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 :)