第四是個星期：Dragon Boats, Radios, and Last Get Togethers

星期一：After a good nap in the Wenzao library, I went out to dinner at a Hong Kong style restaurant with two of my friends from my Tuesday class. It was a lot of fun to see them outside of class since I’ll be going home soon.

(random selfie from tutoring)

(dinner with friends)

(Hong Kong custard buns)

星期二：I wanted to go eat my favorite pan fried soup dumplings one last time before I leave, so Becca and I went after class today for an after-school snack. The dumplings were delicious as always, and we were even able to sneak in a visit to the 9x9 stationary store and a really good tea shop that has amazing pineapple tea. I’m sad that I won’t be able to do any of these things once I’m back home, though I’m glad Becca and I got to go one last time together.

(hanging out with Becca)

星期三：Since we decided to participate in the Dragon Boat races next week, we all had to go practice on the Love River, though, since I had a lot of time after school, I first walked to the arts district Bo Er to buy my favorite pineapple cakes to take home. After splurging on two boxes, I headed to the river to meet up with our team. Since you need 24 people per boat, we recruited some host family members and other foreigners from our Chinese classes since we were participating in the international section. Practice was fun, though, by the end, we all smelled like the river, which essentially means we smelled like trash.

(Bo Er Arts District)

(chair sculpture)

(gorgeous flowers in Xiziwan)

(more pretty flowers)

(dragon boat practice)

星期四：After class, Mackenzie and I headed out with Kripa and Jenny to go speak on the Kaohsiung radio’s education program as a sort of advertisement for next year’s host families. It turned out to be pretty fun, not just nerve-wracking like I thought, as the host mostly just asked about our lives in Taiwan, what we’ve learned, and so on. I’m not sure if it really aired or what happened, but it was definitely a cool experience either way.

After finishing with that, I headed back to Wenzao to attend a choir party for all the graduating seniors and me since I’m leaving. It was really fun and all the members wrote me nice cards and pitched in for a gift which was super unexpected. We sang, ate, and played some games and it was really nice to see how we’ve become a lot closer now that I can hold a conversation in Chinese.

(we made Chinese medicine pouches in tutoring for the Dragon Boat Festival)

(getting ready to talk on the radio)

星期五：Today was our final project presentation, which means our year is pretty much over. We all met in the afternoon to prepare and then all of our tutors and host families showed up for the presentation. I ended up going first against my will, but it turned out pretty fine. After our presentation, a panel of Wenzao teachers got up and wrecked our tones and grammar which wasn’t very fun, but they knew we were all nervous so it wasn’t a huge deal.

Once the presentations were finished, I headed home with my host family where we met up with my host dad and older host sister to head out and get some celebratory Japanese barbecue which was a really nice gesture. It was the same restaurant we went to for my birthday and it’s really delicious, plus, now that my presentation was done, I could actually relax some more.

(with my tutors after the presentation)

(and then with my host fam)

星期六： My last host family got back from mainland China this past week, and I got to see them today. They picked me up in the morning and after getting to catch up at their house for a bit, we headed out to my host brother’s favorite restaurant right outside the city. After a really nice lunch of sweet and hot soup and scallion pancake beef rolls, we headed back to their house for more chatting before going out and getting some shave ice from a place down the street. After a full day that seemed to only consist of eating, we headed over to the grandparent’s house where we ate some more, specifically zongzi, the traditional rice triangles eating during the Dragon Boat Festival that I actually don’t really like, and then played mah zhiang for two hours because my host mom said I had to fully be able to play it before I could go back to America.

(cool shave ice)

星期天：Today was the real dragon boat race even though the festival isn’t until Thursday, so we all headed down to the Love River in the evening for the international portion of the race. We ended up competing with the international team from another university in Kaohsiung and lost pretty badly, though it was still fun. The boats were all lit up at nights and there were actually people cheering us on, including Jenny and a few of the host parents, so even though we were all tired, sore, and lost, it was a fun night.

After finishing the race, Pablo’s family invited everyone out, though, in the end, only Mackenzie, Jenny, Andrew, a Japanese classmate, and I ended up going. It was fun, though, because they took us out to a famous lamb noodle place and because I never have really gotten to interact with Pablo’s host family.

(racing the dragon boat)

(dragon boat team)