D y s f u n c t i o n a l

[9/30/05] Ministry of Sound aka MOS

Lisa's cousin was in town and wanted to go check out MOS and since I didn't go last saturday with everyone I wanted to go. I ended up getting Christina, Lea, Carolin, Joe, Vinne, Jenny, Peter, Warren, James, Dennis, Eliver, Christine, and Vivian. We had to take 4 taxis to the club which is actually next to MiraMir, the shopping center with a huge ferris wheel in front of it. I have pictures of it in a previous entry if you wanna see. We were rushing and trying to get to the club before 11pm so we only had to pay 350NT aka 11 dollars instead of 600NT aka 18 dollars. The club looked really cool and the downstairs level had techno music while the upstairs was hip hop.

The entrance to the club	The girls bathroom

The wall dividing the girls and boys bathrooms	The techno dance stage

The music was pretty good and we mostly stayed up in the hip hop area. James and Joe apparently never really go clubbing so they were really getting into the dancing. I guess the other day both of them were up in Christina and Lea's room learning to dance. James can actually do some hip hop dance moves like the breaker walk. Christine noticed that everyone sorta danced in lines too until they noticed that all of us Cali kids were dancing in circles so they copied us hehe. Jenny dared me to go dance with some Taiwanese people in the club so me and her went through the dance floor picking up random guys and dancing with them. I think most of the guys were really freaked out by us but they still tried to dance. These two Taiwanese chicks really got into it and were going all crazy with us heheh. In the middle of the night the bartenders put on this kick ass fire show. The were juggling bottles that were lit up with fire.

The upstairs bar	One of the bartenders standing up on a speaker juggling

The second DJ kinda sucked and didn't know how to transition songs very well. That and he started playing the same exact songs the first DJ did so that was pretty lame. We ended up leaving the club around 3ish because I'm technically sorta sick and my voice was shot so I wanted to go home and try to get better =P. Yah I know probably shouldn' have even gone out but I had alot of fun so it's ok. I ended up taking tons of pictures so click here to see them.

The end of the night with most of the crew

[9/28/05] Lin Family Mansion and Garden Field Trip & Vacuum Space

For our Arts and Culture class we went on a field trip to visit the Lin Family Mansion and Garden. It was pretty interesting but the hot weather was making us all sleepy and grumpy. Here's some pictures from the trip. I'll add more info about the Lin Garden once I write my paper due next Wednesday.

Lin Family Garden	One of the buildings in the Lin Garden

Jenny, Christina, Lea, Crystal, and Me waiting for our tour to start	The pond in the backyard of the house

Umm all of us a camera freaks so there was alot of picture taking going on after the tour was over. Here are some more pictures.

Since Wednesday nights are ladies nights which basically means ladies either get in free or alot cheaper there was a group of people from the dorms that wanted to go out. Dorm people really like Vacuum Space because it's pretty close to our dorms and it's free drinks all night long after you pay the cover charge. On Wednesdays it's 100 Taiwan Dollars for girls to get in which is basically 3 bucks and 500 NT [New Taiwan Dollars] which is 15 bucks. There's two rooms to dance in and the basically play hip hop music all night long. Me and Miranda only planned to have a couple drinks and then go back and study for our Taiwanese test. I already knew I wasn't going to do so hot on the test because I can't even distinguish the different tones from each other =(. We dragged Nathaniel out by helping him finish up his Chinese homework. Me and Miranda ended up leaving around 1:30 and taking Mina home with us since she was pretty drunk. That was defintely an experience man =P all I have to say is I feel old around all these young ppl in the dorms. Oooh and I just wanna stay thanks to Carlo for taking care of my drunk ass every birthday since my college years and at least I do what you want me to do instead of being instead of being difficult. Everytime we go out with Mike he's always getting picked up by random Taiwanese girls. It's soo cute and funny.

Miranda and Me on the dance floor posing like Japanese girls because they think it looks cute	Miranda and Nathaniel [North Carolina]

Me, Mike, Andi, Scott, and Karen standing around since the guys wouldn't dance	Mike, Me, Miranda in line to get drinks

Mike and Me	Miranda, Nathaniel, and Me all sweaty and wet from getting other people's drinks spilled on us

[9/23/05] Scott's Bday

Me with gray color contacts. Hehe I think they look really cool. I think I'm going to get more =D	In the dorms taking a group picture before we head out into the rain

It was Scott's birthday so of course we had to celebrate and went to dinner with Anna, Karen, Mina, Carolin, Pieter, and me went to the front of Taida near Gongguan to eat hot pot. Hot pot for those of you who don't know is basically a hot pot of water where you cook your food in. We had a ton of pork, beef, fish and beef balls, and lots of other things. Basically it was pouring rain while we walked to the restaurant so it really sucked and my shoes ended up breaking =(. Carolin had to buy an umbrella for herself because it was raining so hard that if you shared the umbrella u would be half wet. After dinner we rushed back to the dorm to change and get ready for going to bars and clubs. Haha we ended up leaving for the In House at midnight.

Scott and his lil brother Sean at Hot Pot	Me and Carolin in the lobby of the dorms waiting for our taxis. We're both wearing color contacts =D

Scott booked a table at In House so all of us had a place to sit. It was Anna, Mina, Karen, Carolin, American Peter, Mike, Andi, Scott, Sean, Lea, Victor and me who ended up going out. The bar was really poshy and played techno music. Since the Europeans wanted red wine we ended up getting 2 bottles of a pretty good label. Each bottle cost about 30 dollars. We hung out at this bar for a while but since the girls really wanted to dance we ended up again at Roxy 99 =).

The inside of the bar In House	The wall across from the girls bathroom at In House

Roxy 99 was pretty fun and crowded. Me and Miranda ended up dancing on the couch tops and then I went and danced with Mina on the table tops since we were both wearing jeans heheh. So yah a lot of guys were staring at us and this really stupid annoying ass gay asian guy kept harassing us and asking to drink our beer then taking our water. I was seriously gonna start a fight with him if he even tried to touch me. Gahhh then he got his also annoying ugly Indian friend to try to dance with us too blahhh. Hehe Mike was trying to run interference for us so we wouldn't get harassed as much. I still think the best defense is to pretend to be a lesbo and dance with the girls we came with. I even got Andi to dance with me and he never dances at all. Too bad we didn't get a picture of it. I think we stayed at the club till like 5:30 or so and then got hungry to we went to get breakfast afterwards. It was so weird when we walking back home to the dorms the sun was already up. I think I ended up going to bed at 7am.

See more pictures from In house and Roxy 99 by clicking here.

[9/22/05] Wow does school suck

I feel the need to vent about the amount of homework I'm getting in all my chinese classes. I seriously spend at least five to six hours a day doing my stupid homework. I'm already tired of doing this and it's only the second week of school. I have 8 more months of this crap. Yah I realize if I was faster at memorizing new words and remembering old ones I've learned homework would go much faster. But sadly I haven't really mastered the art of memorize hanzi [chinese characters] so I spend a crap load of time looking up words =(. At least my parents bought me an electronic dictionary so it cuts down the time a bit. Right now I'm so unmotivated to do well in my classes because in order for me to actually do well I would need to spend eight to nine hours a day doing homework. Fuck that man I'm just going to do enough so I don't get yelled at by the teacher =P. Sigh it's 2:30am and my bed is calling for me to go to sleep sadly enough since I have two chapter test at 9am I don't think I'm going to sleep at all. Everyone whom I've talked to all agree that they never had to work this hard at their home campus and some are engineering majors at UCs. I don't even think I studied this much at Berk during the first two weeks. Yah during midterm and finals times but not in the first two weeks of school =(. At least I know everyone else is suffering along with me [ie Lauren, Ed, Stephy, Kevin, and Dave] in this crazy hard ass school year.

The view from my dorm roof top	Taipei 101 is the green lit building on the right

[9/16/05 - 9/19/05] Hanging out with Family, Moon Festival and Grandpa's Bday

Moon Festival is the 2nd biggest holiday in Taiwan after Chinese New Year so of course I had to go down to Kaohsuing to hang out with family. I flew down Friday afternoon after class and would fly back up on Monday afternoon. Whenever I eat dinner with my grandparents there's always a ton of food especially expensive delicacies such as sashimi, caviar, goose liver, duck, etc. Most of the stuff I either think is gross like the orange sea urchin or I can't eat it. Haha I swear grandparents just want to fatten up their grand kids =P.

Saturday all my immediate family like all my aunts and uncles and cousins went out to lunch with my grandparents at the Grand Hi-Lai Hotel in Kaohsuing. We had about seven to eight courses and near the end I really was soo full that I couldn't eat anymore at all. My uncles like to make me sit next to my grandpa and have me talk to him since everyone is afraid to talk to him and have him yell at them. Since I'm his grand kid and if I may say so one of the "good one" too =P he will sit and chat with me. My grandparents don't really understand Mandarin so I got to practice my Taiwanese skills and put to use the stuff I've learned in class so far.

Sunday was my grandpa's 85th birthday so there was a huge party at night. All Saturday and Sunday people sent flowers to the house for my grandpa. There really probably was like 25 or more pots and most were orchids. Here are two examples of the flower arrangements that were sent over.

In the afternoon we decided to cut my grandpa's cake with only the immediate family before the party at night. The cake was really good. It was taro filling with fresh fruit and cream =).

My grandpa cutting his cake with the help of my Aunt

People start coming around 5 to set up with the party outside so I went outside to take some pictures of the garden.

The fish pond in front of my grandpa's house. It's looks Japanese style huh	My grandpa's house lined with balloons leading to the back where the food was located

The food area where they were setting up a bbq	Another shot of the gazebo

People started showing up around 6:30ish to wish my grandpa happy birthday. Most of these people I've never seen or met in my life. Some were old friends from when my grandpa was the chairman of a bank and others were my dad's cousins. Since I sat next to my grandpa most of the night I noticed how a bunch of people are toadies around him and try to brag about what they're doing with their life. One guy who was probably about 40 was telling him that he was still in school getting an MBA. I was thinking wow to myself wow you're such a loser man I'm getting my MBA now and I'm only 23. What a sucka. People shouldn't try to brag about stuff that really isn't that great.

My grandpa and me. I got the necklace as a present from my grandma hehhe =D	My cousin Michelle and me. She also has huge eyes thou so has color contacts on.

My Uncle George ended up telling me funny stories about him and his brothers when they were small and then I hit the jackpot and found some old black and white pictures of them heheh. For example my Uncle George aka my 4th uncle would have times when he was in charge of my 5th uncle who was the baby so he would make him sit on the back of his bike while he peddled to his friends' house and play. My 5th uncle would sit around patiently waiting to go home while my 4th uncle played with his friends. Apparently you could bribe my 5th uncle to do anything when he was small if you just promised him a piece of chocolate heheh.

My 4th uncle with a square top haircut which he cried about after he saw his hair cut and my 5th uncle sitting on the back	My pops when he was small hanging out near a fish pond. Notice the scrapped up knees. That's just like me when I was small =D

I also found some pictures of my dad from his younger days when he was probably about my age right now.

My dad with a Peter Pan hat hehe at the train station	His army picture. In Taiwan if your a guy it's mandatory you go to the army for 2 years

[9/13/05] 4th Floor Dinner

Most of the people on the 4th floor don't know each other or even talk to another besides their roommate so we figured that we should all go to dinner because we're all staying for a year in taiwan while the people on the second floor will only be here for a semester. We took the MRT aka subway to Zhongxiao FuShing station and got out there and walking around looking for a restaurant that we wanted to eat at. Dinner was pretty good thou we didn't end up going to the place that we really wanted since we didn't want to wait the 40 minute wait.

Lea [Cal State Long Beach], Vinnie [UC Riverside], Christina [Cal State Chico], Melissa [UCI], and Lisa [UCI] waiting in the Lobby of a that was all restaurants,	Mike in a glass elevator looking out on the Taiwan nightlife

Carolin and Lea in the lobby	The occupants of room 454 eating some yum Chinese food

My next door neighbors Lea and Christina who was our translator for the night since her Mandarin is the best plus she actually knows how to read stuff hehe always necessary for ordering food.

Today was our first day of class and I can already tell that I'm going to have to spend so much time on homework. It's the first day of class and I ended up going to bed at 2am because I had to spend 4 hours preparing for Tuesday class and I know I should have spent more time going over the text but I wanted to go to bed. Why does it take me forever to do my homework you might wonder? Well they give us a passage in Chinese characters so I spend a crap load of time looking up words in the dictionary that I don't know to figure out what the passage first says. Then once I understand it I need to learn the vocab so I can answer discussion questions. Then after that I need to practice writing out these vocab words for daily quizzes and we go through a chapter in 3 days i think.Then I must repeat all that twice =P and one of my classes is stupid Chinese Moral Tales with super hard ass vocab grrr. I didn't choose my classes I just got put into them. At least my Taiwanese classes doesn't seem so bad tho I can't read out the English pinyin because it's soo weird. I do fine just copying what the teacher says in class and understand what she's saying so that is good. Yah I'm not going to have a life haha. I will most likely just end up going to school, the gym, and going out maybe on Fridays or Saturdays.

[9/10/05] Staring at Menus and Clothes Shopping

I always end up grabbing food with the non Mandarin speakers so ordering food is always an interesting experience. I can talk alright and pretty much figure out what food they have and order it but I can't read the menu. For dinner today it was a bunch of the German speaking students with me, Nathaniel, and Lea trying to read the menu. We seriously stared at the menu for about 10 minutes trying to figure out what they had before I just ended up getting up and asking the owner what food was on the menu. They also seem to basically eat rice or noodles and they're low on protein and veggies so I'm trying to make sure I eat enough of those two things. I really need to start learning food dishes in my Chinese class so I won't end up starving hahah.

So some shopping here is pretty cheap compared to the states. I went with Lea whose a shopohalic and ended up buying tons of stuff. I got 2 jackets one sporty and one stylish jean one, a pair of dirty washed jeans, a faded light blue jean skirt, 3 cute cotton tank tops, a pink and white silk flowy tank top, and cotton shorts. I think I spent about over hundred twenty dollars on all of that not really sure haha. I always ask Lea before getting anything if it's expensive or not and make her convert it to dollars for me =D. I'm thinking of bring back a lot of my clothes that I brought during winter vacation and just buying a whole new wardrobe in the spring hehe. They don't really let you try on clothes here so I hope I can fit the jeans otherwise I'm just gonna have to work out like crazy so I can haha cuz I really like them.

*added note I found a currency converter online so I know how much I spend hehe. jeans are too long need to get them hemmed =(. *

[9/09/05] Practice Air Raid, Pub Lane 86, and Club Roxy 99

Today I got my class schedule so I have classes Monday through Friday from 9 to 12. I taking Taiwanese, Modern Chinese Conversation, and Chinese Moral Tales. I finally now have internet in my room after waiting for soo long. I was about to go to the Police station to pick up my Alien Resident Card when we had a practice air raid. The air raid is in case China decides to drop bombs on Taiwan =(. There were about 5 to 6 police officers at every intersection. They made all the cars pull over to the side of the road and they wouldn't let any cross the streets. All the subways were stopped too for about 30 minutes till they signaled the all clear siren. Yeah I didn't really understand what was going on so I just ended up going back to my dorm instead of the police station.

Andreas [Switzerland] and Me at Lane 86	Mike [Austria], Christine [UC Davis], Hannah [Taida]

Since it's Friday of course we were going to go out so the Austrians Mike and Andi who live 2 doors down from me took us to this bar near the front entrance of campus called Lane 86. It was more of a pub than a bar and pretty small but it was chill and we just sat around talking. It's so funny when I meet Taiwanese people and they find out I'm ABC [American Born Chinese] then they talk to me a bit in Mandarin and find out that I can also understand Taiwanese and speak it better than Mandarin they get sooo excited and happy. They call me Kejia ren which means Native Taiwanese thou I wasn't born here but my parents were. Yeah so I ended up talking to this kid Zack who graduated from Taida a couple years ago and went to study abroad in Switzerland for a year. I think my conversational Mandarin is getting a bit better don't sound so retarded anymore heheh. We [Me, Christine from UC Davis, Mike and Andy] ended up going to this other club called Roxy 99 where the Austrians friends were partying. Roxy 99 is much smaller than Luxy and when we got in they were playing Cuban music. This club opens at 12:30 am and goes until 7:30 am sooo crazy huh. I think this bar is the place where all the international people go because I met some Canadians, Cubans, Austrians and a bunch of other different countries. I met this guy Martin whose also Austrian and he studies at Taida too. He's been here for 4 years so far and wants to stay longer. It's so funny he won't talk to me in English at all so I have to talk to him in Mandarin. I have his msn messenger which everyone in the world uses instead of AIM but the states so I think I'm going to make him take me around Taipei heheh.

The two Christine ... dude she knows my lil sister Jenn what a small little world	Martin, Andi, Me, Pamela, and Mike at Roxy 99. Everyone but me is freaken Austrian =P.

Me and Christine met two Taiwanese girls who really want to hang out with us so they're gonna call us when they want to go shopping or clubbing. I was a bit annoyed because I wasn't drunk thou Christine was so I didn't want people touching me. Haha usually in the states it's sleazy guys trying to get up on you but here it's girls who are weird. I dunno they really like to invade your personal space and one chick was trying to pour whisky down Christine's throat. I almost seems like they're lesbians but they're really not it's just the way they act. It's a good thing no chick tried to do stuff to me otherwise I probably would have had to kick her ass and tell her to get the fuck off. HAHA. Yes I can be a bitch =P.

Taking a break from dancing @ Roxy 99

[9/07/05] Clubbing at Luxy

Scott took a picture of the group on the subway using his cool ass cell phone/camera =D

I have a new roomie now Carolin from Germany she's waaay better than Lotte who was a bit weird. Our room was pretty dirty so I spent 3 hours scrubbing the floor and now people aren't allowed to wear shoes in our room =P. A bunch of the Europeans wanted to go out clubbing so I decided to go along with my roomie. We took the MTR [basically a waay better suped up verison of BART] to the club Luxy. We had one of the Taiwanese student helpers Hannah take us there. It seems like the ones who get into Taida [basically the school is equivalent to Stanford] don't really go out and party. She doesn't drink or dance and has never been clubbing. The club was pretty nice and had a 3 different rooms with different type of music. It was girls night so the girls got in for free while the guys basically had to pay about 18 dollars. We mostly stayed in the hip hop one which just played all American songs. Dude all the chicks here seriously like tooth picks with super skinny stick arms and legs. They have no ass and no boobs yet when everyone looks like they and you don't you kinda start to wanna a bit. It's all the group mentality yunno. It's funny because alot of them are dressed pretty scandalous like wear daisy dukes and a bikini top yet they were giving us looks like me and Miranda [ girl from UCLA] were the scandalous ones. We were just dancing normally and we weren't even doing freaky stuff yet I guess it's more provocative then their sorta swaying side to side LOL. They also all face forward when they dance guys too. There was also Go-go dancers on stage with two cages on the sides and stripper poles haha. They couldn't really dance either and would just kinda bounce up and down =P. One of the European guys was complaining about how most of the chicks at the club were flat and it wasn't flattering for them to wear bikini tops since they had no boobs haha. Ooooh I saw two guys freaking like one guy was seriously on top of the other with his legs around his waist bouncing up and down. So weird. Europeans really like to party till late. Me, Miranda, Carolin, and Lea got tired around 3:00 so we headed home plus it was soo hot in there and crowded with everyone pushing up against you. Ewww someone's else sweat so gross haha.

Carolin [Germany], Me, Karen [Austria], Lea [Cal State Long Beach], and Miranda [UCLA] all gross and sweaty from 3 hours of dancing hehe.

[9/04/05] Visiting Shilin Official Residence, National Palace Museum, Miramar, and Taipei 101

The Presidential Office yeah I know the pictures a bit crooked =P. Next door is the Taiwan Senate where our senators are crazy and yell and hit each other during Senate meetings

Afterwards we went to Shilin which is where CKS lived but now it's been turned into a city park with a pretty nice thou it does need some repainting.

My parents in the Rose garden. Their eyes aren't closed I swear they're just squinting. I mean I have huge eye balls I had to get it from one of them hehe.

It was pretty humid at Shilin so we decided to hop on a bus and head over to the National Palace Museum for some lovely AC. The exhibits were mostly different types of Buddha's ranging from Japanese to Korean and of course Chinese ones too.

Yes this picture is crooked too. The entrance to National Palace Museum. It was pretty humid around here too. It's probably 85 degrees but with the humidity it feels like 95.

After about 3 hours at the museum my dad had enough to we headed over to Mei Li Guan which is this huge department store with a pretty big Ferris wheel in front. The stores inside are pretty expensive and the big name brands that you would see at a Nordstroms. There's tons of high school kids in the food court in the basement but they really can't afford to shop here.

Mei Li Guan or Miramar this is a new shopping mall built about 2 years ago.

The escalators remind me of the SF Shopping Mall. There's also a huge IMAX theatre on the top floor.

We went back to Caesar Park to take a nap and rest up a bit. My leg muscles are so sore from walking around especially up and down the subway steps. After we were all rested up we decided to head out and see Taipei 101, which is at the moment the tallest building in the world. The bottom floors are a shopping mall while the upper floors are business offices not open to the public.

Taipei 101 currently the tallest building in the world.

A billboard near Taipei 101. It's a practically naked dude what the hell lol so not what I would think would be up in Taipei. Yes mister your so hot that I want to buy your palm pilot thing ... umm NOT hahah.

The shopping area of Taipei 101 has floors classified by price level. The bottom floor is the cheapest with brands like Espirt and United Cotton of Benton. As you go up higher you see stores like Coach, Miu Miu, and Celine. The upper floors consist of stores like Louis Vuitton, Dior, Cartier, Gucci, and Dolce & Gabbana. There was a line outside of LV because apparently they only let in 10 people at a time. Seriously, I would never buy stuff from any of those places because it's just waaay to expensive plus I'm poor and have no money heheh and my bankroll ie parentos wouldn't buy me that type of stuff anyways.

The top floor of the shopping area of Taipei 101.

[9/03/05] CKS Memorial Hall

I spent the night on the 10th floor in the dorms. At 8 am the power went out for maintenance. The power was going to be out from 8am-12pm so I took the subway over to my parents hotel where there's AC hehe. At first the subways are a bit confusing especially since I can't read Mandarin that well but they also have English signs too. It only took me about 40 minutes to get to my parents hotel =P. I'm getting better at figuring out where stuff is thou. My parents decided to take me sight seeing in Taipei so we first went to the CKS Memorial Hall. Chiang Kai Sheik was the first Taiwan president. Most real Taiwanese [by real I mean their ancestors were from Taiwan not China] hate CKS and there is a lot of hatred toward his political party. My grandparents' parents were from Taiwan so I'm what most people would consider really Taiwanese. Basically, from what I understand of Taiwan's history CKS fled communist China and decided to make himself president of Taiwan. The people he brought over from China killed thousands of Taiwanese people on Feb. 28. I'll learn more about it once I have my internet set up in my dorm room. You gotta love Google hehe.

The entrance to the CKS Memorial. The chinese words basically say Chiang Kai Sheik's name.

CKS statue with the Taiwan flags on the side

On the hour there is a changing of the guards. Two guards stand in front of the statue. My dad said the guards are in the air force. There's a seven minute presentation for changing of the guards.

[9/02/05] Getting to Taipei

Me and my parents took the train up to Taipei. When I got to my dorm room I found that both sides of the room had someone's stuff on it. So basically some stupid chick was in my room that wasn't suppose to be there and I had no where to stay. Grrrr Taiwan's really not impressing me much because of all the shitty ass luck I've been running into. Seriously, I'm so glad that my parents came with me because with all the problems I've been having I probably would end up crying if I had to try to explain everything in Mandarin. I just want to unpack my shit and get settled in but nope I can't do that till Monday and then school starts Tuesday.

I've met some people from the program they seem cool dunno if I can really seeing myself friends with them. They're what I would call nice dorky people hahaha who like to play ping pong a lot. God sometimes I hate meeting new guys they blab and blab on about themselves for like 10 minutes and I could really give a shit about their life history when I already forgot their name muahaha. Haha I'm acting like Steph and being a straight up bitch but I'll be nice in person promise =D. I went shopping with my parents for dorm stuff and learned how to take the subway. The subway is a lot nicer than BART and everyone and their mom seems to ride it soo crowded. One weird thing I'm going to have to get used to is the fact that they don't give you plastic bags to put your stuff when you buy things. It's a lot more environmentally friendly but I just got to remember to always bring a bag. Man sizes are so weird here. I was looking at socks at this one store and then my mom asked if I wanted new bras. The sales lady came over and was like I can tell your bra is too small for you you need a bigger size. She said I needed to get a C or D cup. Umm what the hell there's no freaken way my boobs are that big she's totally on crack. I ended up buying 2 bras from her sizes D but yeah uh huh whatever that's so wrong especially since Linh measured me at Victoria Secret and told me I was a B. Welcome to the land of the Asians where I'm a freak because I have big eyes and apparently a big chest LOL. Although, I've been looking around and Taiwanese people have pretty big lips naturally so that's where I get that from I guess. When we were leaving the store she asked my mom if I was Japanese =P.

I've meet a couple Pro Taiwan independence people like this cab driver who drove us to my school. It's weird cuz my dad is pretty shy in the states but here he totally talks to random ass people about why we're here [ie they're taking me to my school Taida] and politics. I really should look more into the whole Taiwan politics since I'm living here now and see if I want Taiwan to become independent as of right now I'm thinking no cuz it's gonna create a depression in the economy. Just looking around the guys here aren't that cute and the ones that actually are remind me of this guy I dated Sophomore here but that's probably because he's Taiwanese. Actually now that I think about it ... he's the only Asian guy I've ever dated =P. Don't normally go for Asian guys but that's just cuz they're not cool enough for me heheh jk. There's this one white guy from North Carolina whose cute in a dorky nice guy way. He totally reminds me of Minji's bf Mike haha I dunno why tho. Anyways, he's waaay more Asian than I am. He's been to all these places in China and actually knows cities in Taiwan. It's weird that he's so interested in Chinese culture when he doesn't really have any connection to it while I have the cultural background and don't really give a shit. Yah yah I'm American not Asian [yeah that's right Carlo I actually said American oppose to Chinese American biatch heheh]. Watch after this year is over I come back super Asian and not white anymore haha.

[9/01/05] Flying to Taiwan

My trip to Taiwan was interesting to say the least. First of all my flight to Taipei [the capital of Taiwan in the North] was 12 hours and 15 minutes from SFO. The plane ride wasn't that bad. I slept most of it since I had the whole 3 seats to myself so I attempted to sorta laid down hehe. The only really annoying part was this super brat lil girl. While we were waiting for the airplane to arrive she threw a tantrum in the waiting area and seriously was on the floor kicking and screaming at the top of her lungs. Everyone was staring at her and probably wanted to tell her to shut the fuck up. So yah on the plane ride there she kept whinnying and crying for no goddamn reason grrrrr. There are two typhoons hitting Taiwan right now so my transfer flight to Kaohsuing [the second largest city located in the Southern part of Taiwan] ended up getting cancelled and China Airlines decided to bus us down there. First of all there are barely any cars out on the roads, because of the strong winds and rain from the typhoon and apparently large buses are told not to drive tho we were on a large tourist bus and we still went =P. Second of all, it probably takes about 6 hours from Taipei to Kaohsuing driving normal speeds. We got down in 4 hours cuz apparently our bus driver was driving 150 miles per hour. What the hell right ... so I should be glad that we weren't killed on the bus ride down. Once we got to Kaohsuing we had the pain of trying to find 2 taxis in the rain. That actually wasn't too hard to get, but then get this the taxis me and my mom were in gets a flat tire while we're trying to get to my grandpa's house so he had to call up his taxis friend to drive us the rest of the way. Crazy ass trip getting to my grandpa's house huh. Well, I'll get to chill with family for a day before I gotta take the train up to Taipei, get my dorm key, and start school.

Paige my lil cousin plays with Kudo. Lucky walks around in trying to get people to pet him. Notice how Kudo is almost the same height as Paige. I told you my grandpa's dogs are huge =P.