Double Tenth Day!

Last weekend was the 99th aniversary of Taiwans national day, which is October 10th (10/10). IT IS DIFFERENT THAN CHINA'S NATIONAL DAY BECAUSE CHINA AND TAIWAN ARE DIFFERENT PLACES. KEENAN. It was sooooooo much fun.

Saturday, the 9th, I went to a town called Nantou to a Rotary members house to make dumplings. All of the American exchange students in Taichung County came, and the Canadian, and Thai people. It was really fun, and the dumplings were delicious. I'm pretty much professional at making them now, because I make them in cooking class a lot, too. The dumplings took about a half hour to make, so the rest of the time we just hung out in the house, and talked. It was really fun.

On Sunday, it was Double Tenth Day. All of the exchange students in Taichung met at the fish market at 8:30 that morning (waaaaay too early). We left at 9 on a bus to Taipei. The bus trip took around two and a half hours, but that was fine, because all of us were just happy to see eachother and talked the entire way. We got to Taipei at around 11:30, and had Subway for lunch. Subway tastes a lot different than in America, they put this weird Korean mayonaise stuff on it...But anyways, when we were done we got out of the bus and went to join the other exchange students from all over Taiwan, because we were all going to be in the National Parade.

It was suuuuper crowded on the street, and it took forever for us to get to the other exchange students because everyone kept getting lost or distracted. Also, people kept wanting to take pictures with us. Some students had put their national costumes or dresses on, so all of the Taiwanese people kept staring, and coming up and asking for pictures. I didn't even have anything special on, just my normal clothes and an American flag, and everone wanted a picture with me. The girl from Russia, Anna, had her traditional dress on, and she had about 100 people come up and take a picture with her. It was craaaazy, but we finally made it to the other exchange students.

THERE WERE SO MANY OF THEM. There are 37 students in district 3460, my district, and around that many in the other two districts who we were joining, so altogether around 110 students. I saw the other girl from Alaska, A'lena! It was awesome to see her again. I hadn't seen her since she left with her host family at the airport.

We hung out for a while, and talked to all of the new people. Then we gathered together so all the Taiwanese people could take pictures of us. That only took about...20 minutes. EVERYONE wanted a picture of us. Then the Rotary people came and gave us this HUGE flag made up of all the country flags sewn together, and we started walking with the parade.

The parade pretty much consisted of everyone screaming their countries name, and singing their countries songs, for 5 kilometers. I'm pretty sure nobody could talk the next day, but it was awesome. I'll put pictures up later, when I'm back at home. Then we had dinner, and went back home, to Taichung.

Alright, so enough about that weekend. So earlier I said that my friend Hebe was going to take me to Fung Jia Night Market on like...I think it was October 1st. That was really, really fun. Hebe is so nice, even if she can't speak English. I'm starting to understand and speak enough Chinese to actually communicate with people, which is nice. We took a bus there right after school, and then met her two friends there. They don't go to my school, but they were awesome. They spoke English, so when I didn't understand, they could translate for me. We pretty much just bought a ton of food, and ate it all. I tried rice fried in pigs blood, and oh my God it was delicious. They dip it in spices or something, and yuuummmmm. We stayed there for like...5 hours. Fung Jia is the biggest night market in Taichung, so there's SOOO much to see.

The next day (October 2nd) I went to Tiger City (This huuuuuge mall) with Kristian, from Denmark, Benjamin, from Germany, and Hugo, who's Kristian's Taiwanese classmate. We walked around the mall for a little bit, but then they wanted to go to the arcade. So we went there, and that was fun, until I tried this RIDICULOUSLY HARD dog walking game and ended up killing the dog. Then we walked to Fung Jia Night Market and hung out there for a while, and went home.

Sorry the days are so mixed up here. I'm just writing things down as I remember them. So right now, my host mom is in Shanghai, China, and my host dad is in Taipei, so I'm staying with my host mom's friend. She owns a really nice Japanese restaurant, and since I don't have school this week (everyone is taking exams, hahahahhaha :D) I'm working at the restaurant. AT ROTARY PEOPLE: Don't worry, I'm not getting paid. Hahahaha. So at the restaurant I cook bread, make iced coffee, salad, and serve drinks. It's really, really fun and I like it a lot.

The people I'm staying with at the moment have a son, Max, who's 12, and a daughter, Emma, who's 10. Max is really into computer games, so I don't see him a lot. I talk a lot with Emma though. She is SO cute. I call her Mei Mei, which means little sister. Her English is amazing, but she always tries to speak in Chinese first, so I learn a lot from her. She is seriously the cutest 10 year old I have ever seen.

Tomorrow I'm going to go to a waterpark with Jenny, from Mexico. I'm really excited because I love waterparks. And it's waaaaay to hot here. Apparently, it's "getting colder" though. I don't notice a difference. My host mom always tells me to wear a jacket when I go to school, but I never do, because if I put one on, I'd get heat stroke or something.

Oh and hey, if you want me to send you a letter or something, just comment on this blog thing, and I'll send you one for sure! Leave my your address if you haven't already given it to me.

That's all I'm going to write for now, sorry about the mixed up dates. Oh, and here's a conversation I had with my friend, Drew, back in Alaska:

Drew 2:57pm

like talk about being amazing!!! i bought $150 rock revival jeans for $43.

Me 2:57pm

i love you.

2:57pm

lol there like waist size 28 so there skinnys on me!! they look illin

2:58pm

iiiiilove you hahaa


this is an amazing conversation with a straight guy

2:58pm

but my best outfit is probably my zipper pants my black creative rec shoes a low v neck some suspenders a leather jacket and gelled hair

haha i know right you wont find it anywhere else.
 
2:59pm
 
this is fantastic
 
2:59pm
 
im like fredmeyers you will find it here.
 
2:59pm
 
i'm putting this conversation on my blog