the voyages of jetsetting jess: June 2010

if you haven't noticed by now, i like to tell my tales via pictures rather than words. but what can i say about this past week...

the eye infection, diarrhea, and sickness (cold) are pretty much gone, praise the Lord! but i'm sure i'll be getting occasional visits from mr. runnies. we've had 2 culture classes so far: 1) calligraphy and seal-carving ("chops" or stamps), and 2) hand-made noodles + cooking zhajiang noodles. [see pictures below]

we'll be starting real chinese classes tomorrow (thursday, july 1st, 2010). by "real," i mean learning lots of new vocab, grammar, and semantics. our CSULB group will be split up according to our placement scores & speaking skills.. sad. but its ok, we'll still be together in our first class with our CSULB teacher, cao laoshi (曹老師). 曹老師 is super cool. she's hilarious, super easy-going, stylish, and very much a mother hen. she took me to the eye doctor when i had that nasty conjunctivitis-esque infection. i hope my local teacher is half as cool as her, and not an authentic chinese teacher... otherwise i'll get beaten everyday. JUSTKIDDINGNOTREALLY!

my taiwan buddy/tutor is cool too. the 12 of us CSULB SLI (Cal State Long Beach, Strategic Language Initiative) kids each got assigned a taiwanese college student to help us with homework, speech, and navigation around the city. basically they're at our disposal... muahaha. a group of us will be going to see Toy Story 3 (wan ju zong dong yuan 玩具總動員3) with our tutor buddies on monday. (i hope they dont dub everything...)

the dorms are nice here. they put us in special dorms, probably because we're spoiled american brats. but we totally got the hook ups here! a/c, cable (w/HBO!), mini-frig, own bathroom, 2 to a room, wireless internet, non-bunk beds, maid service. its nice. i was surprised. ghana was way different: 6 girls to 1 room, 1 bathroom, crappy internet in the computer room, obviously no tv or frig)... but honestly, as of right now, i like ghana more. maybe taiwan will let up its attack on my immune system and crank up the fun dial. the food is aite. i like the sweets, bakery breads, and drinks, but actual meal food has been a letdown. i don't particularly crave any of the salty foods i've eaten, with exception of the handmade noodles. if anyone has recommendations for restaurants/food in taipei, please do tell!

the weather's been icky. it pretty much rains every afternoon/evening... 100% humidity, 80s-90s (°F). my acne has blown up, probably from the air quality. one of the tutor buddies said eating snake is good for fighting acne....

i sure hope i'll learn to like taipei more in the coming weeks. praise God for air conditioning.

'til next time,

jexca

below:

chinese calligraphy brushes "mao bi" 毛筆
my chinese name written by the prof: "wu chuan ci"
the chop/stamp before i carved into it. we carved a tiger stamp since this year is the year of the tiger in the chinese zodiac
my finished chop! the prof carved my name "chuan ci" & the year into it

below:

the wonderful selection of drinks at the convenience store, Hi-Life, right next to our school (my fave is definitely the papaya milk)
taiwan Starbuck's black sesame green tea frappucino... AWKS & not particularly delicious
my faaaavorite donut ever: Mister Donut's "Pon De Ring," really chewy and almost mochi-like
chinese-style american chips... Doritos, SunBITES (instead of "chips")... not yummy.

below:

green onion cake
variety of drinks I got at the grocery store: green milk tea (good!), black milk tea, pudding milk, & papaya milk (my favorite!!)
mango ice from "ice monster" 冰舘 (bing guan), a famous mango ice place in taipei. super overrated... all hype.
shanghai dumplings 小龍包 from a place on YongKang street... decent, but not the same when non-shanghainese people make them
hainan chicken and rice 海南雞飯 from a strange, trendy place called "Papa Richie." blah, i've had better.