food

Week 3 Pt. 2 & Week 4


Friday and Saturday of week 3 and all of week 4 weren’t too exciting so, we’re just going to put everything together!

Week 3 Friday: I may or may not have the best temper, and I don’t let things go too easy. As a result of this, I’m still very upset in the morning. My roommate said nothing to me, so I said nothing to her. I just spend the day trying to figure out my current class schedule, planning classes at Pitt next semester, working on my Chinese homework, and exploring google flights for more places to go (my favorite past time.) I really just got a lot of work done on Friday. Since I had just made some new friends the same day, I had lost some, I decided to reach out. I asked my new friends if they were doing anything fun on Saturday and if I could come. They said yes. They were going to Jiufen. I got excited to go out with my new friends and explore a new part of Taiwan.

Week 3 Saturday: I went to Jiufen! It was raining that day, but also hot. I was a little late going down the mountain. I knew I’d probably be taking pictures, so I wanted to make sure I was practical and cute. Had to make sure to hit the double whammy. It took a while to get there. We had to take a public bus, then the train. then another public bus (but it looked a felt like a charter bus.) It took about 2 hrs. to get there by public transportation. and was a little less than 150 NT$ which is about $5 USD. I’m going to be honest and say that I thought I was going to die a few times, but I have what I like to call transportation-induced narcolepsy. I always get so tired when someone is driving me around. The roads were slippery, we were up on the mountains, and they bus we were on was big and had to make some sharp turns. I was fine though. Thank goodness for sleep. I think it solves all problems. When we got there, we didn’t do anything other than eat, drink, and walk around, but that’s all you really do anywhere in Taiwan. It was extremely foggy, but the scenery was still breathtaking. There is so much greenery and fresh air in Taiwan because of the lack of development on the island. I have a Taiwanese friend who would vehemently disagree with that statement, but he’s a whole other story. I drank so tasty Jasmine tea right out of a teapot, ate yummy Taro Balls (get the hot ones not the cold ones), had some good 小笼包, tasted a mountain of ice cream and you guys….. I did it. I ate a piece of intestines. I already don’t like spicy food and don’t drink milk tea. I really don’t like being THAT American that’s not open to trying new things, so I tried the intestines just like I tried the stinky tofu. As I suspected, I didn’t like it, so at least I can say I’ve tried it and don’t like it as opposed to me refusing to eat it. We sat and ate some other stuff, took more pictures, and waited a lot. There were a million Japanese and Korean tourists there so we would all me walking in these narrow outdoor stairwells and streets, but people would stop to take a picture every 10 steps, and there’s no room to go around them, so it took forever to get any one place. One of the friends I made is actually going to Bali the same time I am so we’re going to meet up and hang out. I’m excited! Over all, I had a great time and was excited to meet some new people!

Week 4 Sunday: I went on a date with two tinder guys. FYI: Hookup culture is very different in Taiwan and Tinder works differently. While some people are on there for the traditional purposes of the app, several Taiwanese people are on there to meet foreigners and make friends: which is why I downloaded it again. I met this one Taiwanese guy that lived in Seattle for a while. His English is really good, and while he’s a character, he’s cool for the most part. This is the guy that thinks Taiwanese air quality is bad, smh. However, he did take me to this amazing Beef Noodle Shop: 老外一品牛肉面 in the Zhongshan district. It’s Taiwanese beef noodles cooked by a Persian chef who came to Taiwan a brick ago, speaks perfect Chinese and is married to a Taiwanese woman. When I tell those noodles were BIG POPPIN! Whew Chile, it was like it wasn’t spicy, but it was spiced, and I felt like the beef was so fresh, the owner had a butcher shop in the back. Those noodles, and his bone soup, and his dumplings are all so delicious. This man has cultural appreciation down to a TEE. It’s also super affordable, only around 135 NT$. The closest MRT station is the Xingtian temple station. Go go go!!! After we were done eating, he drove me to my next stop for date #2. Hehehe yes, I am a finesser like that. The other guy confused me and is boring so we’re not even going to talk about that one. I will say that I had to buy my own drink and it was like 200 NT$ for a lemon drop that tasted like lemonade with no alcohol. A LEMON DROP IS SUPPOSED TO BE A SHOT. At least I learned not to go back to that bar or text that guy again. Neither of them is worth my time. We love a good learning experience. Still haven’t spoken to my roommate and I just leave the room because #1 when I’m mad, I try to remove myself from the situation because that person’s presence just makes me madder and #2, I never get any work done in my room.

The rest of the week: I don’t remember what happened on what day and it doesn’t really matter so I’m just gonna word vomit here. I went to one of the cultural ambassador’s hip hop dance class. I can’t hip hop dance for my life, however it was fun to watch everyone else get really into it.

I got a ton of fricking mosquito bites in the two days that it was really warm, and the sun was out. Surprisingly none on my arms, but ya girl decided to wear a dress and shorts so there were 29 in total on my legs.

My roommate and I didn’t talk the entire week until Thursday when she said she was moving out, but she wanted us to be cool. At this point I wasn’t made anymore so I was super open when she asked to talk, because I was going to ask her the same thing the next day. She said she didn’t really realize what happened, just that I wasn’t in the room and wasn’t talking to her, so she felt the tension. (I also did something else that was slightly petty. We all have minor slip-ups that resemble to our younger, less-wise selves) Now mind you, she hadn’t said anything to me either, but this was forgiveness time, not argument time. I told her the situation through my eyes, and she told me her side- where she basically said that she didn’t know what was going on, which is dumb because she was standing there the whole time and she could’ve asked me at any point buuuuuuut NO DRAMA. I have a class with this girl 6 hours a week and we’re going to be the only ones that are here in June. (Even though that won’t make a difference for me because everyone has already been excluding me from everything for the last week) Ok! I’m done being shady! Sometimes you just gotta get these things out ya know. Also, this is a personal blog, not a super professional one. I make lots of mistakes, and I’m documenting them all here, so I learn from them. One of my biggest goals over the past year and a half and for this trip has been self-growth especially regarding communication and destructive behaviors. My current me is less shady and less petty that previous me and hopefully future me can cut all of that bad stuff out in due time, but for now a bit of shade might be thrown out here and there.

My old roomie moved in down the hall with one of the CIEE ICLC girls. She is doing the academic year program instead of the semester program. I don’t know if that has anything to do with her not getting a roommate at first, but it might. Apparently, she was getting a roommate soon, so now I’m just getting whatever roommate she was going to get. I’m nervous because, this person could be any student at NCCU. I highly doubt that it’s an international student, because the majority of international students have their housing situation settled long before they even come to Taiwan. It’s most likely going to be a Taiwanese (or maybe another nationality) girl that straight up attends NCCU. The nervousness stems from the possibility that this person might not speak English. I’m sure you can imagine possible problems that might arise when you and the person you’re sharing a room and bathroom with can’t even speak the same language. I went to April to ask if I could move to I-house or possibly get a single room. I knew both of them were long shots, but it never hurts to ask. I-house was full with an already long waitlist as expected, and apparently single rooms are only for Doctoral Students. The doctoral student thing doesn’t make any sense to me because why would a person in the late twenties want to be living in a college dorm, but NCCU is far from everything. I still don’t get it, but alas, it is a battle that I am not equipped nor willing to fight. I also don’t get why someone would be moving in a dorm 1 month after school starts but apparently there’s a long waiting list. That doesn’t make any sense to me either though, because if there’s a long waiting list for the dorms too, then why didn’t the other CIEE girl from before not have a roommate? This are all questions I have and have thought about, but I just take everything day by day and hope that I won’t get another roommate. For some reason, I have a gut feeling that that’s not gonna happen and I will get another one, so I’m keeping all of my stuff in my closet and on my side. Whether I do or don’t get another roommate I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts, and if it has to end, I’ll try to be friends with her and make the best out of the situation.

Saturday was our Scavenger hunt! We went around the city and solved little puzzles and ate famous food and got good bubble tea. Ngl, I was lowkey tired and hangry the whole time, but I was putting in SO much effort to be happy and have a good time because one of the ambassadors, Ian worked really hard to put it all together and I didn’t want to bring anyone else down just because I was a grump. Fun fact: It rained basically all of weeks 3 & 4, so it was real gloomy which I think contributed to my grouchiness in these weeks. I do, however, feel like I am more naturally grouchy than most people. I do not know why. Maybe I watch too many Oscar the grouch scenes from Sesame street and also The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland was one of lil’ Brit’s favorite movies. I dare you to ask my mother how many times she’s seen that movie. If you triple it, that’s probably my watch number. Watch your children watch people, it could model their whole life. Anyways, we went to 3 different places: Gongguan (which I’ve been to quite a few times), Dongmen, and Raohe night market. I’ll detail all of my awesome food in my food post that will be coming in the next week or two so stay tuned. It was beautiful, again I had fun. It was a really good ending to a mediocre week.

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Week 1

Hello people! If you didn’t know, I am in fact, still alive. I didn’t think anything would happen to me but just in case you were worried, I thought I’d put that out there. So I’ve officially been in Taiwan for 1 week. I still have to write a post about my trip here and I’m also going to write about moving in, but for now I’m just going to sum up the entire week.

What have I done this week? Well on the first day that we got here, I was greeted, checked into my dorm and went to the CIEE office to meet our cultural ambassadors, our program cooridnator, and my roomate, Danielle. We did icebreakers to meet each other and orientation paperwork and all that fun jazz. When we finished, Danielle and I got to pick out some things for our dorm which will all be detailed in another post. Then we went to lunch at a dumpling place called 八方云集 ba1fan1yun2ji2. It literally translates to “All directions come together.” The food there ranged from about 5-30 NT$. 1 USD=30 NT$. CIEE paid for everything but 6 dumplings was $1 and they were oh so very tasty, therefore everyone was happy. I will defintely be returning there.

After lunch on the first day, some of our cultural ambassadors (students at NCCU who have joined the CIEE “club” to make American friends, help us with anything and show us the best of Taiwan while we are here) took me to get a Taiwanese SIM card for my phone. This is very important because even though lots of places in Taiwan have free wifi, it’s vey splotchy, especially on a mobile device. It took forever because the plans and the man explaining them to us were very confusing, but eventually we settled on an unlimited plan. There’s a bunch of boring logistics to my individual plan but I will say that I paid about $140 USD for 5 months of unlimited high speed data. MAKE SURE that if you are using the same phone from America and you’re just switching SIM cards, that you talk to your provider so that they can unlock your phone. I ran into lots of problems with this so it’s best if you talk to them far in advance before you leave for your trip so you have lots of time to resolve any problems or make decisions. After buying my SIM card I just went back to my room to finish unpacking. We went to dinner and my first day was finally over.

The next day, we had a bunch of boring orientations that I could’ve just read myself. My morning was pointless, but my evening was a blast! There wasn’t much inbetween other than a lot of netflix and hulu. Both of those became common themes trhoughout the week. ~ A neat trick for hulu~ I wasn’t able to watch any of my usual shows becuase my hulu said that they weren’t available in my location. To bypass this, I downloaded the google extension SetupVPN which basically tells whatever site you’re on, that you’re in the country of your choosing. I obviosly chose the US, and sometimes it gets weird and puts you in Canada but just keep connecting and disconnecting until you’re in a US location and it should work! In the evening, Danielle and I along with our cultural ambassadors took the bus and MRT (their version of a metro system) down to 西门 xi1men2, a touristy neighborhood and metro stop in Taiwan. We were going to the lantern festival which signifies the last day of the Lunar New Year and Chinese Spring Festival. There were so many people (人山人海）but the lanterns were beautiful and several of them we Pig themed since it is the year of the pig. After walking around a bit, we ate dinner and went back home. NCCU is far from everything so the trip takes about an hour on public transportation. I made some phone calls to friends and family and went to sleep.

The next day we had our chinese placement tests. Danielle and I are going to be the only ones in our class but we still had to to take the test so that our teacher (老师 lao3shi1) could hauge where we are and prepare accordingly. Yes Danielle and I are roommates and the only ones in our chinese class so we will be spending lots of time together over the course of this semester. The next day we went back to 西门 for a historical walking tour. I don’t like history so I was pretty bored but I got some excercise in, and by going I knew I wouldn’t regret not going which gives me the best feeling of content. We stopped halway through anyways because it was 3 hours long and we were hungry. We did a bit of window shopping but nothing too adventurous.

As the week goes on there was more Netflix, a very annoying 2 hour long fire drill, which in hindsight I don’t think was mandatory, and SO MUCH FOOOOOOOOD. Even in Taiwan I’m still not much of a breakfast person, so I haven’t had too much of it but for reference’s sake it’s delicious. 我很喜欢蛋饼。( I really like dan4bing3) It’s like a Taiwanese egg crepe. Honestly all the food here sounds pretty freaky but I have yet to try anything that I have not enjoyed. (Saw pig intestines on a menu though, and that’s where I draw the line) The portions here as reasonable so I usually spend about $3 USD for lunch/dinner, I’m always full but never have to take any food home. It’s actually kind of weird to do that here. They don’t have take-home boxes. The one time Danielle didn’t eat her noodles she asked for a box and they just put it in a plastic bag lol. So if you have a small stomach and don’t like your food to touch, Taiwan is not the place for you. (Maybe you can bring your own tupperware? Kind of like we do in Pitt’s cafeteria hehehe) When I’ve had more to eat I will absoulutely be making a post on food. (maybe 2 posts) I also just want to make a point to say that I’ve already been to the cat cafe twice and I went to KTV which is karaoke and had Taiwanese beer. The cat cafe is free as long as you get a drink. So far I’ve seen 4 furballs which isn’t enough but I’ll live. KTV was fun but expensive. I was also reaffirmed in the fact that I can’t sing to save my life.

Some cultural differences that I’ve run into
  • Lack of trash cans
  • Measurements
  • School shuttle system
  • Restaurants
  • Metro Card
  • Dorm Trash

Not going to get too deep into these but I just wanted to mention them. In Taiwan, there are no public trash cans! Like actually 0 I have not seen a single one on the street. There are very few inside of covenience stores and restuarants so you usually have to ask whoever the person at the counter of wherever you go, if they can throw your trash away. It’s actually much more inconvenient and annoying that you might think.

Measurements are obviously different here, becuase America uses a different system for most meausrements. So usually when I mention miles, degrees (Fahrenheit), or pounds to my cultural ambassadors, we have to do some converting to do.

I live on upper campus at the univerisity so I usually take the shuttle to get to my dorm. They run about every 5 mins. now that school has started but you have to pay 15 NT$ each way, and while that’s only 50 cents in America, it’s kind of annoying that it’s not free. Then again, students only pay $1600 USD in tuition a year so I understand.

I kind of mentioned restaurants in my expectations post, but it’s even more different that I thought. Most of the restaurants here are fairly small 10-15 tables and all you have to do is write the quanity of what you want on their paper menus, bring it up to the cashier and pay. I’ve never waited more than 10minutes for my food and at some restaurants there is complimentary tea and soup.

The metro cards here are so great! You can use them for the bus and metro, but also at convenience stores that take them. Most 7-elevens do, and you can reload the card there in addition to the machines in the MRT station.

So this may sound weird, but I love taking the trash out in my dorm. Instead of the trash room that most US universities have, everyone in NCCU waits for the trash truck to come. It comes around twice a day around 2 and 9 pm. It goes around the city with a tone similar to an ice cream truck. When it gets up to the dorm, I can usually hear the truck first because I’m on the first floor right by the entrance, but inside the dorm speakers, Fur Elise by Beethoven plays for a few seconds. At first it’s alarming, but then it’s pleasant. Everyone goes down with their trash at the same time and kind of looks like the scene from spy kid’s where the robot kids are wating to get their brains, but less evil. It makes me feel like I’m a part of a community. Anyways this is Week 1 but there’s lots more to come.

Since Taiwan is 13 hours ahead of New York, waking up and bedtime are the best times for phone calls! I usually use facetime, skype, or whatsapp for calls but almost everything has some kind of video call feature these days. I suggest trying them all to see what works best with your camera and connection. Skype is my favorite!

If you go on the the facebook page for the blog (make sure to like it for updates) there’s lots of pictures of the lanterns and even the Twinkle Twinkle Pig which is an electronic Pig that is basically an edm light show that people seem to love. Just watch the videos. If you want to see other pictures of my group and food from the week, that’s where I’m putting all the pictures. (照片 zhao1pian1) Just click the gear at the top of the page and the facebook icon to get there!