Amazing Taiwan! :) Thursday, July 23, 2009

Today was an amazing day! Well, the first part of the day during class, I was having an extreeemely hard time not falling asleep in class ... but I'm talking about the part of my day AFTER that! :)

After class got out @ noon, I met up with Alisha and we grabbed some lunch at Lucky 7. (Which is delicious, I might add. We both got fried rice ... She the rice with curry and me rice with .. not sure what flavoring ... it's a Taiwan thing .. but it was good for sure! Usually at this place, I get the spicy fried rice but this time I tried something diff.

So anyhow, after lunch, A went to buy some fruit drinks while I rode my bicycle home. We hung out at my apt until it was time for her to go to tutoring. She asked me if I wanted to go with her and see her school, so I went. Her campus is beautiful! Lord willing, I'll go back with her next week so I can get a better look. We were a little rushed today.

The Library




The card that allowed me to temporarily use the library



Please read the small print before signing your life away ... lol
just kidding ;)



I thought this elevator was pretty cool!







This is the front of the campus where we went it.
What a beautiful building!



This is leaving the university, driving away from the
building in the previous picture.



This is one of the buildings for
the elementary school that belongs to Tainan
University. It's just gorgeous! Alisha has done
a lot of student teaching there.

From the school, we drove back to my apt to change bags, etc and then headed off for an adventure! First, we met up with the other girls at the train station. We met Sherry, Joyce, a classmate of Joyce, Joyce's niece, and the niece's friend. So there were 7 of us all
together. Then it was on to An Ping 安平! I had never been there and it was quite fun and interesting.



Can you see the English on these signs? The sign on
the left says, "Big Egg" in the red shape and the right
sign says, "Yummy to go."




The entrance to the Guang Fu Campus of NCKU



This is a view of the arch from farther back. Right before
it on the right side is a stand where I frequently buy
fruit juice and ice drinks. :) It is very convenient on my
way home. Sometimes, I don't even have to get off
my bike. That's what I call convenient!!! haha



I ride my bike under this arch at least twice every day.
The gold lettering is the name of my school. (Well part
of it ... the other half of the arch is not shown in this pic)



Da Xue Lu ... 大學路 。。。it means, "University Road."





I thought this guys shirt was funny ... it said, "Never Mind"








Anyone up for some stinky tofu??



A blue bridge which I found most captivating.



Another view of it ...



A statue of something colorful and a scary-like monster
face ... but I'm not sure exactly what it is as we were
driving by and I barely had time to take the picture.
One of the girls might know ...



Does anybody know what these are? All of those
circles in the backround? More than likely, it's displays
of flowers letting people know that there is a new place
business open! Having this type of a display is common
and expected, in order to tell passers-by that there
is something new there that they might want to stop for.



This is a pretty regular sight ... it is a Daoist temple.
They have very elaborate designs that usually include
dragons (at least the one's I've seen so far all seem to
have dragons on them) and they are very colorful.



Almost all of us got in this shot! lol
You can see Alisha's shoulder, my face in
the mirror, Yan Yu and Sherry, Joyce and her
classmate up in front. The only one you can't
see in Yan Yu's friend who is in the front of
Joyce's bike. I like the sign on the street that
is a graphic of a scooter, signifying that this
little area is designated for scooters at the
stop light.



This wall was right by where we parked. I thought it was
so pretty! There is actually more brick here than I
expected to see. I love it!

We spent some time looking in the little shops up and down
the street ... looking ... buying stuff to eat lol ... looking some more. :)
Finally, we made a couple of purchases and left.
Then it was on to the beach!



This man does personalized leather work. It's really neat!
There are at least three of these leather shops down this
street. One shop had the cutest purses ... but they were so
expensive! We're talking like over $100 US dollars!





Getting something refreshing to drink ... it was pretty warm outside!



Can you guess what this is? ... Marshmallows!






This was delicious by the way. :)



Sorry this picture isn't very clear ... I prob didn't have the
camera on the correct setting and I was walking while I snapped it.
Anyhow, this is a common thing here .. people will take their
small dogs with them on the scooters. :) It's hilarious! I told you
that these people can put practically anything on a scooter!



I got to catch the last few minutes of the sun setting and the colors were magnificent! So beautiful and awe-inspiring! What an amazing God who created our world! :) I wanted the
colors to last for a long time so I could just sit there and enjoy the moment. It was peaceful ...
indescribable ... wonderful ... the waves going in and out ... the clouds and colorful sky ... the wind ...



Cubby, this picture is for you. :) See the killer whale
statue in the backround?






Sherry, Joyce's classmate, Joyce, Yan Yu (making the monkey
faces in the front lol), Alisha, Yan Yu's friend.



This is my cool shirt from NCKU seen in a blog a while
back :)






I believe I can fly ;)

We left the beach after about 30 minutes. Then we stopped to get some really good tofu. It's soft and sweet.



Sherry and Yan Yu





Joyce's niece and the niece's classmate



After that, we headed off to see Lexus. He was very happy to see us! :) Then it was off to the night market! The biggest one in the city of Tainan! It was rather large. ;D



You can't really tell from this pic just how big the market is ... but it is huge!

This was my second night market experience and it was similar to my first ... there are things to buy EVERYWHERE! ... clothes ... food ... drinks ... accessories ... pets ... helmets ... games to play (things to win) ... there are so many things begging for your attention, not to mention all the people!







This is my yummy hot dog! It is surrounded by potato chunks,
with mustard and ketchup on the outside ... can you say, "yummy!?"




This large, corner booth was mostly seafood ...



I was pretty confident that this is as fresh as it gets ...
there are live shrimp in the tank ... one man takes them
out, cuts the head and other stuff off, skewers them and
hands them to the man next to him, who puts it on a grill ...
that's pretty fresh folks ...



This is ... interesting ... I'm not for sure on what it is ...
some kind of little octopus I think ...



Well, my bad .. I was wrong ... apparently it DOES get
fresher than the last pic ... yeah .. I don't think you can
get ANY MORE FRESH than taking live shrimp,
putting them on skewers, handing them to kids and
pointing them in the direction of the little bbq ...



This little boy is holding a "bouquet" of shrimp
in his hand ... yes, their antennae were still
moving ... was the little boy at all bothered by
this fact? Not in the slightest!



This is a delicious fried something with cheese and
curry inside. :)



So true :)



Okay, I'm not sure if this is supposed to be, "My sister"
or saying that the person is a sister themselves ...
anyways, it just made me think of Jane and Lissa ...
Miss you two!



Us leaving the night market (you can see some of the
lighting from it in the backround.) I am wearing the
new helmet that I bought in the market! :)



A better look at my new helmet! Yes, it is pink! lol
I was trying to choose between this one and another
helmet that was the same, except for it was a creme
color. They girls were both like, "That color suits you,
man!" lol ... But, I still wasn't sold on it ... and then
the guy running the booth showed us that he had a
pink visor to go with it ... and so I finally decided to
go with this one. :)

e


Anyone who is not from Taiwan or has previously
visited Taiwan want to guess what these are?
They are face masks. The two masks on the right
go over your mouth and nose. The mask on the
left also covers your mouth and nose, but also your
neck area.



This is the front of a very cute lounging shirt that I bought.

Oaky doaky, it's way past time for all good little boys and girls to
be in bed so I must be going. ttyl

~K.

P.S. There are two things that I forgot to tell you about in the last post ...

1) I saw my first, BIG cockroaches! Yuck! Last night, when I was coming
back to my apt, there were a couple of them outside, close to the sidewalk.
I would like to clarify here and let you know that I've never seen one inside
of my apt building. :)

2) Alisha started teaching me how to ride a scooter last night! lol She asked
me if I wanted to learn how to drive one ... I said that I would .. and she
said, "Okay, put you hand here." She showed me the gas and break and let me
"steer" while we were on a straightaway. It was fun! :) It wasn't really driving
a scooter as I was on the back seat and she was controlling the other side,
but it was a start haha. ;)