MOCHI!

Monday October 8, 2012

When ninja-ing my way in the night before, I caught a glimpse of two things on the table. One was round and the other rectangular. I found out what they were this morning as they so happened to be my breakfast. The round one was some bread accompanied with a juice box of milk. I wonder how milk can sit out like that non-refrigerated at still be fresh. * thinks back to Spain’s milk * Ohhhh, that’s how. Up until now my host family always refrigerated their dairy products so I was a little surprised at seeing this. The milk was also kinda sugary so I don’t exactly know what it was on the health meter. Both the bread and milk were tasty nonetheless.

Before University class, I experimented with the 7-Eleven on campus. In previous days, I’ve seen the store stocked with ok looking bananas that were not priced. Not wanting to pay for a slightly expensive box of sliced fruit, I just grabbed a banana and tested out buying it. I admit I’ve been wanting to try it for a couple weeks and was very glad the time came today. A single banana ended up being 60% cheaper than a package of sliced fruit, which is a great option if I’m ever running low on allowance. Meh, it was slightly bruised but the taste and nutrition of fruit is all that mattered to me.

Focusing in Chinese class was proving difficult with my lack of sleep. Thankfully I understood the material, otherwise I would have been completely lost afterward.

For lunch, Brittany (Australian exchange student) and I went the opposite way from the rest of the students by eating at the University cafeteria. From this past weekend my stomach was filled with too many sweet, oily and greasy things that it was just not doing so hot. Some students I been eating out with these past couple of weeks wanted to go to the local place where I last got fried rice. Today I just needed to have a break from fried stuff and get my fill of vegetables. Brittany shared the desire of veggies and joined me in the health fest. On my tray was a piece of fish, some tofu and as stated before, veggies. The fish wasn’t my cup of tea because the outside was so heavily powdered in spices and flavorings that it was like licking pepper. Bleh! The untouched meat on the inside was just fine which slightly made up for the over done flavoring.

Brittany’s tray was significantly loaded, being twice or thrice the size of mine. So she ended up asking me to help finish off the food that she couldn’t eat. I was glad to because it was more vegetables of loveliness with a side of papaya fruit. Brittany was sweet enough to let me mooch a bit off her unfinished food as well as joining me for lunch in general. Walking together to the MTR station, I got side tracked by the sight of Taiwanese flags being sold. The need to buy a hand flag had to be fulfilled! I currently have an American and Taiwanese hand flags to wave about, with my Spanish flag proudly waiting back home in my bedroom in Texas. As you might conclude from this, I’m collecting hand flags in all the countries I stay in for an extended period of time. Airplane transfer flights don’t count so there’s no need for Russia or Singapore or France, etc. flags yet.

High school Physics class was pretty dull since it was study time for the student’s big test coming up on Thursday. Missing naptime on University days, I am always threated with falling asleep but today was more so since the late arrival home from the Roteract trip. I think I did end up nodding off accidently while sitting upright but who knows whether I did or not. :P

P.E. was obviously more active with a lap around the campus and the strange warm-up routine I still have trouble following along with. I always want to mirror the moves the leader is doing but keep forgetting that I have to copy him in an un-mirrored fashion. Nuts! While doing jumping jacks, I was closely watched by a couple of my classmates. The reason I think was because I was actually doing jumping jacks. Jumping jacks? You know? The thing where you begin standing like a pencil, then jump out with legs spread far apart and hands nearly touching together over your head? Yeah, apparently that was an amazing sight to some classmates. When I watched another class do their jumping jacks, I noticed many girls (I don’t know about boys) did them less than half-heartedly. More like a third-heartedly. XD Some just hopped up and down with arms flailing around their shoulder level. Kind of amusing to look at, I admit. :P

Throughout the day, I had a sharp pain slice through ears several times. Gosh it hurt and was totally random. My guess is it’s from the blasting KTV speakers from last night. I would’ve laughed if my ears started to bleed because I would be living proof of the phrase “my ears will bleed” towards something loud. XD That would be hilarious!

Craving to try Taiwanese bing qi lin (“ice cream”), I grabbed a small six-flavored pamphlet from a small food area at school to study. So far, I can read things like “milk” “mango” and “strawberry” but am stumped on one flavor. It has the appearance of cookies and cream but a supplement picture next to it has black and gray powder that looks like a pile of pepper. O.O Woo, not too yummy sounding. XD It makes me interested to discover what the actual flavor is!

At the house, my host father and I had a traditional Chinese dinner of a plain steamed bun with the side of tofu and beans. You rip off a bit of the bun and either sandwich style the tofu and beans inside or just have it balanced on top like toast. Both ways were tasty because you absolutely can’t go wrong with a steamed bun! Those things are waaaaaaay too delicious for my own good. XD Soymilk was the beverage accompanying the meal that was also very tasty, not being as sugary as some soymilk can.

Afterwards, I went to give the mochi gift box to my host father with a smile and the Chinese “I give to you”. He thanked me for the box but declined the offer because he said the family goes to Hua Lien many times and gets a lot of mochi. So I was left with a whole box of mochi. My host father suggested brining it to school to share with my classmates. The slight problem with this is that there are only 24 mochi and twice as many students in my homeroom class without including friends from other classes. Not exactly sharing material, especially when I want to try all four flavors slowly instead of gulping it down in a rush that can sometimes exist in high school. My mind set is that it’s good to share outside of class with a few people but inside of school isn’t as preferable because I won’t have enough for everyone. And if I don’t have enough for everyone, I have to pick and choose whom to share with which I 100% cannot do.

What I did instead was have a little mocha taste testing between the four flavors of peanut, taro, sesame and red bean. My ranking:

#4: Sesame Mochi

#3: Red Bean Mochi

#2: Peanut Mochi

#1: Taro Mochi

Not too wild about the sesame flavor but the taro definitely stole first place. The good thing about having these mochi around is that they provide little tiny snacks whenever I need something small of anything. Do you know that feeling when you just need to taste something? I’ve had it several times this past week and has gotten increasingly annoying. Normally I would settle it with gulping down satisfying water but water isn’t as available in my host family’s house as back in Texas. I didn’t even see the water pitcher today. My water intake comes from the unlimited water machines at school, which I constantly visit, getting hydrated and storing water like a camel. XD

I shall now go recharge on energy. Good night one and all!