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.