Adventures in Odee-Land My explorations of Asia and beyond!

Taiwan, here I am! Haha, I know I haven’t updated in a while, but I was getting accustomed to Taiwan and the dorms and everything.

Speaking of dorms, I live in an all-girl dorm…WTF, RIGHT?? Not to mention, these dorms are ridiculously quiet because everyone at National Taiwan University (NTU) is hella quiet. Damn, I gotta stop going to nerdy schools. Okay, but it’s not so bad because I have a friend who lives across from me, so it’s kind of like having a roommate. Plus, it’s kind of cool that I live in a single, because for the first time in my life, I have my own room! I make my own mess and clean my own germs.

Here’s my wall with all my most beloved people…I used these pictures to cover the damn crack on my wall. Okay, so I’m not the neatest person in the world…

Hm, okay, so I actually haven’t explored thatttt much, but I will! And actually, I don’t have that many pictures either because my camera kind of broke (sorry Ahia). It’s still okay, but it kind of randomly goes crazy, so I’ve gotten used to not carrying my camera around. So basically, most of these pictures are pictures that I jacked from my friends, haha

Here are my adventures thus far:

Taipei 101 - The second (or third, whatever) tallest building in the WORLD! It’s called Taipei 101 because there’s 101 floors…but it’s kind of a lie, because it really only has I think 95 floors…the rest of the floors are empty. I thought there would only be a view, but actually, there’s also this really cool circular thing inside that makes it super extra earthquake-safe. Oh, oh, and the elevator is SUPER FAST! I think it only took 36 seconds to go up 90 floors (we had to walk the rest of the way, those beezies).

The view…it was a very foggy day.

Oh, and the first time we were supposed to go to 101, we got distracted by all the pretty lanterns and lights nearby.

PingXi - So every year, there’s this Lantern Festival some X number of days after Lunar New Year and everyone goes to PingXi to write their wishes on lanterns and light them up into the air. Fun, right??? …not so much. Actually, I think it would have been a lot more fun if we had left earlier. And to be honest, I had fun! But it took us 3.5 hours for us to take the MRT and train to get there…and another 3 hours to get back! So…we spent 6.5 transporting ourselves and in the end, we only spent 1.5 hours there. But honestly, it was really fun!

Yay! See our wishes? Oh, please, lord, give us jobs!! Oh, and of course, take care of all our lovely friends as well, haha.

Whee, look at our wishes flying into the air!

Fireworks!! It was soooo 熱鬧! So much fun!

Look at how disgustingly crowded the trains were. I seriously felt like I was in China in a time of war. Everyone was pushing and pulling against each other. Geez, if you thought Muni was bad, that ain’t nothing compared to these trains.

Crazy people jumping into the train tracks and hopping over the fence:

Clubbing: Ladies Nights on Wednesdays…free entrance, and some places are even free drinks! Wheeee! Except somehow, we still always manage to end up having to pay. Damn. haha But it’s fun! The first place we went was this place called Pasoul. We had to pay entrance, but it was free drinks, and for the amount of alcohol that I need to consume to get tipsy, I guess it was pretty worth it. I also learned that the only thing that works is tequila…and lots of it!

PaSoul…look at how disgustingly smoky that is. God, I hope I don’t get lung cancer from all that second-hand smoke.

The best club is probably Luxy because it’s soooooo pretty!! And it’s big! See, even the bathroom is pretty.

OMG and last time we went to Luxy, there was this band called Magic Power there. I had no idea who they were, but there was a really hot guy in the band! Actually, two cuties! I wish I took better pictures, but my camera was going crazy again.

Rooftop of my dorm: This is probably one of my favorite places. Dude, I don’t even need to go to the top of 101 to get a nice view, because I can go up to my roof for free! We usually just go up here to drink and chat and just admire the beautiful view. This place is gorgeous. We usually go at night, but today, I purposely went up just to take pictures for this blog. It’s a bit foggy today, but look at the view!

And we also get to see the boys’ dorm…*wink* *wink* haha jk, none of them are really worth winking at… (but they’re all very very nice people!)

Karaokeing…or as the call it here KTV: Dude, let’s just say it comes with food…and lots of it! The last place we went to, they had a buffet and then they had little food elevators to bring our trays up to our rooms. Legit, right? Now, if only they had more English songs…it’s aite though…as long as I get at least one *NSYNC song, I’m happy. Plus, I can practice my terrible Chinese! I even brought a set of lyrics last time, with the pinyin written down…too bad the song was so fast and difficult, I still mumbled 3/4s of the song haha

FOOD. Okay, I love food, but honestly, I’ve been a little disappointed, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t eaten delicious food! I’m still a sucker for all my luo bo si bings (turnip cakes), lu wei (sorry I can’t translate this), lu dan (yummy eggs), lu rou (yummy fatty pork), cong zhua dan bings (onion pancakes…with EGGS), xiao long tang baos, dumplings, potstickers, beef noodle soups, GOOSE (omg my dad brought me to the best goose place ever), sheng jian baos (more fried bread thingies with yumminess inside), tea eggs, DAN TA (eggtarts..omg ridiculously enough, KFC has the best dantas), and BREAD. Oh man, their bread here is so soft and sweet and yummmmmsss!! Sorry, I don’t really take pictures of my food…instead I keep a fond memory of them in my tummy. I have one picture that I jacked from my friend.

Luo Bo Si Bing

Stinky tofu. This one actually didn’t taste that good, but I guess it was pretty!

Pineapple shaved ice. The first few bites were amazing…then it became too sugary, but this place apparently grows their own pineapples or something, so it was extra fresh!

Okay, but other than this, I really haven’t been doing much. OH. One thing that is driving me crazy are all my bug bites! Seriously, all I have to do is close my eyes and when I open them, I find a new red bump on me. I even got a mosquito bite on my butt! When that happened to me in Mexico, I understood because I used a dirty, dirty bathroom, but this time, I was fully covered! Damn mosquitoes. Oh, and I used to think that San Francisco had crazy random weather. Well, that ain’t nothing compared to here. One day, it’s hot as hell, the next day it’s freezing. Then it gets hot again, then the next day it’s pouring rain. And then the next day, it’ll be sunny circa 10am and then raining again at around 1pm. OMG and even as I’m sitting here typing this out right now, I think I just got another mosquito bite on my butt, same cheek.

Sooooo basically, my life has been consumed by school. I take three hours of Chinese each day and we’re not allowed to speak in English in the building or else we get punished. So I guess that’s the best way to shut me up…put me in a place where I can barely speak the language, haha. I study practically every night because there’s so much homework, but honestly, compared to taking Chinese 100AX with the native speakers, this ain’t so bad, probably because now I’m in class with white people (other than Tommy York) and even one Mexican! Yay, diversity!

Hahaha, okay okay, that’s it for my adventures. Homework time! Talk to meeeee!

Happy Lunar New Year! According to my mother, there are three things you need to do for the new year:

1. Wear new shoes (so presumably, you bought the new shoes beforehand) so you can stomp away all the evil for the year. Or, if you can’t find a new pair of shoes, at least wear slippers. Thanks to my overspending over the past year, I had both new shoes AND new slippers! :)

2. Don’t throw the trash away or else you’re throwing away all your good luck. Well, good, I don’t like taking out the trash anyway.

3. Don’t buy anything on the first three days of the new year or else you’ll spend the entire year spending money. Whew, I’m glad my mom told me about this one, because I had to resist all the sales at the department store in Taiwan, Sogo.

All in all, I had a lovely Lunar New Year. I’ve been spending a lot of time with my dad lately, so on New Year’s Eve, we basically played Mah Jong all night, just the two of us. We started playing at 9pm, and for three whole hours, I just kept losing. Then, suddenly, it was midnight and we watched the fireworks from his apartment, and then I started winning! Hopefully, it means I’ll have good luck this year, because I won the highest amount possible twice in a row! Woohoo. But seriously, in Taiwan, it is so crazy. By 8pm, I started hearing fireworks. Since we have a view of the skyscraper, Taipei 101, from my dad’s apartment, we kept running to the window to watch the fireworks. Unfortunately, even though I kept hearing the fireworks, I couldn’t see them! And that’s because most of the fireworks were from families playing with firecrackers. But seriously, my dad and I spent the entire night running from one room to another. It was really funny, actually, but I can’t seem to explain it. But even now, Monday night, I STILL hear those damn fireworks. It took me 48 hours to stop getting up and running to the window each time I hear firecrackers.

Oh, okay, but on the actual new year, I went to this temple and honestly, it was the most beautiful temple I had ever seen. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera, so I’ll just have to try to be as articulate as possible. Even before I saw the temple, when I walked into the main gate, I felt like I was walking into an enchanted forest. There were waterfalls everywhere. My favorite waterfall was the one at the very bottom, right next to the actual temple. Water was pouring down from these huge rocks. And then it was like I was in the Japanese Tea Garden, because there was a wooden bridge right above a pond that had beautiful golden koi coi fish swimming around. From the pond to the temple, there were stone steps. It was beautiful! Anyhow, even the temple itself was super lively, with tons of food vendors under red and white striped tents. They were selling everything from rice noodles to my favorite onion pancakes to squid to pork feet to these special Chinese New Year good luck sweet and sour pears and tomatoes on a stick (yeah, kinda weird). Oh, but the temple itself was super fun, because after I bai-bai-ed (blew the incense and prayed), there were these special drawings and sculptures. If you stood in front of the sculpture and closed your eyes for one minute, you were supposed to suddenly feel free from all your troubles and feel a bit more enlightened. Seeing as carefree as I already am, I felt pretty darn carefree after closing my eyes for a minute, but I don’t know about the feeling more knowledgeable part. There was also a pyramid with four sides, each side representing something different: Wisdom, Love, Health, and Wealth. And if you close your eyes for a minute in front of each side, you were supposed to feel more enlightened as well. Again, I didn’t feel more enlightened, but hey, it couldn’t have hurt much, right?

And today, I went to Din Tai Feng, the famous place for xiao long tang baos! Yummy!! Roughly translated, some super yummy dumpling with soup inside. And for the first time, I went to the top (almost top, because the top is actually restaurants) of Sogo, where there was another Japanese tea garden wonderland. This is the beautiful thing about Taiwan. No, it’s not a huge city filled with lights and glamour, but it’s got a very beautiful, comfortable hometown feeling, with lots of trees and mountains. Okay, so I’m a huge city girl and would much rather be in a big place like Tokyo or Hong Kong, but honestly, this is a nice change. It makes me appreciate nature. :)

Okay, I think this is it for now. I still need to tell you guys about my 12-course lunch in the Philippines! But I figured I owed it to Taiwan to say something. And I am enjoying Taiwan. Yes, it can be a bit boring for now, because I’m only hanging out with my dad and his 75-year-old friend, but on February 20, I am moving into the dorms, so I’ll be feeling like a freshman again! EEk! haha I hope it’s okay…I’m getting butterflies just thinking about it! Oh, and on a last note. I worked out today for the first time in a long time, and boy, does it feel good! haha Okay, the end. I’m gonna go watch Vampire Diaries now, haha.

Well, it’s official! I’m in Asia! In fact, I’m already in Taiwan! But I don’t move in until sometime around February 20, so for now, I’ll just talk about the Philippines because I had an amazing time there!

I could write an entire novel about my Philippines trip, but instead, I’ll just give a little recap. This may still be a short story, but I’m gonna post a lot of pictures because I know people don’t like reading.

When I was in the Philippines, I spent 4 days and 3 nights in the island called Palawan. Palawan isn’t usually known for its beaches, but we stayed at a resort called Club Paradise, which is better known for its beaches. Usually, people go to Puerto Princessa, which has this really cool cave, but I didn’t go there (but it’s okay because my place was better, haha).

Anyhow, I went traveled with my cousin Margaret and her two bowling friends, Jason and Aimee, all of whom were very friendly. I was afraid it would be awkward at first, but I had a wonderful time with them, with lots of laughs and memories.

Margaret, Aimee, Jason, & me!

Here’s a quick recap of what we did:

Day 1: R&R…and EAT! Every meal was a buffet and the first thing I went for was the steamed crab. :) Watched the sun set…but it went by so fast that we barely noticed it!

Day 2: Island hopping to 3 different islands. We snorkeled in each island. The second island had the best fish, but my favorite island was the last island because the sand was covered with all these pretty shells and stones and corals. Actually, the third island didn’t have much fish, but it did have really pretty purple starfish! And colorful corals. When we got back to the resort, we were all exhausted from the snorkeling, so my cousin got a hair spa treatment, while I got a facial. Too bad it got ruined the next day when I went snorkeling again.

The first island:

The second island:

The third and my favorite island:

My search for shells…and the reason why my butt got sunburned:

Day 3: Coron Island Tour. More snorkeling, but we also climbed up 130 steps (up and down twice) to see this beautiful lake called Kayangan Lake. Later, we went to another really pretty place to snorkel, and we went under this mini cave thing. Unfortunately, we tried to be smart and tried to return to our boat through a different route and got lost, so then we tried to swim back to where we came from, only to find our tour guide, who told us to just wait where we were so that the boat would come pick us up. That was when we found out that if we had just swam a bit further, we would have made it to our boat. Ha. Then we went to the hot springs. That was exciting, because that was my first hot spring ever! I would have enjoyed it better if the weather wasn’t 85 degrees. Later, we just walked around the town and bought souvenirs and yummy pig ears, which may not sound delicious, but I swear, it was heaven.

Kayangan Lake, this is the picture they put on all the travel brochures, but Margaret’s such a great photographer that this looks even better than the picture on the website:

someplace pretty:

Right before we got lost and swam for what felt like forever…we were so happy and unaware…

Day 4: Woke up at 5:30 am to watch the sunrise because my cousin’s friends saw it the first day and their pictures were awesome. The sunrise really was beautiful, but it actually didn’t rise until 6:30 because it was cloudier. Then we explored the lagoon, where we saw these huge lizards (which, by the way, do not only stay in water, but can actually walk on the ground…so beware!). Then we went on a 400 meter hike. Unfortunately, since I am a dumb American and did not feel like calculating meters into feet or miles, I thought we had already reached the top…unfortunately, we didn’t, but we still had a wonderful view of the Hidden Beach. And then…we went home!

The view of Sunrise Beach at 5:30am:

The awesome view from the top of our hike:

So my top good memories of Palawan:

1. Beautiful beaches, where the water is all shades of blue. In the shallowest parts, the water is basically clear and you can see all the shells and sand underneath it. It’s gorgeous.

2. Beautiful and vast assortment of shells, stones, and corals, both in terms of quantity and types.

Wouldn’t you say my collection’s complete?? Look at that huge soap dish I found…but don’t worry, I returned (most) of them…see, I’m preserving nature. Actually, funny story, I took one big shell home with me, but Margaret told me that security guards at the airport will take your shells away, so I hid my shells in my laundry bag on the flight back to Manila. I was super excited because the security guard didn’t find it…BUT THEN, when I left Manila for Taiwan, I thought I would get away with it…WRONG! They found my shell in the security camera thing and they were going to take my shells away, until the lady saw my shells and was like, “So small? Just put it in your check-in.” So in the end, thank God, I still got my shells, haha

3. Snorkeling with the fishies, especially the schools of swordfish and Dori’s

4. Gorgeous sunrise and beautiful (but super quick) sunset

sunset:

sunrise:

5. Beachside meals, buffet-style, eggs any way I like them

6. The most comfortable hammock in the world.

7. The wonderful beach breeze

My top bad memories:

1. Scary, POISONOUS black sea urchins, with long, pointy thorns and evil red eyes

2. Mosquitos, ants, and bugs all over the place. Seriously, you could see the huge ants crawling all over the beautiful white sand

3. The kaw-ing fruit bats that travel in packs. Although they’re actually harmless and don’t eat humans, it was kind of gross seeing flocks of them flying around.

4. My poor sunburned ass, which I will not show pictures of, for all of our benefit.

All in all, this was a wonderful trip!! I loved it. It felt kind of wonderful being one with nature. There’s something about the beautiful water and the cool breeze that brings me to peace. This was kind of the first time that the hot weather and bugs didn’t bug me that much, despite my constant complaints. I would definitely come back again. Next time, though, I want to go to Boracay and go parasailing!

Okay, I’ll talk about the rest of the Philippines and Taiwan later. But for now, it is time for me to peace out!