平溪天燈 Pingxi Sky Lanterns

Last night I went to the lantern festival at Pingxi on a tour arranged by the school. There was a fleet of buses arranged to take us from Shida to the location. The president of the R.O.C. (in the red jump suit below) made an appearance to write Taiwan's wish on the largest lantern there:

Here's me looking like some kind of door knocking evangelist with my name tag. That's my lantern in front of me. I forgot to write a wish on it and just wrote something like "I love Taiwan" on it...

Then a man came around with a blow torch to light up the lanterns. In a few seconds they all took off! So pretty, pictures can't really capture it.

It was like being in the movie 'Tangled' except without the swelling music and I wasn't on a boat with a perfect man. Also as we were leaving there were failed lanterns bursting into flames and falling onto trees, buildings and people which kind of ruined the mood!

Moustache Beautiful Dimension

I have decided to change my Chinese name. Previously, I was going by 奧麗維 (pronounced ''Ao lee way'') which is basically a transliteration of Olivia (with the ya cut of the end so that it would be three characters). I really dislike this name. Firstly, because it sounds awful and western. Secondly, because Chinese speakers put their surname at the beginning, and Ao isn't my surname, it is just part of my first name which is silly. Thirdly, because I can no longer handle the bullying that I have received from being 奧麗維從澳洲來 (''Ao li wei'' from ''Australia'' - The first character for Australia is pronounced almost the same as the first character of my name, which Chinese speakers seem to find HILARIOUS).

So without further ado, let me introduce myself. I am now 胡麗維 (pronounced Hu lee way). The ''Hu'' coming from Hussey, clearly. It means moustache, which I find completely suitable considering my English surname is also ridiculous. 胡 is a pretty common Chinese surname, so I think it is alright!

你們說中文的人， ‘胡麗維’ 怎麽樣？Let me know :)

Dumplings! 水餃!

Dumplings are possibly my all time favourite food! Words can't express the joy they bring me. I also take a lot of pride in my dumpling creating skill. (See below image, taken in 2010 - I'm teaching my homestay family in Beijing how to produce the perfect dumpling shape...)

So I was very happy to discover that today in my Chinese cuisine class, we were going to be making some lovely jiaozi. Yay. I took home about 20 to store in the freezer until cravings strike me down. Anyway, here's some photos of today's cooking!

BSF Group Dinner

Went out for dinner tonight with some friends from my BSF group. We went to a lovely place called Costumice Cafe. Yummy food, and enjoyable conversation (I think it was enjoyable, I could understand about 70% of what was happening...)

EXAM tomorrow. My brain is still in holiday mode... It's only a small test though so everything should be fine. Mei guanxi...

烏來 Wulai

Wulai is a quaint little place just over an hour from Taipei. We had to catch the MRT to Xindian, and then a bus which took about 45 minutes. There were no seats, and the road was really winding and horrific. When we arrived at Wulai, we got on a little train tour thingy. I think it was used during the Japanese occupation for transporting some kind of goods, but now it's a tourist thing.

As you can see in these pictures, the weather today was AMAZING. The sky was actually blue, and I had a chance to wear a hat!

The national park area was very scenic, with multiple waterfalls.

Claire, myself, Reina and Sarah

Myself, Claire, Sarah and Reina

We went for quite a long bush walk/hike. 很累啊！The ground was very slippery, and I feared for my life quite a bit.

After all of that, we had some snacks and visited a museum dedicated to the Atayal people (one of the largest tribes of indigenous people in Taiwan).

I found it really quite interesting that the Taiwanese people have made such an effort to respect and honour the culture of these people. The museum was huge considering the fact that Wulai itself was only a small place, and I found myself questioning how little recognition the indigenous people of Australia are given. Claire also knew quite a lot about Taiwan's original inhabitants because she had learnt it at school. I feel like my Mueller education has definitely failed me in that regard. I now know more about the Atayal people than Indigenous Australias.

After the museum, me and Sarah dipped our feet in the public hot springs with a few of the locals while Claire and Reina decided that it wasn't for them. We ate some more food, then headed home.

Anyway, I am incredibly tired. This week has been super busy! On Monday I'm back to class, and I even have an exam to make things worse. So I'll probably be spending the rest of the weekend studying (read: sleeping).

Another rainy day in Taipei!

To save ourselves from the boredom of yet another bad weather day in Taipei, a group of us decided to go to KTV. We sung a mix of English and Chinese songs, and stuffed our faces with food from the buffet. Yum.

Me, Young, Sarah, Reina and Claire enjoying KTV.

After karaoke, we went over to Sarah's house for a movie and dinner. We were joined by Vicki (who left before we took the photo) and Tiffany.

Me, Tiffany, Reina, Sarah and Claire about to enjoy our meal!

Lovely food prepared by Claire and Sarah. YUM.

After our meal, we played a Taiwanese board game. It was very much like monopoly except for the fact that if you landed on someone else's property (restaurant, in this case) then you didn't have to pay any money. So the bank just kept giving everyone money (Claire was the banker, and this was lots of hard work for her). There was no incentive to spend any money really, so the game could possibly be played for hours and hours. We didn't finish the game but we enjoyed saying all the Taiwanese food names!

鹿港 Lugang

After we'd seen Zhonghua we caught a bus to Lugang (aka. Lukang). It took around 45 mins. Knowing that Lugang had experienced it's prime during the early 19th century (it was one of the largest cities in Taiwan for a while) we had expected a fairly small, nostalgic sort of place. However, it was quite built up and lively. We noticed straight away that not many Westerners are usually seen in Lugang (we got quite a few strange looks and ''HALLO!''s).

We had lunch at a stall that looked tempting. It was delicious.

We checked into the hotel and found it to be small but comfortable, until we looked in the bathroom and realise that they'd given us two absolutely tiny hand towel sized items in place of actual towels.

Dinner was FEICHANG HAO CHI (yum)!

Afterwards we played some intense card games.

On Wednesday morning we set about to further explore Lugang. We borrowed some bikes from the tourist information centre and rode around to several parks, markets and temples.

When I got back to my apartment, I said to myself "It's good to be home". I missed Taipei when I was away for just two days. I'm sorry Brisbane but you can't have me back, I'd like to stay here.

彰化 Zhonghua

On Tuesday morning me and Sarah caught a train to Zhonghua (or Chunghua). There were no seats left on the train so we purchased some ultra classy standing tickets, which meant that most of the 3 hours trip was spent sitting on the floor while being stared at.

We arrived at Zhonghua, and hiked up a mountain to find a massive Buddha statute, and a whole scenic temple area with markets etc.

Lots of families in the garden feeding the fish!

新年快樂！Happy New Year!

I had a wonderful authentic Chinese New Year experience today. My friend Ruby from church invited me to come to her house with her family for lunch/dinner. Sarah, John and myself caught the bus out to LinKou (in the suburbs) which took about an hour and a half. Then we ate some delicious Chinese food and enjoyed some wonderful conversation with Ruby's family and friends.

Ruby's Mama made a lot of great food!

(Chinese) New Year's Eve

Very busy day today! After church I went out to lunch with some friends.

Esther, myself and Ruby not realising that there is a photo happening

Afterwards me and Sarah went to buy train tickets for our trip to Lugang on Tuesday, and we went to DiHua Street to see if anything exciting was still happening there (it wasn't). Then tonight I went to the pastor's house along with all the other lonely foreigners who had no Chinese family to spend time with. We ate lots of yummy foods and watched a movie.

今天晚上因爲我們都沒有中國人家人，我跟很多外國人到Pastor 的家去過。我們吃過很多好吃的東西，看看電影。對不起，今晚我的中文不太好，因爲我太累了。 你可以念我的英文， 在上面^^