From Ben (MSU) - June 13

Today was a relatively slow day.

Today in class, my classmates and I were trying to get our teacher on a tangent so we wouldn’t have to learn so much. HA! It is just like in good ole’ America! We still ended up covering quite a bit.
I don’t know how we let this happen. We will have to try harder next time. We got her to talk about Chinese holidays.
It was pretty cool to find out the here in Taiwan they celebrate both February 14 and July 15 as their Valentine’s day. I sure am glad I am not from here. I don’t think I could do Valentine’s day but once a year on my budget… or shortage there of.
I also learned the word for hotel, so being the smart guy that I think I am, I asked her if a person could use this same word for a hostile. She, being the smart teacher that she is, responded back to me (in Chinese of course) that yes, a person would use this word… however you would put pian yi before you say this word. That is the tip for the day. Do not ask silly questions such as this one in a class where only Chinese is spoken. After we got out of class, we went to Yoshanoyia, which is a near by (and very tasty) Japanese restaurant.
I got the chicken and rice bowl. It is a very hearty lunch because it had chicken, rice, broccoli, green beans, and these cool little beans where you bite them and squeeze the bean out of the covering. Also, I cant forget to mention the most awesome ice tea in the entire world.
People back home can defiantly relate to this tea because its good ole` Lipton’s Lemon Ice Tea! After getting absolutely stuffed on such a good meal, we all decided to come back and take a nap. Well, that nap turned into more or less a five hour sleep. I was so out of it that when Sam’s phone rang, I thought it was the alarm to get up and go to class the next morning. Crazy I know. Not only was it like seven pm, but it would have been a Saturday anyways so we don’t even have class. What in the world was I thinking? After taking a nap, we all decided to go to dinner. Apparently while we were sleeping, there was yet another thunder/rain storm because the roads and everything outside was absolutely drenched. Good ole` rainy season. After dinner, we waited on Sandro and Zack (two of our friends that we have met at the school) to come over so we could go mingle with the natives of our own age. We had a lot of fun. Not only did we get to experience Taiwan night life, but we also got to practice everything we were taught in the past week in our Chinese class. Everything was a challenge: figuring out where we were going, trying to get ourselves there, trying to get in the door, getting ourselves back home, and of course (as I said) mingling. We ended up coming back pretty early because we have the whole host family thing in the morning. Everyone had to wake up early to meet their host family at the school. I guess that is where the next journal is going to pick up, so mine is now complete.
Ben