Taipei 101

Happy New Year!! 

So Rudy and I spent New Year's Eve with some of my friends at Taipei 101!  

It's really difficult to take pictures of fireworks, especially since I haven't bothered to learn how to use my camera properly.

This is a gajillion people trying to make it back into the subway station after the fireworks.  It took us about 45 minutes just to make it from here to that big "2."

So this is how I spent my New Year's Eve in Taiwan, a full 14 hours ahead of my friends at home!  I hope eveyone else had a great New Year's and may we keep all the resolutions we've made for '09!  *fingers crossed!*

2009!

First up, some pictures from my trip to Japan!

This is me in front of the Hiroshima A-bomb Dome.

Pretty picture of the dome, this was one of the few structures still standing near the epicenter of the bomb.

I saw geishas (maiko) in Kyoto!

So as not to overload blogger, I'll make another post with pictures from my New Year's night at Taipei 101.  Hope everyone likes the pictures!

JAPAN!

I just got back from snowboarding in Japan yesterday and I am exhausted! I loved Japan, their cities are super clean and they have just the right amount of mix between old and modern architectural styles. The people there are really cute and they are way too curteous for their own good. Besides getting a small cold and getting held up in immigration on my way back, this was such a great trip!

I went to Osaka, snowboarded in Hiroshima, and toured a little bit in Kyoto. I went to go see my friend Thomas, and he was so great to show me around the country! We ran around and pretty much owned whatever town we were in. It was refreshing to get to speak fluent and coherent English pretty much the whole time I was there.

Snowboarding is ridiculously hard but I sort of figured it out on the second day. I managed to beat myself up learning so I've got several big bruises on my legs. Thank goodness our hotel had great hot springs so we could unwind every day afterwards.

Food-wise, I had great okonomiyaki in both Osaka and Hiroshima but I do have to say that I preferred Hiroshima style better. I also had amazing sukiyaki in Kyoto and I finally got to eat conveyer sushi! Now to plan my next trip... Korea anyone??

Pictures to come soon!

Hualien

This weekend, a bunch of my coworkers and I went on a biking trip to Hualien. It was great to go to a new place in Taiwan since I feel like I've been to Taiwan every other summer for my entire life but really have never been outside of three cities! We biked around a ton and basically just enjoyed the scenery, sadly, it was probably the most exercise I've gotten in the past three years.

I met some Americans there, since this place is a favorite spot for tourists, and I realized how rusty my English has gotten! I kept second guessing myself when I spoke, which is weird since my job requires me to read and write English all day, but I guess without speaking it every day, you can loose that fluency really quickly. Obviously, I can still speak English fine and without a crazy accent or anything like that, but I think that sometimes I couldn't talk as quickly and as fluently as I usually do at home.

Anyway, now I am trying to figure out how to get myself to the airport early Thursday morning so I can go spend Christmas in Japan! It can be difficult to be without a car. I never realized that I liked driving so much until now. I can't wait to go skiing, it'll be perfect to see snow for Christmas.

Well, I will leave you with some pictures from the trip for now. Enjoy! And Merry Christmas!!


P.S. I just noticed that my Chinese Word of the Day application hasn't posted a new Chinese word since I've put it up. Sort of defeats its own purpose ... I will have to look into it.

Christmas Cow

This picture was just too great to pass up sharing. I'll definitely miss being in America for this Christmas holiday. Being away from it all makes you really miss the hyper-commercialized yet hyper-traditional and uniquely American holiday. On what other holiday can we enjoy not only great food, great family, great friends, AND great gifts? Possibly a wedding but that's only fun for two people. Now, I've already shared what I'll be doing for Christmas, so now I'd like to know that YOU're doing for Christmas!

I Got a Catfish

Before, I think I had been having a hard time transitioning to life in Taiwan. After all, as an editor, my best asset is my command of the English language which is difficult to take advantage of in a social situation here in Taiwan. But as of now, I have found friends at work and many other things for which to be thankful for, which makes life in Taiwan much easier, although I still get homesick now and then. And I still can't be happier that I'll be moving back to the states around May.

Things for which I am thankful for.. currently:

1) I got a small catfish for my tank. Its super cute and works as a miniature janitor in my tank. I'm considering letting him work in my coworkers' tanks too... although he's a pretty pricy fellow ;).

2) This weekend I'm going to Hualien with my coworkers. Hualien is a beautiful part of the country where people go out to hike and bike around. It'll pretty much be an outdoorsy sort of merriment.

3) Christmas will be spent in Japan with other Americans. I'm thankful for this opportunity to not only visit Japan for my very first time but also to spend Christmas with friends. I think that Christmas would be disappointing at the office and in a country where people only celebrate Christmas because its trendy.

I, of course, have many other things to be thankful currently. But I mostly am glad that I have found my bearings here. I know that four months seems like a long time to finally get used to a place, but thats where I am right now!

P.S. This experience has not only made me appreciate how other people live around the world but I really think that it has allowed me to appreciate how much one can become fond of their "home."

Biking Around Taipei

Yesterday, I totally had a "Now and Then" moment. For those that don't know, "Now and Then" was a great childhood movie for me. It's a 1995 film about four women who get together and reminisce about their days as childhood friends growing up in suburbia in the 1970s. For me, its particularly iconic moments are when the four (as preteens) bike around their suburban town in search of adventure. So yesterday when I experienced such a vivid "Now and Then" moment that I thought I would share it.

In Taipei, it is difficult to get around with a car even if you have one, due to the lack of parking spaces. So yesterday when a couple of friends and I decided to go shopping around town, we decided to bike. Obviously biking around a large city is very different from biking around a 1970s suburban movie set but while biking I felt the wonderful euphoria that comes with the joy of feeling wind rush past your face and the vivid impression that I, myself, was placed inside my favorite childhood film.

Although I am completely out of shape and nowhere near athletic, I feel like biking can be a great way to explore a city, its a bit faster than walking and its definitely more convenient than driving. Its unfortunate that most suburban towns like the one I grew up in can be very inconvenient for sightseeing by bike -- maybe only for biking as a means of excercise. This I find disappointing since in the movie the girls all seemed to have a ton of fun biking around their neighborhoods. Maybe I'm too old to remember what childhood is like, but I don't remember biking around Allen, Texas with my best friends to raise money for a tree house!

Perhaps this newfound inspiration to bike around will take hold and the next time I travel will be by bicycle... we shall see. Until then, here is a picture that I thought best describes how I felt. Enjoy!