Taipei, Taiwan

For the past few months i've kinda just been hanging out. I keep pretty busy with grad school and I've subbed some at schools in the area. My job at the Duksung University starts on March 3 which is coming up quickly! In order to work in another country you have to have a special workers VISA which requires you to leave the country in order to get it. After my job at my last school ended, my VISA was cancelled so last week I went to Taipei in Taiwan to get a new one. Taipei was one of the cheapest cities to fly to and I was pretty excited about going to Taiwan. I stayed in a hostel which is like a small hotel for young travellers so I met some cool people who were travelling or waiting to teach in other countries. There were several people from South Korea in my hostel, and it was really cool to be able to talk about Seoul and have so many things in common! There were actually people from all over the world at the hostel, from China, Canada, and Afghanastan just to name a few. Everyone obviously spoke different languages but when we all hung out, English was the common ground. It really is the universal language!

My first day in Taipei, I had to go to the South Korean Embassy to drop off my paper work for my VISA. It was pretty interesting that first day, trying to figure out the subway and taxi's. Luckily I had someone at the hostel write down the address in Mandarin (a dialect of Chinese that is spoken in Taiwan), because not as many people spoke English as I had expected on the streets. I made it there and then walked around the city for awhile. My first sight seeing stop was the 101 Building, which is the tallest building in the world, and also has the fastest elevators in the world. They went up at about 340 miles an hour and made your ears pop worse than airplanes, it was amazing! We were up to the 98th floor in a matter of seconds. There was an observatory where you could see almost all of the city and it had amazing views! I walked around for awhile longer, but had a hard time finding food and the main sites in the city. So...I headed back to the hostel to get advice from the owner and others staying there.

Taipei is known for its temples and night markets. The city really comes alive at about 7 PM when the night markets open, and they stay open until about midnight. The night markets had a lot of shopping where you could bargain, food stands and games. It was interesting to see all the food...which I must say scared me just a little! The animal of choice there was pig, and I can assure you they don't stick to simple pork chops. They eat EVERY part of the pig, the favorites being the ears, feet, stomachs, brains and intestines. Gross!!! Another well known dish is actually called stinky tofu. If the name alone isn't enough to scare you away, all it takes is one wiff...oh my gosh! It smelled like horrible BO mixed with vomit...it's the first time I played it safe with the foods I chose to consume. I saw some things, if you can call them that, being ingested that I will not soon forget!

The next day I had the hostel owner show me where to go on a map, so I was fully prepared! Unfortunately the weather was a cloudy with rain off and on, but it was in the 50s or 60s so that was a nice change from the cold Korean weather. It was so funny to see the Taiwanese people walking around the streets in 50 degree weather, wrapped up in heavy coats, scarves, hats and gloves. It's their winter season and almost the coldest it gets so they take advantage of this in order to bust out their winter gear. Meanwhile, I was wearing a lighweight jacket, and walking around sweating! I would hate to see them last an hour in South Korea right now where even the days get down to -10 Celcius.

I went to the Gondola, which was built in the last view years. If you don't know, a gondola is like an inclosed ski lift that you ride up a mountain to enjoy the view. I got off at the top and walked for about 3 miles to one of the most famous temples in Taiwan. At this point, the temples and architecture I saw was exciting. After the gondola I took out my map and went to a few of the other places the hostel owner had marked. And guess what...they were all temples! They were beautiful to see, but I must say, I've seen enough temples to last me awhile. I went back to the night market on my last night and shopped and ate a little, then picked up my VISA the next morning and headed home.

This was the first trip I've taken entirely on my own and I think I'll do more research next time! It wasn't one of my favorite places i've travelled, but I'm glad I went and had the experience. I learned a lot about Taiwan that I didn't know, like the people speak Mandarin/Chinese...and the Taiwanese language is being faded out.

I start work soon so pray for me and I love and miss you all!

Hwacheon Ice Festival

Last weekend I went to an ice festival in Hwacheon, which is a town in South Korea about an hour and a half from Seoul. There were a group of 13 of us who went for the weekend and it was a blast! North Carolina doesn't get much snow or ice, so it was pretty exciting. A huge river was frozen and there were a lot of different things to do. There was a big area to go ice fishing, where there are holes drilled in the ice and you sit with a ice fishing rod hoping for a bite. There were also huge hills and slides to sled down, ice skating, ATVs on the ice, and a huge sculpture made out of snow and ice that you could actually walk inside. I knew some of the people who went but met a lot of new people as well. It's always fun to get out of Seoul for the weekend and the Ice Festival was a great weekend. We stayed in a pretty nice hotel about thirty minutes from the festival and took a cab back and forth.

Our first night in Hwacheon we all went to a typical Korean restaurant/bar, where you sit on the floor around a table and order Korean dishes and alcohol. I tasted some things I haven't had before, like vegetable pancakes and a spicy soup with tofu and vegetables. We hung out and talked forever. The owner of the restaurant brought our her two dogs for us to see, and like typical Korean style, their hair was dyed bright colors like yellow and orange...what a sight!

The next morning we got up at a decent hour and headed to the ice fesival. We walked around all day, went sledding, rode the ATVs and also used these small wooden boards with ice skate blades on the bottom. It was fun but different! You sit on the board and push yourself around on the ice using wooden sticks with picks on the ends. We all felt like kids again! It proved pretty difficult to walk on ice steadily and I slipped several times. Fortunately I avoided busting completely!

There was also a huge street filled with food vendors. The festival was kind of in the middle of nowhere, and the foods were a little different than dishes we were used to. Quail was really popular, but I wasn't brave enough to try it by looks alone. They looked like little birds, which they are, with their heads and feet still attached. A lot of people were roasting big hunks of pork that smelled so good, so that's what we went with and it was excellent. Overall we had a great time and I'm so glad I had the opportunity to go!