Sleepiness wins! Andrea loses...

Typhoons are here! One already passed but there's still another one that is terrorizing mostly southern Taiwan. Here in New Taipei City we still are getting rain and semi-strong winds, but not nearly as much as the southern half of the country.

To begin what may be my first typhoon day, we had a breakfast of fruit, bread and milk again but this time a burger was added into the equation. There was an egg and ham burger but the one I had was a curry burger. Very different but very tasty. Very juicy sauce. Not a very interesting paragraph huh? Sorry. Would it help if I said a spaceship landed in the middle of the house with a purple unicorn inside that spoke Swedish? Still nothing? Oh....oh well. It's only breakfast people. :P

Following the meal was a trip to the library right by the house which is HUGE. I think there was about 8 stories of books, audio, computers, study areas and more. Most likely that's where I will spend alot of time studying for school if not at home. The library there actually makes me excited to study ^_^ Which by the way, I start school next week, Thursday if I'm correct. We have to talk to my teacher/school officials to tailor the classes towards an exchange student's needs. We're still getting things all sorted out between school, Rotary and alien resident stuff.

Afterwards when we arrived back home, I began to fiddle with things here and there, being productive, buuuuuuut sleepiness overtook me. What was meant to be a 30 minute nap turned into 2-3 hour nap. Whoops. Thankfully we didn't really have anything planned. But thanks to my weird sleep schedule, the past two days I've only eaten breakfast and dinner. Somehow lunch keeps slipping away. Poor lunch. All the meals are big anyway and my host father keeps offering me so much food I think the two meals I'm having make up more than enough for it. If I ate all the food offered to me I would have already gained five pounds.

So, hey! More about food because next up is the trip to dinner at a Shanghai restaurant that is apparently famous. Just as we were walking up to the place I told my mother about the dream I had during my nap. It involved me buying a small parrot and taking it to my room, letting it sit in a hole in the window. Something happened where we all had to leave quickly, I think because a violent typhoon was coming. So I understand where my dream got the typhoon from but the reason for the parrot escapes me. Because I like birds a lot perhaps? I'm contemplating because my mother said she takes dreams seriously, since she studies psychology and analyzes the dreams of the family. That's kinda cool. I wonder what my dreams will tell her. Hopefully nothing bad ^_^ This all reminds me of lunch back in Klein Collins where we had pudding fortunes. (For people who don't know, pudding fortunes are what you see in the pudding stuck on the bottom of the plastic covering. Kinda like Harry Potter's tea leaf reading but more sugary) I wonder what my host mother would think of pudding fortunes :P

But yeah, dinner! I shall allow the pictures to explain themselves as pictures are worth a thousand words and my brain as of now can't conjure up that many so I'll make y'all do the work. >:D I know. I'm evil. Just know it was all very delicious.

Fantastic sweet pork ---->

Chicken and veggies --->

This crab soup had delicious noodles and broth but the problem was that I didn't know how to eat the actual crab. I'm not sure if I've ever eaten crab before especially straight from the crab itself. I kept getting only shell and legs. Here I am, a total noob, peeling unknowingly away at all sorts of shell bits hoping I could come across a bit of meat. Thankfully I did but I feel like I could've done a better job if I wasn't, like I said, a total noob. :P

Once our bellies were full, my mother, brother and I stopped by a small store to buy some storage stuff for her numerous clay sculptures of alien, monster looking things. Perhaps I'll have pictures later. Just know there's many many of them around the house. She really likes making them and thinks of them as her children so she won't sell them. That's so sweet, huh? But just for fun I took a picture of this:

IT'S SO CUTE!! Cupcake and ice cream cone cups! I repeat, IT'S SO CUTE!!!

After that, we took a short trip to the well known night market! An attraction that I look forward to, we spent only 10-20 minutes in it because I have a big day tomorrow with my Rotary orientation and couldn't stay for too long. We went by to look for a toy for my brother Larry. He absolutely loves toys and is always looking for a new one. But night markets are famous for food and cheap knick-knacks. For the short time I spent there, I can tell if I'm not careful, I will easily blow all my money there. I'm so going to have to ship stuff from Taiwan to Texas because I now doubt I will be able to squish it all in my two suitcases even when I hold myself back. Oh darn. But some random things I saw:

Any Yu-Gi-Oh fans in the house? I found a bunch of Japanese holographs of the cards for super cheap! Boxes each cost roughly $1-2 US dollars. They're pretty! No pokemon...yet :P

Browsing through all the mini journals and stationary the shop had I came across one that had a USA flag on the cover. Curious, I picked it up and peered inside. The first page had "I Love Travel" so I was like "This is cool! There's America and travel. Two things that totally apply to me." But then I opened it up... You know that phrase "That totally has your name on it" to describe something that fits someone's personality? The first page I see LITERALLY had my name on it! DUDE! That's awesome! But who's this Joseph? Is he from Britain? I would very much like to know. Though a cheap buy for less than $5, I refrained from buying as I am frightened for space and money. I think it's wiser if I look around first at all that's available before being hasty and buying straight away. I have a year after all. :)

Where are my Hetalia fans at? LOOK! GILBIRD!! ZOMG! ADORABLE GILBIRD! LOVE!! All it needs now is a mini Prussian flag. I will say it again, I can totally blow all my money if I'm not careful. XD

We finish the night with BUBBLE TEA! Twas yummy as always but observe the shop...it's orange....really orange....it's called "Orange Tea." ORANGE! Makes me happy. I will also note that each drink cost $35 or $45 New Taiwan Dollars. In US dollars that's abut $1.15-$1.50. I can buy four or five of these for the price of one bubble tea in Texas! I LOVE TAIWAN!!

So in the end I didn't buy anything tonight but my mother so generously bought me a calligraphy brush and a pad that I can practice on with water, which absorbs the water to let me use it numerous times. This leads me to my next piece of news....I'M GOING TO GET TO LEARN CALLIGRAPHY!! OH MY GOSH THIS IS AMAZING BEYOND BELIEF!!! I actually was really hoping I could learn a bit when in Taiwan and in reality I will be able to! AHAHAHAHA ANDREA IS HAPPY!! My school won't necessarily teach me (we don't know for sure yet until next week) but my mother is best friends with a professor that teaches at the top university in Taiwan. I believe he teaches adults calligraphy and also sculpts stamps. My mother said she could arrange for me to take lessons from him on the weekend at his house so conveniently located close to ours. He has experience teaching exchange students so this is SUPER COOL! Our house has a lot of wall hangings of calligraphy from New Years which most all are done by the same man. IT MAKES ME PUMPED! I SHALL LEARN AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE WHEN ON MY EXCHANGE! THIS IS JUST SO FANTASTIC!! (....wow, fantastic baby) BOOM-SHAKALAKA! :D

Time to shimmer down and get some sleep. Tomorrow is the big Rotary Orientation! Rotary Exchange Students unite!! :D

P.S. I enlarged the font because I think it was too small for some people. I'm attempting to fix the weird posting flip outs with this change but some aren't exactly working. If you see an unusually large spacing between paragraphs or pictures, blame Blogger, not me. ;P But is the font better for y'all or do I need to make it bigger?