11 days and 1 typhoon have passed

since I updated this cute little blog of mine. What happen? Somebody set us up the bomb! In form of a final presentation this coming Wednesday. And to make the fuse a bit shorter, Monday and Tuesday are off due to Mid-Autumn-Festival, one of the few national holidays in Taiwan. This meant that I had to finish my work until today, so that I could go through everything with my supervisor before giving the talk... On each of the last 10 working days, I spent at least 10 hours at work. Some time was needed to study Chinese, too, but really, not too much exciting stuff happened during these days.

Last week, the new semester started in Taiwan. That meant lots of what we call "Ersties" in German. Freshmen. And it's really funny, Taiwanese girls look so young anyway. Considering that first semester female students always look really young, these girls looked young squared. Or I'm getting old... I dunno, I forget.
Anyway, here's some of the campus madness that went on. I had a look around and checked stuff out and I must say that I'm quite impressed with the way the new students were welcomed. Kinda reminded me of Lund. Good ol' Lund... sigh.


Here's the Post office, a formerly quiet place where you could get your lunch boxes without meeting Major Hassle. You should see it now... lunchboxes are SOLD OUT!!! Who'da thunk that was even possible?


Really cute. That was the second time I saw people take wedding pictures on campus. This time I got 'em. hrhr. In the background is the library, by the way. The opposite direction is a super long straight road, flanked by lots and lots of really cool palm trees.


Birgit, Christof and I now take Chinese lessons three times a week, did I mention that before? This means getting up at 6.30am, though, and isn't all that comfortable. But our friendly LaoBan at this breakfast place makes our life better. Mhhh, peigen dan bing hen re de nai cha! Yummy!


Thursday last week, I overslept. Oh no! I took the bus downtown, since the shuttles were gone already. But: The bus didn't take the usual route and I didn't notice. So I walked down this cool looking street with crazy market action and a monk sounding a deafening bell right next to his ear. By the time I had a first look at a map, I had wandered off the path quite a bit and headed back for the next MRT station, which was still about 20mins away. Who cares, it was only 28 degrees or so... On my way through these untouristy quarters of Taibei, I stopped to take quite a number of pictures. Apparently, some fat dude on a scooter wasn't too happy with that. He passed me, turned around, stopped. Accelerated past me, turned around again and raced right past me, then turned again, facing me. Then he took off his mask, did one more turn and stopped right next to me, yelling something in Chinese. No, I didn't understand, but I have to admit I was afraid of having scorned the Taiwanese mob. In the end, I think, he just wanted me to delete the picture. But since he provides such a good story, I have to post his picture on the website! Too bad you can hardly see him... :(


When I finally arrived at university, I finally found out why we all educate ourselves :D


Friday last week, I just went to LongShan temple and the adjacent snake night market (yes, you can eat snakes there, and turtles, but I didn't) after work, since I had big plans for the next days and didn't want to be too tired the next day. I was greeted by an, of course, super friendly Taiwanese man who gave me seven sticks of incense (pardon my bad Engrish) and explained to me how praying works. So I gave it a try, but it's quite complicated, actually.


Last weekend was nuts-ly packed! But we chose it to be that way. Justus came up from Tainan and so Birgit, Justus and I did some touristy stuff in Taibei. We were a small group, cause all the others had left Taibei to go biking, hiking or surfing on the other end of the island. So the three of us met at ShiLin station at 9.45am and joined the first tour at the National Palace Museum in the north of Taibei. The museum is packed with the greatest treasures of the Chinese people. It was brought here by the Nationalists when they feared defeat by the Communists in the late 1940's. It's far too much stuff to see and also becomes a bit repetative for the non-artisan. But the 1 hour tour was really cool and we stayed for almost one more hour. My favorite was an hybrid axe-hammer with an ivory peak, maybe 50cm long. That thing was soo cool. Unfortunately, you weren't able to take pictures inside, so one of me outside will have to suffice.



After the museum, we went to the largest Confucius temple in Taibei. Right next to the MRT station was a large-scale demonstration with I think about 50,000 people or so, sounding their opinion that mainland Chinese and Taiwanese are actually just one people and shouldn't try to be anything different. On the same day, there was a demonstration with about 300,000 people in KaoHsiung, promoting the independence of Taiwan. Maybe you heard that recently, Taiwan has tried over and over to join the UN, but are denied to do so. Complex issues, I'm tellin' ya.


Our way to the Zoo was looooooooooong. But it was a cool ride on the Brown MRT line, above ground.


At the entrance of the Zoo, we were greeted by officials in full body armor.


And I'm not sure, if this guy was so happy that I took pictures of him.


Calc, this one's for you.


After a really cool Zoo experience, we went up the Maokong Gondola and had beer and hot pot looking down on the lights of Taiwan's capital and largest city.


An extended Taiwanese family joined us and chatted with us on that rooftop patio. The one guy seemed quite a bit drunk and we had no idea what he was saying, but they kept giving us tea and liquor, so we didn't complain. Also, I made two little friends. 5th graders, I think. Their English wasn't great, but hey, they knew some! And they especially liked high fiving me ;) cute...


It took us about 2 hours or so to get back to I-house, our dorm. And after another short night, Andy, Birgit, Justus and I picked up a girl named Steph and started our hiking adventure in Yangminshan - after the obligatory breakfast, of course. Andy had borrowed his sister's car for that, which was super awesome to have, of course. The mountainous area around Taibei called Yangminshan is of volcanic origin, as can be seen from the hilltops, the milky looking sulfurous lakes and the smoke coloumns rising from a huge hotspring. You can also smell it, by the way. Smells like a really nasty old-egg style fart. Yummy.


We walked to a very beautiful spot with a little waterfall which also featured many little basis with miniature waterfalls right in the middle of the woods. Afterwards, we continued hiking around, up to some grassland (we saw the snakewarnings on the way back) and just hung out and enjoyed our Sunday morning.



After lunch, we got back into the car and seized the drive to Jinshan to take a nice relaxing nap.


That proved to be an excellent idea. We had come to Jinshan for surfing and Typhoon Whipa was just a day away. Imagine the waves. On top of strong, rolling waves coming randomly in a 45 degree angle, undercurrents and tidal forces made our lives harder. Not to mention the small coral reef close to the beach. But hey, we didn't know all that beforehand! (We actually only found out about Whipa the day after, when it hit Taibei that night). I have to say, surfing in that water was a challenge, but in retrospective, it was a way too dangerous. I was entangled in my board's leash twice. Once around my arm, which is still bruised and once around my neck, which really freaked me out and showed me that I was out of energy and control.


That's me, surfer boy, before I nearly died of exhaustion... :)


And that's how tired I was afterwards.


A hot pot makes everything better, it's sort of like a fondue, but everyone has their own pot and it's Chinese.


After dinner, we went to 24-hour hotsprings and stayed there for a couple of hours until around midnight. It was awesome! But I had never imagined that 40 degrees warm water is that hot and exhausting! Not to mention the pain of the surfer-rash, especially on the backside of my knees - OUCH!

On Monday, I went to Hsinchu with Andy, since he had to return his sister's car. He took us out to a nightmarket and ordered food for us. Now, if you're ever in China, eat ZhouDoufu (stinky tofu). There are a couple of ways to prepare it, but this one was the craziest so far. It was a soupy mix of a little cabbage, lots of tofu and lots of solidified pure duck blood. Yes, I ate it. There was a second kind of stinky tofu, which I also ate and I think my body isn't made for that much food which smells a bit like a sewer problem (sometimes quite a lot so). It tasted quite good, but I got sick and was afraid of puking during most of my bus ride home.


Tuesday was Typhoon Day and no work for us Tschaermans. Well, I still studied and prepared my presentation, but not much else happend. "Danish Delicacies" is an excellent movie.
I mentioned before Taiwan's ambition to join the UN. If you check out Taipei 101 between dusk and 10pm, you will see the catch phrase "UN for TAIWAN" in bright letters near the top. Here's what it looks like from the top of the Physics Department of National Taiwan University around 6.15pm.


Yesterday was beautiful weather as you can see from the above picture. It would have been perfect for going up 101. Can't believe I've been here for almost 2 months and still haven't gotten around to get up there... So I thought, ah well, maybe Friday, but of course this mornings great weather (check out the view from my room this morning) is gone by now.


Phew, that's quite the update again, eh?

Tomorrow I think I will sleep in a bit. The last weeks were very busy and I need a bit of a rest. Spread out during the day, quite a couple of us will go to KaoHsiung, Andy's hometown. On Sunday, Andy wants to go hiking there with us and we'll probably see some nasty monkeys that rob people. On Monday, I'm planning to go back to the very south and go surfing around Kenting, or maybe see some beautiful waterfalls in the rainforest. It'll be beautiful, I'm sure.

Next week on Tuesday will be Mid Autumn Festival and nobody has to work, so I will probably finally get around to planning my trip to Vietnam. It's about time, I'd say. My flight there leaves on Saturday at 7.30am and it still feels like it's weeks away. sigh... Taiwan is awesome!

I hope I'll get a chance to do another update before I head out to the Communist Republic of Vietnam. From there, I'll also try to write some stuff on here, but I'm not sure how that'll work... we'll see. Anyway, on October 12 around 7am I'll be back in Germany and go to Aalen for the weekend. Classes in Goettingen start on Monday and there won't be a lot of time for me to waste while I'm there, but I hope to see some of you!

Zai Jian!