Sunday, June 14, 2009
Started with a boom, ended with a bang. Once again, I woke up this morning far earlier than I truly needed to, combined with a failed attempt to access facebook, oh well. Once my host parents woke up, we watched part of the Yankee game, one that they lost. I now know that all of Taiwan LOVES the Yankees, they sell their paraphernalia everywhere; everything from fans to shoes. Once the Yankees signed one of their own, Ching Ming Wang, the entire nation fell in love with them! He was on almost every commercial during the game and even normal shows, it’s crazy! Once the Mets got a 5-1 lead, we decided to go out and get breakfast. The parents, Vanessa, and I went to another local vendor to get a true Taiwanese breakfast. This morning it was a big one, rice noodles, fried pork, dumplings, and something else that I’m not all too sure it was, nothing new on my visit. After breakfast, we met up with the entire delegation to go to Vicky’s church to experience Taiwanese Christianity first hand. It was a small church, the delegation and hosts took up about half of the seats, but it was comfortable. The minister would speak in Chinese and then have a translator speak in English; it was the first time we directly had a translator facilitate our stay. They then wanted to get to know us, so we stood up in front of the congregation and introduced ourselves as they asked us questions, it was a great experience.
For lunch we went to a Japanese restaurant to eat sushi and related goods. If I could explain the tables, I would, but you are just going to have to wait to see the pictures, they were pretty legit. Because I’m not a huge fan of raw fish (screams disaster) I ordered fried pork, it was some of the best food I’ve ever had. Throughout the meal I was guilt tripped into trying many different things; like orange sushi with kiwi in the middle and a blackish rice thing that tastes sweet, they were both surprisingly good! After being filled to the top with good food, we went to the technical university to look around. Instead of going in the buildings we played games in the field next to them, one Taiwanese, Ducks & Eagles, and one American, Big Booty (or something like that…), it was a pretty chill hour.
Later in the afternoon, we went to the Hsinchu Zoo. We saw everything from fighting tigers to monstrous hippopotamuses; even an orangutan asking to shake my hand, it was very cool. As always, it was deathly humid and hot, so we decided to go back to the flower market and walk around. We tasted Taiwan ice cream, some sort of tofu, and some weird chicken, all of which were pretty good. While waiting for a taxi to go to the train station, Malcolm and I decided to play a pickup game of basketball with some little kids. They were so excited to play with us, something I’ve never seen in America! Even their mom was ecstatic; it was a sight!
Tonight, we went to Junbei to go to the night market. As we were walking into the train station, I found a dog; I named it Chacho. He followed us everywhere we went and loved when we petted his belly, I wish my dog loved me as much as he did! At the night market I ate just about every part of a chicken imaginable: fried chicken, chicken nugget, chicken foot, chicken lung, and chicken heart; delicious! I also met some nice Taiwanese people who joined in on one of our conversations! The people here seem to love us, maybe it’s because we stand out so much? We’ve decided to get rid of all of the negative stereotypes that tag along with Americans: fat, lazy dumb, and replace them with one; goofy.
That is all, I will write again soon.
(I thoroughly dislike country, but it fits wayyy too well)
Song Description: “That’s What I Love About Sundays” – Craig Morgan
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