Aboriginal Village

--- --- Sunday, October 4, 2015 --- --- --- ---

(yes, yes, yes...I'm a little behind...apparently life keeps moving even when the blog isn't!)

So to continue from my previous Ping Dong Mountains post from yesterday; Sunday morning we woke up bright and early from our "out in the boonies hotel" (I'm not kidding here! 3 sides were covered in pineapple fields and the 4th was a field full of beetle nut trees...BOONIES I'm telling ya!)  ANYWAYS! lol, we woke up early and boarded the buses for {well at the time I wasn't sure...remember I'm still amazing we have 80 people in our group instead of 5...I clearly have no idea what's going on!)

So we boarded these buses and drove and dove and found ourselves here, at the Taiwan Indigenous Peoples Cultural Park. Let's just say I was pumped!

We started our tour of the Cultural Park with a visit to the museum where {luckily} many of the captions were in English, so I was able to read up on the local Indians and learn about their daily lives. (Like how you have to prove yourself to be worthy to be considered a man or a woman {instead of a child} and once you have proved yourself it is a badge of honor for men to get several of their teeth pulled and women to get facial tattoos....oh how cultures can be so different!)

Once we finished in the museum is was time to watch the bamboo cannon demonstration {take me back to Mulan for this one!} song / dance / cannons included!

PingDong Mountains

--- --- Saturday, October 3, 2015 --- --- --- ---

Several weeks ago I was approached by one of the daughters of the family I live with and was asked if I wanted to go on a weekend trip “with my mother and her friends”. I was told they were going to Pingtung (or PingDong) at the southern tip of Taiwan. I was given a price and told that everything was included in the price…it sounded like a great deal for a fun trip (although what fun was to be had I still wasn’t sure!) so I agreed and gave them a thumbs up!

Packing for a weekend away when you have NO idea what is going on is difficult. I was told to bring walking shoes….I had no other information {where are we staying, how are we getting there, do I need nice clothing, a swimsuit?} NOTHING! (…I honestly thought about giving up, throwing in the towel, and bringing JUST my walking shoes lol….but I decided against that I grabbed some bug spray  on the way out as well! :P

Well let me tell you, it was my surprise when I show up to the meeting place bright and early at 6am last Saturday only to find 2 coach buses and 70 some people waiting to board for the weekend “with my mother and her friends”! I later found out “mother and friends” organized a guided tour and they all brought ALL their families…hence 70 something people at 6am doing the hokey pokey outside the buses (ok not really, but it did take some maneuvering to get us all in the right places!)

This tour ended up being a guided tour of some of the mountains near the south of Taiwan….oh my goodness, BEAUTIFUL!!! We had a nice hop-on hop-off guided tour service where we would drive a bit, get off the bus go around, get back on, drive a bit and repeat. I’m telling you, I also think they were preparing me for their personal Thanksgiving feast as all they did was bring more, and more, and MORE food! Our weekend fare included 7 full meals (yes please do the math I wasn’t even gone 48 hours haha) in which we ate at traditional Chinese restaurants where food is brought out (not ordered specifically) and served family style at the lazy-susan table. As soon as you being to think you were full they’d show up with another plate of food that you {{just HAD to try}}!

The pictures below are from our first day {Saturday} Sunday warrents it’s own blog post…. (I know I’m behind L I promise it’s coming!)

Happy {belated} Moon Festival!!!

Moon Festival, also known as Mid-Autumn Festival, is a holiday celebrated throughout several east Asian countries including Taiwan on the 15^th day of the 8^th month of the lunar calendar…yeah, I don’t understand dates like this yet either lol….in other words, we celebrated the holiday on Sunday, September 27, 2015 and because it fell on a weekend was given Monday the 28^th off of school (this is also Confucius’sbirthday and Teacher’s Day here in Taiwan).

Upon asking around for the meaning of moon festival I received some mixed reviews, but most boiled down to a holiday revolving around family, friends, giving thanks for the year’s harvest, and praying to the gods for whatever you might need. I was also given responses along the lines of “I don’t know but we get a day off” and “it’s about an old legend of a rabbit living on the moon and  you can’t point to the moon or else the rabbit will bite your ear off!” haha…I’m not so sure about the later responses!

Anyways! Regardless of the reason for the holiday I was able to quickly pick up on and participate in the traditions of Moon Festival which including gathering with family & friends, having a BBQ, and eating moon cakes & pomelos.

BBQ --- BBQ’s are very popular here especially surrounding the Moon Festival and can either be at home (outside over a fire) or in a BBW restaurant where you purchase raw cuts of meat and cook them over the open fire in the middle of your table.

Moon Cakes --- These delicious little balls of yumminess are EVERYWHERE during the preparation of the Moon Festival, and as a foreigner everyone assumed I had never had one (correct!) and brought them into school for me to try by the truck load! Haha (new food makes for a happy Tracy!)  There are MANY variations of moon cakes  with the traditional being red bean paste, but they typically boil down to a small round pastry filled with meat, fruit, veggies (anything you can think of!) surrounding an egg yok resembling a full moon…DELICIOUS! (the link above shows the more Chinese style moon cakes, Tiawanese style cakes are simply round balls)

Pomelos --- This fruit is yet another fruit that when introduced to I had no idea existed! This giant green citrus fruit is the largest of the citrus family and although bright green on the outside, most closely resembles a sweet less tangy grapefruit on the inside. These are frequently given as gifts during the Moon Festival (aka the foreign English teacher easily ends up with a dozen of these suckers!) and the thick rinds are often also cut open and put on kids’ heads like hats…not sure why haha. 

A Little Penghu, and A Lot of Typhoon!

So this post is slightly delayed….but I have  a good excuse, promise…we had a gigantic typhoon last weekend and it kind of really through our schedules off!

Anyways, last weekend was a holiday weekend  {more to come about moon festival too! Haha} so no school on Monday called for a nice long relaxing weekend with the girls in Penghu, Taiwan, a small island off the west coast of Taiwan…yes and this is where you ask "aren't you on an island?"...yes, we went to vacation on the island's island lol.

Tory, Kristen, Rebecca, little Brody and I couldn't have been more excited to board our ferry bright and early Saturday morning headed for tropical paradise, looking  forward to a nice warm, relaxing weekend…haha…oh how plans so quickly can change!

*** Enter the ferry Puke-Fest 2015***   {if you have a queasy stomach, now's the time to stop reading!}

Please try to imagine for a minute a small 2 story ferry boat, full of about 200 people, on a sunny Saturday morning, with waves covering the 2nd story window, and 95% of the people vomiting, for 2 hours, all ALL ALL over the boat…yeah, let me tell you we figured out what those cute little puke bags were for real quick. Although I was a lucky one and didn’t actually get sick, you still know you feel like poop when you are willing to share a gag bag on a boat with a friend and don’t think twice about it at the time:/

AYWAYS! We did eventually make it to Penghu, and after cleaning up from the ferry we were bound and determined not to let anything ruin our trip…. Haha, such naïve little travelers we were!

--- Day 1 --- Saturday --- --- --- --- --- ---

Tuesday's Taiwan-ism {Have You Eaten Yet?}

It took some time and some explaining for  me to get used to this, especially being the avid  eater that I am! But, it's still kind of odd to think of.

Almost every morning without fail when I get to school the teachers that sit near me will tell me good morning, and then like clockwork, ask if I have eaten breakfast yet. I chalked it up to them worrying  about my lack of breakfast eating abilities.

When I arrive to my apartment some evenings I will pass one of the members that live in the house. They will alawys tell me hi...and then ask if I've eaten dinner yet.

I quickly started to realize that everywhere I go this was a standard question..."Have you eaten?" Taiwanese people are very "beat around the bush" type of people, and not at all direct  {yeah I'm in trouble here haha} them asking if I have eaten yet is simply their way of asking how I am for the day...if only there was food with this question each time I was asked!