I just wanted to thank everyone for the comments they’ve been leaving. It’s nice to know that people are reading this…. If there is anything in particular you are wanting to see, let me know, and I’ll try to get pictures! My apologies for the randomness of this post – I had a lot of little things that I wanted to show y’all and this is the result….

Zongzi is a traditional Asian food eaten during the Dragon Boat Festival which fell on Saturday, 7 June this year. We were in Kaohsiung that day, but the races had been canceled due to rain. Zongzi is made from glutinous rice, usually wrapped around meat or beans, and then wrapped in leaves and cooked. Lemon’s mother made this one and I kind of ate it without taking a picture of the inside, so if you are curious, click the first link. Also, check out the story of how zongzi came to be made. I love it! Holly, who is from one of Taiwan’s indigenous tribes, also brought some Zongzi for us to try. I liked hers a little better, actually. Unfortunately, I also ate that one without taking a picture.

The laundry facilities at Shu Zen. There are only around 5 or 6 washing machines and two dryers, yet I’ve never run into a problem doing laundry. Part of that could be explained by Helena’s reaction to my doing laundry downstairs. Apparently the boys mostly use those machines; thegirls, on the other hand, use the smaller machines on the floors or wash their clothes by hand and dry them on the racks provided on our balconies. Helena seemed to be concerned that I would catch boy cooties by washing my clothes in the same machines, but I think I’ve escaped them so far. I’ll keep y’all updated though. I was relieved to see that both the washing machines and dryers had buttons and instructions in English.

Yeah, it’s a cicada of some sort. They are incredibly loud here and I am beginning to think they are stalking me – first Kentucky, and now Taiwan. I had nothing to do with this cicada’s demise – it was like this when I found it. Promise.

Oooooh! A bag from a bookstore! What’s in it?!?!?

Eddie recommended this book/workbook/cd combination and was able to get a 20% discount on it for me at the bookstore near his wife’s school! It cost me 1140 NT$ / $38 US which seemed like a pretty good deal for all three items. Have I mentioned that learning Chinese is hard? No? Well, it is. I’m trying, though.

So, I got sick Wedneday, 11 June, in the morning and by Friday, 13 June, I was having stomach cramps so bad that I was doubled over in pain. I finally had Jonathan take me to the doctor. It was an interesting experience. I was in the waiting room for maybe 3 minutes after filling out the paperwork, and then was immediately seen by the actual doctor. (I didn’t get her name, unfortunately.) She spoke English and when she didn’t understand what I meant or I didn’t understand what she was saying, Jonathan helped translate. After about ten minutes with the doctor, we were ushered out to the waiting room. The visit and the medicine together came to a total of 450 NT$ / $15 US. Amazing. The medicine was dispensed at the office and placed in different colored wrappers (white = take before I ate, green = take if symptoms returned, red = take only if I got a fever). By Sunday afternoon I was feeling much better, and by Monday I was 100%. Hooray!

Despite not feeling super great, I decided to go to the Dream Mall on Saturday with Eddie, his wife Cathy, Kristen, and Dwayne. On the platform at Dahu station (the station closest to our school), I ran into some students from Shu Zen. They approached me and we talked for a bit, and then we posed for pictures while waiting for the train.

On the train from Dahu to Ciaotou Station (pronounced chow-toe), I saw these two men and tried to sneak a picture. Apparently I’m not at all stealthy, because they totally realized that I was taking a picture. Obviously, I wasn’t holding the camera completely still either, but I still like the shot.

The view from Ciaotou Station. We met Eddie here on the local train, and then transferred to the MRT which was just opened this year (image of stations in English) and went into Kaohsiung.

We picked Eddie’s car up at the station in Kaohsiung and drove a couple of miles to the Dream Mall. The weather was not ideal, and this was as close to the Hello Kitty Ferris Wheel as I got. I will prevail, though. Never fear. We’ll be traveling to the Dream Mall four times during summer camp, so I will definitely get pictures of the ferris wheel!

The Dream Mall was pretty much like any mall in America, only larger. Everything was rather expensive, so I just window shopped.

I had Cathy (Eddie’s wife) take a picture of me in front of the Guess store.

A puzzle shop had these amusing (and linguistically confusing) jigsaw puzzles.

This is the entrance to Eslite Books. They have a fairly good selection of English language books, and the store feels like a Barnes and Noble. I did buy a little notebook and a small flashcard set secured by a ring to practice my Mandarin.

Finally, there were some wood sculptures just outside of the bookstore that I liked. All in all, it was a good day, but I was again disappointed by the amount of Western influence I kept seeing and was left longing for a more traditional view of Taiwan.

Up next: I get that more traditional view in Tainan, Taiwan’s first capital and oldest city! Also, I finally visit a night market!