I'm so glad that this term I was able to make such good friends. I wish it was like this all year. Then it would have even been more fun than it has been. I took a few days off from class last week, so this week was a regular week. The only exception is that I went out with my friends a lot. Whenever we go out, we always have fun. This week we went shopping at Xi-men. We got dinner and then walked around. I normally don't go into the shops and explore, but with these guys, I go into every shop! The only bad thing is that I discover there are a lot of things I like and I want to buy them!!! What made this trip special compared to all the other times I have been to Xi-men is that I read an article about an ice cream place that make really funky flavors. So it became a mission for us to find this ice cream place. It took about 30 minutes...but we found it! I was expecting some grandeur place, but it was just a hole in the wall like place. Despite the way it look, it was exactly what the article said...weird flavored ice cream! There was pigs feet, wasabi, curry, and alcohol flavors. I decided to be adventurous and get the curry flavor! My friend Pei-Lan got the wasabi...well, it was really a mistake. The menu said it was mustard flavor, but when we got it and all tasted it, we knew the English translation was wrong. No one could actually eat that one. It was way too spicy..and isn't really a good ice cream flavor. The curry...well, tasted like curry. I also couldn't finish it. It was just too weird. Both Pei-Lan and I went back and got "normal" flavors, papaya and honey dew. It helped kill the other tastes. It was fun, but I think I'll stick to vanilla and chocolate in the future.

Two days later, we decided to go out to dinner. It was so fun because we got to eat a lot of fun foods. It was so yummy! My friends and I decided that since we went all out on dinner...we might as well finish it off with desert and drinks! How else can you end a fun night! Since this place is such a trendy place, we got to drink our drinks after dinner on the comfy sofas in a separate section of the restaurant. All the drinks and deserts were presented really well. It made it easy to spend two hours there just talking, drinking, and eating. We found out that this place is cheaper during lunch time, so we have already decided to go back for seconds. Well, the next place on our list is to go out to an Indonesian restaurant. This one is a little scary for me because I know it's all going to be spicy foods. What am I going to do! I guess I'll have to let you know if I can survive the hotness!

Last week was a blast! I went to a bunch of places around Northern Taiwan. My friend Val came from San Fransisco to visit. We had fun despite the weather being kinda bad at the beginning of her trip. With her here, I was able to go to a botanical garden, a few temples, night markets, and some more unique places that I'll mention in just a bit. On top of that, I was able to hang out with her and my new friends that I have made here. The first thing we did was go to a garden near my place. Since the weather wasn't all that great, we tried to stay local. It was not as spectacular as I had hoped, but I got a few nice pictures none the less. Another local thing we did was go to Shi-Lin night market and Shi-Da night market. Those were just ok. Nothing too special. Just went there to walk around and get some food. The typical thing I do when I go to a night market. We also went out with my friends to Yakiniku (Japanese BBQ). It was so delicious! It was all you can eat meat and veggies...that you have to cook yourself. Besides some of the things we burned, it was quite good. I decided to get a few fun items like snail, beef tongue and pork tongue to mix it up a bit. Turns out everyone loved beef tongue! hahaha!

After staying around in Taipei, we finally ventured out to Jiu-Fen and a few temples. We took a tour to Jiu-fen and a few other little scenic places...but it wasn't all that great. It would have been better if we had more time to do things. It was really a tour to introduce you to a few places. It was still fun though. I like the Jiu-Fen setting because it has a bunch of tea houses and makes me think of the movie Spirited Away. After we got back from Jiu-Fen, we decided to go check out a few temples and take some pictures. I took this time to play with the functions on my camera and found out that if you work with the colors and the lighting, you can get an awesome picture. Just check out this awesome waterfall picture I took! I was amazed! I'm awesome aren't I, hahaha!

The next day, the weather started to get better. So we decided to go to Bei-Tou, a place that is well know for it's hot springs. When we got there, it was like a suburb of Taipei. Much more peaceful then the city, but then all of a sudden there is a small stream in the middle of the city. And then when you get closer, you notice that it is kinda warm around the area and it looks different then other streams. That's when you realize it's the hot springs. There are a lot in Taiwan because of the dormant volcanoes on the island. We didn't do anything but look around and take pictures. It was quite interesting. After we had lunch there and finished taking random pictures, we headed up to Yang-Ming shan. This is one of the dormant volcanoes in Northern Taiwan. We decided to hike around and take in the scenery. It was amazing how much colder it was up there compared to the city. I was so glad I brought a jacket....I know, I'm turning into a native Taiwan dweller...always thinking it's cold! The craziest part of this nature hike was seeing a gigantic spider. I was walking by a bush and this spider the size of my hand was just chilling and when I spotted it, I screamed like I was being attacked by a ginormous insect...but then I laughed it off...and took a few pictures (from a distance of course). Then when that was done, I ran by the bush so it wouldn't catch me and eat me!

So that was fun and exciting right? The next day was fun too! We went to an aboriginal village called Wu-Lai. The village is famous for it's waterfall, but when I got there, I was so excited to see butterflies and bugs. It was a mecca for insects! I saw so many all in one place that I never get a chance to see. I saw a praying mantis, centipede, caterpillars, dragonflies, a bunch of butterflies, and lots of others. It was fun taking all the pictures. When I finally got to the waterfall, the worst thing for a tourist happened...my camera battery died!!! I was sad. But...all was good, I still managed to take a few pictures with my cell phone. This place was really fun. I didn't get to spend a lot of time here because after going here, we rushed to Yei-Liu (I've talked about this place before). If I had more time, I would have hiked to look for the monkeys that live in the mountains! I guess I'll have to save that for another time.

Well, as you can see, it was a pretty busy and fun week of adventures. I only have a month left so i better do what i want to do before I go home! Just wait for more posts, I'm going to Japan soon! Until then...