August 29 and 30th - Orientation Day and First Day of School

August 29:  Orientation Day

Today we had to wake up at 7 am to get to school by 8 am for orientation day.  A mad typhoon was at its peak point that day, so we were soaked and late.  We introduced each other, met people, and learned about the daily schedule.  A normal day starts with mopping and sweeping the school.  Then we go to our classes, which differ every day.  The person sitting next me is named Rebecca.  She helped me with a lot of things.  We later found out that her dad works at the same company as my dad, but not in the same department.  I didn't know what was going on in the first part of the day, but later on I started figuring out what to do.  I made four new friends.

Since the typhoon got worse over the day, my dad's company cancelled work in the afternoon.  We went to pick him up and got to eat at the company cafeteria.  The food was pretty good, but the chicken was really salty (sorry, Sofia!).  Some parts of Taiwan were flooded -- good thing our area has good drainage systems.


August 30:  First Day of School

The typhoon died down, but we still had heavy rains throughout the day.  Again I was late, and I almost missed the mopping time.  We sang songs in music class -- a really, really silly song.  One of the differences here is that the school has a nap time after lunch.  I woke up when the bell rang, but my neighbor, Rebecca, couldn't get up.  That was good nap.  Another difference is that we have homework every day.

Orientation day.  Dad took this picture through a screen.

A better picture of me through the window

lunch at dad's company's cafeteria

mopping floors

outside my classroom.  I'm holding a tiao shun (jump rope)

Aug 26, 27, and 28 - riding our new bicycles

August 26-28th:  Enjoying our new bicycles

The first three days of this week, my mom took us to ride bikes around the Science Park.  My mom was able to borrow one of six bikes from the apartment manager's office.  The first day we went to a lake and rode in a very muddy area, so we got all muddy.  The second day was our longest ride (9 km) and we rode to a preserve.  The third day we rode to the yellow ribbon, which is a huge modern sculpture that is a symbol for the Science Park.  That day's ride was shorter because my mom was sore from riding the first two days.

A reporter from a Taiwanese newspaper visited the Science Park to write about the new metal sculptures that were recently installed.  He was so happy to see us riding by and asked us to be part of the picture.  The next day, our picture was in the newspaper.  You can see the article here:

http://udn.com/NEWS/DOMESTIC/DOM5/8124972.shtml

http://udn.com/NEWS/DOMESTIC/DOM5/8124972.shtml

Aug. 24 - Aug. 25 - Exploring Tainan and getting bicycles!

August 24, 2013

Today I had my first violin lesson with a teacher in southern Tainan.  I was not excited and the teacher did not excite me, either.  He told me to work on my shifting, vibrato, legato, and keeping my fingers closer to the fingerboard.  We went to Darren's first cello lesson afterwards and then walked across the street to a traditional outdoor market.  We had stinky tofu, sugarcane juice and segments, various meat pies, and other doughy things.

Chewing on raw sugarcane

That night we went to Anping, which is a historical district in Tainan.  We walked around and tried different local foods, including, baked oysters, shrimp rolls, tea eggs, and brown sugar biscuits.

eating baked oysters in Anping

August 25, 2013

We went to the Rolling Egg, an American-style breakfast restaurant, with my dad's coworker.  He is from Australia and his children are half Chinese.  The lunch was tasty.

Darren, me, and Patrick at the Rolling Egg

That afternoon we headed south to Kaohsiung to a Giant Bicycles store to check out some used bicycles for Darren and me.  We found a blue 24", 21-speed bicycle for me and a silver 20", 7-speed bicycle for Darren.  The store refurbished both bicycles for us and even put new tires on mine.  I was super excited and happy.  We had to take off the front wheel of my bike in order to fit both bicycles in the trunk of our car.

July 18-22. Winding down and going back to San Diego

July 18 and 19, 2013

Today my dad went back to San Diego.  He took his computer with him, so I couldn't type my blog.  We went to the Mazda and Luxgen car dealerships to look at cars.  Luxgen is a Taiwanese car brand.  The cars we looked at were the Mazda 5 and Luxgen7 MPV.  Darren fell in the trunk of the Luxgen.  It was funny and he was laughing. 


July 20, 2013

We went to my mom's high school reunion at a restaurant called Pear Coffee.  Enrico was there again and we played outside and upstairs in the reading book center.  Instead of reading books, we watched TV and had a pillow fight.  Then we went to Enrico's grandparents' house and had red bean ice bars. 


July 21, 2013

We bought a silver Mazda 5 today. We will pick up when we return to Taiwan on August 12.  For dinner we had my favorite -- A-Kuan hot pot.  I had lot of vegetables and lamb.


July 22, 2013

We took a shuttle van to the airport in Taipei in the afternoon.  Then we flew back to the United States.  On the plane we played a game called Luxor.  We also played Pac-Man and Callie's puzzle.  When we landed in Los Angeles there were so many airplanes, so we had to go to another gate and took a bus to the customs area.  Then we got our luggage and Dad picked us up.  We spent the night at my grandparents' house in Hacienda Heights and had Baja Fresh tacos for dinner because we missed Mexican food while in Taiwan.

July 16 and July 17, 2013 - visiting Tainan again

We were going to Tainan to participate in some activities at the school I'm going to next year.  On the way there we visited a rest stop off the highway in Nantou for lunch.  This one had many restaurants, stores and a playground.  It's a lot more fancy than the ones in America because Taiwan is all about food.  We visited some car dealers to find a car that fit 7 people.  We are considering a Mazda 5 or Toyota Wish.  I like both cars, but the thing I really like about the Mazda 5 is that the middle seat in the back can be hidden under the one of the side seats.  We then went to our hotel in Shanhua and went to bed.

The next day we woke up early and had breakfast in the hotel restaurant.  On the way through the lobby we saw a grey mouse scurrying into the restaurant.  It looked like someone's pet mouse because its fur was slick and well-groomed.  When I reopened the door to go in the restaurant, the mouse ran back out and the lobby concierge took care of him.  The mouse was probably from the fields around the hotel.  Then we went to the school to participate in the activities.  We painted rock owls in the first session and made waffles in the second session.  It was really fun.

In the evening we came back to Taichung and were invited to a buffet called, "Las Vegas" by my grandparents' friends.  We had fried boneless fish, oysters, squid, sushi, and lots of dessert.

Trying out Mobo tricycles at Vulz Bicycles

Eating lunch at a rest stop in Nantou

Eating ice cream sandwiches

Learning how to make rock owls

Painting the owls

Finishing my first owl

Painting my second owl

Our finished owls

Making waffles

Darren taking out his waffles

July 14 and July 15, 2013 - getting shots and visiting Sanyi

July 14, 2013:

Today I had my violin lesson and we worked on a different section of the Meditation de Thais.  My teacher took us to the cafe in his building and treated us to drinks.  Darren got black tea and I got a chocolate drink.  In the afternoon we went to the day market and grabbed a small snack for lunch.  Then we walked around the town and found a pasta place for our early dinner.  I had pesto pasta and lots of tea.


July 15, 2013:

Today my mom told Darren and me that we were going to the doctor's office to get shots for a disease passed on from pigs by mosquitoes.  Shots are bad.  When we were waiting at the office, I just wanted to get it over with.  Darren went first and I was distracting him.  After he was done with his shot, then it was my turn.  It felt like a really hard pinch.

Then we went to the city of Sanyi, north of Taichung.  We had lunch at a Hakka-style restaurant.  Hakka refers to the original Taiwanese people that migrated here from China.  I loved the noodle dish.  After lunch we walked around area and saw lots of woodcarving and sculpture work.  There was a statue of a god with 1000 arms and each one was actually carved out.  In another store they had rocks that looked like different Chinese cuisine.  It looked like actual food from far away.  On our way home we went to a defunct train station in the city of Shengxing.  This train station was the highest in all of Taiwan.  We walked along the tracks and up to the tunnel.

Very enthusiastic waiting to get my shot

Getting a shot

Ke-jia (Hakka) food in Sanyi

The noodles were my favorite

Daily special - eggplant with intestines

Bamboo shoot stew

Yum!  these look pretty good! -- but they're rocks!

appetizer platter -- but they're rocks!

Elephant wood sculpture in Sanyi

Shengxing train station -- the highest train station in Taiwan

Walking on the streets of Shengxing

July 13, 2013 - After the typhoon

The wind was very strong last night and it woke me up twice. We were lucky because there was no power outage or water shortage (happens sometime due to poor water quality). There's no flooding here, but a lot of tree branches were all over the streets.  I stayed home whole day but Darren went to his cello lesson as usual. They brought home some pies from Rose Pie after the lesson and I had a red bean / milk pie which has meringue on top.  The rain stopped around 6 pm.