Oh hey there, Taichung!

Absolutely wonderful. As I type this, I'm laying on my bed at the gorgeous Evergreen Laurel Hotel in Taichung, as my host sister Emily checks her Facebook on her phone on the other bed. What a glorious day!

As is usually the case when I had a great day of sightseeing, I don't particularly want to describe it in full detail, but, unlike most of those days, I have my memory chip already in my computer and ready to pull pictures at will, so even with minimal description, this post should give you a good idea of my day.

To begin with, of course, I had school, where Patty and I taught food-related words to the 5th graders, repeating "Coca-Cola" enough times to brainwash myself into buying one after class (true story), and engaging each class in a debate as to whether soup is a drink or a food (Taiwanese say drink, Americans say food!).

Then I came home, and had the treat of being able to talk to both my cousin, Julia, and my Mom and Dad, before throwing some clothes in an overnight bag and running downstairs to meet James, Margaret, and Emily.

And then it was off for Taichung! But not, of course, without a stop at the whimsical Ceramics Art Village in Chiayi. It was charming with everything made of ceramics and with benches of every ilk:

A cow...

A basketball...

Yes, that's a full-sized ceramic TREE!

Different sort of ceramic cow--way more fun to sit on :)

It's a ceramic phoenix!

...and a real, live rooster that came out of nowhere.

 A quick car ride away, we stopped at a Taiwanese antique attraction, which also featured...a turkey. With territorial issues.

James had some fun with it :)

There, we snacked on roasted (smoked? Not quite sure, actually) yams/sweet potatoes (also not sure on that one...) before moving on towards Taichung. A quick service area stop and a delicious IRISH CREAM (first time I've ever seen that flavor here) latte for me later, we hit our destination, and I took in my first impressions of the heart of Taichung, which oddly reminded me more of its larger neighbor Taipei than of  closer-sized Kaohsiung.

On arriving at our hotel, I discovered that it is GORGEOUS! I mean really, truly, absolutely gorgeous, and one of the nicest hotel's I've ever stayed at. I am so grateful to be here now.

Emily's and my room tonight--yeah, that's a full-on sitting area at the end, and this isn't the whole room :)

 Perhaps as a result of that gorgeousness, we found that our fellow residents are largely foreign, of the Western-and-Japanese variety. Looking around the hotel lobby, I was met by face after white face. It was eery. You don't notice it while it's happening, but living in a country where you stick out like a sore thumb brings you to the point where something seems wrong if you don't. Seeing foreigner after foreigner after foreigner is just too weird to me now! I don't know what I'll do when I make it back to America.

Pictured: pizza in a cone, going into a cone-shaped hole in an oven

Anyway. We settled in and headed to Feng Chia night market, the largest in Taiwan with 1,600 stands, for dinner. We had pizza--in a cone. Quite good. And then, after Emily and Margaret ate a local delicacy consisting of a hot dog inside a sausage, and Emily got a delicious-smelling chicken-and-cheese concoction--I was too full to partake, this time anyway--I grabbed a five-fruit juice and then Margaret and I each got hot sweet soup with sticky rice. Lovely!



So that was my wonderful day. On the agenda for tomorrow: more amazing times with my host family.