Study Night Fever!

Sorry for the lack of entries lately, it is directly proportional to the amount of cool and interesting things I have done in the past week. I said this in my previous post but I'll say it again here: Chinese class is so hard! Every night you'll find a group of people outside in the common area studying until 2 or 3 in the morning. You'll find another group of people the morning after studying until class starts at 1. Sometimes the same people are there. Sometimes those same people include me. Though I haven't had to memorize more than 60 or 70 words in one day, I have heard there are classes that have had their students memorize up to 120 words per day. Thus it's been hard to pack in interesting things to do for the sake of this blog, much less write in the blog period. Sorry, blog!

In an attempt to not turn this blog into a whine-fest of how hard class is, I'll tell you guys about what I've been doing in the gaps between class and studying. I have to apologize in advance; my camera has been lonely and out of commission for the past week, so there are no pictures to accompany this post.

The typhoon has passed and in its wake is a blisteringly hot and humid Taiwan sun. Luckily the only time we really have to endure it is on our way to class at around 1pm. It's pretty much ritual to be waking up at around 9am to the sounds of construction and drilling, cracking open the books for a few hours, and heading out to lunch at around 12. After lunch, it's off to class for three hours, and then after class it's either the gym (200 NT each month, which comes out to about 7$ a month!) or finding food around campus, by which time it has already cooled down to a more manageable humidity. After that, it's back to Guo Qing at around 7pm for a night of study night fever.

I went to Gong Guan night market both last night and tonight for food and some shopping. Gong Guan is the same place we went for lunch before heading up the Mao Kong gondola. Gong Guan is located across the street from NTU's main gate and it is so vibrant at night. I really regret not bringing my camera as it would have had a field day with all those neon lights, though I'm sure I'll be returning one of these nights.

Last night we went on a mission to find some food; I think by now I've tried at least seven different types of seafood fried rice. Maybe it's time for me to start ordering something else. Tonight we went on a mission to buy some clothes, but after travelling around some of the alleyways we ran into no luck (besides one shirt that had a bear on it yelling "Fucking axe!" -- brilliant, right?) I used my previous fobby fashion sense and directed them to a Bossini, where Cris and Xander proceeded to spend almost 3000 NT on clothes. Yours truly only got a T-shirt of which I will show you guys later, and no it is NOT the shirt I just described.

Tomorrow we are going to a Wang Lee Hom concert. Though I don't really listen to a lot of Wang Lee Hom I am excited to see what a sold-out Taiwanese crowd is like. On October 17th, a few of the EAP kids are going to see Linkin Park, but I'm thinking that a crowd full of screamo Taiwanese kids is a little too much for me to handle.

I promise my next post will be more interesting, hopefully!

Zai jian,

-Justin

PS Today was my roommate's 21st birthday. Happy birthday, Kota! The drinking age in Japan is 20, but I found him celebrating in our room drunk at 4pm. What a beast!