of dawn and we’re getting my ARC taken care of and you better not be more than 15 minutes late or you’re buying me coffee. I didn’t say that, but I was thinking it.  Coffee Joe made me a latte. It was amazing. He made froth with sugar and milk (they only have whole milk out here) and was just pumping his french press like he was inflating a soccer ball and it turned into froth and put that on my super strong coffee.

The random department meeting was with me and the other English co-teachers. It’s so interesting how they seriously don’t plan things in advance, or if they do, no one’s telling anyone, or maybe no one’s telling me. I scrambled to get my stuff ready and head into the library and Chiao was there and sat next to me. One of the ladies went and got juice for everyone from that awesome juice stand by the school. I got super excited that it was going to be kiwi juice, but no that’d just be too good to be true, it was tomato plum juice..why anyone thought to put those two together..I don’t know..It wasn’t bad, the tomato wasn’t acidic at all and was a sweet flavor. It was still weird to slurp up chunks of tomato in a drink that didn’t have vodka and an olive garnish. So Chiao tells me that I should prepare something to say to everyone (this is when the meeting begins mind you) and that I should tell the co-teachers my expectations for them and what some of my ideas are for the year..good thing I’m a fantastic procrastinator and realistically, if I had known about the meeting, I would’ve been making my notes about a half hour before it anyway..but 2 minutes into the meeting ?? That’s a different story.  One small thing I notice about the people here is they always say my name before they talk to me. I swear people at home do not do this, and it almost makes me nervous when they say it as if I did something wrong. For example, in the meeting, one of my co teachers just looks at me and goes “Diana…(my stomach sinks for some reason) Do you want us to translate during you lesson?” and I’m like “Oh! Yes please, it helps a lot.” Or they’ll say my name quietly like they’re going to say something secretive or say something they shouldn’t, and then just say something totally normal like “Diana.. do you like the food here?” I guess at home, I only hear my name if someone is saying hello or if my mom’s yelling up the stairs to ask me what I want to eat, I can’t really think of many more reasons. I felt like nothing really got accomplished and I talked for about 5 minutes but I made it a point to stress that I really need the co-teachers to translate a lot of the directions and help with classroom management because the kids try to get away with more things with me because I don’t know what they’re saying, and as I’m saying this I’m glancing over at that only co-teacher who doesn’t do this. They told me that they like my creative ideas and just to have fun with the lessons, keep up what I’m doing, yadda yadda, and then they said, “Ok you can leave, the rest is going to be in Chinese..” They probably wanted to talk about me. 

The bike ride home was good. I decided to walk around and went to this rinki dink store that has like..everything, I’m trying to compare it to something.. a dirty dollar store mixed with a wal mart, but more expensive? I had to get more paper for the students to make their name tents and I wanted to find a normal smelling lotion..the lamb lotion isn’t cutting it for me. I stopped in 7/11, which is like a daily trip for me, and got some water, a snickers (it just sounded really good) and then I got a beer. The girl looked at me with judging eyes, I just know it, this was a very strange purchase..candy bar, water, beer. Psh typical American. I also decided to get that noodle dish again, second day in a row. I didn’t feel like getting all adventurous and finding a new food that I had a 50/50 chance of enjoying. The lady remembered me, I mean I hope she would, I’m the only white girl she’s probably seen in months, and to see me twice within 23 hours? Ya, she knew I wanted the same thing. I just gave this wide eyed happy look that was like “Ya I liked the noodles, I’m back.” Did I mention that I think my acting skills are getting like..oscar worthy out here. I’ve never had to do so much acting in my life.  Teaching, ordering food, shopping, and overall conversation is like one giant game of Charades..I burn calories trying to communicate. I took my noodles and beer back and watched Tosh.O on youtube. I love him.

Monday, September 5, 2011

I didn’t have a whole lot of planning to do Sunday night because I still haven’t met the “Monday” classes yet, so I was doing the same lesson plan. On my way to work, I decided to be brave and order from one of the stands by the school. I saw that people were getting this fried square piece of bread from this lady and it looked like I had cinnamon on it. She was also frying chicken and serving that really good black iced tea that I like so I was like, ok this is easy. In my head I’m like, “Point to that guy's bread and his tea and nod and say one.” No, not so easy. The lady cut me off after I said an ounce of English and just shook her head no and laughed. I kept trying to explain myself but she would just be like..”ehhhhh uhhhh..haha ehhhh…” and she'd look around and I then I noticed I started to hold up a line. Finally, this girl next to me looked like she wanted to help so I asked if she spoke English and that I just want 1 bread and 1 tea. She looks at the old woman vendor and does thee EXACT same hand motions as me with not even 2 words, and the vendor is like “oohhhh ok ok ya.” Like, really?? Maybe everyone should just start learning sign language since it’s the universal language and we wouldn’t have to worry about pronouncing things correctly or sounding like an idiot. One hand motion=done. Food ordered. Life would be easier.  Anyway, my deep fried bread was good. Kind of like French toast, but obviously not as good, and the seasoning on it was a mixture of sugar and then a spicy powder which was interesting. It also ended up being 2 pieces of bread stuck together with some sort of substance. I asked Wenli what it was when I got into the office and she said it was that Taro, that potato like thing that I’ve had before here in a soup.It's almost a sweeter potato and bluish, so it looks strange but tastes good. 

When I got into work, there was a bicycle sitting next to my desk! The bike that they casually mentioned they’d fix up for me only about 4 days ago, was already fixed up and at my desk. Everyone in the office was so excited. The lady who found it for me is this little old lady who works in the office, (she kind of resembles my grandma Angie for some reason, just so tiny and frail) and she speaks zero English but walks right up to me and the bike and nods her head yes and I’m like, “this is awesome!! Thank you!!” Everyone wanted me to go ride it around real quick to see how the height was, but I was wearing a dress. They thought that was funny and they’re like “Oh nonono don’t get on the bike with a dress!! Haha.” I did have workout clothes because I wanted to try out that gym on the 5^th floor so I told Mark that I’d be able to use my bike after school. He asked if I would feel more comfortable if he showed me the bike ride home first where I would follow his bike on my bike, and I was like, “really?! That’d be great!” We both agreed that we were a little scared for me to ride it on my own on the first day. I gave Joe and Wenli the bag of coffee and they were so grateful! It was also really funny because it was another situation where they come out and say things that we would never say. He kept looking at the bag of coffee and saying “This must’ve been expensive, how much was this? How much did you pay for this?” and kept looking for a price tag, I was like..”No no  it’s ok, I wanted to. You guys share your coffee with me every day."

My classes went fine and I told the students we are making name tents during our next class and as I was collecting the last of the 630 student papers, one of the co-teachers goes, “Diana, you have record of their names, right?” I’m just like…shiiiittt. My desk is filled with literally, 630 review sheets with 630 names, barely any have their classroom # on it, I’ll be lucky if they actually wrote the date like they were supposed to, and I tried to keep them organized the first day and after that, I was like, well they’ll remember the names I gave them, right? Wrong. I’m an idiot. I had to find a way to organize all of those papers. I shouldn’t have even collected them but everyone told me that an English review sheet would help me understand “what levels” the students are at. I just had a sick feeling in my stomach. I’m going to come to classes tomorrow and the kids are all going to say “I don’t remember my English name” (except they won’t say that because if they just got a new name from me, they speak zero English at this point,) and I have nothing written down because I don’t even have a class roster that has an ounce of English on it. Ughhhh so frustrating. I seriously don’t know what the previous teacher did, or how she even knew how to grade them. The most students I’ve ever dealt with during student teaching was like..up to 6 classes a day, but I’d see them every day!! This is triple that and once a week. How do you assess that many kids with so little one on one time with each student? It seems impossible. 

Lunch was weird today. I just look forward to getting food on my own at night. More rice, some scrambled eggs with hot dog pieces (reminded me of something a little kid would eat) and that longan fruit again. Mark, Wenli, and I all talked about riding my new bike and how they have a new helmet I could wear too. Wenli also brought up the BBQ that the principal invited me to on Friday for the Moon Festival. She said that the last foreigner teacher went  also and they do it because it shows the elementary school what type of English program they use (I guess parents can choose what middle school their kids can go to) but Wenli warned me that me and her will not know anybody, so it might be weird.  Um that’s an everyday struggle for me, I think I can handle that type of weird at this point..

The rest of the day went fine. They were all students I hadn’t met before so it was easy to do the same lesson plan that I did a bajillion times. Mark offered to ride his bike to my apartment for me to follow at 5pm which was perfect  because I got done at the gym then. The gym is really nice, I just did the elliptical for not even 20 minutes (because its brutally hot everywhere) and then stood on that crazy shake thing. I’m going to google that because I’m not sure what its purpose is. It’s called the Body shaker. That took 10 seconds to find. “Users stand on the platform and vibrations shake the entire body. According to a description of how the machine works, vibrations are sent through the body causing muscles to involuntarily contract. These contractions work much like a reflex contraction. The manufacturer claims 90 to 100% of the muscle tissues will contract while using the Body Shaker.” The reviews also say it’s a croc of shit. But it’s kind of relaxing to stand on. I like it.

I followed Mark home on my bike and it wasn’t too bad, except theres this huge hill at one point and I’m pedaling like a madwoman to keep up with him and it was after I worked out for the first time in about 3 weeks so my legs were already sore. I thought I was going to die. The ride only took about 10/15 minutes and I asked Mark what this little food stand was by my apartment and he said “Noodles.”

 Later on that night, I went over to the stand to buy some noodles and I get up to the it, and there’s some of the scariest pieces of meat I’ve ever seen. Mark never mentioned “Oh its just noodles and goose heads..” That would’ve been nice to know. The lady was super nice and didn’t speak English but right away was pointing to what she would make me, so she pointed to 3 different noodles I could pice (I picked like a linguini type) and then she pulled a handful of green onions, put a bunch  of spices into a boiling pot of broth, I said the word “La” to her a few times which means spicy, and she put it in a plastic bag and off I went! She didn’t point to the goose necks or brown tea eggs or chunks of other strange animal parts which was great. I walked into this little family owned convenient store next door just to see what they had and literally a family was sitting at a little square card table eating, in the middle of their store. Once I walked in the guy was like, “Hi hello, look around, walk around.” Pretty decent English! And he was older, I never hear any older people using English. I picked up a can of coke because I’d feel bad not purchasing anything and he asks me “Where you from?” I told him Chicago, and he said, “Oh, she’s from US too!” and points to his daughter in law and I’m like “Oh where are you from?!” and then in perfect English she’s just like “I’m from Connecticut, I teach Japanese at one of the schools.” I got so happy. I miss random small talk with strangers. I told them I’ll come back every once in a while. 

I get home and turn on some Arrested Development and go to eat my scorching hot soup and it spilled on my hand and burnt the shit out of me, but I didn’t care, the soup was amazing. It was so good. Noodles, vegetables, and ground beef. And yes, it was ground beef, not any other type of animal, I could tell. It's something good that isn't deep fried and it's only 35 NT ($1.20!)  I worked on my lesson plans and skyped with Casey and her sister Rhi for a while. They were really positive about everything and it was encouraging.

Sunday Funday, September 4, 2011

I want a bloody mary..or a strawberry mimosa..Those were my first thoughts waking up. I sound like an alcoholic. But It was just so nice out and with weather like this on a Sunday in the city, I’d be at a beer garden. It was really hot, but sunny and beautiful and anything’s better than rain! I woke up super early and then decided to go back to sleep until 10am. Allison mentioned she was going to get their internet working at their new apartment and when that happened we would skype. Then woohoo! Her and Nick have internet! She called me and gave me a tour of her and Nick’s new place.  She said that he’d be back from work pretty soon and sure enough, he came in during my apartment tour. It was about 10:30pm for them, 11:30 am for me. Nick made a giant pitcher of margarita for him and Allison and it looked so refreshing. I basically talked to them for an hour and a half and it was like we were just hanging out at their new place, drinking a whole pitcher of margarita, except they had to drink my share of the margarita so I’m guessing they were pretty buzzed. They lived abroad in Italy for a year in college and didn’t have some of the same communication capabilities I’m fortunate to have now. Nick said that he would sometimes only talk on the phone once a month with mom and dad. They were pretty entertaining to talk to.

I got off the computer with them at 1 and got ready to go out for the day. I decided to kind of dress cute because it’s a weekend..and I’d be going out to dinner, just not with any other humans. I walked over to the night market and Sam was right, it is NUTS on the weekend. Just a sea of people all around me. I stopped by a stand that had blenders and straws and I got excited that it would make the same awesome juice I got on Friday after school. I was going to ask the guy what fruit they have but before I can get 4 English words out, he just right away laughs and nervously say “no..uhhhh hehe…no.” It’s annoying, I don’t expect you to speak English, just look at my expressions and my hands pointing to fruits, and take a wild guess what I’m asking. This girl next to me spoke a tiny bit of English and I was like “can I mix the fruits, can I have bananas and this?” So she told him and wallah, drink was up in 2 minutes. I walked further into the crowds because I was on a mission to get to that cool mall. It’s across from a TGI Fridays which cracks me up. I have to go there soon. Maybe I’ll surprise the staff there and sing the Friday’s birthday songs. I miss waitressing. The mall was packed and I took my time and went through almost all 9 levels. The only ones I didn’t walk through were the 2 floors for men. I stopped in the “Working House” store which is like a Linens and Things or Bed bath and Beyond. I got a real soft bath towel, two coffee mugs (one for home one for school) some Snyders’s honey mustard and onion pretzels (because..those are awesome and they’re randomly selling them in a home good stores,) and a candle holder even though I was advised by Chiao and Sam to not have candles. The very top floor had these 3 restaurants and I knew one of them was Thai food because Joe from the school was showing me the website on Friday.  I was so excited and the host thought it was a little strange that I was by myself but Nick and Allison said I shouldn’t feel weird to go by myself because I’m obviously a foreigner, who else would I go with? 

I sat at this real cute booth and the menu looked great. They had 5 beers for really cheap.  The waiter came around and spoke a tiny bit of English but was getting very embarrassed to use it and he would forget a word or a phrase for something and then get all shy and laugh at himself, and finally I was like, “It’s ok it’s ok! I know what I want.” So even though no one else in the restaurant had a drink, I got a beer and I got the Thai egg rolls for an appetizer and then I couldn’t decide between Spicy Chicken Stir Fry or the Spicy Green Chicken Curry,  so I asked him what he liked better and he said the curry because it had more sauce to cover the rice, and that was a good suggestion because I hate when there’s not enough sauce on the rice and the rice gets all dry. He tried suggesting to me a new thing on their menu that was a shrimp pancake or something and he tried so hard to explain it in English so I should’ve just ordered it, but I already ordered two things. The beer was really good, it was from Thailand and it was called Singha. The waiter started to pour the beer for me and was like, shaking! I don’t know if he was nervous or what but he was so nice, he’s like “If you need anything, my name is Derick.” The meal was amazing. It came out all at once and it was so good. And I had this big silver stand next to my table that held a pot of white rice,  so if I needed more rice it was right next to me. I think the people here think it’s strange that I use chopsticks when there’s forks and spoons at the table too. At the night market the other night, this lady who gave me my food saw that I was eating it with chop sticks and laughed and ran up to me with a cheapy spork. I continued to use the chopsticks because they were sturdier. In this case, I like to use them because it slows me down when I eat. Otherwise, I’d scarf the whole meal down and I definitely wasn’t in a hurry. He wrapped every little thing up for me and I got so angry at the fact that I still don’t have a fridge to keep my leftovers in.  He brought over a comment card for me to fill out and I was like, “Well..it’s going to be in English! Is that ok?” and he was all happy and like “yes yes of course, thank you.” I wrote that it was my first time and that I’ll definitely be back. Derick suggested an entrée for me and it was delicious. I left him an extra tip on top of the 10% they automatically get and a guy ran out with it to give to me and I was like, “no that’s for Derick.” He seemed super confused and I know that they don’t tip here, but they have to understand when people leave tips right? I hope Derick got it.

I was kind of on a search for a coffee maker for my apartment and didn’t have any luck, but I did stand in this ridiculously long line for the Starbucks downstairs because I wanted to buy Joe coffee. I got him some Autumn blend. It’s probably shitty compared to what he drinks, but it says it was bold and he likes bold. I stopped at 86 degrees which is a bakery that’s popular in Taiwan and I got a slice of some chocolate cake.

Once I got home, I decided to eat my leftovers already because I don’t have a fridge and the food was too good to let it go to waste. I attempted to do more laundry but I must’ve pressed the wrong buttons because it was in there for a few hours and it just spun with detergent all over it, and no water. I got really excited at first because I was like “Oh my god it does dry them too!!” No, that wasn’t the case. I took a little trip over to 711 to buy some necessities like water, vitamins (because Mom keeps hassling me to take them) a lighter for my rebellious candle use, a box of green tea, sugar, floss, and chapstick. My apartment is by these two really nice apartment buildings that I just realized are homes for the elderly. They’re so cute and they always come out really late at night and set up card tables and play games outside. I wish I could communicate with them. At night I just watched the latest episode of Jersey Shore on some sort of illegal tv site. I wanted to punch the screen when Ronnie and Sam were fighting. I hate them. Another week of school is on its way!

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Sun Moon Lake

Lien and I woke up at about 6:30 to get ready to go to Sun Moon Lake. The plan was to meet up with Jim, Joe, Dan, Jeff, and Caren at the train station. Dan would be driving Caren and Jeff since they live by each other and then Jim and Joe would come with Lien and I on the train to go to Wuri which is where Archie lives. I had never met Archie because he was one of the orientation speakers on the first day. He seemed to create some immediate friendships with everyone in the Dewey group and sounded like a nice guy. He offered to get us from Wuri at the train station and drive us to Sun Moon Lake which was about 2 hours south. When we got to the Taichung train station we immediately saw Joe, which was great because just the night before he said he probably wasn’t going to make it, and Joe is a super funny hyper guy.  Jim showed up shortly after and the 4 of us waited a while for the others. We weren’t seeing them and none of us have cell phones (at least I’m not the only one) so we used a pay phone to call Archie and tell him we were getting on the train to his town. The train is really really cheap to take. It’s only 15 NT and I think it depends on where you’re going, but still very cheap. 

The four of us took about a 15-20 minute train ride to Wuri and Archie was there to pick us up about 20 minutes later. He had a nice spacious car that fit the four of us comfortably. It was great to finally meet Archie. He’s such a nice person (like all people I’ve gotten to know out here) and he’s been teaching for about 30 years or so. He was thanking us for inviting him and we were equally as grateful for him driving us. Jim told him that we’re definitely pitching in for gas and his dinner and Archie refused it!! I thought the car ride was going to be long and awkward since I’m not very close with everyone and just met Archie, but the two hours flew by. It may have been even less. The drive out there was beautiful and my ears would constantly pop because we were going over so many hills and going through the mountains. The only stop we made was when I spotted a spider inside the car and Joe flicked it at me and Lien and we both screamed and flipped out a bit..I’m glad I’m not the only one who has a strong dislike for spiders. We finally pulled up to Sun Moon Lake and it was even gorgeous coming into it. My co-worker warned me and said that its very touristy and will be extremely crowded and we’ll probably have to park about 2 km away. That wasn’t the case at all. I think the weather forecast scared some tourists off because it called for rain the whole day but it was perfect out. Not humid, sunny, and a light breeze. The little town reminded me of one of those Lake Geneva types of towns or those little Florida towns that have all of the shops and crafts and food stands. Once we parked in a parking lot, a teenager boy rode his bike up to us and started speaking Chinese to us and good thing we had Archie there to translate. He was trying to get us to sign up for the boat tour, which we all wanted to do. It started at $300 NT per person which is only $10 and somehow Archie talked the kid down to $150 NT per person!

We met Dan, Caren, and Jeff at the Starbucks there and everyone was eating a light meal/snack there and getting a drink. I decided to get a latte and a yogurt parfait. The starbucks out here have some strange things to choose from in their food display. A latte is the same price as coffee but overall the pricing is the same. My yogurt tasted kind of funny but it was fine! We all loaded on to the boat with about 30 other passengers and the boat was really nice. It was air conditioned in the inside (I love how much they use air conditioning out here) and you could walk up to the front of the boat and be outside. This boat took us to one area out of about 3, and we got out and walked up to a ton of different shops. As always, there were stray dogs trying to pick up some scraps. There was this real cute little dachshund peeking his head out under a food stand. Caren, Lien, and I tried some wine at one stand and some of it was really gross. Finally, I had some of the peach wine and it was good! I ended up getting two bottles to ship home to my mom. Realistically, I’ll probably keep one for myself. Archie was doing a great job at bartering and translating the whole time.

It started to drizzle before we set off for the second part of Sun Moon Lake which is where these Buddhist temples were. It started to rain harder and it was getting to be about 2pm in the day and I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. We already went up a lot of stairs and then Dan and Lien mentioned that there were a ton more (Dan said 365, one for each day of the year) and these stairs were super steep. I was feeling kind of light headed from not eating and I ate a few crackers and a piece of candy but it didn’t seem to help. I also wasn’t wearing very good shoes to hike up stairs since I left my gym shoes at the school. Caren quickly offered to stay behind with me because she didn’t want to climb anymore stairs. Everyone was ok with just going to original part of Sun Moon Lake where we started because there was a restaurant that Dan and his wife love. The weather was still pretty crummy but I was ok with that because it cooled things down and we already saw a lot of the lake when it was sunny. 

The restaurant was called February Café and it was an Italian restaurant. Everything on the menu looked delicious and Dan said that all of their pasta and sauces are homemade and the vegetables and fruit juices are fresh. This all sounded great to me! I literally was drooling looking at the menu. I ordered spaghetti with vegetables in a tomato cream sauce and I asked for it to be spicy. For $150 NT more, you can add a soup, salad, drink, and dessert. I was sold. The soup was minestrone, the salad had a sweet creamy vinaigrette, and the drink I got was kiwi juice. I also ordered a Heineken because Joe was ordering a beer and I got really excited that someone else was going to drink. Caren also got a beer. Everything was delicious. Archie didn’t order any food and took a nap sitting up at the table. That’s how much the Taiwanese need their naps I guess..

We were all exhausted and I ended up dozing off on the drive home. Archie dropped us all off by a bus stop in Taichung and Lien and I rode this one bus for a long time before we got back to my place where her stuff was at. If I got back at a decent time and wasn’t exhausted, I was planning on meeting up with Amber out in Hsinshu which is an hour north on a train. Amber doesn’t have internet but has a phone, and I don’t have a phone but have an internet. Getting ahold of her wasn’t going to be easy and I don’t know how to use the trains on my own yet so I decided to stay back at my apartment. I started to regret my decision to stay back because Amber made it sound like they had a really fun night planned and I definitely want to go out soon. I know it’s possible to have fun without drinking, but I definitely miss drinking with my friends and going out to bars.

I got pretty homesick that night and was upset. I just miss my family and friends a lot and I miss the convenience of even just going out to a bar or restaurant by yourself if you want to. I don’t think that’s common here at all. I ended up talking with my mom and dad for a while on skype which helped a lot and then Stacy and Kari skyped with me which was like..perfect timing. It’s like they knew I was sad from across the world J It was great to talk with them and hear about their fun cruise vacation. I’m so jealous of their plans for the day, watching college football and drinking.  I fell asleep pretty late. A lot on my mind I guess.