No More School...

It was the last day of school today, we just did some review and then watched the movie Infernal Affairs, which I think was a well done movie. At the end of class we gave a card to our teacher where everybody had signed to thank her. I felt sad to say goodbye to teacher as I said so many times before, she's professional yet funny and the classes were not boring as language classes tend to be. I wonder how my selfstudy will go without her.

We got a taro mochi (rice flour pastry with taro filling) for fika during the movie.

I took a long walk in the afternoon and snapped some pictures in Daan forest park. I will miss this place for sure, all the bamboos and palm trees and beautiful flowers. I picked some flowers and put them under some books to bring them back home. I felt rather rude that mashed the delicate petals of the flowers and destroyed the magnificent 3D form that I'd admired during the walk. Though, it'll be nice in an album later.

The name of this flower is Bauhinia blakeana and it grows on trees.

The coolest tree stem I've ever seen.

Cricket. They all look so cool.

The only thing that reminds of snow was this white bird with feathers like newly fallen snow.

I had dinner with Linda at Vietnamese restaurant at Shida. It's great to share the life here with someone that experience almost the same thing.

At the restaurant.

A Bala bao, which is a fluffy bread with sweet crust like top from a very popular place at Shida.

Ice Cream and Dinner

Today, was a mahjong day in class. So after a crash course in mahjong (I knew a little since before, but the teacher taught us different rules than what I'm used to) we played and I won three times! Very fun and exciting.

After class med and R from my class went to Ximending and had an ice cream at Cold stone. I took a strawberry icecream with strawberries, pie crust, banana and white chocolate. So good!

At Coldstone enjoying our ice cream.

By the Red House in Ximending.

In the evening we had dinner with the whole class and our teacher. It was really good times with great food. I'll miss the class and our teacher. She's the best teacher one can have and I feel very lucky to be in her class this term.

We ordered so much nice things- tofu, shrimp, squid, chicken, fish, wok...

One Week Left!

I feel like a Bumbi bear! Too over-excited for my own good that I'll go home in next week. And it's only one month till Christmas Eve. :)

Presentation About Danshui

The presentation about Danshui in Chinese class is over. I could have done much better but at that moment I actually felt nervous, perhaps because of the video recording. I normally never get nervous. Well well.


Yesterday was the last time for me on the Dancehall dance class. And guess what? The teacher had made a choreography to a SWEDISH SONG, of every possible songs in the world! I couldn't help myself smiling when I listened to the first few seconds and heard them singing "Efter regn kommer solsken...". Just imagine a small dance studio in Taipei, about 8600 km from my hometown and hear this song. Totally absurd situation. The song is called Leva livet by Miss Relli, listen to it here.

Last Week In School

Today we had our last test in Chinese. We have finished the second textbook and I've bought the third one to study by myself back in Sweden. The last school day is on Friday so this week look very different from our usual classes. After the test today we watched a Chinese movie, tomorrow we'll review all the stuff we learned. On Wednesday we have our final presentation (which will be video recorded!). Our teacher has promised us to teach us how to play mah jong (a chinese game) on Thursday, that'll be really fun. Lastly, I think Friday will either be movietime or we'll do field trip. Not too exahausting week.

However, during the time I've been here it has never been stressful. I'm used to have lots of school work and I'm happy that learning Chinese has not been so strenuous so I've had the oppurtunity to enjoy my stay.

Melissa Horn Concert?

Melissa Horn, one of my favourite singers has a tour in Sweden right now. I want to see her so badly, but I'll miss the gig in Linköping. But, she's playing in Norrköping on 11 Dec... it's not impossible that I'll go.

Chinese Afternoon Tea

Today was another rainy day, it seems to be neverending. I didn't feel like going anywhere but stay in my room the whole day was not a choice (I would probably turned crazy). It's impossible for me to stay indoor a whole day. I did some homework and in the afternoon I went to a place nearby to have dim sum i.e Chinese afternoon tea.

Radish cake, spring rolls and steamed cake with egg custard filling and jasmine tea.

Food Coma

Yesterday, Friday and the beginning of the weekend. I went to Xīngbakè (also known as Starbucks. Many loan words from English are directly translated to Chinese characters with similar tones such as cheese and chocolate.) to try out their praised coffee and had an iced café latte. I haven't had a coffee for months and I felt a small caffein kick. Here people nearly live at the cafés, besides chat, read and study some even take a nap. Me myself sat and composed a letter in Chinese. It was Christmas songs in the background and the café was decorated with Christmas decoration, it would have been really cozy if I did not look out and saw the greyish sky and the rain pouring down and people hurriedly passed by (some wearing flipflops). I almost finished the writing before I went to meet up with S and L to have a dinner.

We went to several restaurants at Shida but they were full. The good thing is that there are so many restaurants here so we finally went to a noodle place. The noodles are freshly handmade with a special technique. The noodle maker holds the dough and slices off bites with a knife into boiling water.

pic source : http://farm1.static.flickr.com/225/536083683_b59045a7d9.jpg

I had the restaurants specialty which was noodles with soup and three sorts of meat. Or it was actually meat and intenstines from cow and I must say that intenstines are not my cup of tea. I liked the flavor and noodles were ok. I prefer thin noodles. I've tried so many kinds of noodles so I feel like a noodle master now. The funny thing is that we discussed noodle preferences. Haha.

Last but not least, I had a cranberry pie which was heavenly good (swenglish?!) with crispy crust, cream cheese, cranberry sauce and macadamia nuts. (No, I don't have dessert everyday even if it sometimes may seem like that...)

My Afternoon

I finished the report writing yesterday so I felt that I wanted to do something after class today but I didn't know what. So I took a walk to Gongguan and ended up doing an eye examination for contacts and ordered so I'll go back tomorrow to get the them.

Then I had a pearl milk tea. It's is a typical Taiwanese beverage. Believe it or not but this was the first time I had it and it was quite good, a little bit too sweet for me though. It's always a long line to this shop, seems to be a popular place.

It's only mid-November and 24 degrees outside but some salesmen already wear Santa hat... that kind of had an effect on me and I actually found some nice Christmas presents. I really look forward to Christmas. To be with my family, to bake a lot so the entire house smells lovely, to light candles, listen to Christmas songs that I heard so many times before and just enjoy the cozy Swedish winter. Oh, I must not forget to ice skate some day. And ride "pulka".

你越胖，我越喜歡...

...means: "The fatter you get, the more I like". I love Chinese classes, our teacher rules.

And talking about alike and like. Me and my dear sister are so different. She's a half head taller than me and thin and has long hair while I'm the opposite straight through. We have different hobbies and think differently (people has question more than once if we really are sisters). But no matter how different me and dear sister are, I love her. Nobody can make so many crazy faces and make me laugh so violently so I almost choke. We lived together for three years before I moved here and we did not have a real fight (so far as I remember). I have the best sister in the world!

Picture from this summer, the cool sisters!

When writing this I recall something from the very back of my head. We read Antigone by Sofokles in upper secondary school. And she said something like in a lifetime one can have limitless number of partners and as many children as one wishes but the number is (of course) out of ones control.