Thursday April 18th, 2013
Meat bun for breakfast and surprisingly the JUICEST,
SWEETEST Mandarin orange I’ve EVER eaten! This thing was seriously impossible
to eat without juice squirting out with every bite, dripping down your hand and
even forming a liquid pool in a below plate. Nummy! It was fantastic! :D
Continuing on the subject of fruit, I went by the usual
fruit shop for an apple but for some reason they weren’t open yet. No matter I
simply visited a nearby smaller one that also sold apples. Though smaller they
still looked fine so I went ahead and purchased one in anticipation for lunch.
Whoo!
In University class we practiced two songs that we have to
perform at a Rotary show. Sometime in June there’s an event where each of the
four Chinese classes must entertain the audience for about 30 minutes, more or
less. My class has a battle plan of singing and telling “cold jokes” (Taiwanese
style jokes)…and something else I think… The thing is I won’t be in Taiwan when
they have the performance so I’m not exactly worried about it.
Our small rehearsal today included a fast paced song and we
quickly choreographed a simple dance to, some moves I’m glad to say I
contributed with. The lyrics follow along the meaning of “if you love me, raise
your left hand” and “if you love me, raise your right hand,” etc. If you’re
interested in listening/seeing a Chinese music video, here’s the song! Knock
yourselves out! ;D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmSKfraBYMM
The second song on our list has no dance because it’s a slow
paced love song. This one is apparently super famous in Taiwan. The video is
paired with a love story movie, which is why it won’t really make sense if you
watch it. But I was told the singer he’s American but has quite the reputation
in Taiwan. He has a great voice so feel free to take a gander. ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvUsOXNPVxo
Does this look familiar? Tis soymilk and I’ve had this same
brand before. Brand, yes; type, no. This one is “no-sugar high-fiber” when the previous time was “low-sugar high-fiber.” With that being
said, the low-sugar past experience was more enjoyable because of the added
sweetness, small yet present. Today’s no-sugar version was still good but nothing
too impressive. It’s healthier though. ;P Yet another thing tried before
leaving. Whoop whoop!
With Mariko and Shania, a lunch of a small apple, bag of
honey cashews & salted almonds (same as Monday) and a tealeaf egg was
enjoyed. So delicious! I forgot to get a picture of the heated pot that holds
the eggs at the convenient store but I still plan to! Getting the egg from
FamilyMart it was lightly cracked before being submerged in the broth. This
creates the marbled webbed effect I mentioned before.
So here’s the outside shell with the light cracks covering
it.
Approximately the same view of the egg with some of the
shell peeled off. Can you see the remaining crack pattern? That’s why they’ll
crack them, for a pretty effect like this. Either way it’ll end up scrumptious
in the end!
This morning and afternoon…oh gosh…soooooo
hoooooo-o-o-o-o-o-ottttt!!! Why is it so freakishly hot?! Not once did I use my
school uniform jacket and even carrying it was a pain because some skin
wouldn’t be exposed to air from holding it. Did not like sweating just from
walking. Eww. It was so hot that my favorite ring, bought in Taiwan, melted and
the color flaked off. This ring was one I cheaply got for 10NT ($.30US) at the
shell temple. Sure it was poor quality but the coloring meant something to me.
And now…it’s messed up. Sadness! R.I.P. My beloved ring!
At high school today was a club day. Did I go do some kung
fu? Nope. Change of plans. I joined with the Interact club as a guest along
with three other exchange students. Here we were to give a short speech over
our time or an experience in Taiwan as well as exchange Rotary banners.
Stephanie when first and talked about Taiwanese food she
liked and didn’t like. Afterwards was exchanging her Ecuadorian Rotary Club
banner for this Rotary Interact’s banner. (FYI, Rotary is the overall organization.
Interact is a community service club for high school students. Rotaract is
another club but for young adults from age 18-30. After that you can join the
actual Rotary club. I hope that clears up any confusion.)
Second up, Marilu also talked about Taiwanese food she liked then had a one-sided banner exchange.
I was third and chose to create a different speech type.
Redy originally suggested us to talk about our trip to Jiufen. Following that
idea on a similar path, I thought it would be good to talk about our Tatung
exchange student trip to the pastry museum. This is not only to involve both
Tatung and Taipei but also…well…y’all know why. XD Why not tell the comical
story about my marriage? ;P
Well I didn’t know how well it went but I felt good about my
speech. I thought I pronounced the words fairly well and added several fun cups
of personality to the story. According to Redy, I did well even thought the
audience didn’t laugh at my humorous moments but she said that’s because
Taiwanese generally act like that during presentations. Regardless, I was able
to learn a few Chinese vocabulary words from the preparation of the speech like
‘wedding’ and the Taiwanese for red-fortune-telling-banana (there’s no Chinese
name, only Taiwanese). Fun! I was also able to unload American pencils,
American flag magnets and my name cards on the 31 members to deplete my store
of American gifts. There’s still too many in my possession and they weigh
unnecessarily too much to bring back. Therefore opportunities like these are
great to give away a bulk of gifts as a peacefully gesture. Another win! ^_^
Last to go was Rike with talk of Taipei in general. Another
one-sided banner exchange.
Our four speeches weren’t the only part of the two-hour club
meeting. Nope, there was also a guest speaker talking about a University that
involved foreign exchange students. I half tuned in, half tuned out so I can’t
really say anything else about it. XD Overall I really enjoyed the Interact
meeting today, happy to be a part of a Taiwanese Interact as well as Rotary in
general, an opportunity to practice Chinese and hopefully positively
represented America. Twas a good day just because of that! ^_^
Dinner at the house had an interesting twist never consumed
before involving eggs. Sure we sometimes have hard-boiled eggs for dinner and a
fried egg in a toast cheese sandwich for breakfast but today was different.
Host grandmother cooked me a fried egg with a bit of soy sauce on top. At least
I think it was soy sauce. It was some kind of brown sauce ok. :P Either way, I
found yet another version of cooked eggs that I LOVE! Holy crud I love eggs so
much! Thank you Taiwan for showing me that I like way more than just scrambled
eggs. ^_^
I tried another Taiwanese snack from the bag my classmate
gave me. This one was the light chunk of unknown block stuff. From its
appearance I thought it would be hard but it turned up to be pretty soft. As
the food hit my taste-buds, it felt like it wanted to be sweet but immediately
flees away. Its flavor was indescribable except for the word ‘shy,’ not strong
but not absent. Though it did seem to lack flavor in my opinion. The texture
was little chips of whatnot all squashed together. It most reminded me of fried
won ton skin chips (the ones you have at Chinese restaurants with soup) with
less salt and oil. With that being said, the individual bits annoyingly kept
falling off the main block. Then there was one single raisin in the entire lump.
Why? I have no idea. Just to get rid of it and out of my life, I finished it
all with half-hearted feelings. Not a fan of this snack, sorry.
My mind just suddenly shut down and I couldn’t process a
working thought. Retreating to the bed, I spent several minutes joy reading but
soon followed with needing a nap to recharge.
Perhaps thirty or forty minutes later I was awoken by an
attack on the building. I just hear LOUD POUNDING UP THE WAZOO. Coming to my
senses I distinguished it as rain absolutely flooding down in bulk. Just goes
to show even more how Taipei weather can change so suddenly and so extremely.
Well hopefully it’ll bring a cold front with it or something. *fingers crossed*
With some exertion I managed to get a few things done before
going beddy-bye. My busy-busy homework day was yesterday so thankfully today didn’t
have an extensive to-do list so I could take it easy. I’m grateful for how this
day was blessed by laying out each activity smoothly and easily. Ok now, see
y’all next time! ^_^
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