ON MY TABLE

Spent a very lazy Sunday trying to ward of a cold with a fresh lemon juice and a fresh copy of the Economist.

The weather is madness, sunny and 30 degrees one day, windy and a chilly 25 degrees the next. I am having such issues trying to plan appropriate outfits, and it is no wonder there are lots of illnesses going around right now.

The Taiwanese news channels are not the best, they only have local news so I have to buy magazines to keep up to date, well that is my excuse anyway, there may or may not also be a Vanity Fair in that paper bag....

Also note the sticker on my juice, all the drink stores do it and I love it. When you order, the till prints out a sticker with your drink order - sugar, milk, ice preferences etc, which is then stuck on the cup, so simple yet so helpful, especially during a rush.

GOING BUSH

After all my talk about how I would go walking around Taipei every weekend blah blah blah, only this weekend did I finally do it.

After a quick consult with the Lonely Planet, I picked a nice little trail just south of the city that would lead us to a waterfall, luckily the path did not stay paved (as above) for long!

PLEASANT DISTRACTIONS

I can't stand listening to the audio in the listening lab at school, and I find it impossible to study in there, so when I'm doing my mandatory hours for the month, I tend to read magazines or watch these TED talks on my phone.... it's not really wasting time if I'm improving my general knowledge right?

I think we can all take something from this one.

OBSESSED

photo: NY Mag

I am seriously obsessed with everything Alexander Wang right now. It is really quite fitting as his family is originally from Taiwan. Sadly he does not yet have a store here. 

I have been looking at this skirt everyday for about three weeks now, I sometimes wake up at night thinking about it... but of course it's not really attainable in my current situation. Unemployment is terrible!!!

If anyone wants to buy it for me, or just salivate over more pictures (from different angles, with the option of zoom) you can do so here or here, ok thanks!

Happy Weekend :)

REALITY CHECK

photo: home cooking, a currently lost art that is slowly returning to me.

If I look back through what I have been posting lately, the majority seems to be food of the unhealthy, sugary variety. Aside from the frozen yoghurt (I can't give it up, too delicious, it will stay as a special treat) all of the other stuff is no longer.

(Says the girl who ate an ice cream sandwich yesterday.... well I suppose I will be weaning myself off the sugar slowly.)

SOFT AND CHEWY

So many things here are in the "American Style" it seems that this is what the Taiwanese kids are into these days. American style soft, chewy cookies, here in the classic ice cream sandwich form.

HEAVEN.

Self serve, pay by weight frozen yoghurt, could there be anything better than this?

BEWARE

A novel way of keeping ones bike dry. 

This is quite important here in Taipei as the rain is relatively acidic. My teacher last week advised to always use an umbrella or if you don't have one on hand, get inside immediately as it will eventually ruin your clothes and could even make your hair fall out! Perhaps this is why my bike is rusting so quickly? It's scary to think about.

COMPLETE

This is what a completed time card looks like.

We had four weeks of class in October, so needed 20 supplementary hours. The different types of class are colour coded; red for library, blue for listening lab and black for big class. I think it is obvious which of the three I prefer..

DRINK OF THE MOMENT

This month my go to beverage has been green tea with fresh passionfruit..... delicious. It definitely makes studying that much sweeter.

PASSING TIME

Yesterday I had the opportunity to fulfill a lifelong dream.... be an extra in a Taiwanese music video.

AB'S FOR THE WIN

This afternoon, an Australian friend and I went to the Brass Monkey, a Taipei pub owned by an Australian expat, that has live coverage of all the Rugby World Cup matches.

TURNING TAIWANESE

I spent yesterday evening in true Taiwanese fashion.

Late afternoon I went to one of the main shopping areas (walking distance from home = bad) thinking I would spent the evening browsing the department stores.

Wrong.

TWO MONTH MARK

photo: the view from my bedroom window; it has been raining a lot lately.

So after two months of study here in Taipei, what has happened to my Chinese? 

Let’s break it down in a review of sorts –

AND IT GOES ON...

Something to bring us into the weekend.

Another sweet, borrowed from the US so of course crazy popular, frozen yoghurt. Though the store looks dubiously empty in the picture, while we were here I promise that there were actually other customers.

This dessert you don't need to feel quite so bad about eating....

VISA MATTERS

It will be my two month anniversary with Taiwan next week, and as such, I needed to start thinking about getting my visa extended. So far, the Taiwan visa thing has been a bit of bother all in all.

First things first, it was the sole reason we had to go to Hong Kong (like I really needed a reason, but nonetheless..) Taiwan, for obvious reasons has no office in China.

SUGAR

Another of the sweets to be found in the night market. The perfect way to finish off a leisurely lunch before heading to class!

10.10.2011

Happy Birthday Taiwan.

We had a holiday here for National Day. There are lovely flags hanging everywhere, it is very all very festive. Luckily the shops were open so I made the most of the day off by window shopping.

Well rested to head back to school tomorrow. I have to get my visa extended this week so it's almost been two months! Only four months to go now, what will happen then I wonder??

GOING NATIVE

Do you see what I saw this morning?

FRIDAY NIGHT FRY

I don't know where this week has gone, but Friday has come, and we are ready to start the long weekend! To celebrate a perfect score on my latest test, a treat at the night market was in order....

MUST SEE

I attribute my early American accent to Elmo, he was always my favourite on Sesame Street. I have to see this!

IT WON'T STOP

It has been raining almost non stop since Friday night. Although I like any excuse to wear my gumboots, after a few days it has become rather a bore.

In China the umbrella of choice seemed to be the fold up variety but here it is all about the big one. I like it, it's a bit more substantial and provides far more coverage. It also helps that outside every store or in this case the library, there is an umbrella rack.

Of course there is always the risk that you can't find your own when you go to leave. Luckily people here seem to have a pretty relaxed attitude to umbrella ownership. On Friday night, standing in the rain while trying to hail a cab a guy came out of a store to lend us one. This we promptly lost outside a bar, mistakenly taking another instead! Whoops. 

SWEET

The Taiwanese have a major sweet tooth and there is no end to the number of sweet snacks on offer. I've always been a sucker for all of the waffly kind of snacks like you get in Hong Kong so today I split a serving with a friend. The flavours to choose from were Chocolate, Cream, Vanilla, Taro and Cheese. We went for Cream. They were made fresh, I love that the waffle griddle has writing in it, this definitely makes it more fun to eat. The cute packaging also helped!

THE DAILY GRIND

photo: MTC. Pretty imposing huh? You'll laugh when you see inside.

I have settled into quite a good routine now, when it isn't upset by illness that is....