第十五個星期：Among Other Adventures, We Got Doughnuts

星期一：Today starts our two weeks of “break”, though really this just means we have different culture classes than our normal Chinese classes and no class on Monday afternoons. So, after our morning class where we learned about some Chinese new year traditions, Becca, Mackenzie, and I went out to get some delicious Korean food. We then went to the post office where we all managed to successfully send packages home for Christmas (it was so cheap!). It was also cool because, since we had learned post office vocab in class, the postal worker didn’t question my Chinese once.

(eating Korean food)

星期二：I also didn’t have class after school today, so I decided to head to Golden Lion Lake which actually turned out to be just a fifteen minute walk from school. Other than the fact that the pollution was pretty bad, it was a nice lake with some hiking paths, statues, and a large temple.

(Golden Lion Lake)

(the temple at the lake)

(the Golden Lions at Golden Lion Lake)

星期三：After our afternoon tutoring, which has sort of turned into my tutors and I just talking for two hours, which I don’t mind, I’m sure it’ll help my speaking, Mackenzie and I went on another adventure where we got bubble tea from the good place from behind my house and then took an adventure to see my new host family’s house which, while not as convenient (though I’m ridiculously spoiled with my current house) it still isn’t too terribly far away.

I then headed home as my host family was going out to dinner since my host dad was leaving for China in the morning. We ended up going to IKEA, which is always an adventure, after a nice Swedish dinner, we ended up leaving with a horse printed towel in tow, because stuff just happens at IKEA.

星期四：After my long day of classes and choir, I decided to head to Liuhe night market for dinner as I found out it’s only a short subway ride from my house. Once there, I ate some pretty great food; my favorite was a steamed pork bun that had been baked in a brick oven until it was super crunchy. The night market also sold snake meat, and, while I successfully avoided seeing it, I saw a sign for it and figured it was time to head home for the night before I ran into any scary creatures.

(Liuhe night market)

星期五：Today we actually didn’t have class, instead we went to Meinong, a Hakka town outside of the city (Hakka is the name of a minority group in China and Taiwan that have their own language), where we met up with the high schoolers from Tainan that we’d spent the afternoon about a month ago. On the bus there, Jenny had the BEST surprise. She had gone to Taipei and brought real Krispy Kreme doughnuts (!!!) that you can apparently get at the Taipei train station. It pretty much made my life as I officially don't have to go a whole year without my very favorite food ever.

It was a super fun day as they were all really excited to be out of school and hang out. We started out by riding around Meinong Lake. It was really pretty as all the flowers were in bloom. We then went to see the Hakka culture museum, though we didn’t have a lot of time as we needed to head to lunch.

After lunch we headed to an elementary school where we played a bunch of complicated Christmas themed games that the Tainan students had come up with. After an hour of that we were all really exhausted, but we then headed to a different school where we played baseball with a bunch of second graders who were all way better than we could ever hope to be (though I definitely don’t have much going for me as I completely abstained from playing). Once we finished the game, we all sat around and ate a ton of snacks until it was time to go home. I really hope we get to hang out with the Tainan kids again sometime as they’re a ton of fun.

(DOUGHNUTS!!!)

(us with our friends from Tainan)

(the flowers in Meinong were beautiful)

(more flowers)

(Meinong lake)

(Hakka cultural museum)

星期六：My host mom decided to take me out to a nice hot pot restaurant for lunch, though she may have regretted that choice later as I am awful at eating at hot pot. The whole thing is you have a giant mountain of veggies and meat that you then cook in a pot of boiling soup, but, for one, I never knew how long to cook any of it, and two, it took forever to eat because it’d all come out literally boiling hot. So we ended up at the restaurant forever with my trying to finish all of my food. It was at least good tasting though.

From there my host mom took me to the zoo, and, though a lot of the exhibits were under construction so there weren’t a ton of animals, it was fun. While my host mom was scared of the monkeys and I was scared of the snakes, we ended up seeing a lot of birds, some scary but cool lions, and an adorable pygmy hippo that was about the size of a pig or really big dog. We then went to the top of the mountain the zoo was on where there was a lookout over the city and a shrine to soldiers and other martyrs.

After coming down from the mountain, my host mom took me to a traditional market for dinner. I don’t have any pictures from this even though were a ton of interesting foods because I swear everyone in the city was there; you literally had to push your way through crowds to get anywhere. It was a really cool experience though.

(the cute little hippo at the zoo)

(view out over the Kaohsiung Port and Cijin)

(the Lover's viewing platform)