Coming of Age Ceremony

Hey everybody, last weekend was pretty boring so I decided not to post. But this weekend we had a Taiwanese coming-of-age ceremony so I thought I would write about that. Yesterday was the ceremony, it started with us washing our hands and entering the temple (this signified washing away old habits I believe) We then listened to some speeches from Rotarians and family before doing some traditional dances. We have been practicing our dances for over a month now so finally performing them was really nice. We then had to walk underneath a table, and bump our heads on the edge(this was supposed to signify growing up, I don't know why) we then went to the stage where our host parents placed a hat on our head and gave us certificates. Overall the ceremony was fun, practicing our dances for a month wasn't so much though.

Sorry for such a short post!
More Soon,
Jordan

Busy, Busy

Sorry everybody this is my first post in almost a month, I have been trying to keep myself busy. I'll try harder to post here weekly. I guess I'll get around to updating now, last weekend I went to the Xinbeitou hot-springs with some other exchange students, this was one of the major things I wanted to do while reading through guidebooks. We ended up at a public hot-springs a few minutes walk away from the Metro station. The entrance price, NT$20 or around US$.60 this was a huge surprise to me, I figured getting in would be pricy. But once inside I realized that there was barely anyone under the age of forty, not exactly a raging party but still a nice relaxing few hours. A few weird things about the hot springs: sitting on the edge of the pool with your feet in is not allowed, a guard will tell you this instantly, I have no idea why this is a rule. Another thing is that you are supposed to dump water from the pool onto your feet before you get in, again, I don't know why.

Time here has been flying by, its been nearly eleven weeks since I landed. School keeps getting better (although there are long periods of nothing to do) and I am still enjoying it. My host family has started speaking Chinese to me and to my surprise I understand most of it. I guess between Chinese class and living with a Chinese speaking family I've picked up more than I thought I did.

This weekend has been a lazy weekend (hence a blog post) so I don't really have anything recent to tell about. Again I'm sorry about not posting for so long I'll try to get back on schedule. Talk to ya next week!

Taiwan turns 100

Saturday, I knew I needed to do something to get out of the house, so I made plans with another exchange student, Austin, to go to Shilin night market. He also invited another exchange student, Charlie from Illinois. I hadn't met Charlie before but he was really cool. I had already eaten dinner but they hadn't so we went around looking for a place to eat. Instead of stopping and getting fried chicken, tofu, or even noodles like one would expect we ended up at a place selling Big-Juds sized burgers, In Taipei. Who would have thought? So they ate and I talked with them for a while about there exchanges and lives in Taiwan before we had to head home to make curfew, not much of a night market experience, but still pretty fun.

Monday was the 100th anniversary of Taiwan. I went out with my host mom Sophie to meet some other exchange students. Austin, and Jay Slack. We walked around C.K.S Memorial Hall but it was too crowded too enjoy so we headed to Ximen to kill time until the fireworks. Sophie was tired at this point so she headed home. Me, Austin and Jay didn't really know what to do so we just wondered around Ximen until we got hungry. Then we went to a Philly-Cheese steak restaurant, again, in Taiwan. It was surprisingly delicious, probably the best I've ever had. Then we headed to the fireworks. We didn't know exactly where they were at, but we knew they were near the river. We asked a few people for directions and pretty soon we were in a mob headed for the fireworks. We went to the side of the river but it started raining and we didn't have an umbrella so we hurried to a 7-11 and bought one. But by the time we got back we couldn't get back to the same spots and we settled in a nearby park, hoping the view would be good, but when the show started we found out we could barely see the fireworks so we wondered down the road looking for a better view, listening to the fireworks explode and set off nearby car alarms, which was almost as cool as watching the fireworks. We finally found a spot where we could semi-see the explosions and we enjoyed the rest of the show before we began our walk back to Ximen, and home. All-in-all an awesome day.

Sorry about the delay in this post!  

Settling In

Sorry I didn't blog last week! Not a lot has been happening the past few weeks. I can't get out every day and the weather has been pretty bad. Yesterday and Today I didn't even leave the house for the first time! But I got to enjoy delicious dinner with the host family :) I had to give a speech at a Rotary meeting this week, my host-mom Sophie helped me with it for a few days so it turned out pretty well and I learned a lot. I also had to give a speech to the freshman from my high school which went well too. I'm a little sick of speeches now, I wasn't overly fond of them to begin with though so...yea. It has started to cool in Taiwan and what they call winter is on the way. Here is gets chilly and it rains a lot, In Idaho it gets below zero and snows! But I am actually kind of glad its getting cold here, the heat and the humidity were starting to get to me. I can deal with extreme cold better then extreme heat I think. Well that's about all I have for now! Sorry I don't have more interesting things to tell about. : p.

Burgers, ostrich, and a lot of waterfalls...

This week school was still pretty uneventful, fun, but nothing to really write about specifically. Friday night I rode the subway to my host brother Darren's school. His school's "Rock Club" was having a concert. I didn't really know what to expect, back home whenever teens had a concert it was for a talent show and it was usually low budget and not too special. Here, club concerts are a major production. They had a full stage with huge amps and speakers, fog machines, and lights. The kids are all amazing at their instruments because they spend hours a day practicing and rehearsing so it made for a really good show.

Saturday I spent mostly lounging around the house reading and sleeping. I was pretty sure I was gonna not leave the house for the whole day for the first time but my host family decided to go out to dinner. We went to a U.S. style burger restaurant. After staring at my menu for a few minutes and having my host brother attempt to translate it the waiter brought over an English menu with a big smile on his face. The food was really similar to the U.S. but a little different. They put eggs on all of their burgers which I had never had but it was actually pretty good. Then me and my host mom went to a nearby night market, but it was way too crowded to move much less shop for anything so we just headed home.

Today I went to Neidon forest with my host family and my third host family and another exchange student, Austin. We walked through the forest taking pictures of waterfalls for a while. The waterfalls were beautiful and the scenery was very green and I'm pretty sure it was the most wide open space I've seen for the last three weeks. After that we went to the restaurant that my second host family owns, I feasted on bamboo rice, plain bamboo, veggies and something new, ostrich meat. Ostrich is delicious, its very tender and it tastes somewhere between beef and chicken I would say so if you ever get the chance to try some, do it. Well that's about all for this week--I've added some pictures to Facebook you can click the link on the right to view them!

Night Market!

This week school was pretty uneventful, the weekend however was more exciting! Saturday, I went to an art show with my host brother, Darren and his friend. The art show was okay but it was really crowded. (What in Taipei isn't?) Afterwords Darren took us to get foot massages, I was pretty skeptical because I'd never gotten one before but it was kind of nice once I relaxed, it was definitely a new experience! Once we were finished there we went to the Shilin Night Market. Darren asked me what I knew about night market food from the U.S. and I said that I heard there was a lot of things made out of pig's blood. So he spent the rest of the night describing everything we were eating as "full of pig's blood" or "mixed with pig's blood" I ate some delicious fried chicken, and a fried potato covered in cheese which was okay. Then we went to a stall that smelled horrible, I was curious what the stench was when I realized that it was a stinky tofu stall. I had heard stinky tofu was pretty good if you could get past it's stench. He bought some and I tried it but to me it tasted just like it smelled, nasty.

On Sunday I went to a movie with my friend, Jennifer. It was my real first experience going that far away and coming back with absolutely no problems. Hanging out with someone from Taiwan was nice and I need to do it more often! I also bought a journal so that I could write daily about my exchange.

Today, Monday, is Moon Festival so I went to lunch with my host family's extended family. It was really nice and the food was good. They were very welcoming and made me feel like a member of the family. Later today we are going to go out somewhere in Taipei (I forgot where exactly) but I guess that will have to wait until next week. :) For Now, Zaijian!  

Safe, Sound, and loving it!

After a very long day of traveling I have made it to Taiwan! This post is a bit late because I landed about ten days ago but I will try to post here every Sunday and keep everyone posted on what I am doing. The first weekend here I spent pretty much trying to find my way around and get settled and ready for school to start. When school did start, I was worried I was not going to have a good year. They put us in a room with the student teachers for a while and they taught us some Chinese but it was mostly just me and another exchange student, Austin, sitting in a room twiddling our thumbs. When I did go to class they sat me in the corner and I didnt have any idea what the teacher was saying. But then the next day, it seemed all my problems were solved. They brought in a private tutor to teach the exchange students Chinese, and they also brought in three more exchange students. When I went to class the teacher had moved me next to Douglas. Douglas's father is a diplomat so he lived in Chicago for a while so he speaks English perfectly. So class became much more interesting and I started learning a lot more Chinese! When the school week was over I was pretty tired so I left my Saturday morning open and I caught up on my sleep. In the afternoon I went to lunch with my host family and went to Ximending. Ximending is pretty much the partying district of Taipei. So my host family and I went shopping around and exploring and it was really fun. Today the Rotary club that is hosting me sponsored a child for the Make-A-Wish foundation so I went to the zoo to meet him. Afterwords, I went around town with the two other exchange students in my club, Vere and Austin. We ended up in Ximending again shopping around for a while before we became bored. Then we found a HUGE pool hall and we played pool for about an hour and went to an arcade for awhile. There is always something to do here! Well that's about it for now I'll add some pictures of my trip soon. But for now, Zaijian!