The successful exchange

First of all: sorry that I have not been updating my Blog for years… My excuses are many. Basically I have just been busy…

I wonder if any of you saw the article about me in Horsens Folkeblad last Tuesday (I think). It tells about how my Christmas here in Taiwan is going to be different from the one in Denmark. The thing is that it is going to be very different as Christmas not really is a big deal here, but that does not mean that it is going to be bad. Actually I am having my best time in Taiwan so far. And my time here in Taiwan has always been good, so now it is just brilliant!

I think the reason, why I am having such a good time, is that I am doing stuff I like to do. One of my really good friends from America has had a hard time recently. She has been working unnecessarily hard on improving her Chinese (which was already really good), because she thought mastering the language would make her stay here more successful. And of course being able to communicate with people is necessary for making friends, but being able to communicate is not useful if you have nothing to communicate about. And that is what happens if you spend too much time by your self or with foreigners studying the language.

    A lot of the exchange students want extra lessons at our language school, and most of them are willing to pay a big amount of money to get them. I don’t want more lessons. I don’t want them, because that it not why I am here. If I was here to study Chinese I should have tried to get into some kind of university instead. I shouldn’t have gone to a High School where I have more cooking than Chinese classes, I shouldn’t have stayed at host families and I shouldn’t have spend energy taking dance classes twice a week. But that is what I do – because I am here on cultural exchange. And of course the language is important to get close to the culture, and some of the exchange students definitely should work harder on improving it, but the important thing is, that you do stuff whit the Taiwanese people, and best of all stuff that you enjoy doing yourself, because that it what makes you happy. And it is when you are happy, that you are having a successful exchange year.

So back to the Christmas issue I just want you to know, that I have all I could possibly whish for this Christmas, because I am doing stuff I enjoy with people I like.

Last weekend my dance club had a performance, and it was great, because I actually was a part of it. And when I use the word actually it is because I was not just a foreigner who danced along at the corner of the stage, but a person equal to the other dancers. The other dancers would ask me questions about the choreography and I had some very good positions (like whether you are center front or corner back), so I definitely was a part of this as much as everyone else, which was just great!

    On Saturday (and yes, I am talking about the 25. of December), my school has its anniversary, so we all have to go to school, but that really doesn’t bother me as I am going to play a little concert with my school band. I play the keyboard and sing the second voice (yap yap: in Chinese!), so here I am really a part of something as well. Furthermore my classmates and I are going to sell some food together, and it is just going to be very cosy!

    Even on Christmas Eve I am going to really be a part of something. And yeah, you might think that I have “bing” as they say here (which means that you are crazy), but on the very 24^th of December I am going to run a stafett whith my classmates agingst the other classes! I know it is crazy, but don’t worry: afterwards I will go to my Rotary Clubs Christmas Party which will probably be more or less about food, so I am not going to miss anything.

And remember: it is not bad, it is not good – it is just different!

Merry Christmas!

Julia            

Changing families

So changing host family is weird – like really weird. Cause after three months in your host country you feel like you know a lot. You know your school, you know the busses, you know your Rotary club and you might even have gotten some new habits or routines that you did not have back in your own country. But just as everything feels familiar: BAM, you are put into a new family. A family you might have met, but definitely haven not lived with before.

I am not saying that changing host family is a bad thing. Even though I got really close to my former family, I might get even closer to this one. Only time can tell. But when I said goodbye to my family I realized how much they mean to me. They ARE Taiwan for me. Cause they were the ones that introduced this foreign country and culture to me: went with me on my first busride, took me to Taiwan’s nightmarkets for the first time, gave me my first bowl of rice and taught me the first word (which to your information was 山 shan, meaning mountain, because the first thing a saw when I got out of the airport were Taiwan’s majestic mountains in the panorama of the crowded city). Now it has been time to let go of my teachers – my family.
    It does not mean that I am on my own though. I have gotten a new family, who will definitely show me new sites of Taiwan. But it is always difficult in the beginning when everything is new. Well, actually it is even harder than in the beginning, cause when I came to Taiwan I was totally prepared for something new to happen: Taiwan! Here I come! Now I feel like I now Taiwan – and yet I don’t.

My last host family pretty much lived in the ghetto of Taipei. The streets were broken and dirty, the stores were unorganized and wild dogs constantly passed me at my way home from school. But I loved it anyway. Because my family cared about me and wanted the best for me.

    Now I live in a penthouse apartment on the 15th floor in the pretty part of Taipei. When I walk out my door I get to a nice breakfast store with clean plates, and if I turn a corner I reach a little park with benches, a playground and gym facilities. This is where I’ll live from Monday to Friday, cause in the weekend my family and I will go to their 4 stories house in another part of the city. A house with garden (everything in Taipei are small apartments) is a big change from a first floor apartment without windows.

So in many ways I really look forward to the upcoming months, and my new family definitely seems lovely. But on the other hand I really miss my former family. You know just coming home after school, drop your bag and then surch for some cookies in the candy drawer. But hopefully, after some time, I’ll know how to find the candy in my new house as well.

New address

The time flies here in Taiwan, and Wednesday I was told, that I have to change hostfamily this weekend. I don't have time to write a lot about it right now, as I am on my was to dance-class, but I want to give all of you my new address. The address goes to my new hostparents office, which they visit every day:

Cheng Mei Machine Co., LTD.
No. 1619, Daying Road, Dasi Township, Taoyuan County 33553, Taiwan


or
承美機械有限公司
33553桃園縣大溪鎮大鶯路1619號
Taiwan


I promise to write you soon!


Julia :)

Danish-taiwanese-week

Sorry for the gap in my updates, but I have been really busy recently (in a positive way). Especially, the past week has been packed with experiences, that I normally experience in Danish surroundings… but not this time!

First of all I went to see the new Harry Potter movie (!!!) together with a Taiwanese classmate. She had been so kind to book tickets to a version where the actors spoke English and not Chinese (Try to imagine professor McGonagall speaking Chinese!), but the subtitles where though still in Chinese, and the audience acted in a very Asian way ass well. I guess humour is different all over the world!

Saturday my family took me to a city named Keelung about 1 and a half hours drive from Taipei. The city has a very big harbour (and I’m pretty sure my father has been there), but we didn’t spend time at the sea. Instead we went to an old Japanese-style mine town that now was one big tourist attraction. My oldest sister and I got to go into the actual former used mine, which was interesting but a bit claustrophobic!

    When we returned home in the evening I had to cook some Danish food for an event I was going to on Sunday. My choice had fallen on frikadeller as my family does not have an oven (almost no one in Taiwan has). It had taken some effort to find all the ingredients, but I turned out that the ingredients weren’t the only problem I would get. Cause I asked my family where to find something to whip the forcemeat with, they told me, that they always used chopsticks! So now I can earnestly tell that I’ve been cooking frikadeller with help from chopsticks!

Me and my oldest host sister in the mine!

As I’ve told, the Danish food was cooked because of an event on last Sunday. It was a Culture Fair set up by Rotary to give the upcoming Taiwanese exchange students an impression of the different countries. Each country (represented by inbound exchange students) got one table where they had to “exhibit” their country, and then the Taiwanese students and their parents walked around listening, looking, tasting and asking questions.

    To represent Denmark I had made two posters: one with a map of Denmark and some facts about size, inhabitants, weather and welfare- and school system, and another poster with explanations and examples of the Danish language. Further more I had brought some LEGO for the visitors to play with (who could finish their figure in the shortest time), and on my computer I showed some promotion videos about Denmark. But the favourite attraction among my guests was definitely frikadellerne!

In addition to the many events then I’ve been busy dancing as we are training hardcore for our performance in December. And just to put even more dance into my life, one of my classmates took me to se the famous Taiwanese Cloud Gate Dance group (a modern ballet group) performing “Water Stains on the Wall”. They were indescribably skilful as they were dancing on a tilted stage! And still all the difficult steps looked so easy when they did them! And what made it even more beautiful was the use of modern classic music and constantly changing black shadows on the white stage. It made me think of a Chinese painting.

So this week has been pretty busy, and very special as it has contained some very familiar things but in new surroundings. Also we will enter December in a few days, but as they do not celebrate Christmas here it is not going to be anything special. A journalist from Horsens Folkeblad contacted me for an interview about, how my Christmas is going to be here, and I promise to post the article, when it is brought!

Julia :)

Fun, fun, fun

First of all: Thank you very much for all the greetings I get from everyone. I am having a great time here and just hoping you are having a “hyggelig” time in Denmark as well! I would like to send a greeting back to all of you, but I am simply too busy. I do though really appreciate that you send me messages: “Det varmer mit hjerte”!

So… Here are some funny updates from the past week J

• Monday I got another certificate saying ”Certificate of Outstanding Performance”, given to me by my language school.
• The other morning I saw a man bicycling with a dog standing on his shoulder! (Even bicycling without a dog on your shoulder is pretty difficult and scarring in Taiwan’s traffic)
• The word “rich” in Chinese is literarily “have much money”.
• Wednesday evening I ended up singing with a street musician in front of a very excited Taiwanese audience! The street musician wanted me to come back and perform with him but… I guess I’m too busy J
• My head is to find overall in my school on posters advertising for my schools music club.
• I get to do a performance with my dance team in December J
• My next host family has two houses – one of them brand new with four floors and an elevator (!!!). I am though going to miss my present family when I move, as I love them so much!
• I have to learn a little Japanese, as I am going to Japan for a week in January!
• My classmates (whom I love more and more) gave me the nick name iau iau, which means shake it shake it :p
• Bird eggs with small fish are super delicious!
• This evening my family and I though ate pizza and drank juice, which is the most western-style meal I’ve had since I came here!

Yes.. It is my head :D

I LOVE Taiwan!

Julia J

Fall

Even though Taiwan is much closer to Equator than Denmark is, it still gets cold here. Last Saturday it was more than 30 degrees C and the sun was burning, but this Thursday the temperature got down to 17,5 degrees C, and people wear thick jackets, boots and scarves.

The sudden change in weather is partly caused by the typhoons passing Taiwan now and then bringing a lot of rain and colder weather, and the sudden change in clothing is caused by the very humid weather here.

    Because of the high humidity it feels super hot and sauna-like when the temperature is high, and kind of sticky cold and damp (what we would call “klamt” in danish) when the temperature is low. The cold feeling is increased by the fact that no buildings here have heating systems and a stove is an unknown thing. So are you first freezing it can be hard to become warm again.

    So I’d better try to find time to buy myself a jacket and some sweaters, cause from now on we will probably have fewer of the hot days :)

Well I don’t have the time today, because soon I will take the MRT wearing a spider costume, as Rotary throws a Halloween party for the Exchange Students. They don’t celebrate Halloween in Taiwan (well some shops try to make a stunt out of it just as I Denmark), but here are a lot of Exchange Students from USA and Canada, so I guess that is the reason why, we are going to have a party. Well, I look forward :)

Julia

Ps. The leaves here are still green though        

10 things about Taiwan

Now I’ve been in Taiwan for 2 months and 4 days – it is unbelievable how time flies! I decided that it is time to tell you some truth about Taiwan, so here are 10 facts about Taiwan and Taiwanese people:

1.     I knew that Asian people studied a lot before I came here, but I had absolutely no idea HOW much they actually study! There are a few kids at my school with flecks of grey hair. Especially in Senior High, they study incredibly much – school is their lives.

2.     Asian people don’t sleep especially much. Especially the young people are so busy studying, that they have to cut down on their sleeping hours.

3.     On the other hand we sleep in school. Every school has a sleeping lesson, and mine is from 12:30-1:00. If the students still feel sleepy they might just pass out on their table during class.

4.     In Taiwan you eat with chopsticks (if anyone should be in doubt about that)

5.     You eat rice all the time! You have rice for dinner almost every night (which is made in a special “rice-boiler-machine”) combined with a lot of small dishes wherefrom you pick and eat. You also have rice for lunch as well (often leftovers from the day before that you heat in a steam box in your class room). Even when you finally think, that you are not eating rice, you might still be eating it. Like that you can have rice-milk as a breakfast drink, or you can eat rice-noodles for lunch or dinner.

6.     You eat fish “with everything”. The fish is just fried on the pan with skin, bones and eyes and then served as it is. So you definitely eat the skin, and if you are hard-core you might also eat the eyes.

7.     You eat shrimps with the shell if they are served with some kind of sauce.

8.     People might have a “real” bed but it is often made of wood. Not just the frame, but the madras as well (mine is not – thank god).

9.     “Uo yau shuo ying uen” actually means something. With the correct use of tones it says: “I want to speak English”.

10. Young people do the “peace-pose” every time they see a camera! It is unbelievable how fast their hands can rise and their index and middle finger split.

Yeah everything above is true – it is not good, it is not bad, it is just different!

Underneath are some pictures from another fantastic weekend, where a taiwanese freind to me on an "all-day-trip" around Taipei!

A concerthall built to commemorate Chang Kai-Shek

Students practising a traditional instrument with only one string

A dessert consisting of ice, beans, a root crop and some jelly balls. Sounds weird? It is good!

Julia :)

Happy, happier, happiest!

Wauw – so much has happened these past four days, and I am indescribable happy! Where to begin… Well:

Friday I really got to speak Danish for the first time since I came here. Well I’ve been skyping my family twice and my Rotary counsellor once, but this time I got visits from Denmark. A guy from my Rotary Club in Denmark and his wife were here because of business, so we decided to meet and do something together. We went and ate dumplings and steamed buns, took a look and Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall, and went to the beautiful part of Taipei called Danshui. Finally we made it to a Rotary meeting, and I think my Danish guests found it interesting to participate in a Taiwanese Rotary meeting!

Saturday I went shopping with one of my host sisters. I bought a lot of stuff, which makes me feel a little bit bad, but I actually need it, as it is getting colder here, and I only brought summer clothing (yeah I know, that you probably wouldn’t find 28°C cold, but here people are were jeans and jackets now…). We also went to Taipei 101 (once the tallest building in the world), but here we only did window shopping, as the stuff here was way to expensive for my monthly allowance :D It was interesting to go there though, partly because we found a Georg Jensen (danish design) in there – I am so proud that Denmark has a shop at such a place!

    When we returned home my host mom was making dumplings, so I decided to join her. My first one was really ugly, but after folding a few, I finally got it! I can ensure you that I am going to cook dumplings when I go back to Denmark, cause they are sooooooooo delicious!

Sunday I went to see a dance performance together with a bunch of Rotary Exchange Students at Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall performance theatre. The theatre was beautiful as well as the performance made by an Arabic dance team. It included a lot of improvisation, which was really interesting!

And now to the best part: Monday. Today at language school my teacher gave me a diploma saying: CERTIFICATE OF OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE. I am so proud, and the fact, that the diploma came with a little ugly dish mat, made it worth the hard work! Furthermore my Rotary Club here in Taiwan today said “go” for a Japan trip with my senior High School, which means that I in January 2011 am going 6 days to Tokio, Japan! How amazing is that? I am so happy to be here in Taiwan, but getting the opportunity of seeing even more of Asia is fantastic! But don’t misunderstand me: Taiwan is still my first choise!

Love it here!

Julia

Double ten day

As foreseen, a video from the parade is now on Youtube. It shows us exchange students from Taipei and the neighbour district in the parade! Click here to see it!

Julia :)

10-10-10

Taiwanese people have something with numbers. The 23^rd of January (123 day) is a vacation day, and so is the 10^th of October – Double Ten Day. The day is used to celebrate Taiwan’s independence and is considered Taiwan’s national day. As we now happen to be in year 2010, this year’s national day was celebrated more than normally. The other Rotary exchange students and I were a part of the celebration too, joining a 4.8 km long parade with big balloon figures, music, lot of costumes, 35 floats and about 20 troupes. Incredibly many people watched this huge parade – attendance estimates ranged from 100,000 to 500,000! Everybody were happy, both participants and audience, and the other exchange students and I totally ruined our voices by screaming 我們愛臺灣(Wo men ai Taiwan = We love Taiwan) to the applauding audience. My camera unfortunately ran out of battery, but here is an article about the parade. In some days I will probably be able to find something about it on Youtube as well, as the parade was followed by all of Taiwan on the television!

Love it!

Julia :)

School and hiking

My High School is not big compared to other High Schools here in Taipei, cause it has only got 2000 students disturbed over three years. On other High Schools you might find 3000 or 4000 students. Anyway, I find 2000 students a lot as there is only about the half on my school in Denmark, and last Monday I actually held a speech in front of all of them – in Chinese! A bit of an experience as the circumstances where very formal: it was Teacher’s Day (se my article below) so the school choir sang some songs in honour of the teachers, the school’s big band was playing as the two other exchange students and I got on the stage, and some of the boys where doing military gestures! Well I did my speech as good as possible and I guess that the students understood about 70-80% - which is GOOD :p

    Underneath are some pictures from a sunny day at school. The temperature is falling but it is still about 30°C at day, which I find very hot!

This building is only 5 stores. Another one is 7 stores - and we have to walk the stairs...

My class and classroom

Even though it is hot, I actually went hiking with my rotary club. We met at 9 o’clock Sunday morning to avoid the worst heat – ready for going to the top of one of Taiwan’s many mountains. The way up was steep but led us through a multitude of beautiful forest – as made for my camera.

I love Taiwan!

Julia

Dog park?!

This weekend I certainly crossed some boarders again – this time though not in form of eating special food or getting a culture shock – but simply because my oldest host sister and her friends took me to a dog park, to play with their little dog. And with play they meant the normal kind of “play with a dog” plus swimming in a pool with the dog! Well, their dog was (ok) sweet, but not all of the dogs were as well bred as him. Everything went fine though, and I got some good pictures and a sunburn on my back :) Here are some pictures:

I know, that a lot of you are curious about my daily life, so this time I will post some pictures from my dance club. I go there every Monday and Thursday. Monday to do latin jazz and Thursday to do MTV dance (right now we are working on Circus by Britney Spears).

I can also tell that my Chinese is improving, which you can see on the picture below. The picture shows a card for my teacher, as today is Confusius’ birthday. Confusius was the first Chinese teacher and his birthday is yearly marked as teachersday – a day where the students are supposed to give cards or presents to their teachers. I think it shows a lot about how important teachers and school are in asian culture - school is like religion, and teachers are like gods :)

I am so proud of my chinese! 

Still love it heir!

Julia :)     

1 month in Taiwan!

I have now been in Taiwan for one month and two days – that is unbelievable! On one hand it feels like I just got her yesterday but on the other hand I feel like, I have already been experiencing so much, that I impossibly could have seen all these places and met all those people in one month! Well I have (and it freaks me out a little, as I know that the time in front of me will pass by even faster).

-     -  I have met so many people that I have a hard time remembering their faces (and names!). But some of them already mean a lot to me and have been so kind to show me their amazing city, Taipei.

-      - I have been eating so much rice, that I was unbelievably happy when my host mom served homemade noodles the other night – what a delicious meal!

-      - I’ve been eating a lot of jelly stuff: in cakes, in drinks, in food – in everything! I’ve found out that I like it the best, when it is cut into small pieces (jelly stuff in big pieces are yucky to swallow)

-       -I’ve only had bread with…. bread? They don’t put anything upon it in Taiwan

-       -I’ve become comfortable with the MRT- and bus system. I love how I can get everywhere!

-       -I am improving my Chinese though I am eager to get better…

-       -And most important: I have lived at the best host family I could ever imagine!

I don’t know if it was meant as I kind of celebration of this amazing “1-month-day” or if it was a coincidence, but I received my first packet from Denmark today. It consisted of a magazine, some letters, lakrids, øllebrød, rugbrød and frikadellemix!!!

 I am so happy to receive the food, even though my last days have included too much eating (and I’ve been eating a lot, as it did not come with too much rice and jelly stuff)! On the Moon Festival day (yesterday) I first went to a restaurant to eat barbeque with my host family, and afterwards I went to a classmate’s house to eat barbeque again! 

My three host sisters at the BBQ restaurant

BBQ in the small streets with my friends (people don't have gardens so the just BBQ on the road)

Now I have to go dancing to burn some of the delicious food! Class of the evening is MTV dance, which probably means, that we will learn a dance from some Korean music video, as Korean music is very popular here – well, I look forward! :D

Julia

Taiwanese and western

This week has been another week of Taiwanese culture (and climate), but this time with a little twist of something more western and known.

    It is obvious that we are getting closer to the Moon Festival (on Wednesday), as everybody enjoys the traditional Moon Festival food. The Moon Festival is the ending of the Ghost Month where the death ancestors return to our world to plague their descendants if they don’t offer them enough respect in shape of prayer, food and ghost money. On the Moon Festival day the ancestors finally returns to where they belong, and the families can relax again. This is celebrated with traditional barbeque and mooncakes. When I first heard barbeque I thought of some sausages on a barbeque in the backyard, but that is not the case. Barbeque here is eaten on formal restaurants as well as in the hones and consists of a lot of thin slices of different kinds of meat that you grill on the barbeque and eat together with delicious salad, different sauces and (of course) rice. It is very delicious and a good opportunity to get together with friends and family. I have already participated in two of those dinners all though we haven’t reached the Moon Festival day  (Wednesday) yet.

    The other part of the food (the mooncakes) are more…. special. I like the outer part, which often consists of some kind of pastry and then some chocolate, pineapple or other fruit stuffing. The special part is the boiled egg yolk in the middle. Well – I like cake, and I like egg – but together? That is weird. I eat it anyway (the taste is not bad, just weird), cause people get so happy when they see me eat the traditional food :)

As you can hear, the Moon Festival comes with a lot of food and celebration just as Christmas does in Denmark. Therefore it is perfect that I have finally found a place to dance. I join a dance club in Taipei city who dances the genres: Jazz, Hip Hop and MTV dance (they do also have some gospel and tap-dancing, but I am not joining them those days). It is great finally to move (!!!), and everybody there are very kind and devoted to dance. I also think that they the dance club might save my Christmas, as I have found out that the leaders are Christian and members of a gospel church. So this week has also brought some familiar culture (dance and Christianity) hat I warmly welcome.

Other updates of the week are, that I have had my first meeting with my music club at school – we are a lot of people but not so many vocalists, so that is just perfect. We went to a concert together on Friday evening (another schools music club was playing), and that definitely brought us closer even though I’ve just met those “music-club-people”. 

   I’ve also spent some time with the other exchange students. Saturday we all went to a water park outside Taipei – a great arrangement set up by my Rotary district.

    And concerning Rotary, then I’ve met my second and third host parents. Both families are Rotarians (members of my club), and they seem really nice! The only drawback is that my next host family lives in Beitou (a part of Taipei), which means that it will take me 1 and a half hour to go to school! But as long as they seemed nice it doesn’t matter.      

    The last update has to be that the school camp on Monday to Tuesday has been cancelled (my class and I should have slept in a tent somewhere, cooked our own food, made a show and so on…). The reason? A typhoon. So far it though hasn’t been that bad here in Taipei – much worse in the central and southern part of Taiwan, but the school has cancelled the camp anyway, which is really sad… Well… At least I might get a day of tomorrow if the weather gets worse :)

I still love everything here, and now I can even eat without getting bad conscience because I have found a dance club – LOVELY!

Julia :)    

Food!!!

This weekend did definitely not turn out as I had expected. But that is not negative, cause it has been another brilliant weekend.

    Friday evening some Rotary students and I had arranged to go to the Snake Alley (a creepy night market known for its snake shows and snake restaurants). However it turned out that one of the girls (Taylor) had to go and eat dinner with her Rotary club, so she invited me to join her, and then we could move on to the Snake Alley together after on – well, we never made it to the Snake Alley. After chatting on the backseat while her mother drove the car for about a quarter the car suddenly stopped and Taylor and I looked out the window to realise that the car had stopped in front of Taipei Grand Hotel’s restaurant. For those of you who don’t know Taiwan Grand Hotel I can tell that it is a landmark in Taiwan as it is known for having the biggest traditional Chinese roof in the world. So, very famous and very expensive place… Yeah, kind of problematic as Taylor and I hadn’t planned to stay – and as Taylor wore shorts! Well of course we could not just walk away from a very formal dinner party at Grand Hotel so we had to call our friends and tell them that we couldn’t make it to Snake Alley – sad because it would have been fun. The dinner was formidable though, and I’m glad that Taylor invited me as I loooooooove food…. :)

Saturday I thought I had to go swimming with all the other exchange students, but that arrangement had been moved to next weekend. Instead my host mom took me to eat traditional Taiwanese breakfast at one of the many breakfast shops. It is very normal that people stop by at these shops and by their breakfast, and I was supposed to do that too when I go to school, but right now I just eat oats… :) Well, the breakfast consisted of a lot of different mostly a little oily breads with vegetables or spices, some kind of omelette, steamed buns with meat stuffing and a special kind of milk (tasted like rice or soya). Delicious, but not what I associate with breakfast (better than burger though, which is also normal to eat in the morning).

Busy breakfast café

In the afternoon we went to a porcelain museum and to an old pedestrian street with lot of ceramic shops. At that place I was introduced to another special dish: noodles with ice! Not ice like ice cream but like crushed ice cubes – hmmm, special :)

My host mom at the porcelain museum

Eating noodles with ice!

So – the arrangements were not the ones that I expected, but it was all worth it! At least I’ve been eating a lot of food (it is really important to me to find a place to dance – otherwise I’ll get pang (fat in chinese) VERY quickly with all the delicious food).

Julia :)      

Three wonderful days

Wauw! My Saturday, Sunday and Monday have been soooo bussy – but SOOO good too! It has been three days of experiences, with three different groups of people and each day brought me to se Taipei from a new point of view!

    Saturday I met Isabel (german exchange student) at Taipei main station, and from that meeting point our “explore Taipei” day begun! At first we went shopping in Taipei Main station Underground Mall, which is a very long underground shopping centre. In one part of the centre everything was very cheap (you can actually boy clothes for 100 TN$, which is like 18,3 DKK) and in another part of the centre you found the more expensive stuff like luxury body product and high-class clothing. I have to say that I find it very unnecessarily to spend my money on the expensive clothes when they have so much pretty and cool clothes that in addition are inexpensive.

    And as I probably have told you before, the food here is very cheap to, so Isabel and I found a bakery and bought two traditional Taiwanese cakes. The outer was like a pie while the inner was kind of like vanilla crème with a slight taste of lemon. – very delicious!

The cake

To see Taipei from another angle than cheap shopping and eating we decided to go to the Museum of Contemporary art. It is a Museum next to Taipei Main Station that changes its exhibitions regularly to live up to its name: “Museum of CONTEMPORARY art”. After 20 minutes in a  waiting line we finally got into the museum – and got surprised! This period’s exhibition was all about World of Warcraft, you see. And to those of you who don’t know World of Warcraft then all I can tell you is, that it is an online computer game where imaginative creatures fight each other. Try to google some pictures and you will find out that this was absolutely not what Isabel and I had expected to see…. Anyway it was fun to watch people inside the museum as they were all very in to this game (in some cases I actually found it fantastic that the persons had paused their games and left their computers to go outside and watch this exhibition) :p

People taking fotos of the world of warcraft drawings - I took fotos of the people instead!

    Eventually (after a lot of “people watching” at the Museum) we took the MRT to Shilin night market together with Daniel (an exchange student from Switzerland) and Isabel’s host brother. Once again I have to say that I love the night markets because of the good atmosphere and because of the cheap stuff a food. This time I am not going to list all the food that I ate (because there is too much) …

Even though Shilin is not known for snakes (you have to go to the Snake Alley) we found one anyway

Instead I’m going to talk about the food I got for lunch on Sunday. My host family had taken me to a big shopping mall to look for some stuff like a dictionary. But the important thing is, that we had lunch at a real sushi bar – you know, the kind where the sushi comes on assembly lines! So you just sit down, and then you pick the sushi you want as it passes you. I want to tell about my favourite, but I have just realised, that I can’t pick one! Everything was simply too delicious! For instance there were some with rice, seaweed and salmon, some with tuna, some with shrimps, and some cones with vegetables and dressing. Mmmmmm :)

    But the day went even better as a girl named Penny invited me to her housewarming party. She told me that she had just moved to the countryside to get some more space, so as the bus suddenly stopped in front of her apartment, I was sure that we (me and my youngest host sister) were at the wrong place. To me, this was not countryside, you see – it was city! City with lot of new, modern skyscrapers! Well anyway we had an awesome time. We were only around 10 people and for that reason a really got to speak to all of them, and not just “Hi, I’m from Denmark. Bye bye”. That was great, and I really think I made some friends there!

And talking about friends we move on to Monday. That is, that in the afternoon my Class Teacher had invited me to sightseeing in Taipei together with her daughter and my school counsellor. And this time, the journey went to National Taiwan Palace Museum! If you know just a little about Chinese history you’ll probably know that during the Civil War in China, almost all of the treasures of the country were moved to Taiwan (which at that time was a part of China) in order to protect them – and they’ve never returned to the mainland. That is why The National Taiwan Palace Museum has the world’s biggest collection of Chinese treasures/art. They too change their exhibition regularly but still it takes years to show all the treasures! Amazing! I really owe my teacher big time for taking me there.

   And so, I also owe my school counsellor for taking me to another night marked. This time it wasn’t Shilin but Sheda – maybe a bit smaller but very, very cosy! In addition to eating a lot we also bought a birthday book as Chelsea (an exchange student from America who is also on my school) has birthday on Thursday or Friday (sorry, but right now, I can’t remember) :D Once again I am not going to tell about all the food – just one thing: A warm cake that tasted like pancakes or waffles, just thicker (like with two layers) and something in the middle. I had one with vanilla crème but you can also have it with chocolate and a lot of other things – mmmmm :D

Now, that was three days with different ways of experiencing Taipei. One day was exploring it with my friend (almost like a tourist) another day was very intimate with the Sushi eating with my family and the private housewarming party and a third day was a historical and cultural day with my teachers! I have to say, that I love it!  

Julia :)