Whoops, let me firstly apologize for the weird formatting of the last post, my iPad can be touchy. But I've been super busy here. Saturday was my orientation with all the other kids in my district. For the most part it was just a lot of sitting and listening, but it was nice to meet the exchange kids.
Sunday afternoon we went to my grandmas for lunch. But then after we drove into Taipei to drop off my brother before his music lesson, who with an hour to kill before picking him up my dad drove all around Taipei pointing things out. We drove through a highly coveted street to live on, stopped at a famous bakery, went past Taipei 101 and a lot of temples, and a small parade. After picking Timothy up we headed to Keelung. We first went to an old fort that was built as protection against pirates and then after we went into this cave temple. It was literally a temple in a cave with shrines, incense, offerings spread out on tables, statues carved out of the walls and old poems carved into the rock. We had to squeeze through this tiny passage, I'm certain my body was at a 90* angle, to get to one of the shrines.
Monday was my placement exam for the Mandarin lessons I take with the other exchange students, which was not exactly pleasant in itself but being late on top of it made things slightly more stressful. But I managed and I think I got placed in the second level class but come Monday we'll see. After the test Kiky and I made the trek to the immigration office via MRT to get my paperwork finished. Waiting took forever but we ran into another girl from my district and her host father and it was nice chatting with her.
Tuesday Kiky, my sister Justine and I went to Eslite which is one of the popular book store chains here. It was super nice and stocked a good selection of books in English, and I imagine a portion of my allowance will be spent there. But Kiky had a meeting to go to so she left us there and said we could take a bus home...well we tried to at least. We waited for like an hour for our bus which never came so we ended up walking to the MRT station and taking that to another bus stop and finally ending up at my dads office where we hung out until pretty late.
Wednesday is the day my dad takes the afternoon off from work so he can show me around. So at noon we left for my clubs rotary meeting. I don't understand what happens at the meetings but there seems to be a lot of joking and teasing amongst Rotarians so I feel at ease. For a brief moment I played Vanna White and helped demonstrate this weird cloth that our guest speaker was talking about, so I'm sure there's going to be some attractive photos from that. Later on in th evening, Kiky, Timothy, Kent and I went back to Kelung. This lunar month is the ghost month and the largest celebration for th ghost festival takes place in Keelung. We first went to a night market (my first!) and walked around trying all the different foods while Timothy looked longingly at the games set up, at one place you could win a miniature turtle. We also quickly ducked into a temple that ran adjacent to the market. Then it was finally time to head to the temple where the festivities take place. I went a night before the peak of the festival so there wasn't as much activity but it was still beautiful. The temple was all lit up and it's perched right on the hillside. We stayed late just wandering around, soaking it all in.
Thursday Kiky was determinded to get me a working cell phone so that if I ever get lost I can call her. I brought my cell phone that I used back in California, but I was just planning on reactivating it when I fly home, but Kiky thought if we got a new SIM card it could work over here. Well it didn't, after spending a long time in the cell phone store, we accepted defeat and went back to my dads office to see if he had an old phone. So I am now the owner of an ancient duct taped brick of a phone :)
Today I woke up annoying early so I could go by my school with Kiky. We drove over to the school so I could geet my schedule, meet my teachers, etc. we met with one of the teachers and got my schedule, my school has already factored in the fact that I'll be missing school twice a week all morning for Mandarin class at the university, which was good. My schedule was only for the first week but it includes art, math, English, Mandarin, chemistry, math, sport, and more. But th school said after the first week if I don't like a class I can drop it and switch it to something I like better. We will see how long chemistry and math stick around for. The other two exchange students who are going to my school were there too, a girl from France and a boy from Hungary I think it was. so I won't be all alone.
Tomorrow my family and I are going to a concert that my brothers music teacher is playing in so that will be something new for me. Monday I start Mandarin at the university and regular high school so I'll be even busier!
Abbie
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