Kingdom Hotel Hsinchu

... drink. It is a yogurt drink that tastes really good. Almost all 7-11s have a variety of boiled food available for sale. This is similar to the hotdog/sausage roller machine in the united states. I have not tried any of this food yet&#8230; I am sure I will at some point&#8230;<br><br>That night we go back to the night market from the day before. We decide to take the bus. Little did we know what the ride would be ...

Friday morning started out nice enough...but then by noon the dark clouds had moved in and it began raining. We all went to work and around 6 PM the skies just opened up and it began pouring out. People began talking about the t-word : 'Typhoon'. I finished class around 9 PM and cabbed it home. There was some super crazy rain going on and I was glad that I didn't have to stand at the bus stop and get soaked. I arrived back at the dorm to find everyone bubbling ...

Even though I was sad about not having another half day of exploration, it was nice to just chill out after a whirlwind of 3 days that felt more like a week. We did some shopping at the airport, but I only bought an onigiri for lunch. I wanted a set of Hayao Miyazaki figures (another obsession) but didn't have enough money on me. Too bad I didn't cave into temptation and buy a Totoro or dust ball magnet. I can't believe I ...

... Lishan toYilan route honks the horn and waves to me. This and other encouraging words happens all the time, so please allow me not to mention it every time, but it is really friendly, supportive and appreciated by me. The guard in the ticket booth is bored and glad to have a chat with me. The bus driver had already announced me as he had seen me the second day walking. I again get a discount ticket of 100 NTD instead of 160. Then another bad news on the ...

... read more, you can look up Chinese Astrology on www.wikipedia.org. This year is the Year of the Pig (As was 1983 - I've heard 'your' year is generally bad luck, eek!) As far as Chinese festivals go, this is definitely the climax of the year - like the furor that builds up to Christmas at home, there's lots of shopping and preparation going on way ahead of the New Year itself. There's a lot of things to do! It's customary to give your home/work ...

... Shek memorial. It was like a mixture of the Lincoln memorial and a great garden with a Chinese flare. The pictures do a better job of explaining this. But it was very beautiful and impressive, the amount of money the Taiwanese people put in to honor there late president. We then moved on to one of the Taiwanese national history museums and botanical garden. It was ok. I am still not really at the stage where I appreciate that stuff ...

... helping the PR employees improve their English presentations. In all honesty, the responsibilities aren't overwhelming, and there seems to be some hesistancy from the employees in assigning me tasks. They always begin their sentences with "If you aren't too busy" (of course I'm not!), "If you don't mind," "If this isn't too much of a burden." Overall, everyone is very very friendly, but also very polite when it comes to asking me to do ...

... on the outskirts of Hsinchu, and is roughly 15 min away from downtown via taxi. This means it's very hard for us interns to get off the campus! Last night, the 8 of us went to a dumpling restaurant right across the street from the campus' main gates. Afterwards we went to the recreational center and played pool and ping pong. From evidence of the amount of people and tables/nets for ping pong and badminton, it's safe to say they're very popular ...

... in the back of your mind you think, it can't be that bad until you see it - houses stacked like lego, they consist of 4-6 floors going straight up and housing a family of mom,dad,children,grandparents and animals. And then there are the apartment building villages with many a block of flats(where my friends Nicoleen and Anneloe stay) that stretch up high to about 17-18 floors which start to sway like crazing during those lovely little earthquakes. On the subject of natural ...

... strong. After my experience of being carired down the river unintentionally and bashing my body into rocks a few months ago, I decided not to risk going for a swim. Brian did risk it and managed to survive. The three of us sat around chatting and then I went for an afternoon snooze on a rock. A few hours later, a two other mates turned up (Matt and V). We continued to sit around dicussing life. By 9.00 we had decided we weren't going to camp out overnight and so ...