Friday January 18th, 2013
So unfortunately I still had to attend school today even
though I’m the only exchange student in my school doing so and it’s three hours
of pointlessness, but at least I was able to sleep in an hour. Only one though.
Since the Taiwanese students had a test from 8:00-9:00, I was required to be
there at 9:00. I bought a cup of coffee anyway because I was in need of back
up.
The first hour was cleaning the school. It turned out the
cleaning was only for students who didn’t turned in their ‘communication book.’
Nonetheless I swept a room just to show I wasn’t useless. Then it was having a
small talk with classmates half English half Chinese.
Once an hour passed it was time to spend two hours on the
ninth floor listening to a speech that none of my classmates cared about. Even
with the coffee, I conked out. Truthfully I wasn’t even trying to stay awake.
;P
The only upside to coming to school for three hours was
FINALLY being able to eat at the Subway in front of Tatung campus. FINALLY
YES!!!! The idea only is enough to make me happy but the sandwich was even
better! The employee put way more veggies on it (love!) and ‘honey oat’ bread
is different from what I’ve had in America. It has several big nuts hiding in
the bread that gives a delightful crunch of flavor in a few delicious bites. It
tasted great! ^_^
When I came home my host grandmother prepared bunches and
bunches of the rice pyramid thing wrapped in two leafs. She first had me eat
one, which was yummy, then brought me to the kitchen to show how to make them.
I knew I was going to be taught today (and looked forward to it) but I expected
doing it from the very beginning. She already prepared all the ingredients and
only showed me how to form the final product.
The contents of the food were mostly rice with a little bit
of beans, pork, egg yolk, and mushroom. You put all of that in a specific order
inside the leaves, wrap it and tie it off with a string that’s connected to a
whole bunch of other leaf rice pyramids. I’m just going to call them leaf rice
pyramids for now because I don’t know its English name. I ended up making about
two before we ran out of ingredients. I mostly watch host grandmother craft
them and took mental notes. So perhaps I could find a recipe (once I know its
Chinese or English name) and try to make it myself back in Texas. I think
forming the leaf pyramid is the hardest part of it all so at least I vaguely
know how to do it! :)
The beginning of forming the food
Host grandmother and her delicious work
The eldest son of my host family returned from college in
Tainan (southern Taiwan) to spend the night in Taipei before flying for Japan
the next morning. He’s spending about nine days in Japan and less than a month
back in Taipei for his winter break. I’ve met him before but it was early in my
exchange, which I hardly remember. (My mind wasn’t adjusted to Taiwan yet so I
don’t remember everything in the beginning) But seeing him again was really
cool because he’s a nice guy. His English is perfect so anything I have trouble
explaining can be cleared up by him. We of course try to speak in only Chinese
but that’s not yet possible for me.
Dinner was eaten out at a Taiwanese restaurant with host
father, host mother, Michael and a couple that are friends of my host parents.
The food was good but there was so much! My favorite was a type of tofu, not
quite fried but not plain, more in the middle. I think I’ll actually miss tofu
when back in the states. Maybe Chinatown markets will have them. ;)
When back in the car, we began driving home but ended up
going to a camera store for Michael because he wanted a new camera. I was asked
if I wanted to stay in the car or not. That for me is code for ‘It won’t take
that long’ so I just tagged along. Two hours later…XD Yeah it took quite a
debate in order to find the right camera. This resulted in leaving the store
somewhere around 11:45 and arriving back home past midnight. I said ‘good
morning’ instead of ‘good night’ to my host family. XD It slightly worries me
because for the hiking trip tomorrow, Leo (church buddy) said to get plenty of
sleep. Whoopsies, that didn’t happen. XD
Thanks to Michael today I did learn something interesting
concerning ring wearing. A ring on the first finger represents success. For
guys a ring on the third finger (left hand) doesn’t necessarily mean they are married.
Actually Michael wears a ring like that but it’s supposed to be for bringing
luck to find love. Girls that wear a third finger left hand ring can be used
for warding off guys. It’s basically lying to other guys saying ‘I’m taken so
don’t even bother’ but really they’re not married. Devious huh? :P
He also taught me the Infernal General hand gesture
(mentioned in previous post) with all but the third finger upright. Also the
middle finger touching the thumb is some sign for “fairies” in temples. I don’t
quite understand and he had a tough time explaining but that’s as best as we
got to.
So there’s my Friday for ya. Hope you enjoyed and I’ll see
ya later. Byes! :)
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