Massive Update #1 (I'm Bad at Blogging)

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Wow, I think it's been about a month since I've written a blog post. I think it's time for an update. So much has happened since I've last written. Right now I'm experiencing my first natural disaster! It's pretty exciting, but more on that a little later. I think I'm going to start with my most recent adventure, our trip to Kenting. Let me say that I can't believe we went to a vacation spot and got to call it school. It was the greatest thing ever! If you can picture those screen savers or backgrounds of the tropical beaches that come with your computer, that is what Kenting looked like. It was so beautiful. The water was a clear blue and the temperature was luke warm. We were only there for three days, but I definitely could have stayed there longer. It was so nice to get away from school and relax. One thing I didn't like about our trip there was our bus driver and the one day it was sweltering hot. The bus driver for the first day was basically addicted to betel nut. Betel nut is usually mixed with tobacco and it turns the outside of your mouth red and your teeth black. You don't eat it, you spit out the leftovers. So for about an hour and half straight I got to see our bus driver do this.... It was awesome. Also, it's equivalent to about 6 cups of coffee. He offered it to us before we knew what it was, but we politely declined after we figured it out. The first day we have dubbed "Redneck Monday." Pretty much we got to ride/drive ATVs and shoot shotguns. We were kinda confused about the whole day and wondered if we were actually in Taiwan and not Texas, but it was actually kinda fun. For the ATVs we got some very brief instructions in Chinese (how to go and stop) and then we were off. Because there were two people per ATV I drove first. I only drove off the road once! I didn't go very fast because I thought it was kinda hard to steer and was bad at it. I think my partner was better at it than I was, so I was glad when she got to drive. After we were done driving the ATVs we drove to the shooting range. We didn't know it was located in an army training area, so when we were driving through and there were a lot of tanks and holes in the hills and people in uniforms we were a little confused. Luckily at the shooting range the instructions were in English and weren't as brief. We each got to shoot 10 rounds each. I managed to hit a couple of the clay pigeons! It was an interesting experience, but I don't think I would do it again. Of course most of us had to take pictures holding the guns. The second day we spent at the beach. It was nice to relax and take in the beautiful scenery. We saw a lot of Taiwanese people taking selfies of themselves in the water. I think selfies are big deal if they're willing to risk getting their phone wet for to capture the perfect selfie. That night we went to get dinner at this American restaurant. I ordered french fries, a burrito, a mango smoothie, and shared apple pie, cheesecake, and ice cream. The burrito actually wasn't bad for what it was. After eating all of this for dinner, I thought it was a good idea to go to the night market and buy fried Oreos. They were good, but I was so full. The last day we were there we went to see the Eluanbi Lighthouse. It was so hot and we were all sweating so much that we decided to go to Kaohsiung, but not before going to the Southernmost Point of Taiwan. In Kaohsiung we just got dessert. We ordered this HUGE bowl of coconut shave ice with mango, peach, watermelon, guava, and banana slices on top. It was really good!



So about this typhoon... It's big enough to actually have a name, Typhoon Soudelor. It's pretty intense. Last night the power went out around 2:30AM. It was really creepy because it was pitch black except for the light above the emergency exits; it looked like a scene from a horror movie. To make the creepy factor worse this red light was blinking and an alarm was going off. Fortunately it went off fairly fast. This morning the weather wasn't that bad so I went out with two of the girls from our group. There has been some notable damage done on campus. The other dorm across from ours has a little hole the roof where the shingles were peeled off. A lot of trees and tree branches have fallen down. Bicycles and motorcycles were tipped over as well. We saw a smashed car window and lamppost bulb. We were going to go see if Starbucks was open off campus after we found that Mr. Brown Coffee was not open, but it started to rain again so we decided against it. It seemed like the storm had kinda passed, but now it's back. It's really windy and it might still be raining. It has definitely been an exciting weekend (at least weather wise). I can't go outside so I have been in my dorm room doing homework all day. I guess you could say writing this blog post has been a way to kinda procrastinate doing more work. This upcoming week I have two tests and a presentation, so I need to do a fair amount of studying and prep. I hope I can go out tomorrow because I don't know if I could eat oatmeal for all three meals.... I'll try to write another blog post soon! I guess I'll be going backwards in time for my massive update.

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