(Bark at the moon!) I have had so many amazing experiences living and traveling in Taiwan, and I'd love to tell them all! So today I'm going to share a hitchhiking dā biàn chē 搭便車 experience I had in my early years here in Taiwan. It was mid-October, 2009 and the weather in Keelung was […]
I apologize for posting this so late, but the past few days have been somewhat of an adventure. Yesterday, my fiancé and I tagged along with a friend to volunteer at an animal shelter in sān zhī 三芝, near dàn shuĭ 淡水 in Taipei county(or xīn bĕi shì 新北市 if you prefer). Expect a detailed […]
That's what our animals give us, right? But how do we repay them? Recently, with rabies, or kuángquǎnbìng 狂犬病 as it is called in Mandarin, resurfacing in Taiwan, the media and government have blown things way out of proportion. When it was originally found in the ferret-badger, an animal that is eaten by the aboriginal […]
(The long, winding streets of Jiufen are best viewed at night.) This quaint little town nestled in the mountains above Keelung and Taipei County(now called New Taipei City, though it’s actually a conglomerate of cities). During the Japanese occupation of Taiwan, Jiufen was rich in gold deposits and became very important, because who doesn’t […]
Alright, so for today's post, I want to share a little of my experience learning Mandarin with you. When I first came to Taiwan I could only speak three phrases: nǐhǎo你好, nǐhǎoma你好嗎？and xièxie謝謝. That was all. Was I particularly good at communicating with the locals right of the bat? Nope. Am I now? Yep. […]
With a typhoon set to arrive tomorrow you can count on heavy rains and strong winds through Thursday. In fact, even though it has yet to arrive, we already felt the influence of the typhoon on the weather. Seriously, it rained cats and dogs today! But typhoons, or táifēng(颱風) are just an ordinary part of […]
Being fair of skin, with a healthy serving of freckles and a side of strawberry-blonde hair, I think it's safe to say that you may notice me waiting in line in a crowded night market or making my way through the throngs of people at a bustling MRT station, which in my opinion is just […]
But happy Ghost Month all the same! Ghost Month, or guǐyuè(鬼月) is a period of time when the gates to the underworld open and ghosts are free to roam the Earth. Ghost Month has many interesting superstitions and observances associated with it. According to tradition, during Ghost Month, it is unlucky to move into a new […]