Finally, I Blogged :)

Well this is my first time to blog, and I have loads to say for the past three days. Once we got off of the airplane, we were warmheartedly greeted by some of the Taiwanese people who helped us take get loaded on the bus to go to our families' houses. I finally arrived at my host family's house at around 12:30 at night so needless to say, I was tired. The next day Eddy and I woke up at six and left to go to school at about 6:45. Ryan and I met at Eddy's school and then came the staring. We went into a couple of classes and I stopped the class's akward silence with a hearty NI HAO!!!!! An eruption of laughter follwed with a buzz of excitement that came when they realized that a meiguoren could speak Chinese. Ryan and I left our host brothers to go to a different high school where we were greeted by their band. It was very cool untill we had to perform our WONDERFUL dance for them. All through the day groups of Taiwanese kids would gawk at me (mostly girls, might I add lol) and I would then always give a big smile, wave, and say Ni Hao. It is very interesting to see that all of the students know a fairly good a mount of English as well as know how to speak Chinese. After school, I went to band practice (band just never goes away from me, even in a different country). I was so tired from taking pictures with every person in the building and from walking all day that by the end of the rehearsal, I nearly fell of the podium because I would doze off all of the time. Although rehearsal was good, I was very glad to go home and fall asleep. Eddy's mom is a very good cook by the way. I have eaten some seemingly strange foods, but actually are pretty good. Tonight I can truly say that I ate the ear of a pig and I also can say that I ate food that was looking back at me (the shrimp still had eyes). Yesterday my group and I went to Tiapei 101. It was gigantic. Looking out of the windows from close to the top of it you can hardly see the city because you are inside the clouds. Later that day we went to the Chinese National Museum where we saw some cool carvings made almost as old as my mother! To finish the day, we stopped at a memorial where a group of soldiers did a little demonstration. I went home with Ryan's family after that because Eddy had band practice. Allen is Ryan's host brother and let me tell you, he is nuts. His English is very good and he is very friendly and outspoken. We went with some of his friends to go bowling (that was a scary experience so I think I'll leave it to Ryan to go over the details). After bowling, we went to the night market where both Ryan and I tried new things. Squid balls are pretty good, but mine were loaded with mustard so I couldn't finish because of it. We then went home and I crashed again. Today we got up and went to the coast. It was raining as we drove up to the harbor, but we were still excited to ride on the boat. The boat took us to Tan Sui where I had some really good shrimp. We then split up into to two groups and went to all of the shops there. Chinese icecream is really good, especially when served by a sexy Turkish man (yes I know you wouldn't get it). The rain started pouring at this time so we went into a McDonald's if you can belive it. At the end of our trip we went back into the bus and went home. So far I have taken 105 pictures and I am pretty sure I have taken the least out of the entire group. So in conclusion, it really pays to know some Chinese and just be willing to make new friends and try new (and weird) things, especially food. I am really looking forward to this week and the different experiences it will bring.