第五個星期： We Ate Bugs This Week

星期一：For breakfast today, I actually had cereal. My host mom was very excited to get it for me and it was quite good to have some American food.

After school I took a long adventure trying to find a grocery store because I wanted to buy a few things to pack for lunch instead of buying it everyday around school, and I ended up getting a jar of peanut butter, so I had a very American food day. Also I need to put a plug in for Kaohsiung's transportation; while the bus is fairly annoying because it's never on time, the metro is my new favorite thing. Also, just being able to walk places is nice. On average I've been walking four or more miles a day which is pretty cool. The only major downside is that walking anywhere is like playing a game of dodgeball with all the hundreds of mopeds.

I also decided to start going on runs at a track across from my house now that the weather isn't completely horrible, and it's really nice because a lot of people show up there everyday just to socialize and work out.

Another thing I find interesting living here is that pretty much the standard greeting I get from strangers is either "You're so beautiful!" or, even more common, "Wow! You're so white!" I have also gotten asked a number of times if the reason I'm so pale is because I like to drink milk (I hate drinking milk). Generally I just find it interesting and slightly funny that it's such a common comment.

(motorbikes EVERYWHERE)

星期三：After school today, Mackenzie and Becca were nice enough to help me film my monthly blog for NSLI-Y. I decided to make mine about fruit in Taiwan, because that's probably my favorite thing here, so we awkwardly went in to a grocery store adn filmed ourselves talking about different fruits. We also discovered a shop by the school that sells wheel cakes. They're little pancakes stuffed with fillings like red bean, cheese, chocolate, or peanut.

星期四：Today was a super long day. In the afternoon I decided to try out aerobic dance as an elective with Mackenzie and Becca, and I actually liked it. I could understand an okay amount and it was mostly just doing some sit-ups and stretches, so I decided to trade the art philosophy class for this aerobics class. After that I had my first calligraphy class and I may or may not have sort of fallen asleep. I've actually never fallen asleep in class before, but the one time I did, I had to be the only foreigner in the room, on the first day, in the front, and I awkwardly jumped when I woke up, so we'll see how that goes. Hopefully I'll do bette when we're actually doing calligraphy.

Today was also the second day of the school's club fair. It was really fun because all the clubs had tents out and were putting on performance and throwing flyers at everyone. I decided to join the school's choir which will start next week on Thursday and I'm pretty excited to try that out.

(the booths for the clubs from across the track)

星期五：Today at lunch a few of us met up with two girls who were members of the school's Buddhism club. They were both so nice and excited to talk to us. Also, we ate at a breakfast restaurant that I discovered serve baozi (traditional buns with fillings like meat or vegetable) which is really exciting because I love baozi but hadn't been able to find any yet.

In the afternoon we headed to AIT's office, essentially the consulate, to have a talk about life and safety in Taiwan and the foreign service, which was actually quite interesting.

From there, a few of us headed to Kaohsiung's Ruifeng night market. Becca and I arrived first and ate a giant fried potato thing, a peanut and chocolate waffle cookie, and then I bought some really spicy grilled corn. Then Anthony, Mackenzie, and Pablo joined up with us and we bought some tea, then searched around to find some bugs to eat because we were feeling crazy and adventurous and were probably also a little too tired. We succeeded in finding a shop that sold little crickets, so we ordered half a bucket. Mackenzie and I tried them first and to be honest they were covered in so much cheese powder and other spices that they kind of tasted like weird Cheetos. The boys went next and definitely did a worse job of eating them than Mackenzie and I, they kept complaining that they had legs stuck in their throat. Somehow Becca escaped eating them by filming all of us eat them instead. While I probably wouldn't order them again, eating bugs seems like something one has to do while on a gap year, and I have no real regrets.

(at the AIT office)

(riding home with Jenny)

(giant potato swirl thing at the night market)

(grilled corn stand)

(BUGS)

星期六：Since last week we had two days off of school for the holiday, but technically only one day was the real holliday, we had to have a makeup day of school on a Saturday, because that's a thing here apparently. After our morning class, though, six of us had volunteered to help AIT with a beach cleanup on Cijin Island. Jenny and Kripa came along since most of us were going and they treated us to a ton of shave ice at a really famous place known for getting to sign your nam on the wall and serving insane amount of shave ice. We ordered the serving size for ten people and couldn't finish it even though it was fantastic, but you can order shave ice for up to 20 people, twice the size of our already huge serving. From there, we took the ferry to Cijin and started the cleanup. It was actually quite impressive because there was really no trash to pick up when we got there because in general Taiwan is really clean and co-friendly. We only found some beat up buckets full of junk at the very end.

After that, we went to a traditional drumming performance at the cultural center. I sat with Anthony and his family and it was so crowded; I swear all of Taiwan showed up for that concert. It was really cool to watch but also extra interesting because all of the performers are current inmates. There were police everywhere to make sure everyone was safe, but overall the performance was really good and interesting.

(giant mango shave ice)

(our NSLI-Y sign in the shave ice shop)

(view from the ferry)

(our trash)

(everyone at the drum concert)

星期天：In the morning I was pretty tired so we just chilled out at home, and in the afternoon we were going to go hike in the mountains and then eat at a nice outdoor restaurant, but we got lost on the way at then it started raining, so instead we just ate at a lamb restaurant and then headed home.