美國人來了！

Alex came to Taiwan! It was awesome having someone from my old life in my new one! We had a crazy, wonderful week, and it was really lovely to have a friend whose met my parents and seen my house in 高雄。 

 I picked Alex up on Monday night at the airport, and the rest of the week, I helped him get around town, translated, and introduced him to how awesome Taiwan is and the awesome people I've met here!

 Alex and Nora practice Asian posing.

At 西子灣

 Biked up Monkey Mountain 可是...沒有猴子

 Taiwanese people at the beach near 西子灣

Some of the highlights of the week--

• I took Alex to meet my family in 岡山 and eat 火鍋 (hot pot)
• Introducing Alex to Taiwanese gym rats and hearing them say "You big!"
• Having dinner at my Canadian classmate's house, listening to my French classmate, Mia, do his "Americans visiting Paris impression", and having Jamal pull out traditional Moroccan clothing which he proceeded to have us wear and dance in
• Watching Alex destroy the locals in soccer
• Taking Alex to Chinese class for an hour (he went once to my class in America too)
• Going to KTV, 表哥 noticed that all of the Taiwanese songs were about break-ups and heartbreak (this is true)
• Eating dumplings and drinking tea
• Eating shaved ice
• Eating Indian and Thai food with Nora-Alex surprised us with his knowledge about Islam and after hanging out with him for a week, made me pretty excited to go home and have educated conversations that don't feature how to say things in Chinese
• Biking up a mountain with Alex and Nora and then to the ex-British consulate and checking out the museum there
• Having lunch with Alex, Barry (my only friend in my four hours of afternoon classes on Wednesday who talks to me), Randy (one of Barry's Taiwanese friends) and another Taiwanese friend from Spanish class. 
• Taking Alex to my International Political Science class on Thursday (the lecture topic was US-Sino Relations, aka the perfect day for a guest from home)
• Going to the beach with half of my Chinese class (one Japanese, one Belgium, and one Vietnamese student, plus Stoyan's super cute Taiwanese girlfriend)  
• Going to the beach again the next day
• Taking Alex to the night market and getting Mongolian BBQ and a massage 
• Eating 7-11 every single day 

 Beautiful Kaohsiung

 The view from the British consulate 

 Dinner at the Thai restaurant 

 Potluck Party at Jamal's!

 Everyone beats up the French (King Kong, Xing Li, and I are representing Vietnam, Japan, and the US)

 Pretending to take pictures with Drake

 A poor picture of a picture of the group in Jamal's outfits

 You never have to grow up! (My classmates are 30 and 26, respectively) 

Class trip to the beach

 Repping America 

 Another beach day (Life in Taiwan is good)

 Such a tourist

 Max took Alex to experience Taiwanese nightlife. 

 Alex taught me this pose.

 台灣很漂亮！Beautiful Taiwan!

模擬聯合國 and 拍照！

Last weekend, I participated in my first Model UN conference at Wenzao! Nora and I woke up early on Saturday and made our way over to one of the basement classrooms at Wenzao for a day in committee. Because we had a smaller group, the chair encouraged all of the delegates to participate, and it was pretty interesting to see the Taiwanese students participate in MUn in English. As Nora and I have AWESOME English skills, we were sort of the rock stars of the conference. Our first session, we drew slips of paper with animal names on them and then pretended to being a group of animals discussing how to decide who would get a spot on Noah's ark for the next two hours (6 spots, 9 animals). Nora and I introduced a resolution to hijack a boat from the humans from Kaohsiung Harbor, so everyone could survive. In the post-lunch session, we moved onto a more serious topic of how to deal with "the human rights of refugees under warfare and armed conflict." I was Nigeria; Nora was the United Kingdom. Pretty much all of my delegation's research was done during the lunch break, but it didn't seem to affect our ability to participate that much. 

American Delegates plus Americans

Taiwanese boy sees hot American girls. Taiwanese boy takes picture with hot girls. He then uploads it to Facebook. 

On Sunday, we achieved a goal we've wanted for a long time: Get a Taiwanese wedding shoot. A few months back, Nora and I were at 議大 World when we saw a booth advertising for these photographs, something unique to Taiwan. Here, when couples get married, they spend a day taking pictures in various outfits that will then be displaced in a book at their wedding. The photos tend to be ridiculous and sassy, so Nora decided that our NSLI-Y scholarship group should take some. Instead of going traveling in May, we took a Taiwanese wedding shoot. We got to the store at 10 am and left at 7:30 pm. Here's a breakdown of the day.

10ish- arrival, put Nora and I in front of a mirror while two Taiwanese women do our make-up and hair, Ben and Brandon sit around for a while, then go upstairs to pick out tuxedos. I realize the US government is paying for my fake eyelashes.

10-12- We notice this building has four floors, and the upstairs are filled with wedding dresses, party dresses, tuxedos, and traditional Asian wedding clothing. We don our first of four outfits, and a photographer takes us to the fourth floor for lots of individual and group shots. She gives us instructions in Chinese and tells us to look sexy and occasionally says "No smile!"

12- Lunch 

12-1:30- Finish picking our outfits, change into an outfit, and then load up into a car

1:30-3- Go to Kaohsiung 85, take lots of pictures

2:30-5ish- Drive to the Dragon/Tiger Towers by Lotus Lake, change into Taiwanese wedding outfits, take pictures, feel like a celebrity as tons of Japanese and Mainland China tourist take pictures on their smart phones of the white people in Chinese wedding garb. Then move to the Confucius Temple and take more pictures on a bridge and a in front of a giant door. 

5- 6ish- Take pictures on a playground after changing into our formal dresses. Nora and I look hot. Scare small children who were playing on the playground until we got there. Then take more pictures in a field by the playground. 

6-7:30- Get back in the car and go to 西子灣. Take lots of pictures as we barely make the sunset. See lots of Taiwanese couples also taking beach pics. Our photographers think Ben and Nora are getting married, as Ben told one lady they're dating, and she told all her co-workers. Drive back to the store and immediately wash the make-up off my face. Fake eyelashes make my eyes hurt.

Overall, it was a great weekend. We'll get to see the professional's photographs (the one's above are from Abby) sometime next week.