Day 19 -- June 12

I woke around 10 and go ready for the day. I went on a wander to find food about 11:30 and found that the potsticker lady I like so much was there. I talked to her for a little bit and once more was told how to improve my Mandarin. She’s a quirky lady that I really like and her food is absolutely wonderful. I stayed in my dorm until about 12:45 then headed off. I was to meet people for the Dragon boat festival! I met up with Jillian, Chinatsu, Shun, and Ichigo (I am not 100% this is his name but I am pretty sure) and we were off!

    So I really didn’t know where we were going and after talking to information we got a very convoluted way to get to Dajia park. We took the MRT and hen need to get on the bus line 222. But of course we managed to get on the bus going the wrong way so then we had to get off and turn back around. By this point the rain was starting to come down. Which was great because Jillian and I, being desert folk, forgot our umbrellas. Ichigo kindly gave us his so that Jillian and I could share and he would share with Shun.

    We eventually made it to the park where the Dragon Boat festival was being held. We watched the boats racing for about an hour give or take. It was really interesting to watch, the boats were truly beautiful and the people would cheer loudly for their teams. The energy was great. I got to see my school, NTNU and MTC race which was an added bonus. We didn’t win but that’s not really a surprise. This is actually an international events and they had teams from Europe, Australia and even Hawaii according to some sources. It was cool to watch, but when trying to take picture I would get dripped on by the umbrellas so I ended up wet anyway.

    Then we wandered into the stall area to find some food. There wasn’t anything particularly appealing so I ended up with ice cream because why not? We walked back to the viewing  area and stayed for a bit. Then we wandered back home, we took a more straight forward way to the MRT that ended up being much fast.

    I got home and immediately started in on my homework. Liu had a friend of who was apparently very excited to help me with it. She wanted to chat and we talked about where we lived. It was fun as I spoke in really peckish Mandarin and she spoke in extra poor English. It was an excellent experience though I do feel more comfortable listening to the language for comprehension. Not that I understand or anything like that I just had hear the separate syllables and and beginning to find the where the words are in a sentence. Good to know the intensive courses are doing something. I finished up my homework then went for jaunt to the night market.

    I, of course, took Sunny with me (you’ll recall that my umbrella is named Sunny), and then it wasn’t raining. I believe Taipei is messing with my head. As I was wander, who should I run into but Claire. She was also in search of food. So we hooked up in our endeavors to eat. She took me to a steamed dumpling place that had 12 dumplings for 80 NT. That was more than enough to split it, we also picked up some juice. My drink was, I believe, milk with fresh papaya. So good, fresh fruit always makes my day. We went into the lobby and talked for a while. It was really nice, Claire is an interesting human being. She made me think about traveling abroad in a different light.

I look so tired xD

    After that I headed back up into the room and studied for a bit. I feel really tired I will probably shower and head off to bed ridiculously early. I haven’t been sleeping well or for very long, not really sure why. Hopefully after all this activity today I will be able to enjoy myself being asleep. Back to the grind tomorrow.