N: Oh, you know, the usual.

So, I was trying to think about what I should post about the other day, and besides a couple cool places I visited, I thought, man.  Nothing's new.  I've just been doing normal day to day things.  My post will be really short. I'll be like, well, I've just been doing the usual.  But then I thought, my "the usual" is Teaching English, learning Chinese, biking, hiking, and eating a lot of crazy foods in Taiwan".  So, it's actually kind of interesting (for the time being)!
So here is the usual:
I've been teaching, teaching, teaching.  Sometimes I feel like it's all I do from Monday to Friday.  I teach, take a break, teach, and then if I don't have lesson plans to do, all I want to do is nothing.  I get so tired, all I do is sit down until something pressing comes to mind (and even then, I usually procrastinate it to just do nothing).  I do love teaching, though!  I LOVE my kids.  Like, SO much.  They all have special places in my heart, and sometimes I have to trick my brain into thinking I'm never going to leave them.  Some of my favorite kids are the trouble makers, or the rowdy ones.  They just make class so interesting and it's not the same when they are gone (in a ghostly quiet way).  I love going downstairs after classes and playing with the kids while they wait for their parents.  Except for my 6th graders, the kids always come yelling, "teacher! Teacher!"  and hug me and play.  It's precious!!  I like that I can pick my kids up.  In America that's a no no.  No hugging, kissing, or holding.  It would be so hard if we had that rule, because my kids are so gosh darned cute!!! Especially the 3 and 4 year olds.  One of my babies, Melody today came up to me and started kissing me all over my face.  I had no idea how to react to her, but she was so cute and I wasn't fired. :)

I am doing 2 language exchanges.  One is with a wonderful sister from church, Sister Domy.  She is a great teacher, and she brings us lunch:)  She is so thoughtful! It is me, Kaitlyn and Brendan who do the language exchange with her.  Love it.  The other is with some of the secretaries at the school.  I love our secretaries here!  They are all SO nice, patient and very, very, very helpful with the kids and just about anything else we ask them about.  Our first exchange, we met at Starbucks.  It was two stories!  Super fancy.  We started learning colors, which is great.  Last week, we met at a Japanese food place and ate all kinds of yummy things.  We had sushi (my particular favorite), some type of noodle soup, onion, sahimi (it was good!  Like my rainbow roll...without the roll), and a rice ball thing.  Yeah, I try a lot of foods and have no idea what they are called, so I just call it whatever it looks like followed by "thing".  (I do know the name of something I tried the other day, though, because I asked: moaji (and of course, it's Taiwanese, so I have no idea how to spell it).  It is a squishy white dough rolled in a sweet powder.  I love that stuff!)  Next week for language exchange, we are getting stinky tofu. Yummmmmm... We'll document it well, don't worry.

At fancy Starbucks

At the Japanese place (taking turns wearing Peggy's daughter, Katrina's little veil)

Some other foods I have had recently are pig's ear, rice popcorn square thing, oval chewy squishy thing with fillings, bean shaved ice, squid balls, fired nut ball things, and a sweet-sour powder that they put on everything.  The pig's ear had a good flavor, but rubber and cartilage aren't the most appetizing textures.  On one of out hikes, we got a square of rice that is cooked with sugar until it pops like popcorn, then they package it in squares.  It tasted like a light popcorn ball.  We also got some things that I just don't even know how to explain.  One was pink, kind of swee filled with red beans, and one was green, filled with some kind of stringy seaweed or something.  They were both chewy like moaji, but more rubbery than doughy.  Not my favorite, but we ate it anyways.  I went out with a friend and she got shaved ice for us.  I was expecting something a little like a snow cone, but when the lady gave it to us, it was quite different from what I expected.  It was shaved ice, with a sweet syrup, topped with beans and some little balls that were chewy.  It tasted like sweet, chilled beans.  Good, but...unexpected.  We also got squid balls which ROCKED.  They were fried dough filled with squid with some spicy sauce on top. YUM.  We also got some other little fried ball filled with some kind of nut.  Macadamia nut, maybe?  I don't know, but it was delightful.  I got some of this powder that I need to find the name of because I LOVE it.  I put it on guava and it is awesome.  It's kind of a sweet, but sour taste that goes on everything.  It's great.  So, those are the top things.  I have had some other different foods, but, you know, it's just the usual. (AKA it needs it's own, separate post) :)


For hiking and biking, there's not much to say.  I think pictures really take care of that!  Enjoy these :)

With Joanne and Kathrine, one of the secretary's daughters

N: The ABC's (Awkward moments, bike rides, and Chinese discipline)

These are the ABC's of what defines my life at the moment:  Awkward moments, bike rides, and Chinese discipline.

A:  Learning Chinese is SO much fun.  I want to practice wherever I go!  The only thing is...  my comprehension skills are TERRIBLE!  It gets me into a lot of unfortunate situations.  For example, it is in the 50's here, but sunny and just downright beautiful.  Coming from Utah and (somewhat) cold California (in the mountains for Christmas!), sweaters are just out of the question (unless it really adds to my outfit.  Of course.).  Well, all of the secretaries and Gerald always comment about it, wondering if I am cold!  Haha, it's great.  Well, one time, I was talking to Gerald, and Peggy came over and started talking to him.  With my little bit of Chinese, I picked up that she was talking about me and not having anything warm on.  I nodded my head and laughed, just taking it.  Well, I must have looked very confident about what I was nodding about so Gerald asked me if I knew what she was saying.  I got all red, because really, the answer was no.  I said, "is she talking about coming downstairs without anything warm on?"  He smiled and said, "No, well, she was saying that you are teaching the kids about spring and confusing them because it is cold, but you are wearing short sleeves!" Haha, yeah, I think if I listened carefully enough I would have gotten that, but I freaked out in my head the second I knew kind of what she was saying and just blocked out everything.  Another awkward moment; I went on a bike ride with one of the teachers, Brendan, and his friend, Thomas.  Brendan met him through one of his former students (it's the student's dad), and now they do language exchange.  Thomas is such a nice guy.  Well, he asked me, xiaojie, quing wen xianzai ji dian? (Miss, can I ask you what time it is?).  I totally did not get ji dian.  Even though I have known that phrase for at least a year.  I just couldn't make the connection!  Uhg.  Frustrating, indeed.  One more: we stopped to get something to eat on one of our bike rides.  We got some really good...things...(no idea what it was, really), and the people just spoke really loudly and fast in Chinese.  Didn't understand a word they were saying, just knew they were talking about us.  That in itself was kinda awkward... I can't wait to understand people!

B:  Kaitlyn and I have gone bike riding as often as we can.  It is beautiful this time of year and there is always so much to see!  I love it.  It has to be one of my favorite things I have done here.  Just the other day, I rode to Dongshi, about 45 min to an hour away.  We got a delightful dinner of pork and shrimp dumplings, seaweed, tofu, some soups, and pigs ear.  Yep!  It was like pork flavored rubber.  With cartilage.  So, the flavor was great, but the texture was... questionable... But you can never get any better than pork dumplings, so it was all good! 
On my rides, I have seen temples, trains, old train tracks and stations, dams, waterfalls, rivers, markets, tunnels, bridges, orchards, shops, and beautiful scenery.  Love it!

C: Chinese discipline.  Really, the only reason I'm okay with it is because it's a good fallback when I run out of classroom management ideas. "Do you want me to send you out to a secretary?"  They behave right up.  When they are bad, we are supposed to send them out to a secretary and they yell at them in Chinese or whatever the feel like.  Well, my 6th grader's English grammar teacher came in on Monday and started yelling to them in Chinese.  I just continued to check homework...maybe I should have stopped... I just didn't really know what was going on...  well, before I knew it, she had them all line up and step out of class.  I followed because, well, it is my class after all.  They formed a line going into the doorway of the next room.  Before I made it to the next doorway, I heard a loud, whap! whap! She was hitting each of my kids with a bamboo stick on the hands, one at a time! And I had no idea why.  I respect her opinions and motives, but...I was clueless.  Well, I went back in my class and watched as each of my 6th graders walked in, heads down, and sat quietly.  I'm sure she is a really nice lady outside of the school, but inside, everyone knows not to mess with her!

K: My First, and at The Rate I'm Going, Possibly Last Post!

So, as everyone reading this blog is most likely aware, Nicole Elizabeth Seiley happens to be the greatest best friend of all-time! This blog was entirely created by Nicole and, until now, has only been exposed to only HER wondrous writing abilities. However, at Miss Nicole's urging (that's what our kindergarten class calls her... well, that is what they are supposed to call her, but we are still working on the whole teaching them English thing), I will take a few minutes and tell a little about Nicole's and my experiences here in Taiwan.

Well actually, let's begin with the two hour flight I had from Utah to San Francisco. Nicole, again being the sort of friend others dream of having, knew it was my second time flying, the first being when I flew to Sandiego TWELVE years ago! Yes, Taiwan was the first time I had flown since I was eight. Anyhow, as always, I was panicking and over-thinking everything, so Nicole made me thirteen, yes thirteen, different recordings of step-by-step instructions on how to do everything (like check-in, baggage, and even what to do once I landed in Taiwan), not to mention some random recordings of her reading hilarious stories off the internet, from her journal of our years at school together, and a novel/ story she has been working on that I happen to be mildly obsessed with! After I listend to her walk me through everything, I made it on the plane and seamlessly landed in Taiwan a few (more like 16 hours) later... Just kidding! Of course that didn't happen! I'm Kaitlyn Williams and   nothing can be that simple. Instead, as I waited in line to board my first flight in the Taiwan series, and while I was talking to a lovely couple (the husband being from California and the wife from Pakistan!),  I was stopped by the gentleman checking-in tickets, and was told I needed to step out of line and wait for him to let everyone else board (oh, and did I mention my flight was over two hours late due to the snow storm?). Finally, when he got back to me once again, he paged for what they call a "Red Coat," not even kidding (all I could think of was: "The British are coming! The British are coming!"), and had to have the R. Coat check my documents. Apparently, since I was flying internationally, they needed to look at my documentation (which the two airport employees I had previously talked to somehow failed to mention). The Coat proceeded to tell me that since I didn't have my visa, if it were up to him, he wouldn't let me fly, but luckily, since I was flying with China Airlines to Taiwan, I was their problem and they would have to deal with it. Then, to provide further comfort to my already sunny situation, he thought it would be beneficial for me to know that once I got to Sandiego, China Airlines might not let me board the plane to Taiwan. As hard as I tried to put the thought of my head, I couldn't help but think, "first you try to take away my country's freedom, and now you try to strip me of my ability to leave the country and all my happiness with it!" The name "Red Coat" was just all too fitting.  I finally managed to get on the plane, which was comprised of only one isle with two seats on either side, and tried to find my spot. When I came to it, I of course struggled to get the overhead compartment open, whacked the women across the isle with my bag (which she had no problem making known), and finally sat down--after making my seat-partner move--and began to cry! Long story short, the women next to me was a saint. She saw me crying, handed me a tissue, introduced herself as Renee, and proceeded to calm me down. Truly, she was a tender mercy of the Lord! I stopped crying, discussed some possible solutions with her (although she really just seemed as concerned as I was), and tried with all my might to fall asleep... which if you don't know, is practically impossible on a plane.

When I landed in San Francisco my first thought was "I want my mom!" with the next being "I want Nicole!" I proceeded to get ahold of both (my mom using the phone I brought to use as an alarm clock, and Nicole via the ever helpful facebook), and managed to gather myself. Having a six hour layover, I then straightened my hair in the bathroom, looked for something to eat (which no one bothered to tell me that eating at an airport is like eating at Disneyland, you feel the need to sell your kidney and right arm to afford the prices), and then finally managed to talk with a Chinese Airline employee. Luckily, when they checked me in for a second time, nothing seemed to go terribly wrong and I was able to make it my terminal! Despite the fact that a lot of the announcements were said in Chinese, a language I know about as much of as any other white American born and raised in West Jordan, Utah, I felt my tear ducts officially close and, to make this as corny as possible, the promise of adventure in the air.

Since this post is getting lengthy already, and since I love to leave my readers (if they have even made it this far) with a good cliff hanger, I'll finish the rest of my journey (hopefully) another night! Until then.

Yours Truly,
Kaitlyn Williams

N: School Starts!

Teaching started on Wednesday!  The Sunday day before, we went to church.  The closest English branch is in Taichung and it is lovely.  It's small, but the branch Presidency is great!  Our Branch President is from Hawaii and he is really nice.  His name is President Baclayon.  Gerald, Berhan's Principal, is in the presidency and also Brother Miller, who is here with his wife, attending school.  Kaitlyn got a calling right away!  She's in the primary presidency!  Woo hoo!  I got my calling yesterday.  I was nervous... I was prepared to accept whatever calling I was called to, but I hoped it was not nursery... Don't get me wrong, I love the little kids!  There are two little girls, and they are really cute, but I didn't want to give up Gospel Doctrine and Relief Society for 6 months to babysit... I filled in today because they didn't have a nursery person yet and it was just fine, but I was bummed that I had to miss the rest of church!  Anyways, I got called to teach Relief Society!  Perfect!  I love teaching!  We had break the fast today and it was delicious!  I signed up to bring food, but I had limited time and resources, so I bought some pasta and made home made alfredo sauce!  I was so proud that it didn't turn out terribly.  While we were outside, we discovered something: there is a restaurant called Marijuana right across the street from the church building!  Hahaha we thought it was pretty comical (and also determined to eat there one day).

Complete with Marijuana leaves.

11 Taiwan things I'm getting used to:
Number 1, bug bites!  They are just becoming a way of  life!! Right now, I have 6 on my face, 2 on my hands, a couple on my feet, legs and one on my arm. 
Number 2, there is no toilet paper.  Like, anywhere.  There are these little packs of tissue paper that we use, but it's rare to find a public bathroom (that's not in Costco or something) with toilet paper.  You have to carry around your own.  And DON'T even get me started on the squatter toilets...
Number 3, no one owns a clothes dryer.  We hang everything up.  It was a little unfortunate for me when I got here and found that my cat had decided to make one of my shirts his own and made all my stuff smell really bad.  I had to do SO much laundry and all my clothes took up all the space on our little porch thing for 24 hours. 
Number 4, all of my advertisements online are Chinese.
Number 5, fireworks go off all the time, randomly during the night!  I have no idea what they are ever celebrating, but do they know how to do it!
Number 6, I'm stared at wherever I go.  Sometimes it is kind of ridiculous!  Random people will ask to take pictures with me on the street. One guy had such little English that he just pointed to him and me had said, "please?".  It took me a second to figure out what he was talking about...
Number 7, traffic is cray cray!  Almost everyone drives a scooter, and no one follows traffic rules. 
Number 8, I think Taiwan has a trash can deficit.  There are no trash cans out on the streets.  You have to go in a store or just keep it with you.  They have really strict rules about trash (even more strict than traffic rules).  We have to separate trash into plastic, recyclables, food (they feed it to pigs, apparently), and other trash.
Number 9, you have to bring your own bags to the store.  They will charge you if you want your groceries bagged.
Number 10, the lack of some of my favorite American things!  Pam, paper towels (and toilet paper), Target, cheap shampoo (pretty much everything that is not American is super cheap, except shampoo!!  I spent, like, $12 USD total for shampoo and conditioner), people who understand me without playing charades, Pandora, good places to run, good air to run in, brown rice, dairy, feeling literate...
Number 11, so many cool Taiwan things!  Night markets, cheap and fresh, delicious food and fruit, bingsha's, fresh squeezed orange juice, really friendly people, a money system that makes sense, absolutely beautiful scenery (there is so much green!  Both orchards and untamed green) and so much else that I will have to drag out in all my other posts and pictures :)

So, the day before school started, we trained and prepared.  Kaitlyn and I were nervous just because we didn't know what to expect!  It is so new and you can only prepare so much and then you just take the dive.  The first day was... okay.  It was hard, not in the I can't do this kind of way, but in the I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing kind of way.  My first class was KE (normally, the first hour is 5-6 year olds, and the second hour is 2-4 year olds, but that day we switched it around so we could go to the hospital and get our physicals.  So Kaitlyn and I taught the 2-4 year olds- we have that class together).  They are ADORABLE!!  There is one boy named Willie who knows more English than a lot of us realize.  He has a Filipino mom, who speaks to him in English.  They think he is autistic, which makes sense because he is all over the place!  But he is so smart!  Smart enough to do the exact opposite of what we ask.  We read a story about Clifford, the big, red dog.  Every time we said, dog, he would say, "cat!  Meeyow!!"  It was hilarious.  He's a character and although he's a handful, he makes class really interesting.  There is another boy named Kristofer, who is the son of one of the secretaries, Peggy, at the school.  He has to be the most adorable Asian baby I have ever seen!!!  I think he is 3.  There are just some of the cutest kids in that class and I love teaching them.

I LOVE this shirt! Made sure 

it was my 1st day shirt.

Kaitlyn's phonics video!

After we taught KE, Peggy took Kaitlyn, Kylie, Sunny and me to the hospital for our physical/check up thing.  The first thing they did was take our blood.  Okay, I have never had my blood taken.  I tried once!  I really wanted to give blood last year but I couldn't because of my low hemoglobin levels.  So, I was a little nervous, but only about the needle.  They didn't even take us into a special room or anything.  We walked in the Hospital and at what looked like check in desks, right in the lobby, they sat me down and a dude put a mask on and motioned to my sleeves, telling me to roll them up.  I looked back for Kaitlyn or someone, but everyone was preoccupied, so I rolled up my left sleeve and watched him prep.  Because he didn't speak much English he just did it.  No conversation, no, "okay I'm going to stick you now", no nothing.  I closed my eyes when he went in for it, but to my surprise, it didn't feel bad at all!  I got so confident that I looked at him sucking my blood into the vial.  Aaaaaaand then I turned away because it was a bit too much...  I don't know what it is, but I can look at blood and guts on anyone else and stay calm but on myself, I get a little freaked out.  Well, I stood up, proud of myself!  I started walking over to find Kaitlyn, but I felt so dizzy that I had to sit down.  I started to feel tingling and warmth on the back of my neck.  Ohhhhhh no, I thought.  I remember that feeling.  I fainted once before when I was in High School.  We were singing the Hallelujah Chorus in a show and I hadn't eaten or had any water.  It felt like that.  I saw Sunny and said as calmly as possible, "hey, Sunny.  I just wanted to let you know that I'm feeling a little light headed and I think I might pass out."  She raised her eyebrows at me and said, "put your head between your knees?  Do you want water?"  She was so sweet.  I said, "yeah, that might be good, thanks!"  I was starting to feel a little bit better when Peggy told us to follow her.  I guess we were in a hurry, but I wasn't ready to stand up.  I paused and thought about telling them I wasn't ready to stand up, but I opened my mouth and nothing came out.  It was so busy and they were in such a hurry that I just stood up and started to follow them.  I can do it, I thought.  No biggie.  I'll just go slowly.  Well, standing up alone made my head spin and there came the warmth and tingling.  It spread down my back and down my legs as I walked.  Oh, no, I thought, it's coming!  Then my vision started to fade.  I held on as hard as I could, but it was just no use.  It kept getting black and I could barely feel my legs.  I tried to tell everyone I was going to faint, but I'm not sure what actually came out of my mouth.  All I remember was saying, "sorry!".  I felt my knees give way, and then it was black.  I didn't hit my head on the ground because there were people really close to me and with whatever I said plus trying to hold myself upright for as long as possible, I guess it was enough for someone to catch me.  Gosh, I felt so bad!  I remember saying multiple times, "man, my body is such a wimp!".  I almost fainted again when I had to get an X-ray.  THAT was scary.  They put me on a platform and hold onto these metal bars.  If it wasn't bad enough that I felt the tingling and felt like I was fading, the platform started to raise up!  And THEN, the lady told me to hold my breath!  I closed my eyes and gripped onto the bars and held my breath.  I don't know what happened to me, but I don't really remember what happened after that.  I finally got to sit down for a while and they got me some water and a snickers and I felt a lot better.  Yeah, my body is a wimp.


So there was my hospital incident in way too much detail.  Well, we went back to school and taught the rest of the day! I taught AK, which is the 7 and 8 year olds.  It was good.  I am in charge of PE and snack.  It is pretty high energy because it's the fun activity part and it's hard for them all to sit still and listen at times, but they are such cute kids :).  Then I had 6th grade.  Oh boy.  They are a handful.  There are 13 kids, one of the biggest classes at Berhan, and they are crazy.  Well, not all of them.  There are those couple rowdy ones that rile some of the other ones up and make it crazy.  I want to be a fun teacher and do fun things, but I cant if they don't let me get through the lessons!  The first day, we didn't get through a lot of material because I was telling them all the rules and stuff and of course they were trying to see how far they could push me.  One kid, Adam, decided it would be really funny to make inappropriate jokes all through my lesson.  Finally,  I got right in front of his desk and said, "I know why you are laughing.  I was in 6th grade too and I know why you are laughing.  It is not appropriate for school and I will not tolerate it.  I will send you out to a secretary if you make any more of those comments or jokes."  (p.s. almost all of the secretaries are also teachers and discipline like Chinese teachers.  That's right, yelling and bamboo sticks.)  I haven't had any problems with it since!  But Adam really is a great kid, and smart, he's just...loud.  He's actually one of triplets who are all in my class.  His brother is Hank, and his sister is Krista and they look nothing alike!  But I have seen really similar personality traits.  All of my kids are good and know so much!  I have to squeeze it out of them, thought, that's the trick.  After a crazy Wednesday, the Lord blessed me with an AWESOME Friday!  We got through almost all of my planned material and had time to play human knot.  I was so proud!  The girls and boys are so afraid of physical contact it's funny.  It took me 5 or 10 minutes to get them in a close circle, and then another 10 minutes to get them to hold someone's hand across the circle.  But we finally got it and it was great!  I even played some American music, like Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift.  They got a kick out of it!  It was great.

We have the greatest thing here at the school, and that is the roof.  It is the best place to pump up music and dance and just mess around!  It's a lovely way to wind down.  If I lived in this place in America, where I wasn't working, I would string the place with colored lights and put in some furniture and have parties up there.  It's the best!  We've taken some fun pictures just being crazy.  Also, guess what?!  There are 2 guitars!!  I'm so excited! I was afraid that I'd have to go 6 months without playing.  Now I can sleep happy  :)

Just messin around

Rain!

...unless I wake up with a swollen face...  Yeah, so here is my last story for this post.  On Saturday, I woke up and my eye didn't feel right.  I couldn't really open it, but I thought it was because maybe I didn't wash off my makeup and my mascara clumped or something.  Nope, I looked in the mirror and my eye was completely swollen.  It was the scariest thing!  I iced it for 15 minutes before I called Gerald and told him I didn't know if I could go to my tutoring appointment.  He arranged for one of the secretaries, Amy, to take me to the hospital.  I was all alone for the first hour I was awake (I woke up a little earlier than everyone else to prepare and shower and such), so by the time the secretaries got to the school, I wasn't freaking out anymore.  That was good because everyone of them that I showed my eye to were horrified and said in broken English, "Ah! You want...hospital?"  I just smiled, and said, "yeah, that might be best".  If I heard those reactions at 7:30 when I woke up, I would be freaking out hard core.  So, Amy took me to the eye doctor.  I was so glad we didn't have to go to the hospital.  We popped in and popped out!  He said there was nothing wrong with my eye, but my skin around my eye.  So he gave me some cream and it helped the swelling go down really fast (and of course, it was super cheap, like $8).  I've been putting it on at night with some gauze and the morning before I head out.  It's magic, I swear!  I will wake up with a little swelling and 30 minutes after I put on the ointment, it's totally gone.  So, I am happy to announce that my eyes are now symmetrical.

Normal sized eye thanks to the magic Asian ointment

N: Day 2: Training and Shopping!

Work AND play!  This was a great day.  We started the day with training.  We did some phonetic review and went over basics of teaching English to native Chinese speakers.  It went pretty quickly, so that was nice.  All of us went to Lukang in the afternoon to walk around the little street markets.  It was SO much fun!  The first thing we found was a fun place to take pictures. (Leave it to Kaitlyn to find the best photoshoot places:))  It was a space between two buildings with old bricks and bright blue window frames.  We had fun:)

On the way to Lukang... :)

As we all walked into this little alley, there was a lady selling something, and yelling enthusiastically to people passing.  She would yell, "Happy New Year!" every few sentences.  When we all started walking down the way, she said, "OHH!" She counted us with her finger, "1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9!  9 Americans! Happy New Year!!" We all smiled at her and kept walking on down.

The next thing we found was ice cream!! Yeah!!  ...By the time we decided we didn't quite have an appetite for it anymore, it was too late.  An old lady asked which flavor we wanted.  We looked up to a face decorated with a giant chin mole and hair that should never grow like it did on her face... Hahahahaaaaa Oh, she was so elderly and nice, we just bought the ice cream. 

One of the little alleys

The main road

I love it!

It was fun looking at all the little places selling trinkets, food, clothes, little handmade things, art, and random stuff I have never seen before.  There was a stand with a bunch of umbrellas and we decided to look at them, seeing as we were in Taiwan with no umbrellas, rain coats, boots, or pretty much anything waterproof. A cute little old man came over and noticed we were looking at some really pretty, long umbrellas.  He took it off the stand and demonstrated how it opens (with a little button!).  I asked, "duo shao?" (how much?) He said, "yi bai kuai." (100 kuai).  That's not bad, like $3.50, I told Kaitlyn.  And they looked pretty nice!  So we got one for each of us.  (Good thing too, because it started raining when we got home and almost all day Sunday!)

Definitely the highlight buy of this little trip would be the purses we bought.  Kaitlyn forgot to bring a wallet or a purse, so this was a necessary buy for her!  We went into a store that was PINK. Pink everything and purses purses purses!  It was the most girly store I have ever been into next to Justice.  It was great, though!  I, not being a huge purse fan myself, had a lovely time looking at everything.  They were all really nice, expensive-looking, good quality, but super cheap!  I think I got mine for the equivalent of 5 US dollars and Kaitlyn got hers, essentially a backpack that doubles as a purse, for 10.  We were pretty excited to say the least :)

So, remember the lady in the little alley yelling Happy New Year?  Well as we passed again, she was yelling again in our direction; I guessed it was her usual advertising, so when she had made eye contact with me, I smiled and said, "bu yao, xiexie!" (I don't want anything, thank you!).  Her eyes lit up and she smiled and yelled something to me in Chinese.  I had NO idea what she said.  No idea.  She repeated herself.  I heard the word, "yu" (language) and I think, "guo" (country), but she spoke so fast and with such a weird accent, I had NO idea what she was saying!  As second or two later, a lady walking past translated, "do you speak Chinese?" I turned back to the lady.  "Oh!  Yi dian dian." (a little).  She smiled at me and yelled, "Happy New Year!" haha sooo awkward...  It just goes to show how different it is to hear what you learned in America versus the native speakers.  I'm pretty sure I learned every way possible someone could ask me if I speak Chinese, but no! I'm totally clueless here sometimes!

We went from Lukang to the night market down the street in Feng Yuan.  It was already dark and we were all kind of hungry and tired, so we only went there to get bread and fruit, but it was fun to walk through and see things!  There were games, food, clothes (surprisingly there were more places selling women's underwear than anything else), shoes, candy, trinkets, you name it.  We came to a place that sold all kinds of breads!  So what you do is you pick up a tray and a pair of tongs and fill up your tray, then give it to the dude and he packs it all up for you and puts it in a bag.  After that, we went over to the fruit lady.  She has water apples and guava (which I bought), and some other fruits cut up and put in little plastic boxes.  I think I've had both of those fruits before, because I was having weird flashbacks when I ate them...  They aren't my favorite, but they were still really fresh!  (What IS my favorite is passion fruit. Oh, yum!  One of the teachers, Erin, let me try some.  You cut one open and it's like a bowl of yellow, goopy stuff with seeds. But it's the sweetest tasting fruit!  It has the most delicious flavor and the seeds are good too.)  Another thing worth documenting is that I smelled chou dofu (stinky tofu), actually knowing that it was chou dofu in the night market.  At first, I just thought that sometimes it just smelled really gross for no reason!  But no!  There IS a reason... chou dofu.  They were selling it at the night market.  One day I will try it!  Just... not today.  So, that was the night market!