Well - I am in Taiwan. Its 5:00 AM here and I should be asleep, but its 2:00 PM in Utah so needless to say, i'm not asleep. The plane ride was LONG and I am happy to finally be here and get adjusted to everything!
Well for the pictures, first thing is first, the plane ride. Below is a picture of me and my friend Dane. He is from a small town in Utah that has 300 people but I don't know what it is called anymore. We were trying to take this picture to show off all of the monks. Our plane was full of so many monks!
This next picture shows my first actual meal in Taiwan. I ate dumplings filled with pork and lettuce. It was pretty safe and very tasty. I would like my brothers Dave and Stewart to know that I successfully ate with chop sticks as they doubted my methods when we ate Thai food. Well, successful in the fact that I ate food but unsuccessful for just one little part where a Taiwanese woman laughed at me when my dumpling fell out of my chop sticks. Then of course Dane saw her laugh at me and then a couple other kids looked over and laughed. Well - thus is life. Some people just need a little bit longer to learn how to use chopsticks.
The school gave us bikes and we got our first taste of transportation in Taiwan. Here, they don't have sidewalks so bikers ride on the street like a car. It was pretty scare riding my bike in Taiwan, mostly because I don't consider myself to be the most skilled bike rider and my brakes were sketchy to say the least. I did find that as I changed gears, my brakes improved. We went for a ride to the grocery store and I was able to fill my little basket on my bike full of food and I also used the big purse thing that Cynthia gave me to put food in. It was a fun adventure.
We did a little bit of tourism while going out on the bikes so that we could get a better understanding of where we are at. This is one of the temples that we rode by.
Taiwan has a couple of funny things that I have noticed so far like - my bed is hard as a rock. They are obsessed about garbage and recycling. I haven't been aloud to throw anything away yet because we still have to be trained on how to use the garbage. Today, we were having a meeting and then all of the little secretaries got up and rushed out of the room. I was a little bit worried at their haste, but then we heard something that sounded like an ice cream truck. We were aloud to go out and see what was going on, and the "ice cream truck" was actually the garbage truck. They have to put their own sorted garbage into the truck when it comes around. Here I thought we were getting ice cream and then all we got to do was throw away some trash. I am afraid that when I come back to Utah, I might hear an ice cream truck and bring the garbage out now.
Another funny fact that is a little gross, but true. We can't put toilet paper in the toilet. Once we go potty, we have to put the toilet paper in a garbage. Here in Taiwan, they are very particular about their trash and where
everything goes!
Well, this is the first of many blogs regarding Taiwan. I love and miss all of you!
Ok, so this technically isn't a picture of the night market, its just a picture of me buying some fruit at a little fruit stand the day after. I thought that I would share it because it's actually a picture of the first trip that I took without a guide. Somebody pointed this fruit stand to me as I was riding on the back of their scooter and the next morning, I took 3 other girls with me and we went and bought fruit. In that bag were 2 apples, 2 oranges, 1 kiwi, and 2 fruits that look like small apples but taste sort of bland and have a funky texture and it only cost me 60 qui or $1.80, and the fruit here is amazzzzing!
