Location | Taipei

This weekend I ended up staying in Taipei. I’m gaining a lot of weight… probably because I stopped the carb diet… I must go back to the no carb diet. Anyway, yesterday I went to Bali and then to Tianmu. I got some clothes so I can wait until I go back to Taichung to do laundry. I think I’m catching a cold again too… I have a stuffy nose in the morning.

Today I’m going to go see Shrek 2. Wooo… I really want to eat deli food too… at least deli is semi healthy!!

I’m trying to move out by Wednesday. I still need to find a place. I’ve had 2 encounters with huge cockroaches in my room. Needless to say… there was a lot of screaming and yelling and beating down the thing with an asian swiffer.

Well, I’m going to go get ready to leave now.

[This entry was taken from my old blog, Away from Home. Formatting may have changed when moved to Explore!]

Location | Taipei

Today was a very nice day. I woke up early. Ate McDonalds. Went to class. It rained very hard. Went house hunting with Lusi. (The house btw sucked cuz it was small and the place was far from the subway station and the rent was high). Then I went to Ximen to see a movie with my cousin and the movie was: HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN!!!

The movie this time depicted almost everything how I imagined minus a few things (and this doesn’t include the “new stuff” or the “cut stuff” either just talking about the stuff you see in the movie.

Those things that weren’t the same:

1. Marauders Map. I imagined it as smaller.
2. Remus Lupin. Yes I didn’t imagine him looking like that and I still won’t.
3. Dementors. Boy those things didn’t look as cool as I imagined.
4. Crookshanks. How come I don’t remember it looking like that?
5. Shrieking Shack. Yeah… I didn’t think it looked like that.
6. Draco’s hair. Man, he needs the evil guy slicked back look again.
7. Cornelius Fudge. Yeah… nothing like I imagined.
8. Layout of the Knight Bus. I kind of imagined it more flipped around… and the furniture more stationary…
9. The Patronus Stag. So I’m dumb and thought a stag was a horse. BTW, how did Harry know his dad was a Animagus Stag?

Ok! OFF OFF AND AWAYYYYY!!!

[This entry was taken from my old blog, Away from Home. Formatting may have changed when moved to Explore!]

Location | Taipei

Well, I’m back to coming to the library after class. Tonight I’m supposed to go to Tian Mu to eat dinner with my cousin. That’s at 7 though… so I’m stuck roaming until then. Perhaps I will go to a bookstore or Page One a little later. Whatever works out. Perhaps the CKS Memorial.

Anyway, let’s talk about things Taiwan. I’m getting eaten alive my mosquitoes apparently. My legs are covered in battle scars. … From my scratching while I am sleeping. HOW TRAGIC!!!

I’ve been reading Hana Yori Dango here. I’m on volume 27 now (yay I get to go home and read it!!) The salad here sucks by the way. Don’t eat salad in Taiwan. It just tastes plain gross…

I can read lots of chinese now… sort of. I can at least read basic words… but there are still too many words that need to be learned. ACK. I have a pre-test tomorrow. I am going to cry since I don’t know chapter 3 and 4. *tears*

The bright part of my day, Mr. Gallardo, is going off to Chicago for the weekend. OH CRAP! I forgot to tell him that he should bring his laptop since most hotels have free internet service now… UHHH MISTER IAN… BRING YOUR LAPTOP!!!

I’m wearing my new shoes since I can’t enter the library wearing sandals. (aka flip flops) I’m so sad. I love my flip flop platforms. They’re sitting nicely in my backpack now.

Oh, I changed the date of when I’m going home. Now I’m returning on August 14th. I’M GOING TO MAKE IT HOME IN TIME FOR ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY!! Woohoo! (Well sort of one year anniversary, one year minus one month… sorry ’bout that… hehehe…)

AHA! The book in the glass display in front of me says “First rate book, first rate person!” AHAHAHAHAHAHA… I CAN READ!!!!

Uhh… yeah. Man, am I really bored or what?

BTW!! My real address is: 台中市西區樂群街92號3樓 NOT 70… Crap.. Don’t send any mail there…

Ok, time to stop writing! Byeeee!!!

[This entry was taken from my old blog, Away from Home. Formatting may have changed when moved to Explore!]

Location | Taipei
Thomas: >_< you know, when you post “Typhoon is coming” in your blog and then don’t show up for a week, I get just a liiittle worried

Yay! I’M ALIVE!!!!

After not having internet for a day and almost crying about it, I’m back and it’s fixed!! They threw my Ethernet cord out after my roommate moved out, cuz it’s hers and they thought that since she moved out, she was basically throwing it out… so now it’s dragged back into the room and I have internet!!

Let’s run down the things I’ve done this past week!

Thursday: Went home…
Friday: Woke up at 4am to go with my mom to the airport. Ate at Au Bon Pain. Mmm… Got Peking Duck.
Saturday: Went to Chung-Yo area and bought a Puma tracksuit, sweat capris, Puma purse, and Adidas shoes
Sunday: Went to Dim-sum with my great uncle and his daughter my “aunt” and then shopped around at Sogo. Then went to Carrefour. Bought the Usher “Confessions” CD.
Monday: Returned to Taipei, went to Taipei 101 with my cousin, internet was out

Today: Went to Ximen with Harry, George, and Lusi. Then went to Shilin Night Market with my cousin.

Today I purchased: a pair of shoes ($11), a Puma tank top ($6) and a Puma skirt ($9)

Tomorrow we’re going karaoke-ing. La di da. Ok… enough update for now. Will write more later.

[This entry was taken from my old blog, Away from Home. Formatting may have changed when moved to Explore!]

Location | Taipei

Typhoon is coming.

Today I went to the hot springs. It was very nice just to sit in the tub and not move around. Very soothing and very relaxing. Though when I got out I looked like a prune.

Umm… in other news… my Beckham picture fell off the wall… I taped it up with a bandaid… that is probably why.

Offf offf!

[This entry was taken from my old blog, Away from Home. Formatting may have changed when moved to Explore!]

Location | Taipei

Things on my mind:
>Apparently a typhoon is coming
>Ian is not online
>Poisonous bugs that cause your whole body have have an allergic reaction
>My roommate is moving out
>My mom is going back to America
>Thai food is spicy
>I still need a dictionary
>Chinese characters are too complicated
>I still live on a mountain…
>Aloha buses are great

Yeah, so that’s all currently on my mind. So let’s go topic by topic:

Special meals:
Saturday night and Sunday afternoon my aunt took us out for some really fancy meals. Saturday dinner was at a “western style” restuarant. We had fried rice balls, then salad in vinagrette, then spanish rice and spinach noodles, then lamb chops, and finally a gelatin dessert. I thought it was ok, but I felt sick afterwards… probably because I’d been eating lots of Taiwanese foods and not enough western food.

Sunday afternoon was m uncle’s birthday lunch. We went to a super fancy restaurant on the 11th floor of the Idee department store. Private room of course. For that meal there was shark fin soup, abalone, lamp chops, scallop in egg, cold meat platter, chicken soup, grilled fish… and for dessert was this AWESOME warm pudding… I’m not sure how it was made, but it was WONDERFUL… and fruit and then shrimp dumplings. Overall, it was quite enjoyable.

Aloha Bus Service:
This week I tried out Aloha Bus Service from Taipei to Taichung. Let me just say, it was VERY enjoyable. There is an attendant and you get water, a snack, and a wet napkin. You also get a blanket. Then there is your own personal tv screen. You get to watch several movies or play video games! Then the chair is a MASSAGE SEAT!!! Plus it reclines a lot. Let me just say that it was the most enjoyable ride I’ve had in a long time. 😀

Poisonous bugs:
Apparently there is a kind of poisonous bug here and if you just touch it it squirts (or something) a poison onto you that causes you to itch and therefore causing you to have red bumps all over the parts of your body that itches. One of these bugs crawled out from the newspaper my aunt was reading and she just flicked it away and she got sprayed by the bug… SCARY!! Apparently if you come into contact with one (like you see one) the only way to rid of it “safely” is to blow it away… I’m not sure how effective that is, but I’m scared to death of this kind of bug. Apparently it sprayed some girl’s face and her whole face was completely red and puffy… SCARY!!

Typhoon:
Apparently a typhoon is coming. I’m both excited and scared. Excited because this will be my first typhoon. Scared because I live on a mountain. Crap.

Ok everyone, send me emails and give me things to do.

My address is: 台中市西區樂群街70號3樓 (sorry if you can’t see the Chinese characters). This is my grandmother’s address… just write my name on it and she’ll get the message that it’s for me. 林安娜 <– My Chinese name.

Errr yes, that is all. WAKE UP IAN.

[This entry was taken from my old blog, Away from Home. Formatting may have changed when moved to Explore!]

Location | Taipei

The weather is absolutely insane here. It’s nice, then it rains, then it’s nice, then it rains, then it’s ABSOLUTELY UNBEARABLY HOT, then it rains, THEN UNBEARABLY HOT…

You get the point.

Anyway, I’ve been suffering through 3 days of class so far. It’s not really that bad because it’s only 2 hours and the teacher is always late and we get a 10 minute break and all the kids are really funny. We pretty much make fun of the teacher the whole time… I feel bad for her, I don’t think she gets the fact that we’re in college and not second graders.

Well yesterday I went and bought a whole bunch of electronics. I just counted up how much everything cost and it’s actually US$118 or NT$4100. Not bad. I have to pay my cousin back at the moment though because he paid for almost everything. I got a light blue mp3 player, a mini webcam, and a usb hub. They all work and they’re all really nice. I just need to get nicer batteries for the mp3 player.

My face is going through an awful transition. The weather here is making it dry then oily then dry then oily. I don’t think I can take it anymore… because my face is going to come back acne ridden… because apparently the stuff that I use now is not working very well in this environment… AAAHHH!!!

Um… yeah sorry about the description. Anyway, if anyone has a webcam and wants to talk to me, I suggest using msn messenger. It’s so much nicer. (At least for webcam)

Ok, I have to go to class soon, so I’m going to go get ready.

[This entry was taken from my old blog, Away from Home. Formatting may have changed when moved to Explore!]