Singapore

 

I went to Singapore for a weekend while in Taiwan and visited my friend Katie.  She goes to UVA.  I met her through my friend Lauren who I interned with last summer.   It was a fun weekend exploring Singapore and it was awesome to have a local to show me around. Katie posing with the picture of herself (she modeled for a fashion company as part of a summer internship).  We walked all over the city during my first day. I saw Chinatown and little India.

 

A most in little India and then I also saw a cute/funky street/area. 

She also showed me these statues that she and Lauren had found when Lauren visited.  It is of famous people such as  Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Aerstotle and more.  We never figured out why the building chose to have these statues in front of it.  I went to her families for dinner and ate delicious food. This is a picture of the food before we sat down. 

We also went and visited the Botanic Gardens and within the area there was a whole area dedicated orchids.  The flowers were beautiful and so colorful.

After the Botanic Gardens, Katie and I met up with my other friend Juliana who is from Singapore and just moved back.  We went to see Harry Potter and then walked around on an area that is completely filled in land so not too long ago the area was all water.  The picture that does not have Katie, Juliana and I is of the casino/hotel/mall and has a mile long pool on top. I went up there the next morning with Katie,   

Little girls sitting in front of us who had their hair all done with butterfly clips. Reminded me of when I was there age and loved butterfly clips (I never had the braids to go with them though). We stayed around the area and watched fireworks.  The fireworks were at the end of the rehearsal for their independence day celebration on August 9th.

 

Views of Singapore from atop the mile long pool.  Katie knew how to get up there without having to pay.  We could not get into the pool but we could get the view which was the best part. One side has a lot of construction going on because they are building another tourist site (it is supposed to be some eco-friendly design ...showing a knew way to grow flowers).

  

A really cool bridge we walked on. (nerdy moment...it reminded me of DNA..double helix). Then I took a picture of my plane ticket...it looks like a receipt. It is one step closer to us not needing any ticket at all.  I'm sure soon all we will have to do is show some chip (which they will then collect and reuse) or it will be electronic on our phones.

Dinner with TAs

Our last meal with the TAs was hot pot in Taipei. It was a lot of fun and the end of dinner consisted of a lot of photos with everyone.

We took a group shot at the end of the dinner. It was almost all the TAs with us.

 

After dinner we did not want to stop hanging out or admit that some people we would not be seeing the next morning before leaving for the airport so we went to a night market that was near by. We were really excited when we found the store called "Oh My God" because there was a youtube video that we had shown all of them and referenced the rest of time in Taiwan. Dennis is imitating my pose and I am imitating him.

When we were done hanging out with the TAs, Grace, Tendelle and Anita came to join us and hang out with us one last time before we left their country.

Airport Adventures 

So getting to the airport was an adventure. We at first showed up at the wrong airport an hour and half before our flight was supposed to leave (I did not even know there were two airports in the Taipei area). We knew something was wrong when there were no flights scheduled to leave at noon for Shanghai. We quickly learned we were an hour away from the wrong airport.  Luckily we had awesome taxi drivers who got us to the correct airport in 40mins.  When one of the cars filled with TAs got to the airport, they were like "were you in the two taxi's weaving through traffic."  oopps. guess they drove quickly but i never felt like my life was in danger. We got to the airport with enough time to check in our bags and hang out with the TAs before boarding the plane.  The picture is of Sandy,Dwang, and Shinny in the taxi (some TAs went in the taxi with us and others went in a car that a TA was driving).

Last BBQ

The first bbq was so much fun so we decided we would do one more before leaving.  All the TAs and us at the BBQ.

 

After the BBQ we decided to go to a classroom and do karaoke.  It was a great second to last night with them. 

McDonalds Ice Cream!

We almost left Taiwan without having McDonald's Ice Cream. this would have been a tragedy. so far throughout Asia we have tried McDonald's ice cream. It is so tasty and cheap. Also, in the big cities in china they have McDonalds everywhere so whenever we were hot and wanted something that was cold and refreshing we could step into McD's and get ice cream. It is kinda funny that we have latched onto doing this-- considering I don't remember the last time I was in a McDonalds before this trip.

Random Camp Photos

Tennis

One of my favorite things to do in Taiwan was to play tennis with the TAs and the students. After class, Dwang and I would go play tennis and the TAs and students would come join us sometimes.

Food

 

The tea was so good but also so fun to open because we decided not to open it in a conventional way.  Anne was scared that when I was going to spray the tea everywhere.  Then Dwang and Eshao had the great idea to race each other to see who could finish the tea first.

Flora, one of our students (she participated in one week of the high school program and then also in the 2week college program), brought us these muffins that I believe are Korean and very well known in Taiwan. Another student also brought us this cake (the one nick is cutting up) that is well known from another part of Taiwan and filled with tarro (i believe). also very delicious. Anne had her friends bring us back pineapple cakes from another part of Taiwan so we could try really good pineapple cakes and they were so good and delicious!

My favorite breakfast and then a picture of another breakfast we got. Every morning some of the TAs would bring us local breakfast food from a place outside of campus. It was delicious and such a great way to be introduced to the local cuisine.

Learning to Dance

For one of the music lessons we (Dwhited, Dwang, and I) decided we were bored of continually just showing music videos to the students to introduce them to American Music so we decided we would teach them some of the dances we have to different songs (during class...).  Danielle's re-freshed their knowledge about "soldier boy" while I showed some more you tube videos. We also taught cha-cha slide.

Room

  

This was what we slept on for a month. it has taught me to be able to sleep on anything no matter how hard it might be.

Computer Lab

We had them go to the computer lab to work on their presentations and their computers were awesome. We had the power to change their screen whenever we wanted so we felt very powerful.  We also learned how well they listen to the rules and about leaving their drinks in the hallway. I would never see this in the USA.

 Tent Activity

We decided to do the tent activity again with the University students because the high school students seemed to really enjoy the activity.  the college students enjoyed it too and came out with some really impressive tents. The rules were no different but the tents looked very different from week to week.

Culture Lesson-Food!

For one of the culture lessons we taught the students about different foods that are eaten in the USA but we did not want to lecture about food for 1.5hrs so we decided we would also have them try american food. We made puppy chow as well as ants on a log (celergy with peanut butter and raisins).  They all thought the puppy chow was too sweet but had fun learning to make it as well as just having free time to talk.  We also really enjoyed having an excuse to eat the type of sweet food we are used to.  I wanted to make brownies but decided that would be too difficult during the middle of class.   

Dinner with Professor Li

Before leaving Taiwan we had a goodbye dinner with Professor Li. She is an MIT alum who is a professor at YuanZe University and was always very welcoming and knowledgeable about Taiwan.  She often would join us and the TAs at lunch.  We ate dinner at the canteen on campus where we would sometimes also grab lunch.  The cafeteria served  really good fresh juices as well as lots of vegetables so I always enjoyed my meals there.

Professor Li also brought us different desserts to try.  All of us (minus Dwang) in Professor Li's office.