Tainan, adventures, and infinite photos!

Before I forget: I have updated my photo album and actually had so many darn photos that it spilled into an entirely new album.  They can be found here and here.  For that reason, I probably won't post any photos in this entry, so just refer to the albums.

So! Last weekend was the trip to Tainan!  We departed Taipei by bus on Saturday morning.  After about four and a half hours, we got to Tainan (台南).  We spent the day in and around Anping (安平) fort.  There was lots of good food, drinks, and trinkets on the street around there, so we spent a long time strolling and snacking and spending money.  We saw Anping fort (which is apparently held together with a mushed-up mixture of oyster shells and rice instead of cement), explored this area called something like "happy paradise," and went to a shop that had 366 different colors of salt, for each day of the year, and the one corresponding to your birthday carries significance about your personality and strengths and weaknesses and whatnot.  They also sold these salt-encrusted eggs that you have to open using a mallet!  After that we got some 豆花 (which was phenomenal!) and headed over to Tainan's big night market!  Even before getting there, I was pretty full from eating nonstop all day... but of course, I ate tons there and it was all delicious (particularly the eel).  Plus we got some amazing deals on jewelry and other trinkets.  I made a list of all the foods I ate over the course of the day, although I may have left some out... it is as follows: milk cake, foods in restaurant (soups, glutinous meat ball, shrimp roll, taro pork thing), ice cream wrap, sausage, fried wanton, potato/mochi peanut thing, dou hua, pork rice, eel, honey mochi, tea, and shared portions of dumplings and fried cuttlefish.  Whew!

We were awoken at 5:45 the next morning to be up for the start of the festival!  This is a festival that is held every three years for three days and I guess it is basically supposed to provide entertainment for the farmers.  Something like 96 different temples from different villages got involved, and, as I understand it, each one organizes some kind of performance or routine and they parade through the towns showing off their stuff.  Luckily for us, the temple was located literally right next door to April's grandfather's house, so we could easily go back and fourth between the two.  The sun had just barely risen by the time I got up and outside and the performances started.  The crowd here was in a totally different league than that of the Mazu pilgrimage and festival - at peak hours there might have been 30 or 40 spectators and maybe 15 performers.  The highlight of the thing was this "centipede" of children all dressed in traditional clothes... they were adorable and some of them were just sleeping on their little thrones.  Poor things must have been exhausted... we all certainly were!  Throughout the morning and early afternoon, just about everyone in our group took a nap or two.  It was a weird feeling to be tired and wanting a nap by 10 am.  We then enjoyed an exquisite banquet that was so nicely provided by April's family, met a bunch of amazingly friendly locals, and then headed back home to Taipei.  It was a great trip -- thanks so much to April and her family for making it happen!

On Monday I visited Sun Yat-Sen memorial hall with Gene.  I recently acquired an MRT guide that lists 16 attractions in Taipei and I decided to hit each of them at least once before going home.  I'm over halfway through already!  Anyway, SYS Memorial hall was on that list, but, as it turns out, it's a pretty boring place.  Gene and I still had lots of fun goofing around, people watching, making random videos and the like.  And it's one more place to check off on my list!

During the week I spent most of my time studying for (or procrastinating for) my International Finance midterm that was on Thursday (and went fine).  Then on Friday, I went to the history museum and botanical garden with Grace, Chris, and Gene.  The history museum was another thing to check off the list!  Also, entry?  Just $15 - only 50 US cents!  Oh, what a deal!  It had four floors with dramatically different vibes to them - ranging from metal work and pottery that is literally thousands of years old, to photos of 20th century Taiwan to modern paintings from Guatamala, of all places.  Anyway.  It's great to get out of the dorm!  And the weather became beautiful and the gardens were great, and it was a very nice way to spend the day.  Chris, Grace, and I got dinner and relaxed for a couple of hours in a cozy coffee shop, listening to good music, poking through Chinese picture books, and pooling our efforts into creating a communal drawing.

And today, yet another adventure!  We had another CIEE-endorsed trip to just about one hour outside Taipei.  First, we went to a Hakka restaurant for some tasty and traditional noodles.  Next stop was a cosmetics factory, where we got to each make a cute little doll out of a cut-up sock, stuffing, some string, and googly eyes.  They are adorable and were sprayed with perfume!  After that we headed to the part everyone was really excited for - a famous cake company!  We all got to participate in a cake-decorating activity where we created angry birds cake toppers from fondant and each got a little teeny cake of our own to put them on.  This activity was a real hit with the dessert-loving friends I've made here, and the following tour of the bake shop and museum area only strengthened our appetites!  Plus, as part of the activity, the instructor woman was asking questions with prizes, and Becca won an entire real-sized cake to take home!  We had some of it tonight, and, as expected, it was yummy.

Anyway.  Tomorrow is my birthday!  I never thought I'd be turning 21 so anticlimactically outside the US :)  But, thanks to outstanding family and friends, I do have a small pile of gifts and dinner plans to make the day special.

Just a couple of last notes:

For one thing, as much as I may stand out here, there is one way in which I fit in far better than I ever have in the US: technologically.  As opposed to the Macbook-ridden Rice campus, everyone here has (just as I do!) an Asus.  It's a Taiwanese company, so maybe it shouldn't be surprising.  But anyway, it's a great feeling to look around the classroom and see smiling back at me a sea of Asus logos other than that nasty apple.

Also, it has been really interesting living in this dorm because it was so new when I moved in.  On the first day when Afore was giving me a tour, she pointed out all these empty spaces on the ground floor and explained that those are SUPPOSED to be for shops and restaurants but they haven't found anyone to fill them yet.  I thought to myself, "ah!  Too bad I'll miss it!"  It turns out, in Taiwan, shit gets done.  Fast.  Within two weeks of moving in they suddenly opened a Hi-Life convenience store in one of those spaces (a spot which I frequent).  Then suddenly one day I noticed a little cafe and drink shop had appeared.  A couple of weeks ago there were a few days of construction preceding the opening of another cafe (which turned out to be great!)  And now in just the span of a couple of days, a fourth spot went from empty to mystery shelves to a fully stocked little shop!  I haven't been in yet so I'm not sure exactly what they sell, but it's pretty crazy how fast this stuff happens, and it's kind of funny having them pop up in my dorm without any warning.

Another thing: this campus is full of such active students!  I went to the track area after dinner one day last week and it was completely swamped with groups practicing different types of performances.  There is also a mirror wall that 24 hours a day is full of different dance groups practicing together -it's great!  There are times when I'm outside and I can hear or see three or more different groups of students practicing musical or dance performances.  I took a video or two for evidence but I'm not going to post them right now.  Just wanted to comment on how much I like that about this campus.  Also, I feel like Asians in general are less inhibited and embarrassed about things like dancing and singing.  I love how many boys I see in dance groups without them looking awkward or embarrassed.  And karaoke - everyone does it!  People who are great singers, or average, or worse, and they do it with heart and without inhibitions, and I really admire that about this culture.

Anyway.  More to come. (Though not so much more...)