Teacher's Day and Happy Day

Last Monday (September 28, 2009) was teacher's day! To show our teacher how much we loved her (because we do love her), the whole class gave her a bouquet of flowers and treated her to a xiaolongbao lunch!

Here's Diao Lao Shi with her bouquet! Upper left to right: Michelle (US), Me, 茉莉 (Poland), 京林 (Korea), 煌聰 (Vietnam). Lower left to right: 惠理 (Japan), 家美 (Indonesia), 刁老師, 惠敬 (Korea).

Here's another one from behind our building. This was after we finished lunch. :D

After this, Michelle and I met up with Heidi and Jamie then we went to Taipei Main Station to check out the laptops. :-D Gonna buy one this coming weekend! I soo need a new one, the one I'm using now is too small!!

We headed back to Shida and ate dinner at the Goon's fried rice place; bumped into Paolo (my Brazilian roommate) so he had dinner with us. :-)

This was also the day when I was finally able to drop off my film in the cheap dev place recommended by flickr friends. I think I need to have my SLR serviced, its sticky shutter problem is happening more often now!


Tuesday was fairly uneventful save for the stipend's arrival. Yes! I am finally able to pay the last part of my fall semester tuition and pay my rent!

I also went running with Jamie and Heidi (ran 6 laps); then we ate together with Neung (my Thai housemate) at the Goon's fried rice place. Yes, two times in a row - we really like our fried rice! :-D

Remember the time when Jamie beat me twice in chess? Well, we had another manly competition. I was telling him how English people are useless when it comes to spicy food. So he challenged me to a chili sauce eating duel. Who won? The non-English person, of course! Jamie-2; Jac-1. He cried! Tsktsktsk...


Today Wednesday, We had a huge chapter exam and a huge oral exam. Ate at a Vietnamese place for lunch and at a sibut (si-boot) place for dinner. We loitered around the running track while Michelle did 10 laps. I wanna do 10 laps tomorrow too!! :-D

We miss you Jen! Hope you won't be too busy soon! ^__^

My Weekend

Picture below (c/o Jen) from the Hawaiian Party last Friday:


Last Saturday after my TOP mock exam, Heidi, Jen and I met up with Michelle and Jamie in Ximending to catch a movie (The Ugly Truth). We saw Michelle's friend Chris after the movie so he joined us for dinner and talked with us while we were walking around the place.

When I got home, I got a message from Hamy that there's a big storm in Manila and that there's no electricity and water there. I went online and saw a lot of freaky videos (especially of UERM where my mother currently works.) I sent text messages to my parents but did not receive anything so I got a bit worried. Called home, my dad answered and told me that they were all at home and that the flood didn't reach our area. *Whew*

Sunday, Heidi, Jamie and I met for lunch. He headed to Jamie's place to check if he has WiFi using Heidi's laptop. We tried to study there but it was not conducive to study groups. Hahaha! Met up with Jen after a bit, and we decided to study in my place instead.

After a couple of hours (or minutes) of slaving with the books, we decided too take a break and play 1-2-3-Pass. I had some water-based markers in my place, so we used it to draw stuff on the losers' arms. It was havoc!!! Jamie had too much fun writing on people's arms, and he draws and writes like a five year old (very big!). Anyway, he was able to learn to write some Chinese phrases like 我做了第二個-大家不好意思 (I pooped-sorry everyone), 注意-咬人 (warning-I bite), 色浪 (pervert), 你看什麼笨蛋 (what are you looking at stupid?), and 熊貓迷會 (panda fanclub). I'm sure this will be very useful for his Chinese education (yeah, right!).

We met up with Michelle after the game - she had her hair done (red highlights rock!); then we went out to eat dinner at a nearby Thai BBQ place. :-)

Beth called me Sunday night to invite Hamy and me to their dice game. So looking forward to winning anything!! :-D Looking forward to seeing Hamy this Friday!!! ^___^

Haven't Posted in a While

Haven't posted in a while, and that's for good reasons. I've been studying and having fun too much. :-)

Last week Sunday, after Liu Fu Chun, Michelle, Jamie and I met up and shopped around the Gongguan area. We were supposed to go running in the afternoon but then just decided to watch a movie - The Rebound. I was the only one, out of us three, that liked the movie. Jamie, on the other hand, kept complaining about his salty popcorn. Let's just not get into that. Hahaha...

The next day Monday, I brought Jen to Gongguan area again and we also met up with Heidi. Jen bought shoes and running clothes. :-D

Come Tuesday, we went running around the oval. I think I ran 5 rounds and walked a round. :D

Wednesday, I ate xiaolongbao with my classmates for lunch (YUM!!!); and we also went to Chinese singing class where we learned a song each from WangLeeHom and Mayday. We ran around the Shida oval again, then went for some roast duck and asado and lechon. It's so cheap at $85! We also ate some mango, strawberry, kiwi thingy at Ice Monster. :-D

Thursday is cheap day. We ate at the Biandang store for lunch and ate at the Shida dorm canteen for dinner. This was also the day where I lost TWICE (!!) in chess against Jamie.

You see, Jamie pronounces "pawn" in this posh British accent as "pawrn"; we asked him what "porn" sounds liked and he also said "pawrn". The chess bet was that whoever wins in chess will concede to the winner's pronunciation of "pawn". I'm now stuck with pronouncing "pawn" as "pawrn". What's annoying about this blinking rubbish of a guy is that he finds reasons for me to say "pawn".

So he'll be like, "Hey Jac, can you tell Wayne what that small piece in chess in called?"

And I'll say, "Pawrn!"

Oh, joy!

Thursday (or yesterday) was also the day they discovered that we can hang out at our place. My place is the closest to school and is the largest among the three places (Michelle's and Jamie's) near Shida. We spent the whole night playing cards and laughing at sneezing pandas.

Friday (today!) is international students party day! We dressed up in hawaiian or beach clothes (Thanks for lending me your beach dress jen!) and ate filling pica-pica for free. We went back to my place to play some cards. Heidi, Jen, and I forgot how to play 1-2-3-Pass and we wanted to play it because we remembered it to be so much fun. Anyway, I found out how to play it now (thanks Google!) so we can start playing it soon! :-D

I need to sleep soon. Jen, Heidi, and I will be meeting up tomorrow for a TOP mock exam. TOP is the mandarin proficiency exam being used in Taiwan, and we'll need to take the real one as part of the scholarship requirements. :-)

I'm super enjoying my stay here in Taiwan! *Thankful mood*

Costco Buffet and Liu Fu Chun

I'm back with my English blogs! Hahaha, I think it'll take a while before I do another Chinese one. Hahaha! I need to rest my brain. :-P


FRIDAY

Jen, Heidi, and I went to Guanghua Electronic Mall after class, and we met up with Jen's uncle. The place feels like V-Mall. Hehehe. I'm going to take Hamy there when he visits Taiwan. I also saw a Babolat tennis racket there (NT2300) which I wanted to buy. *DROOL*

After Guanghua, we went to Costco (Similar to S&R or Macro) and sampled the many free tastes in the place. Michelle told me that they call that the "Costco Buffet" in the States. Hahaha!

After that, we (Heidi, Jen, myself) met up with Michelle and Jamie and ate dinner at the Jamaican place. We went to a lounge nearby, after dinner. I had my first (and last) taste of Taiwan Beer. I found it better tasting that San Miguel Beer (or SanMig Premium even). We also got to meet one of Michelle's college friend, Chris.



SATURDAY at the Amusement Park

Last Saturday was a very eventful day for me. First, met up with Jamie at MTC so that we can ride the bus together going to Gongguan station. We missed the first bus because Jamie doesn't know how to hail a bus. When we finally got to Gongguan station, we found out that it was actually a walking distance from our place. Waste of time. Hahaha!

Met up with Michelle who was already waiting for a long time, then waited a bit for Jen and Heidi. When we were finally complete, we had some croissants (thanks Jen!) and headed to a random place for lunch. We were already seated on a random resto when we found out that it was a buffet one; everyone wasn't that hungry so we headed to a different Chinese resto nearby.

After lunch, we ambled over to the bus station for Liu Fu Chun. We almost missed the bus! I think if we were 5 seconds late or something, we would have needed to wait for the next bus (which will arrive an hour later).

Anyhoo, the bus ride was almost uneventful. ALMOST! We thought that we have arrived Liu Fu Chun so Jen got off the bus to get our tickets; meanwhile, we remained in our seats to wait for the bus to park. Apparently, the bus was not parking but was just passing through the parking lot of the WRONG place. We realized too late that Jen has been left behind!

We called Jen up to tell her not to buy tickets and to get on a cab to Liu Fu Chun. The bus driver wouldn't go back for our friend. :-P Good thing Jen's such a happy person. No bad moods; just a lot of laughs; and NT$150 less rich!

We got in for NT$399 per person, which was fairly cheap (I think). The we plotted out our trip to make sure that we are able to ride the most exciting rides in the place.

We also met up with Jen's classmate Nini, and Nini's brother and cousin (Abe and Paul, respectively). Nini was the one who originally planned the trip, so we owe the whole Saturday adventure to her. :-)

On our first line, we were also able to meet a very hospitable family. They were very friendly and helpful to us, and we kept on bumping into them in the rides that we took. I think the two daughters had crushes on Jamie, and the parents wanted to marry a daughter off to him. Hahaha!

Here's "帥哥" with his fan club:

The photo below made everyone crack up; little Mandou (from the Taiwanese family) was just staring at the camera, but she suddenly did a peace sign when she heard Jen count to three! Cute!

Here's Nini (left), Jen (right), and xiao didi (bottom):

And here's everyone; the Yeh family, Nini's family, and us! :-D

We hungrily rode the bus back to Taipei and ate at the first decent looking (packed) restaurant that we saw. Turned out to be a very expensive buffet, but we only found out the buffet price after we were already full and sane again. Heidi and Jen treated us to dinner for no reason, and I'm not going to say no to that. :-P

It was a great Saturday; thanks for thinking up this trip, Jen!


PS. Grabbed all the photo's from Jen. Thank you!! :-)

中文的部落格

大家好! 今天是一個有意思的天. 下課時候, 我和 Michelle 跟 Heidi, Jen 和 Jamie 有約. 我們一起去火鍋飯館. 這是我第三次了 - 還沒吃膩!

吃完了飯, 我們去圖書館做功課. (我現在還沒做完!!) 然後我們去師大跑道跑步.

好好笑時候, 我把 "Are you finished with your homework?" 這些話說了有英國口音. 我不知道為什麼! 大概是很多時間跟 Jamie 講話吧! 昨天我也看英國 IT Crowd 的電視節目. 我覺得 Jamie 很高興, 哈哈哈!


跑完,我們五個人跟 Wayne 和 Keryl 一起吃小龍飽 (不是鼎泰豐的可是我也知這飯館的名子). 我真的喜歡小龍飽!! 這家的小龍飽比鼎泰豐便宜, 而且跟鼎泰豐一樣好吃!

很難寫中文, 我受不了! 明天要用英文了!

對了, 如果有不對的地方, 請告訴我. 我知道我的中文不太好! :D

Still Alive

Just a quick shout to let everyone (especially my mom) know that I'm still alive and kicking. :-D

I went out to lunch with my whole class yesterday. We ate fried rice (among other things) at a "goons" (it seems like the restaurant is owned by an ex-mafia or something) restaurant. I came back for dinner with Neung (Thai housemate). Hahaha.

Today, I ate lunch (with Jen's classmates) at this vegetarian pientang place. I got too excited with the many choices and ended up eating a NT$158 meal. Hahaha, I'm never going back there!

Heidi and I went running today (while Jen and Jamie sat and talked). We also saw Keryl and Wayne around the oval.

For dinner, Keryl and Wayne brought Heidi and I to this Thai Chicken BBQ place. I loved it! :-D

After the meal, Heidi and I headed to Li-Yuan Hotel to check out their facilities. It's very near Shida and fairly cheap too, so our family and friends can stay here if they want to visit us. :-D

Miramar and Furniture Reshuffling

Saturday

Yesterday, I met up with the Filipino scholars (past and present) and visited Miramar for the first time. Nothing really much to see there. Miramar is just a mall with a ferris wheel. The ferris wheel was a fun ride but the price is a bit steep at NT$150 per round trip (Yes, you only get to the top once!). Hahaha...

I got really excited at first because Miramar has been used as settings for many Taiwan TV series, but I couldn't really remember where the exact places were (except for the ferris wheel, of course.)

It was a fun day because there were a lot of new people to meet, (I think there were 13 of us all in all.) and the conversation was non-stop until 12 in the midnight!


Sunday

I woke up today because of my ringing phone. Diet was calling me about a Fahrenheit show at Ximending! I called up Jen and Heidi to tell them about it, and plans were made to meet up at 1pm in Ximending. (photo from Fahrenheit official website.)

When the plans were made, I suddenly realized that I haven't done any of my homework yet. I decided not to join the Ximending party because my "homework conscience" was nagging me nonstop.

I had my lunch with Neung (my Thai housemate) at a Japanese restaurant nearby. My consolation for being a good student is salmon 泡飯 (pao fan). yumyum!

Neung ordered a big lunch which she was not able to finish. Hahaha! (She also didn't want to have her picture taken. Pfft!)

I spent the rest of the day studying, reshuffling the furniture in my room, and catching up on lost sleep. :-)

For dinner, Neung went with me to buy 雞排 (jipai) and chocolate milk tea. Last night, I found out from Wayne and Keryl that Shida has the same 雞排 store branch as the one in Shilin so I had to eat one today!

Anyhoo, I still have a bit of homework to do, and there's no better time to start than now. ;-)