2 Months??

The girls of Yilan <3

As of today, October 25th, I've been in Taiwan for two whole months. I really don't know how this happened. I feel like my sense of time is all twisted.. (Or broken. It's most likely broken.)  It seems like yesterday that I was getting ready to leave and at the same time it feels like I've been here for an eternity. School is painfully long and yet the days fly by.

Watch, all a sudden it will be Thanksgiving... and then Christmas... and then New Years.. Then my birthday... Chinese New Years.. Valentine's day... Easter.. Dragon boat festival... the year end trip...

It's rather mind blowing when you put it in perspective with holidays and events, eh?

I vacillate between wanting it to be the end (because then I will finally be able to speak Chinese and my Taiwanese friends and family can start planning their trips to see me in the US) and wanting Hermione Granger's time-turner so I never have to reapply for a visa and can stay here forever. :D

Anywho... I have nothing else to say except time flies and I wouldn't trade these last two months for the world. :)

~K

Erhu and Jia Ren Gu

Hey all!

I have quite the list of things to tell you about. Hopefully it will make up for my lack of an update..... Pfft. Who am I kidding? Of course it will. ;)

I'm going to start with this afternoon because, well, it was pretty freaking awesome.

This is how far we biked.

 Lea and I went exploring today. We got out of school early and rode our bikes around Yilan. We found a variety of things. A Domino's Pizza, several tea shops, a book store and a park...

As cool as those things are, they weren't our main accomplishments for this afternoon.

We managed to have two conversations in Chinese. Not one, but TWO!!! How amazing is that?? We were pretty stoked. The first took place at a store that sells uniforms and went something like this:

Lea: do you have Lan Yang bei se mao yi? (Lan Yang's white sweater)
Shopkeeper: wo you (I have)
~Lea tries it on~
Me: duo shao qian (how much?)
SK: si bai ba ($480)

We learned colors and the names of clothing about a week ago but never really had a use for it until now. :)

The second occurred at the park. We were sitting at a table chatting when a woman in a bright red shirt stopped her bike beside us and started talking to us. I can't quote that conversation word for word like the last one but we managed to convey that we are exchange students (not that our hair/skin color didn't do that for us); that we're going to be here for one year (yi nian); that we don't have class right now (sheng ku? meiyou); that Lea is from Canada while I'm from the US (wo mei guo/ wo lai zi janada).

Granted, we still didn't get 70% of what the woman said but if you compare it to how much we would've understood last month (which is none of it) I'd say we did pretty good. :)

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I fell in love last week.

We were in Chinese class when we heard this obnoxious squawking noise. Our teacher, Kim, told us that the Chinese orchestra practicing in the building next to us and that the sound was from the an instrument similar to a trumpet.

Our curiosity was temporarily quenched only to be rekindled when we went to relocate to the library. Our gazes Kim asked us if we wanted to go look at the orchestra.

How could I possibly say no?

We walked down a short hallway and up a set of stairs, all the while listening to the most interesting sound. We turned a corner and what is that??

This, my friends, is an Erhu also known as the Chinese Violin. It was love at first sight, no joke. There were about 7 girls sitting around practicing and one of them was nice enough to let me and Lea try them. She taught me how to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

Oh my god. Life made right there. I can die now.


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Okay, maybe not. But when I can make music like these people THEN I can die a happy woman

Erhu Solo
Coldplay's Clocks  <


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I am a kung fu fan master ninja. Beware. :)

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My other fixation is this song.

「佳人歌」李延年

北方有佳人
絕世而獨立
一顧傾人城
再顧傾人國
寧不知傾城與傾國
佳人難再得

Jia Ren Gu - Li Yan Nian

Bei fang you jia ren,
jue shi er du li
Yi gu qing ren cheng
Zai gu qing ren guo
Ning bu zhi qing cheng yu cheng guo
Jia ren nan zai de

A rare beauty from the north, she's the finest lady on Earth
A glance from her, the whole city goes down
A second glance leaves the nation in ruins
There exists no city or nation, that has been more cherished
That a beauty like this.

 Jia Ren Gu is commonly studied in Chinese/Taiwanese schools as a poem but it was originally a song. The composer, Li Yan Nian, was a government official/court musician. He wrote this song to advertise his sister to the emperor. The emperor was intrigued by the mysterious beauty from the North and ordered that she come to court. He married her and she eventually was promoted to the status of wife/queen. (I don't know the exact details but this is the best summary I can give without Wiki-ing anything)

Beauty Song (Jia Ren Gu)


The clip is from the movie House of Flying Daggers. (That movie is EPIC). I first heard this song in that movie. I'd pretty much forgotten about it until I went to go find videos of people playing the Erhu and I stumbled upon this video. I remembered how much I loved it so I told my Chinese teacher that I wanted to learn that song... I almost have it memorized. I can hum the tune and sing the first line.. :)

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I have more to write but I'm out of creative juices for tonight.. No promises about updates because I've been pretty bad about following through.. Enjoy the videos :)

K

Fireworks

I just gotta say I love love love looking at where my blog is getting hits from... Russia, Chile, Australia, the UK, Sweden, the US, Canada, Mexico, Bolivia, Czech Republic, Taiwan.... Sometimes I can guess who represents which country and other times I have no clue!


I saw fireworks out my bedroom window the other night. These are totally illegal in Oregon so it was really special. So special I decided to share it with YOU!!

I took the video sideways not thinking about what it would be like when I posted it. I'm smart. I promise. ;)

Oh and the reason it sounds fuzzy was because it was raining. 

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So I kinda had fun with messing with the blog today.. I spent well over five hours (while chatting with my mom) adding two new pages.

The Fine Details is a little opening blurb similar to the Better than Wikipedia. If you want to see my Chinese typing skills head over that direction. I doubt much is going to change about that page. I might add a recording of me speaking Chinese that I've been meaning to post for a while but I think I'll leave it for another lazy day.

Worth a Thousand Words are all the pictures I haven't figured out how to incorporate into posts but I felt like sharing. For the most part, they're in chronological order starting from the bottom. I'm planning on posting more  pictures every now and then, so periodically check back. I'll do my best to let you know if there are new pics but no promises.

I also went back through my older posts and added some pictures to break up the text. :)

I'm pretty proud of my work but I'm a total graphic design nerd.

Shortest post to date but I don't feel like I can add anything else and still have it be relevant....
I'll probably write something later this week because I have several good rants floating around my brain


K

It's Raining! It's Pouring!

Certainly nothing new to a girl who's lived in Oregon for her entire life. In winter we don't get snow, we get rain and lots of it. One full winter alone offers more than enough time for rain-based thought and I've often thought about how much bank you would make if you somehow collected all of our rainwater (God knows we don't want it) and send it off to somewhere that needs (read: wants) it like, say, the Middle East or the Sahara desert.

All this to say, I thought I knew everything there is to know about rainy weather.

Enter Typhoon Nanmadol.

This lovely little rainstorm (sarcasm) has been watering the parched landscape (more sarcasm) since Friday.

I've already had several run-ins with Typhoon Nanmadol, the most notable being when I was soaked on my way home from the train station Friday night. Lucky for me, it's still warm when it rains so I'm not sick.. Yet.

The typhoon spited me again yesterday when it made going to the top of the second tallest building in the world (Taipei 101) completely pointless. Not happy. I had to walk around a mall that literally reeked of riches instead. That was torture, let me tell you.

The only good thing it's done is free me from school at 11am instead of the usual 5:10pm. A flimsy reason you might say, but check out these photos --->

LOOK AT HOW DEEP THAT WATER IS!!

These girls are only in ankle deep water but there were spots where the water went halfway up my calf!

Not only were the track and field completely flooded, but walkways of the lower levels on some of the buildings were almost non-navigable from all the water. (It was more annoying than anything else because the water was quick to soak any part of you it could reach.)

Needless to say, by 10am everyone had removed their wet socks and rolled up their pants. Some even ditched their shoes so they could take a romp in the newly created Yan-Lang lake during their twenty minute break.

I am unashamed to say that I joined them and frolicked like a little water nymph. I couldn't stay away. When the girls went back to their classes I made up excuses to leave so I could walk through the monster puddle.

Not that I really needed the excuses. Nobody expects me to stay in class anyway...

It's now almost 5pm and still raining. Maybe we won't have school tomorrow... Crossing my fingers AND my toes on that one. :D

I wonder if all the tricks you do to summon snow days would work for typhoon days... Hmmm....

Zaijan!
Kat

By the way.. these pictures aren't mine. Credit to 李怡萱, 戴婕, and 柯苦馨! Thanks for posting these pictures ladies!