Bring On The Countries!

Sunday November 25^th, 2012

Coming back from Bali, we arrived home really late. Like 1:00AM late. Today was a Rotary event at 7:30AM with needed time to get ready, drive there and all that jazz with having a full, tiring previous Saturday. Oh dear. Not a good disposition. That leaves less than 5.5 hours to recharge for another chockfull day. YI DIAN NAN! (“a little difficult”) I had to drag myself out of bed and into the car for my host father to drive us to the location. A McDonald’s McMuffin was provided for breakfast by Rotary just before setting up our displays for the event.

I shall explain. The Rotary event was a “country fair” presented by the inbound exchange students for applying Taiwanese students desiring to go on an exchange. Each different country got their own booth to decorate with unique cultural things. This way the applying students could go around and explore each of the country’s different flavors, ask questions and decide their top choices. Pretty cool stuff. Texas didn’t have this so it was something new even for me.

America and Germany dominated in size because we had the most inbound exchange students, giving us two tables each for displays. Other nationalities usually got one table since there were fewer students for perhaps just one. Single person run booths were like Hungary, Mexico, Brazil, Belgium and more. I salute those troopers because it is HARD to do all of the work yourself. From 7:30-4:00 they had to serve every applying student themselves, which is so super tiring. The nice thing with having so many Americans is that we could take turns and switch out, though some took a full day break instead of work. XD

One main job of mine was to make little samples of the oh so famous and traditional American PB&J sandwich. Mmm-mm-MM! It felt good to be crafting the sandwich radiating with the spirit of the stars and stripes and where the eagle flies! XD All the American exchange students absolutely had to have at least one taste of our beloved treat. Twas inevitable. ;P What I found funny was the comparison between applying and inbound students. The applying Taiwanese students and their parents had to be heavily encouraged to try a PB&J triangle sample. Even when they did give in, it didn’t seem very impactful to them. On the other hand, the exchange students from all sorts of countries kept coming back for multiple PB&J goodness, especially one Australian. He just kept going at them. XD America invasion success!

Here are some displays from around the globe!

The single chica from Mexico. She did a great job on display and presentation! And boy was she tired doing it all by herself. Kudos to her!

Cute little cupcakes boasting the Mexican culture. How adorable are these?! The little beer bottle was a nice touch. XD

And some candy from Mexico. Skwinkles is such a fun name to say! Go ahead and try it! Say it just once! The way it feels rolling around in your mouth soon becomes an addicting pronunciation! ;D

Hungary... Apparently according to the dude from Hungary, the Rubix cub comes from his country. Cool fact! 

A close up picture of those treats on Hungary's table. These are like chocolate goodness rolled in coconut...I think. It was so DELICIOUS! I want this Hungarian recipe!

A section of AMERICA, two tables in total. Here Zach, the guy in the middle, is showing an applying student around our booth. They are taking a look see at a USA yearbook. Then the flags down there were little gifts to remember our patriotic country by. ;D

This American boy on the left is making the Canadian girl on the right laugh. It's because this guy is HILARIOUS to listen to. Not many of the Taiwanese students understood his humor because of the language barrier. But for those who knew English, you absolutely can't keep a straight face with this dude! I'll put it this way, this guy could easy-peasy be a car salesman but instead of cars he sells "the American dream" to applying exchange students. I'll let your mind have fun thinking up what I mean by this. ;P Oh but whatever you think of, multiple the extremity by seven and then you have a general idea. XD

Brazil! Another stand with just one chica in charge (the one in the blue Rotary jacket giving a sample). Her treat was a thick, creamy Brazilian chocolate with sprinkles. AMAZING STUFF!

Oh Caaaaanada. Their bribery of a sample was Canadian maple syrup, a type of fudge and...oh what was the last thing...caramel maybe? As you can tell, I don't really remember. Whoopsies. :P

Bet you can't figure what country this table is for. XD Crepes with nutella inside and croissants were their samples. Samples were super important to luring people in to be interested in your country. ;) Yeah, devilish we know. XD

Will! Netherlands! Pie! ORANGE! Another job well done for running a booth all by herself. Applause for the lady!

Yet another single person run table by the chica on the right. Her booth is being overrun by two Americans. XD I LOVE the fan she's holding! I miss shopping for beautiful Spanish fans in all their glory!

Japan's section. Now Japan is being invaded by an American but also a Canadian. See that kimono? It's so kawai (cute)! The three Japanese exchange students all wore their own adorable kimonos.

Germany's large display. They rocked the room with their speaker and iPod combo. The music was definitely an attraction.

Slovakia...kinda... It's the Slovakia stand but the girl had to leave for a bit. So a German dude with a Japanese headband had to be a temporary replacement. Oh goodness it was funny as he tried to educate people about Slovakia. XD

The single guy from Belgium. Did you know the story of 'Tintin' comes from Belgium? Well now you know, courtesy of this educational booth!

Crickey! It's Australia!

More America! Look at my beautiful PB&J creations! ;D It's hard to see them, but the American stuffed animals were my decoration contribution (six total). 

Wanting to up the patriotism, what better way to do it than to stick a couple of American flags in your hair and wear your AWESOME new Texan looking face mask. I think they look rather well together. A lot of Taiwanese people complimented me on the flags so my USA advertisement worked well when walking around. XD The face mask was worn both for appearance and an outward sign of 'I'm sick' but my case was more like 'I'm sick and I'm not able talk to you.' Read below for more on that.

In the morning my throat was kind of tickling. No big deal. Towards midday it started to get annoying and developing a croaky voice. Oh snap. It made talking about America very difficult since I was gradually losing my voice. Nonetheless I trucked through it and answered questions as best as possible. Two things unique to America were my letter jacket and class ring that only I could present. They were things to catch special attention from the applying students but they effectively drained my voice. Towards the end of the fair my throat was hurting up a storm forcing me to cease talking. I had to flee to a convenient store for hot lemon tea and Ricola drops for relief. They only helped so much but even a little was very gratifying.

After the exhausting country fair was clean up and following, a trip with my host parents. At this point only pathetic sounding croaks could be emitted from my terrible throat so it was concluded that I wouldn’t talk for the rest of the night. Communication was through hand motions, mimes and typing on my phone. Kinda fun but bad since Chinese can’t be practiced like this. Hmm, maybe if I knew how to do sign language in Chinese…that would be cool. XD

Going to Ximen, we took a look-see at an old street with empty buildings but containing a few signs stating what they used to be. It wasn’t much at all, just a little side trip before the main attraction, Long Shan Temple.

This temple is really famous in Taipei both big and beautiful. At night this place is PACKED with praying Buddhist and filled with heavy incense hovering like an enormous could overhead. It got a bit difficult to breath sometimes. I’m not claustrophobic but being surrounded by so many people so closely, if I stay long enough I might just become one. XD My host parents were trying to explain each God and alter, which didn’t work out too well. Think of it like this, we were swimming through a raging sea of people. It’s impractical to talk otherwise water will fill your lungs and listening becomes downright hard when strong waves block your path, causing you to fall behind.

Pictures were a challenge as well due to three primary reasons. (1) As said before, too many people! Sometimes I couldn’t even see an alter because the wall of praying Buddhist cut me off. Waiting for them to move didn’t help. (2) Bad lighting. It’s dark and the slightest hand movement will create blurs in the image. Grr! (3) Flash was pointless. If you use flash you will capture a picture of gray. That gray derives from the sheer amount of incense overflowing in the air. Dang there was a lot! I had to put on my stylish face mask at one point because it was too overpowering for someone with a developing illness like me.

Here are my best shots:

Hiding in the crowd of religious followers and incense smoke, the temple itself was a stunning sight. There was so much to see and marvel at but our visit was not a prime time to do so. Such an experience should take place during a quieter, calmer period in order to get its full effect. We plan on coming back again to do this sometime, which is great! Whoo!

Leaving the crazy busy temple, it was then time to grab some dinner. Woah this restaurant was fun! It was Japanese food with Chinese employees dressed in a Japanese style that welcomed/thanked you in Japanese. Oh it was so cool! The food was astounding! A little too large in volume for my stomach but friends with my taste buds. The hot soup was extremely comforting to my bad throat. Mmm-mm-good! Other bits of this elaborate meal was rice seasoned with seaweed bits, a white vegetable of some sort sprinkled with sauce, jelly for dessert and chicken fried steak as the main course. Oh the fried chicken steak was tasty! I could do with more of that anytime! ;D

After a full day with less sleep, tiring work, getting sick and a sightseeing trip, it was easy-peasy to pass out immediately in bed. And that’s exactly what I did. So good night all! :)