Taiwan

I can't believe my week in Taiwan is already over!!!! =( It went by too fast! I LOVED it here! The people are soooo friendly and willing to help and I fell totally safe here, not like in Hong Kong and China where I feel I have to hold on tight to my bag haha. However, when I got off the plane, it was really weird to hear everyone speaking Chinese...when people spoke to me, my first reaction was to answer in Japanese...>_<

So I met up with my sister Terry here and we headed off to the city of Taichung on our first day and spent 2 days there. Going to Taiwan is really just for the night markets and eating and oh did we eat! =D This is one of the night markets we went to in Taichung.

After 2 days in Taichung, we headed off to Tainan for one night where we saw some super cool sights, including the Anping Tree House! It was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. The building was abandoned and the trees just grew...in it...

We also went to other nice sights too and another SUPER crowded night market...apparently it's Taiwan's biggest fully outdoor night market!

Ewww.....

Then we were off to Taipei, the capital of Taiwan for the rest of our trip. We mainly night marketed here again and we spent Christmas here as well. We ended up watching Breaking Dawn Part 1 and Sherlock Holmes 2 while we were here. =D But Christmas was SUPER crowded. We went to a mall and walked around to some sights but there were people everywhere and it took us 20 minutes from the time we ordered to get our coffee from starbucks because they were so behind. =S Here's a weird/cool Christmas tree at the mall we went to.

We also went to Taipei 101 Tower which used to (for a very short time) be the tallest building in the world.

The view from the top of the tower...This tower had a really cool feature where the elevator only takes only 37 seconds to go up over 80 floors. My ears popped like 5 times...=S

Off to more night markets in Taipei!!!

I'm so sad to leave Taiwan!! I definitely want to return one day...but I'm off to Tokyo tomorrow so I'm really excited! I already adjusted to Chinese mode so lets hope I can revert back to Japanese mode by tomorrow. =D

Last half of the Semester and Kobe ルミナリエ

Long time no update! But I decided I should update again before the end of the semester. Can't believe I already finished my classes yesterday! =( I only have exam week next week...fun fun! >_< I'm so glad I chose to stay for one year instead of just a semester...I'm so sad some of my friends are leaving next week already and I would be so depressed if I had to leave Japan too!

So in November, I finally decided to join a club here at Kansai Gaidai. I was a bit iffy about joining clubs at first since in Japan, once you join a club, attendance and participation is quite mandatory and if you skip, it's quite frowned upon so I wasn't sure whether or not I would be able to commit to a club. I decided to give it a shot anyways and joined the school's koto club! Unlike what I thought, I didn't have to pay to join or to get lessons cause I'm an international student. Only the Japanese students have to pay heehee =D. Koto is a traditional Japanese instrument which you pluck. It's fairly easy to learn and I've been having fun learning it. Here's a photo of it...unfortunately I have no idea how to rotate this picture...=S

The seniors here are really awesome at playing and everyone is super nice so I'm glad I joined. =) Check out the koto sheet music. It looks so confusing and I had a hard time reading it at first too but you get used to it eventually.

Yesterday, we decided to take an hour/hour and a half train ride to Kobe to see the famous Christmas lights. It's called ルミナリエ and it was so pretty! There were tons of people gathered to see these lights and it was so difficult to stop and take decent pictures cause the police were telling us to move along and we weren't allowed to stop and take pictures. There were also tons of food stands and I got to eat this totally awesome beef skewer...めっちゃおいしい！！！！ SO DELICIOUS! I'm not sure if it was actually Kobe beef or not...I don't think so but it was really expensive and freakin delicious.

Afterwards, I went to 飲み放題 (all you can drink) for the first time ever. I was hesitant at first cause I can't hold my alcohol well but it turned out alright...I have never drank so much in my life! I had 6-7 drinks in one sitting which is a record for me...the most I've ever had at once was 1 drink. Thankfully, we ate before so I didn't get too drunk. Anyways, gearing up for the last week of exams then I'm off for vacation! Can't wait!!!