Final Round

welllll im sitting here in my room, with one day left in taipei, all my stuff is spread all over kinda gettin ready to pack and all htat... so i figured i owed it to all my readers to have one last entry so you can have some idea of what ive been up to before i come home and really tell you about it. haha so here it goes:

so class is the same, i went ot my last one today though and said my goodbyes... so sad. actualy it is pretty sad, all good kids and my teacher rocked, sooo funny. however studies have not been my focus lately... (ignore that mom!) haha, but i have been having a shitload of fun.

so first, i went to japan for a weekend to visit steph! wow, crazy weekend. it was amazing, and steph, youre the best host, thanks! i basically just chilled with her an dall her friends and did what they do there for fun. we went to karaoke, this picture so clearly delinates, and im totally coherent btw (close your eyes mom)....

we went to a beach, that was really overall kind of a bust, but still managed to have fun. and saw a guy voluntarily pants himself and take a lil stroll... and yes its true what they say. hahaha jk. kind of.
and we of course went clubbing. and ate ramen and sushi. adn i held a dinosaur egg; at her office where she works, weird huh? it was awesome and steph is the best. love you! thanks! and thanks to all your homies for showing me a good time, jason, denny, brian, daryl, patrick and michael...

yeah i am aware of the matching shirts. it was an accident. kind of. maybe we just thought it was cute ok...

then i had a really intense weekend of studying. when nick craig came to visit. if you wanna hear bout it, ask me later and i have no pics... sorry!

but yeah im not gonna lie, been partying a good amount. im a lil tired, a lil sad, excited, and just cant beleive im already leaving, but also cant beleive ive been away for so long. so all yall at home, im coming back. thanks taipei and all the people here! it was sweet.

yep. im still here!

hey hey. you all thought i gave up huh? not yet! haha, i think i got at least one more post in me. Soooo basically i found some way to make my life as much the same as possible all the way over here in taiwan. I found a futsal team, and play soccer pretty much all the time; I eat a shitload and am surrounded by asian people. See, about hte same.... I've been having a great time and seriously met so many awesome people from all over the world and Taiwan. I've been to a
Taiwanese water park; I've eaten at chili's here and at the grimiest smallest street vendors selling stuff that i dont even recognize as food, but its all about how it tastes...right? I've gone to places where you can drink all you want for 15 dollars; i've also been to places that at the end of the night i dont know where my 2000 nt went.... but the nightlife here is seriously tons of fun and goes on forever, and I teach 2 17 and 19 year old brothers english. Oh yeah and i guess i am
here for class huh? well thats going well too, my teacher is really cool, shes fucking hilarious. and all my classmates are good kids/married adults haha but its a fun group. most importantly it doesnt interefere with what im really here for... haha jk mom!

ive actually been taking pictures and ill show you guys when i get back but heres a couple to just give you an idea. hope this gives you some kind of idea of what im doin with my life over here...















the first one is me at dinner after one of our futsal games with some of teh guys from the team, and yeah i ate the rest of all that food you see there...

the second one is of our class and teacher. really awesome group...

me with all those asians... haha, most of them are actually from the states... but yeah htats us chillin at this hookah bar called bed. good time. we drank alot of juice... with vodka in it. and some boba. that had vodka in it too, haha.

thats room 18, one of the better clubs in taipei, at 3 in the morining...still going strong.

and the last one is me with one of my 2 english students, really nice kids

First week, real quick

I've basically been here a week... im having fun for the most part. during the weekdays i was on my own walking around pretty much all day everyday, i walked and looked at stuff, saw a couple sights, really i was just getting to know the city. good experience but extremely tiring...

this weekend i actually went out with other people! exciting i know. So saturday i went out all day with Tiffany, stephs cousin who lives here for now, and her husband jerry. they are both really funny and took me to this rural town where jerrys grandma lives and has a little business where she sells "flying lanters", picture is with jerrys gradma and mine and tiffs flying lantern. its a large lantern shaped origami like deal that you write wishes on and then light a little fire under it and it flys away. and hopefully your wish is granted. the town was really interesting to see and extremely localish, so im glad i got to see it!
ok most importantly we went to a HUGE night market. night markets in taiwn = lots of cheap shopping stuff, and.... FOOOOOD. so we walked around this enormous open air food court with stand after stand of fucking delicious meals and snacks and fruit and all kinds of good stuff. it was pretty awesome. theres alot more night markets i still have to go to! so im looking forward to that...

Sunday night i went to a concert. well thats what the people i went with told me before i went. i didn really expect a regular concert but this was REALLY different, but in a good way. it was a concert/performance honoring people iwth disabilities, not knowing this when i went in, i was a little shocked, but it was definitely moving. they go through some tough shit and do some pretty amazing things. there were dancers missing limbs, or wheelchair ridden, lots of blind musicians, a woman who could swim with no arms, a painter with no arms, and just alot of amazing people. i was really impressed with how impressive their stories were, even though i couldnt really understand what they were saying half the time. it was initially really sad, but hearing what they could do was actually uplifting, im glad i got to see it.

This week i start classes on wednesday... so we will see how taht goes. hasta luego

My first day

ok so taipei is cool. theres TONS of shops, like every street is packed with little stores selling fruit, or chinese food, or japanese food, or shoes. its ridiculous. and every 10 yards theres a coffee shop, they are obsessed with coffee. so my first day! exciting, um so its incredibly hot here, and super, super humid so i am pretty much sweating the entire day! yay! not my favorite part. but i went walking around all day despite how fucking hot it is, cuz im a baller :) and i actually got pretty well oriented with my immediate neighborhood, which i thought was pretty good! i ate some ramen at this japanese place, had some papaya milk, which is just milk blended with fresh papaya but it is way more delicious than it sounds... and just walked and walked looking at all the crazy shops. sooooo much food i could die and be like wow my version of heaven is just like taiwan. and theres tons of clothes, for cheap too! The family im staying with is really nice and they fed me dumplings and fruit so i like them already... however i have no friends here yet so its kind of boring alot of the time... and its hard speaking 90 % chinese! bc i dont really speak chinese.... tomorrow i register for classes! and ill probably walk around all day again, maybe ill try the subway system so i can see a new area...hmmmm. that is all. for now.